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reSee.it AI Summary
I had a deep, technical chat with Demis Hassabis about the future of AI and AGI, simulating biology and physics, video games, programming, video generation, world models, Gemini 3, scaling laws, compute, energy, P vs NP, and more. Timestamps span learnable patterns in nature, Veo 3, AlphaEvolve, simulating biology, origin of life, path to AGI, scaling laws, energy futures, consciousness, and the race to AGI.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with @demishassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, all about the future of AI & AGI, simulating biology & physics, video games, programming, video generation, world models, Gemini 3, scaling laws, compute, P vs NP, complexity, energy (solar & fusion), and much more. This was a fun & fascinating super-technical conversation. It's here on X in full and is up everywhere else (see comment). Timestamps: 0:00 - Episode highlight 1:21 - Introduction 2:06 - Learnable patterns in nature 5:48 - Computation and P vs NP 14:26 - Veo 3 and understanding reality 18:50 - Video games 30:52 - AlphaEvolve 36:53 - AI research 41:17 - Simulating a biological organism 46:00 - Origin of life 52:15 - Path to AGI 1:03:01 - Scaling laws 1:06:17 - Compute 1:09:04 - Future of energy 1:13:00 - Human nature 1:17:54 - Google and the race to AGI 1:35:53 - Competition and AI talent 1:42:27 - Future of programming 1:48:53 - John von Neumann 1:58:07 - p(doom) 2:02:50 - Humanity 2:05:56 - Consciousness and quantum computation 2:12:06 - David Foster Wallace 2:19:20 - Education and research
Video Transcript AI Summary
Demis Hassabis and Lex Fridman discuss whether classical learning systems can model highly nonlinear dynamical systems, including fluid dynamics, and what this implies for science and AI.
- They note that Navier-Stokes dynamics are traditionally intractable for classical systems, yet Vio, a video generation model from DeepMind, can model liquids and specular lighting surprisingly well, suggesting that these systems are reverse engineering underlying structure from data (YouTube videos) and may be learning a lower-dimensional manifold that captures how materials behave.
- The conversation pivots to Demis Hassabis’s Nobel Prize lecture conjecture that any pattern generated or found in nature can be efficiently discovered and modeled by a classical learning algorithm. They explore what kinds of patterns or systems might be included: biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, neuroscience, etc.
- AlphaGo and AlphaFold are used as examples of building models of combinatorially high-dimensional spaces to guide search in a tractable way. Hassabis argues that nature’s evolved structures imply learnable patterns, because natural systems have structure shaped by evolutionary processes. This leads to the idea of a potential complexity class for learnable natural systems (LNS) and the possibility that p = NP questions may be reframed as physics questions about information processing in the universe.
- They discuss the view that the universe is an informational system, and how that reframes the P vs NP question as a fundamental question about modellability. Hassabis speculates that many natural systems are learnable because they have evolved structure, whereas some abstract problems (like factorizing arbitrary large numbers in a uniform space) may not exhibit exploitable patterns, possibly requiring quantum approaches or brute-force computation.
- The dialogue examines whether there could be a broad class of problems that can be solved by polynomial-time classical methods when modeled with the right dynamics and environment—precisely the way AlphaGo and AlphaFold operate. Hassabis emphasizes that classical systems (Turing machines) have already surpassed many expectations by modeling complex biological structures and solving highly challenging tasks, and he believes there is likely more to discover.
- They address nonlinear dynamical systems and whether emergent phenomena, such as cellular automata, chaos, or turbulence, might be amenable to efficient classical modeling. Hassabis notes that forward simulation of many emergent systems could be efficient, but chaotic systems with sensitive dependence on initial conditions may be harder to model. He argues that core physics problems, including realistic rendering of physics-like phenomena (e.g., liquids and light interaction), seem tractable with neural networks, suggesting deep structure to nature that can be captured by learning systems.
- The conversation shifts to video and world models: Hassabis highlights VOI, video generation, and the hope that future interactive versions could create truly open-ended, dynamically generated game worlds and simulations where players co-create the experience with the environment, beyond current hard-coded or pre-scripted content. They discuss open-world games and the potential for AI to generate content on-the-fly, enabling personalized, ever-changing narratives and experiences.
- They discuss Hassabis’s early love of games and his belief that games are a powerful testbed for AI and AGI. He describes the possibility of interactive VO-based experiences that are open-ended and highly responsive to player choices, with emergent behavior that surpasses current procedural generation.
- The conversation touches the idea of an open-world world model for AGI: Hassabis imagines a system that can predict and simulate the mechanics of the world, enabling better scientific inquiry and perhaps even a “virtual cell” or virtual biology framework. They discuss AlphaFold as the static prediction of structure and the next step being dynamics and interactions, including protein–protein, protein–RNA, and protein–DNA interactions, and ultimately a model of a whole cell (e.g., yeast).
- On the origin of life and origins science: they discuss whether AI could simulate the birth of life from nonliving matter, suggesting a staged approach with a “virtual cell” as a stepping-stone, then moving toward simulating chemical soups and emergent properties that could resemble life.
- They consider the nature of consciousness and whether AI systems can or will ever have true consciousness. Hassabis leans toward the view that consciousness (and qualia) may be substrate-dependent and that a classical computer could model the functional aspects of intelligence; but he acknowledges unresolved questions about subjective experience and the potential differences between carbon-based and silicon-based processing.
- They discuss the role of AGI in science: the potential for AI to propose new conjectures and hypotheses, to assist in scientific discovery, and perhaps to discover insights that humans might not reach on their own. They acknowledge that “research taste”—the ability to pick the right questions and design experiments meaningfully—is a hard capability for AI to replicate.
- They explore the future of video games with AI: Hassabis describes the possibility of open-world, highly interactive experiences that adapt to players’ actions, creating deeply personalized narratives. He compares the future of AI-driven game design to the potential for AI to accelerate scientific progress by modeling complex systems, then translating insights into practical tools and products.
- Hassabis discusses the practicalities of running large AI projects at Google DeepMind and Google, noting the balance of startup-like culture with the scale of a large corporation. He emphasizes relentless progress and shipping, while maintaining safety and responsibility, and maintaining collaboration across labs and competitors.
- They address data and scaling: Hassabis emphasizes that synthetic data and simulations can help mitigate data scarcity, while real-world data remains essential to guide learning systems. He explains the dynamic between pre-training, post-training, and inference-time compute, noting the importance of balancing improvements across multiple objectives and avoiding overfitting benchmarks.
- They discuss governance, safety, and international collaboration: they emphasize the need for shared standards, safety guardrails, and open science where appropriate, while acknowledging the risk of misuse by bad actors and the difficulty of restricting access to powerful AI systems without hampering beneficial applications. Hassabis suggests international cooperation and a CERN-like collaborative model for responsible progress.
- They touch on the societal impact of AI: the potential for energy breakthroughs, climate modeling, materials discovery, and fusion, plus the broader economic and political implications. Hassabis anticipates a future where abundant energy reduces scarcity, enabling new levels of human flourishing, but acknowledges distributional concerns and governance challenges.
- The dialogue ends with reflections on personal legacies and the human dimension: Hassabis discusses responding to criticism online, his MIT and Drexel affiliations, and the balance between research, podcasting, and public engagement. He emphasizes humility, continuous learning, and openness to collaboration across labs and cultures.
Key themes and conclusions preserved from the discussion:
- The possibility that many natural patterns are efficiently learnable by classical learning systems if the underlying structure is learned, a view supported by AlphaGo/AlphaFold successes and by phenomena like VOI’s handling of liquids and lighting.
- A conjectured link between learnable natural systems and a formal complexity class like LNS, with the broader view that p versus NP is connected to physics and information in the universe.
- The potential for classical AI to model complex, nonlinear dynamical systems, including fluid dynamics, with surprising accuracy, given sufficient structure and data.
- The idea that nature’s evolutionary processes create patterns that can be reverse-engineered, enabling efficient search and modeling of natural systems.
- The role of AI in science as a tool for conjecture generation, hypothesis testing, and accelerating discovery, possibly guiding experiments, reducing wet-lab time, and enabling “virtual cells” and larger-scale simulations.
- The interplay between open-world game design, AI-based content creation, and future interactive experiences that adapt to individual players, including the vision of AI-driven world models for AGI.
- The practical realities of building and shipping AI products at scale, balancing research breakthroughs with productization, and managing a large organization’s culture and governance to foster safety and innovation.
- The ethical and societal questions around AGI: how to ensure safety, how to manage risk from bad actors, the need for international collaboration, governance, and a broad discussion about the role of technology in society.
- A hopeful perspective on the long-term future: abundant energy, space exploration, and a transformed civilization driven by AI, with a focus on human values, curiosity, adaptability, and compassion as guiding forces.
This summary preserves the essential claims and conclusions of the conversation, including the main positions about learnability, the role of evolution and structure in nature, the potential of classical systems to model complex phenomena, and the broad, multi-domain implications for science, gaming, energy, governance, and society.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hard for us humans to make any kind of clean predictions about highly nonlinear dynamical systems. But again, to your point, we might be very surprised what classical learning systems might be able to do about even fluid.
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly. Mean, dynamics, Navier Stokes equations, these are traditionally thought of as very, very difficult intractable problems to do on classical systems. They take enormous amounts of compute, you know, where the prediction systems, you know, these kind of things all involve fluid dynamics calculations. But again, if you look at something like Vio, our video generation model, it can model liquids quite well, surprisingly well.
And materials, specular lighting. I love the ones where, you know, there's there's people who generate videos where there's like clear liquids going through hydraulic presses and then it's being squeezed out. I used to write physics engines and graphics engines in in my early days in gaming and I know it's just so painstakingly hard to build programs that can do that. And yet somehow these systems are, you know, reverse engineering from just watching YouTube videos. So presumably what's happening is it's extracting some underlying structure around how these materials behave.
So perhaps there is some kind of lower dimensional manifold that can be learned if we actually fully understood what's going on under the hood. That's maybe, you know, maybe true of most of reality.
Speaker 0: The following is a conversation with Demis Hassabis, his second time on the podcast. He is the leader of Google Deep Mind and is now a Nobel Prize winner. Demis is one of the most brilliant and fascinating minds in the world today, working on understanding and building intelligence, and exploring the big mysteries of our universe. This was truly an honor and a pleasure for me. This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description and consider subscribing to this channel. And now, dear friends, here's Demis Hassabis. In your Nobel Prize lecture, you propose what I think is a super interesting conjecture that quote, any pattern that can be generated or found in nature can be efficiently discovered and modeled by a classical learning algorithm. What kind of patterns of systems might be included in that? Biology, chemistry, physics, maybe cosmology Yep.
Neuroscience? What what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Sure. Well, look, I felt that it's sort of a tradition I think of Nobel Prize lectures that you're supposed to be a little bit provocative and I wanted to follow that tradition. What I was talking about there is if you take a step back and you look at all the work that we've done, especially with the AlphaX projects, So I'm thinking AlphaGo, of course, AlphaFold. What they really are is we're building models of very combinatorially high dimensional spaces that, you know, if you try to brute force a solution, find the best move and go or find the the exact shape of a protein. And if you enumerated all the possibilities, there wouldn't be enough time in the in the, you know, the time of the universe.
So you have to do something much smarter. And what we did in both cases was build models of those environments and that guided the search in a in a smart way and that makes it tractable. So if you think about protein folding, which is obviously a natural system, you know, why should that be possible? How does physics do that? You know, proteins fold in milliseconds in our bodies.
So somehow physics solves this problem that we've now also solved computationally. And I think the reason that's possible is that in nature, natural systems have structure because they were subject to evolutionary processes that that shaped them. And if that's true, then you can maybe learn what that structure is. So this perspective, think,
Speaker 0: is really interesting one. You've hinted it at it, which is almost like crudely stated. Anything that can be evolved can be efficiently modeled. Think there's some
Speaker 1: truth to that? Yeah. I sometimes call it survival of the stableist or something like that because, you know, it's it's of course, there's evolution for life, living things, But there's also, you know, if you think about geological time, so the shape of mountains, that's been shaped by weathering processes, right, over thousands of years. But then you can even take it cosmological, the orbits of planets, the shapes of asteroids. These have all been survived kind of processes that have acted on them many many times.
So if that's true, then there should be some sort of pattern that you can kind of reverse learn and a kind of manifold really that helps you search to the right solution to the right shape and actually allow you to predict things about it in an efficient way because it's not a random pattern. Right? So it may not be possible for for man made things or abstract things like factorizing large numbers because unless there's patterns in the number space which there might be, but if there's not and it's uniform, then there's no pattern to learn. There's no model to learn that will help you search. You have to do brute force.
So in that case, you you know, you maybe need a quantum computer something like this. But in most things in nature that we're interested in are not like that. They have structure that evolved for a reason and survived over time. And if that's true, I think that's potentially learnable by a neural network.
Speaker 0: It's like nature is doing a search process and it's so fascinating that it's in that search process is creating systems that could be efficiently modeled.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. So interesting. So they can be efficiently rediscovered or recovered because nature's not random. Right?
These everything that we see around us, including, like, the elements that are more stable, all of those things, they're subject to some kind of selection process pressure.
Speaker 0: Do you think because you're also a fan of theoretical computer science and complexity, do you think we can come up with a kind of complexity class, like a complexity zoo type of class where maybe it's the set of learnable systems, the set of learnable natural systems, LNS. Yeah. This is a demo I knew both. New class of systems that could be actually learnable by classical systems in this kind of way, natural systems that can be modeled efficiently.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I've I've always been fascinated by the p equals m p question and what is modellable by classical systems, I. Non quantum systems, you know, Turing machines in effect. And that's exactly what I'm working on actually in kind of my few moments of spare time with a few colleagues about is should there be, you know, maybe a new class of problem that is solvable by this type of neural network process and kind of mapped onto these natural systems. So, you know, the things that exist in physics and have structure.
So I think that could be a very interesting new way of thinking about it. And it sort of fits with the way I think about physics in general, which is that, you know, I think information is primary. Information is the most sort of fundamental unit of the universe, more fundamental than energy and matter. I think they can all be converted into each other, but I think of the universe as a kind of informational system.
Speaker 0: So when you think of the universe as an informational system, then the p equals NP question is a is a physics question. That's right. And it's a question that can help us actually solve the entirety of this whole thing going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's one of the most fundamental questions, actually, if you think of physics as informational. And and the answer to that, I think, is gonna be, you know, very enlightening.
Speaker 0: More specific to the p n NP question, this again, some of the stuff we're saying is kinda crazy right now. Just like the Christian Anthenson Nobel Prize speech controversial thing that he said sounded crazy, and then you went and got a Nobel Prize for this with John Jumper. Solved the problem. So let me let me just stick to the p equals m p. Do you think there's something in this thing we're talking about that could be shown if you can do something like polynomial time or constant time compute ahead of time and construct this gigantic model, then you can solve some of these extremely difficult problems in a theoretical computer science kind of way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that there are actually a huge class of problems that could be couched in this way, the way we did AlphaGo and the way we did AlphaFold where, you know, you you model what the dynamics of the system is, the properties of that system, the environment that you're trying to understand. And then that makes the search for the solution or the prediction of the next step efficient, basically polynomial time. So tractable by a classical system, which a neural network is. It runs on normal computers, right?
Classical computers, Turing machines in effect. And I think it's one of the most interesting questions there is is how far can that paradigm go? You know, I think we've proven and the AI community in general that classical systems, Turing machines can go a lot further than we previously thought. You know, they can do things like model the structures of proteins and play go to better than world champion level. And, you know, a lot of people would have thought maybe ten, twenty years ago that was decades away or maybe you would need some sort of quantum machines to to quantum systems to be able to do things like protein folding.
And so I think we haven't really even sort of scratched the surface yet of what classical systems so called could do. And of course, AGI being built on a on a neural network system on top of a neural network system on top of a classical computer would be the ultimate expression of that. And I think the limit that, you know, the the what what the bounds of that kind of system, what it can do, it's very interesting question and and and directly speaks to the p equals m p question.
Speaker 0: What what do you think, again, hypothetical might be outside of this? Maybe emergent phenomena? Like, if you look at cellular automata, some of the you have extremely simple systems and then some complexity emerges. Yes. Maybe that would be outside or even would you guess even that might be amenable to efficient modeling by a classical machine?
Speaker 1: I think those systems would be right on the boundary. Right? So I think most emergent systems, cellular automata, things like that could be modelable by a classical system. You just sort of do a forward simulation of it and it'd probably be efficient enough. Of course, there's the question of things like chaotic systems where the initial conditions really matter and then you get to some, you know, uncorrelated end state.
Now those could be difficult to model. So I think these are kind of the open questions. But I think when you step back and look at what we've done with the systems and the and the problems that we've solved and then you look at things like v o three on like video generation sort of rendering physics and lighting and things like that, you know, really in core fundamental things in physics. It's pretty interesting. I think it's telling us something quite fundamental about how the universe is structured in my opinion.
So, you know, in in a way that's what I want to build AGI for is to help us as scientists answer these questions like p equals m p. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I think we might be continuously surprised about what is modellable by classical computers. I mean, alpha fold three on the interaction side is surprising that you can make any kind of progress on that direction. Alpha genome is surprising that you can map the genetic code to the function. Kind of playing with the emergent kind of phenomena, you think there's so many combinatorial options that and then here you go. You can find the kernel that is efficiently modeled.
Speaker 1: Yes. Because there's some structure, there's some landscape, you know, in the energy landscape or whatever it is that you can follow, some grading you can follow. And of course, what neural networks are very good at is following gradients. And so if there's one to follow and object and you can specify the objective function correctly, you know, you don't have to deal with all that complexity, which I think is how we maybe have naively thought about it for decades, those problems. If you just enumerate all the possibilities, it looks totally intractable.
And there's many many problems like that. And then you think, well, it's like 10 to 300 possible protein structures, 10 to the 100 and, you know, 70 possible go positions. All of these are way more than atoms in the universe. So how could one possibly find the the right solution or predict the next step? And and it but it turns out that it is possible.
And of course, reality in nature does do it. Right? Proteins do fault. So that that gives you confidence that there must be if we understood how physics was doing that in a sense, then and we could mimic that process. I model that process.
It should be possible on our classical systems is is is basically what the conjecture is about.
Speaker 0: And, of course, there's nonlinear dynamical systems, highly nonlinear dynamical systems, everything involving fluid.
Speaker 1: Yes. Right.
Speaker 0: You know, I recently had a conversation with Terrence Tao, who mathematically contends with a very difficult aspect of systems that have some singularities in them that break the mathematics. And it's just hard for us humans to make any kind of clean predictions about highly nonlinear dynamical systems. But again, to your point, we might be very surprised what classical learning systems might be able to do about even fluid.
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly. I mean, dynamics, Navier Stokes equations, these are traditionally thought of as very, very difficult intractable kind of problems to do on classical systems. They take enormous amounts of compute, you know, where the prediction systems, you know, these kind of things all involve fluid dynamics calculations. And but again, if you look at something like Vio, our video generation model, it can model liquids quite well, surprisingly well.
And materials, specular lighting. I love the ones where, you know, there's there's people who generate videos where there's like clear liquids going through hydraulic presses and then it's being squeezed out. I used to write physics engines and graphics engines in in my early days in gaming and I know it's just so painstakingly hard to build programs that can do that. And yet somehow these systems are, you know, reverse engineering from just watching YouTube videos. So presumably what's happening is it's extracting some underlying structure around how these materials behave.
So perhaps there is some kind of lower dimensional manifold that can be learned if we actually fully understood what's going on under the hood. That's maybe, you know, maybe true of most of reality.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I've been continuously precisely by this aspect of v o three. I think a lot of people highlight different aspects, including the comedic and the meme Yes. And all that kind of stuff. And then the ultra realistic ability to capture humans in a really nice way that's compelling and get feels close to reality, and then combine that with native audio.
All of those are marvelous things about v o three, but the exactly the thing you're mentioning, which is the physics. Yeah. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. And then the the really interesting scientific question is, what is it understanding about our world in order to be able to do that? Because of the cynical take with diffusion models, there's no way it understands anything.
But it seemed I mean, I don't think you can generate that kind of video without understanding, and then our own philosophical notion of what it means to understand, then it's, like, brought to
Speaker 1: the surface. Like, do to what degree do you think v o three understands our world? I think to the extent that it can predict the next frames, you know, in a coherent way, that some that is a form, you know, of understanding. Right? Not in the anthropomorphic version of, you know, it's not some kind of deep philosophical understanding of what's going on.
I don't think these systems have that. But they they certainly have modeled enough of the dynamics, know, put it that way, that they can pretty accurately generate whatever it is, eight seconds of consistent video that by eye at least, you know, at a glance is quite hard to distinguish what the issues are. And imagine that in two or three more years time. That's the thing I'm thinking about and how incredible that will they will look given where we've come from, you know, the early versions of that one or two years ago. And so the rate of progress is incredible.
And I think I'm like you is like a lot of people love all of the the the the stand up comedians and the the the actually captures a lot of human dynamics very well and and body language. But actually, the thing I'm most impressed with and fascinated by is the physics behavior, the lighting and materials and liquids and it's pretty amazing that it can do that. And I think that shows that it has some notion of at least intuitive physics, right? How things are supposed to work intuitively maybe the way that a human child would understand physics, Right? As opposed to, you know, a PhD student really being able to unpack all the equations.
It's more of an intuitive physics understanding.
Speaker 0: Well, that intuitive physics understanding, that's the base layer. That's the thing people sometimes call a common sense.
Speaker 1: Again,
Speaker 0: It really understands something. I think that really surprised a lot of people. It blows my mind that I just didn't think it would be possible to generate that level of realism without understanding. You there's this notion that you can only understand the physical world by having an embodied AI system, a robot that interacts with that world. That's the only way to construct an understanding of that world.
Yeah. But v o three is directly challenging that Right. It feels like.
Speaker 1: Yes. And it's very interesting, you know, even if we if you were to ask me five, ten years ago, I would have said even though was a must in all of this, would have said, well, yeah, you probably need to understand intuitive physics, you know, like if I push this off the table, this glass, it will maybe shatter, you know, and the and the liquid will spill out. Right. So we know all of these things. But I thought that, you know, and there's a lot of theories in neuroscience.
It's called action in perception where, you know, you you need to act in the world to really truly perceive it in a deep way. And there was a lot of theories about you need embodied intelligence or robotics or something or maybe at least simulated action so that you would understand things like intuitive physics. But it seems like you can understand it through passive observation, which is pretty surprising to me. And and again, I think hints at something underlying about the nature of reality in in in my opinion beyond just the, you know, the cool videos that it generates. And and of course, there's next stages is maybe even making those videos interactive.
So one can actually step into them and move around them, which would be really mind blowing, especially given my games background. So you can imagine. And then and then I think, you know, you're we're starting to get towards what I would call a world model, a model of how the world works, the mechanics of the world, the physics of the world, and the things in that world. And of course, that's what you would need for a true AGI system.
Speaker 0: I have to talk to you about video games. So you you were being a bit trolley. I I think you're you're having more and more fun on Twitter on x, which is great to see. So a guy named Jimmy Apples tweeted, let me play a video game of my v o three videos already. Google cooked so good playable world models when spelled w e n question mark.
And then you quote tweeted that with now wouldn't that be something? So how how hard is it to build game worlds with AI? Maybe can you look out into the future of video games five, ten years out? What do you think that looks like?
Speaker 1: Well, games were my first love really and doing AI for games was the first thing I did professionally in in my teenage years and and was the first major AI systems that I built. And I always want to have I want to scratch that itch one day and come back to that. So, you know, and I will do I think and I think I'd sort of dream about, you know, what would I have done back in the nineties if I'd had access to the kind of AI systems we have today. And I think you could build absolutely mind blowing games. And I think the next stage is I always used to love making all the games I've made are open world games.
So they're games where there's a simulation and then there's AI characters and then the player interacts with that simulation and the simulation adapts to the way the player plays. And I always thought they were the coolest games because it's a games like theme park that I worked on where everybody's game experience would be unique to them. Right? Because you're kind of co creating the game. Right?
We set up the parameters. We set up initial conditions and then you as the player immersed in it and then you are co creating it with the with the simulation. But of course, it's very hard to program open world games. You know, you've got to be able to create content whichever direction the player goes in and you want it to be compelling no matter what the player chooses. And so it was always quite difficult to build things like cellular automata actually type of those kind of classical systems which created some emergent behavior.
But they're always a little bit fragile, little bit limited. Now we're maybe on the cusp in next few years, five, ten years of having AI systems that can truly create around your imagination, can narrow and sort of dynamically change the story and story tell the narrative around and make it dramatic no matter what you end up choosing. So it's like the ultimate choose your own adventure sort of game. And, you know, I think maybe we're within reach if you think of a kind of interactive version of VO, and then wind that forward five to ten years and, you know, imagine how good it's gonna be.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So you said a lot of super interesting stuff there. So one, the open world built into that is a deep personalization, the way you've described it. So it's not just that it's open world, like you can open any door, and there'll be something there. It's that the choice of which door you open in an unconstrained way defines the worlds you see.
So some games try to do that to give you choice. Yes. But it's really just an illusion of choice because you only, like like, Stanley Parable is this game I recently played. It's it's it's really there's a couple of doors, and it really just takes you down the narrative. Stanley Parable is a great video game I recommend people play that kinda, in a meta way, mocks the illusion of choice, and there's philosophical notions of free will and so on.
But I do like, one of my favorite games, Velders Scrolls, is Daggerfall, I believe, that they really played with a, like, random generation of the dungeons
Speaker 1: Yeah. Of if you could step in and they give
Speaker 0: you this feeling of an open world. And there, you mentioned interactivity. You don't need to interact. That that's the first step because you don't need to interact that much. You just when you open the door, whatever you see is randomly generated for you.
Yeah. And that's already an incredible experience because you might be the only person to ever see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. And and so but what you'd like is a little bit better than just sort of a random generation. Right? So you'd like and and also better than a simple a b hardcoded choice.
Right? That's not really open world. Right? As as you say, it's just giving you the illusion of choice. What you want to be able to do is is potentially anything in that game environment.
And I think the only way you can do that is to have generated systems, systems that will generate that on the fly. Of course, you can't create infinite amounts of game assets. Right? It's expensive enough already how triple a games are made today. And that was obvious to to us back in the nineties when I was working on all these games.
I think maybe black and white was the game that I worked on early stages of that that had the still probably the best AI learning AI in it. It was an early reinforcement learning system that you, you know, you were you were looking after this mythical creature and growing it and nurturing it. And depending how you treated it, it would treat the villagers in that world in the same way. So if you mean to it, it would be mean. If you're good, it would be protective.
And so it was really a reflection of the way you played it. So actually, all of the I've been working on sort of simulations and AI through the medium of games at the beginning of my career and and really the whole of what I do today is still a follow on from those early more hard coded ways of doing the AI to now, you know, fully general learning systems that that are trying to achieve the same thing.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's been interesting, hilarious, and fun to watch you and Elon obviously itching to create games because you're both gamers. And one of the sad aspects of your incredible success in so many domains of science, like serious adult stuff Yeah. That you might not have time to really create a game, you might end up creating the tooling that others would create the game.
Speaker 1: You have to watch Exactly.
Speaker 0: Others create the thing you've always dreamed of. Do you think it's possible you can somehow, in your extremely busy schedule, actually find time to create something like black and white? Some some an actual video game where, like, you could make the childhood dream Yeah.
Speaker 1: To become become reality. You know, there's two things. The way to think about that is maybe that with vibe coding as it gets better, and there's a possibility that I could, you know, one could do that actually in in your spare time. So I'm quite excited about that as as that would be my project if if I got the time to do some vibe coding. I'm actually itching to do that.
And then the other thing is, you know, maybe it's a sabbatical after AGI has been safely stewarded into the world and delivered into the world. You know, that and then working on my physics theory as we talked about at the beginning. Those would be the two my my two post AGI projects. Let's call it that way.
Speaker 0: I I would love
Speaker 1: to see which The ultimate game.
Speaker 0: Post AGI, which you choose, solving the the problem that some of the smartest people in human history contended with. So p equals NP or creating a cool video.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, they but they might but in my world, they'd be related because it would be an open world simulated game as realistic as possible. So, you know, what what is what is the universe? That's that's that's speaking to the same question. Right?
And p equals m p. I think all these things are related, at least in my mind.
Speaker 0: I mean, in a really serious way, I think video games sometimes are looked down upon. That's just this fun side activity. But especially as AI does more and more of the difficult boring tasks, something that we in in modern world called work, you know, video games is the thing in which we may find meaning, in which we may find, like, what to do with our time. You could create incredibly rich, meaningful experiences. Like, that's what human life is.
And then in video games, you can create more sophisticated, more diverse ways of living. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, those of us who love games and I still do is is is, you know, it's almost can let your imagination run wild. Right? Like I I used to love games and working on games so much because it's the fusion, especially in the nineties and to early two thousands, the sort of golden era, maybe the eighties of of of game of the games industry. And it was all being discovered.
New genres are being discovered. We weren't just making games. We felt we were we were creating a new entertainment medium that never existed before, especially with these open world games and simulation games where you were co create you as the player were co creating the story. There's no other media entertainment media where you do that, where you as the audience actually co create the the story. And of course, now with multiplayer games as well, it can be a very social activity and can explore kinds of interesting worlds in that.
But on the other hand, you know, it's very important to also enjoy and experience the physical world. But the question is then, you know, I think we're going to have to call or confront the question again of what is the fundamental nature of reality? What is the gonna be the difference between these increasingly realistic simulations and multiplayer ones and emergent and what we do in the real world? Yeah. There's clearly a huge amount of value to experiencing the real world nature.
There's also a huge amount of value in experiencing other humans directly in person, the
Speaker 0: way we're sitting here today.
Speaker 1: But
Speaker 0: we need to really scientifically rigorously answer the question why. Yep. And which aspect of that can be mapped Yep. Into the virtual world.
Speaker 1: Exactly. And it's not it's
Speaker 0: not enough to say, yeah, you should go touch grass and hang out in nature. It's like, why Yep.
Speaker 1: Exactly Yeah. Is that valuable? Yes. And I guess that's maybe the thing that's been haunting me or obsessing me from the beginning of my career. If you think about all the different things I've done, that's they're all related in that way.
The simulation, nature of reality, and what is the bounds of, you know, what can be modeled.
Speaker 0: Sorry for the ridiculous question, but so far, what is the greatest video game of all time? What's up there?
Speaker 1: My favorite one of all time is Civilization, I I have to say. That that was the the the civilization one and civilization two, my favorite games of all time.
Speaker 0: I can only assume you've avoided the most recent one because it would probably you would that would be your sabbatical. That way you would disappear.
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly. They take a lot of time, these civilization games. So I gotta be careful with them.
Speaker 0: Fun question. You and Elon seem to be somehow solid gamers. Is there a connection between being great at gaming and and being great leaders of AI companies?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I it's an interesting one. I mean, we both love games, and it's interesting. He wrote games as well to start off with. It's probably especially in the era I grew up in where home computers were just became a thing, you know, in the late eighties and nineties, especially in The UK.
I had a Spectrum and then a Commodore Amica 500 which is my my favorite computer ever. And that's why I learned all my programming. And of course, it's a very fun thing to program is to program games. So I think it's a great way to learn programming probably still is. And and then of course, I immediately took it in directions of AI and simulations which I may was able to express my interest in in games and my sort of wider scientific interests altogether.
And then the final thing I think that's great about games is it fuses artistic design, you know, art with the the the most cutting edge programming. So again, in the nineties, all of the most interesting technical advances were happening in gaming, whether that was AI, graphics, physics engines, hardware, even GPUs, of course, were designed for gaming originally. So everything that was pushing computing forward in the in the nineties was due to gaming. So interestingly, that was where the forefront of research was going on. And it was this incredible fusion with with art, you know, graphics, but also music and just the whole new media of storytelling.
And I love that. For me, it's it's sort of multidisciplinary kind of effort is again something I've enjoyed my whole my whole life.
Speaker 0: I have to ask you, I almost forgot about one of the many and I would say one of the most incredible things recently that somehow didn't yet get enough attention is Alpha Evolve. Mhmm. We talked about evolution a little bit, but it's the Google DeepMind system that evolves algorithms. Yeah. Are these kinds of evolution like techniques promising as a component of future superintelligence systems?
So for people who don't know, it's kind of I don't if it's fair to say it's LLM guided evolution search. Yeah. So evolutionary algorithms are doing the search and LLMs are telling you where.
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly. So LLMs are kind of proposing some possible solutions and then you do you use evolutionary computing on top to to to find some novel part of the of the search space. So actually, think it's an example of very promising directions where you combine LLMs or foundation models with other computational techniques. Evolutionary methods is one, but you could also imagine Monte Carlo tree search.
Basically, many types of search algorithms or reasoning algorithms sort of on top of or using the foundation models as a basis. So I actually think there's quite a lot of interesting things to be discovered probably with these sort of hybrid systems, let's call them.
Speaker 0: But not to romanticize evolution. Yeah. I'm only human. But you you think there's some value in whatever that mechanism is? Because we already talked about natural systems.
Do you think where there's a lot of low hanging fruit of us understanding being being able to model, being able to simulate evolution and then using that whatever we understand about that nature inspired mechanism to to then do search better and better and better.
Speaker 1: So if you think about again breaking down the sort systems we've built to their really fundamental core, you've got like the model of the of the underlying dynamics of the system. And then if you want to discover something new, something novel that hasn't been seen before, then you need some kind of search process on top to take you to a novel region of the of the of the search space. And you can do that in a number of ways. Evolutionary computing is one. With AlphaGo, we just use Monte Carlo Tree Search.
Right? And that's what found Move 37 the new kind of never seen before strategy in Go. And so that's how you can go beyond potentially what is already known. So the model can model everything that you currently know about. Right?
All the data that you currently have. But then how do you go beyond that? So that starts to speak about the ideas of creativity. How can these systems create something new, fight, discover something new? Obviously, this is super relevant for scientific discovery or pushing med science and medicine forward, which we want to do with these systems.
And you can actually bolt on some fairly simple search systems on top of these models and get you into a new region of space. Of course, you also have to make sure that you're not searching that space totally randomly. It would be too big. So you have to have some objective function that you're trying to optimize and hill climb towards and that guides that search.
Speaker 0: But there's some mechanism of evolution that are interesting maybe in the space of programs, but then the space of programs is an extremely important space because you can probably generalize to to everything. Mhmm. You know? But, you know, for example, mutation, this is not just Monte Carlo tree search where it's like a search. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: You could, every once in a while Combine things. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Combine things. Yeah. Alter, like, sub like, components of a thing. Yes. So then, you know, what evolution is really good at is not just the natural selection.
It's combining things and building increasingly complex hierarchical systems. Yes. So that component is super interesting. Yeah. Especially like with Alpha Evolve in
Speaker 1: the space of programs. Yeah. Exactly. So there's a you can get a bit of an extra property out of evolutionary systems, which is some new emergent capability may come about. Yes.
But of course, like, happened with life. Interestingly, with naive sort of traditional evolutionary computing methods without LLMs and the modern AI, the problem with them were they know is that they were very well studied in the nineties and and and early two thousands and some promising results. But the problem was they could never work out how to evolve new properties, new emergent properties. You always had a sort of subset of the properties that you put into the system. But maybe if we combine them with these foundation models, perhaps we can overcome that limitation.
Obviously, natural evolution clearly did because it it did evolve new capabilities. Right? So bacteria to where we are now. So clearly that it must be possible with evolutionary systems to generate new patterns, you know, going back to the first thing we talked about and new capabilities and emergent properties. And maybe we're on the cusp of discovering how to do that.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Listen. AlphaVolve is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I've I've on my desk at home, you know, most of my time is spent being on that computer is just programming. And next to the the three screens is this it's called a tectalic, which is one of the early organisms that crawled out of the water onto land.
And I just kinda watch that little guy. It's like you the the whatever the competition mechanism of evolution is is quite incredible. Yes. Truly, truly incredible. Yeah.
Now whether that's exactly the thing we need to do to do our search, but never never dismiss the power of nature with what it did here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's amazing, which is a relatively simple algorithm. Right? Effectively and it can generate all of this immense complexity emerges. Obviously running over, you know, 4,000,000,000 of time, but but it's it's it's, you know, you can think about that as again a a process search process that ran over the physics substrate of the universe for a long amount of computational time.
But then it generated all this incredible rich diversity. So so many questions
Speaker 0: I wanna ask you. So one, you do have a dream. One of the natural systems you want to try to model is a is a cell. Yes. That's a beautiful dream.
I could ask you about that. I also just for that purpose on the AI scientist front, broadly. So there's a essay from Daniel Cocatello, Scott Alexander, and others that outline steps along the way to get to ASI, and has a lot of interesting ideas in it, one of which is including a superhuman coder and a superhuman AI researcher. And in that, there's a term of research taste that's really interesting. So in everything you've seen, do you think it's possible for AI systems to have research taste to help you in the way that AI coscientists does, to help steer human human brilliant scientists and then potentially by itself to figure out what are the directions where you want to generate truly novel ideas.
Because that seems to be like a really important component of how to do great science.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's gonna be one of the hardest things to to mimic or model is is this this idea of taste or or judgment. I think that's what separates the, you know, the the great scientists from the good scientists. Like all all professional scientists are good technically. Right?
Otherwise, it wouldn't have been made it that far in in academia and things like that. But then do you have the taste to sort of sniff out what the right direction is, what the right experiment is, what the right question is. So the is the is picking the right question is is the hardest part of science and and making the right hypothesis. And that's what, you know, today's systems definitely they can't do. So, you know, I often say it's harder to come up with a conjecture, a really good conjecture than it is to solve it.
So we may have systems soon that can solve pretty hard conjectures. You know, I I am in Mass Olympiad problems where we we, you know, alpha proof last year, our system got, you know, silver medal in that really hard problems. Maybe eventually, we're better solve a Millennium price kind of problem. But could a system have come up with a conjecture worthy of study that someone like Terrence Tau would have gone, you know what? That's a really deep question about the nature of maths or the nature of numbers or the nature of physics.
And that is far harder type of creativity. And we don't really know today's systems clearly can't do that. And we're not quite sure what that mechanism would be, this kind of leap of imagination, like like Einstein had when he came up with, you know, special relativity and then general relativity with the knowledge he had at the time.
Speaker 0: As far as for conjecture, the you want to come up with a thing that's interesting. It's amenable to proof.
Speaker 1: Yes. So, like, it's easy to come up with
Speaker 0: a thing that's extremely difficult. Yeah. It's easy to come up with a thing that's extremely easy, but that at that very edge
Speaker 1: That sweet spot, right, of of basically advancing the science and splitting the hypothesis space into two ideally. Right? Whether if it's true or not true, you you've learned something really useful. And and and that's hard. And and and and making something that's also, you know, falsifiable and within sort of the technologies that you have, you currently have available.
So it's a very creative process actually, highly creative process that I I think just a kind of naive search on top of a model won't be enough for that.
Speaker 0: Okay. The idea of splitting the hypothesis space into super interesting. So I've heard you say that there's basically no failure in or failure is extremely valuable if it's done if you construct the questions right, if you construct the experiments right, if you design them right, that failure or success are both useful. So Yes. Perhaps because it splits the hypothesis space in two, it's like a binary search.
Speaker 1: That's right. So when you do, like, you know, real blue sky research, there's no such thing as failure really as long as you're picking experiments and hypotheses that that that that meaningfully spit the hypothesis space. So, you know, and you learn something, you can learn something kind of equally valuable from an experiment that doesn't work. That should tell you if you've designed the experiment well and your hypotheses are interesting, it should tell you a lot about where to go next. And and then it's you're you're effectively doing a search process and using that information in in, you know, very helpful ways.
Speaker 0: So to go to your dream of modeling a cell, what are the big challenges that lay ahead for us to make that happen? We should maybe highlight that alpha I mean, there's just so many leaps. Yeah. So alpha fold solved, if it's fair to say, protein folding, and there's so many incredible things we could talk about there, including the open sourcing, the everything you've released. AlphaFold three is doing protein RNA DNA interactions
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Which is super complicated and fascinating. This amenable to modeling. Alpha genome predicts how small genetic changes, like, we think about single mutations, how they link to actual function. So those are it seems like it's creeping along Yes. To a sophisticate to to much more complicated things like a cell, but a cell has a lot of really complicated components.
Yeah. So what I've tried
Speaker 1: to do throughout my career is I have these really grand dreams, and then I try to, as you've noticed, and then I try to break but I try to break them down. Any you know, it's easy to have a kind of a crazy ambitious dream, but the the the trick is how do you break it down into manageable, achievable interim steps that are meaningful and useful in their own right. And so virtual cell, which is what I call the project of modeling a cell, I've had this idea, you know, of wanting to do that for maybe more like twenty five years. And I used to talk with Paul Nurse who is a bit of a mentor of mine in biology. He runs the the, you know, founded the Crick Institute and and won the Nobel Prize in in 2001.
It is is we've been talking about it since, you know, before the, you know, in the nineties. And and I come to come back to every five years is like, what would you need to model of the full internals of a cell so that you could do experiments on the virtual cell and what those experiment, you know, in silico and those predictions would be useful for you to save you a lot of time in the wet lab. Right? That would be the dream. Maybe you could 100 x speed up experiments by doing most of it in silico, the search in silico and then you do the validation step in the wet lab.
That would be that's the that's the dream. And so but maybe now finally so I was trying to build these components, AlphaFold being one that that would allow you eventually to model the full interaction, a full simulation of a cell. And I'd probably start with a yeast cell and partly that's what Paul Nurse studied because the yeast cell is like a full organism. That's a single cell. Right?
So it's a kind of simplest single cell organism. And so it's not just a cell, it's a full organism. And and yeast is very well understood. And so that would be a good candidate for a kind of full simulated model. Now, AlphaFold is the is the solution to the kind of static picture of what is a what is a protein look three d structure protein look like, a static picture of it.
But we know that biology, all the interesting things happen with the dynamics, the interactions. And that's what AlphaFold three is is the first step towards is modeling those interactions. So first of all, pairwise, you know, proteins with proteins, proteins with RNA and DNA. But then the next step after that would be modeling maybe a whole pathway, maybe like the TOR pathway that's involved in cancer or something like this. And then eventually, you might be able to model, you know, a whole cell.
Speaker 0: Also, there's another complexity here that stuff in a cell happens at different time scales. Is that tricky? It's like the you know, protein folding is, you know, super fast. Yes. I don't know all the biological mechanisms, but some of them take a long time.
Yeah. And so is that that's an level so the levels of interaction has a different temporal scale that you have to be able to model.
Speaker 1: So that would be hard. So you'd probably need several simulated systems that can interact at these different temporal dynamics or at least maybe it's like a hierarchical system. So you can drop up or down the the different temporal stages.
Speaker 0: So can you avoid I mean, one of the challenges here is not avoid simulating, for example, the the the quantum mechanical aspects of any of this. Right? You want to not overmodel. You could skip ahead to just model the really high level things that get you a really good estimate of what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: So you you gotta make a decision when you're modeling any natural system. What is the cutoff level of the granularity that you're gonna model it to that and then it captures the dynamics that you're interested in. So probably for a cell, I I would hope that would be the protein level and that one wouldn't have to go down to the atomic level. So, you know, and of course, that's where AlphaFold stock kicks in. So that would be kind of the basis and then you'd build these higher level simulations that take those as building blocks, and then you get the emergent behavior.
Speaker 0: Apologize for the pothead questions ahead of time, but do you think we'll be able to simulate a model the origin of life? So being able to simulate the first from from nonliving organisms, the the birth of a living organism.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the of course, of the deepest and most fascinating questions. I love that area of biology, you know, these people like there's a great book by Nick Lane, one of the top top experts in this area called the the 10 great inventions of of of evolution. I think it's fantastic. And it also speaks to what the great filters might be, you know, prior or are they ahead of us? I think I think they're most likely in the past if you read that book of how unlikely to go, you know, have any life at all.
And then single cell to multi cell seems an unbelievably big jump that took like a billion years, I think, on Earth to do. Right? So it shows you how hard it was.
Speaker 0: Right? Exterior were super happy for a very long
Speaker 1: before they captured mitochondria somehow. Right? I don't see why not, why AI couldn't help with that, some kind of simulation again. It's again, it's a bit of a search process through a combinatorial space. Here's like all the, you know, the chemical soup that that you start with, the primordial soup that, you know, maybe was on earth near these hot vents.
Here's some initial conditions. Can you generate something that looks like a cell? So perhaps that would be a next stage after the virtual cell project is, well, how how could you actually something like that emerge from the chemical soup.
Speaker 0: Well, I would love it if there was a move 37 for the origin of life. Yeah. I think that's one of the sort of great mysteries. I think ultimately what we will figure out is their continuum. There's no such thing as a line between non living and living.
But if we can make that rigorous Yes. That that the very thing from the big big bang to today has been the same process. If we can break down that wall that we've constructed in our minds of the actual origin of from non living to living, and it's not a line, that it's a continuum that connects physics and chemistry and biology. Yeah. There's there's no line.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is my whole reason why I worked on AI and AGI my whole life because I think it can be the ultimate tool to help us answer these kind of questions. And I don't really understand why, you know, the average person doesn't think like worry about this stuff more. Like, how how can we not have a good definition of life and not and not living and non living and the nature of time and let alone consciousness and gravity and all these things. It's it's just and quantum mechanics weirdness. It's just to me, it's I've always had this is sort of screaming at me in my face.
The whole need that's it's getting louder. You know, it's like how what is going on here? You know, in in and I mean that in a deeper sense like in the, you know, the nature of reality which has to be the ultimate question Yeah. That would answer all of these things. It's sort of crazy if you think about it.
We can stare at each other and and all these living things all the time. We can inspect it in microscopes and take it apart almost down to the atomic level. And yet we still can't answer that clearly Yeah. In a simple way, that question of how do you define living? Yeah.
It's kind of amazing.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Living, you can kind of talk your way out of thinking about, but, like, consciousness. Like, we have this very obviously subjective conscious experience, like, we're at the center of our own world, and it it feels like something. And then how how how are you not screaming Yeah. At the mystery of it all?
I mean, but really, humans have been contending with the mystery of the world around them for a long, there's a lot of mysteries. Like, what's up with the sun and and the rain? Yeah. Like, what's that about? And then, like, last year, we had a lot of rain, and this year, we don't have rain.
Like, what did we do wrong? Humans have been asking that question for a long time.
Speaker 1: Exactly. So we're quite I guess we've developed a lot of mechanisms to cope with this
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: These deep mysteries that we can't fully we can see, but we can't fully understand, and we have to have to just get on with daily life. Yeah. And and and we get we keep ourselves busy. Right? In a way, do we keep ourselves distracted?
Speaker 0: I mean, weather is one of the most important questions of human history. We still that's that's the go to small talk direction of of the weather.
Speaker 1: Especially in England.
Speaker 0: And then it's which is, you know, famously, it's an extremely difficult system to model. And even that system, the Google DeepMind has made progress on.
Speaker 1: Yes. We've we've created the the best weather prediction systems in the world, and they're better than traditional fluid dynamics sort of systems that usually calculate on massive supercomputers, takes days to calculate it. We've managed to model a lot of the weather dynamics with neural network systems, with our weather next system. And again, it's interesting that those kinds of dynamics can be modeled even though they're very complicated, almost bordering on chaotic systems in some cases. A lot of the interesting aspects of that can be modeled by these neural network systems, including very recently we had, you know, cyclone prediction of where, you know, parts of hurricanes might go, of course, super useful, super important for the world.
And and and it's super important to do that very timely and very quickly and as well as accurately. And I think it's very promising direction again of, you know, simulating and so that you can run forward predictions and simulations of very complicated real world systems. As you mentioned that, I've got
Speaker 0: a chance in Texas to meet a community of folks called the storm chasers. Yes. And what's really incredible about them, I need to talk to them more, is they're extremely tech savvy. Because what they have to do is they have to use models to predict where the storm is. So there it's this it's this beautiful mix of, like, crazy Yeah.
Enough to, like, go into the eye of the storm. Yeah. And, like, in order to protect your life and predict where the extreme events are going to be, they have to have increasingly sophisticated models of of weather. Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's a a beautiful balance of, like, being in it as living organisms and the the cutting edge of science. They actually might be using a deep mind system. So that's.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They are. But hopefully, they are. And I I love to join them on one of those. Look amazing.
Right? To actually experience it one time.
Speaker 0: Exactly. And then also to experience the correct prediction
Speaker 1: Yeah. Where something will come and how it's going to evolve. It's incredible.
Speaker 0: Yeah. You've estimated that we'll have AGI by 2030. So there's interesting questions around that. How will we actually know that we got there? And what may be the move, quote, move 37 of AGI?
Speaker 1: My estimate is sort of 50% chance by in the next five years. So, you know, by 2030, let's say. And so I think there's a good chance that that could happen. Part of it is what what is your definition of AGI? Of course, people are arguing about that now and and mine's quite a high bar and always has been of like, can we match the cognitive functions that the brain has?
Right. So we know our brains are pretty much general Turing machines approximate. And of course, we created incredible modern civilization with our minds. So that also speaks to how general the brain is. And for us to know we have a true AGI, we would have to like make sure that it has all those capabilities.
It isn't kind of a jagged intelligence where some things it's really good at like today's systems, but other things it's really flawed at. And and that's what we currently have with today's systems. They're not consistent. So you'd want that consistency of intelligence across the board. And then we have some missing, I think, capabilities like sort of the true invention capabilities and creativity that we were talking about earlier.
So you'd want to see those. How you test that? I think you just test it one way to do it would be kind of brute force test of tens of thousands of cognitive tasks that, you know, we know that humans can do and maybe also make the system available to a few 100 of the world's top experts, Terrance Tauss of each each subject area and see if they can find, you know, give them give them a month or two and see if they can find an obvious flaw in the system. And if they can't, then I think you're you're pretty, you know, pretty you can be pretty confident that we have a a fully general system.
Speaker 0: Maybe to push back a little bit. It seems like humans are really incredible as the the intelligence improves across all domains to take it for granted. Mhmm. Like you mentioned, Terence Tao, these brilliant experts, they might quickly, in a span of weeks, take for granted all the incredible things they can do and then focus in while, right there. You know, I I consider myself, first of all, human.
Yeah. I identify as human. This I you know, some people listen to me talk, and they're like, that guy is not good at talking. The stuttering, you know? So, like, even humans have obvious across domains limits, even just outside of mathematics and physics and so on, it I I wonder if it will take something like a move 37.
So on the positive side versus, like, a barrage of 10,000 cognitive tasks Yeah. Where it'll be one or two where it's like
Speaker 1: Yes. Holy shit. This is special. Exactly. So I think there's the sort of blanket testing to just make sure you've got the consistency.
But I think there are the sort of lighthouse moments like the move 37 that would I would be looking for. So one would be inventing a new conjecture or a new hypothesis about physics like Einstein did. So maybe you could even run the back test of that very rigorously like have a cut off of knowledge cut off of 1,900 and then give the system everything that was, you know, that was written up to 1,900 and then and then see if it could come up with special relativity and general relativity. Right? Like Einstein did.
That that would be an interesting test. Another one would be, can it invent a game like Go? Not just come up with Move 37, a new strategy, but can it invent a game that's as deep, as aesthetically beautiful, as elegant as Go? And those are the sorts of things I would be looking out for and probably a system being able to do several of those things, right, for it to be very general, not just one domain. And so I think that would be the signs at least that I would be looking for that we've got a system that's a GI level.
And then maybe to fill that out, you would also check the consistency, you know, make sure there's no holes in that system either.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Something like a new conjecture or scientific discovery. That would be a cool feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That would be amazing. So it's not not just helping us do that, but actually coming up with something brand new.
Speaker 0: And you would be in the room for that. And so it would be like probably two or three months before announcing it. Mhmm. And you would just be sitting there trying not to tweet.
Speaker 1: Something like that. Exactly. It's like, what is this amazing new Yeah. You know, physics idea? And then we would probably check it with world experts in that domain.
Yeah. Right? And validate it and kind of go through its workings. And it I guess it would be explaining its workings too. Yeah.
Be an amazing moment. Do you worry that we
Speaker 0: as humans, even expert humans like you might miss it? Might It
Speaker 1: may be pretty complicated. So it could be the analogy I give there is I don't think it will be totally mysterious to the to the best human scientists. But it may be a bit like, for example, in chess, if I was to talk to Gary Casparov or Magnus Carlsen and play a game with them and they make a brilliant move, I might not be able to come up with that move, but they could explain why afterwards that move made sense. And we will better understand it to some degree, not to the level they do, but in, you know, if they were good at explaining, which is actually part of intelligence too, is being able to explain in a simple way that what you're thinking about. I I think that that will be very possible for the best human scientists.
Speaker 0: But I wonder, maybe you can you can educate me on the side of go. I wonder if there's moves from Agnes or Gary where they at first will dismiss it as a bad move.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure. It could be. But then afterwards, they'll figure out with their intuition that that this why this works. And then and then and then empirically, the nice thing about games is one of the great things about games is you can it's it's a sort of scientific test as it do you win the game or not win?
And then that tells you, okay, that move in the end was good. That strategy was good. And then you can go back and analyze that and and and and explain even to yourself a little bit more why explore around it. And that's how chess analysis and things like that work. So perhaps that's why my brain works like that because I I've been doing that since I was four.
And your train, you know, try it's sort of hardcore training in that way.
Speaker 0: But even even now, like, when I generate code, there there is this kind of nuanced fascinating con contention that's happening where I might at first identify as a set of generated code as incorrect in in some interesting nuanced ways. But then I'm always have to ask the question, is there a deeper insight here that that I'm the one who's incorrect?
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And that's going to as the systems get more and more intelligent, you're gonna have to contend with that. It's like, what what what do you is this a bug or a feature where you just came up with?
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they're gonna be pretty complicated to do, but of course it will be you can imagine also AI systems that are producing that code or whatever that is. And then human programmers looking at it, but also not unaided with the help of AI tools as well. So Mhmm. It's gonna be kind of an interesting you know, maybe different AI tools to the ones Yeah.
That the more you know, kind of monitoring tools are the ones that generated it.
Speaker 0: So if we look at a AGI system, sorry to bring it back up, but AlphaEvolve. Super cool. So AlphaEvolve enables on the programming side something like recursive self improvement potentially. Like, if you can imagine what that AGI system, maybe not the first version, but a few versions beyond that, what does that actually look like? Do you think it will be simple?
Do you think it will be something like a self improving program and a simple one?
Speaker 1: I mean, potentially, that's possible, I would say. I'm not sure it's even desirable because that's a kind of like hard take off scenario. Yeah. But but you you these current systems like AlphaVolve, they have, you know, human in the loop deciding on various things. They're separate hybrid systems that interact.
One could imagine eventually doing that end to end. I don't see why that wouldn't be possible. But right now, you know, I think the systems are not good enough to do that in terms of coming up with the architecture of the code. And again, it's a little bit reconnected to this idea of coming up with a new conjectural hypothesis. How that they they're good if you give them very specific instructions about what you're trying to do.
But if you give them a very vague high level instruction, that wouldn't work currently. Like and I think that's related to this idea of like invent a game as good as go. Right? Imagine that was the prompt. That's that's pretty under specified.
And so the current systems wouldn't know I think what to do with that, how to narrow that down to something tractable. And I think there's similar like, look, just make a better version of yourself. That's too that's too unconstrained. But we've done it in, you know, and and as you know, with AlphaVolve like things like faster matrix multiplication. So when you when you hone it down to a very specific thing you want, it's very good at incrementally improving that.
But at the moment, these are more like incremental improvements, sort of small iterations. Whereas if, you know, if you wanted a big leap in understanding, you'd need a you'd need a much larger advance.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But it could also be sort of to push back against hard takeoff scenario. It could be just a sequence of incremental improvements, like matrix multiplication. Like, it has to sit there for days thinking how to incrementally improve a thing, and that it does so recursively. And as you do more and more improvement, it'll slow down.
Right. There'll be, a like, the path to AGI won't be like a it'd be a gradual improvement over time.
Speaker 1: If it was just incremental improvements, that's how it would look. So the question is, could it come up with a new leap like the transformers architecture? Yeah. Right. Could it have done that back in 2017 when, you know, we did it and Brain did it?
And it's it's not clear that that these systems, something our AlphaVolt wouldn't be able to do make such a big leap. So for sure, these systems are good. We have systems I think that can do incremental hill climbing.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And that's a kind of bigger question about is that all that's needed from here or do we actually need one or two more big breakthroughs?
Speaker 0: And can the same kind of systems provide the breakthroughs also? So make it a bunch of s curves, like incremental improvement, but also every once in a while leaps.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think anyone has systems that can have shown unequivocally those big leaps. The the the right. We have a lot of systems that do the hill climbing of the s curve that you're currently on.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And that would be the move 37 is a Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it would be a leap. Something like that.
Speaker 0: Do you think the scaling laws are holding strong on pre training, post training, test time, compute? Do you on the flip side of that, anticipate AI progress hitting a wall?
Speaker 1: We certainly feel there's a lot more room just in the scaling. So actually all steps, pre training, post training, and inference time. So there's sort of three scalings that are happening concurrently. And we again, there, it's about how innovative you can be. And we, you know, we pride ourselves on having the broadest and deepest research bench.
We have amazing, you know, incredible researchers and people like Nam Shazir, you know, came up with transformers and and Dave Silver, you know, who led the AlphaGo project and so on. And it's it's it's that research base means that if some new new breakthrough is required like an AlphaGo or transformers, I would back us to be the place that does that. So I'm actually quite like it when the terrain gets harder. Right? Because then it veers more from just engineering to to true research and, you know, research or research plus engineering and that's our sweet spot.
And I I think that's harder. It's harder to invent things than to than to, you know, fast follow. And so, you know, we don't know. I would say it's a it's kind of fifty fifty whether new things are needed or whether the scaling the existing stuff is gonna be enough. And so in true kind of empirical fashion, we're pushing both of those as hard as possible.
The new blue sky ideas and, you know, maybe about half our resources on that. And then and then scaling to the max, the the current the current capabilities. And we're still seeing some, you know, fantastic progress on each different version of Gemini.
Speaker 0: That's interesting the way you put it in in terms of the deep bench that if progress towards AGI is more than just scaling compute, So the engineering side of the problem and is more on the scientific side where there's breakthroughs needed, then you feel confident in DeepMind as well. Google DeepMind as well positioned to kick kick ass in that domain.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if you look at the history of the last decade or fifteen years Yeah. It's been I mean, you maybe, I don't know, 90% of the breakthroughs that mod that underpins modern AI field today was from, you know, originally Google Brain, Google Research, and DeepMind. So, yeah, I would back that to continue, hopefully. So
Speaker 0: on the data side, are
Speaker 1: you concerned about running out of high quality data, especially high quality human data? I'm not very worried about that partly because I think there's enough data or and it's been proven to get the systems to be pretty good. And this goes back to simulations again. If you do have enough data to make simulations or so that you can create more synthetic data that are from the right distribution. Obviously, that's the key.
So you need enough real world data in order to be able to create those kinds of generator data generators. And I think that we're at that step at the moment.
Speaker 0: Yeah. You've done a lot of incredible stuff on the side of science and biology Mhmm. Doing a lot with not so much data. Yeah. I mean, it's still a lot of data, but I guess enough take off.
Going.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. So exactly.
Speaker 0: How crucial is the scaling of compute to building AGI? This is a question that's an engineering question. It's almost a geopolitical question because it also integrated into that is supply chains and energy Yes. A thing that you care a lot about, which is potentially fusion. Yes.
So innovating on the side of energy also. Do you think we're gonna keep scaling compute?
Speaker 1: I think so for several reasons. I think compute there's there's the amount of compute you have for training. Often, it needs to be colocated. So actually, even like, you know, bandwidth constraints between data centers can affect that. So it's it's it's there's additional constraints even there.
And that that's important for training obviously the largest models you can. But there's also because now AI systems are in products and being used by billions of people around the world, you need a ton of inference compute now. And then on top of that, there's the thinking systems, the new paradigm of the last year that where they get smarter, the longer amount of inference time you give them at test time. So all of those things need a lot of compute. And I don't really see that slowing down.
And as AI systems become better, they'll become more useful and there'll be more demand for them. So both from the training side, the training side actually is is only just one part of that may even become the smaller part of of what's needed Yeah. In the overall compute that that's required. Yeah. That's one sort of almost meme
Speaker 0: y kind of thing, which is like the success and the incredible aspects of v o three. There's people kinda make fun of, like, the more successful it becomes, the, you know, the servers are sweating.
Speaker 1: Yes. Could
Speaker 0: you be on fence?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We did a little video of of us of the servers frying eggs and things, and that's right. And and and we're gonna have to figure out how to do that.
There's a lot of interesting hardware innovations that we do. As you know, we have our own TPU line and we're looking at like inference only things, inference only chips and how we can make those more efficient. We're also very interested in building AI systems and we have done the help with energy usage. So help data center energy, like for the cooling systems be efficient, grid optimization, and then eventually things like helping with plasma containment fusion reactors. We've done lots of work on that with Commonwealth Fusion.
And also one could imagine reactor design and then material design, I think, is one of the most exciting new types of solar materials, solar panel material, room temperature, superconductors has always been on my list of dream breakthroughs and optimal batteries. And I think a solution to any, you know, one of those things would be absolutely revolutionary for, you know, climate and energy usage. And we're probably close, you know, and again, in the next five years to having AI systems that can materially help with those problems.
Speaker 0: If you were to bet sorry for the ridiculous question. Yeah. What what is the main source of energy in, like, twenty, thirty, forty years? Do you think it's gonna be nuclear fusion?
Speaker 1: I think fusion and solar are the two that I I would bet on. Solar, I mean, you know, it's the fusion reactor in the sky, of course. And I think really the the problem there is is is batteries and transmission. So, you know, as well as more efficient, more more efficient solar material perhaps eventually, you know, in space, you know, these kind of Dyson sphere type ideas. And fusion, I think is definitely doable seems If we have the right design of reactor and we can control the plasma and fast enough and so on.
And I think both of those things will actually get solved. So we'll probably have at least those are probably the two primary sources of renewable, clean, almost free, or perhaps free energy.
Speaker 0: What a time to be alive. If I traveled into the future with you a hundred years from now, how much would you be surprised if we've passed type one Kardashev scale civilization?
Speaker 1: I would not be that surprised if there's a like a hundred year time scale from here. I mean, I think it's pretty clear if we crack the energy problems in one of the ways we've just discussed fusion or or very efficient solar. Then if energy is kind of free and renewable and clean, then that solves a whole bunch of other problems. So for example, the water access problem goes away because you can just use desalination. We have the technology.
It's just too expensive. So only, you know, fairly wealthy countries like Singapore and Israel and so on, like actually use it. But but if it was cheap, then every then, you know, all countries that have a coast could. But also you'd have unlimited rocket fuel. You could just separate seawater out into hydrogen and oxygen using energy and that's rocket fuel.
So combined with, you know, Elon's amazing self landing rockets, then it could be like you sort of like a bus service to to space. So that opens up, you know, incredible new resources and domains. Asteroid mining, I think, will become a thing and maximum human flourishing to the stars. I that's what I dream about as well as like Carl Sagan's sort of idea of bringing consciousness to the universe, waking up the universe. And I I think human civilization will do that in the full sense of time if we get AI right and and and and crack some of these problems with it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I wonder what it would look like if you're just a tourist flying through space. You would probably notice Earth because if you solve the energy problem, you would see a lot of space rockets probably. So it would be Mhmm. Like traffic here in London, but in space.
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly. A lot of rockets.
Speaker 0: Yes. And then you would probably see floating in space some kind of source of energy like solar Yep. Potentially. So Earth would just look more on the surface, more technological. And then then you would use the power of that energy then to preserve the natural Yes.
Like the rainforest and all that
Speaker 1: kind Because of for the first time in in human history, we wouldn't be resource constrained. Mhmm. And I think that could be amazing new era for humanity where it's not zero sum. Mhmm. Right?
I have this land, you don't have it. Or if we take, you know, if the tigers have their forest, then the the local villagers can't what are they gonna use? I think that this will help a lot. No. It won't solve all problems because there's still other human foibles that will will still exist, but it will at least remove one, I think, one of the big vectors which is scarcity of resources, you know, including land and more materials and energy.
And we know we should be some just call it like and others call it about this kind of radical abundance era where there's plenty of resources to go around. Of course, the next big question is making sure that that's fairly, you know, shared fairly and everyone in society benefits from that.
Speaker 0: So there is something about human nature where I go, you know, like Borat, like my neighbor. Like, I like, you start trouble. We we we do start conflicts, and that's why games throughout as I'm learning actually more and more, even in ancient history, served the purpose of pushing people away from war, actually, war. So maybe we can figure out increasingly sophisticated video games that pulls they they give us that scratch the itch of, like, conflict, whatever that is, about about us, the human nature, and then avoid the actual hot wars that would come with increasingly sophisticated technologies because we're now we've long passed the stage where the weapons we're able to create can actually just destroy all of human civilization. So it's no longer that's no longer a great way to to start shit with your neighbor.
It's better to play a game of chess. Or football. Or football.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think that's what my modern sport is. So and I love football watching it, and and I just feel like and I used to play it a lot as well and it's it's it's it's it's very visceral and it's tribal. Mhmm.
And I think it does channel a lot of those energies into a which I think is a kind of human need to belong to some some group And but into a into a into a fun way, a healthy way and and a not a not destructive way, kind of constructive thing. And I think going back to games again is I think the originally why they're so great as well for kids to play things like chess is they're great little microcosm simulations of the world. They're they're simulations of world too. They're simplified versions of some real world situation whether it's poker or or go or chess, different aspects or diplomacy, different aspects of of the real world and allows you to practice at them too. And and because, you know, how many times do you get to practice a massive decision moment in your life?
You know, what job to take, what university go to, you know, you get maybe, I don't know, a dozen or so key decisions one has to make You've got to make those as best as you can. And games is a kind of safe environment, repeatable environment where you can get better at your decision making process. And it maybe has this additional benefit of channeling some energies into into more creative and constructive pursuits.
Speaker 0: Well, I think it's also really important to practice losing and winning. Right. Like, losing is a really you know, that's why I love games. That's why I love even things like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Where you can get your ass kicked in a safe environment over and over. It reminds you about the way about physics, about the way the world works, about the sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. You could still be friends with everybody. Yeah. But that that feeling of losing, I mean, it's a weird one for us humans to, like, really, like, make sense of.
Like, that's just part of life. That is a fundamental part of life is losing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think in martial arts, as I understand it, but also in things like light chess is a lot at least the way I took it, it's a lot to do with self improvement, self knowledge, you know, that okay. So I did this thing. It's not about really being the other person. It's about maximizing your own potential.
If you do in a healthy way, you learn to use victory and losses in a way. Don't get carried away with victory and and think you're the just the best in the world. And and and the losses keep you humble and always knowing there's always something more to learn. There's always a bigger expert that you can mentor you. You know, I think you learn that.
I'm pretty sure in martial arts and and and I think that's also the way that at least I was trained in chess. And so in the same way and it can be very hardcore and very important. Of course, you want to win, but you also need to learn how to deal with setbacks in a in a healthy way that and and and and wire that that feeling that you have when you lose something into a constructive thing of next time, I'm gonna improve this, right, or get better at this.
Speaker 0: There is something that's a source of happiness, a source of meaning, that improvement stuff. It's not about the winning or losing.
Speaker 1: Yes. The mastery. Yeah. There's nothing more satisfying in a way. It's like, oh, wow.
This thing I couldn't do before. Now I can. And and and again, games and physical sports and and mental sports, they're what they're ways of measuring. They're beautiful because you can measure that that progress.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Right. I mean, there's something about that is why I love role playing games, like the number go up of like Yes. On the skill tree. Like, literally, that is a source of meaning for us humans.
Speaker 1: Whatever our Yeah. We're quite we're we're quite addicted to this sort of yeah. These numbers going up and and and and maybe that's why we made games like that because obviously that is something we're we're we're hill climbing systems ourselves. Right? Yes.
It would be quite sad if we didn't have Yeah. Any mechanism by color belts. All of it. We do we do this everywhere. Right?
Where we just have this thing that's great.
Speaker 0: And I don't wanna dismiss that. That is a source of deep meaning Yeah. As humans. So one of the incredible stories on the business on the leadership side is what Google has has done over the past year. So I I think it's fair to say that Google was losing on the LLM product side a year ago with Gemini one five, and now it's winning with Gemini two five, and you took the helm and you led this effort.
What did it take to go from, let's say, quote unquote losing to quote unquote winning in the in in the span of a year?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, firstly, it's absolutely incredible team that we have, you know, led by Coray and Jeff Dean and and Oriole and the amazing team we have on Gemini. Absolutely world class. So you can't do it without the best talent. And of course, you have, you know, we have a lot of great compute as well.
But then it's the research culture we've created. Mhmm. Right? And basically coming together both different groups in in Google, you know, there was Google Brain, world class team, and and then the old deep mind and pulling together all the best people and the best ideas and gathering around to make the absolute greatest system we could. And it was been hard, but we're all very competitive and we, you know, love research.
This is so fun to do. And we've, know, it's great to see our trajectory wasn't a given, but we're very pleased with the the where we are in the rate of progress is the most important thing. So if you look at where we've come to from two years ago to one year ago to now, you know, I think our we call it relentless progress along with relentless shipping of that progress is being very successful. And, you know, it's unbelievably competitive. The whole space, the whole AI space with some of the greatest entrepreneurs and leaders and companies in the world all competing now because everyone's realized how important AI is.
And it's very, you know, been pleasing for us to see that progress.
Speaker 0: You know, Google is a gigantic company. Can you speak to the natural things that happen in that case is the bureaucracy that emerges? Like, you wanna be careful? Like, you know, like, the the the natural kind of there's there's meetings and there's Yeah. Managers and that.
Like, what what are some of the challenges from a leadership perspective breaking through that in order to, like you said, ship? Like, the the number of products Yeah. Gemini related products that's been shipped over the past year is just insane.
Speaker 1: Right. It is. Yeah. Exactly. That's that's what relentlessness looks like.
I think it's it's a question of like any big company, you know, ends up having a
Speaker 0: lot
Speaker 1: of layers of management and things like that. It's sort of the nature of how it works. But I still operate and I was always operating with old deep mind as a as a startup still. Large one, but still as a startup. And that's what we still act like today as with Google deep mind and acting with decisiveness and the energy that you get from the best smaller organizations.
And we try to get the best of both worlds where we have this incredible billions of users surfaces, incredible products that we can power up with our AI and our and our research. And that's amazing and you can, you know, that's very few places in the world you can get that. Do incredible world class research on the one hand and then plug it in and improve billions of people's lives the next day. That's a pretty amazing combination. And we're continually fighting and cutting away bureaucracy to allow the research culture and the relentless shipping culture to flourish.
And I think we've got a pretty good balance whilst being responsible with it, you know, as you have to be as a large company and also with a number of, you know, huge product surfaces that we have.
Speaker 0: So a funny thing you mentioned about, like, the the surface of the billion. I I had a conversation with a guy named brilliant guy here at the British Museum called Erwin Finkel. He's a world expert at cuneiforms, which is a ancient writing on tablets. And he doesn't know about Chad GBT or Gemini. He doesn't even know anything about AI.
But his first encounter with this AI is AI mode on Yes. Google. Yes. He's like, is that what you're talking about? This AI mode?
And then, you know, it's just it's just a reminder that there's a large part of the world that doesn't know about this AI thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I know. It's funny because if you live on x and Twitter and I mean, it's sort of at least my feed, it's all AI. And and there's certain places where, you know, in the valley and certain pockets where everyone's just all they're thinking about is AI. But a lot of the normal world hasn't hasn't come across it yet.
Speaker 0: But And that's a great responsibility to their their first interaction
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: On the the the grand scale of the rural India or anywhere across the world.
Speaker 1: Right. Right. And we want it to be as good as possible. And in a lot of cases, it's just under the hood powering making something like maps or search work better. And and it's ideally for a lot of those people should just be seamless.
It's just new technology that makes their lives more, you know, productive and and and helps them.
Speaker 0: A bunch of folks on the Gemini product and engineering teams spoken extremely highly of you on another dimension that I almost didn't even expect because I kind of think of you as the, like, deep scientists and caring about these big research scientific questions. But they also said you're a great product guy. Like, how to create a thing that a lot of people would use and enjoy using. So can you maybe speak to what it takes to create a a AI based product that a lot of people enjoy using?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, again, that comes back from my game design days where I used to design games for millions of gamers. People forget about that. I've I've had experience with cutting edge technology in product that that that that is how games was in the nineties. And so I love actually the combination of cutting edge research and then being applied in a product and to power a new experience.
And so I think it's the same skill really of of, you know, imagining what it would be like to use it viscerally and having good taste coming back to earlier. The same thing that's useful in science, I think is is can also be useful in in product design. And I've just had a very, you know, always been a sort of multidisciplinary person. So I don't see the boundaries really between, you know, arts and sciences or product and research. It's it's a continuum for me.
I mean, I only work on I like working on products that are cutting edge. I wouldn't be able to, you know, have cutting edge technology under the hood. I wouldn't be excited about them if they were just run of the mill products. So it requires this invention creativity cap capability.
Speaker 0: What are some specific things you kind of learned about when you even on the LLM side, you're interacting with Gemini. Like, this doesn't feel like the layout, the the interface, maybe the trade off between the latency, like, how how to present to the user, how long to wait Mhmm. And how that waiting is shown or the reason capabilities. There's some interesting things because like you said, it's the very cutting edge. We don't know Yeah.
How to present it how to present it correctly. So is there some specific things you've you've learned?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a false evolving space. We're evaluating this all the time. But where we are today is that you want to continually simplify things. The whether that's the interface or the interact what you build on top of the model. You kinda wanna get out of the way of the model.
The model train is coming down the track and it's improving unbelievably fast. This relentless progress we talked about earlier, you know, you look at 2.5 versus 1.5 and it's just a gigantic improvement. And we expect that again for the future versions. And so the models are becoming more capable. So you've got the interesting thing about the design space in in today's world.
These AI first products is you've got to design not for what the thing can do today, the technology can do today, but in a year's time. So you actually have to be a very technical product person because you've got to kind of have a good intuition for and feel for, okay, that thing that I'm dreaming about now can't be done today. But is the research track on schedule to basically intercept that in six months or a year's time. You kind of got to intercept where this highly changing technology is going, as well as the new capabilities are coming online all the time that you didn't realize before that can allow like deep research to work or now we got video generation. What do we do with that?
This multimodal stuff, you know, is it one question I have is is it really going to be the current UI that we have today? These text box chats seems very unlikely given once you think about these super multimodal systems. Shouldn't it be something more like minority report where you're you're sort of vibing with it in a in a in a kind of collaborative way? Right? It seems very restricted today.
Think we'll look back on today's interfaces and products and systems as quite archaic in maybe in just a couple of years. So I think there's a lot of space actually for innovation to happen on the product side as well as the the research side.
Speaker 0: And then we are offline talking about this keyboard is the the open question is how, when, and how much will we move to audio as the primary way of interacting with the machines around us versus typing stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, typing is a very low bandwidth way of doing even if you're a very fast, you know, typer. And I think we're gonna have to start utilizing other devices whether that's smart glasses, you know, audio, earbuds, and eventually maybe some sorts of neural devices where we can increase the the input and the output bandwidth to something, you know, maybe a 100 x of what is today.
Speaker 0: I think that, you know, underappreciated art form is the interface design. I think you cannot unlock the power of the intelligence of a system if you don't have the right interface. The interface is really the way you unlock its power. Yeah. It's such an interesting question of how to do that.
Yeah. So how how you would think, like, getting out of the way isn't real art form.
Speaker 1: Yes. You know, it's the sort of thing that I guess Steve Jobs always talked about. Right? It's simplicity, beauty, and elegance that we want. Right?
And we're not there. Nobody's there yet in my opinion. And that's what I would like us to get to. Again, it sort of speaks to like go again, right, as a game, the most elegant beautiful game. Can you, you know, that can you make an interface as beautiful as that?
And actually, think we're going to enter an era of AI generated interfaces that are probably personalized to you. So it fits the way that you your aesthetic, your feel, the way that your brain works. And and and and the AI kinda generates that depending on the task, you know, that feels like that's probably the direction we'll end up in.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because some people are power users and they want every single parameter on the screen, everything everything based like perhaps me with a keyboard Yeah. Keyboard based navigation.
Speaker 1: Like to have shortcuts for everything. And some people like the minimalism. Just hide all of that complexity. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 0: I'm glad you have a Steve Jobs mode in you as well. This is great. Einstein Mo, Steve Jobs mode. Alright. Let me try to trick you into answering a question.
When when will Gemini three come out? Is it before or after GTA six? The world waits for both. And what does it take to go from two five to three o? Because it seems like there's been a lot of releases of two five, which are already leaps in performance.
So what what does it even mean to go to a new version? Is it about performance?
Speaker 1: Is this about a completely different flavor of an experience? Yeah. Well, so the way it works with our different version numbers is we, you know, we try to collect so maybe it takes, you know, roughly six months or something to to do a new kind of full run and the full productization of a new version. And during that time, lots of new interesting research iterations and ideas come up. Mhmm.
And we sort of collect them all together that, you know, you could imagine the last six months worth of interesting ideas on the architecture front. Maybe it's on the data front. It's like many different possible things and we collect package that all up, test which ones are likely to be useful for the next iteration and then bundle that all together. And then we start the new, you know, giant hero training run. Right?
And and then and then, of course, that gets monitored. And then at the end, then there's the of the pre training, then there's all the post training. There's many different ways of doing that, different ways of patching it. So there's a whole experiment and phase there, which you can also get a lot of gains out. And that's where you see the version numbers usually referring to the base model, the pretrained model.
And then the interim versions of 2.5, you know, and the different sizes and the different little additions, they're often patches or post training ideas that can be done afterwards off the same basic architecture. And then of course, on top of that, we also have different sizes, pro and flash and flashlight that are often distilled from the biggest ones, you know, the flash model from the pro model. And that means we have a range of different choices If you are the developer of do you wanna promote prioritize performance or speed, right, and cost. And we like to think of this Pareto frontier of of, you know, on the one hand, the y axis is, you know, like performance and then the the x axis is, you know, cost or latency and speed basically. And we we have models that completely define the frontier.
So whatever your trade off is that you want as an individual user or as as a developer, you should find one of our models satisfies that constraint.
Speaker 0: So behind diversion changes, there is a big hero run. Yes. And then there's just an insane complexity of productization. Then there's the distillation of the different sizes along that parade of front. And then as with each step you take, you realize there might be a cool product.
There's side quests.
Speaker 1: Yes. Exactly.
Speaker 0: But and then you also don't wanna take too many side quests because then you have a million versions and a million products.
Speaker 1: Yes. Pository. It's very unclear.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But you also get super excited because it's super cool. Yep. Like, how does even they look at Vios. Very cool.
How does it fit into the bigger Yes.
Speaker 1: Thing? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And then you constantly this process of converging upstream, we call it, you know, ideas from the from the product surfaces or or or from the post training and and even further downstream than that, you you kind of upstream that into the the core model training for the next run.
Mhmm. Right? So then the main model, the main Gemini track becomes more and more general and eventually, you know, AGI. One hero on Earth. Yes.
Exactly. Few hero runs later.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So sometimes when you release these new versions or every version really, are benchmarks productive or counterproductive
Speaker 1: for showing the performance of a model? You need them and and but it's important that you don't overfit to them. Right? So they shouldn't be the end with a be all and end all. So there's there's LM Arena or used to be called Alemsis.
That's one of them that turned out sort of organically to be one of the the main ways people like to test these systems, at least the chatbots. Obviously, there's loads of academic benchmarks on from from the test mathematics and coding ability, general language ability, science ability, and so on. And then we have our own internal benchmarks that we care about. It's a kind of multi objective, you know, optimization problem. Right?
You you don't wanna be good at just one thing. We're trying to build general systems that are good across the board And you try and make no regret improvements. So where you improve in like, you know, coding, but it doesn't reduce your performance in other areas. Right? So that's the hard part because you you can of course, you could put more coding data in or you could put more, I don't know, gaming data in, but then does it make worse your language system or in your translation systems and other things that you care about.
So it's you've got to kind of continually monitor this increasingly larger and larger suite of of benchmarks. And also there's when you stick them into products, these models, you also care about the direct usage and the direct stats and the signals that you're getting from the end users, whether they're coders or or or the average person using using the chat interfaces.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because ultimately, you wanna measure the usefulness, but it's so hard to convert that into a number. Right. It's it's really vibe based benchmarks across a large number of users, and it's hard to know. And I it would be just terrifying to me to you know you have a much smarter model, but it's just something vibe based.
It's not not not quite working. That's just scary because and everything you just said, it has to be smart and useful across so many domains. So you you get super excited because it's all of a sudden solving programming problems you've never been able to solve before, but now it's crappy poetry or something.
Speaker 1: And it's just Right.
Speaker 0: I don't know. That's a stressful that's so difficult Balance. Yeah. To balance and because you can't really trust the benchmarks, you really have to trust the end users.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then other things that are even more esoteric come into play like, you know, the style of the persona of the the the system, you know, how it you know, is it verbose? Is it succinct? Is it humorous? You know, and and different people like different things.
So, you know, it's very interesting. It's almost like cutting edge part of psychology research or person personality research. You know, I used to do that in my PhD like five factor personality. What do we actually want our systems to be like? And different people will like different things as well.
So these are all just sort of new problems in product space that I don't think have ever really been tackled before, but we're gonna sort of happily have to deal with now.
Speaker 0: I think it's a super fascinating space developing the character of the thing. Yeah. And in so doing, it puts a mirror to ourselves. What are the kind of things that we like? Because prompt engineering allows you to control a lot of those elements, but can the product make it easier for you to control the different flavors of those experiences, the different characters that you interact with.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. So So what's
Speaker 0: the probability of Google DeepMind winning? Well, I
Speaker 1: don't see it as sort of winning. I mean, I think we need to I winning think is the wrong way to look at it given how important and consequential what it is we're building. So funnily enough, I don't I try not to view it like a game or competition, even though that's a lot of my mindset. It's it's about, in my view, all of us have those of us at the leading edge have a responsibility to steward this unbelievable technology that could be used for incredible good, but also has risks. Steward it safely into the world for the benefit of humanity.
That's always what I've dreamed about and what we've always tried to do. And I hope that's what eventually the community, maybe the international community will rally around when it becomes obvious that as we get closer and closer to to AGI that that's what's needed.
Speaker 0: I agree with you. I think that's beautifully put. You've said that you talked to and are on good terms with the leads of some of these labs. As the competition heats up, how hard is it to maintain sort of those relationships?
Speaker 1: It's been okay so far. I tried to pride myself in being collaborative. I'm a collaborative person. Research is a collaborative endeavor. Science is a collaborative endeavor.
Right? It's all good for humanity in the end if you cure incredible, you know, terrible diseases and you come with an incredible cure. This is net win for humanity. And the same with energy, all of the things that I'm interested in in in helping solve with AI. So I just want that technology to exist in the world and be used for the right things and and and the the kind of the benefits of that, the productivity benefits of that being shared for every the benefit of everyone.
So I try to maintain good relations with all the leading lab people. They have very interesting characters, many of them as you might expect. But, yeah, I'm on good terms, I I hope, with pretty much all of them. And I I think that's gonna be important when when things get even more serious than they are now, that there are those communication channels. Mhmm.
And that's what will facilitate cooperation or collaboration if that's what we is required, especially on things like safety.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I hope there's some collaboration on stuff that's sort of less high stakes and in so doing serves as a mechanism for maintaining friendships and relationships. So for example, I think the Internet would love it if you and Elon somehow collaborate on creating a video game, that kind of thing. Right. That I think that enables camaraderie in good terms.
And also you two are legit gamer, so it's just fun to
Speaker 1: Yep. Fun to create awesome. And we've talked about that in the past and it may be a cool thing that that, you know, we can do. And I agree with you. It'd be nice to have kind of side projects in a way where where one can just lean into the collaboration aspect of it and it's a sort of win win for both sides and it's and it it kind of builds up that that that collaborative muscle.
Speaker 0: I see the scientific endeavor as that kind of side project for humanity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I I
Speaker 0: think deep Google DeepMind has been really pushing that. I would love it just to see other labs do more scientific stuff and then collaborate because it just seems like easier to collaborate on the big scientific questions.
Speaker 1: I agree. And I would love to see a lot of people a lot of the other labs talk about science, but I think we're really the only ones using it for science and doing that. And that's why projects like AlphaFold are so important to me and I think to our mission is to show how AI can this, you know, be clearly used in a very concrete way for the benefit of humanity. And and also we spun out companies like isomorphic off the back of AlphaFold to do drug discovery and it's going really well and build sort of, you know, you can think of build additional AlphaFold type type systems to go into chemistry space to help accelerate drug design. And the examples I think we need to show and society needs to understand are where AI can bring these huge benefits.
Speaker 0: Well, from the bottom of my heart, thank you pushing the scientific efforts forward with with rigor, with fun, with humility, all of it. I just love to see it. And still talking about p equals n p. I mean, it's just incredible. So I love it.
There are there there's been seemingly a war for talent. Some of it is meme. I don't know. What do you think about Meta buying up talent with huge salaries and and the heating up of this battle for talent? And I I should say that I think a lot of people see DeepMind as a really great place to do cutting edge work for the reasons that you've outlined Yeah.
Is like there's this vibrant scientific culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, look, of course, you know, there's a strategy that that Meta is taking right now. I think that from my perspective at least, I think the people that are real believers in the mission of AGI and what it can do and understand the real consequences, both good and bad from that and what's what that responsibility entails. I think they're mostly doing it to be like myself, to be on the frontier of that research. So, you know, they can help influence the way that goes and steward that technology safely into the world.
And, you know, meta right now are not at the frontier. Maybe they'll they'll manage to get back on there. And, you know, it's probably rational what they're doing from their perspective because they're behind and they need to do something. But I think there's more important things than than just money. Of course, one has to pay, you know, people their market rates and all of these things and that continues to go up.
But as and and and I was expecting this because more and more people are finally realizing leaders of companies, what I've always known for thirty plus years now, which is the AGI is the most important technology probably that's ever gonna be invented. So in some senses, it's it's rational to be doing that. But I also think there's a much bigger question. I mean, people in AI these days are very well paid. You know, I I remember when we were starting out back in 2010, you know, I didn't even pay myself a couple of years.
Because it was enough money. We couldn't raise any money. And these days, interns are being paid, you know, the amount that we raised as our first entire seed round. So it's pretty funny. And I remember the days where we used I used to have to to work for free and and almost pay my own way to do an internship.
Right? Now, it's all the other way around. But that's just how it is. It's the new world. And but I think that, you know, we've been discussing like what happens post AGI and energy systems are solved and so on.
What is even money going to mean? So I think, you know, in the economy and and we're gonna have much bigger issues to work through and how does the economy function in that world and companies. So I think, you know, it's a little bit of a side issue about salaries and things of like that today.
Speaker 0: Yeah. When you're facing such gigantic consequences and and gigantic fascinating scientific questions.
Speaker 1: Which maybe only a few years away.
Speaker 0: So So on a practical sort of pragmatic sense, if we zoom in on jobs, we can look at programmers because it seems like AI systems are currently doing incredibly well at programming and increasingly so. So a lot of people that program for a living, love programming, are worried they will lose their jobs. How worried should they be, do you think? And what's the right way to sort of adjust to the new reality and ensure that you survive and thrive as a human in the programming world?
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting that programming and it's again counterintuitive to what we thought years ago maybe that some of the skills that we think of as harder skills are turned out maybe to be the easier ones for various reasons, but, you know, coding and math because you can create a lot of synthetic data and verify if that data is correct. Mhmm. So because of the nature of that, it's easier to make things like synthetic data to train from. It's also an area, of course, we're all interested in because we as programmers, right, to help us and get faster at it and more productive. So I think the for the next era, like the next five, ten years, I think what we're going to find is people who are kind of embrace these technologies become almost at one with them, whether that's in the creative industries or the technical industries will become sort of superhumanly productive, I think.
So the great programs will be even better, but it'll be even TEDx even what they are today. And because there you'll be able to use their skills to utilize that the tools to the maximum, you know, exploit them to the maximum. And so I think that's what we're going to see in the next domain. So that's going to cause quite a lot of change. Right.
And so that's coming. A lot of people benefit from that. So I think one example of that is if coding becomes easier, it becomes available to many more creatives to do more. And but I think the top programmers will still have huge advantages as terms of specifying, going back to specifying what the architecture should be. The question should be how to guide these coding assistance in a way that's useful, you know, check whether the code they produce is good.
So I think there's plenty of headroom there for the foreseeable, you know, next few years.
Speaker 0: So I think there's there's several interesting things there. One is there's a lot of imperative to just get better and better consistently of using these tools so that you're they were riding the wave of the improvement improving models
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: Versus, like, competing against them. Yeah. But sadly, but that's the the nature of of life on Earth. There could be a huge amount of value to certain kinds of programming at the cutting edge and less value to other kinds. For example, it could be like, you know, front end web design might, be more amenable to to to, as as you mentioned, to generation, by AI systems and maybe, for example, game engine design or something like this or back end design or or guiding systems in high performance situations, high performance programming type of design decisions, that might be extremely valuable.
Mhmm. But it it will shift
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Where the humans are needed most, and that's scary for people
Speaker 1: to address. I can I think that's right? The the anytime where there's a lot of disruption and change, you know, and we've had this it's not just this time. We've had this in many times in human history with the Internet, mobile, but before that, I was the industrial revolution. And it's gonna be one of those areas where there will be a lot of change.
I think there'll be new jobs we can't even imagine today just like the Internet created. And then those people with the right skill sets to ride that wave will become incredibly valuable, Right? Those skills. But maybe people will have to relearn or adapt a bit their current skills. And it's the the thing that's gonna be harder to deal with this time around is that I think what we're gonna see is something like probably 10 times the impact the industrial revolution had and but 10 times faster as well.
Right? So instead of a hundred years, it takes ten years. And so that's gonna make, you know, it's like a 100 x the impact and the speed combined. So that's what I think gonna make it more difficult for society to to deal with and it's good. There's a lot to think through and I think we need to be discussing that right now.
And I I, you know, encourage top economists in the world and philosophers to start thinking about how is society going to be affected by this and what should we do, including things like, know, universal basic provision or something like that where a lot of the increased productivity gets shared out and distributed to society and maybe in the form of surface services and other things. Where if you want more than that, you still go and get some incredibly rare skills and things like that and and make yourself unique. But but there's a basic provision that is provided.
Speaker 0: And if you think of government as technology, there's also interesting questions not just in economics, but just politics. How do you design a system that's responding to the rapidly changing times such that you can represent the different pain that people feel from the different groups, and how do you reallocate resources in a way that addresses that pain and represents the hope and the pain and the fears of different people in a way that doesn't lead to division. Because politicians are often really good at sort of fueling the division and using that to get elected, the other defining the other and then saying that's bad. And so based on that, I think that's often counterproductive to leveraging a rapidly changing technology, how to help the world flourish. So we almost need to improve our political systems as well rapidly if you think of them as a technology.
Speaker 1: Definitely. And I think I think we'll need new governance structures, institutions probably to help with this transition. So I think political philosophy and political science is gonna be key to that. But I think the number one thing, first of all, is to create more abundance of resources. Right?
Then there's the so that's the number one thing, increase productivity, get more resources, maybe eventually get out of the zero sum situation. Then the second question is how to use those resources and distribute those resources. But, yeah, you can't do that without having that abundance first.
Speaker 0: You mentioned to me the book, The Maniac by Benjamin Levitut, a book on first of all, about you. There's a bio about you.
Speaker 1: It's Strange.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's unclear. Yes. Sure. It's unclear how much is fiction, how much is reality.
But I think the central figure that is John von Neumann, I would say it's a haunting and beautiful exploration of madness and genius and, let's say, the double edged sword of discovery. And, you know, for people who don't know, John von Neumann is a kind of legendary mind. He contributed to quantum mechanics. He was on the Manhattan Project. He is widely considered to be the father of or pioneered the modern computer and AI and so on.
So as many people say, he is, like, one of the smartest humans ever, so it's just fascinating. And what's also fascinating is as a person who saw nuclear science and physics become the atomic bomb, so you you got to see ideas become a thing that has a huge amount of impact on the world. He also foresaw the same thing for computing. Yeah. He's he and that's the a little bit, again, beautiful and haunting aspect of the book, then taking a leap forward and looking at this at least it all alpha zero, alpha go, alpha zero big moment that maybe John von Neumann's thinking was brought to to to to reality.
So I I I guess the question is, what do you think if you got to hang out with John von Neumann now? What what would he say about what's going on?
Speaker 1: Well, that would be an amazing experience. You know, he's a fantastic mind and and I also love the the way he he spent a lot of his time at Princeton at the Institute of Advanced Studies, a very special place for thinking. And it's amazing how much of a polymath he was and the the spread of things he helped invent, including of course, the Von Neumann architecture that all the modern computers are based on. And he had amazing foresight. I think he would have loved where we are today and he would have I think he would have really enjoyed AlphaGo being, you know, game he also did game theory.
I think he foresaw a lot of what would happen with learning machine systems that that that are kind of grown, I think he called it rather than programmed. I'm not sure how even maybe he wouldn't even be that surprised. There's the fruition of what I think he already foresaw in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 0: I wonder what advice he would give. He got to see the the building of the atomic bomb with the Manhattan Project. Yeah. I'm sure there's interesting stuff that maybe is not talked about enough. Maybe some bureaucratic aspect, maybe the influence of politicians, maybe maybe not enough of picking up the phone and talking to people that are called enemies Mhmm.
By the said politicians. There might be some, like, deep wisdom that we just may have lost from that time, actually.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure there is. I mean, after we we, you know, study I read a lot of books for that time as well, chronicle time and some brilliant people involved. I I agree with you. I think maybe there needs to be more dialogue and understanding.
I hope we can learn from those those times. I think the difference here is that the AI has so many it's a multi use technology. Obviously, we're trying to do things like that that solve, you know, all diseases, help with energy and scarcity. These incredible things. This is why all of us and myself, you know, I worked started on this journey thirty plus years ago.
And but of course, there are risks too. And probably Von Neumann, my guess is he foresaw both. And and I think he sort of said, I think it's to his wife that that that it would be a this is computers would be even more impactful in the world. And as we just discussed, you know, I think that's right. I think it's gonna be 10 times at least of the industrial revolution.
So I think he's right. So I think he would have been, I imagine fascinated by where we are now.
Speaker 0: And I think one of the maybe you can correct me, but one of the takeaways from the book is that reason, as said in the book, mad dreams of reason, is not enough for guiding humanity as we build these super powerful technology, that there's something else. I mean, there's also like a religious component. Whatever god, whatever religion gives, it gives it pulls us something in the human spirit that raw, cold reason doesn't give us.
Speaker 1: And I I agree with that. I think we need to approach it with whatever you wanna call it, the spiritual dimension or humanist dimension doesn't have to be to do with religion. Right? But this idea of of a soul, what makes us human, this spark that we have perhaps has to do with consciousness when we finally understand that. I think that has to be at the heart of the endeavor.
And technology, I've always seen technology as the enabler, right? The tools that enable us to to flourish and to understand more about the the world. And I'm sort of with Feynman on this and he used to always talk about science and art being companions. But you can understand it from both sides, the beauty of a flower, how beautiful it is, and also understand why the colors of the flower evolved like that. Right?
That just makes it more beautiful that that that just the intrinsic beauty of the flower. And and I've always sort of seen it like that. And maybe, you know, in the Renaissance times, the great discoverers then like people like da Vinci, you know, they were I don't think he saw any difference between science and art and perhaps religion. Right? They were everything was it's just part of being human and being inspired about the world around us.
And that's what I the philosophy I tried to take and one of my favorite philosophers is Spinoza. And I think he combined that all very well, you know, this idea of trying to understand the universe and understanding our place in it. And that was his kind of way of understanding religion. And I think that's quite beautiful. And for me, every all of these things are related, interrelated, the technology and what it means to be human.
And I think it's very important though that we remember that as when we're immersed in the technology and the research. I think a lot of researchers that I see in our field are a little bit too narrow and only understand the technology. And I think also that's why it's important for this to be debated by society at large. And I'm very supportive of things like this, the AI summits that will happen and governments understanding it. And I think that's one good thing about the chatbot era and the product era of AI is that everyday person can actually feel and and interact with cutting edge AI and and and feel feel it for themselves.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because they they force the technologists to have the human conversation. Yeah. For sure. Yep.
That's the whole full aspect of it, like you said, it's a dual use technology that we're forcefully integrating the entire of humanity into it by into the discussion about AI. Because ultimately, AI, AGI will be used for things that states use technologies for, which is conflict and so on. And the more we integrate humans into this picture by having chats with them, the more we will guide.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Be able to adapt. Society will be able to adapt to these technologies like we've always done in the past with with the incredible technologies we've invented in the past.
Speaker 0: Do you think there will be something like a Manhattan Project where there will be an escalation of the power of this technology in states in their old way of thinking will try to use it as weapons technologies, there will be this kind of escalation.
Speaker 1: I hope not. I think that would be very dangerous to do. And I think also, you know, not the right use of the technology. I I hope we'll end up with more something more collaborative if needed, like more like a like a CERN project Yeah. You know, where it's research focused and the best minds in the world come together to carefully complete the final steps and make sure it's responsibly done before, you know, like deploying it to the world.
We'll see. I mean, it's difficult with the current geopolitical climate, I think, to to see cooperation, but things can change. And I think at least on the scientific level, it's important for the researchers to to to to keep in touch and and and keep close to each other on at least on those kinds of topics.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And I I personally believe on the education side and immigration side, it would be great if both directions, people from the West immigrated to China and China back. I mean, there is some, like, family human aspect of people just intermixing. Yeah. And thereby, those ties grow strong, so you can't sort of divide against each other, this kind of old school way of thinking.
And so multi, multicultural, multidisciplinary research teams working on scientific questions, that's like the hope. Don't don't let the the warm leaders that are warmongers because it divide us. I think science is the ultimately really beautiful connector.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Science has always been, I think, quite a a very collaborative endeavor. Mhmm. And, you know, scientists know that it's it's a it's a collective endeavor as well, and we can all learn from each other. So perhaps it could be a vector to get a bit of cooperation.
Speaker 0: What's your ridiculous question? What's your p doom? Probability that human civilization destroys itself.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I I don't have a it's a you know, I don't have a p doom number. The reason I don't is because I think it's would imply a level of precision that is not there. So, like, I don't know how people are getting their PDU numbers. I think it's a kind of a little bit of a ridiculous notion because what I would say is it's definitely non zero and it's probably non negligible. So that in itself is pretty sobering.
And my my view is it's just hugely uncertain. Right? What these technologies are going to be able to do, how fast are they going to take off, how controllable they're going to be. Some things may turn out to be and hopefully, like way easier than we thought. Right?
But it may be there are some really hard problems that are harder than we guess today. And I think we don't know that for sure. And so in under those conditions of a lot of uncertainty, but huge stakes both ways. You know, on the one hand, we we could solve all diseases, energy problems, not the the the the scarcity problem and then travel to the stars and consciousness of the stars and maximum human flourishing. On the other hand, is this sort of p doom scenarios.
So given the uncertainty around it and the importance of it, it's clear to me the only rational sensible approach is to proceed with cautious optimism. So we want the outcome. We want the the benefits, of course, and all of the amazing things that AI can bring. And actually, would be really worried for humanity if I given the other challenges that we have, climate, you know, aging, resources, all of that. If I didn't know something like AI was coming down the line.
Right? How would we solve all those other problems? I think it's hard. So I think we've you know, it could be amazingly transformative for good. But on the other hand, you know, there are these risks that we know are there, but we can't quite quantify.
So the the best thing to do is to use the scientific method to do more research, to try and more precisely define those risks and of course address them. And I think that's what we're doing. I think there probably needs to be 10 times more effort on that than there is now as we're getting closer and closer to the to the to the AGI line.
Speaker 0: What would be the source of worry for you more? Would it be human caused or AI, AGI caused? Yes. Humans abusing that technology versus AGI itself through mechanism that you've spoken about, which is fascinating, deception, or this kind of stuff Yes. Getting better and better and better secretly, and then
Speaker 1: I think they're they're they operate over different time scales and they're equally important to address. So there's just the the the the common garden or variety of like, you know, bad actors using new technology, in this case, general purpose technology and repurposing it for harmful ends. And that's a huge risk. And I think that has a lot of complications because generally, you know, I'm in huge favor of open science and open source. And in fact, we did it with all our science projects like AlphaFold and all of those things for the benefit of of the scientific community.
But how does one restrict bad actors access to these powerful systems, whether they're individuals or even rogue states and but enable access at the same time to good actors to to maximally build on top of. It's pretty tricky problem that there's I've not heard a clear solution to. So there's the bad actor use case problem. And then there's obviously as the systems become more genetic and and closer to AGI and more autonomous, how do we ensure the guardrails and they stick to what we want them to do and under our control? Yeah.
Speaker 0: I tend to, maybe on my mind is limited, worry more about the humans, the bad actors. And there, it could be, in part, how do you not put destructive technology in the hands of bad actors? But in another part, from, again, geopolitical technology perspective, how do you reduce the number of bad actors in the world? That's that's also an interesting human problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a hard problem. I mean, look, we we we can maybe also use the technology itself to help early warning on some of the bad actor use cases. Right? Whether that's bio or nuclear or whatever it is, like AI could be potentially helpful there as long as the AI that you're using is itself reliable.
Right? So it's a sort of interlocking problem and that's what makes it very tricky. And and again, it may require some agreement internationally, at least between China and The U and and The US of of of some basic standards. Right.
Speaker 0: I have to ask you about the the book, The Maniac. There's there's this the the hand of God moment, at least it all moves 78, that perhaps the last time a human did a move of sort of pure human genius and beat AlphaGo or, like, broke its brain. Yes. Sorry to anthropomorphize, but it's an interesting moment because I think in so many domains, it will keep happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a special moment and, you know, it was great for Lisa Doll and, you know, I think it's in a way, there was sort of inspiring each other. We as a team were inspired by Lisa Doll's brilliance and nobleness. And then maybe he got inspired by, you know, what AlphaGo was doing to then conjure this incredible inspirational moment. It's all, you know, captured very well in the in the documentary about it.
And I think that will continue in many domains where there's this, at least for the for the again, the foreseeable future of like the humans bringing in their ingenuity and asking the right question, let's say, and then utilizing these tools in a way that then cracks a problem.
Speaker 0: Yeah. What as the AI becomes smarter and smarter, one of the interesting questions we can ask ourselves is what makes humans special? It does feel perhaps biased that we humans are deeply special. I don't know if it's our intelligence. It could be something else that that other thing that's outside the mad dreams of reason.
Speaker 1: I think that's what I've always imagined when I was a kid and starting on this journey of like I was, of course, fascinated by things like consciousness, did did a neuroscience PhD to look at how the brain works, especially imagination and memory. I focused on the hippocampus. And it's sort of going to be interesting. I always thought the best way, of course, one can kind of philosophize about it and have thought experiments and maybe even do actual experiments like you do in neuroscience on on real brains. But in the end, I always imagine that building AI, a kind of intelligent artifact, and then comparing that to the human mind and seeing what the differences were would be the best way to uncover what's special about the human mind, if indeed there is anything special.
And I suspect there probably is, but it's gonna be hard to you know, I think this journey we're on will help us understand that and define that. And, you know, there may be a difference between carbon based substrates that we are and silicon ones when they process information. You know, one of the best definitions I like of of of consciousness is it's the way information feels when we process it. Right? Yeah.
It could be.
Speaker 0: I mean, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have it's not a very helpful scientific explanation, but I think it's kind of interesting intuitive one. And and so, you know, on this this this journey, this scientific journey we're on will, I think, help uncover that mystery.
Speaker 0: Yeah. What I cannot create, I do not understand. That's somebody you deeply admire, Richard Feynman, like you mentioned. You also reach for the so Wigner's dreams of universality that he saw in constrained domains, but also broadly generally in in mathematics and so on.
Speaker 1: So so
Speaker 0: many aspects on which you're pushing towards not to start trouble at the end, but Roger Penrose.
Speaker 1: Yes. Okay.
Speaker 0: So, you know, do do you think consciousness there's this hard problem of consciousness, how information feels. Do you think consciousness, first of all, is a computation? And if it is, if it's information processing, like you said, everything is, is it something that could be modeled by a classical computer? Yeah. Or is it a quantum mechanical in nature?
Speaker 1: Well, Perrault is an amazing thinker, one of the greatest of the modern era, and he we've had a lot of discussions about this. Of course, we cordially disagree, which is, you know, I I feel like I mean, he collaborates with a lot of good neuroscientists to see if he could find mechanisms for quantum mechanics behavior in the brain. And they to my knowledge, they haven't found anything convincing yet. So my betting is there is is that that it's mostly, you know, it is just classical computing that's going on in the brain, which suggests that all the phenomena are modellable or mimickable by a classical computer. But we'll see, you know, there there may be this final mysterious things of the feeling of consciousness, the qualia, these kinds of things that philosophers debate where it's unique to the substrate.
We may even come towards understanding that when if we do things like Neuralink and and have neural interfaces to the AI systems, which I think we probably will eventually, maybe to keep up with the AI systems. We might actually be able to feel for ourselves what it's like to compute on silicon. Right? So and maybe that will tell us. So I think it's it's gonna be interesting.
I had a debate once with the late Daniel Dennett about why do we think each other are conscious. Okay. So it's for two reasons. One is you're exhibiting the same behavior that I am. So that's one thing behaviorally you seem like a conscious being if I am.
But the second thing which is often overlooked is that we're all running on the same substrate. So if you're behaving in the same way and we're running on the same substrate, it's most parsimonious to assume you're feeling the same experience that I'm feeling. But with an AI that's on silicon, we won't be able to rely on the second part. Even if it exhibits the first part, the behavior looks like a behavior of a conscious being. It might even claim it is.
But we but but we wouldn't know how it actually felt. And it probably couldn't know we what we felt. At least in the first stages, maybe when we get to superintelligence and the technologies that builds, perhaps we'll we'll be able to bridge that.
Speaker 0: No. I mean, that's a huge test for radical empathy is to empathize with a different substrate.
Speaker 1: Right. Exactly. We never had to confront that before.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So maybe maybe through brain computer interfaces, be able to truly empathize what it feels like to be a computer.
Speaker 1: Well, for information to be computed not on a carbon system.
Speaker 0: I mean, that's deeply I mean, some people kinda think about that with plants with other life forms, which
Speaker 1: different Could be.
Speaker 0: Exactly. Similar substrate, but sufficiently far enough on the evolutionary tree Yep. That it requires a radical empathy, but to do that with a computer.
Speaker 1: I mean, Lou, sort of there are animal studies on this of, like, of course, higher animals like, you know, killer whales and dolphins and dogs and and monkeys, you know, they have some and elephants, you know, they have some aspects certainly of consciousness. Right? Even though they're not might not be that that that smart on an IQ sense. So so we can already empathize with that and maybe even some of our systems one day like we built this thing called Dolphin Gemma, you know, which can well, I want a version of our system was trained on dolphin and whale sounds and maybe we will be able to build a an interpreter or translator at some point. It should be pretty cool.
What gives you hope for the future of human civilization? Well, what gives me hope is I think our almost limitless ingenuity, first of all. I think the best of us and the best human minds are incredible. And, you know, I love, you know, meeting and watching any human that's the top of their game, whether that's sport or science or art, you know, it's it's it's just nothing more wonderful than that seeing them in their element in flow. I think it's almost limitless.
You know, our brains are general systems, intelligent systems. So I think it's almost limitless what we can potentially do with them. And then the other thing is our extreme adaptability. I think it's gonna be okay in terms of there's gonna be a lot of change, but but look where we are now without effectively our hunter gatherer brains. How is it we can, you know, we can cope with the modern world.
Right? Flying on planes, doing podcasts, you know, playing computer games and virtual simulations. I mean, it's already mind blowing given that our mind was was developed for, you know, hunting buffalos on the on the tundra. And and so I think this is just the next step and and and it's actually kind of interesting to see how society's already adapted to this mind blowing AI technology we have today already. It's sort of like, oh, I talk to chatbots.
Totally fine.
Speaker 0: And it's very possible that this very podcast activity, which I'm here for, will be completely replaced by AI. I'm very replaceable, and I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for level that you can do it, Lexa, don't you?
Speaker 0: Thank you. That's that's what we humans do to each other. Complement. Exactly. Alright.
And I'm deeply grateful for us humans to have this infinite capacity for curiosity, adaptability, like you said, and also compassion and ability to love.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 0: All of those human
Speaker 1: that are deeply human.
Speaker 0: Well, this is a huge honor, Demis. You're one of the truly special humans in the world. Thank you so much for doing what you do and for talking today. Well, thank you very much, thanks. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Demis Lasabas.
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description and consider subscribing to this channel. And now, let me answer some questions and try to articulate some things I've been thinking about. If you like to submit questions, in audio and video form, go to lexfreeman.com/ama. I got a lot of amazing questions, thoughts, and requests from folks. I'll keep trying to pick some randomly and comment on it at the end of every episode.
I got a note on May 21 this year that said, hi, Lex. Twenty years ago today, David Foster Wallace delivered his famous this is water speech at Kenyon College. What do you think of this speech? Well, first, I think this is probably one of the greatest and most unique commencement speeches ever given. But of course, have many favorites including the one by Steve Jobs.
And David Foster Wallace is one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite humans. There's a tragic honesty to his work, and it always felt as if he was engaging in a a constant battle with his own mind. And the writing, his writing, were kind of his notes from the front lines of that battle. Now onto the speech, let me quote some parts. There's of course the parable of the fish and the water that goes, there are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, morning, boys.
How's the water? And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually, one of them looks over at the other and goes, what the hell is water? In the speech, David Foster Wallace goes on to say, the point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you in this dry and lovely morning. I have several takeaways from this parable and the speech that follows.
First, I think we must question everything, and in particular, the most basic assumptions about our reality, our life, and the very nature of existence. And that this project is a deeply personal one. In some fundamental sense, nobody can really help you in this process of discovery. The call to action here, I think, from David Foster Wallace, as he puts it, is to quote, to be just a little less arrogant, to have just a little more critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.
Alright. Back to me, Lex speaking. Second takeaway is that the central spiritual battles of our life are not fought on a mountain top somewhere at a meditation retreat, but it is fought in the mundane moments of daily life. Third takeaway is that we too easily give away our time and attention to the multitude of distractions that the world feeds us. The insatiable black holes of attention.
David Foster Wallace's call to action in this case, is to be deeply aware of the beauty in each moment and to find meaning in the mundane. I often quote David Foster Wallace in his advice that the key to life is to be unbearable, And I think this is exactly right. Every moment, every object, every experience, when looked at closely enough, contains within it infinite richness to explore. And since Demis Lasabas of this very podcast episode and I are such fans of Richard Feynman, allow me to also quote mister Feynman on this topic as well. Quote, I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well.
He'll hold up a flower and say, look how beautiful it is, and I'll agree. Then he says, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing. And I think that's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.
At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have beauty. I mean, it's not just beauty at this dimension at one centimeter, there's also beauty at the smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract the insects to pollinate it is interesting. It means that the insects can see the color.
It adds a question, does this aesthetic sense also exist in lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery, and the awe of a flower. It only adds. Alright.
Back to David Foster Wallace's speech. He has a great story in there that I particularly enjoy. It goes, there are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious. The other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer.
And the atheist says, look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month, I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost, and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it. I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out, oh god, if there is a god, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me. And now back in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled.
Well, then you must believe now, he says. After all, there you are, alive. The atheist just rolls his eyes. No, man. All that happened was a couple of Eskimos happened to be wandering by and show me the way back to the camp.
All this I think teaches us that everything is a matter of perspective, and that wisdom may arrive if we have the humility to keep shifting and expanding our perspective on the world. Thank you for allowing me to talk a bit about David Foster Wallace. He's one of my favorite writers and he's a beautiful soul. If I may, one more thing I wanted to briefly comment on. I find myself to be in this strange position of getting attacked online often from all sides, including being lied about sometimes through selective misrepresentation, but often through downright lies.
I don't know how else to put it. This all breaks my heart, frankly, but I've come to understand that it's the way of the Internet and the cost of the path I've chosen. There's been days when it's been rough on me mentally. It's not fun being lied about, especially when it's about things that are usually, for a long time, have been a source of happiness and joy for me. But again, that's life.
I'll continue exploring the world of people and ideas with empathy and rigor, wearing my heart on my sleeve as much as I can. For me, that's the only way to live. Anyway, a common attack on me is about my time at MIT and Drexel, two great universities I love and have tremendous respect for. Since a bunch of lies have accumulated online about me on these topics to a sad and at times hilarious degree, I thought I would once more state the obvious facts about my bio for the small number of you who may care. TLGR, two things.
First, as I say often, including in a recent podcast episode that somehow was listened to by many millions of people, I proudly went to Drexel University for my bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees. Second, I am a research scientist at MIT and have been there in a paid research position for the last ten years. Allow me to elaborate a bit more on these two things now, but please skip if this is not at all interesting. So like I said, a common attack on me is that I have no real affiliation with MIT. The accusation, I guess, is that I'm falsely claiming an MIT affiliation because I taught a lecture there once.
Nope. That accusation against me is a complete lie. I have been at MIT for over ten years in a paid research position from 2015 to today. To be extra clear, I'm a research scientist at MIT working in LIDS, the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems in the College of Computing. For now, since I'm still at MIT, you can see me in the directory and on the various lab pages.
I have indeed given many lectures at MIT over the years, a small fraction of which I posted online. Teaching for me always has been just for fun and not part of my research work. I personally think I suck at it, but I have always learned and grown from the experience. It's like Feynman spoke about, if you want to understand something deeply, it's good to try to teach it. But like I said, my main focus has always been on research.
I published many peer reviewed papers that you can see in my Google Scholar profile. For my first four years at MIT, I worked extremely intensively. Most weeks were eighty to a hundred hour work weeks. After that, in 2019, I still kept my research scientist position, but I split my time taking a leap to pursue projects in AI and robotics outside MIT and to dedicate a lot of focus to the podcast. As I've said, I've been continuously surprised just how many hours preparing for an episode takes.
There are many episodes of the podcast for which I have to read, write, and think for a hundred, two hundred, or more hours across multiple weeks and months. Since 2020, I have not actively published research papers. Just like the podcast, I think it's something that's a serious full time effort. But not publishing and doing full time research has been eating at me because I love research and I love programming and building systems that test out interesting technical ideas, especially in the context of human AI or human robot interaction. I hope to change this in the coming months and years.
What I've come to realize about myself is if I don't publish or if I don't launch systems that people use, I definitely feel like a piece of me is missing. It legitimately is a source of happiness for me. Anyway, I'm proud of my time at MIT. I was and am constantly surrounded by people much smarter than me, many of whom have become lifelong colleagues and friends. MIT is a place I go to escape the world, to focus on exploring fascinating questions at the cutting edge of science and engineering.
This again makes me truly happy, and it does hit pretty hard on a psychological level when I'm getting attacked over this. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong. If I am, I will try to do better. In all this discussion of academic work, I hope you know that I don't ever mean to say that I'm an expert at anything. In the podcast and in my private life, I don't claim to be smart.
In fact, I often call myself an idiot and mean it. I try to make fun of myself as much as possible, and in general to celebrate others instead. Now to talk about Drexel University, which I also love, am proud of, and am deeply grateful for my time there. As I said, I went to Drexel for my bachelor's, master's, and doctor degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. I've talked about Drexel many times, including, as I mentioned, at the end of a recent podcast, the Donald Trump episode, funny enough, that was listened to by many millions of people, where I answered a question about graduate school and explained my own journey at Drexel and how grateful I am for it.
If it's at all interesting to you, please go listen to the end of that episode or watch the related clip. At Drexel, I met and worked with many brilliant researchers and mentors from whom I've learned a lot about engineering, science, and life. There are many valuable things I gained from my time at Drexel. First, I took a large number of very difficult math and theoretical computer science courses. They taught me how to think deeply and rigorously, and also how to work hard and not give up even if it feels like I'm too dumb to find a solution to a technical problem.
Second, I programmed a lot during that time, mostly c, c plus plus. I programmed robots, optimization algorithms, computer vision systems, wireless network protocols, multimodal machine learning systems, and all kinds of simulations of physical systems. This is where I really develop a love for programming, including, yes, Emacs, and the Kinesis keyboard. I also during that time read a lot. I played a lot of guitar, wrote a lot of crappy poetry, and trained a lot of in judo and jujitsu, which I cannot sing enough praises to.
Jujitsu humbled me on a daily basis throughout my twenties, and it still does to this very day whenever I get a chance to train. Anyway, I hope that the folks who occasionally get swept up in the chanting online crowds that want to tear down others don't lose themselves in it too much. In the end, I still think there's more good than bad in people, but we're all, each of us, a mixed bag. I know I am very much flawed. I speak awkwardly.
I sometimes say stupid shit. I can get irrationally emotional. I can be too much of a dick when I should be kind. I can lose myself in a biased rabbit hole before I wake up to the bigger, more accurate picture of reality. I'm human and so are you, for better or for worse.
And I do still believe we're in this whole beautiful mess together. I love you all.
reSee.it AI Summary
I had an intense conversation with Douglas Murray covering a range of topics including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Israel-Palestine situation, and key figures like Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Netanyahu, and Hamas. We discussed the implications of war, peace prospects, and issues of corruption and hate. The full conversation is available on X and other platforms, with timestamps highlighting key segments from the war in Ukraine to insights on interviewing.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with @DouglasKMurray about Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Netanyahu, Hamas, and Gaza. This was an intense conversation. It's here on X in full and up everywhere else too (see comment). Timestamps: 0:00 - Episode highlight 0:24 - Introduction 2:38 - War in Ukraine 6:24 - Trump and Zelenskyy 20:54 - Putin 41:47 - Peace 52:32 - Zelenskyy 1:06:17 - Israel-Palestine 1:17:04 - Hamas 1:31:37 - Corruption 1:34:47 - Gaza 1:55:25 - Benjamin Netanyahu 2:12:36 - Hate 2:37:06 - Iran 2:47:55 - Interview advice 3:02:19 - War
Video Transcript AI Summary
Douglas Murray discusses the war in Ukraine, highlighting the unwavering spirit of frontline troops and the stark contrast between their dedication and the media's political noise. He recounts visits to Ukraine, including witnessing the Trump-Zelensky blowup from a dugout. Murray notes a shift in soldier morale, from initial optimism to exhaustion. He criticizes the West's interpretation of the war and expresses concern over potential peace deals that might cede Ukrainian territory.
Turning to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Murray details the October 7th attack and Hamas's ideology, emphasizing their aim to destroy Israel. He addresses the complexities of Israel's response, the corruption within Hamas, and the indoctrination of Gazan children. Murray explores the roots of antisemitism and the psychological projection at play in criticisms of Israel. He defends Netanyahu's leadership while acknowledging the world's hatred for him. He also touches on Iran's role in the conflict and the challenges of interviewing world leaders. Despite the darkness he has witnessed, Murray finds hope in smart young people and the clarity that war brings to life.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: They end up chanting in front of him, long live death. They have their counterparts today. They are the people who's who taunt Americans, Westerners, Israelis, and others with lines like, we love death more than you love life.
Speaker 1: The following is a conversation with Douglas Murray, author of The War in the West, The Madness of Crowds, and his new book on democracies and death cults. We talk about Russia and Ukraine and about Israel and Gaza. Douglas has very strong views on these topics, and he defends them brilliantly and fearlessly. As I always try to do for all topics, I will also talk to people who have different views from Douglas, including on the next episode of this podcast. We live in an era of online discourse where grifters, drama farmers, liars, bots, sycophants, and sociopaths roam the vast beautiful dark land of the Internet.
It's hard to know who to trust. I believe no one is in possession of the entire truth, but some are more correct than others. Some are insightful and some are delusional. The problem is it's hard to tell which is which, unless you use your mind with intellectual humility and with rigor. I recommend you listen to many sources who disagree with each other and try to pick up wisdom from each.
Also, I recommend you visit the places in question as Douglas has, as I have, or at least talk face to face with people who have spent most of their lives living there, whether it's Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, or Russia. Let's try together to not be cogs in the machine of outrage, and instead to reach towards reason and compassion. There is no Hitler, Stalin, or Mao on the world stage today, plus there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to fire. Human civilization hangs in the balance. The twenty first century is a new geopolitical puzzle all of us are tasked with solving.
Let's not mess it up. This is a podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Douglas Murray. What have you understood about the war in Ukraine from your visits there?
Just looking at the big picture of your understanding of the invasion of February '20 fourth '20 '20 '2 and the war in the three years since.
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, several things. There's political angles which are forever changing, but on the human level, as as you know, if you visit troops, frontline troops, you have that admiration for people defending their country, defending their homes, defending their families. I'm struck by the way in which that is at a remove from the sort of political noise and the media noise and and much more. It's very easy to get caught up in the to's and fro's of today's news, but, that, to my mind, is is that's the single thing that struck me most in my visits there, is just, the the people I've met who who are fighting for a cause which at that level is unavoidable, undeniable.
Speaker 1: So the thing that struck you that's different from the the media turmoil is just the reality of war.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Of course. I mean, you know, people who have either lived under Russian occupation from invading armies and then come back out into the world having been liberated as in late twenty twenty two, All the people now organized most recently there in recent weeks who were just getting on with their job as soldiers whilst the world was talking about them.
Speaker 1: When were you there in early on in this escalated war of twenty two?
Speaker 0: Yes. First time was in I was with the the Ukrainian Armed Forces when they retook Kherson, and I was back in recent weeks and was there when the Trump Zelensky blowup happened. In fact, was with a I was in a Ukrainian dugout at the front lines when I was watching it.
Speaker 1: How's the morale? How's the way the content of the conversations you've heard different on the from the two visits separated by, I guess, two years?
Speaker 0: One level I mean, nothing has changed much. You know? You know? It's a sort of it it's not a total standoff because intermittently, each side gains territory from the others, but it's it's not I mean, there'd been no very significant military gains by either side in the interim period.
Speaker 1: I think my experience of the the soldiers, the people of Ukraine early on in the war, there's a intense optimism about the outcomes of the war. There's a sense that they're going to win. Yeah. And the definition of what win means was like, all the territory is going to be won back.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I I certainly on the front lines facing Crimea was became quite familiar with people who thought that the Ukrainians in late twenty twenty two would even be able to get Crimea back, and that struck me even at the time. And I said, I I thought that that was an overreach.
Speaker 1: And now, I think the people, the soldiers, at least in my experience when I visited second time, are more exhausted. The morale Mhmm. The dreams, the certainty of victory has has maybe faded from the forefront of their minds.
Speaker 0: Well, three years of war will tire out anyone.
Speaker 1: What did you think of the blow up between Zelensky and Trump as you're sitting there in the dugout?
Speaker 0: Well, it is it was a very, disturbing place to watch it from, perhaps anywhere would have been. And, I mean, obviously, it was a meeting that shouldn't have happened. It was far too early.
Speaker 1: Why do you think so? There's not enough actual pathways to peace on the table?
Speaker 0: Well, I think the mineral deal I mean, I love the fact that everyone's now an expert in Eastern Ukrainian mineral deposits.
Speaker 1: But I think, as I've learned, and we'll talk about Israel and Palestine, I'm learning that everybody's an expert on geopolitics and history of war on the Internet.
Speaker 0: And now mineral deposits, obviously. Yes. The I'm really speaking at the edge of my mineral deposit knowledge here. But no. I mean, I I if what I could see the deal that that, the American administration was trying to, get the Ukrainian government to sign was sort of too early to, to force Ukrainians weren't were ready to sign a deal, but were obviously under intense pressure.
And I think certainly Zelensky wasn't expecting to actually wasn't expecting to go until pretty much the day before, was obviously visibly tired and exhausted again as you are after that amount of pressure for that long time. And no. I mean, the thing that struck me, and I I said this in my column in your post from there that the thing that struck me was I said to some of the soldiers I was with, you know, what do you make of this? And, you know, one of them just said to me, well, you know, we're advised not to get follow too closely the ins and outs of the politics of this, you know. And but of course, everyone has Instagram or scrolls and among dog pictures and the, you know, the hot women or whatever is, you know, what happened in the oval.
And but what struck me was this same guy and saying, I've got a job to do.
Speaker 1: Right. And there's a clarity and a wisdom to that. But your job is is is bigger than that. Right? Just to understand the politics as well.
And what do you think about the politics of that moment? Because that was a real opportunity to come together and and make progress on peace. Right? And it from by all accounts, was not a successful step forward.
Speaker 0: I don't think by any account it was a successful step forward unless to some extent it was a play, but from DC to say to Putin, look. We've daft off Zelensky and, you know, now give us something. That's the only, remedial idea I have about what might have been behind it. But I think it was just one of those extremely, I mean, just awful political moments. Zelensky was obviously deeply irritated by the the the interpretation of the war that he was hearing from Washington.
It was only a week after the Trump comments about Zelensky being a dictator, and people in the administration implying that Ukraine has started the war. And I think that's that must be for Zelenskyy, a pretty Alice in Wonderland situation to be in. And, I had significant sympathy for him in finding it bewildering because it would be bewildering.
Speaker 1: I think the sad thing to me also on the mundane details of that meeting and just the unfortunate way that meetings happen, I think it's true that he was also exhausted. Yes. There was a dickhead of a of a reporter that was asked a question about outfit in a way that listen, Zelensky, everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. He's an emotional being for better or for worse. And there's a dumb dickhead of a reporter Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend.
Speaker 0: Oh, right. He is. Yeah. Yeah. The things you know.
See, you're a real journalist. He's he's from one of the the new I'm all for opening up the White House press pool and all that sort of thing, but it means that you get some people in who are sort of yeah. From a blog land, there's there's nothing wrong with that, but it it means that you get somebody who will do something like that. The problem with that interaction as I saw it was the that guy asked that, well, disrespectful question. And I I think it was disrespectful.
I'll I'll give I'll very quickly say why. I mean, I think that I think that when a man comes from the realm of war into the realm of peace, the people in the realm of peace should have some respect or at least concession that the the other man has come from the realm of war. And that if you're sitting in a political environment where you talk about people being destroyed and decimated and defenestrated and much more to a man who's for whom none of that is metaphorical. I think that's extremely hard to to accept. And I think that probably also at that moment, there was a sort of sense of, you know, Zelensky is being disrespected by being asked about what he's wearing.
When, as everyone knows, you know, Churchill during World War two used to wear his fatigues on foreign it's just that, it's to remind people you're coming from the realm of war. And I think that probably in that in that moment, one of the things that would have been going through is Edward Bee. But I mean, if if if this was Putin sitting here being assaulted by a journalist, you know, you'd you'd hope hope your host stepped in and defended you. I mean, if let me try this one out. Mean, if if a journalist in the Oval Office, if Putin was sitting there or a putative journalist said to Putin, you know, everyone knows you've had a lot of facial work done.
And, word is you've used the same guy that Berlusconi used to use. Can you comment on on that? You you'd you'd you'd say, well, that's a kind of disrespectful question for journalists to ask, and it's a little bit, off off what needs to be gone over. And this is the same thing with Zelensky with the outfit. I think it was just petty and and and threw things off in a
Speaker 1: bad way. Yeah. And it was probably researched because I think Zelensky was explained this, like, three years ago at the beginning of the war why he wears what he wears, and he's been consistent wearing the same
Speaker 0: It's also, by the way, it's it's an example of the frivolity of a lot of the of the attempts to attempts to understand what's going on. I mean, my view is that is that since actually most people in fact, everybody cannot be an expert on everything. One of the things that we always do is to seize on minor and really quite unimportant things. I mean, for I mean, every side does it. Look at the way in which the American right for years talked about the Churchill bust leaving the White House Oval Office in the Obama years.
I I didn't want to hear another darn thing about the Churchill bust after eight years because it just it was in lieu of trying to understand and actually critique Obama's foreign policy. It was just the easy shorthand. I think it's the same. We're we're we're always tempted to that.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, I think you mentioned Putin. I think Putin would have been able to respond himself to that journalist effectively, and he would have done it in Russian.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. The language thing was
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I wanted to sort of lay out several just unfortunate things that happen in these situations, and I think it happens in all peace negotiations, and it's funny how history can turn in moments like this. I do think there's a dickhead reporter, combined with the fact that the you know, with all due respect, but Zelensky's English sometimes is not very good.
Speaker 0: Yes. And apart from anything else, if he had agreed to have not done it in English, he would have bought himself the extra seconds in some of his replies that he needed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And have the wit the guy is funny, witty, intelligent. You know, he could do that in the native language of whether it's Ukrainian or Russian to be able to respond and get the interpreter. So all of that is really unfortunate because I think on those little moments, it's it's a dance, and there's an opportunity there. You know, the Republicans, the the right wing in The United States have a general kinda skepticism of Zelensky, and and but that doesn't mean it has to be that way.
It can turn. It can change. It can evolve. It's very
Speaker 0: interesting why it has happened. Why do you think it's happened?
Speaker 1: I the politics in The United States is so dumb that at the very beginning, it could just be reduced to, well, the left went Putin bad, Zelensky good, rah rah, Ukrainian flags. Therefore, the right must go the opposite. Yeah. That's right. Literally as dumb as that.
Let's each pick a side and call the others dumb.
Speaker 0: I I had a a line I used recently with the necessity of people who live too long online to try to wade their way out of the memes. It is so like that, isn't it? Because, yes, I mean, I can understand the people who find it very irritating that so many people who would put BLM flags or pride flags or, you know, trans flags in their bio then put Ukrainian flags in their bio despite almost certainly not knowing where Ukraine was. And, if that happens, inevitable instinct of a lot of people who aren't really thinking is to say, that's really annoying. These people are really annoying.
I'll socket to them. But that's where you've got to try to rise above that and say, actually, funnily enough, fate of a country doesn't depend on my tolerance for memes online today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think the memes can be broken through in meetings like the one that happened between Zelensky and Trump. There could have been real camaraderie. I've seen the skill of that just recently having researched deeply and interacted with Narendra Modi. Here's somebody who has the skill of, you know, for his country, for his situation, being able to somehow be friends with Putin Mhmm.
And friends with Zelensky, and friends with Trump, and friends with Biden, and friends with Obama. That's very skillful. And that, while still being strong for his country and Mhmm. Like, fundamentally a a nationalist figure Mhmm. Who's like, you know, very not globalist, not anything but pro India, India First, nation first.
In fact, nation first with a very specific idea what that nation represents. Cool. And that, you know, Zelensky could do all of those things, but have the skill of navigating the Trump room. Because every single leader has their own peculiar quirks that need to be navigated.
Speaker 0: Yes. The obvious one. I mean, I don't wanna make it sound like it was Zelenskyy's fault, but I mean, the obvious one was at the beginning of the meeting to say yet again, as he has done for three years, thank you to America and the American people and American politicians across the aisle for your support for my country in its hour of need. We're deeply grateful. And because he, for once, forgot
Speaker 1: to say that. I I think it's not that simple. I think there's a
Speaker 0: It's not that simple. It's one reason.
Speaker 1: I think saying thank you, he didn't need to say thank you. There is
Speaker 0: Well, that that was why Vance that was what Vance leapt in on.
Speaker 1: He he's just picking a thing to leap on. There's a whole energy. You have to acknowledge in your way of being that you have been very Biden buddy buddy with the left for the last four years. There's ways to fix that. Listen.
These people are complicated narcissists, all of them, Biden, Trump. You have to navigate the complexity of that. Mhmm. And you basically have to say a kind word to Trump, which is, like, showing there's many ways of doing that, but one of them is saying feeding the ego by acknowledging that he is one of the world's greatest negotiators. Right?
Mhmm. I'm I'm glad we're able to come to the table and negotiate together Mhmm. Because I believe you are the great negotiator, mediator that can actually bring a successful resolution to, like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
As opposed to have an energy of, like, it should be obvious to everybody that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia is the bad guys. There's this whole energy of entitlement that he brought. He forgot that there's a new guy. You gotta, like, convince the new guy that this global mission that this nation is on, this war that is in in many ways the West versus the East, that this there's ideals, there's whole histories here that this is a war worth winning. You have
Speaker 0: to convince them. Right? Yeah. No. Sure.
And they obviously failed on that occasion. But as I say, it must be bewildering to have landed in a place where people were seriously talking about Ukraine starting the war Right. And Zelensky not Putin being the dictator. I I I did the front page of the New York Post the day after the president's comments on that saying that, the big picture of Putin just saying, right, this is this is a dictator. And, know, I think that people can be live enough to be able to recognize that, you know, you can make criticisms of Zelensky or the Ukrainians, but it doesn't mean you have to fall full Putin.
And, again, unfortunately, a lot of people in our time don't have that capability.
Speaker 1: Can we go right into it? What is your strongest criticism of Putin?
Speaker 0: He's a dictator who's very bloody, as repressive as you can be of political opposition, internal opposition. He's kleptomaniac of his country's resources, has enriched himself as much as he could as he has with the cronies around him. He's not just acted to, destroy internal opposition in Russia, but has gone to other countries, including my own country of birth, and, killed people on their our soil using, as it happens, weapons of mass destruction. The use of polonium in the center of London, not good. The use of incredibly dangerous nerve agents that could kill tens of thousands of people in a charming cathedral city like Salisbury, not good.
If the sort of apologist of Putin would say, well, he's just a sort of tough man who's looking after his house business, it's like, well, I don't think even if you think he has the right to do that, that he should be doing it in third countries deliberately using weapons that are meant to show that you could take out tens of thousands of British citizens. Yeah. I mean, that's just for starters. What do you
Speaker 1: make for do you think he's actually popularly elected? No. Do you think the the results of the elections are fraudulent? Yes.
Speaker 0: I mean Do you think
Speaker 1: it's possible that it's just that the opposition has been eliminated and he's legitimately popularly elected.
Speaker 0: It definitely helps a chap if he's killed all
Speaker 1: of his opponents. Something about using the term chap in that context is just marvelous.
Speaker 0: But, you know, I know. I mean, seriously, you you if if if people are worried about this is another of the sort of slightly Alice in Wonderland things recently about Zelensky is people are saying, why why hasn't he's a dictator because he hasn't held elections during a total war of self defense. And it's like, well, you know, if you're really, really passionate about free and fair elections in that neck of the woods, you'd at least notice that that that Russian elections are not free and fair in any meaningful sense. But this doesn't mean that you have to say that, therefore, they should have Western style elections and and and freedom that Russia is is ready to go and become a Western liberal democracy. It doesn't mean any of that at all.
It's just at at least note that this is what Putin is.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the motivation for his invasion of Ukraine in '22?
Speaker 0: It's it's what he said for years, which is, the basic the reconstitution of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's empire building components to that motivation?
Speaker 0: I would trust most of my friends in Eastern Central Europe who certainly do think that. There's a reason why the Baltic countries are the countries that are spending highest in percentage of GDP on defense, and it's because they're very worried. I I I don't think they're faking it. I don't think they're faking it for me or for anyone else. I think the Lithuanians, Latvians, the Estonians, and others are genuinely worried for the first time in some decades.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a possibility that the war continues indefinitely? Even if there's a ceasefire and the peace reached, the war will resume. Yeah. He will seek expansion even beyond Ukraine?
Speaker 0: Yes. And the most obvious thing is that if Trump manages to negotiate a ceasefire, it'll be a temporary pause. And whoever comes in as president after Trump, Putin will use the opportunity to advance again. Yes. Again, one of the things that I have heard from parts of the American right now is that all he wants is Ukraine.
That that's all he wants, and that he has no history or of rhetoric or actions that suggest anything else. And, again, it's one of the reasons why it's useful traveling to places and seeing things with your own eyes because I very much remember being in the country of Georgia after Putin tried to invade in 02/2008. So I just again, people don't have to be the greatest supporters of the Ukrainian cause just to recognize that that it doesn't seem to be the case, that that Ukraine is the only thing in Putin's vision.
Speaker 1: Do you see value and, maybe depth and power to the realist perspective of all this? You know, somebody like, John Mearsheimer's formulation of all this, that in these invasions of Georgia, of Ukraine, it's using military power to expand the sphere of influence Mhmm. In the region in a cold calculation of geopolitics.
Speaker 0: It's interesting. One of the one of the fascinating things about the last few years is there's been an act of sort of necromancy of certain figures who were totally, totally debunked, in the area of Ukraine, Mershima, and in the case of Israel, people like Finkelstein. And it's been interesting because these are people that one hadn't heard of for some years because they were not listened to for usually for good reason. But by the way, first of all, I'm very skeptical of the term realist in foreign policy because most people, to some extent, will say that they are a realist in foreign policy. Very few people are surrealists in foreign policy.
Very few people are unrealists. I would like to meet them. A surrealist foreign policy analyst.
Speaker 1: We did mention Alice in Wonderland, so Yeah.
Speaker 0: I mean, maybe we should introduce the term. But, I mean, if you wanna say if you want to look gimlet out eyed out across the world, you you you're you're a realist. I think the steel man of their argument would be Russia has or believes it has a sphere of influence and it is regrettable, but there's very little we can do about that. That would be about the best version of that argument that you can make.
Speaker 1: Well, to expand on that steel man, isn't this how superpowers operate in the dark realist slash surrealist way? Meaning, The United States uses military power to have a sphere influence over the whole globe, really. China appears to be willing to use military power to expand its sphere of influence.
Speaker 0: And political power. Yeah. More importantly, in the case of China. Political power. Nonkinetic warfare to take over areas, Hong Kong being the obvious one.
Speaker 1: Behind that, isn't there always a kinetic threat?
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. I mean, you disappear some booksellers and and students who are protesting, of course. I just but but to go back to this, yeah, of course.
Okay. Countries believe they have or or would like to have spheres of influence. I do think at some point that the so called realists on that have to try to decide how much leeway that allows you to give to a fairly rapacious regime. And it's not I mean, it's it's not the easiest calculation always to make. You have to work out whether or not, for instance, it is true that if if Russia had if Putin had managed to go all the way to Kyiv in the first weeks of the war in '22, he would have gone straight on to other places.
And, you know, maybe he would have done. Maybe he would have taken his time. Maybe he wouldn't have done. And this is a very fine calculation that changes every week, let alone every year. You know, my friends in Georgia, thought, were wildly off the mark when they were believing that after 02/2008, they could get, for instance, either NATO membership or EU membership.
And I thought I thought that was completely unlikely, and I still think it's unlikely and almost certainly undesirable for Europe and for NATO because you you've got to be very careful as and, obviously, this is one of the issues with Ukraine and has been since the nineties is, you know, are you gonna set up a tripwire to start World War three? And that's not a small thing to consider.
Speaker 1: So what do you think the peace deal might look like? And what what does the path to peace look like in Ukraine in in the coming weeks and months? I just thought it would be
Speaker 0: regrettably the Ukrainians seeding some territory in the East, and then making sure they rearm during whatever peace period comes afterwards.
Speaker 1: And probably all four territories of Dinesh Luhansk separation in Kherson.
Speaker 0: You couldn't lay any of that out because it has to be negotiated on. But I I mean, I think that and I think the ease with which non Ukrainians are currently speaking about the Ukrainian seeding territory is is concerning because these territories include hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens who do not want to live under Putin's rule and people who have families in the rest of Ukraine and and and much more. And, you know, I I recently interviewed children who had managed to get out of the Russian occupied areas. And, it's it's it's brutal for the Ukrainian to be growing up in that territory. So I when people say, well, obviously, you know, Donetsk has to be given to Putin, I I think that that is not as easier a a thing if you're in Ukraine as it is if you're sitting in New York, say.
And by the way, I think that on the issue of there is a school of thought that that is that obviously president Trump to some extent was was floating in recent weeks, which is that if if a deal is done, a business deal relation to minerals or anything else, you get this great you get a kind of buffer zone of American businesses and investment, and therefore, American business people in the region, which would effectively warn Putin not to invade. I don't follow that idea because not least there were Americans in the regions that were invaded in '22, and they left fast. And we know from Hong Kong and other places just because there are international financial interests in the region does not mean that the dictatorship will not either, militarily or covertly take over. I I don't I don't see American miners as being an effective buffer zone against Putin.
Speaker 1: By the way, what did you learn from talking to the children, Ukrainian children from those regions?
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, it's it's it's heartbreaking because the only schooling is Russian schooling. Obviously, teaching the Russian language, Putin's view of history, and effectively indoctrination, And and people can quibble with that term, but it's indoctrination schools. And any children or families that do not want that effectively have to hide and not go out. And there were I spoke to children and parents who'd had school friends who, for instance, the Russians set up in 2223 summer camps for the children of some of the areas that have been occupied, and the children went off to the camps, and then they didn't come back. But they were just stolen.
I mean, it's thought that around 20,000 Ukrainian children have been stolen in this fashion. That's not a small thing. It's not got very much attention, but, yes, I mean, children who would hide whenever the Russian troops came to the door. One teenage boy who described to me how when his mother was out, a woman came around the house, knocked on the door, and gave him his papers and said that he had to attend the next week to sign up for the Russian army. This is I mean, this is this is this is not good, and that's obviously what life is like for thousands of people behind the Russian lines in Ukraine.
I just I just have it in mind when people say things like, you know, well, obviously, these regions have to be handed over. It's not it's it's very, very hard if you're Ukrainian to concede to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And even if they are as part of the negotiation to hand it over, I think it'll probably be generations or never that that could be accepted
Speaker 0: by Ukrainian people. Absolutely. And I would have thought never.
Speaker 1: What do we know about this kidnapping of children? The stories of the thousands of children that the the Russian forces kidnapped.
Speaker 0: Some of them were in orphanages in Eastern Ukraine, not all by any means, but some were. And it's a very complicated story actually because many children were taken from their families. Many the Russians said, well, look at these Ukrainians. They don't even look after their children. Therefore, we will look after them.
And I was I was recently, when I was there looking into this story because it's it's a very interesting question as to why it hasn't had more attention. You know, one thinks of, for instance, the abduction of the Chibok school girls some twelve years ago now in Northern Nigeria, and that appalling abduction of 300 girls by Boko Haram completely gained the world's attention. And I was very interested into why the Ukrainian children who'd been taken by the Russians have not gained similar attention. There's a slight similarity with the war in Israel, which I'm sure we'll come on to. But, I do think that one reason is that they were effectively hostages, and the Ukrainians knew this is this is my estimation of the is Ukrainians knew that if they made a great deal about this, was it worth more than they did, that the the the children would effectively be the most effective bargaining chip.
And I do think there's considerable truth in that because if you look at, for instance, the way in which pressure has been put on the Israeli government by the Israeli population about the kidnapped Israelis, you'll see that it it's it's a pretty effective tactic for, any, retaliatory regime or terrorist group to operate in a way that means that the population of the country you're attacking pressure their government to do something in terms of concession. It's it's a it's a very effective tool. And I think that story was partly played down not just outside of Ukraine, but also within Ukraine partly for that reason.
Speaker 1: As a truth seeker, as a journalist, how do you operate in that world where, at least to me, it's obvious that there's just a flood of propaganda on both sides? Now, of course, when you go there and directly experience it and talk to people, but those people are still also swimming in the propaganda. So unless you witness stuff directly, sometimes it's hard to know. Like, I speak to people on the Russian side, and there's they're clearly first of all, hilariously enough, they almost always say there's that there's no propaganda in Russia.
Speaker 0: Of
Speaker 1: course. Which makes me realize, I mean, you you can be completely lied to. Maybe I am in The United States as well, and just be unaware. Maybe Earth is run by aliens. Maybe Earth is flat.
So I don't know.
Speaker 0: Maybe you've taken mushrooms.
Speaker 1: I have before this, and I finally see the truth. And it's you that are deluded, Douglas. Mhmm. Okay. But back to the our round earth discussion, round earth shills that we are.
How do you know what is true?
Speaker 0: You you can tell it when the bare facts become not true. Like, you can tell it when somebody is willing to claim that everything caused the invasion of twenty twenty two except for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a there's a hilarious thing that happens, and I think you've actually speak about this, that, people are generally just much more willing to criticize the democratically elected leader.
Speaker 0: Always. Always. So
Speaker 1: the interesting thing that happens is these wise sages that do the narratives of, like, NATO started the war. Mhmm. Right? Which there is some interesting geopolitical depth Sure. And truth to that, like, that NATO expansion created a complicated geopolitical concept, whatever.
For sure. But they forget to say, like, other parts of that story.
Speaker 0: Well, yes. Of course. I mean and I mean, course, to some extent, it's it's rather, you know, there's a there's a very the most irritating type of question asker at any event is the person who says, I was disappointed that in your thirty minute talk, you didn't address x. And I tend to say, we're looking forward to coming to your next talk where in thirty minutes, you'll cover everything that could possibly be covered. There's always stuff that's gonna be left on the sides.
There's always gonna be stuff that's left unaddressed. There's always gonna be other angles. There's always gonna be somebody else who who who who has this interesting perspective, and you can't cover it. Nevertheless, if you cover everything other than the central things, then it's suspicious. Many years ago, I was at a debate in London of and there was a debate about the origins of World War two.
And Pat Buchanan, talking of necromancy, was one of the the the the speakers. And Andrew Roberts, historian, was one of people on the other side. And at one point, you know, they got so completely stuck into issues of iron ore mining in Poland in the mid you know, something like this. And the moderator, I remember, it was just it was just a melee. And the moderator turns to Andrew Roberts and says, Andrew Roberts, why did World War two begin?
And he says, World War two began because Hitler invaded Poland. And it was a magnificent moment because everything had been a march. They were just so lost in all the intricate and clever and interesting things that you can talk about about the origins of a war that you've you you forget to mention the thing that's most important. And certainly, my experience as a journalist and writer is that one of the reasons why you need to go and see things with your own eyes is because people are certain to tell you that what you've seen with your own eyes didn't happen or hasn't happened, and it helps to steal you Yeah. For that moment.
Speaker 1: It's a gradual thing that happens where the obvious thing starts being taken for granted, and people stop saying it because it's like the boring thing to say at a And then all of a sudden, over time, you just almost start questioning whether whether, you know, like, the obvious thing is even true. I don't know what that how that happened in psychology.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think it does. I I I think it does. I've observed it in a lot of different places, which is the important thing is the only thing you do forget. Everything else is what you remember.
And some of us are, for some reason, wired in a way where we we don't we try not to forget the important thing.
Speaker 1: Remember the obvious thing. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Yes. And as you say, no. I'm not wanting to be the boring guy at the party who reiterates what is true, because what a douchebag you'd be if
Speaker 1: you were that guy. Nobody likes Captain Obvious at a party. Okay. Is it possible that Donald Trump is a mediator, a successful negotiator that brings a stable peace to Ukraine? It's possible.
Speaker 0: We'll have to see. I think it's just too early and complicated to tell. That he wants to bring a piece seems to me to be obvious. He stated it a lot of times. Whether he can, we're just gonna have to see.
It's extremely hard to see some of the parameters of the piece still. And I would suggest that the most one not the the most difficult, but one of the most difficult is that there is no peace guarantee on paper that the Ukrainians can possibly believe. I just it doesn't matter because we've we've we in the West we some of the countries in the West have said it before that we'd secure their their peace, and we haven't. And so what other than NATO membership, which is not possible in my view, what other than NATO membership would reassure the Ukrainians that they are going to have their borders secured and the peace of Ukraine secured, I I can't see.
Speaker 1: I think there's not gonna be ever a guarantee that you can trust. I think the way you have a guarantee implicit guarantee is by having military and economic partnerships with as many partners as possible. So you have partnerships with The Middle East, you have partnerships with India, perhaps even with China, with The United States, with many nations in Europe.
Speaker 0: All of which still suggests that if there's enough financial interests in Ukraine, they would prevent another Russian invasion.
Speaker 1: There would be financial pressure. Yeah. There would be, you know, Russia needs to be friends with somebody, either China or the West. I I think a world that's flourishing would have Russia trading and being friends with the West and the East.
Speaker 0: So it'd be ideal. It'd be ideal if if if they if the regime and Moscow wanted it, but that's that not I mean, there again, you get into the thing of, you know, people accused of Russophobia. But, I mean, the I I do believe that after the fall of the wall, Russia was ill treated by the West, not treated with the, some of the courtesy that it required. I do think that. And at the same time, that doesn't justify, the actions of Russia in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: Right. But let's descend from the surrealist to the realist. It's very possible for Russia to be on the verge of military invasion of these nations
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And that being wrong, while also not doing it because they're afraid to hurt the partnerships with the West and with China. It's possible, but the alliance they formed
Speaker 0: was this sort of rogue alliance with China to a considerable extent. North Korea, not useful, and Iran is something they seem to find bearable. It's not a very it's not a very good alliance in most people's analysis, but it's an alliance. It's bearable, but
Speaker 1: I don't think maybe you disagree with this. I don't think the Russian people or even Putin wants to be isolated from the West. I think he wants to be friends with the West and with the East and with everybody. He just also wants Ukraine. Right?
And there's how does the Rolling Stones song go? Which one? Not the satisfaction one. Sympathy with the devil? That's the one.
You got me on that one. No. Like, there there's interests, and whether it's expanding the sphere of influence, that's one thing on the table. But that can be put aside if you want to maintain the partnerships with these nations, and if Ukraine has strong economic partnerships with those nations, then that prevents Russia from invading.
Speaker 0: I think the premise is one that I've seen before. There was a famous what was his name? Norman Engle. He wrote this book. Was a fantastic bestseller in his day, where he believed that Europe would be in a period of endless Kantian peace because the prospect of European powers going to war was so economically unviable.
The book was reissued after World War one, and I never got the second edition. But I assume it was significantly rewritten.
Speaker 1: That's a very kinda cynical take that just because the book is wrong
Speaker 0: I'm not saying just the book is wrong. I'm saying that the the the idea that that cooperation on an economic and other levels is any significant preventative device to madness breaking out is is not something I see could deter some people. Right. It could deter some very, very rational economically driven actors, but it it fails to take into account all of the other things that motivate people to go to war and to invade and to go mad.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, I would argue that in the twenty first century, one of the reasons we have much fewer wars is because of the Well much more well, so there's a few tools here on this on the geopolitical stage. One of them is that you were just much more interconnected economically, globally interconnected, and that that is always a present pressure on the world to keep peace. There's a lot of money to be made from peace. There's also a lot of money to be made from war.
Mhmm. There's there's a lot of interest attention, and I I'm just presenting one of the tools that a leader should be using. The alternative is what? Military force? That is an interesting one, sometimes a useful one, but unfortunately, it has its downsides also.
And after three years of war Mhmm. And the hundreds of thousands dead, Mhmm. You have to start wondering what are the options on the table.
Speaker 0: I agree. I'm I'm obviously for economic cooperation, but my only caveat is not to think that that is something which is of ultimate interest or even at the top of the list of interests of despots, tyrants, extremists who want something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But can you read the mind of Vladimir Putin? No. A lot of the ideas I hear about peace is Putin bad, victory must be achieved, NATO membership required. Yeah.
There's this kind of like but what's the what's the you have to come to the table to to end the killing Mhmm. Is one, and to have different ideas of how to have a non zero chance of peace. That won't you know, the options are it seems to me the only option, not the only option, but the likeliest option is a lot of strong economic partnerships. There's, of course, other radical options. There's there's Russia joining NATO or something like this, or there's giving you know, doing flirting with World War three essentially, giving nukes to Ukraine or something like this.
There's, like, crazy stuff, or a totally new military alliance with France and and and Britain and Germany and European nations and Ukraine Mhmm. Or some weird network of Mhmm. Military power that threatens Russia in some way, or maybe some big breakthrough partnership between India, China, and Ukraine, something like this. Mhmm. Just some really out there ideas.
And I think that's how the world that that's how the world finds a balance and realigns itself in interesting ways.
Speaker 0: No. It could be. I I I I hope your I hope your idea is right. I think it's about the what's certainly the most peaceful way for this to be resolved. My only caveat, as I say, is and also never forget to factor in that people want different things in this world, and some people don't dream as you dream.
Speaker 1: I think we'll talk about that in your new book, Death Cults. That one is an easier one for me to understand to the story that you're describing. I am more hesitant to assign psychopathy to leaders of major nations.
Speaker 0: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm not by any means urging you to regard Vladimir Putin as a millenarian madman who cannot be in any way understood.
Speaker 1: I think he could be negotiated and reasoned with.
Speaker 0: From your lips to God's ears.
Speaker 1: Can you steal me on the case for and then against Zelenskyy as the right leader for Ukraine at this moment? Is he the right person to take it to the the the point of peace?
Speaker 0: We'll see. If if if if he can, then he then, of course, he is. You know, he deserves enormous respect for galvanizing his people, for being elected in the first place, for galvanizing his nation at a time of incredible peril, for playing the international game of getting support for his country well. And sometimes the person who does that, not there are many people like that, can be the person who also brings about a peace deal and sometimes not. I think
Speaker 1: there's a degree to which he may have seen too much suffering of the people, the land he loves to be able to sit down at a table with a world leader who did the destruction and to be able to That is very hard. Compromise on anything.
Speaker 0: That's that's possible. Again, it puts the onus on him, though. Sort of slightly presupposes that Putin doesn't have the same human instinct on that. It is extremely hard. I've noticed this in a lot of conflicts.
It's extremely hard the way in which outsiders come in and others who haven't seen what you've seen or gone through what you've gone through and say, you know, it's time to get around the negotiating table and just, you know, you think you didn't see what I saw or you didn't go through what I went through. Who are you to tell me? Goes back to that thing with the the visitor from the land of war and the visitor from the land of peace. The visitor from the land of peace can easily talk about getting around negotiating tables, But the visitor from the land of war has seen other things, and it's it's very hard for somebody who hasn't seen it to tell the person who has that they should act differently. And the sad thing
Speaker 1: about humanity is both the the person from the land of peace and the person from the land of war are right.
Speaker 0: Yes. That's a struggle. That's definitely a struggle. It's it's it's like asking somebody to forgive. I've seen that at a lot of ends of conflicts.
People saying that the important thing is that we forgive and move on. And then the other person says, you know, your child didn't die of shrapnel wounds. Yeah. This is you know, I got a lot
Speaker 1: of heat for an interview I did with Zelenskyy. By the way, people privately, the people that message me is is all love and support, and the people that disagree in Ukraine, Soldiers. People online are ruthless. They're misrepresenting me. They're lying.
Speaker 0: People online are ruthless and misrepresenting and lying? Yeah. Good god, Lex. You discovered a new phenomenon. I'm a real radical intellectual.
Speaker 1: Nothing misses your eye. I see the truth, and I'm unafraid to point it out. No. There's a degree this this idea that you need to compromise with the person, with the leader of a nation you're at war with, and in so doing, to some degree, are forgiving their actions. Because the actual feeling you have is you want it to be fair, and the definition of fair when you've seen that much suffering
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Is for him and everybody around him, and maybe even all of the people on the other side to just die because you've seen too much suffering. But the the other side of that is, yes, there's children that have died. But you go coming to the negotiation table
Speaker 0: other children from dying. Yes. Of course.
Speaker 1: And so, like, there is just you had this kind of way of speaking about it, embodying that perspective that that it's naive to say to come to the negotiation table. And it is for a person from the land of war, but the very smart, intelligent, and non naive person from the land of peace that is often right in some deep sense about the long arc of history, for them, it does it is the right thing to come to the negotiation table to end the more killing.
Speaker 0: The one thing I would add to that, though, is, you know, don't forget that it it also depends on whether or not there's a clear shot of winning. Sure. If there's a clear shot of winning, and that's the most important. The most important thing in wars is not final negotiations or anything like that. It's simply winning and losing.
And if you have a clear shot of winning and you can take it and you're near it, then having somebody else come in and saying, why not? Stop just before victory is is is very hard. That's one of the complex one of the many, many complexities of the conflict we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You know what's the the other big complexity of that? Because the clear shot of winning is like a a man walking through the desert seeing water. It could be during war, it really is an illusion. So here's what happens. The really complicated aspect of negotiation is in order to negotiate peace from a place of strength, you have to have victory in sight.
Yes. And so the temptation from that position is to nonnegotiate Mhmm. Is to keep pushing forward to achieve victory. And this, I would say, hindsight is twenty twenty, but this is the failure in twenty two and two occasions to achieve, to negotiate a ceasefire and peace. One, in the spring, because there was a Ukraine was in a real big, I would say, position of strength, have having fended off the Russian forces around Kyiv.
That's one. And then, as you mentioned, in the fall of twenty two, with with Kherson and Kharkiv, had a lot of military success. They were in a place of strength. Mhmm. And from that place, they've decided to keep going because victory was in sight.
But that was also an opportunity to make peace.
Speaker 0: It's perfectly possible. Yes. That's the hard thing. It's very hard. It's it's all hard.
But I'm just again, it's victory can be won in wars and is often won in wars. And you're right. They can also grind on because nobody has the capability to make a breakthrough. It's the case I mean, the the wisdom about civil wars tends to be that they sort of burn out after about ten years or so
Speaker 1: for similar reasons. When you're in the war, can you actually know that a victory can be won?
Speaker 0: It's a very good question. And you mean troops on
Speaker 1: the battlefield or military leaders or political leaders? Military and political leaders. It it just feels like like I said, man in the desert seeing water. I think there's a sense that victory is so close. There are times there's times in a war when you feel like victory is close.
Speaker 0: No. You're right.
Speaker 1: It's And then it just slips away. Yes.
Speaker 0: It's an interesting insight. It's like the way in which there's a there's a force in nature, which is that if you amass an army, amassing it will pull you in
Speaker 1: Yeah. To
Speaker 0: using it. Yeah. Extremely hard to amass an army somewhere and then say, let's go back. Which is is yes. You're right.
No. It's it's it's one of many many interesting aspects to warfare.
Speaker 1: I think the sad thing about successful wars, at least in the modern day, is it takes a great military leader, which I would argue that Zelensky really unified Ukraine in this fight in the beginning of the war. Mhmm. You have to be that, and like you said, after you do you amass the army and have military success to be able to step back and make peace. That those two just don't often go hand in hand. Because Mhmm.
Again, as a wartime leader, especially one who has seen the suffering firsthand, walking away is tough. Especially, also combined with that, just the realities of war where there is probably corruption, that there is things, you know, once the war ends, there has to be investigations. Because the war wasn't won, you might not turn out to be, when history looks at it, the good guy. And a leader doesn't wanna, a leader always wants to be the good guy. So there's just all psychological complexities that are and you look at this whole picture in in a basic sense, if you want Ukraine to flourish, if you want humanity to flourish, you just ask the question, okay.
So what is the thing I would like to see?
Speaker 0: There's so many historical analogies you can give, but just surely not rewarding Putin's actions in any way would be a good way to deter him and other dictators from trying to grab land in the future.
Speaker 1: So yeah. And but this is nuanced because, like, you it's very probably good to be the boring person at the party that says dictatorships are bad. Democracies are good. Many of the ideals of the West Democracies are better. Better?
Yes. Yeah. That sounds like animal farm, but, yes, Two legs, better. But yes, democracy is better. And invading countries is bad, but World War three is bad too.
So after you say something is bad, what's the next step? Because military intervention in a lot of these conflicts It'll
Speaker 0: be about deterrence. Yeah. But what's what's effective deterrence? That we're gonna have to keep going over for a long time to come.
Speaker 1: My question is, how can we achieve peace in April, in May? Right? Not like the adults at the table all seem to tell me, well, it's a process. It's complicated. You know, there is it it just feels like this is a thing that might go into the next winter.
And there's still maybe initial ceasefire, and the ceasefire is broken, and there's more people dying. True. And it it's that mess, it seems like civility and politeness ignores the fact that people are dying every single day.
Speaker 0: I mean, of course, like, we were all almost everybody, not everybody, but almost everyone would like the clinic to stop immediately. Of course.
Speaker 1: No. Like, I I think that is the boring thing at the party. Yes. But they don't say it often enough. Not off there has to be a frustration.
There has to be a frustration. I don't understand why Putin, Zelensky, and Trump can't just meet in a room together without signing anything. Leaders meeting and discussing, and, like, the human connection. There's there's so many layers of diplomats. It's the problem I have with a managerial class.
I don't they they schedule meetings really well. Sure. They don't get shit done. And I I I would love it if people got shit done. So the soldiers get shit done.
They have they're fighting the reality of the war. Mhmm. And then the leaders have the capacity to get shit done on the on the scale of nations and geopolitics. But, like, these diplomatic meetings and
Speaker 0: No. I agree. A lot. I share your frustration about it. At the same time, I think I share your frustration because I've seen it all a lot of it, you know, in my own eyes.
I mean, there was battalion I was with the other week, and they were hit just after I left their base, and you wouldn't believe what a thermobaric bomb can do to the human body. And I share your frustration with that. At the same time, one of the things that happens if you are rushing is that you do and I've seen this elsewhere. You you you will put pressure on the people you can pressurize, and you will not put enough pressure on the people you can't pressurize. And that is one of the worrying things that could happen with this.
Simply, you can put America can put extraordinary diplomatic, financial, intelligence, military risk pressure on Ukraine. And it can put significant pressure on Putin, but it's much easier to pressure Zelensky. And that's one of the many things that makes it harder is that the temptation to rush for peace, accepting that peace is the most desirable thing, accepting the horrors of war, you know, we can linger on. You you accepting all that, if somebody says we've got to get peace today, and the three of them around the table, the most likely thing is that it'll be that it'll be the person who you can pressure most easily who will be the person that you pressure, and as a result, have an outcome which, yes, might stop the killing as soon as possible, but might also set up a situation which rewards the aggressor and effectively punishes the victim, and that's an extremely ugly and common thing to happen. Yeah.
And that's the other boring thing to say. The boring truth that the easy shortcut here is is to punish Ukraine. And You bet. You just have to not do it. Let's keep being the boring people of the party.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, nobody's gonna invite us. Alright. Let's go from one complicated conflict to perhaps an even more complicated one, Israel and Palestine. Can you take me through what happened on October 7 as you understand it and as you outlined at the beginning of the book?
Speaker 0: Well, the book on democracies and death cults is a mixture of firsthand reporting and observation interviews and a wider reflection, not just on the war that's been going on since the October 7, but the war's been going on a lot longer. And also, I suppose on the what for me is one of the overwhelming questions, which I'm sure we'll get to, which is the reaction in the rest of the world. Obviously, on the seventh itself, it was a brigade sized attack on Israel from Gaza. Hamas broke through the security fence and attacked all the softest targets they could. They swiftly overwhelmed things like the observation base in Naha'az.
They ran through the communities in the South, very peaceful, peace neck effect, free communities of the kibbutzim as they're called the communities, and murdered and raped and burned and kidnapped. Of course, they from their point of view, had the great good fortune of also coming across hundreds of young people dancing in the early hours of the morning at a dance party and rampage through that with RPGs and Kalashnikovs and grenades and hammers and more and got within well, 20 kilometers into Israel, places like Gofakim and Steraat, important towns, and carried out their massacres there as well. We now know that the plan was that Hezbollah did the same thing from the North. Hezbollah joined in the war within twenty four hours by starting firing rockets again in very large numbers into Northern Israel from Southern Lebanon, But the plan was that they would do the same thing from the North and carry out similar massacres there and effectively be able to meet in the middle and garrote Israel from the center. The interesting reason why I think it'll be found out in the future, but why they didn't coordinate better was Hamas didn't trust any line of communication to Hezbollah to let them know exactly when they were gonna do it that wouldn't be in for that wouldn't be intercepted.
The Iranian revolutionary government in Tehran, which obviously funds Hamas and Hezbollah and trains and arms, knew of the plan. It was a very successful attempt to annihilate the state, but they didn't get close to that. But they got worryingly closer than people might have thought they were capable of. I think from the Israeli side, it was obviously one of the most, if not the most, catastrophic intelligence and military failure since the foundation of the state. And I think there are several reasons why.
One is a perception problem. What a lot of military commanders and others describe to me is the conception. The conception that had prevailed in Israel for some years in the security military establishment was that Hamaz were content with being corrupt and governing Gaza and, you know, lining their pockets and living in Qatar and becoming billionaires, but that like many other terrorist groups and, you know, cults, that they would end up becoming just corrupt and not losing their ideology, but the ideology becomes secondary. That's the first thing was there was just a massive error of the conception in Israel. And then then there are the multiple manifold security and military failures of the day and leading up to the day.
And there will be a there already have been quite a lot of people held to account for that, and there doubtless will be in the future as well. The the single, thing I heard which I heard most and which was most distressing in a way was the number of people who described to me, you know, who survived the massacres in the South, who said that, you know, they'd said to their children, don't worry. The army will be here in minutes, and they weren't. You know? In many places, it was many hours till the army got there.
And there are reasons for that. There are some reasons that will be military failings, leadership failings. Other things were very I I discovered were very human failings. I don't want to overstress the failure of the army because actually certain units and things got down very fast. There's a unit of Devon who got down to the junction, you know, by within about an hour and ninety minutes of the massacres starting and joined in the fight.
And then there were self starters who I write about in the book, extraordinary people who just, like, broke orders and just realized the magnitude of what was happening and said, we're needed in the South. Go. And fought very hard for hours, days, in some cases. But the complexities on the ground were unbelievable. I mean, as as usually happens in warfare, but what they call the fog of war is a very real thing.
You you you know what it's you can see it in hindsight, but you can't see when you're in it. And one of the things that made it very complicated was, for instance, Hamas coming in, taking uniforms off dead Israelis, wearing them, coming in with Israeli style apparatus on them. There's a Muslim doctor I quote in the book I interviewed who describes how he was going to his he's an Israeli Muslim Arab, and he was going to he's a doctor, he was going to his shift at the hospital at 06:30 in the morning. The rockets start coming in because the rockets started first, and then the the full invasion. And he described to me how, you know, he's one of the members of this group, the United Hat Salar, which is a first responders group, and they sort of, you know, they get an alert that tells them that, you know, a car has crashed nearby, and they they they put on their, you know, first aid kit and so on and go.
And he got one of those alerts on the junctions and realized there was a car that something had happened, there were some dead bodies. And he he stops, he sees these men dressed as soldiers. And they just start and he's wearing his hatsalah gear, and they start firing at him. And he just thinks, what the hell? What the hell is going on?
And they turned out to be Hamaz dressed as Israeli soldiers. They used him as a human shield to try to protect from any air assault. In the end, they they shot him and left him and he survived. He's a very, very brave man. So there was a lot of confusion like that.
There's a girl whose father, I interviewed. She was at the Nova party, and, I met him at one of the reunions of the party in the weeks after, and the reunions of the survivors and the family and so on. He described how in the last moments of his daughter's life, she phoned him on her phone like a lot of people, and he reassured her that harm would get there and so on. Her boyfriend was shot in the head and was lying on her lap, and she was obviously panicked. They managed to get into a car and escape the party, but they went to a community where they thought they'd be safe in the South Of Israel.
And they were told to stay where they were by somebody who she said was a policeman, and he wasn't the policeman. He was Hamaz dressed as police, and she died. She was shot and and killed as well. And so there was a lot of confusion like that. It's it's hopefully, we're we're you know, the world will find out exactly what went wrong.
Israel will find out exactly what went wrong that led to this catastrophe. But I mean, it it it was a complete catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Do you have a sense of how such an intelligence failure could have happened? So there's a a bit of a temptation to go into conspiracy land because it's such a giant intelligence failure. It seems that there is some manipulation on the inside for political reasons or for
Speaker 0: You don't need to go into conspiracy land. I mean, I think there are people who say that there were parts of the intelligence network and so on that were trying that were withholding the information. I don't know. Again, people will find out. There's an awful lot of politics inside Israel, and it's it's it's hard to know that at this stage.
I think that most people are sort of still Israeli and not Israeli, including people who are anti Israel, who just believe that, you know, Israeli military and particularly intelligence dominance is so so strong that there must have been some kind of conspiracy. Otherwise, how could this have happened? I don't think you need to go into that. I think that I mean, for instance, some of the young women at the observation base have are on the record. They've said I spoke to myself, and they who said that they had been warning in the weeks running up to the seventh that they were seeing maneuvers and training by the border, which suggested that Hamas was was going to do something like this.
And they say that they were ignored. Though you speak to some of the more senior commanders about that, and they say the thing is that this stuff was happening all the time. Mhmm. So it's very hard it's very hard to know at the moment.
Speaker 1: Can you talk through your understanding of who and what Hamas is, its history, and the governing ideology of this group?
Speaker 0: Well, Hamas, in a way, quite easy to understand because they they say what their ambitions are. They say what their beliefs are. They've seen it said it from their governing charter onwards. And you also have the advantage with that they as it were, in trying to understand them is that they they tend to do what they say and, act on what they believe. The primary aim of Hamaz is to destroy the state of Israel and then see.
They're not an unusual group, sadly. The the bit of it that is hard for some people to understand, I think, is that is that they really do mean what they say and that they really do mean what they say they want to do. And I give a number of examples in the book of this, but, I mean, the most obvious is the case of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who is generally regarded as having orchestrated and and arranged the October 7. He we know a fair amount about him because he was imprisoned in Israel in the February for murdering Palestinians in Gaza, and he was released in the prisoner swap for the he's one of the more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners inside Israel who was released in his in a swap for Gilead Shalit, the abducted Israeli soldier. And Yahya Sinwar in prison in Israel talked to, among others, a dentist who ended up saving his life because Yahya Sinwar had a brain tumor, and this dentist identified this and actually sent him to the hospital.
The Israelis famously removed the tumor and saved Sinwar's life, but this dentist used to speak to him in in the prison fairly regularly and and has related, not least to the New York Times, his conversations with Sinnoir. And Sinnoir said in one of those conversations, he said, you know, he said, at the moment, you, Israel, are strong, but one day you'll be weak, and then I'll come. And that's that's what he did.
Speaker 1: Is it a hatred of Israel, or is it a hatred of Jews? Is it on the level of nations or the level of religion?
Speaker 0: Both. It's both. I mean, it it originates from a religious mindset, but it's, of course, political as well. I mean, the Hamas charter, of course, some people sort of think the Hamas charter is of no significance, and I I often notice this slight of hand that that that people do. Again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier.
Forget everything other than the most important basic things. But the Hamas charter, among other things, quotes the hadith that, you know, the end times will not come until all of the the the the the rocks and the trees shout out, oh, oh, Muslim. There's a Jew behind me. Come and kill him. And that that is so Hamaz is both obviously anti Israeli, obviously, and anti Jewish, obviously.
It's it's and by the way, I mean, one of the many painful stories I tell in the book is of the fact that so many of the people in the communities that they attacked it's not as if there'd be a right community attack and a wrong community to attack, but that many of the communities they attacked were communities which deeply, deeply dreamed of the idea of living in peace with their Palestinian neighbors. There's a woman who whose name has become relatively famous since certainly, it's famous inside Israel, Vivian Silva, who was a peace activist who spent every weekend driving Gaza children from the border to if if they had very rare medical needs that could not be seen attention to within inside Gaza, would drive them to Israeli hospitals, and she spent every weekend doing that. Worked for all of the sort of left wing peace neck organizations in Israel, and, you know, for a for a while after the seventh, her neighbors and others thought that she had been taken captive into Gaza and that she there was a hostage poster for her, and there were appeals by the various peace knick organizations for Hamas to hand her over.
But it turned out she'd been burned alive in her home, and this wasn't discovered for quite a long time because there was so little DNA left of her that it was very hard to identify the remains as being hers. So there were there were a lot of just a lot of people in the Gaza envelope, as it's it's called in Israel, in the area around Gaza who who would have been the people who, you know, wanted to live peacefully with the Gazans someday. And those there's a certain among the many it's not an irony, but just among the sort of pains of the day is that is that so so overwhelmingly, these are these are the people that that Hamas brought hell to.
Speaker 1: The response to October 7 by Israel. Can you steal me on the case that Israel went too far?
Speaker 0: Well, the case that that started from very early on that that critics of Israel had was the the claim that I mean, I think I first heard it on about the October 8 before Israel had done anything in response, was the claim that, Israel must act proportionately in response. And I I have a critique of this that I've often expressed, which is that there is such a thing as proportionality in warfare. And at the same time, Israel is always accused of acting disproportionately. And the proportionality of the rest the much of the rest of the world seems to think Israel should express in warfare is to is to have an equal an equal level of suffering or killing on both sides. I don't think there's any law of war that says that, you know, if you kill 1,200 people and you kidnap another 250 that, as it were, the other side's allowed to do the same back.
But that that's what a lot of people think. And then when they see the death toll escalating on the Gaza side, they say Israel has acted disproportionately and has overreacted. That one is a is a is is tricky because, you know, it's it's it's my belief that I mean, again, this is a basic thing, it has to be stated that 9,000,000 citizens of Israel, if you extrapolate that out to what the October 7 would have meant in American terms, you'd be talking about a day on which if if the attack had happened in America, where 44,000 Americans were killed in one day and 10,000 American citizens taken hostage, nobody can tell me that if such an atrocity occurred, that America would not do whatever it needed to destroy the groups that had done that and to retrieve the hostages who had been taken.
Speaker 1: So just on that point, I agree with you a %. America would do would hit hard back. And I think a lot of Americans would feel justified in that. But it's also possible that the military industrial complex and the politicians would do something like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which means extend far beyond hitting back Mhmm. And actually do a thing that's destructive to everybody, including America financially, and the flourishing of America, and the flourishing of humanity broadly, and the region, and the stability, and the war on terrorism, if that's a real thing.
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan did not maybe succeed in defeating terrorism or even making progress. It probably made more terrorists than not. So there's a justified feeling of hitting back and going after somebody like Bin Laden in the case of nine eleven. And there's just the actual implementation. Mhmm.
And it seems like the implementation can sometimes unintended or unintended have consequences that are bordering on war crimes, if not downright war crimes. Now this this is a general statement. And now we'll look at Israel where things are small land. Everything is very compact. There's a lot of complexities that are well studied that we've talked about extensively.
Speaker 0: Well, the two stated aims of the Israelis after the seventh were to get the hostages back and to destroy Hamas. Many people said that you could do one, but not both. And I actually think they've gone a long way to doing both. By no means everything. There were still hostages as we're speaking, held in Gaza, including a young American, and Hamas is not completely destroyed.
It's very, very significantly degraded, but it's not completely destroyed. But those are the two aims. I believe that I mean, I've seen as much of the war as any outside observer. I don't know. There might have some exceptions maybe, but and so I think I can say with considerable certainty what the Israelis have and haven't done.
The the op there there were various operations at the beginning, various plans which didn't happen, like storming straight in and getting, for instance, as many hostages as possible out of the Shifa Complex, which is called a hospital, it's a also, at the very least, the Hamas command headquarters. And, there was a there was a plan to maybe go and, do that fast, but it was it was avoided because of the number of deaths on all sides that would be likely to happen. The Israelis did actually hold back at the beginning. There was a a period of making sure that when they went into Gaza, they didn't do so in any way blind. But Gaza is a very built up area and population wise is is is, is densely populated.
Something, by the way, which the people who who claim frivolously that Israel had been committing genocide never take account of, which is the fact that the Gaza population has boomed since the Israeli withdrawal in 02/2005. It's almost doubled. But, yes, it's densely populated area, and it's an incredibly difficult place for the train of war because of one thing in particular, which is that Hamas goes back a bit to our conversation earlier, but this is a much more extreme example. I mean, Hamas really don't play by the rules. In fact, they they use the rules of war, the laws of war completely to their own advantage.
You know, it has to be reiterated. You are not meant to disguise your army as civilians. You're not meant to use places of care, like hospitals, as bases for your military operations. You're not meant to use schools and places of worship as operating centers of war. And Hamas does all of these things and has always done so.
And it does so with the very obvious reason that for them, the whole thing is a two for one offer. You you you get to operate everywhere, and if the Israelis operate anywhere, you claim that this is a war crime because how could they attack this group of civilians, These people who are dressed as civilians. These people merely fighting from a mosque and so on. And that's why that's why everybody who's been to Gaza, who's seen the fighting knows the same thing, which is this is just incredibly difficult difficult warfare of a kind that that American troops have seen in the last twenty years in Fallujah and elsewhere. Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, saw when they were fighting as our frontline troops in the war against ISIS, similar house to house, but by no means with the same entrenched bases.
Know, again, it can't be stressed enough that Hamaz has used the years since he's already withdrawn from 02/2005 to build this vast underground tunnel network. And again, it's obvious, but it has to be remembered when is and I quote one of Hamas leaders in the book saying this in an interview. When they build their tunnels, they do so in order their tunnels are used by them, Hamas, to store their weaponry, to secure their fighters, and to hold hostages. They do not build their underground tunnel networks for the safety of Gazan civilians avoiding aerial bombardment. And, you know, the every difference in the world seems to me to exist between a country which does build bomb shelters for its citizens and a government which builds bomb shelters for its bombs.
Speaker 1: Can you discuss the flow of money here? So how does Hamas how does Hamas, the leadership, use the money? So you started to talk about the tunnels, but how much corruption is there? Can you just lay it all out? Because I think that's an that's an important part of the picture here.
It's totally corrupt.
Speaker 0: Every Hamas leader who's now dead died a billionaire. With a b. With a b. To say that they used Gaza's resources or the the the resources that came into Gaza for their own ends is to just vastly understate matters. Hamas used everything that came in to build the infrastructure of terror that allowed them to do the seventh and everything since.
They militarized the whole of the Gaza. They by the estimations of troops I've been with there, they every second to third house had weaponry stashed there, bombs, RPGs, karashnikovs, rockets, tunnel entrances. The network that that they just embedded all these years was was total. They they they you know, one of the many, many tragedies of this is that whatever you're reading of the rights and wrongs of the Israeli withdrawal in 02/2005, it was an opportunity for the Gaza to become something else. It could have become a thriving state led.
It could have been a thriving Palestinian state. It's just that Hamas, like the PLO before them, decided that they wanted to destroy Israel more than they wanted to create a Palestinian state. And that is to the great, great detriment of the Palestinians of Gaza, to put it at its mildest.
Speaker 1: So just to outline here, leadership of Hamas are stealing the money that gets sent by Qatar, by everybody. So they're putting in their pocket, and then the By
Speaker 0: the American taxpayer and by the European taxpayer as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well Yeah. But I mean, it's not just about the stealing of money.
It's it's about using the the money and the infrastructure to annihilate your neighbor. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the real Those those two things. But the corruption is a signal from an economic perspective, but it's also a signal of deep moral corruption because they're screwing over the Palestinian people.
Speaker 0: Yes. A cynicism, certainly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay. And then with the money they do spend on the Palestinian cause, they're not doing that to build
Speaker 0: up
Speaker 1: No. Gaza. They're doing it to strengthen the militaristic capabilities Yes. Of the terrorist organization of Hamas. You have maybe you can correct me on this.
Have said that the people of Gaza have some significant responsibility for the actions of Hamas
Speaker 0: Yes. Because they've elected them. They elected them. The what ifs are endless, but very unwise of the George w Bush administration to push for elections in Gaza after o five. But Hamas were elected, and they then 02/2007 killed the other Palestinian faction that was their main challenger, Fatah, killed them through the moff rooftops, dragged their bodies behind motorbikes through the Gaza, and from that point, they had total control.
And, you know, this it's it's difficult because you you can get into the realm of being accused of advocating or in any way justifying collective punishment, if you talk about this. But it should be borne in mind that, you know, Hamas had effectively eighteen years to run the Gaza, and that's that's the time that it takes from the birth of a child to the end of their formal education. And in eighteen years, they could have presided over and produced a generation of young Gazans who were productive productive for their people, for their society, for their neighbors, for the rest of the world, and they didn't. They spent eighteen years indoctrinating the children of Gaza into a death cult and into a genocidal hatred, which obviously is was most dangerous to the Israelis. But it was obviously disastrous for the people of Gaza.
And, you know, there is there's just if you speak to soldiers who were there in 2014 when Hamas started a war again, one of a set of rounds of war since 02/2005, if you speak to the soldiers who were there in 2014 going house to house and who were also involved in the war since 02/2003, they all say the same thing, which is the marked radicalization of the Gazan population. The marked increase in just, I mean, the most I mean, it's so banal in a way to even decide, you know, like, the numbers of copies of Main Camp in Arabic in an average Gazan household, the protocols of the learned elders of Zion. There are so many what ifs and other paths that Hamaz could have taken, but that was the one they took. They decided to take the path of using their time and power to build up their infrastructure, radicalize the population, and encourage them to believe that they could destroy the state of Israel. And then on October 7, they gave it their best shot.
And by the way, there is no organized collective punishment of the citizens of Gaza. Collective punishment would just be dropping bombs with no purpose across civilian areas, carpet bombing, this sort of thing. This is simply not what the IAF and the IDF have done since the seventh. They have been fighting a house to house war against this terrorist group. They do do aerial strikes.
Gaza is is is very, very badly beaten up as the buildings I mean, the the the infrastructure that that existed. It's there aren't many buildings standing. But this is not the result of just wild and imprecise bombing by the Israelis. It's been extremely concerted. It's extremely difficult.
But when people say, well, this must be collective punishment, I think that the people who say that simultaneously, that's not true. And also, you know, there is not a hostage who's come out who Donald Trump made this president Trump made this point recently. There is not a hostage who's come out who I've spoken with who found any Gazan Palestinian who expressed even the slightest human kindness to them. If you if you look at the footage from the seventh that Hamas recorded themselves of them taking young Jewish women into Gaza and so on, you will notice that the trucks and the motorbikes and so on are not stopped by horrified guards and civilians saying, why have you got this this Israeli girl who you've whose tendons you've cut, and why are you bringing her here? It's all celebration.
It's all celebration. And it's the same with those couple of cases of hostages who managed to escape from the civilian houses they were being held in, who were immediately returned by the citizens they met.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The celebration, I do wonder what percent of the the population they represent, but there's something really dark. There's several ways to explain the celebration. It could be that there's a deep indoctrination where you do legitimately hate Jews, and there also could be a place of just deep desperation, And it's it's a kind of relief that you have to convince yourself that you're on the side of fighting for freedom in order to justify to yourself that this is the right way to fight out of desperation out of extremely harsh conditions. Because the way we're kind of speaking about this with the celebration, it's very easy to project the kind of evil on the populace that I just am very hesitant to project, especially on the general populace.
Speaker 0: You don't have to project it onto them. You can just listen to their own words. What I'm sure you've heard the one of many audio recordings you hear from the morning, but I'm sure you've heard the audio recording of the young man who ends up in one of the communities in the South Of Israel and, calls home, calls back home. Have you heard that?
Speaker 1: Yes. I've heard
Speaker 0: it. I quoted in the first chapter of the book. He he calls back home, and he says, to his father who picks up he's on WhatsApp. I think he's he's he's on the phone. He's saying, turn onto WhatsApp because I can show you.
He says, I've killed 10 Jews with my own hands. Oh, father, your son has killed 10 Jews. And his father is is saying, where are you? Where are you? I want to show you, dad.
I want to show you. I've killed Jews in my own hands, your son. Put mother on the phone. Mother comes on the phone. The brother comes on the phone.
This is one of many, many stories from the day that suggest something which I would say is not just indoctrination, but, yes, evil.
Speaker 1: First of all, those phone calls are somehow uniquely horrific. But I've also heard recordings of phone calls made by Ukrainian soldiers to their parents and Russian soldiers to their parents. And they have not as intense and not as horrific, but they have a similar nature to them, which there's an aspect of war where you dehumanize the other side. Right? Sure.
In order to fight that war. So we have to remember that that element is going to be there in a time of war, in a time of desperation.
Speaker 0: It it it would be a strange type of simple sort of, I don't know, pride in war to go into an 80 year old woman's house and kill her on her floor and then film her dead body and her body in its final moments and send it around to all of that woman's friends on her phone, on her Instagram account. It's it's you may have heard different things from me, but I mean, I I would be surprised if there were even the most vociferous of Russian soldiers phoning back home to Moscow and saying, mom, you won't believe my luck. I managed to rape and kill this 80 year old woman. It's that's that's quite unusual even in warfare. And and that's one of the things about Hamaz and the what I describe as the death cult types, which makes them different from other people.
Speaker 1: But that's the channeling of evil and hatred and anger in the human spirit, but that doesn't make that person evil.
Speaker 0: No. I disagree. You commit that once. I think that there is such a force as evil in the world, and I think it it can descend and it can be used. And it's very hard to find a non theological way to talk about this, but of everything I've seen, there are actions that people like Hamas committed on the seventh that cannot be described as anything other than evil.
The things that happened at the Nova party were especially appalling. I mean, it was all appalling, but it was especially appalling because, first of all, it's a sort of party which people like you and I, or at least you and I when we were younger, might have been at. And so everyone knows, you know, the the world of a dance party and all night, you know, rave in the desert to commune with nature and the universe and to take some psychedelics and to, you know, expand your consciousness and your love and all of that sort of thing. The the fact that people doing that at 06:30 in the morning then encountered people coming in to the party on trucks and military vehicles and just massacring them and raping them. And, I mean, I I give examples of the firsthand accounts of people who survived, but, I mean, it's beyond belief of almost anything else I've covered in war.
And it's because it seems so I mean, an arm an army facing another army is one thing. A terrorist group in civilian clothing facing an army is another thing. A terrorist group facing a group of young people at a dance unarmed and doing what they did is is is pretty hard to comprehend unless you use the lexicon of evil somewhere.
Speaker 1: So that stated, can you empathize with the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza with the destruction that resulted as a response?
Speaker 0: Yes. What has happened in response is terrible, terrible for the citizens of Gaza. I was there in on the first time couple of days early in into the the ground invasion when the citizens of Gaza were coming south. I was in the middle of the strip and the humanitarian corridor had been set up to try to stop the hostages being taken south deeper into Gaza and to try to stop Hamas leadership from making it south. It actually it didn't really work because they just they'd already got a lot of the hostages south.
It was an attempt to keep Hamas there and fight them in the north so as not to be dragged all the way in. In the end, dragged all the way in anyway. But yes. And I mean, watching the the citizens of Gaza moving through the humanitarian corridor and, you know, was being checked for for bombs, suicide vests, checked for, you know, particularly young men of military age. And, you know, I mean, you look at this tide of human misery, and you think this is terrible.
But this is a terrible thing that had been brought upon them by the people who had been misgoverning the place that they lived in. And, of course, on a human level, you feel terrible that these people are going through this. At the same time, human empathy for them can coexist beside an unspeakable anger that they had come to this point because of the the the fact that they elected a terror group to run their territory. And one of the things obviously is that, you know, a lot of people like to say, and it's true, of course, that that, you know, this didn't all start on October. Absolutely true.
This particular round, this particularly intense round of war started on October without doubt. Hamas did not have to attack on October. It wasn't wasn't like they were forced to liberate themselves or something as some of the defenders of Hamas claim. But the conflict, of course, goes back a lot earlier, but it it you you will have to always keep on contending with this fact that there is one central issue to the paradigm of that conflict, what used to be called the Arab Israeli conflict and now has become interestingly rebranded the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But there is one absolutely essential issue to this, which cannot be forgotten, which is do the Palestinians want a state, or do they want to destroy the Jewish state?
And if they want to destroy the Jewish state, as they've tried many times, it's a disaster for them. It's a total disaster for them. If they want to create their own state, they've already had several very good shots at it, one of which is Gaza post 02/2005. But they've never shown in their leadership the desire to live with a Jewish state, and that's a catastrophe for the Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Can you stew me on the case of the lived experience of Palestinians and pro Palestinian voices that describe the Gaza situation as a occupation? The West Bank too, and in the case of Gaza, open air prison?
Speaker 0: The to take them in order, there's nothing about Gaza that was an open air prison. They had ability to trade. They had the ability to move in and out in increasing numbers. Egypt wasn't so keen on allowing Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, still isn't, but at the time of the seventh, there was actually an interesting one of the things the international community was pushing for was for more Palestinians to be coming into Israel every day through the Eretz Crossing and others to work in Israel, because they can make a better living in Israel than they can in Gaza. This the the, as it were, normalization route was slowly being attempted.
It was being pushed on Israel by the entire movement. He had a little bit too fast for Israel's, comfort, but it happened. That completely came to an end, and that that dream is done, gone since the October 7.
Speaker 1: Can you clarify the dream, the normalization
Speaker 0: The normalization dreams.
Speaker 1: Between Gaza and Israel? Gone.
Speaker 0: There will be Really? Yeah. No normalization. No. Not after that.
And one of the reasons is the number of people, again, who I've spoken with who employed Palestinians, worked with Palestinians, worked alongside Palestinians, encouraged more Palestinians to be coming from Gaza in order to work in Israel, and these were their brothers and sisters and so on and so forth. One of the reasons why the massacres of the seventh were so successful in the kibbutzim, the communities in the South, was because of the number of the terrorists who came in with detailed house to house maps of those communities. I I spoke with with one man who his community, they had a security officer chief, and Hamas came in. They knew to go and kill him and his family first, and then which families. It's just I've seen the maps myself.
They were they came in with incredibly accurate information about these communities. How did they have them? Because it was given to them by the by the brothers, by the workers, by the people of Gaza who were coming in and out. So there is nobody that will trust that ever again.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Palestinians that have lived and flourished inside Israel. What are they saying? What are they feeling? And what are the Israelis feeling about them? Is there still camaraderie to some degree, or is it completely destroyed?
Speaker 0: My observation at the beginning was that everyone was extremely wary. I mean, you know, if if you've worked beside somebody and then found out they sold out your family, you you will never trust again. And that in particular, a small country like Israel, the the word of that happening goes out very fast. The very beginning, there was intense, intense fear about that, including of the, you know, 20% or so of the population who are Arab Israelis. I actually think one of the few sort of positive news stories of the period is that that population within Israel is is by and large held.
It's not there hasn't been an intifada. One of the reasons why there hasn't been more activity terrorist activity in the West Bank in Judea And Samaria is because the Israelis have been very careful along with the Palestinian authority to some extent cooperating to keep that down, but, you know, there wasn't a war on a full war on three fronts, for instance, which was at risk of happening. So I think that the sort of coexistence within Israel has pretty much held. There are some terrible examples, far too regular, but not as regular as it could happen of Muslim Arab Israelis carrying out acts of terror in, as it were, sympathy with Hamas. I was in the middle of one such attack myself late last year, and in a town called Hedera.
And those things have happened, but they it isn't it's not that that particular catastrophe has not occurred.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about Benjamin Netanyahu? For a lot of people who spoke of evil, they refer to him as evil. On the spectrum between good and evil, as a leader, where does Netanyahu fall? Well, he's
Speaker 0: certainly not evil. Interesting if people looking at this conflict were to be reluctant to use the word evil of Hamas and eager to use it of the Israeli prime minister. It would be sort of telling, I would say.
Speaker 1: Can we just actually linger on that point? There is a point you've made multiple times, which is we're more eager to to criticize and maybe even over exaggerate the criticism of democratically elected leaders.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: It's a dark, weird, other quality of discourse at parties, aforementioned parties.
Speaker 0: Isn't it also is is I mean, not to be be flippant for a moment. It's a little bit like, who do you show your worst sides to? The people you love. You is that you know, my intense irritability is something that tends to be felt most by people who are closest to me because I I'm I'm if I'd express it to absolutely everybody I met at the party or a social setting, it would be it would be hard. I mean, there's a tendency to lean heavily on the people who are closest to you, the people who will put up with it.
And something similar happens in international politics. You you pressure the people who will listen. I mean, it's it's one of the I mean, one of the things you hear a lot in the last year, you know, people sort of ignoramuses in the governments in places like Britain, you know, will say, we need to put more pressure on the Israelis to do x. And you go, well, you know, in part, that's because they will listen. If you go, we need to put more pressure on the Ayatollahs in Iran to persuade them that Hamas are really bad, and they shouldn't be doing this.
Right? What the hell do you think they're gonna do? They're gonna listen to you thinking you give a damn? You're talking totally different worlds, not just a different language, it's a different world. By the way, that happens in Israel.
I mentioned it earlier, but it happens in Israel. When the hostage families forum came about, I spent a lot of time there, a lot I got to know a lot of the families, and they're remarkable. But one of the things you did notice from them as well was that a lot of them they protest outside Netanyahu's house. They crack some horns and make sure he doesn't can never sleep. They will put up great big posters by his house of him with bloodied hands and so on.
I think as much sympathy as you can for these families, The plight of knowing that your child is sitting in a tunnel in Gaza for a year, a day, an hour is intolerable, but there's a reason why the families protested Netanyahu, and that's because Sinoa didn't care. That wouldn't work. If you said, are you you know, understand my plight. I'm a Jewish mother, and my daughter is think. You think Sinnoir, the heads of Hamas care?
You think the leaders in Qatar who host them care? The Qatari Emir's mother, when Sinwar was killed, praised Sinwar. You couldn't talk that language to these people, but you can talk that language to the elected prime minister of Israel because that first of all, he's somebody who might listen to your pressure, could be pressured, and secondly, he's simply the only person you can pressure. There's no one else. Hamas doesn't care.
Hezbollah doesn't care. Iranian revolutionary government doesn't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We should let's just sort of say, once again, the the obvious thing that while it is possible to discuss Hamas soldiers as freedom fighters, I'm not one of the folks that can take that perspective. It's a tough one to take.
Speaker 0: I don't see how you can call them freedom fighters.
Speaker 1: So this goes to the man from the land of peace and the man from the land of war. There is a lived experience of what it means to grow up in Gaza. And if you fully load that into your brain in a a real way, not in not using the words of good and evil, but in a in a very deep human sense. From that place from that place of desperation, from your home and your family is destroyed, doesn't matter why, doesn't matter if there's evil all around you that caused it, doesn't matter. The the facts are the facts.
And from that place, somebody who's fighting for you can feel like a freedom fighter. I think it should be called out that, yes, it can feel that way from the lived experience, but Hamas is very clearly, since we're talking about Netanyahu, Hamas is evil. Okay. Now you can still, in that context, discuss the degree to which Netanyahu is the right leader for this moment, and whether he goes too far, whether he's too politically selfish in the decisions he makes, whether he's too much a warmonger, whether he's utilizing the war for his own political gains and is not caring about the death of civilians in Gaza, for example, but more caring about his own political maintaining power. That's a perspective that I could steal, man.
That's a perspective worth discussing, and that's a perspective many in Israel hold when they criticize Netanyahu. He's increasingly less and less popular.
Speaker 0: That's wrong. Pending polls last month when was in Washington, he showed him at an all time high. You know? But you were saying?
Speaker 1: I I make my own poll, according to my poll, I'm the greatest. I'm the nicest and the coolest person in
Speaker 0: the world.
Speaker 1: A % of people agree.
Speaker 0: So I didn't mean to laugh that much.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You laughed a little too much. Too long. It's more than the joke. Yeah.
Speaker 0: But you were saying, I mean, the the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's steel man the criticism of Netanyahu. Can you and then steel man the case for him, that he's the right leader, actually
Speaker 0: Well, the the the most devastating thing that anyone could come up against Netanyahu is is that the seventh happened on his watch. After the Yom Kippur war in 1933, Golda Meir, who was a very distinguished prime minister of Israel and a remarkable woman, but she effectively took the the political hit for the Yom Kippur invasion by Israel's Arab neighbors happening on her watch. And and I would have thought that most critics, fair minded critics of Netanyahu inside Israel and without, would always hold that against him. The I suppose that the one of the criticisms you hear a lot as well is this thing of Israel being divided in the year before the seventh because of the judicial reforms. I think there's a strong case for the judicial reforms in Israel, but it's a sort of niche Israeli governance issue, which we don't have to get into.
The point is is that Netanyahu and its government were pushing these reforms through judicial reforms, and it was very divisive. And on the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities every weekend, there were protests, and the police were tired because they'd spent week after week on overtime policing these protests, which often turned raucous, not to say violent, or sometimes violent. And you could say, well, if you see that something is dividing your country this much, mightn't you stop? There is a claim by some people that one one of the things that prompted the seventh was that Hamas and his backers in Qatar and Iran saw the division in Israeli society, saw the Israeli population in a significant chunk of it every week on the streets, shutting down highways, shutting down services, and so on, and thought, good, now's the time. In other words, what I quoted Sinwar as saying earlier when he was in prison in Israel was, you know, this thing, one day you'll be weak and then I'll strike.
Maybe that is one of the things that Sinwar thought. Israel was very weak. It had been divided, and therefore, the time strike. There's an argument against that, which is that the the seventh was in preparation and being planned before the judicial reform process in Israel began. So you can look at it several ways, but you could use that.
You could say, look. This is you know, if you your your nation was divided, don't push through anymore on that. There's there's lots of things like that. You could say that that Netanyahu was one of the people responsible for the conception. You could there are critics of his, including critics who were in the war cabinet who thought that he was too focused on Hamas and not focused enough on Hezbollah.
Other people think he was too focused on Hezbollah and not enough on Hamas. So I there's them and many other criticisms that people make of him. I would say I've interviewed, I think, every political leader in Israel from right to left, pretty much. And I have to say, I don't think there's any of them that wouldn't have responded similarly to the October 7 to the way he has.
Speaker 1: Can we okay. So that's inside Israel, outside of Israel, you know, despite what he said. He is one of the most hated people in the world, just the raw quantity. Not not relative, he's loved by a lot of people, but there's a lot of people that, you know, there's a lot of psychological effects that might explain that.
Speaker 0: I mean, it's sort of strange to to to if if if if there is a widespread global loathing of the prime minister of a country of eight to 9,000,000 people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That that might mean something more than hatred of the the military actions and the policies of the one person. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I mean, you know, there's a there's an awful lot of people to hate in the world. There's lot of wars in the world. It's it's always of interest to me, and, obviously, some of one things I go into on on democracies and death cults is this question of, like, why is this so galvanizing for so many people? And I think that is a very, very interesting question. Interesting question.
Like, why? By the way, let me do a quick addendum to that. You can notice something else like that when people talk about the Republican failures in foreign policy in the last thirty years or so, it's very interesting. There's a certain type of person who will immediately mention Paul Wolfowitz. Yeah.
And they they will say, well, you know, Wolfowitz, You mean deputy under secretary of defense, George w Bush? You think he guided everything? Why would that be other than the fact that his name, as Mark Stein once said, starts with a nasty animal and ends Jewish? I mean That's a good lie. I do and I do so I do think that that the there are very deep things at play.
Speaker 1: That's a good line.
Speaker 0: You know, the the the the there are very deep things at play. Netanyahu, irrespective of anything he does, for a lot of people, is a kind of devil. And you have to say, well, why is that? Now, of course, some people will say, well, that's because he his terrible hawkishness and his actions and so on and so forth. The case for Netanyahu is that he sees it as his historic purpose to defend the only homeland of the Jewish people, and that that's his life's mission.
And on that basis, I think he's been, by any measure, a historic leader. He has warned the world about the threat from the mullahs in Tehran. He warned about Iranian revolutionary expansionism across the region, across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen. And after the seventh, he has held together a very, very difficult set of challenges to keep, international pressure at a tolerable level, to do all sorts of things, but most importantly, to oversee the two war aims that he set out at the beginning. I thought let me just express this to you.
I thought, like a lot of people, when I heard about the hostages, my immediate instinct was they're all dead. They're all going to be dead. We'll never see them again. And that was the attitude of a lot of Israelis. But although there are still hostages being held, and as I've always said, the war could end tomorrow if they were handed back, or at least the beginning of the end of the war could begin tomorrow if they were handed back.
Nevertheless, because of the actions of not just Netanyahu, but the Israeli government, most of the hostages have been returned, did not expect this to happen. And Hamas has not been completely destroyed, but it has been very, very significantly degraded. And you end up in the definition of what a total destruction of Hamas would look like. But they are not anywhere near the capability they were in November of twenty twenty three. Their leadership has almost all been killed.
The second tier of leadership, almost all gone. And this is a just response to what Hamaz did. The moment Netanyahu's reputation in Israel was at a low early on because of what had happened. But and there's no doubt, and as I I say in the final chapter of the book, I mean, there's General Slim had this phrase, you know, from defeat into victory. Israel isn't a victory yet in this conflict, but when in September, there were a set of operational successes so extraordinary that I mean, it was just like every day's news was there was one day I remember when after the the Saad regime fell when the Israeli air force took out the entirety of the Syrian air force in a day because they didn't want it falling into the hands of the new Jihadist administration in Syria.
It was story number four on the BBC News website. The leadership of Hezbollah, gone. Gone. The the the second and third tiers of Hezbollah, gone or wounded. Iran's Rolls Royce destroyed.
These are very, very significant military achievements and are, in my mind, a just response to the attempts by Hezbollah Hamaz and other Iranian proxies to destroy the Jewish state. Would another Israeli leader have been able to hold firm as Netanyahu has? I don't know. But I do know that any of them would have done something similar or would have tried to do something similar because there's no country on earth, no democracy on earth, which could possibly not respond to such an atrocity.
Speaker 1: To the point the underlying point you made of why do so many people wanna call him evil? And so the implication is it's not just a hatred of Israel. There's an ocean of hatred for the Jews. Yes. Why is there so much hatred for Jews in the world?
Speaker 0: I would say there's one reason in particular. It's a stupid and gullible person's easy answer. Why is why do certain things happen in the world? What is what is our explanation of chance or unfairness or any number of things. Easiest easiest, stupidest person's explanation is there's a small group of people doing it.
Speaker 1: Let's not say stupidest, because there's something in the human mind that craves a nice clean theory of everything, right, that explains all the it's not just stupidest
Speaker 0: Let me rewrite. Lowest grade.
Speaker 1: Right. Because I
Speaker 0: Lowest grade.
Speaker 1: I have that I have that desire too to simplify everything,
Speaker 0: like Be a bit antisemitic? What? We've all
Speaker 1: we've all been a bit antisemitic here and there and just get a few vodkas. I mean, no. To find I mean, maybe this is a mathematician. I mean, they it's like, to find a simple explanation for everything. Right.
That actually, it's that's nice for every
Speaker 0: for Yeah. No.
Speaker 1: I Historians do this. Absolutely. Like I agree. Analyzing why the Roman Empire collapsed. It's so nice to have one especially if it's a counterintuitive explanation.
It's one of the favorite go tos. Right? It's an explanation for all the problems in the world.
Speaker 0: It's the lowest resolution analysis imaginable.
Speaker 1: Why is there traffic? Why did my wife leave me? Why did my wife cheating on me? Why did I lose my job? Why did I not get the job?
Because so even on the personal level
Speaker 0: Oh, especially on the personal level. Why did I not get everything? Somebody must have held me back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's just that hatred of Jews has been such a popular go to throughout history. You just always return back to the hits, I guess. And I what is it special about the Jews as a group that people love to hate? Is it just because it's a small number of people?
Speaker 0: I think several things. One successful. One is small and without by any means saying this is a general rule, but disproportionately highly accomplished in certain fields at certain times. Prominent is what I would use. Prominent slightly beyond their numbers in certain places.
It's not a full explanation. I mean, you know, all sorts of historic reasons why Jews were involved in banking, but then there are also historic reasons why the Scottish people, my own, were involved in banking. And to this day, you don't find many people who blame all international finance problems on the Scotts. So there were just, like, easy grooves for people to fall into, it seems to me.
Speaker 1: We should also mention, know, banking for some reason. Money is a thing that people go to, but Jews have been disproportionately successful in the sciences and engineering, mathematics Yes. And the arts and so on.
Speaker 0: A sensible person would try to work out why that is and and see what is replicable. A I don't wanna use the word stupid again now. A different type of person I'm triggered already. A different type of person would look at that and say that must mean they took something from me. And that's, you know, the the the most zero sum game there is.
I it's an endlessly fascinating subject because it seems to me that antisemitism is almost certainly a sort of ineradicable temptation of the human spirit at its ugliest and cheapest. But but it it because it's back in our day, it bears some analysis again. And I would say two things about it. One is, as I and others have said many times in the past, one of the fascinating things about antisemitism is that it it it it can cover everything at once. So the Jews get hated for being rich and for being poor, both for being the Rothschilds and for being Eastern European Jews escaping the pogroms.
They can be hated for being religious and for being anti religious and producing Marxism, for instance. Hated for religiosity and secularism. They can be hated for, most recently, not having a state and therefore being ruthless cosmopolitans, and also hated for having a state. And that makes it something very unusual, actually, in the history of human bigotry and, you know, bias and ugliness. But the real thing is one of my great heroes, Vasily Grossman, says at the center of life and fate, almost everything that is worth saying about antisemitism is Grossman's genius that he could say in three to four pages what most people couldn't say in an entire life, even after life of study.
But there's this passage in the in life and fate that I quote in my book, which is just bowled me over when I read it some years ago. When he says, you know, the interesting thing about anti seminism, he says, you can meet it everywhere in the in the Academy of Sciences and in the games that children play in the yard. But Grossman's great insight is he says everywhere it tells you, not about the Jews, but about the person making the claim. And the most important gift he gives in his analysis is when he says describes it as a mirror to the person who is making the claims, culminating in this phrase I've been trying to make popular, which is he say he says, tell me what you accuse the Jews of. I'll tell you what you're guilty of.
It's a searingly brilliant insight. The the the Iranian revolutionary government accuses Israel of being a colonial power. The Iranian revolutionary government has been colonizing the Middle East throughout our lifetimes. The Turkish government accuses the Jewish state of being guilty of occupation. Do you know Northern Cyprus?
The Turks have been occupying half of Cyprus since the nineteen seventies. Cyprus is an EU member state, and Turkey is in NATO. So you can do this on and on. The people who accuse the Jewish state, like the people who accuse Jews of something, almost without fail, is the thing they're guilty of. Look at the supporters of Hamas and Hamaz.
One of the things they say is that Israel is guilty of indiscriminate killing. Hamaz? Hello? What were you doing on the seventh? You see, there are these crazy guys online who repeatedly claim that for some reason, Israeli soldiers will rape Palestinians when they meet them, whether in a prison or on the battlefield or in a hospital.
It just erupts occasionally. These these people go around and say, oh my god. The IDF, a rapist. Excuse me? You you're the ones who spent the years after 2016 saying believe all women.
Then from the October 7 said, believe all women except for Jewish women who say they've been raped or seen their friends raped. And then you say, the Jews are rapists. You've been carrying water for rapists, and then go and accuse the Jews of rape. I mean, it just works. Every way you do it, it works.
I do think the thing of psychological projection in the case of Israel is is is wild. I mean, it is wild. By the way, there's an interesting thing on this that I tried to get into in the book, which is this thing of why did so much of the world respond the way it did? I mean, we're sitting in New York. There was not one protest against Hamas in New York after the October 7.
The believe all women crowd didn't come out against Hamas' rapes. The Black Lives Matter movement did not turn their attention to the killing of Israeli children or anything. Nobody did it. Nobody did it. The one thing that did happen very prominently was that people came out to attack the people who'd been attacked.
And as I say in the opening of the book, I saw that myself down the road from here in Times Square on October. October the frigging eighth. The protests are in Times Square against Israel justifying the attacks that were still going on. And this is this is something that deserves deep self examination on behalf of people in the West who've who've seen this movement overwhelm parts of our society. I mean, degraded parts, but parts, bits of the universities and so on.
And I think there's an explanation for it, by the way, which again goes back to that issue of projection. When you and I last talked on camera, we were talking about my last book, The War on the West, and I remember saying to you there that one of the things I was talking about in that book was the deeply, deeply wildly biased, unfair, and inaccurate estimation of the Western past whereby, you know, America's original sin had to be identified, the original sin is slavery. So America has an original sin. Does Ghana have an original sin? No one knows.
No one really would think it polite to point one out. And, you know, you go on and on with these these things that I identified in the war in the West, these these these sins of the West, and they have in recent years been reduced to the claim that countries like the one we're sitting in are guilty of what? Colonialism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, slavery, genocide, and a couple of others you can throw in probably. One of the things I remember saying to you when we spoke about that was the the one of the deep problems of setting up that system of thought, pseudo thought, non thought, would be thought, is that there's nothing you can do about it. Even if it was true, there's nothing you can do about it.
If it turned out that your ancestors in the eighteenth century once owned a slave, what are you gonna do? There's no mechanism to forgive or be forgiven because you didn't do it, and there's no one in your life who could accept the apology. And I remember setting it up there in the war in the West. Set up like this this very, very risky, dangerous, unforgivable, unforgiving thing that had been set up about our societies. But I would say that since October, there has been an answer for a certain type of person, which is I am from a society where I have been told I am guilty of settler colonialism, white supremacy, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and more.
I've been told all of these things. I have been put in an ungetoutable of situation of moral burden that can never be relieved because I can't ask anyone's forgiveness and nobody can forgive me.
Speaker 1: But, ah,
Speaker 0: here's a country which I can accuse of all of these things in the here and now. Load my energies, my guilts, my burdens onto. And what's more, I might be able to end it, and by doing so, would relieve myself. And in other words, to slight just to I quote I tweak Grossman with the people in America, elsewhere, who've fallen into this trap. I tweak him by saying, on this occasion, tell me what you accuse the Jews of, and I'll tell you what you've been told you're guilty of.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's an interesting kind of projection. Just to observe some of the sociological phenomena here on top of all this, it does seem that hatred of Jews gets a lot of engagement online. Mhmm. Is this so I watch it like a curiosity, like I'm an alien observing Earth.
Is this dangerous to you, or is it just a bunch of trolls and grifters, you know, let's say, cosplaying as Nazis? It's just Could
Speaker 0: be both.
Speaker 1: Fun to trigger the libs?
Speaker 0: It could be all of this. I think it is and a lot more. I mean, taboos, you know, taboos can be fun to break, I suppose. And I suppose there are some people online who have grown up knowing that, you know, since the Holocaust, antisemitism was taboo, and they've run out of go back to what we were saying earlier a bit. You know, the they sort of run out of they've got bored of that.
Mhmm. You know, holocaust schmolocaust, they'd say, you know, I I got it. I I've heard enough about that. I've and maybe those people have gone off in a funny direction as a result, but I don't think that's the main I think that's, like, a detail compared to the real thing. The real thing is that antisemitism is back, and, there is a certain type of person who's loving it.
Speaker 1: Is it really back? So I I watch
Speaker 0: Well, it never goes away. It's just that it's just that it's it's it's it's since the seventh, I think that it's had a great resurgence. And this isn't to say and that doesn't mean that any criticism of Israel is anti Semitic. No, it doesn't. But as I have often said, if you don't ever express any interest in the murder of Muslims in Syria, not any interest in, genocide in Sudan, killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Yemen, but on the October 8, you're on the street with a placard attacking Israel.
I'm sorry. You're an anti Semite, for sure. You may not know you are, but that's what's motivating you.
Speaker 1: It gets a lot of engagement. I watch it.
Speaker 0: It does.
Speaker 1: I watch it.
Speaker 0: But, I mean, it's one of several things you can always see get huge engagement. I mean, it's like if you if you say that there's like a massive pedophile ring run by prominent politicians, it might be total horse shit. It's likely to be total horse shit, but it'll also get a hell of a lot of engagement.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But that's still the so the pedophile ring, like, Epstein Island, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 0: It's All of which is very interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like, great. Alright. Cool. Let's let's get behind that conspiracy.
But the Jews thing the hatred of Jews is still that's the greatest hits still.
Speaker 0: It is. And, I mean, you see it with I mean, some of the people who've made minor celebrities of themselves with a sort of made up version of history, with a smattering of this and a little bit of that, and then the just asking questions. And, you know, I'm not saying, but and all there are certain, you know, rhetorical sides of hand that have helped this along, but as I said earlier, it's just the the lowest grade explanation of a certain type of mind looking for a pattern and looking for meaning. And I mean, I can give you just one quick example of why that in the case of Israel is so extraordinary, is the number of otherwise semi intelligent people who will tell you that the problem is simply that the Israelis need to give the Palestinians another state, and that if they do, it will solve the problems of the region and the wider world. And irrespective of the fact that the Palestinians have been given to several states, the the the claim that this particular land dispute would unlock every other injustice in the world should be seen on its face to be preposterous.
There is no reason why if the Palestinians got another state, either in Gaza or in parts of Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, there is no reason why we should expect the economy of Yemen to boom. It would not inevitably lead to the mullahs in Tehran giving equal rights to women or anything else. It it it would solve the the most likely thing is you simply have another failed Arab state run by a sort of proxy of Tehran, that's the best case scenario. And by the way, even lifelong defenders of the Palestinian cause, like Salman Rushdie, he said recently, he said there was he said, I've always been a supporter of the Palestinian people in their cause, but it is an unavoidable fact that if another state was given to the Palestinians, it would simply be at best another front for the Iranian regime in Iran, at best. So why the passion about why the unbelievable wild passion about this?
Why and I say, some of it can be, should be argued out and so on, and some of it can be explained, but there's definitely a realm of it, a layer of it, which is simply at that level of this excites something within me. This excites something within me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There there's some there's something compelling to people about hating Jews.
Speaker 0: Look at the look at the prominence of of you know, semi prominent people who are willing to play around with the idea that nine eleven was an inside job and somehow done by the Israelis. I mean, or the Jews. I mean I mean, look at the like, this this shit is going around. I have
Speaker 1: to admit, you know, I'm there's a part of my brain that's pulled towards conspiracies. There's something compelling and fun about a simple explanation for things, what's really going on behind the scenes. Because the real world, when you don't look into conspiracies, first of all, it's complicated. Second of all, it's kinda boring. It's a bunch of incompetent people.
Speaker 0: Usually opening up Pandora's boxes they don't understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's pushing buffoons. And I've been I mean, I've I've I've walked around and hung around with a lot of powerful and rich people. And, like, the thing I learned is they're just human beings. There's not
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: I have yet to be in a room where exceptionally brilliant psychopaths applauding.
Speaker 0: You never got that invite?
Speaker 1: No. In fact, like, a lot of people in the positions of power they're just not good. Yeah. I mean, I'm just continuously disappointed that they're not ultra I love competence. Yes.
The places where I've seen competence, inklings of it is in low level, like soldiers. Mhmm. Like, low level what do you call that? People that do stuff with their hands. So builders of different kinds, engineering, like craftsmen.
Like, I've seen Yes.
Speaker 0: Because you've got because you've got a very specific task that could be highly complicated. Yes. But you get to apply yourself to and to solve.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Over years, you've mastered it. It's passed across generations and so on. But, like, state's craft and, like, that that kind of stuff
Speaker 0: Well, it's it's there's so many variables. I mean, this is this is one of the reasons when you were trying to lure me on to prognostications on Ukraine, and I was saying, I just I've seen enough to know that I just don't know because I know the amount of things that can change all the time. I was some years ago, I was talking to a a former public servant in The UK when Boris Johnson was prime minister and COVID started. And I mentioned to this friend, I said, well, you know, it's it's pretty bad luck for Boris that, you know, he came in to do one thing, which was Brexit, and then there's a global pandemic from Wuhan, you know, and he's got to, like, mug up on that and then gets it really wrong. But anyway and I was really struck by the fact this man, a man of great insider happened to disagree politically, said to me, but Douglas is always like this.
And he said, you know, mean, look at Tony Blair, came into power in September wanting to reform education in The UK, ends up trying to remake the Middle East. And I I I do I mean, as I say, one of the reasons why I am scornful of conspiracy theorists and most conspiracy theories, not to say that there aren't some that do actually turn out to be, you know, to have something in them, and that that happens. A lot of things are called conspiracy theories that turn out to be true. Lab league.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: But but in general, the suspicion and the scorn I have for people who fall into this is, as I say, it's a very low grade, low resolution look at the world by people who clearly have never seen the wildness of actions in the world and the way that they reverberate and the number of events. I mean, I once spoke some years ago to a politician who literally said to me I won't name the country, said to me, can you help us out with with just how to cope on the about with the the day to and understand the day to day struggle we're having with the cycle. And I said, well, right. What what are you talking about? They said, our experience in government is that every day, something comes up which we have to firefight, and that's what we do that day.
Then the next day, something else comes up which we have to firefight, and we we're not getting our policies done. Just thought, for me, that rings an awful lot truer than that that country gets the odd phone call from a member of a Jewish family telling them yeah. I just, you know, it's like, come on.
Speaker 1: So the you know, that's I I do before I forget when I ask you about Iran. What role do they play in this conflict? Such a it it's fascinating how it seems like Iran is fingerprints everywhere in the Middle East. And it's also fascinating that, you know, I have a lot of friends. My best friend is Iranian.
It's fascinating that the Islamic revolution in Iran took the country from the leadership perspective backwards in such a drastic way, that they're still in power. That confuses me because I know now now it's possible I don't know the people of Iran. Sorry to make the obvious statement, but I just have a lot of friends in Iran. And a lot of them everybody I know there opposes the regime. Mhmm.
And they're brilliant Yes. Educated, thoughtful, worldly people. And it it confuses me that there's this this is one of the, I would say, one of the greatest nations on Earth.
Speaker 0: Certainly one of
Speaker 1: the great cultures of Earth. Cultures of the peoples of Iran. Yeah. Agree. When you look at that, and then you look at the leadership Mhmm.
Speaker 0: When they're behind most of the terror groups. In the region, certainly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you just speak to that, and how is it still the same regime since 1979?
Speaker 0: I know. As you know, I start on Democritus and Death Cults with the flight taking the Ayatollah Khomeini Khomeini, rather, from Paris to Tehran. The flight that you say you wish never happened. I think it's one of the two worst journeys of the twentieth century. What's the other one?
Was it Lenin's train getting to Petrograd.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's always about the transportation.
Speaker 0: It's I know. I'm I'm really a transport guy. No. I wait till my book of 10 best journeys Yeah.
Speaker 1: Across the world.
Speaker 0: No. Just as the train to the Finland station brought the basilisk of Bolshevism into Russia, so the flight coming from Paris bringing the Ayatollah Khomeini to Tehran brought the basilis of Khomeiniism, the most radical form of Shiite Islam to Tehran and to Iran. And it's one of the great tragedies of the modern era what happened there. Like you, actually, I have a lot of Persian friends, and I had the great good fortune early in my life to have a very close late friend who had grown up in pre revolutionary Iran. Was very fond of the Shah and and on.
Her father had been an iatollah before the the overthrow of the Shah. But and, you know, everyone had criticisms of him, but when you saw what came after him, it just it was among other things. What I learned from her and other friends in that region was that I suppose two things. One is, of course, is that it's a sort of central conservative insight. You know, things can always be worse.
They can always be worse. Never say this is rock bottom because Yeah. You know, like, you might have a shah with hundreds or even thousands of political prisoners in cells, but you could always have Ayatollah Khomeini butchering them all, and including the people who helped him get to power, like the communists and the trade unionists who who simply were fighting against the Shah and then were very useful for the Ayatollah until he didn't need them anymore. But the other thing I learned from that particular friend and and others was that was this this thing that and again, it's very hard for the Western mindset, very hard for the American mindset in particular, that there is such a thing as fanaticism, real fanaticism, real ideological and real religious fanaticism, and the thing that I described leads to the death cult mindset. That fanaticism is something which is very easy for the West to forget because we haven't seen it in a while.
You know, we get very distant echoes of it in our own societies, really, and we're highly attuned to hear them, which is good in some ways. But Khomeiniism not only vastly set back the Persian people, the Iranian nation, but has managed to keep it in subjugation since 1979. And your question of why gets to one of the really the biggest questions really that that has to be under the answer to which has to be understood, which is it's what Solzhenitsyn says at one point in Gulag Archipelago. In that passage where he describes, when we heard the footsteps on the staircase and the knock was on our neighbor's door, and we knew our neighbor was being taken away, why did we not stop them? And in the case of the revolutionary government in Iran, you know, it's the same answer as whether it's Hamas governing Gaza with the the the peep whoever the people in Gaza are, who would have liked to have seen them overthrown.
You know, people don't realize that despite the rhetoric and everything else, everything changes if the other guy might kill you. And that, you know, when the green revolution in 02/2009 started in Iran, why was it put down? Why didn't it work? Why, like you, the my the sort of Iranians who I really hope one day get their country back, why did all these smart young students and others why after they came out, why was it put down? It was put down because the Basij militia will shoot you in the head, and they'll take you to a prison as they did with Iranian students, and they'll rape you with bottles and kill you.
And even a little bit of that goes an awfully long way to tell the rest of society not to do it again. You know, we know it happens like that from films, but too few people understand that regimes like that in Tehran operate like that on a grand scale, on the biggest of scales, and with the ultimate of brutality, and that's how they stay in power. And one other thing on that, by the way, which is I was I was reminded of this the other day, but, you know, thinking about this sort of, you know, what I've just described as a sort of a problem in democracies is that we just, you know, we like to think everyone thinks like us and, you know, we'd like everyone to sort of be like us and we we believe fictions that we're taught in films like, you know, everyone basically wants the same things as us and you go, you haven't stepped outside the walls of the city if you think that. But the second thing is this thing of the death cults of why why we sort of single singly fail to understand that this is possible.
And, homanism is both very specific and also very strongly linked to totalitarian and radical and extremist death cult movements that are not that far in our past. I mean, you know, there's a moment in when Ariana Falacci interviewed the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, '1 of the very few western journalists to do so. She says to him, these people in the street, this movement, this revolution you've begun, it's guided by hate. It's hate. It's all hate.
And Khomeini says, no. No. It's love. It's love. And and it's actually a scene that that that appears in the satanic verses of Roshti where that exact same thing happens.
But I was thinking about this recently because I was thinking, but how can you explain to a Western mindset that that's that's something that's going on? There are people directed by this hate that calls itself love, this this and I was reminded of a book I haven't read since I was probably a teenager or something. It made a great impression on me then. Did you ever read the the tragic sense of life? Miguel de Unumuno, a great Spanish existentialist philosopher who died in the thirties.
Unumino had a encounter with students at the university in the thirties when he realized I mean, this is the the the early period of the Francoists, de Rivera and all those people. Unumino is at this meeting and the chant goes up from the eager students who have fallen into this sort of phalangist, Francoist ideology already. They end up chanting in front of him as he's trying to defend the principles by which he has lived his life. They end up chanting in front of him, long live death. Long live death.
And he tries to explain to them this is this is a necrophilic chant. Yeah. But those young men in pre Francoist Spain shouting long live death, They have their counterparts today. They are the people who's who taunt Americans, Westerners, Israelis, and others with lines like, we love death more than you love life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the line you returned to. That's a really difficult line to load in because if you base your whole existence on that notion, then, well, you're a danger to the world. That's a good foundation for committing evil. I I have to ask because you mentioned that interview.
You had a good interview with Benjamin Netanyahu after October 7, and I've been very fortunate to get the opportunity to interview a few world leaders. It looks like I'll interview Vladimir Putin and others. One, have a general question about how do you interview people like this. Maybe to put your historian hat on of, like, how do you approach the interview of world leaders such that you can gain a deeper understanding in the hope that that adds to the compassion in the world? So I have I have a deep sense that understanding people you might hate helps in the long arc of history add compassion to the world.
But even just to add understanding is difficult in those kinds of contexts. And, you know, maybe it's more useful to think about from a historian perspective of how you need to interview somebody like Hitler or Stalin or Churchill, FDR during World War two. It's not
Speaker 0: you know, I think about this
Speaker 1: a lot, especially if it's, you know, two, three, four, five hour conversation. Well, there's a
Speaker 0: lot of weight on you when you do those conversations,
Speaker 1: isn't there? Where? So, like, where who's watching? Is it historians twenty years from then?
Speaker 0: Who knows? I mean, the whole data might be wiped. I I I suspect there's a weight on you because every major world leader you interview and you've done some amazing ones. But, I mean, you you presumably, you have a set of people saying you've got to ask him about this. You've you you can't not address this.
And and that's a very challenging one because, of course, although in in an interview, the politicians should not should not be supine nor can it be endlessly interrogative because, like, you're not the prosecutor, and they don't have to be the guilty party answering to you. And I've noticed the number of people who interview people, world leaders and others, who go in with a set of sort of those things, and and they and and at some point, the other party can just just I don't need this. And people criticizing you don't realize that. You just can't do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I suppose why journalists behave the way they do, although I have increasingly less and less respect for the journalists the average journalist. I have more and more respect for the great journalists as my respect for the average journalist decreases. Mhmm. Because a lot of the journalists seem to be sing signaling to their own in in group.
Mhmm. But there is a lot of pressure on people in that situation to ask the what I would say is the dumb question. Why is it the dumb question? The adversarial question that the the world leader, the person is ready for. They've answered that question.
And what you're trying to do is, I guess, one, to signal that you've asked the question and to push them.
Speaker 0: Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: Two, you're trying to, like, just create drama. Because really, what people that ask you to ask that question, they want you to embarrass that person. They hate them, and they want you to, like, make them piss their pants or something, or just start crying and run out of Walk out. Yeah. Walk out in a way that it's embarrassing for them.
They could be like, look at that pathetic person. Mhmm. And that reveals to me nothing, except maybe the weakness of the interviewee that they can't stand up to a tough question.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: But mostly, like, I'm I'm starting I I had to do a lot of thinking because you get attacked a lot. If you ask questions from a place of curiosity that actually have a chance to reveal who the person
Speaker 0: is. There's a very interesting line that Robin Day, who was quite a distinguished interviewer back who was very distinguished interviewer back in the day, said about Jeremy Paxman, who was a very interrogative interviewer in The UK. Robin Day, who was quite good at being rude to politicians but carefully, said the problem with the new approach, as he saw it from the nineties of political interviewing, was he said, if you think the person you're speaking to is a liar, you should get them to reveal that they're a liar. Don't just call them a liar. Yeah.
Yep. And I think that is again, it's something that a lot of people sitting on the other side of the screen don't realize is that may satisfy them that you call a person a liar to their face, but it doesn't do anything, and it actually reveals nothing. If somebody is a liar and they reveal themselves to be a liar, then that's that's something else. But, yes, I mean, I can I I hear you? You're you're obviously, you have a lot of different voices telling you what to do.
It's also difficult because one of the things that I don't think anyone really understands is that is that in the end, it's just you. Yeah. I'm sure they you have this about Putin. People say, I I know exactly how you can you know, they could give endless advice. The end is you sitting down talking to him.
It's it's like everybody knows how to behave on the presidential debate stage, but only a few people have done it. In person
Speaker 1: is actually pretty difficult. As I mean
Speaker 0: It's very difficult because you've got all this weird behind the scenes stuff as well. You've got all of the games that people play.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, with you know, I interviewed Zelensky. You know, I'm pretty fearless in general, and he was a very human and Yeah. Fascinating human. But there is soldiers with guns standing all around.
Speaker 0: And you didn't have anyone? You no one was patting on your side?
Speaker 1: I I had one friend, security person, who's also Ukraine. So you never know. You could turn a
Speaker 0: You've been infiltrated.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. No. I mean, that doesn't have any effect. And by the way, should mention that because it's it's hilarious to me.
But process wise, with Nirajramodian, with anyone, they don't they said it was scripted and all this kind of stuff. I would never do anything scripted. They don't get to have a say in anything I ask to have complete freedom. Sometimes you'll have people on the team very politely nudge like, hey, can you and I'll very politely say, thank you, you know, like smile, but that doesn't mean I have to fucking do it. I I could do whatever the hell I want.
Right. You so the comm the section by the way, with world leaders, it doesn't happen. It happens more with CEOs because they have, like, usually PR and comms people. They'll just be, like, very politely, hey. You know that thing
Speaker 0: Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: About about, you know, when they that sexual assault harassment charges they've had.
Speaker 0: Isn't it? Could we
Speaker 1: just there's no reason to really link around that?
Speaker 0: You don't have to do that. Yeah. One of my favorite things anyone has ever said in a or I mean, I it's only ever happening I know a couple of cases of this happening in private. Some friend some a friend of mine once years ago was debating against the this is before the the war the civil war in Syria was debating something to do with the Middle East, and one of the people on the other side was the then Syrian ambassador in London. The then Syrian ambassador in London says something about the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, and my friend stands up and starts talking about Assad senior's massacre of the Palestinians in Hama, where they killed, like, 10,000 Palestinians in a day.
And my friend starts talking about the Hama massacre by Assad senior. And the the big fat Syrian ambassador, like, stands up to respond, and he says, that is that is none of your business. And my friend was like, oh, I thought we were gonna get it in denial.
Speaker 1: Let me just ask you one more thing about Netanyahu, because I also have the opportunity to do a three hour interview with him at this stage. And I've been, if I'm just being honest, very hesitant to do it. And I just don't know how a conversation there could help add compassion to the world. And that particular topic, no matter how well you do it, you do take on a very large number of people that will just make it their daily activity to hate you, and to write about it, and to post about it, and to accuse you of things. In some sense, I don't wanna lose the part of me that's that's vulnerable to the world.
Speaker 0: People have very little understanding of things if they're willing to say that because you're sitting down and talking with somebody, you are ergo platforming them, advancing their cause, being used, being a shill or whatever like that. You might be actually just finding some things out, which I think is something you do expertly. And another thing your critics wouldn't realize is is that they, you know, life is long, and, you know, hopefully, God willing, both around for a long time, and therefore, you don't blow everything up at the request of some twat online.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: But I do think that a superpower of a kind is to identify the people whose opinion you care for and worry about their opinion and no one else's really. And and and you just you just keep your own guiding light. That's what's always done for for me is that I I I've always said I just don't really I wouldn't care if I was the only person with my opinion, and billions of people disagreed. I mean, I might be curious if the whole planet disagreed with me, but it doesn't fundamentally that's not why I'll send you Churchill's great speech on the death of Chamberlain. I mean it.
He says the bet he says one of the most wise and brilliant things. I was thinking about it slightly earlier when you were talking about Zelenskyy, but he because because because one of Churchill's greatnesses was his magnanimity. And when his great political opponent, Chamberlain, died in 1940 and Churchill had just taken over as prime minister, he could have used the opportunity. And we might even say that some politicians in our day won't be able to resist the opportunity. He could have used the opportunity to say, you see, I was right.
And Chamberlain didn't know what the hell he was doing, and he's let us into this mess, and you should have all listened to me. Because that would have been a good time. Yeah. It would have been a good time to say that that would have been one for the win, as they say. But Churchill doesn't do that in his great eulogy for Chamberlain.
He talks about how hard it is for mankind to operate in the world and how you can do it successfully. He very movingly says he doesn't even mention the name of Hitler. He says, what were Neville Chamberlain's flaws? He says, desiring of human peace to be seeking peace. And he says, and he his the curse that he had was he was led astray by a very wicked man.
And then but then he has this great passage where he Churchill says, beautiful resonant passage about how he says, it's not given to men happily for them for otherwise life would prove intolerable to foresee or to predict to any great extent the unfolding course of events. And he says, and for one phase, men seem to have been right, and in another, they're proved wrong, and then there's a a and there's a different scale of values emerges. And he said he says, what is the worth of all this? He says, the only guide to a man is his conscience. The only shield that his memory is the rectitude and the sincerity of his actions.
And in fact, he's he he says it doesn't matter what happens. If you have this he finishes it. He says, however the fates may play, that if you have this shield to guard you, he says, you march always in the ranks of honor. All that can guide a man is is that if you lose sight of it, and some people do, and maybe everyone does at some point, then it's a challenge. And then you get buffeted by the tos and fro's of the waves of popular opinion.
But, and that's dangerous. But if you keep sight and hold on to what you believe, a million billion foes don't matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That is the path. We were talking offline about a great biography of Churchill. Churchill himself made mistakes and admitted the mistakes, and was we can even say was proud of the mistakes. I mean Learned from them.
Learned from them. That's all the best you could do. The worst you could probably do is being afraid of making mistakes. That's what TR famously said
Speaker 0: about the man the man in the arena speech. TR.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The old TR. Those two have made quite a few mistakes, but are in the end, some of the greatest humans ever created. Norm MacDonald Churchill and Taylor. Norm?
Speaker 0: I think we did him before coming on air.
Speaker 1: Oh, before coming on air. Yeah. Well, he's always and everywhere in the in the air around us. One of the one of the great comedians. Alright.
What gives you hope about this whole thing we have going on, human civilization? You've been covering some of the darker aspects, the madness of crowds, the madness of geopolitics, the madness of wars. Sometimes when the sun shines through the clouds and and there's a smile on Douglas Murray's face, what's the source of the smile? The warmth. Endless
Speaker 0: numbers of things. Endless numbers of things. And I get I get enormous encouragement from smart young people, actually. That's one of way I've heard. That's just the best thing ever.
I was in Kyiv the other week, and I was asked to speak to some students at the university. And irrespective of the rather, you know, tricky situation that they are in, it's just great to, as you know, to speak to a room full of students about things and then hang around afterwards and just answer all the questions you can and hear from them about their lives and what they want to do and remembering what you were like at their age and how goofy you were and how much you were gonna get wrong and how much, you know, you had to learn and how much you were gonna enjoy it and and seeing the the opportunities they have in front of them if if things go right and and just smart young people give me enormous encouragement all the time. It's it's that's the best thing. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're you could see endless possibility in their eyes, and there's they're not, like, burdened by, let's say, the cynicism that builds up.
Speaker 0: Even the cynicism, I mean, can resist that. I mean, I've got quite a deep wellspring of it. But I mean, you can't only fall into that because there's so much else it doesn't cover. It'd be like spending your life being ironic, you know.
Speaker 1: So that said, you have seen a lot of war, especially recently and directly. Mhmm. Ukraine, Israel, has that changed you? Has that dimmed some of that warmth and light?
Speaker 0: That's a very difficult question to answer. I don't know. Differs day to day.
Speaker 1: So sometimes there's a heaviness there because of the things you've Yeah.
Speaker 0: I I at times. At times.
Speaker 1: You regret some going as much as you have to the front lines?
Speaker 0: No. No. One of the reasons why war is for a writer kind of the ultimate subject
Speaker 1: is because you see
Speaker 0: life weirdly at its ultimate very, very strange, strange thing. But, you know, it just it is is the truth. Death, when it's in front of you, is something which gives a terrible clarity to everything. And it it you see how people will love and even sometimes laugh more. How they'll there's an essay by Montaigne that's always on my mind called why we weep and laugh at the same time.
Everything's just more, and and people the real thing is the people. You see the the the very, very best of people and the very worst, and they're beside each other. There's some
Speaker 1: so I've gotten a bunch of chance to interact with soldiers on the front line in Ukraine, and there is some level of, like, all the bullshit niceties or whatever it is of of civilian life is all stripped away. Seems more honest somehow.
Speaker 0: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I couldn't agree more. And and and there's the wild clarity about things, not because of enemies or anything like that, but because of the of the I joked I think I mentioned the I joked about this system Ukrainian soldiers in '22 because they wanted a cigarette and and and we and we stepped outside.
I accompanied them outside because they weren't allowed to smoke indoors in this hotel, which there were rockets falling. Yeah. Yeah. And I said to him, isn't it strange that fear of secondhand smoke has superseded this, but I I don't know. It's just
Speaker 1: Seeing the humor in that, when you're on the front line, when you're fighting in a war, the humor of that is somehow just perfectly delicious. You could just laugh all day about that. Yeah. And the absurdity of life is just Yes. Right there.
Speaker 0: That's right.
Speaker 1: And it's so honest, and it's so beautiful. And that's why a lot of soldiers are traumatized, they're destroyed by war, but they also miss it. That's right. That's right. Absolutely.
Oh my god. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. There's an intimacy to the whole thing.
Speaker 0: Absolutely. Well, that's right. I mean, everyone says, you know, I never felt more alive. You know? Yeah.
And I wouldn't I wouldn't do anything different.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope just like Churchill, you keep fighting the good fight and not listening to anybody, and I'll try to learn to do the same. Douglas, I'm a huge fan. Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 0: Been a great pleasure, right back at you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Douglas Murray. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Bertrand Russell. The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
reSee.it AI Summary
I had an extensive 4-hour conversation with Marc Andreessen, where we explored a hopeful vision for America's future amid various challenges. We delved into topics like the tech industry, the AI race, immigration, and political corruption, emphasizing the importance of humor and memes in advancing civilization. The discussion covered a wide range of subjects, including historical perspectives, self-censorship, and the nature of power. You can find the full conversation on multiple platforms, including YouTube and as a podcast.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my 4-hour conversation with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), where we discuss a positive vision for the future of America, given the many challenges we face. We talk about the state of the tech industry, the heated AI race, immigration, power & corruption in politics, and of course, most importantly, the critical role of humor and memes to the progress of human civilization. It's here on X in full, and is up everywhere else too. Links in comment. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:09 - Best possible future 10:32 - History of Western Civilization 19:51 - Trump in 2025 27:32 - TDS in tech 40:19 - Preference falsification 56:15 - Self-censorship 1:11:18 - Censorship 1:19:57 - Jon Stewart 1:22:43 - Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan 1:31:32 - Government pressure 1:42:19 - Nature of power 1:55:08 - Journalism 2:00:43 - Bill Ackman 2:05:40 - Trump administration 2:13:19 - DOGE 2:27:11 - H1B and immigration 3:05:05 - Little tech 3:17:25 - AI race 3:26:15 - X 3:29:47 - Yann LeCun 3:33:21 - Andrew Huberman 3:34:53 - Success 3:37:49 - God and humanity
Video Transcript AI Summary
The U.S. is adding $1 trillion to the national debt every 100 days, risking hyperinflation. Despite challenges, the U.S. economy continues to grow, driven by its resources, security, and dynamic population. The entrepreneurial spirit in America is unique, shaped by diverse cultural influences. Optimism for the future lies in the potential for technological growth and innovation. The conversation also touches on the complexities of immigration, emphasizing the need for skilled workers while recognizing the importance of developing native talent. The current administration aims to address these issues, focusing on transparency and accountability in government spending. The discussion highlights the significance of leadership, the impact of social media, and the evolving landscape of AI and technology. Ultimately, the importance of understanding power dynamics within institutions is emphasized, alongside the need for a balanced approach to immigration and education.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: I mean look, we're adding a $1,000,000,000,000 to the national debt every 100 days right now and it's now passing the size of the defense department budget and it's compounding and it's pretty soon it's going to be adding a $1,000,000,000,000 every 90 days and then it's gonna be adding a $1,000,000,000,000 every 80 days and then it's gonna be a $1,000,000,000,000,000 every 70 days and then if this doesn't get fixed at some point, we enter a hyperinflationary spiral and we become Argentina or Brazil. And
Speaker 1: The following is a conversation with Marc Andreessen, his second time on the podcast. Mark is a visionary tech leader and investor who fundamentally shaped the development of the Internet and the tech industry in general over the past 30 years. He's the co creator of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, cofounder of Netscape, cofounder of the legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and is one of the most influential voices in the tech world, including at the intersection of technology and politics. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Mark and Reason. Alright. Let's start with optimism. If you were to imagine the best possible 1 to 2 years, 2025, 26 for tech for big tech and small tech, what would it be? What would it look like?
Lay out your vision for the best possible scenario trajectory for America. The roaring twenties. Roaring twenties.
Speaker 0: The roaring twenties. I mean, look. Couple of things. It is remarkable over the last several years with all of the issues, including, you know, every not just everything in politics, but also COVID and every other thing that's happened. It's really amazing.
The United States just kept growing. If you just look at economic growth charts, the US just kept growing and very significantly many other countries stopped growing. So Canada stopped growing. The UK stopped growing. Germany has stopped growing.
And, you know, some of those countries may be actually going backwards at this point. And there's a very long discussion to be had about what's wrong with those countries, and there's, of course, plenty of things that are wrong with our country. But, the US is just flat out primed for growth. And I think that's a consequence of many factors, you know, some of which were are lucky and some of which through hard work. And so the lucky part is just, you know, number 1, we know we just have, like, incredible physical security by being our own continent.
You know, we have incredible natural resources. Right? There's there's this running joke now that, like, whenever it looks like the US is gonna run out of some, like, rare earth material, you know, some farmer in North Dakota, like, kicks over a hay bale and finds, like, a $2,000,000,000,000 deposit. Mhmm. Right?
I mean, we're we're just, like, blessed, you know, with with with geography and with natural resources. Energy, you know, we can be energy independent anytime we want. This last administration decided they didn't wanna be. They wanted to turn off American energy. This new administration has declared that they have a goal of turning it on in a dramatic way.
There's no question we can be energy dependent. We can be a giant net energy exporter. Purely a question of choice. And I think the the new administration is going to do that. And so we and oh, and then I would say 2 other things.
1 is, you know, we we are the beneficiaries and, you know, you're an example of this. We're a beneficiary. We're the beneficiary of, you know, 50, a 100, 200 years years of like the basically most aggressive driven smartest people in the world, most capable people, you know, moving to the US and raising their kids here. And so we just have, you know, by far the most dynamic, you know, we're by far the most dynamic population, most aggressive, you know, we're the most aggressive set of characters in a certainly in any in any western country and have been for a long time and certainly are today. And then finally, I would just say, look, we are overwhelmingly the advanced technology leader.
You know, we we have our issues, and we have a, I would say, particular issue with manufacturing, which we could talk about. But for, you know, anything in software or anything in AI, anything in, you know, all these, you know, advanced biotech, all these advanced areas of technology, like, we're we're by far the leader. Again, in part because many of the best scientists and engineers in those fields, you know, you know, come to the US. And so we we we just we have all of the preconditions for a, for a just a monster, boom. You know, I could see economic growth going way up.
I could see productivity growth going way up, rate of technology adoption going way up. And then we could we can do a global tour if you like, but, like, basically, all of our competitors have, like, profound issues. And, you know, we could kinda go through them 1 by 1, but the the the competitive landscape just is it's like it's it's remarkable how, how how much better position we are for growth.
Speaker 1: What about the humans themselves? Almost a philosophical questions. You know, I travel across the world, and there's something about the American spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit that's uniquely intense in America. I don't know what that is. I I've talked to, Sagar who claims it might be the Scots Irish blood that runs through, the the history of America.
What is it? You at the heart of Silicon Valley, is there something in the water? Why is there this entrepreneurial spirit?
Speaker 0: Yeah. So is this a family show, or am I allowed to swear?
Speaker 1: You you could say whatever the fuck you want.
Speaker 0: Okay. So the t the great TV show, Succession. The show, of course, that would which you were intended to root for exactly 0 of the characters.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: The best line for succession was in the final episode of the first season when the whole family's over in, Logan Roy's ancestral, homeland of Scotland, and they're at this castle, you know, for some wedding. And Logan is just, like, completely miserable after having to you know, because he's been in New York for 50 years. He's totally miserable being back in in, in Scotland, and he gets in some argument with somebody, and he's like, my he says finally just says, my god. I cannot wait to get out of here and go back to America where we can fuck without condoms.
Speaker 1: Was that a metaphor or okay.
Speaker 0: Exactly. Right? And so no. But it's exactly the thing. And then everybody instantly knows what that like, everybody watching that instantly starts laughing because you know what it means, which is it's exactly this.
I think there's, like, an ethnographic, you know, way of it. There's a bunch of books on, like, all like you said, the Scots Irish, like, all the different derivations of all the different ethnic groups that have come to the US over the course of the last 400 years. Right? But it's it been what what we have is this sort of amalgamation of, like, you know, the, you know, the the northeast, you know, Yankees who were, like, super tough and hardcore. Yeah.
The Scots Irish are super aggressive. You know, we've got the, you know, the southerners and the Texans, you know, and the and, you know, the sort of, you know, whole kind of blended, you know, kind of Anglo Hispanic thing, you know, super incredibly tough, strong driven, you know, capable characters, you know, the Texas Rangers. You know, we've got the yeah. We've got the California. You know, we've got the, you know, the wild.
We've got the incredibly, you know, inventive hippies, but we also have the hardcore engineers. We've got, you know, the best, you know, rocket scientists in the world. We've got the best, you know, artists in the world, you know, creative professionals, you know, the best movies. And so, yeah, there there there is, you know, the the the the, you know, let's say all of our problems, I think, are basically, you know, in my view, to some extent, you know, attempts to basically sand all that off and make everything basically boring and mediocre. But there is something in the national spirit that basically keeps bouncing back.
And basically what we discover over time is we basically just need people to stand up at a certain point and say, you know, it's time to, you know, it's time to build, it's time to grow, you know, it's time to do things. And so and there's something in the American spirit that just, like, roars right back to life. And I've seen it before. I actually saw, you know, I saw it as a kid here in the in the early eighties, you know, because the the the seventies were, like, horribly depressing, right, in the in the US. Like, they were a nightmare on many fronts.
And in a lot of ways, the last decade to me has felt a lot like the seventies, just being mired in misery, and just this self defeating, you know, negative attitude and everybody's upset about everything and, you know, and then, by the way, like, energy crisis and hostage crisis and foreign wars and just demoralization. Right? You know, the the low point for in the seventies was, you know, Jimmy Carter who just passed away. He went on TV and he gave his speech known as the malaise speech. And it was, like, the weakest possible trying to, like, rouse people back to a sense of, like, passion.
Completely failed. And, you know, we had the, you know, the hostages in, you know, Iran for, I think, 440 days. And every night on the nightly news, it was, you know, lies around the block, energy crisis, depression, inflation. And then, you know, Reagan came in, and, you know, Reagan was a very controversial character at the time. And, you know, he came in, and he's like, yep.
Nope. It's morning in America. And we're the shiny city on the hill, and we're gonna do it. And he did it, and we did it. And the national spirit came roaring back and, you know, worked really hard for a full decade.
And I I I think that's exactly what I I think, you know, we'll see, but I think that's what could happen here.
Speaker 1: And I just did a super long podcast on Milton Friedman with Jennifer Burns, who's this incredible professor at Stanford, and he was part of the Reagan. So some there's a bunch of components to that, one of which is economic. Yes. And one of which, maybe you can put a word on it, of not to be romantic or anything, but freedom, individual freedom, economic freedom, political freedom, and just in general individualism.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And and as you know, America has this incredible streak of individualism. You know, individualism in America probably peaked, I think, between roughly, call it, the end of the Civil War, 18 65 through to probably, call it 1931 or something.
You know, and there was this, like, incredible I mean, that period you know, we now know that period is the second industrial revolution, and it's when the United States basically assumed global leadership and basically took took over technological and economic leadership from from England. And then, you know, that that led to, you know, ultimately then, therefore, being able to, you know, not only industrialize the world, but also win World War 2 and then win the cold war. And, yeah, there you know, there's a massive industrial you know, massive, individualistic streak. By the way, you know, Milton free Milton Friedman's old old videos are all on YouTube. They are every bit as compelling and inspiring Yep.
As they, as they were then. You know, he's this he's a singular figure. Many of us, you know, have you know, I I never knew him, but, he was at, actually at Stanford for many years at at the Hoover Institution. But, I never met him, but I know a lot of people who worked with him and, you know, that that, you know, he was he was a singular figure, but his his all all of his lessons, you know, live on or are fully available. But I would also say it's not just individualism.
And this is, you know, one of this is one of the big things that's, like, playing out in a lot of our culture and kind of political fights right now, which is, you know, basically this feeling, you know, certainly that I have and I share with a lot of people, which is it's not enough for America to just be an economic zone, and it's not enough for us to just be individuals, and it's not enough to just have line go up, and it's not enough to just have economic success. There are deeper questions at play, and also, you know, there's more to a country than just that. And, you know, quite frankly, a lot of it is intangible. A lot of it you know, involves spirit, and and passion. And, you know, like I said, we we have more of it than anybody else.
But, you know, we we have to choose to want it. The the the way I look at it is, like, all of our problems are self inflicted. Like, they're, you know, decline as a choice. You know, all of our problems are basically demoralization campaigns, you know, basically people in positions of authority telling us that we should, you know, stand out, we shouldn't be adventurous, we shouldn't be exciting, we shouldn't be exploratory, you know, we shouldn't, you know, this, that, and the other thing, and we should feel bad about everything that we do. And I think we've lived through a decade where that's been the prevailing theme.
And I I think quite honestly, as of November, I think people
Speaker 1: are done with it. If we could go on a tangent of a tangent, since we're talking about individualism, and that's not all that it takes. You've mentioned in the past the book, The Ancient City Yes. By, if I can only pronounce the name, French historian, Numa Denis Faustel de Cunha. I don't know.
Speaker 0: That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. From the 19th century. Anyway, you said this is an important book to understand who we are
Speaker 0: and where we come from. So what that book does it's actually quite a striking book. So that book is written by this guy, as a profuse he was a he was a he was a let let Lex do the pronunciations foreign language pronunciations for the day. He was a professor of classics at, the Sorbonne in, in Paris, the, you know, the top university, at, in the in the actually, in 18 sixties. So actually, it ran ran around after the US Civil War.
And he was a savant of a particular kind, which is he and you can see this in the book as he had apparently read and sort of absorbed and memorized every possible scrap of Greek and and, Roman literature. And so it's like a walking, like, index on basically Greek and Roman. Everything we know about Greek and Roman culture. And that's significant. The reason this matters is because basically none of that has changed.
Right? And so he had access to the exact same written materials that we have we have access to. And so there, you know, we've learned nothing. And then specifically what he did is he talked about the Greeks and Romans, but specifically what he did is he went back further. He reconstructed the people who came before the Greeks and Romans and what their life in society was like, and these were the people who were now known as the as the Indo Europeans.
And these were or you may have heard of these. These are the people who came down from the steps. And so they they they came out of what's now, like, Eastern Europe, like, around sort of the outskirts of what's now Russia. And then they sort of swept through, Europe. They ultimately took over all of Europe.
By the way, you know, almost many of the ethnicities in the Americas, the 100 of years to follow, you know, are are Indo European. So, like, you know, they were this basically this warrior, basically, class that, like, came down and swept through and and, and, you know, essentially, you know, populated much of the world. And there's a whole interesting saga there. But what he does and then they basically they they from there came basically what we know as the Greeks and the Romans. We're kind of evolutions off of that.
And so what he reconstructs is sort of what life was like what life was like, at least in the West for people in their kind of original social state. And the significance of that is is the original social state is this is living in the state of the absolute imperative for survival with absolutely no technology. Right? Like, no modern systems. No nothing.
Right? You've got the clothes on your back. You've got your, you know, you've got whatever you can build with your bare hands, right? This is, you know, predates basically all concepts of of, of technologies. We understand it today and so these are people under, like, maximum levels of physical survival pressure.
And so what what social patterns do they evolve to be able to do that? And then the social pattern basically was as follows. Is a is a 3 part social structure, family, tribe and city, and, zero concept of individual rights, and essentially no concept of individualism. And so you were not an individual. You were a member of your family.
And then a set of families would aggregate into a tribe, and then a set of tribes would aggregate into a, into a city. And then the morality was completely it was actually what Nietzsche talks Nietzsche talks about. The morality was entirely master morality, not slave morality. And so in their morality, anything that was strong was good and anything that was weak was bad. And it's very clear why that is.
Right? It's because strong equals good equals survive. Weak equals bad equals die. And that led to what became known later as the master slave dialectic, which is is it more important for you to live on your feet as a master even at the risk of dying, or are you willing to, you know, live as a slave on your knees in order to not die? And this is sort of the the derivation of that moral framework.
Christianity later inverted that moral framework, but, you know, the the original, framework lasted for, you know, many, many 1000 of years. No concept of individualism. The head of the family had total life and death control the over over the family. The head of the tribe, same thing. Head of the city, same thing.
And then you were morally obligated to kill members of the of the other cities on on contact. Right? You you were morally required to. Like, if you didn't do it, you were a bad person. And then the form of the society was basically and then the form of the society was basically maximum fascism combined with maximum communism.
Right? And so it was maximum fascism in the form of this, like, absolute top down control where the head of the family tribe or city could kill other members of the community at any time with no repercussions at all. There's a maximum hierarchy, but combined with maximum communism, which is no market economy, and so everything gets shared. Right? And and sort of the point of being in one of these collectives is that it's a collective and and and, you know, and and people are sharing.
And, of course, that limited how big they could get because, you know, the problem with communism is it does the scale. Right? It works at the level of a family. It's much harder to make it work at the level of a country. Impossible.
Maximum fascism, maximum communism, and then and then it was all inter intricately, tied into their religion. And their their religion was, it was in 2 parts. It was, veneration of ancestors, and it was veneration of nature. And the veneration of ancestors is extremely important because it was basically like basically, the ancestors were the people who got you to where you were. The ancestors were the people who had everything to teach you.
Right? And then it was veneration of nature because, of course, nature is the thing that's trying to kill you. And then you had your ancestor every family, tribe, or city had their ancestor gods and then they had their, they had their nature gods. Okay. So fast forward to today, like, we live in a world that is, like, radically different.
But in the in the book takes you through kind of what happened from that through the Greeks and Romans through to Christianity. And so but it's very helpful to kind of think in these terms because the conventional view of the progress through time is that we are, you know, the cliche is the arc of the moral universe, you know, Ben Storz Justice, right? Or so called Whig history, which is, you know, that the arc of progress is positive. Right? And so we we, you know, what you hear all the time, what you're taught in school and everything is, you know, every year that goes by, we get better and better and more and more moral and more and more pure and a better version of ourselves.
Our indo european ancestors would say, oh, no, like, you people have, like, fallen to shit. Like, you people took all of the principles of basically your civilization, and you have diluted them down to the point where they barely even matter. You know? And you're having, you know, children out of wedlock and you're, you know, you regularly encounter people of other cities and you don't try to kill them. And, like, how crazy is that?
And and they would basically consider us to be living, like, an incredibly diluted version of this sort of highly religious, highly cult like, right, highly organized, highly fascist fascist communist society. I can't resist noting that as a consequence of basically going through all the transitions we've been through, going all the way through Christianity, coming out the other end of Christianity, Nietzsche declares god is dead. We're in a secular society, you know, that still has, you know, tinges of Christianity, but, you know, largely prides itself on no longer being religious in that way. You know, we being the sort of most fully evolved modern secular, you know, expert scientists and so forth have basically re evolved or fallen back on the exact same religious structure, that the Indo Europeans had, specifically ancestor worship, which is identity politics, and nature worship, which is environmentalism. And so we have actually, like, worked our way all the way back to their cult religions without realizing it.
And and and it just goes to show that, like, you know, in some ways, we have fallen far from the far from the family tree, but in in some cases, we're we're we're exactly the same.
Speaker 1: You kind of described this progressive idea of wokeism and so on as, worshiping ancestors.
Speaker 0: Identity politics is worshiping ancestors. Right? It's it's it's tagging newborn infants with either, you know, benefits or responsibilities or, you know, levels of condemnation based on who their ancestors were. The the Indo Europeans would have recognized it on-site. We somehow think it's, like, super socially progressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it is not.
Speaker 0: I mean, I I would say obviously not. Let's you know, get get new asked which is where I think you're headed, which is look. Like, is the idea that you can, like, completely reinvent society every generation and have no regard whatsoever for what came before you? That that seems like a really bad idea. Right?
That's like the Cambodians with year 0 under Pol Pot and, you know, death, you know, follows. It's obviously the Soviets try that. You know, the the, you know, the the utopian fantasists who think that they can just rip up everything that came before and create something new in the human condition and human society have a very bad history of of causing, you know, enormous destruction. So on the one hand, it's like, okay. There is, like, a deeply important role for tradition.
And and and the way I think about that is it's it's the process of evolutionary learning. Right? Which is what what tradition ought to be is the distilled wisdom of all. And and, you know, this is how I know your opinion is thought about. It should be the distilled wisdom of everybody who came before you.
Right? All those important and powerful lessons learned. And that's that's why I think it's fascinating to go back and study how these people lived is because that's that's part of the history and, you know, part of the learning that got us to where where we are today. Having said that, there are many cultures around the world that are, you know, mired in tradition to the point of not being able to progress. And in fact, you might even say, globally, that's the default human condition, which is, you know, a lot of people are in societies in which, you know, there's, like, absolute seniority by age.
You know, kids are completely you know, like, in the US, like, for some reason, we decided kids are in charge of everything. Right? And, like, you know, they're the trendsetters, and they're allowed to, like, set all the agendas and, like, set settle the politics and settle the culture, and maybe that's a little bit crazy. But, like, in a lot of other cultures, kids have no voice at all, no role at all because it's the old people who are in charge of everything. You know, they're gerontocracies.
And it's all a bunch of 80 year olds running everything, which by the way, we have a little bit of that too. Right? And so I would I would say is, like, there's a doubt there's there's a real downside. You know, full traditionalism is communitarianism. You know, it's ethnic particularism.
You know, it's ethnic chauvinism. It's, you know, this incredible level of of resistance to change. You know, that's I mean, it just doesn't get you anywhere. Like, it it it may be good and fine at the level of individual tribe, but it's a society society living in the modern world that you can't evolve. You can't you can't advance.
You can't participate in all the good things that, you know, that that that have happened. And so, you know, I think probably this is one of those things where extremist on either side is probably a bad idea. And I but, you know, but but this needs to be approached in a sophisticated and nuanced way.
Speaker 1: So the beautiful picture you painted of the roaring twenties, how can the Trump administration play a part in making that future happen?
Speaker 0: Yeah. So, look, a big part of this is getting the government boot off the neck of the American economy, the American technology industry, the American people. You know, and then, again, this is a replay of what happened in the sixties seventies, which is, you know, for what started out looking like, you know, I'm sure good and virtuous purposes, you know, we we ended up both then and now with this, you know, what I what I describe as sort of a form of soft authoritarianism. You know, the the good news is it's not like a military dictatorship. It's not like, you know, you get thrown into Lubbianca, you know, for the most part.
And that's not coming at 4 in the morning. You're not getting dragged off to a cell. So it's not hard authoritarianism, but yet it's soft authoritarianism. And so it's this, you know, incredible suppressive blanket of regulation rules, you know, this concept of a vtocracy. Right?
What's required to get anything done? You know, you need to get 40 people to sign off on anything. Any one of them can veto it. You know, it's a lot of how our now political system works. And then, you know, just this general idea of, you know, progress is bad and technology is bad and capitalism is bad and building businesses is bad and success is bad.
You know, tall poppy syndrome, you know, basically anybody who sticks their head up, you know, deserves to get it, you know, chopped off. Anybody who's wrong about anything deserves to get condemned forever. You know, just this this very kind of, you know, grinding, you know, repression. And then coupled with specific government actions such as censorship regimes, right, and debanking, right, and, you know, draconian, you know, deliberately kneecapping, you know, critical American industries. And then, you know, congratulating yourselves in the back for doing it or, you know, having these horrible social policies.
Like, let's let all the criminals out of jail and see what happens. Right? And so, like, we we've just been through this period. I you know, I call it a demoralization campaign. Like, we've just been through this period where, you know, whether it started that way or not, it ended up basically being this comprehensive message that says you're terrible.
And if you try to do anything, you're terrible, then then fuck you. And the Biden administration reached kind of the full pinnacle of that in in in in our time. They they got really bad on on many fronts at the same time. And so just, like, relieving that, and getting kind of back to a reasonably, you know, kind of optimistic, constructive, you know, pro growth frame of mind. There's just there's so much pent up energy and potential in the American system, and that alone is gonna, I think, cause, you know, growth and and and and and spirit to take off.
And then there's a lot of things proactively, but yeah. And then there's a lot of things proactively that could be done.
Speaker 1: So how do you relieve that? To what degree has the thing you described ideologically permeated government and permeated big companies?
Speaker 0: Disclaimer first, which is I don't wanna predict anything on any of this because I've learned the hard way that I can't predict politics or Washington at all. But I would just say the the the plans and intentions are clear and the staffing supports it. And all the conversations are consistent, with the new administration and that they plan to take, you know, very rapid action on a lot of these fronts very quickly. They're going to do as much as they can through executive orders and then they're going to do legislation and regulatory changes for the rest. And so they're going to move, I think, quickly on a whole bunch of stuff.
You can already feel, I think, a shift in the national spirit or at least let's put it this way. I feel it for sure in Silicon Valley. Like, I mean, we just saw a great example of this with what Mark Zuckerberg is doing. Obviously, I'm involved with his company, but we just saw kind of in public the scope and speed of the changes are reflective of a lot of these shifts. But I would say that that same conversation, those same kinds of things were happening throughout the industry.
Right? And so the the the tech industry itself, whether people were pro Trump or anti Trump, like, there's just, like, a giant 5 shift, mood shift that's, like, kicked in already. And then I was with a group of Hollywood people about 2 weeks ago, and they were still, you know, people who at least at least vocally were still very anti Trump. But I said, you know, has anything changed since since November 6? And they they immediately said, oh, it's completely different.
It feels like the ice is thawed. You know, woke is over. You know, they said that all kinds of projects are gonna be able to get made now that couldn't before, that, you know, Poly was gonna start making comedies again. You know, like, it's it's they were just like it's it's like a it's like a just like an incredible immediate, environmental change. And I'm as I talk to people kind of throughout you know, certainly throughout the economy, people who run businesses, I I hear that all the time, which is just this this last 10 years of misery is just over.
I mean, the one that I'm watching that's really funny I mean, Facebook's getting a lot Meta's getting a lot of attention, but the other funny one is BlackRock, Mhmm. Which I'm not which I you know, and I I don't know him, but I've watched for a long time. And so, you know, the Larry Fink, who's the CEO of BlackRock, was, like, first in as a major, you know, investment CEO on, like, every dumb social trend and rule set. Like, every alright. I'm going for it.
Every retard every retarded thing you can imagine. Yeah. Every ESG and every, like, every possible satellite companies with every aspect of just these these crazed ideological positions. And, you know, he was coming in, he literally was like, had aggregated together 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of of of of of of of shareholdings that he did not that were, you know, that were his, his customers rights and he, you know, seized their voting control of their shares and was using it to force all these companies to do all of this, like, crazy ideological stuff. And he he was like the typhoid Mary of all this stuff in corporate America.
And if if and he in the last year has been, like, backpedaling from that stuff, like, as fast as he possibly can. And I saw just an example. Last week, he pulled out of the, whatever the corporate net zero alliance. You know, he pulled out of the crazy energy energy energy stuff. And so, like, you know, he's backing away as fast as he can.
He he's doing remember the Richard Pryor, backwards walk? Mhmm. Richard Pryor had this way where he could he could back out of a room while looking at like, he was walking forward. And so, you know, even they're doing that. And just the whole thing I mean, this I don't know if you saw the court recently ruled that Nasdaq had these crazy board of directors composition rules.
One of the funniest moments in my life is when my friend Peter Thiel and I were on the the the meta board, and these Nasdaq rules came down, mandated diversity on corporate boards. And so we sat around the table and had to figure out, you know, which of us counted as diverse. And the, very professional attorneys at at meta explained with a 100% complete, straight face that Peter Thiel counts as diverse, by virtue of being LGBT. And and this is a guy who literally wrote a book called the diversity myth.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And he literally looked like he swallowed a live goldfish. And and that and this was imposed I mean, this was, like, so incredibly offensive to him that, like, it just, like, it was just absolutely appalling, and I felt terrible for him, but the look on his face was very funny. And it was imposed by Nasdaq. You know, your stock exchange is imposing this stuff on you, and then the court whatever the court of appeals just nuked that. You know, so like these things basically are being ripped down 1 by 1.
And what's on the other side of it is basically, you know, finally being able to get back to, you know, everything that everybody always wanted to do, which is like run their companies, have great products, have happy customers, you know, like, succeed, like, succeed, achieve, outperform, and, you know, work with the best and the brightest and not and not be made to feel bad about it. And I I think that's happening in many areas of American society.
Speaker 1: It's great to hear that Peter Thiel is fundamentally a diversity hire.
Speaker 0: Well, so it was very you know, there was a moment. So so Peter, you know, Peter, of course, you know, is is, you know, is is is publicly gay, has been for a long time. You know, but, you know, there are other men on the board. Right? And, you know, we're sitting there, and we're all looking at it.
And we're like, alright. Like, okay. LGBT. And and we just we keep coming back to the b. Right?
And it's like you know? It's like Alright. You know, I'm willing to do a lot for this company, but
Speaker 1: It's all about sacrifice for diversity.
Speaker 0: Well, yeah. And then it's like, okay. Like, is there a test? Right. Right.
You know?
Speaker 1: So Oh, yeah. Exactly. How do you prove it?
Speaker 0: The the questions that got asked, you know.
Speaker 1: What are you willing to do?
Speaker 0: Yeah. And I I think I'm very good at asking, lawyers, completely absurd questions with a totally straight straight face.
Speaker 1: And do they answer with a straight face?
Speaker 0: Some sometimes. Okay. I I think in fairness, they have trouble telling when I'm joking.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned, the Hollywood folks, maybe people in Silicon Valley and the vibe shift. Maybe you can speak to, preference falsification. What do they actually believe? How many of them actually hate Trump? What like, what percent of them are, feeling this vibe shift and are interested in, creating the roaring twenties in the way they've described.
Speaker 0: So first, we should maybe talk pop population. So there's, like, all of Silicon Valley. And the and the way to just measure that is just look at voting records. Right? And and what that shows consistently is Silicon Valley is just, you know, at least historically, my entire time there has been overwhelmingly majority, just straight up democrat.
The other way to look at that is political donation records. And, again, you know, the political donations in the valley, you know, range from 90 to 99%, you know, to one side. And so, you know, we'll we'll I just bring it up because, like, we'll see what happens with the voting and with donations going forward. I we'd maybe talk about the fire later, but I can tell you there is a very big question of what's happening in Los Angeles right now. I don't wanna get into the fire, but, like, it's catastrophic and, you know, there was already a rightward shift in the big cities in California.
And I think a lot of people in LA are really thinking about things right now as they're trying to, you know, literally save their houses and save their families. But, you know, even in San Francisco, there was a big right there was a big shift to the right in the voting in, in 24. So we'll see what we'll see where that goes. But, you know, you observe that by just looking at looking at the numbers over time. The part that I'm more focused on is you know, and I don't know how to exactly describe this, but it's, like, the top 1,000 or the top 10,000 people.
Right? And, you know, I don't have a list, but, like, it's the you know, it's all the top founders, top CEOs, top executives, top engineers, top VCs, you know, and then kind of in into the ranks, you know, the people who kind of build and run the companies. And they're they're you know, I don't have numbers, but I have a much more tactile feel, you know, for for for what's happening. So I the big thing I I have now come to believe is that the idea that people have beliefs is mostly wrong. I think that most people just go along.
And I think even most high status people just go along, and I think maybe the most high status people are the most prone to just go along because they're the most focused on status. And the way I would describe that is, you know, one of the great forbidden philosophers of our time is the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. And amidst his madness, he had this extremely interesting articulation. You know, he was a he was a he was an insane lunatic murderer, but he was also a, you know, a Harvard super genius. Not that those were in conflict.
But Shots fired. Yeah. But, he was a very bright guy, and he he did this whole thing, where he talked about basically, he he was very right wing and talk talked about leftism a lot. And he had this great concept that's just stuck in my mind ever since I wrote it, which is he had this concept used called over social over socialization. And so, you know, most people are social most people are socialized.
Like, most people are you know, we live in a society. Most people learn how to be part of a society. They give some deference to the society. There's something about modern western elites where they're over socialized, and they're just, like, overly oriented towards what other people like themselves, you know, think, and believe. And you can get a real sense of that if you have a little bit of an outside perspective, which I just do, I think, as a consequence of where I grew up.
Like, even before I had the views that I have today, there was always just this weird thing where it's like, why does every dinner party have the exact same conversation? Why does everybody agree on every single issue? Why is that agreement precisely what was in the New York Times today? Why are these positions not the same as they were 5 years ago? Right?
But why does everybody, like, snap into agreement every step of the way? And that was true when I came to Silicon Valley, and it's just as true today 30 years later. And so I I think most people are just literally take I think they're taking their cues from it's some combination of the press, the universities, the big foundations. So it's, like, basically, it's like the New York Times, Harvard, the Ford Foundation, and, you know, I don't know, you know, a few CEOs, and a few public figures and, you know, maybe, you know, maybe the president of your party's in power. And, like, whatever that is, everybody just everybody who's sort of good and proper and elite and good standing and in charge of things and a sort of correct member of, you know, let's call it coastal American society.
Everybody just believes those things. And then, you know, the 2 interesting things about that is number 1, there's no divergence among the the the organs of power. Right? So the Harvard and Yale believe the exact same thing. The New York Times, The Washington Post believe the exact same thing.
The Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation believe the exact same thing. Google and, you know, whatever. You know, Microsoft believe the exact same thing. But those things change over time, but there's never conflict in the moment. Right?
And so, you know, the New York Times and the Wall and the Washington Post agreed on exactly everything in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. Despite the fact that the specifics changed radically the lockstep was what mattered. And so I think basically we in the Valley were on the tail end of that in the same way. Holly was on the tail end of that in the same way New York's on the tail end of that. The same way the media is on the tail end of that.
It's it's like some sort of collective hive mind thing. And I just go through that to say, like, I don't think most people in my orbit or, you know, say the top 10,000 people in the valley or the top 10,000 people in LA. I don't think they're sitting there thinking, basically, I have rocks. I mean, they probably think they have rocks out of beliefs, but they don't actually have, like, some inner core of rocks out of beliefs. And then they kind of watch reality change around them and try to figure out how to keep their beliefs, like, correct.
I don't think that's what happens. I think what happens is they conform to the belief system around them. And and I think most of the time, they're not even aware that that that they're basically part of a herd.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that the surface chatter of dinner parties underneath that, there is a turmoil of ideas and thoughts and beliefs that's going on, but you're just talking to people really close to you or in your own mind. And then the socialization happens at the dinner parties. Like, when you go outside the inner circle of 1, 2, 3, 4 people who you really trust, then you start to conform. But inside there, inside the mind, there is an actual belief or a struggle, attention with The New York Times or with the with the listener. For the listener, there's a there's a slow smile that overtook Mark Andreessen's face.
Speaker 0: So, like, I'll just tell you what I think, which is at at at the dinner parties and at the conferences, no. There's none of that. It's what what there is is that all of the heretical conversations anything that challenges the status quo, any heretical ideas and any new idea, you know, is a heretical idea. Any deviation. It the it's either discussed a 1 on 1 face to face.
It's it's like a whisper network, or it's like a real life social network. There's a secret handshake, which is, like, okay. You meet somebody and you, like, know each other a little bit, but, like, not well, and, like, you're both trying to figure out if you can, like, talk to the other person openly or whether you have to, like, be fully conformist. It's a
Speaker 1: joke. Oh, yeah. Humor.
Speaker 0: Somebody cracks a joke. Right? Somebody cracks a joke. Yep. If the other person laughs, the conversation is on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: If the other person doesn't laugh, back slowly away from the scene. Yeah. I didn't mean anything by it. Yeah. Right?
And and then, by the way, it doesn't have to be, like, a super offensive joke. It just has to be a joke that's just up against the edge of one of the, use the same bank and free term, one of the chivalis. You know, it has to be up against one of the things, of, you know, one of the things that you're absolutely required to to believe to be the dinner parties. And then and then at that point, what happens is you have a peer to peer network. Right?
You you have you have you have a one to one connection with somebody, and then you you have your your your little conspiracy of of thought thought criminality. And then you have your net you probably been through this. You have your network of thought criminals, and then they have their network of thought criminals. And then you have this, like, delicate mating dance as to whether should bring the thought criminals together. Mhmm.
Right?
Speaker 1: And the dance, the fundamental, mechanism of the dance is humor.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's humor. Like, it's right. Well, of course.
Speaker 1: Memes. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Well, for 2 for 2 reasons. Number 1 number 1, humor is a way to have deniability. Right? Humor is a way to discuss serious things without without without with having deniability. Oh, I'm sorry.
It was just a joke. Right? So so that's part of it, which is one of the reasons why comedians can get away with saying things the rest of us can't. This is, you know, they they can always fall back on, oh, yeah. I was just going for the laugh.
But but the other key thing about humor right is that is that laughter is involuntary. Right? Like, you either laugh or you don't. And and it's not like a conscious decision whether you're gonna laugh, and everybody can tell when somebody's fake laughing. Right?
And as every professional comedian knows this. Right? The laughter is the clue that you're onto something truthful. Mhmm. Like, people don't laugh at, like, made bullshit stories.
They laugh because, like, you're revealing something that they either have not been allowed to think about or have not been allowed to talk about, right, or is off limits. And all of a sudden, it's like the ice breaks and it's like, oh, yeah, that's the thing, and it's funny. And, like, I laugh. And then and then, of course, this is why, of course, live comedy is so powerful is because you're all doing that at the same time. So you start to have, right, the safety of, you know, the safety of numbers.
And so so the comedians have, like, the all it is no no surprise to me. Like, for example, Joe has been as successful as he has because they have they have this hack that the, you know, the rest of us who are not professional comedians don't have. But but you have your in person burden of it. Yeah. And then you got the question of whether the whether you can sort of join the networks together.
And then you've probably been to this as you know, then at some point, there's, like, a different there's, like, the alt dinner party, the Thorker Middle dinner party, and you get 6 or 8 people together, and you join the networks. And those are, like, the happiest mo at least in the last decade, those are, like, the happiest moments of everybody's lives because they're just, like everybody's just ecstatic because they're, like, I don't have to worry about getting yelled at and shamed, like, for every third sentence that comes out of my mouth, and we can actually talk about real things. So so that's the live version of it. And then the and then, of course, the other side of it is the the, you know, the group chat the group chat phenomenon. Right.
And and then this and then basically the same thing played out, you know, until until Elon bought X and until Substack took off, you know, which were really the 2 big breakthroughs in free speech online. The the same dynamic played out online, which is you had absolute conformity on the social networks, like, literally enforced by the social networks themselves through censorship and and then also through cancellation campaigns and mobbing and shaming. Right? And and but then you had but but then group chats grew up to be the equivalent of Samos Dot. Right?
Mhmm. Anybody who grew up in the Soviet Union under, you know, communism note you know, they had the hard version of this. Right? It's like, how do you know who you could talk to? And then how do you distribute information?
And, you know, like, you know, again, that was the hard authoritarian version of this. And then we've been living through this weird mutant, you know, soft authoritarian version, but with, you know, with some of the same patterns.
Speaker 1: And WhatsApp allows you to scale and make it more efficient to, to build on these groups of heretical ideas bonded by humor?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. Well and this is the thing. And then, well, this is kind of the running joke about group the running running kind of thing about group chats. It's not even a joke.
It's true. It's like it's like every group chat, if you've noticed this, like, every this principle of group chats, every group chat ends up being about memes and humor. And the goal of the game the game of the group chat is to get as close to the line of being actually objectionable Yeah. As as you can get without actually tripping it. Right?
And I, like, literally every group chat that I have been in for the last decade, even if it starts some other direction, what ends up happening is it becomes the absolute comedy fest where but it's walking they walk right up the line. And they're constantly testing. Every once in a while, somebody will trip a line and people will freak out and it's like, oh, too soon. Okay. You know, we gotta wait till next year to talk about that.
You know, they they they walk it back. And so it's that same thing. And, yeah, and then group chats is a technological phenomenon. It was amazing to see because, basically, it was number 1, it was, you know, obviously, the rise of smartphones. Then it was the rise of the of the the new messaging services.
Then it was the rise specifically of, I would say, combination of WhatsApp and Signal. And the reason for that is those were the 2 the 2 big systems that did the full encryption. So you actually had you actually felt safe. And then the real breakthrough, I think, was disappearing messages, which hit signal probably 4 or 5 years ago and hit WhatsApp 3 or 4 years ago. And then the combination of, the combination of encryption and, and disappearing messages, I think, really unleashed it.
Well, then there's the fight. Then there's the fight over the the the length of the disappear messages. Mhmm. Right? And so it's like, you know, I often get behind on my my thing, so I I set to 7 day, you know, disappear messages.
And my friends who, you know, are like, no. That's way too much risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: It's gotta be a day. And then every once in a while, somebody will set it to to 5 minutes before they send something, like, particularly inflammatory.
Speaker 1: Yeah. A 100%. Well, what I mean, one of the things that bothers me about WhatsApp, the choice is between 24 hours and, you know, 7 days. One day or 7 days. And I I have to have an existential crisis about deciding Yes.
Whether I can last for 7 days with what I'm about to say. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 0: Now, of course, what's happening right now is the big thaw. Right? And so the the vibe shift. So what's happening on the other on the other side of of the election is, you know, Elon on Twitter 2 years ago and now Mark with Facebook and Instagram. And, by the way, with the continued growth of Substack and with other, you know, new platforms that are emerging, you know, like, I I think it it may be you know, I don't know that everything just shifts back into public, but, like, a tremendous amount of the, a tremendous amount of the verboten, conversations, you know, can now shift back into into public view.
And, I mean, quite frankly and this is one of those things, you know, quite frankly, even if I was opposed to what those you know, what people are saying, and I'm sure I am in some cases, you know, I I would argue it's still, like, net better for society that those things happen in public instead of private. You know, do you do you really want like, yeah. Like, don't you wanna know? Yeah. And and so and and then it's just look.
It's just, I think, clearly much healthier to live in a society in which people are not literally scared of what they're saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, to to push back and to come back to this idea that we're talking about, I do believe that people have beliefs and thoughts that are heretical, like a lot of people. I wonder what fraction of people have that. To me, this is the the preference falsification is really interesting. What is the landscape of ideas that human civilization has in private as compared to what's out in public? Because like that, the the the dynamical system that is the difference between those two is fascinating.
Like, there's throughout history, the the fall of communism in multiple regimes throughout Europe is really interesting because everybody was following, you know, the line until not. Right. But you better for sure, privately, there was a huge number of boiling conversations happening where, like, this is this the the bureaucracy of communism, the corruption of communism, all of that was really bothering people more and more and more and more. And all of a sudden, there's a trigger that allows the vibe shift to happen.
Speaker 0: That's
Speaker 1: right. So to me, like, the in the interesting question here is, what is the landscape of private thoughts and ideas and conversations that are happening under the surface of, of of Americans? Especially, my question is how much dormant energy is there for this roaring twenties where people are like, no more bullshit. Let's get shit done.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So let's go through the we'll go through the theory of preference falsification.
Speaker 1: Just just just By the way, amazing. The book's nonetheless is fascinating.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. So this is this is exactly this is one of the all time great books. Incredible. It's about 20, 30 year old book, but it's very it's completely modern and current, in what it talks about, as well as very deeply historically informed.
So it's called Private Truths, Public Lies and it's written by a a a social science professor named Timur Quran, at, I think, Duke, and it's it's definitive work on this. And so he he has this concept he calls preference falsification. And so preference falsification is two things. Preference falsification and you get it from the title of the book, Private Truth, Public Lies. So preference falsification is when you believe something and you can't say it.
Or, and this is very important, you don't believe something and you must say it. Right? And and and and and the commonality there is in both cases, you're lying. You you you you you believe something internally and then and then you're lying about it in public. And so the the thing, you know, the and and there's sort of 2 the 2 classic forms of it.
There's the, you know, for example, there's the I believe communism is rotten, but I can't say it version of it. But then there's also the the the famous parable about the the real life example, but, the thing that Vaclav Havel talks about in the other good book on this topic, which is the power of the powerless, you know, who is an anti communist resistance fighter who ultimately became the, you know, the the president of Czechoslovakia after the fall
Speaker 1: of the wall. But he
Speaker 0: wrote this book, and he he describes the other side of this, which is, workers of the world unite. Right? And so he he describes what he calls the parable of the green grocer, which is your green grocer in Prague in 1985. And for the last 70 years, it has been or 50 years, it's absolutely mandatory to have a sign in the window of your story that says workers of the world unite. Right?
And it's 1985. It is, like, crystal clear that the world the workers of the world are not going to unite. Like like, of all the things that could happen in the world, that is not going to happen. The commies have been at that for 70 years. It is not happening.
But that slogan had better be in your window every morning because if it's not in your window every morning, you are not a good communist. The secret police are gonna come by and they're gonna they're gonna get you. And so the first thing you do when you get to the store is you put that slogan in the window and you make sure that it stays in the window all day long. And but he says the thing is every single person the greengrocer knows the slogan is fake. He knows it's a lie.
Every single person walking past the slogan knows that it's a lie. Every single person walking past the store knows that the greengrocer is only putting it up there because he has to lie in public. And the greengrocer has to go through the humiliation of knowing that everybody knows that he's caving into the system and lying in public. And so it it it turns into demoralization campaign. It it it it it's it's not just ideological enforcement.
In fact, it's not ideological enforcement anymore because everybody knows it's fake. The authorities know it's fake. Everybody knows it's fake. It's not that they're enforcing the actual ideology of the world's workers of the world uniting. It's that they are enforcing compliance.
Right? And compliance with the regime and fuck you. You will comply. Right? And so so anyway, that that that's the other side of that.
And and, of course, we have lived in the last decade through a lot of both of those. I think anybody listening to this could name a series of slogans that we've all been forced to chant for the last decade that everybody knows at this point are just, like, simply not true. I'll I'll let the audience, you know, speculate on those, on their own group chats.
Speaker 1: So But, Mark, your memes online as well, please.
Speaker 0: Yes. Yes. Exactly. But okay. So, anyway, so it's it's it's it's private, truth, public lies.
So then what preference falsification does is it talks about extending that from the idea of the individual experiencing that to the idea of the entire society experiencing that. Right? And this gets to your percentages question which is, like, okay. What happens in a society in which people are forced to lie in public about what they truly believe? What happens, number 1, is that individually they're lying in public and that's bad.
But the other thing that happens is they no longer have an accurate gauge at all or any way to estimate how many people agree with them. And and and this is how you and again, this this this literally is how you get something like like the communist system which is like, okay. It it you you you end up in a situation in which 80 or 90 or 99% of society can actually all be thinking individually. I really don't buy this anymore. And if anybody would just stand up and say it, I would be willing to go along with it, but I'm not gonna be the first one to put my head on the chopping block.
But you have no because of the suppression, censorship, you have no way of knowing how many other people agree with you. And if the people who if the people who agree with you are 10% of the population and you become part of a movement, you're gonna get killed. If 90% of the people agree with you, you're gonna win the revolution. Right? And so the the question of, like, what the percentage actually is is, like, a really critical question.
And then and then, basically, in any sort of authoritarian system, you can you can't, like, run a survey, right, to get an accurate result. So you actually can't know until you put it to the test. And then what he describes in the book is it's always put to the test in the same way. This is exactly what's happened for the last 2 years, like, a 100% of exactly what's happened. It's, like, straight out of this book, which is somebody, Elon, sticks his hand up and says the workers of the world are not going to unite.
Yep. Right? Or the emperor is actually wearing no clothes. Right? You know that famous parable.
Right? So one person stands up and does it. And and literally that person is standing there by themselves and everybody else in the audience is like, oh. Mhmm. I wonder what's gonna happen to that guy.
Right? But, again, nobody knows. Elon doesn't know. The first guy doesn't know. Other people don't know, like, which way is this gonna go.
And it may be that that's a minority position and that's a way to get yourself killed. Or it may be that that's the majority position and that and you are now the the leader of a revolution. And then basically, of course, what happens is, okay, the first guy does that, doesn't get killed. The second guy does well, a lot of the time, that guy does get killed. But when the guy doesn't get killed, then a second guy pops his head up and says the same thing.
Alright. Now you've got 2, 2 at least to 4 for at least to 8, 8 at least to 16. And then as we saw with the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is what happened in Russia and Eastern Europe in 89. You you when it when it goes, it can go. Right?
And then it rips. And then what happens is very, very quickly if it if it turns out that you had a large percentage of the population that actually believe a different thing, it turns out all of a sudden everybody has this giant epiphany that says, oh, I'm actually part of the majority. And at that point, like, you were on the freight train revolution. Right? Like, it is rolling.
Right? Now the other part of this is the distinction between the role of the elites and the masses. And here and here the best book is called The True Believer which is the the Eric Hoffer book. And so the the the nuance you have to put on this is the the the elites play a giant role in this because the the elites do idea formation and communication. But the elites by definition are a small minority and so there's also this giant role played by the masses.
And the masses are not necessarily thinking these things through in the same intellectualized formal way that the elites are, but they are for sure experiencing these things in their daily lives and they for sure have at least very strong emotional views on them. And so when you when you really get the revolution, it's when you get the elites lined up with or or a new either the current elites change or the new set of elites, a new set of counter elites, basically come along and say no there's actually a different and better way to live and then the piece the people basically decide to follow the you know to follow the counter elite so that that's the other dimension to it and of course that part is also happening right now. And again case study number 1 of that would be Elon and his you know he turns out you know truly massive following
Speaker 1: And he has done that over and over in different industries, not just saying crazy shit online, but saying crazy shit in the in the realm of space, in the realm of autonomous driving, in the realm of AI, just over and over and over again. Turns out saying crazy shit is one of the ways to do a revolution and to actually make progress.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And it's like, well and then but then there's the test. Is it crazy shit or is it the truth?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Right? And and and, you know, and this is where, you know, many there are many more specific things about Elon's genius, but one of the one of the really core ones is an absolute dedication to the truth. And so when Elon says something, it sounds like crazy shit, but in his mind, it's true. Now is he always right? No.
Sometimes the rockets crash. Like, you know, sometimes he's wrong. He's human. He's like anybody else. He's not right all the time.
But at least my my through line with him both in what he says in public and what he says in private, which by the way are the exact same things. He he does not do this. He doesn't lie in public about what he believes in private. At least he doesn't do that anymore. Like, he he's a 100% consistent in my in my experience.
By the way, there's 2 guys who are a 100% consistent like that that I know, Elon and Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Whatever you think of them Yeah. What they say in private is a 100% identical to what they say in public. Like, they are completely transparent. They're completely honest in that way. Right?
Which is like and, again, it's not like they're perfect people, but they're honest in that way. And it and it makes them potentially both as they have been very powerful leaders of these movements because they're both willing to stand up and say the thing that if it's true, it turns out to be the thing in many cases that no many or most or almost everyone else actually believed, but nobody was actually willing to say out loud. And so they can actually catalyze these shifts. And I I mean, I think this framework is exactly why Trump took over the republican party as I think Trump stood up there on stage with all these other kind of congressional republicans, and he started saying things out loud that it turned out the base really was. They were either already believing or they were prone to believe, and he was the only one who was saying them.
And so the again, elite masses, he was elite. The voters of the masses and the voters decided, you know, no, no more bushes. Like, we're going this other direction. That's the mechanism of social change. Like, what we just described is, like, the actual mechanism of social change.
It is fascinating to me that we have been living through exactly this. We've been living through everything exactly what Tim McCarron describes, everything that Vaclav Havel described, you know, black squares in Instagram, like, the whole thing. Right? All of it. And we've been living through the, you know, the the true believer elites masses, you know, thing with, you know, with the set of, like, basically incredibly corrupt elites wondering why they don't have the loyalty masses anymore and a set of new elites that are running away with things.
And so, like, we're living through this, like, incredible applied case study, of these ideas. And, you know, if there's a moral of the story, it is, you know, I think fairly obvious, which is it is a really bad idea for a society to wedge itself into a position in which most people don't believe the fundamental precepts of what they're told they have to do, you know, to be to be good people like that. That is just not not a good state to be in.
Speaker 1: So one of the ways to avoid that in the future maybe is to keep the delta between what's said in private and what's said in public small.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's like, well, this is sort of the the siren song of censorship as we can keep people from saying things, which means we can keep people from thinking things.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And, you know, by the way, that may work for a while. Right? Like, you know, this I mean, again, the hard form of the Soviet Union, you know, Soviet Union, owning a mimeograph, pre photocopiers. There were mimeograph machines that were used to make somersdot underground newspapers, which is the the mechanism in written communication of of radical ideas, heretical ideas. Ownership of a mimeograph machine was punishable by death.
Right? So that that's the hard version. Right? You know, the soft version is somebody clicks a button in Washington and you were erased from the Internet. Right?
Like, which, you know, good news, you're still alive. Bad news is, you know, shame about not being able to get a job. You know, too bad your family now, you know, they hate you and won't talk to you. But, you know, what or whatever the, you know, whatever the version of cancellation has been. And so so so, like, does that work?
Like, maybe it works for a while. Like, it worked for the Soviet Union for a while, you know, in its way, especially when it was coupled with, you know, official state power. But when it unwinds, it can unwind with, like, incredible speed and ferocity because to your point, there's all this bottled up energy. Now your question was, like, what are the percentages? Like, what what's the breakdown?
And so my my rough guess just based on what I've seen in my world is it's something like 20, 60, 20. It's like you've got 20%, like, true believers in whatever is, you know, the current thing. You know, you got 20 you have 20% of people who are just, like, true believers or whatever. They they're they're you know, whatever's the new like I said, whatever's the New York Times, Harvard professors and the Ford Foundation, like, just they're just and by the way, maybe it's 10, maybe it's 5, but let's say, generously, it's it's 20. So so, you know, 20% kind of full on revolutionaries.
And then you've got, let's call it, 20% on the other side that are like, no. I'm not on board with this. This is this is crazy. I'm not I'm not signing up for this. But, you know, you know, they their view of themselves is they're in a small minority.
And in fact, they start out in a small minority because what happens is the 60% go with the first 20%, not the second 20%. So you've got this large middle of people. And it's not that there's anything like it's not the people in the middle are not smart or anything like that. It's that they just have, like, normal lives. And they're just trying to get by, and they're just trying to go to work each day and do a good job and be a good person and raise their kids and, you know, have a little bit of time to watch the game.
And they're just not engaged in the cut and thrust of, you know, political activism or any of this stuff. It's just not their thing. But then but that's where the over socialization comes in. It's just like, okay. By default, the 60% will go along with the 20% of the radical revolutionaries at least for a while.
And then the counter elite is in this other 20%. And over time, they build up a theory and network and ability to resist, and a new set of representatives and a new set of ideas. And then at some point, there's a contest. And then and then and then and then right. And then the question is what happens in the middle?
What happens in the 60%? And it it and it's kind of my point. It's not even really does the 60% change their beliefs as much as it's like, okay. What what is the thing that that 60% now decides to basically fall into into step with? And I think that 60% in the valley, that 60% for the last decade decided to be woke, and, you know, extremely, I would say, on edge, on a lot of things.
And I you know, that 60% is pivoting in real time. They're they're just done. They're they're they've just had it.
Speaker 1: And I would love to see where that pivot goes because there's internal battles happening right now. Right?
Speaker 0: So this is the other thing. Okay. So there's 2 two forms of internal there's 2 forms of things that Antti Merkranos Timur has actually talked about this. Professor Kraan has talked about this. So so one is he said that he said this is the kind of unwind where what you're gonna have is you're you're now gonna have people in the other direction.
You're gonna have people who claim that they supported Trump all along who actually didn't. Right?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 0: So it's gonna swing the other way. And by the way, Trump's not the only part of this, but, you know, he's just a convenient shorthand for, you know, for for a lot of this. But, you know, whatever it is, you'll you'll have people who will say, well, I never supported the EI. Right? Or I never supported ESG.
Or I never thought we should have canceled that person. Right? Where, of course, they were full on a part of the mob, like, you know, kind of at that moment. And so, anyway, so you'll have preference falsification happening in the other direction. And here and his prediction, I think, basically, is you'll end up with the same, quote, problem on the, on the other side.
Now will that happen here? I don't know. You know, how far is American society willing to go into these things? I don't know. But, like, there is some some question there.
And then and then the other part of it is, okay, now you have this, you know, elite that is used to being in power for the last decade. And and by the way, many of those people are still in power, and they're in very, you know, important positions. And the New York Times is still the New York Times, and Harvard is still Harvard. And, like, those people haven't changed, like, at all. Right?
And they still you know, they've been bureaucrats in the government and, you know, senior democratic, you know, politicians and so forth. And and they're sitting there, you know, right now feeling like reality has just smacked them hard in the face because they lost the election so badly. But they're now going into a and, specifically, the Democratic Party is going into a civil war. Right? And and and and and that form of the civil war is completely predictable and that's exactly what's happening, which is half of them are saying we need to go back to the center.
We need to deradicalize because we've lost the people. We've lost that the people in the middle. And so we need to go back to the middle in order to be able to get 50% plus one in an election. Right? And then the other half of them are saying, no.
We weren't true to our principles. We were too weak. We were too soft. You know, we must become more revolutionary. We must double down, and we must, you know, celebrate, you know, murders in the street of health insurance executives.
And that's and that that right now is, like, a real fight.
Speaker 1: If I could tell you a little personal story that breaks my heart a little bit. There's a there's a professor, historian, I won't say who, who I admire deeply. Love his work. He's a kind of a heretical thinker. And we were talking about having a podcast or doing a podcast, and he eventually said that, you know what?
At this time, given your guest list, I just don't want the headache of being in the faculty meetings in my particular institution, and I asked who are the particular figures in this guest list. He said, Trump. And the second one, he said that you announced your interest to talk to Vladimir Putin. So I just don't want the headache. Now I I fully believe he, it would surprise a lot of people if I said who it is.
But, you know, this is a person who's not bothered by the, the guest list. And I should also say that 80 plus percent of the guest list is left wing. Okay? Nevertheless, he just doesn't want the headache. And that speaks to the the thing that you've kind of mentioned that you just don't don't want the headache.
You just wanna just have a pleasant morning with some coffee and talk to your fellow professors. And I think a lot of people are feeling that in universities and in other context in tech companies. And I wonder if that shifts, how quickly that shifts. And there, the percentages you mentioned 20, 60, 20 matters. And the and the the contents of the private groups matters, and the dynamics of how that shifts matters.
Because it's very possible nothing really changes in universities and in major tech companies. Or just there's a kind of, excitement right now for potential revolution and these new ideas, these new vibes to reverberate through these companies and universities as much as possible, the the the wall will hold.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So he's a friend of yours. I respect that you don't wanna name him. I also respect you don't wanna beat on him. So I would like to beat on him on your behalf.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Does he have tenure? Yes. He should use it. So this is the thing. Right?
This is the ultimate indictment of the corruption on the rot at the heart of our education system, at the heart of these universities. And it's by the way, it's, like, across the board. It's, like, all the all the top universities. It's like because the the siren song for, right, what it's been for 70 years, whatever, the tenure system peer review system tenure system, which is, like, yeah, you work your butt off as an academic to get a professorship and then to get tenure because then you can say what you actually think. Right?
Then you can do your work and your research and your speaking and your teaching without fear of being fired. Right? Without fear of being canceled. Like, academic freedom. I mean, think think of the term academic freedom, and then think of what these people have done to it.
Like, it's gone. Like, that entire thing was fake and is completely rotten, and these people are completely, completely giving up the entire moral foundation of the system that's been built for them, which, by the way, is paid for virtually 100% by taxpayer money.
Speaker 1: What's the what's the inkling of hope in this? Like, what, this particular person and others who hear this, what can give them strength, inspiration, and courage?
Speaker 0: That the population at large is gonna realize the corruption in their industry, and it's going to withdraw the funding.
Speaker 1: It's okay. It's a desperation.
Speaker 0: No. No. No. No. No.
Think about what happens next. Okay. So let's go let's go through it. So the the the universities the universe the universities are funded by 4 primary sources of federal funding. The the big one is the federal student loan program, which is, you know, in the many trillions of dollars at this point and then only spiraling, you know, way faster than than inflation.
That's number 1. Number 2 is federal research funding, which is also very large. And you probably know that, when a scientist at the university gets a research grant, the university rakes as much as 70% of the money, for central uses. Yeah. Number 3 is tax exemption of the operating level, which is based on the idea that these are nonprofit institutions as opposed to, let's say, political institutions.
And then number 4 is tax, exemptions at the endowment level, you know, which is the financial buffer that these places have. Anybody who's been close to a university budget will basically see that what would happen if you withdrew those sources of federal taxpayer money. And then for the state schools, the state money, they they all instantly go bankrupt. And then you could rebuild. Then you could rebuild because the problem right now, you know, like the folks at University of Boston are, like, mounting a very valiant effort and I hope that they succeed and I'm sure I'm cheering for them.
But the problem is you're you're now inserting you so it's supposed suppose you and I wanna start a new university and we wanna hire all the free thinking professors, and we wanna have the place that fixes all this. Practically speaking, we can't do it because we can't get access to that money. Are you the most direct reason we can't get access to that money? We can't get access to federal student funding. Do you know how universities are accredited, for the purpose of getting access to federal student funding?
Federal student loans? They're accredited by the government, but not directly, indirectly. They're not accredited by the Department of Education. Instead, what happens is the Department of Education accredits accreditation bureaus that are nonprofits that do the accreditation. Guess what the composition of the accreditation bureaus is?
The existing universities. They are in complete control. The incumbents are in complete control as to who gets, as as to who gets access to post student loan money. Guess how enthusiastic they are about accrediting a new university? Right.
And so we we have a government funded and supported cartel, that has gone I mean, it's just obvious now. It's just gone, like, sideways in basically any possible way if you go sideways, including I mean, literally, as you know, students getting beaten up in the on campus for being, you know, the wrong religion. They're just they're they're just wrong in every possible way at this point. And and they're they're it's all in the federal taxpayer back. And there is no way I mean, I my opinion, there is no way to fix these things without without replacing them.
And and there's no way to replace them without letting them fail. And and by the way, it's like everything else in life. I mean, in a sense, this is like the most obvious conclusion of all time which is what happens in in the business world when a company does a bad job is they go bankrupt and another another company takes its place. Right? And that that's how you get progress.
And of course below that is what happens is this is the process of evolution. Right? Why why does anything ever get better? It's because things are tested and tried and then you you know the things that the things that are good survive. And so these places have cut themselves off.
They've been allowed to cut themselves off from both from evolution at the institutional level and evolution at the individual level as shown by the the the the the just widespread abuse of tenure. And so we we've just stalled out. We we built it we built an ossified system, an ossified centralized corrupt system. We're we're surprised by the results. They are not fixable in their current form.
Speaker 1: I disagree with you on that. I have maybe it's grounded in hope that I believe you can revolutionize a system from within because I do believe Stanford and MIT are important.
Speaker 0: Oh, but that logic doesn't follow at all. That's underpants gnome logic.
Speaker 1: Underpants gnome can you explain what
Speaker 0: that means? Underpants gnomes logic. So I just started watching a key touchstone of American culture with my 9 year old, which of course is South Park.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: And there is Wow. And there is a which by the way, is a little aggressive for a 9 year old.
Speaker 1: Very aggressive.
Speaker 0: But but but he likes it. So, he's learning all kinds of new words.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All kinds of new ideas. But yeah.
Speaker 0: I told I told him, I said, you're gonna hear words on here that you are not allowed to use. Right. Yeah. So education. And I said, do you know how we have an agreement that we never lie to mommy?
I said Yeah. I said, not using a word that you learn in here Mhmm. Does not count as lying. Mhmm. Wow.
Keep and keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: Orwellian redefinition of lying. But, yes, go ahead.
Speaker 0: Of course, in the very opening episode, in the first in the first 30 seconds, one of the one of the kids calls the other kid a dildo. Right? We're off we're off to the races. Yep. Let's go.
Daddy, what's a dildo? Yep. So, you know, I sorry. Sorry, son. I I don't know.
Yeah. So, the underpants gnomes. So famous episode of South Park, the underpants gnomes. And so the underpants gnomes so there's there's there's this rat all the kids basically realize that their underpants are going missing from their dresser drawers. Somebody's stealing the underpants, and it's just like, well, who on earth would steal the underpants the underpants?
And it turns out it's the underpants gnomes. And it turns out the underpants gnomes have come to town and they've got this little underground warren of tunnels and storage places for all the underpants. And so they go out at night, they steal the underpants. And the kids discover that, you know, the underpants gnomes and they're, you know, what what are you doing? Like, what what's what's the point of this?
And so the underpants gnomes present their their master plan, which is a 3 part plan, which is step 1, collect underpants. Step 3, profit. Yeah. Step 2, question mark. Yeah.
So you just you just proposed the underpants gnome. Yeah. Which is very common in politics. So so the form of this in politics is we must do something.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: This is something. Therefore, we must do this. But there's no causal logic chain in there at all to expect that that's actually gonna succeed. Because there's no reason to believe that it is. Yeah.
But it's the same thing. But this is what I hear all the time. And I'm I'm I'll I will let you talk as the host of the show in a moment. But but the but I hear this all the time. I hear this I have friends who are on these boards.
Right? They're involved these places and I hear this all the time which is, like, oh, these are very important. We must fix them. And so therefore they are fixable. There's no logic chain there at all.
If there's that pressure that you described in terms of cutting funding, then you have the leverage to fire a lot of
Speaker 1: the administration and have new leadership that steps up that that, aligns with this vision that things really need to change at the heads of the universities. And they put students and faculty primary, fire a lot of the administration, and realign and reinvigorate this idea of freedom of thought and intellectual freedom. I mean, I don't because there is already a framework of of great institutions that's there, and the way they talk about what it means to be a great institution is aligned with this very idea that you're talking about. It's this meaning, like, intellectual freedom, the idea of tenure. Right?
The on the surface, it's aligned. Underneath, it's become corrupted.
Speaker 0: If we say free speech and academic freedom often enough, sooner or later, these tenured professors will get brave. Wait. Do you
Speaker 1: think the universities are fundamentally broken? Okay. So how do you fix it? How do you have institutions for educating 20 year olds and institutions that hosts, researchers that have the freedom to do epic shit, like research type shit that's outside the scopes of r and d departments and inside companies. So how do you create an institution like that?
Speaker 0: How do you create a good restaurant when the one down the street sucks?
Speaker 1: Alright. You, invent something new?
Speaker 0: You open a new restaurant. Yeah. Like, how often in your life have you experienced a restaurant that's just absolutely horrible, and it's poisoning all of its customers and the food tastes terrible? And then 3 years later, you go back, and it's fantastic. Charlie Munger actually had the great the best comment on his great investor, Charlie Munger.
The great comment he was once asked. He's like, you know, he's you know, General Electric was going through all these challenges. And he was asked in a q and a. So how would you fix the culture at General Electric? And he said, fix the culture at General Electric.
He said, I couldn't even fix the culture at a restaurant. Like, it's insane. Like, obviously, you can't do it. Yeah. So nobody in business thinks you can do that.
Like, it's impossible. Like, it's not. It's now now look. Having said all that, I should also express this because I have a lot of friends to work at these places and and, and are and are involved in various attempts to fix these. I hope that I'm wrong.
I would love to be wrong. I would love for the I would love for the underpants gnome step 2 to be something clear and straightforward Mhmm. That they can figure out how to do. I would love to love to fix it. I'd love to see them come back to their spoken principles.
I I think that'd be great. I'd love to see the professors with tenure get bravery. I would love to see I mean, it would be fantastic. You know, my partner and I have done, like, a lot of public speaking on this topic. It's it's been intended to not just be harsh, but also be like, okay.
Like, these these challenges have to be confronted directly. By the way, let me also say something positive. You know, especially post October 7th, there are a bunch of very smart people who are major donors and board members of these institutions like Mark Rowan, you know, who are really coming in trying to, you know, I think legitimately trying trying to fix these places. I have a friend on the executive committee at one of the top technical universities. He's working overtime to try to do this.
Man, I hope they can figure it out. But well, I I but the counter question would just be, like, do you see it actually happening at a single one of these places?
Speaker 1: I'm a person that believes in leadership. If you have the right leadership Right. The whole system can be changed.
Speaker 0: So here's a question for your friend who has tenure at one of these places, which is who runs his university?
Speaker 1: I think you know you know who I think runs it? Yeah. Whoever the fuck says they run it. That's what great leadership is. Like, a president has that power.
But how does a university has the leverage because they can mouth off like Elon can?
Speaker 0: Can they fire the professors?
Speaker 1: They can fire them through being vocal publicly. Yes.
Speaker 0: Fire the professors?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Legally?
Speaker 0: Fire the professors?
Speaker 1: No. They cannot fire the professors.
Speaker 0: Then we know who runs the university. The professors? Yeah. Professors. The professors and the students.
The professors and the feral students. Then they're of course in a radicalization feedback cycle driving each other The feral students. The feral students. Yeah. The feral students.
What happens when you're put in charge of your bureaucracy? Where the where the thing that the bureaucracy knows is that they can outlast you? The thing that the tenured professors at all these places know is it doesn't matter who the president is because they can outlast them, because they cannot get fired. And by the way, it's the same thing that bureaucrats in in the government know. It's the same thing that the the bureaucrats in the Department of Education know.
They know the the exact same thing. They they cannot last you. It's I mean, it's the whole thing that it's the resistance. Like, they can be the resistance. They can just sit there and resist, which is what they do.
They're not fireable.
Speaker 1: That's definitely a crisis that needs to be solved. That's a huge problem. And I also don't like that I'm defending Agadeep here. I I agree with you that the situation is dire, and, but I just think that institutions are important. And I should also add context since you've been grilling me a little bit.
You were using restaurants as an analogy. And earlier offline in this conversation, you said that Dairy Queen is a great restaurant. So let's let's let's let's let the listener take that.
Speaker 0: I said Dairy Queen is the best restaurant. The best restaurant.
Speaker 1: There you go. So everything that Mark Andres is saying today
Speaker 0: I don't want it into cups. You should go order a Blizzard. Just one one day, you should walk down there and order a Blizzard.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: They can get, like, 4,000 calories in a cup. They can.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's not delicious.
Speaker 0: Amazing. They are They are really delicious. And they'll put they'll put anything in there you want. Okay. So but, anyway, let me just close by saying, look.
I I my my friends in university system would just say, look. Like, I this is the challenge. Like, I would just I would just pose this as the challenge. Like, to me, like, this is having had a lot of these conversations, like, this is the bar that in my view, this is the conversation that actually has to happen. This is the bar that actually has to be hit.
These problems need to be confronted directly. Because I think there's just I think there's been way too much. I mean, I'm actually worried kind of on the other side. There's too much happy talk in these conversations. Mhmm.
I think the taxpayers do not understand this level of crisis. And I think if the taxpayers come to understand it, I think the funding evaporates. And so I I think the the fuse is going through, you know, no fault of any of ours, but, like, the fuse is going, and there's some window of time here to fix this and address it and justify the money because that it just normal taxpayers sitting in normal towns in normal jobs are not gonna tolerate this for for that much longer.
Speaker 1: You mentioned censorship a few times. Let us, if we can, go deep into the darkness of the past and how censorship mechanism was used. So you are a good person to speak about the history of this because you were there, on the ground floor in, 2,013 ish Facebook. I heard that, you were there when they invented or maybe developed the term hate speech in the context of censorship of on social media. So, take me to through that history, if you can.
The use of, censorship.
Speaker 0: So I was there on the ground floor in 1983.
Speaker 1: There's multiple floors to this building, apparently. There are.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So I got the first ask to implement censorship on the Internet, which was in the web browser. That is fascinating. Yeah. Yeah.
19 90, 19 82. I was asked to implement a nudity filter.
Speaker 1: Did you have the courage to speak up back then?
Speaker 0: I I did not have any problems speaking up back then. I was making $6.25 an hour. I did not have a lot to lose. No. I was asked at the time.
And then look. I you know, it's legitimate you know, in some sense, a legitimate request, which is working on a on a research project actually funded by the federal government at a public university. So, you know, I don't think my boss was, like, in any way out of line, but it was like, yeah. Like, this this web browser thing is great, but, like, could it just make sure to not have any photos of naked people that show up? But if you think about this for a second, as a technologist, I had an issue, which is this was, like, pre ImageNet.
Right? And so I had a brief period where I tried to imagine an algorithm, that that I referred to as the breast detection algorithm that I was going to have to design. And then apparently, a variety of other, apparently, body parts people are also sensitive about.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And, and then I I politely decline to do this.
Speaker 1: For for just the the technical difficulties
Speaker 0: Well, number 1, I did I actually didn't know how to do it. But number 2 is just like, no, I'm not. I'm not building I'm just not building a censorship engine. Like, I'm a, you know, I'm just not doing it. And and in those days it was, you know, in those days the internet generally was, you know, free fire zone for everything.
It was actually interesting as sort of pre 93, the internet was such a specific niche community. Like, it was like the million kind of highest IQ nerds in the world. And so it actually, like, didn't really have a lot of, you know, issues that people were, like, super interested in talking about, like, astrophysics and not very interested in, you know, even politics at that at that time. So there really was not an issue there. But, yeah, I didn't I didn't wanna start the process.
So I think the way to think about this so first of all, you know, yeah. So I was involved in this at Facebook every step by the way, I've been involved in this at Facebook every step of the way. I joined the board there in 2007, so I saw I've seen everything in the last, you know, almost 20 years, every step of the way. But also, I've been involved in most of the other companies over time. So I was an angel investor in Twitter.
I knew them really well. We were the founding investor in Substack, part of the Elon takeover of Twitter with x. I was an angel at LinkedIn. So I I've I've I've been in these we were the funder of Pinterest. We were one of the one of the main investors there.
Reddit, as well. And I was having these conversations with all these guys all the way through. So as much talk specifically about Facebook, but I can just tell you, like, the the general pattern. And for quite a while, it was kind of all the same across these companies. Yeah.
So so, basically, the the way to think about this, the the the true kind of nuanced view of this is that there is practically speaking no Internet service that can have zero censorship. And and by the way, that also mirrors there is no country that actually has limited free speech either. The US first amendment actually has 12 or 13 formal carve outs from the Supreme Court over time. You know? So incitement to violence and terrorist recruitment and child abuse and so, you know, child pornography and so forth are, like, they're not covered by the first amendment.
And just practically speaking, if you and I are gonna start an Internet company and have a service, we can't have that stuff either. Right? Because it's illegal or it will just clearly, you know, destroy the whole thing. So you you you're always gonna have a censorship engine. I mean, hopefully, it's not actually in the browser, but, like, you're gonna have it for sure at the level of an inter of an Internet service.
But then what happens is now you have now you have a machine. Right? Now now you have a system where you can put in a rule saying we allow this. We don't allow that. You have enforcement.
You have consequences. Right? And once that system is in place, like, it becomes the ring of power. Right? Which is like, okay.
Now anybody in that company or anybody associated with that company or anybody who wants to pressure that company will just start to say okay you should use that machine for more than just terrorist recruitment and child pornography. You should use it for x y z. And basically that transition happened, call it 2012 2013 is is when there was this, like, very, very kind of rapid pivot. I think the kickoff to it for some reason was this it was the beginning of the second Obama term. I think it also coincided with the sort of arrival of the first kind of super woke kids into these into these schools.
You know, that kind of you know, the the it's it's the kids that were in school between, like, you know, for the Iraq war and then the global financial crisis and, like, they came out, like, super radicalized. They came into these companies. They immediately started mounting these social crusades to ban and censor, lots of things. And then, you know, quite frankly, the Democratic party figured this out. And they figured out that these companies were, you know, very subject to being controlled and they and the, you know, the executive teams and boards of directors are almost all Democrats.
And, you know, there's tremendous circulation. A lot of Obama people from the first term actually came and worked in these companies. And a lot of FBI people and other, you know, law enforcement intelligence people came in and worked. And they're all Democrats for that set. And so they just you know, the the the ring of power was lying on the table.
It had been built, and they, you know, picked it up and put it on. And then they just ran. And the original discussions were basically always on 2 topics. It was hate speech and misinformation. Hate speech was the original one.
And the hate speech conversation started exactly like you'd expect, which is we can't have the n word, and which the answer is fair enough. Let's not have the n word. Okay. Now we set a precedent. Right?
And then but yeah. And then and Jordan Peterson has talked a lot a lot about this. The definition of hate speech ended up being things that make people uncomfortable. Right? So we can't have things that make, you know, people uncomfortable.
I, of course, you know, people like me that are disagreeable raise their hands and say, well, that idea right there makes me uncomfortable. But, of course, that doesn't count as hate speech. Right? So, you know, the ring of power is on one hand and not not not on the other hand. And then basically that began this slide where it ended up being that, you know, completely anodyne.
It's a point your market's been making recently, like, completely anodyne comments that are completely legitimate on television or on the senate floor. All of a sudden, our hate speech can't be said online. So that, you know, the the ring of power was wielded in grossly irresponsible ways. We could talk about all the stuff that happened there. And then the other one was misinformation, and that wasn't as there was a little bit of that early on, but, of course, that really kicked in with with Trump.
So so the hate speech stopped the hate speech stopped predated Trump by, like, 3 or 4 years. The misinformation stuff was basically, it was a little bit later, and it was a consequence of the Russiagate hoax. And then that was, you know, a ring of power that was even more powerful. Right? Because, you know, hate speech is, like, okay.
At some point, if some if something offensive or not, like, at least you can have a question as to whether that's the case. But the problem with misinformation is, like, is it the truth or not? You know, you know, what do we know for 800 years or whatever western civilization? It's that, you know, there's only a few entities that can determine the truth on every topic. You know, there's god.
You know, there's the king. We don't have those anymore, and the rest of us are all imperfect and flawed. And so the idea that any group of experts is gonna sit around the table and decide on the truth is, you know, deeply anti Western and deeply authoritarian. And somehow the misinformation kind of crusade went from the the Russiagate hoax into just full blown, We're gonna use that weapon for whatever we want up. And then and then, of course, the then then the culminating moment on that that really was the straw that broke the camel's back was, we're gonna censor all theories that the COVID virus might have been, manufactured in a lab as misinformation.
And and and and and inside these companies, like, that was the point where people for the first time this is, like, what, 3 years ago? For the first time, they were, like that was when it sunk in where it's just, like, okay, this has spun completely out of control. Anyways, that that that's how we got to where we are. And then basically, that spell lasted. That that that complex existed and got expanded basically from call it 2013 to 2023.
I think, basically, 2 things broke it. 1 is Substack. And so and I'm super proud of those guys because they started from scratch and declared right up front that they were gonna be a a a free speech platform. And they came under intense pressure, including from the press, and, you know, they tried to beat them to the ground and kill them. And intense pressure, by the way, from, you know, let's say, certain of the platform companies, you know, basically threatening them.
And they stood up to it. And, you know, sitting here today, they have the widest spectrum of of speech and and and conversation, I've, you know, anywhere on planet Earth, and they've done a great job. And it has worked, by the way. It's great. And then obviously, Elon, you know, with x was the the, you know, the hammer blow.
And then I the the third one now is what Mark is doing at Facebook. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And there's also, like, singular moments. I think you've spoken about this, which, like John Stewart going on Stephen Colbert and talking about the lab leak theory. Yes. I just there's certain moments that just kinda shake everybody up. The right person, the right time, just it's a wake up call.
Speaker 0: So that there and I will tell you, like and I should say, John Stewart attacked me recently, so I'm not that thrilled about him. But I would say I was a long run fan of John Stewart. I watched probably every episode of The Daily Show when he was on it, there for probably 20 years. But he he did a very important public service, and it was that appearance in the Colbert show. And I I don't know how broadly this is you know, at the time, it was in the news briefly, but I don't know how if people remember this.
But I will tell you in in the rooms where people discuss what is misinformation in these policies, that was a very big moment. That was probably actually the key catalyzing moment, and I think he exhibited, I would say, conspicuous bravery and had a big impact with that. And and, yeah, what what for people who don't recall what he did, what and this was in the full blown like, you absolute you know, you absolutely must lock down for 2 years. You absolutely must keep all the schools closed. You absolutely must have everybody work from home.
You absolutely must wear a mask, like, the whole thing. And one of those was you absolutely must believe that, COVID was completely natural. You must believe that. And not believing that means you're a fascist Nazi Trump supporter mega evil qanon person. Right?
And that was, like, uniform, and that was enforced by the social media companies. And and and like I said, that that was the peak. And and and John Stewart went on The Colbert Show. And I don't know if they planned it or not because Colbert looked shocked. I don't know how much it was a bit, but he went on there and he he just had one of these, like, the emperor is wearing no clothes things where he said it's just not plausible that you had the COVID super virus appear 300 yards down the street from the Wuhan Institute of lethal coronaviruses.
Like, it's just not plausible that that that that certainly that you could just rule that out. And then there was another key moment actually. The more serious version was I think the author Nicholson Baker wrote a big piece for New York Magazine. Nicholson Baker is, like, one of our great novelist writers, of our time, and he wrote the piece, and he did the complete addressing of it. And that was the first I think that was the first legit there had been, like, alt, you know, renegade.
There have been, you know, people running around saying this, but getting censored all over the place. That was the first one that was, like, in the mainstream press where he and he talked to all the heretics, and he just, like, laid the whole thing out. And and that was a moment. And I remember, let's say, a board meeting at one of these companies after that, where basically, you know, everybody looked around the table and was, like, alright. Like, I guess we're not we don't need to censor that anymore.
And, you know, and then, of course, what immediately follows from that is, well, wait a minute. Why were we censoring that in the first place? And okay. Like and then, you know, the downstream not that day, but the downstream conversations were, like, okay. If if if we made such a giant in retrospect, if we all made such a giant collective mistake censoring that, then what does that say about the rest of our regime?
And I think that was the thread in the sweater that started to unravel it.
Speaker 1: I should say it again. I do think that the Jon Stewart appearance and the the statement he made was a courageous act.
Speaker 0: Yep. I agree.
Speaker 1: I think we need to have more that of that in the world. And like you said, Elon, everything he did with x is is is a series of courageous acts. And I think what, Zuck what Mark Zuckerberg did on Rogen a few days ago is a courageous act. Can you just speak to that?
Speaker 0: He has become, I think, an outstanding communicator. Right? And he's, you know, somebody who came in for a lot of criticism earlier in his career, on that front. And I think he's, you know, he's, you know, he's one of these guys who can sit down and talk for 3 hours and and make complete sense. And and, you know, as as you do with with all of all of your episodes, like, when somebody sits and talks for 3 hours, like, you really get a sense of somebody because it's it's really hard to to be artificial for that long.
And, you know, he's he's not done that repeatedly. He's really good at it. And then, look, I I again, I would maybe put him in the 3rd category now with, certainly after that appearance, I would say, I would put him up there now with, you know, kind of be a line of Trump in the sense of the public of the the public and the private are now synchronized. I guess I'd say that. Like, he he he said on that show what he really believes.
He said all the same things that he says in private. Like, I don't think there's really any any discrepancy anymore. I would say he has always taken upon himself a level of obligation responsibility to running a company the size of Meta and to running services that are that large. And I think, you know, his conception of what he's doing, which I think is correct, is he's running services that are bigger than any country. Right?
He's running, you know, over 3,000,000,000 people use those services. And so and then, you know, the company has, you know, many tens of thousands of of employees and many investors, and it's a public company, and he thinks very deeply and seriously about his responsibilities. And so, you know, he has not felt like he has had, let's just say, the complete flexibility that Elon has had. And, you know, people could argue that one way or the other, but, you know, he's he's, you know yeah. He's he's you know, he talked about a lot.
He's he's evolved a lot. A lot of it was he learned a lot. And by the way, I'm gonna put myself right back up there. Like, I'm not claiming any huge foresight or heroism on any of this. Like, I've also learned learned a lot.
Like like, I my views on things are very different than they were 10 years ago on lots of topics. And so, you know, I would I've been on a learning journey. He's been on a learning journey. He is a really, really good learner. He assimilates information, you know, as as good as or better than anybody else I know.
The other thing, I guess, I would just say is he talked on that show about something very important, which is when you're in a role where you're running a company like that, there are a set of decisions that you get to make, and and you deserve to be criticized for those decisions and so forth, and it's valid. But you are under tremendous external pressure, as well. And and by the way, you're under tremendous internal pressure. You've got your employees coming at you. You've got your executives in some cases coming at you.
You've got your board in some cases coming at you. You've got your shareholders coming at you. So you you've got your internal pressures, but you also have the press coming at you. You've got academia coming at you. You've got the entire nonprofit complex coming activist complex coming at you.
And then really critically, you know, he talked about on Rogan, and these companies all went through this. In this last, especially 5 years, you had the government coming at you. And, you know, that's the really, you know, stinky end of the pool, where, you know, the government was, in my view, you know, illegally exerting, you you know, just in flagrant violation of the first amendment and federal laws on on speech and coercion and, and conspiracy, forcing these companies to engage in activities. You know, then again, in some cases, they may have wanted to do, but in other cases, they clearly didn't wanna do and felt like they had to do. And the level of pressure, like I said, like, I've known every CEO of Twitter.
They they've all had the exact same experience, which when they were in the job, it was just daily beatings. Like, it's just getting punched in the face every single day, constantly. And, you know, Mark is very good at getting physically punched in the face. Getting better and better. Yeah.
And he is and and he, you know, and he's very good at, you know, taking a punch and he has taken many, many punches. So I would encourage people to have a level of sympathy for these are not kings. These these are people who operate with, like, I would say, extraordinary levels of external pressure. I think if I had been in his job for the last decade, I would be a little puddle on the floor. And so it it it says, I think, a lot about him that he has, you know, risen to this occasion the way that he has.
And by the way, I should also say, you know, the the cynicism, of course, is immediately out and, you know, it's a it's a, you know, legitimate thing for people to say. But, you know, it's like, oh, you're only doing this because of Trump or, you know, whatever. And it's just like, no. Like, he has been thinking about and working on these things and trying to figure them out for a very long time. And so I I think what you saw are legitimate, deeply held beliefs, not some, you know, you know, sort of just in the moment thing that could change at any time.
Speaker 1: So what do you think it's like to be him and, other leaders of companies to be you and withstand internal pressure and external pressure? What's that life like? Is it deeply lonely?
Speaker 0: That's a great question. So leaders are lonely to start with. And and this is one of those things where almost nobody has sympathy. Right? Nobody feels sorry for a CEO.
Right? Like, it it's not a thing. Right? And and, you know, and again, legitimately so. Like, CEOs get paid a lot, like, the whole thing.
There's a lot of great things about it. So it's not like they should be out there asking for a lot of sympathy, but it is the case that they are human beings. And it is the case that it is a lonely job. And the reason it's a lonely job, is because your words carry tremendous weight. And you are dealing with extremely complicated issues, and you're under a tremendous amount of emotional, you know, personal emotional stress.
And, you know, you often end up not being able to sleep well and you end up not being able to, like, keep up an exercise routine and all those things. And, you know, you come under family stress because you're working all the time. Or my partner, Ben, you know, was he was CEO of our last company before we started the venture firm. He he said, you know, the problem he had, like, with with his family life was he would even when he was home at night, he wasn't home because he was in his head trying to solve all the business problems. And so he was, like, supposed to be able to have a dinner with his kids.
And he was
Speaker 1: physically there, but he wasn't mentally there.
Speaker 0: So, you know, you kinda get you get that a lot. But the key thing is, like, you can't talk to people. Right? So you can't I mean, you could talk to your spouse and your kids, but, like, they don't understand that they're not working in your company. They don't understand have the context to really help you.
You if you talk to your executives, they all have agendas. Right? And so they they're all they're all and they can't resist. Like, it's just human nature. And and and so you you you can't necessarily rely on what they say.
It's very hard in most companies to talk to your board because they can fire you. Right? Now now Mark has the situation because he has control. It actually turns out he can talk to his board, and Mark talks to us about many things that he does that most CEOs won't talk to their boards about because we literally because we can't fire him. But the general a general c including all the CEOs of Twitter that that none of them had control, and so they they could all get fired.
So, you can't talk to the board members. They're gonna fire you. You can't talk to shareholders because they'll they'll just light up your stock. Right? Like, okay.
So who's the so so the so every once in a while, what you find is basically the the best case scenario they have is they can talk to other CEOs. And there's these little organizations where they kinda pair up and do that, and so they maybe get a little bit out of that. But but even that's fraught with peril because can you really talk about confidential information with another CEO, insider trading risk? And so it's just a very it's just a very lonely and isolating thing to start with. And then you you and then on top of that, you apply pressure.
Right, and that's where it gets painful. And then maybe I'll just spend a moment on this internal external pressure thing. My general experience with companies is that they can withstand most forms of external pressure as long as they retain internal coherence. Right? So as long as the internal team, is really bonded together and supporting each other, most forms of external pressure you can withstand.
And by that, I mean, investors dump your stock, you lose your biggest customers, you know, whatever negative article, you know, negative headline. And, you know, you can you can withstand all that. And basically and in fact, many of those forms of pressure can be bonding experiences for the team where they where they where they come out stronger. What you 100% cannot withstand is the internal crack. And what I always look for in high pressure corporate situations now is the moment when the internal team cracks.
Because I know the minute that happens, we're in a different regime. Like, it's like the, you know, the solid has turned into a liquid. Like, we're in a different regime and, like, the whole thing can unravel in the next week because then people turn I mean, it's I guess this is what's happening in Los Angeles right now. The the the the the mayor and the and the fire chief turned on each other and that's it. That government is dysfunctional.
It is never going to get put back together again. It is over. It is not going to work ever again. And that's what happens inside companies. And so so so somebody like Mark is under, like, profound internal pressure and external pressure at the same time.
Now he's been very good at maintaining the coherence of his executive team, but he has had over the years a lot of activist employees, as a lot of these companies have had. And so that's been continuous pressure. And then the final thing I'd say is I said that companies can withstand most forms of external pressure, but not all in the especially, though not all one is government pressure, is that when your government comes for you, like yeah. Any CEO who thinks that they're bigger than their government, has that, notion beaten out of them in short order.
Speaker 1: Can you just linger on that? Because it it is, maybe educating and deeply disturbing. You've spoken about it before, but we're speaking about again, this government pressure. So you think they've crossed the line into essentially criminal levels of pressure?
Speaker 0: Flagrant criminality. Felonies, like, obvious felonies. And I can I can actually cite the laws, but yes, absolute criminality?
Speaker 1: Can you explain how those possible to happen and may maybe on a hopeful note, how we can avoid that happening again?
Speaker 0: So I should start with is a lot of this now is in the public record, which is good because it needs to be in the public record. And so there's there's three forms of things that are in the public record that people can look at. So one is the Twitter files, right, which Elon put out with the set of journalists when he took over. And I will just tell you the Twitter files are a 100% representative of what I've seen at every other one of these companies. And so you can just see what happened in Twitter, and you can just assume that that happened in in these other companies, you know, for the most part, certainly in terms of the kind of pressure that they got.
So that's that's number 1. That stuff, you can just read it, and you should if you haven't. The second is, Mark referenced this in the Rogan podcast. There's a congressman Jim Jordan who has a committee congressional committee called the weaponization committee. And they, in the last, you know, whatever, 3 years have, done a full scale investigation of this, and Facebook produced a lot of documents into that, investigation, and those have many of those have now been made public, and you can download those reports.
And there's, like, I'd like 2,000 pages worth of material on that. And that's essentially the Facebook version of the Twitter files just arrived at with a different mechanism. And then 3rd is Mark himself talking about this on on on on Rogan. So I'll, you know, just defer to his comments there. But, yeah, basically, what what those three forms of information show you is basically the government, you know, over time, and then culminating in 2020, 2021, you know, in the last 4 years just decided that the first amendment didn't apply to them.
And they just decided that, federal laws around free speech and around, conspiracies to take away the rights of citizens just don't apply. And they just decided that they can just arbitrarily pressure, they just, like, literally arbitrarily call up companies and threaten and bully, and yell and scream and and, you know, threaten repercussions and force people to force them to censor. And, you know, there's this old thing of, like, well, the first amendment only applies to, you know, the government. It doesn't apply to companies. It's like, well, there's actually a little bit of nuance to that.
First of all, it definitely applies to the government. Like, 100%, the first amendment applies to the government. By the way, so does the 4th amendment and the 5th amendment, including the right to due process, also applies to the government. There was no due process at all to any of the censorship regime that was put in place. There was no due process put in place, by the way, for debanking either.
Those are just as serious violations as the as the free speech violations. And so this is just, like, flagrant flagrant on constitutional behavior. And then there are specific federal statutes. There's it's 18241 and 18242. And one of them applies to federal employees, government employees, and the other one, applies to private actors, around what's called deprivation of rights, and conspiracy to deprive rights.
And it is not legal according to the United States Criminal Code for government employees or in a conspiracy private entities to take away constitutional rights. And interestingly, some of those constitutional rights are enumerated, for example, in the First Amendment, freedom of speech. And then some of those rights actually do not need to be enumerated. It is if the government takes away rights that you have, they don't need to be specifically enumerated rights in the constitution in order to still be a felony. The constitution does not very specifically does not say you only have the rights that it gives you.
It says you have all the rights that have not been previously defined as being taken away from you. Right? And so debanking qualifies as a right, you know, right to access to the financial system as every bit something that's subject to these laws as as free speech. And so, yeah, this has happened. And then I'll just add add one final thing, which is we've talked about 2 parties so far.
Talked about the government employees, and then we've talked about the companies. The government employees, for sure, have misbehaved. The companies, there's a very interesting question there as to whether they are victims or perpetrators or both. You know, they will defend and they will argue, and I believe they have a good case that they are victims, not perpetrators. Right?
They are the downstream subjects of pressure, not the you know, not the cause of pressure. But there's a big swath of people who are in the middle and, specifically, the ones that are funded by the government that I think are in possibly pretty big trouble. And that's all of these 3rd party, censorship bureaus. I mean, the one that sort of is most obvious is the so called, Stanford Internet Observatory, that got booted up there over the last several years. And they basically were funded by the federal government to be third party censorship operations.
And they're private sector actors but acting with federal funding. And so it puts them in this very interesting spot where there there could be, you know, a very obvious theory under which they're basically acting as agents of the government. And so I think they're also very exposed on this and have behaved in just flagrantly illegal ways.
Speaker 1: So fundamentally, government should not do any kind of pressure, even soft pressure on companies to censor.
Speaker 0: Can't.
Speaker 1: Not allowed. It really is disturbing. I mean, it probably started soft lightly, slowly, and then it escalates as the the old will to power will instruct them to do. Because you get you get I mean, yeah. I mean, that's why that's why there's protection because you can't put a check on power for government.
Right?
Speaker 0: There are so many ways that they can get you. Like, there are so many ways they can come at you and get you. And, you know, the the thing here to think about is a lot of times, if you think about government action, they think about legislation. Right? Because you so when I was a kid, we got trained at how does government work, there was this famous animated short, the thing we got shown was just a cartoon of how a bill becomes a law.
It's like this, you know, a fancy little bill snaked along. It goes this.
Speaker 1: I'm just a bill.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. Like, it's like, alright. Number 1, that's not how it works at all. Like, that doesn't actually happen.
We could talk about that. But even beyond that, mostly what we're dealing with is not legislation. When we talk about government power these days, mostly it's not legislation. Mostly it's either regulation, which is basically the equivalent of legislation, but having not gone through the legislative process, which is a very big open legal issue and one of the things that the Doge is very focused on. Most most government rules are not legislated, they're regulated, and that and there's tons and tons of regulations that these companies are so this is another cliche you'll hear a lot, which is all private companies can do whatever they want.
It's like, oh, no, they can't. They're subject to tens of thousands of regulations that they have to comply with. And the hammer that comes down when you don't comply with regulations is profound. Like, they can completely wreck your company with no bill no ability for you to do anything about it. So so so regulation is a big part of the way the power gets exercised.
And then there's what's called just flat out administrative power, the term that you'll hear. Administrative power is just literally the government telling you, calling you, and telling you what to do. Here's an example how this works. So Facebook had this whole program a few years back to do a global cryptocurrency for payments called Libra. And they they built the entire system and it was this high scale, you know, sort of new cryptocurrency and they were gonna build in every product and they were gonna be 3,000,000,000 people who could transact with Libra.
And they went to the government and they went to the these different try to figure out how to make it. So it's, like, fully compliant with anti money laundering and all these, you know, controls and everything, and they had the whole thing ready to go. 2 senators wrote letters to the big banks, saying, we're not telling you that you can't work with Facebook on this. But if you do, you should know that every aspect of your business is going to come under greatly increased level of regulatory scrutiny, which is, of course, the exact equivalent of it sure is a nice corner restaurant you have here. It would be a shame if, you know, somebody tossed a Molotov cocktail through the window and burned it down tonight.
Right? And so that letter like, what is that letter? Like, it's not a law. It's not even a regulation. It's just, like, straight direct state power.
And and then it and then it culminates in literally calls from the White House where they're just, like, flat out telling you what to do, which is, of course, what a king gets to do, but not what a president gets to do. And and so anyway, so this so so what these companies experienced was they experienced the full panoply of this, but it was it was the the level of intensity was in that order. It was actually legislation was the least important part. Regulation was more important. Administrative power was more important.
And then just, like, flat out demands. I mean, flat out threats were ultimately the most important. How do you fix it? Well, first of all, like, you have to elect people who don't do it. So, like, as with all these things, ultimately, the fault lies with the voters.
And so, you know, you have to decide you don't wanna live in that regime. I have no idea what part of this recent election mapped to the censorship regime. I do know a lot of people on the right got very angry about the censorship, but I, you know, I think it probably at least helped with enthusiasm on that side. You know, maybe some people on the left will now not want their, you know, democratic nominees to be so pro censorship. So the the voters definitely, you know, get a vote, number 1.
Number 2, I think you need transparency. You need to know what happened. We know some of what happened. Peter Thiel has written in the Feet just now saying we just need, like, broad after what we've been through in the last decade, we need broad based truth and reconciliation, you know, efforts to really get to the root of things. So maybe that's part of it.
We need investigations for sure. Ultimately, we need prosecutions. Like, we we need ultimately we need people to go to jail, because we need to set object lessons that say that you don't get to do this. And and and on those last 2, I would say that that those are both up to the new administration, and I don't wanna speak for them. And I I don't wanna predict what they're gonna do, but they have they, for sure, have the ability to do both of those things.
And, you know, we'll we'll see where they take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's truly disturbing. I don't think anybody wants this kind of overreach of power for government, including perhaps people that were participating in it. It's like this dark momentum of power. They just get caught up in it, and that's the reason there's that kind of protection.
Nobody wants that.
Speaker 0: So I use the metaphor of the ring of power and Yeah. For people who don't catch the reference, that's lord Lord of the Rings. And the thing with the ring of power and lord of the rings, it's the ring that golem has in the beginning and it turns you invisible and it turns out it like unlocks all this like fearsome power, it's the most powerful thing in the world. It's key to everything and basically the the the moral lesson of lord of the rings which was you know written by a guy who thought very deeply about these things is yeah, the ring of power is inherently corrupting. The characters at one point, they're like, Gandalf.
Just put on the ring and, like, fix this. Right? And he's like he's like, he will not put the ring on even to, like, end of the war, because he knows that it will corrupt him. And then, you know, the character as it starts, the character of Gollum is the result of, you know, it's just, like, a normal character who ultimately becomes, you know, this incredibly corrupt and deranged version of himself. And so, I mean, I think you I think you said something actually quite profound there, which is the ring of power is infinitely tempting.
You know, the censorship machine is infinitely tempting. If you if you have it, like, you are going to use it. It's overwhelmingly tempting because it's so powerful, and that it will corrupt you. And, yeah, I I don't know whether any of these people feel any of this today. They should.
I don't know if they do. But, yeah, you go out 5 or 10 years later, you know, you would hope that you would realize that your soul has been corroded, and you probably started out thinking that you were a patriot, and you were trying to defend democracy, and you ended up being, you know, extremely authoritarian and anti democratic and anti Western.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you a a tough question here? Staying on the ring of power, Elon is quickly becoming the most powerful human on Earth.
Speaker 0: I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 1: You don't you don't think he
Speaker 0: Well, he doesn't have the nukes. So Nukes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's different definitions and perspectives on power. Right? Yep. How can he and or Donald Trump, avoid the corrupting aspects of this power?
Speaker 0: I mean, I think the danger is there with power. It's just it's flat out there. I I would say with Elon, I mean, we'll, you know, we'll see. I would say with Elon, and I would say, by the way, overwhelmingly, I would say so far far so good. I'm extremely extremely thrilled by what he's done on almost every front, for, like, you know, the last 30 years.
But including all this stuff recently, like, I think he's he's been a real hero on a lot of topics where we needed to see heroism. But look, I I would say, I guess, the sort of case that he has this level of power is is some combination of the money and the the and the proximity to the president. And, obviously, both of those are are are instruments of power. The counterargument to that is I do think a lot of how Elon is causing change in the world right now I mean, there's there's the companies he's running directly where I think he's doing very well, and we're investors in multiple of them and doing very well. But I think, like, a lot of the stuff that gets people mad at him is, like, it's the social and political stuff and it's, you know, it's his statements and then it's downstream effects of his statements.
So like for example it's, you know, for the last couple weeks it's been him, you know, kind of weighing in on this rape gang scandal, you know, this rape organized child rape thing in the UK. And, you know, it's, you know, it's actually a it's a preference cascade. It's one of these things where people knew there was a problem, they weren't willing to talk about it. It kind of got suppressed, and then, Elon brought it up and then all of a sudden there's now in the UK this, like, massive explosion of basically open conversation about it for the first time. And, you know, it's like this catalyzing.
Yeah. All of a sudden, everybody's kinda woken up and being like, oh my god. You know, this is really bad. And and and there will be now, you know, pretty sure pretty pretty clearly big changes as a result. So and Elon was, you know, he played the role of the boy who said the emperor has no clothes.
Right? But but but here's the thing. Here's my point. Like, he said it about something that was true. Right?
And so had he said it about something that was false, you know, he would get no credit for it. They wouldn't deserve any credit for it. But he said something that was true. And by the way, everybody over there instantly, they were like, oh, yeah. He's right.
Right. Like, nobody nobody seriously said. They're just arguing the details now. So so number 1, it's like, okay. He says true things.
And so it's like, okay. How far I'll put it this way. Like, how worried are we about somebody becoming corrupt by virtue of their power being that they get to speak the truth? And I guess I would say, especially in the last decade of what we've been through, where everybody's been lying all the time about everything, I'd say, I think we should run this experiment as hard as we can to get people to tell the truth. And so, I don't feel that bad about that.
And then the money side, you know, this rapidly gets into the money and politics question. And the money and politics question is this very interesting question because, it seems like if there's a clear cut case that the more money in politics, the worse things are and the more corrupted the system is. That was a very popular topic of public conversation up until 2016, when Hillary outspent Trump 3 to 1 and lost. You'll notice that money in politics has all most vanished as a topic, in the last 8 years. And and once again, Trump spent far you know, Kamala raised and spent 1,500,000,000 on top of what, Biden spent.
So they were they were, I don't know, something like 33,000,000,000 total, and Trump, I think, spent again, like, a third or a fourth of that. And so the money in politics kind of topic has kind of vanished from the popular conversation the last 8 years. It has come back a little bit now that Elon is spending. You know? But but again, like, it's like, okay, he's spending.
But data would seem to indicate in the last at least the last 8 years that money doesn't win the political battles. It's actually, like, the voters actually have a voice and they actually exercise it and they don't just listen to ads. And so again, there I would say, like, yeah, clearly there's some power there, but I don't know if it's, like, I don't know if it's some, like, I don't know if it's some weapon that he can just, like, turn on and and and use in a definitive way.
Speaker 1: And I I don't know if there's parallels there, but I could also say just on a human level, he has a good heart. And I interact with a lot of powerful people, and that's not always the case. So that that's a good thing there. Yeah. If we if we can draw parallels to the Hobbit or whatever, who gets to put on the ring?
Frodo? Frodo. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, may maybe one of the lessons of Lord of the Rings, right, is even even Frodo would have been, you know, even Frodo would have been corrupted. Right? But, you know, nevertheless, you had somebody who could do what it took at the at the time. The thing that I find just so amazing about the Elon phenomenon and all the critiques is, you know, the one thing that everybody in our societies universally agrees on because of our sort of our our post Christian egalitarian.
So, you know, we live in sort of this post secularized Christian context in the West now. And it's, you know, we we, you know, we we consider Christianity kind of, you know, backwards, but we still believe essentially all the same things. We just dress them up in in sort of fake science. So the the one thing that we're all told we're all taught from from early is that the best people in the world are the people who care about all of humanity. Right?
And we venerate, you know, all of our figures are people who care about all of you know, Jesus cared about all of humanity. Gandhi cared about all of humanity. Martin Luther King cared about all of humanity. Like, it's it's this universe the person who cares the most about everybody. And and with Elon, you have a guy who literally, like, is he's literally he he talks about this constantly and he talks about exactly the same in private.
He's literally he is operating on behalf of all of humanity to try to get us to you know, he goes through to get us through multi planetary civilizations so that we can survive a strike at any one planet so that we can extend the light of human consciousness into the world and, you know, into the universe and have it persist, you know, on the good of the whole thing. And, like, literally the critique is, yeah, we want you to care about all of humanity but not like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All the critics all the all the surface turmoil, all the critics will be forgotten.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think that's yeah. That's clear.
Speaker 1: You said that, we always end up being ruled by the elites of some kind. Can you explain this law, this idea?
Speaker 0: So this comes from a Italian political philosopher from about a 100 years ago named Robert I'm gonna mangle the I'll let you pronounce the Italian, Michelle's, or or Michael's. And then it was I learned about it through a a famous book on on politics. Probably the best book on politics written in the 20th century called the Machiavellians by this guy, James Burnham, who has had a big impact on me. But, in the Machiavellians, resurrects what he calls this this sort of Italian realist school of of political philosophy from the from the tens and twenties. And these were people to be clear, this was not like a Mussolini thing.
These were people who were trying to understand the actual mechanics of how politics actually works. So to get to the actual sort of mechanical substance of, like, how the political machine operates. And, this guy, Michels, had this concept he ended up with called the iron law of oligarchy. And so what the iron law of oligarchy I mean, take a step back to say what he meant by oligarchy because it has multiple meanings. So, basically, in classic political theory, there's basically three forms of government at core.
There's democracy, which is rule of the many. There's oligarchy, which is rule of the few, and there's monarchy, which is rule of the 1. And you can just use that as a general framework of any government you're gonna be under. It's gonna be one of those. Just a mechanical observation without even saying which one's good or bad, just a structural observation.
And so the question that Michelle's asked was, like, is there such a thing as democracy? Like, is there actually such a thing as democracy? Is is there ever actually, like, direct direct government? And what he did was he mounted this sort of incredible historical, exploration of whether democracies had ever existed in the world. And the answer basically is almost never, and we could talk about that.
But the other thing he did was he he sought out the most democratic, private organization in the world that he could find at that point, which he concluded was some basically communist German auto workers union that was, like, wholly devoted to the workers of the world uniting, you know, back when that was, like, the hot thing. And he went in there and he's, like, okay, this is the organization out of all organizations on planet earth that must be operating as a as a direct democracy. And he went in there and he's, like, oh, nope, there's a leadership class. You know, there's, like, 6 guys at the top and they control everything. And then they lead the rest of the membership along, you know, by the nose, which is, of course, the story of every union.
The story of every union is always the story of, you know, there's there's a Jimmy Hoffa in there, you know, kinda running the thing. You know, we just saw that with the dock workers union. Right? Like, you know, there's a guy, and he's in charge. And by the way, the number 2 is his son.
Right? Like, that's not like a, you know, an accident. Right? So the iron law of oligarchy basically says democracy is fake. There's always a ruling class.
There's always a ruling elite structurally. And he said the reason for that is because the masses can't organize. Right? What what's the fundamental problem that whether the mass is 25,000 people in union or 250,000,000 people in a country, the masses can't organize. The majority cannot organize.
Only a minority can organize. And to be effective in politics, you must organize. And therefore, every political structure in human history has been some form of a small organized elite ruling a large and dispersed majority. Every single one. The Greeks and the Florentines had brief experiments in direct democracy, and they were total disasters.
In Florence, I forget the name of it. It was called, like, the workers' revolt or something like that. There was, like, a 2 year period, where they basically experimented with direct democracy during the renaissance, and it was a complete disaster. And they never tried it again. In the state of California, we have our own experiment on this, which is the proposition system, which is an overlay on top of the legislature.
And it, you know, anybody who looks at it for 2 seconds concludes it's been a complete disaster. It's just a catastrophe, and it's caused enormous damage to the state. And so basically the the basically the the presumption that we are in a democracy is just sort of by definition fake. Now good news for the US, it turns out the founders understood this. And so of course they didn't give us a direct democracy.
They gave us a representative democracy. Right? And so they they built the oligarchy into the system in the form of Congress and the in the executive branch and the judicial branch. But but so anyway, so as a consequence, democracy is always and everywhere fake. There is always a ruling elite.
And and basically, the the the lesson of the Machiavellians is you can deny that if you want, but you're fooling yourself. The way to actually think about how to make a system work and maintain any sort of shred of freedom, is to actually understand that that is actually what's happening.
Speaker 1: And, lucky for us, the founders saw this and figured out a way to given that there's going to be a ruling elite, how to create a balance of power among that elite
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't get out of hand.
Speaker 0: It was very clever. Right? And, you know, some of this was based on earlier experiments. Some of this by the way, you know, they these these were very, very smart people. Right?
And so they they knew tremendous amounts of, like, Greek and Roman history. They knew the Renaissance history. You know, the the Federalist Papers, they argued this at great length. You you can read it all. You know, they they they ran, like, one of the best seminars in world history trying to figure this out.
And they they went through all this. And yeah. And so they they thought through it very carefully. But just to give you an example which continues to be a hot topic. So, you know, one way they did it just through the three branches of government.
Right? Executive legislative and judicial, sort of balance of powers. But the other way they did it was they sort of echoing what had been done earlier, I think, in the UK parliament. They created the 2 different bodies of the legislature. Right?
And so the, you know, the house and the senate. And as you know, the the house is a portion on the basis of population and the senate is not. Right? The small states have just as many senators as the big states. And then they made the deliberate decision to have the house get reelected every 2 years to make it very responsive to the will of the people, and they made the decision to have the senate get reelected every 6 years so that it had more buffer from the passions of the moment.
But what's interesting is they didn't choose 1 or the other. Right? They did them both. And then to to get legislation passed, you have to get through both of them. And so they they built in, like, a second layer of checks and balances.
And then there's a 1,000 observations we could make about, like, how well the system is working today and, like, how much does it live up to the ideal and how much are we actually complying with the constitution? And there's lots of, you know, there's lots of open questions there. But, you know, this system has survived for coming on 250 years with a country that has been spectacularly successful, but I don't think at least, you know, I don't think any of us would trade this system for any other one. And so it's, yeah, one of the great all time achievements.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible. And we should say they were all pretty young relative to our current
Speaker 0: They were.
Speaker 1: Set of leaders.
Speaker 0: Many in their twenties at the time. And, like, supergeniuses. This is one of those things where it's just like, alright, something happened where there was a group of people where, you know, nobody ever tested their IQs, but, like, these are Einsteins of politics. Yeah. An amazing thing.
But anyway, it's I I I just I go through all that which is they were very keen students of the actual mechanical practice of democracy not fixated on what was desirable. They were incredibly focused on what would actually work, which is, you know, I think the the way to think about these things.
Speaker 1: There were engineers of sort, not the fuzzy humanity students of
Speaker 0: They were shape rotators, not word cells. I remember that.
Speaker 1: Wow. That meme came and went. I think you were central to them. You're central to a lot of memes.
Speaker 0: I was. I was.
Speaker 1: You're you're the meme dealer and the meme popularizer.
Speaker 0: That meme, I get some credit for, and then the current thing is the other one I get some credit for. I don't know that I invented either one, but, I I I popularized them.
Speaker 1: Take credit and run with it. Yep. Thanks. If we can just linger on the Mykelevalliance. It's a it's a study of power and power dynamics, like you mentioned, looking at the actual reality of the machinery of power.
From everything you've seen now in government but also in companies, what are some interesting things you can sort of continue to say about the dynamics of power, the jossing for power that happens inside these institutions?
Speaker 0: Yeah. So it it it a lot of it, you know, we we'd already talked about this a bit with the universities, which is you you can apply a Machiavellian style lens. It's why I posed the question to you that I did, which is okay, who runs the university? The trustees, the administration, the students, or the faculty. And and, you know, the answer the true answer is some combination of the 3 or of the 4, plus the donors, by the way, plus the government, plus the press, etcetera.
Right? And so there there, you know, there's there's a mechanical interpretation of that. I mean, companies, operate under the exact same, you know, set of questions. Who runs a company? You know, the CEO but, like, the CEO runs the company basically up to the day that either the shareholders or the management team revolt.
If the shareholders revolt, it's very hard for the CEO to stay in the seat. If the management team revolts, it's very hard for the CEO to stay in the seat. By the way, if the employees revolt, it's also hard to stay in the seat. By the way, if the New York Times comes at you, it's also very hard to stay in the seat. If the senate comes at you, it's very hard to stay in the seat.
So, you know, like, a a a a a reductionist version of this that is a good shorthand is who can get who fired. You know, so who so who has more power? You know, the the newspaper columnist who makes, you know, $200,000 a year or the CEO who makes, you know, $200,000,000 a year. And it's like, well, I know for sure that the columnist can get the CEO fired. I've seen that happen before.
I have yet to see a CEO get a columnist fired.
Speaker 1: Did anyone ever get fired from the Bill Ackman assault on journalism? So Bill Bill, like, really showed the bullshit that happens in journalism.
Speaker 0: No. Because what happens is they they they wear it with a I mean, they and, yeah, I would say to their credit, they wear it as a badge of honor, and then to their shame, they wear it as a badge of honor. Right? Which is if, you know, if they're doing the right thing, then they are justifiably pride themselves for standing up under pressure. But it also means that they can't respond to legitimate criticism and, you know, they're obviously terrible at that now.
As I recall, he went straight to the CEO of, I think, Axel Springer that owns Insider and I, you know and I I happen to know the CEO and I think he's quite a good CEO, but, like, I like, what is a good example? Is the CEO of Axel Springer run his own company? Right? Like, well, there's a fascinating okay. So there's a fascinating thing playing out right now.
Not to dwell on these fires, but, it's a you see the pressure reveals things. Right? And so if you've been watching what's happened with the LA Times recently. So so this guy, biotech entrepreneur buys the LA Times, like, whatever, 8 years ago. It is just like the most radical social revolutionary thing you can possibly imagine.
It endorses every crazy left wing radical you can imagine. It endorses Karen Bass. It endorses Gavin Newsom. It's just like an litany of all the people who, you know, are currently burning the city to the ground. It's just, like, endorsed every single bad person every step of the way.
He's owned it the entire time. You know, he put his foot down right before for the first time, I think put his foot down right before the November election and said we're not we're we're not getting he said we're going to get out of this thing where we just always endorse the democrat. We said we're not endorsing I think he said we're not endorsing for the for the presidency and like the paper flipped out right it's like our billionaire backer who's and I don't know what he spends, but, like, he must be burning 50 or a $100,000,000 a year out of his pocket to keep this thing running. He paid 500,000,000 for it, which is amazing, back when people still thought these things were businesses. And then he's probably burned another 500,000,000 over the last decade keeping it running.
And he burns probably another 50, a 100,000,000 a year to do this. And the journalists at the LA Times hate him with the theory of a 1000 suns. Like, they just, like, absolutely freaking despise him. And they have been, like, attacking him and, you know, the ones that can get jobs elsewhere quit and do it and the rest just stay and say the worst, you know, most horrible things about him and they wanna constantly run these stories attacking him. And so he has had this reaction that a lot of people in LA LA are having right now to this fire into this just, like, incredibly vivid collapse of leadership and all these people that he had his paper head and tours are just disasters.
And he he's on this tour. He's basically just he's decided he's he's decided to be the the boy who says the emperor has no clothes, but he's doing it to his own newspaper. Very smart guy. He's not a press tour and he's basically saying, yeah. We we yes.
We did all that and we endorsed these people and it was a huge mistake and we're gonna completely change. And his paper is, you know, in a complete internal revolt. But I go through it, which is okay. Now we have a very interesting question, which is who runs the LA Times. Because for the last 8 years, it hasn't been him.
It it's been the reporters. Now for the first time, the owner is showing up saying, oh, no. I'm actually in charge. And the reporters are saying, no. You're not.
And, like like, it is freaking on. And so, again, if the the Machiavellian's mindset on this is, like, okay. How is power actually exercised here? Can can can a guy who's, like, even super rich and super powerful, who even owns his own newspaper, can he stand up to a full scale assault, not only by his own reporters, but by every other journalist out there who also now thinks he's the antichrist?
Speaker 1: And he is trying to exercise power by speaking out publicly. And so that's the game of power there.
Speaker 0: And firing people. And, you know, he has removed people and he has set new rules. I mean, he he is he is now, I think, at long I think he's saying he's now at long last actually exercising prerogatives of an owner of a business, which is decide on the policies and staffing of the business. There are certain other owners of these publications that are doing similar things right now. He's the one I don't know, so he's the one I can talk about.
But there are others that are going through the same thing right now. And I think it's a really interesting open question. Like, you know, in a fight between the employees and the employer, like, it's not crystal clear that the employer wins that one.
Speaker 1: And just to stay on journalism for a second, we mentioned Bill Ackman. I just wanna say put him in the category we mentioned before of a really courageous person. I don't think I've ever seen anybody so fearless in going after you know, in following what he believes in publicly. That's courage. That that that several things he's done publicly has been really inspiring.
Just being courageous.
Speaker 0: What do you think is, like, the most impressive example?
Speaker 1: Where he went after a journalist
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Whose whole incentive is to, like I mean, it's, it's like sticking your like, kicking the beehive or whatever. You know what's gonna follow. Yep. And to do that, I mean, that's why it's difficult to challenge journalistic organizations because they're going to, you know there's just so many mechanisms they use, including, like, writing articles and get cited by Wikipedia, then drive the narrative, and then they can get you fired, all this kind of stuff. Bill Ackman, like a bad MF er, just just tweets these essays and just goes after them, legally and also in the public eye and just I I don't know.
That was truly inspiring. There's not many people like that out, in public. And I hopefully, that inspires not just me, but many others to be, like, to be courageous themselves.
Speaker 0: Did you know of him before he started doing this in public?
Speaker 1: I knew of Neri, his his wife. She's just brilliant researcher and scientist, and so I I admire her. I look up to her. I think she's amazing.
Speaker 0: Well, the reason I ask if you knew about Bill is because a lot of people had not heard of him before, especially, like, before October 7th and before some of the campaigns he's been running since in public, but, and with Harvard and so forth. But, he was very well known in the in the investment world before before that. So, he was a famous, he's a so called active activist investor for, you know, very, very successful and very widely respected for probably 30 years before before before now. And and I bring that up because it it turns out that they weren't, for the most part, battles that happen in in kind of full public view. They weren't national stories, but in the business and investing world, the the activist investor is a very it's like in the movie Taken.
It's a very specific set of skills Yeah. On how to, like, really take control of situations, and how to wreck the people who you're going up against. And, just to and there's lots of controversy over the years on this topic, and there's too much detail to go into. But the the defensive activist investing, which I think is valid, is, you know, these are the guys who basically go in and take stakes in companies that are being poorly managed or under optimized. And and and and then generally what that means is, at least the theory is, that means the existing management has become entrenched and lazy, mediocre, you know, whatever, not responding to the needs of the shareholders, often not responding to the customers.
And the activists basically go in with a minority position, and then they rally support among other investors who are not activists, and then they basically show up and they force change. But they are the aggressive version of this. And I've been on the I've been involved in companies that have been on the receiving end of these Uh-oh. Where it is amazing how much somebody like that can exert pressure on situations even when they don't have formal control. So so it's another it would be another chess piece on the mechanical board of kind of how power gets exercised.
And basically what happens is the effect of analysts a large amount of time they end up taking they end up taking over control of companies even though they never own more than, like, 5% of the stock. And so anyway so it turns out with Bill's it's such a fascinating case because he has that, like, complete skill set. Yeah. And he has now decided to bring it to bear in areas that are not just companies. And 2 interesting things for that.
1 is, you know, some of these places, you know, and some of these battles are still ongoing. But number 1, like, a lot of people who run universities or newspapers are not used to being up against somebody like this. And by the way, also now with infinitely deep pockets and lots of experience in courtrooms and all the things that kinda go with that. But the other is through example, he is teaching a lot of the rest of us the activist playbook, like, in real time. And so the Liam Neeson skill set is getting more broadly diffused, just by being able to watch and learn from him.
So I I think he I think he's having a you know, I would put him up there with Elon in terms of somebody who's really affecting how all this is playing out.
Speaker 1: But even skill set aside, just courage and
Speaker 0: Yes. Including, by the way, courage to go outside of his own zone. Yeah. Right? You know, because, like, he hasn't I'll give you an example.
Like, my my firm venture capital firm, we have LPs. There are things that I feel like I can't do or say because I feel like I would be bringing, you know, I would be bringing embarrassment or other consequences to our LPs. He has investors also where he worries about that. And so his so a couple of things. 1 is his willingness to go out a bit and risk his relationship with his own investors.
But I will tell you the other thing which is his investors I know this for a fact. His investors have been remarkably supportive of him doing that because as it turns out, a lot of them actually agree with him. And so he's it's the same thing he does in his activism campaigns. He is able to be the tip of the spear on something that actually a lot more people agree with.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It turns out if you have truth behind you, it it helps.
Speaker 0: And just, again, our you know, how I started is a lot of people are just fed up.
Speaker 1: You've been spending a bunch of time in Mar a Lago and Palm Beach helping the new administration in many ways, including, interviewing people who might join. So, what's your general sense about the talent, about the people who are coming in into the new administration?
Speaker 0: So I should start by saying I'm not a member of the new administration. I'm not I'm not in the I'm not, like, in the room when a lot of these people are being selected.
Speaker 1: I believe you said unpaid intern.
Speaker 0: I'm an unpaid intern. So I'm a volunteer and, you know, when helpful but I'm not I'm not making the decisions nor am I in a position to, you know, speak for the administration. So I don't want to say anything that would cause people to think I'm doing that. It's a very unusual situation, right, where you had an incumbent president and then you had a 4 year gap where he's out of office and then you have him coming back. Right?
And as you'll recall, there was a fair amount of controversy over the end of the first term.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 0: The fear the specific concern was, you know, the 1st Trump administration they, you know, they they will all say this is, like, they they didn't come in with a team. Right? So they, you know, they didn't come into the team and most of the sort of institutional base of the Republican Party were Bush Republicans. And they were and many of them had become never Trumpers. And so they had a hard time putting the team together.
And then, by the way, they had a hard time getting people confirmed. And so if you talk to the people who were there in the first term, it took them 2 to 3 years to kinda even get the government in place. And then they basically only have the government in place for, you know, for basically, like, 18 months and then COVID hit. You know? And then sort of the aftermath and everything and all the all the drama and headlines and everything.
And so the the concern, you know, including from some very smart people in the last 2 years has been, boy, if Trump gets a second term, is he gonna be able to get a team that is as good as the team he had last time or a team that's actually not as good? Because maybe people got burned out. Maybe they're more cynical now. Maybe they're not willing to go through the drama. By the way, a lot of people on in the first term came under, like, you know, with their own withering legal assaults and, you know, some of them went to prison and, like, you know, a lot a lot a lot of stuff happened.
Lots of investigations, lots of legal fees, lots of bad press. Lots of debanking, by the way. A lot of the officials in the first Trump term got debanked, including the president's wife and son.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I heard you tell that story. That's insane. That's just insane.
Speaker 0: In the wake of the first term, yes. We we now take out spouses and children with our ring of power. And so there there's, like, this legitimate question as to, like, whether okay. What what will the team for the 2nd term look like? And at at least what I've seen and what you're seeing with the appointments is it looks much, much better.
First of all, it just looks better than the first term and not because the people in the first term were not necessarily good, but just you you just have this, like, influx of, like, incredibly capable people that have shown up that wanna be part of this. And you just didn't have that the first time. And so they they're just drawing on a much deeper, richer talent pool than they had the first time. And and they're drawing on people who know what the game is. Like, they're they're drawing on people now who know what is gonna happen, and they're still willing to do it.
And so they're gonna get, I think, you know, some of the best people from the first term, but they're bringing in a lot of people who they couldn't get, the first time around. And then second is there's a bunch of people, including people in the 1st term where they're just 10 years older. And so they went through the 1st term, and they just learned how everything works. Or they're young people who just had a different point of view, and now they're 10 years older, and they're ready to go serve in government. And so there's a generational shift happening.
And, actually, one of the interesting things about the team that's forming up is it's remarkably young. Some of the cabinet members and then many of the second and third level people are, like, in their thirties and forties, you know, which is a big change from the gerontocracy that, you know, we've been under for the last 30 years. And so I think the caliber has been outstanding. You know, we could sit here and list tons and tons of people, but, like, you know, the people who are running, you know, it's everything from the people who are running all the different departments at HHS. It's the people running you know, the the number 2 at the Pentagon is Steve Feinberg, who's just, like, an incredible legend of private equity, incredible capable guy.
We've got, 2 actually, 2 of my partners are going in who I both think are amazing. Yeah. Like, many, many parts of the government, the people are, like, really impressive.
Speaker 1: Well, I think one of the concerns is is actually that, given the human being of Donald Trump, that there would be more tendency towards, let's say, favoritism versus meritocracy. That's there's kind of circles of sycophancy that form. And if you're be able to, be loyal and never oppose and just be, basically suck up to the president, that you'll get a position. So that's one of the concerns. And I think you're in a good position to speak to the degree that's happening versus, hiring based on merit and just getting great teams.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So look, I'll just start by saying any leader at that level, by the way, any CEO, there's always some risk of that. Right? So there there's always some, you know, it's just it's like a natural reality warps around around powerful leaders. And so there's always some risk to that.
Of course, the good and powerful leaders are, you know, very aware of that. And Trump at this point in his life, I think, is highly aware of that. At least my interactions with him, like, he he he definitely seems very aware of that. So, so so that's one thing. I would just say that the I think the way to look at that I mean, it look.
Like I said, I don't wanna predict what's gonna happen once this whole thing starts unfolding. But, I I would just say, again, the caliber of the people who are showing up and getting the jobs, and then the fact that these are some of the most accomplished people in the business world, and in the medical field. I I just you know, Jay Bhattacharya coming in to run NIH. When so I was actually in the I was actually I was part of the interview team for a lot of the HHS folks.
Speaker 1: Nice. Jay is amazing. Oh, I was so I was so happy to see that.
Speaker 0: So I literally got this is a story. I got to the the the transition office for one of the days of the HHS interviews, and I was on one of the interview interviewing teams, and they gave us I didn't know who the candidates were and they gave us the sheet in the beginning and I go down the sheet and I saw Jay's name and I'd, like, I almost physically fell
Speaker 1: out of
Speaker 0: my chair. Yeah. And I and I was just, like, you know and I have I have to know Jay. I have to know Jay and I, like, respect him enormously and then he proved himself under this, like talk about a guy who proved himself under extraordinary pressure Yeah. Over the last 5 years.
Speaker 1: And then go radical under the pressure. He maintained balance and thoughtfulness and depth. I mean, incredibly
Speaker 0: Very serious, very analytical, very applied, and and and and yes. A 100%. Tested Under Pressure came out, like, the more people look back at what he said and did. And, you know, he's not none of us are perfect, but, like, overwhelmingly, like, overwhelmingly insightful throughout that whole period. And, you know, we, you know, we would all be much better off today had he been in charge of the response.
And and so just like an incredibly capable guy. And and look and and then he learned from all that. Right? He he learned a lot in the last 5 years. And so the idea that somebody like that could be head of NIH as compared to the people we've had is just, like, breathtakingly.
It's just a gigantic upgrade. You know? And then, Marty Macri coming in to run FDA, exact same thing. The guy come coming to run a CDC, exact same thing. I mean, I've been spending time with doctor Oz.
So, you know, and I'm not like again, I'm not like it. I'm not on these teams. I'm not in the room, but, like, I've been spending enough time trying to help, but, like, his level of insight into into the health care system is, like, is it's, like, astounding. And it comes from being a guy who's been, like, in the middle of the whole thing and been talking to people about this stuff and working on it and serving as a doctor himself and in medical systems for, you know, his entire life. And it's just like, you know, he's like a walking encyclopedia on these things.
And so and, you know, very dynamic, you know, very charismatic, very smart, organized, effective. So, you know, to have somebody like that in there and so, anyway, they're just I have, like, 30 of these stories now across all these different, all these different positions. And so I and then I just I'd be quite honest. I did do the compare and contrast to the last 4 years, and if not even these people are not in the same ballpark. They're just, like, wildly better.
And so, you know, pound for pound is maybe the best team in the White House since, you know, I don't even know. Maybe the nineties, maybe the maybe the thirties, maybe the fifties. You know, maybe Eisenhower had a team like this or something, but, it it's it's there's a lot of really good people in there now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The potential for change is certainly extremely high. Well, can you speak to Doge? What's the most wildly successful next 2 years for Doge? Can you imagine maybe also can you think about the trajectory that's the most likely?
And, what kind of challenges would it be facing?
Speaker 0: Yeah. So and I'll start by saying again, I'm not, disclaimer. I have to disclaim. I'm not on Doge. I'm not a member of Doge.
Speaker 1: We we should say there's about 10 lawyers in the room. They're staring. No. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 0: Both the angels and the devils on my shoulder are lawyers. So, yeah. So I'm not speaking for Doge. I'm not in charge of Doge.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 0: Those guys are doing it. I'm not doing it. But I am you know, again, I'm I'm volunteering to help as much as I can, and I'm a 100% supportive. Yeah. So look.
I I I think the way to think of I mean, the the the basic outlines are in public. Right? Which is it's a it's a time limited, you know, basic commission. It's not a formal government agency. It's a, you know, time limited 18 month.
It'll it'll in terms of implementation, it will advise the executive branch. Right? And so the the the implementation will happen through the the White House. And the president has total attitude on what he wants to what he wants to implement. And then, basically, what I think about is 3 kind of streams, you know, kind of target sets.
And they're related, but different. So money, people, and regulations. And so, you know, the headline number, they've, you know, put us the $2,000,000,000,000 number, and there's, you know, disputes over over that and whatever, and there's a whole question there. But then there's the people thing, and the people thing is interesting because you get into these very, kind of fascinating questions. And I've been doing this.
I I won't do this for you as a pop quiz, but I do this for people in government as pop quiz, and I can stump them every time, which is, a, how many federal agencies are there? Mhmm. And the answer is somewhere between 415120, and nobody's quite sure. And then the other is how many people work for the federal government? And the answer is, you know, something on the order I forget, but, like, 4,000,000 full time employees and maybe up to 20,000,000 contractors, and nobody is quite sure.
And so there's a large people component to this. And then by the way, there's a related component to that, which is how many of them are actually in the office. And the answer is not many. Most of the federal buildings are still empty. Right?
And so and then there's questions of, like, are people, you know, working from home or are we actually working from home? So there's the people dimension and of course the money and the people are connected. And then there's the third which is the regulation thing. Right? And I described earlier how basically our system of government is much more now based on regulations than legislation.
Right? Most of the rules that we all live under are not from a bill that went through congress. They're from an agency that that created a regulation. That turns out to be very, very important. So one is, Elon, I've already described, we wanna do the Doge wants to do broad based regulatory relief, and Trump has talked about this and basically get the government off those backs and liberate the American people to be able to do things again.
So that's part of it. But there's also something else that's happened which is very interesting which was there were a set of supreme court decisions about 2 years ago, that went directly after the idea that the executive branch can create regulatory agencies and issue regulations and enforce those regulations without corresponding congressional legislation. And most of the federal government that exists today, including most of the departments and most of the rules and most of the money and most the people. Most of it is not enforcing laws that congress passed. Most of it is this regulation.
And the Supreme Court basically said large parts, you know, large to maybe all of that regulation that did not directly result from a bill that went through congress the way that the cartoon said that it should, that may not actually be legal. Now the previous White House, of course, was super in favor of big government. They had no desire to they did nothing based on this. They didn't you know pull anything back in but the new regime, if they choose to, could say look the the thing that we're doing here is not you know challenging the laws, we're actually complying with the supreme court decision that basically says we have to unwind a lot of this and we have to unwind the regulations, which are no longer legal, constitutional. We have to unwind the spend and we have to unwind people.
And so and that's how you get from basically, you connect the thread from the regulation part back to the money part back to the people part. They have work going on all 3 of these threads. They have, I would say, incredibly creative ideas on how to deal with this. I'm I I know lots of former government people who a 100% of them are super cynical on this topic, and they're like, this is impossible. This could never possibly work.
And I'm like, well, I can't tell you what the secret plans are, but, like like, blow my mind. Like, at all three of those, like, they they have ideas that are, like, really quite amazing as you'd expect from, you know, from from the people involved. And so, over the course of the next few months, you know, that'll start to become visible. Visible. And then the final thing I would say is, this is going to be very different than than attempts like the there have been other programs like this in the past.
The the Clinton Gore administration had one, and then there there there were others before that. Reagan had one. The the difference is this time, there's social media. Mhmm. And so Mhmm.
There has never been like, it's it's it's interesting. One of the reasons people in Washington are so cynical is because they know all the bullshit. Like, they know all the bad spending and all the bad rules and all the, like, you know I mean, look, we're adding a $1,000,000,000,000 to the national debt every 100 days right now. And that's compounding and it's now passing the size of the defense department budget. And it's compounding and it's pretty soon it's gonna be adding a $1,000,000,000,000 every 90 days and then it's gonna be adding a $1,000,000,000,000 every 80 days and then it's gonna be a $1,000,000,000,000 every 70 days.
And then if this doesn't get fixed at some point, we enter a hyperinflationary spiral and we become Argentina or Brazil and Kablooy. Right? And so, like, everybody in DC knows that something has to be done. And then everybody in DC knows for a fact that it's impossible to do anything. Right?
They know all the problems and they also know the sheer impossibility of fixing it. But I think what they're not taking into account what the critics are not taking into account is these guys can do this in the full light of day and they can do it on social media. They can completely bypass the press. They can completely bypass the cynicism. They can expose any element of, you know, unconstitutional or, you know, silly government spending.
They can run victory laps every single day on what they're doing. They can they can bring the people into the process. And again, if you think about it, this goes back to our Machiavellian's, structure, which is if you think about again, you've got democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, rule of the many, rule of the few, rule of the one. You could think about what's happening here as a little bit of a sandwich. Right?
Which is you have you have we don't have a monarch, but we have a president, rule the one with some power. And then we have the people who can't organize, but they can be informed and they can be aware and they can express themselves through voting and polling. Right? And so there's a sandwich happening right now is the way to think about it, which is you've got basically monarch monarchy. If you got rule of 1 combining with rule of many.
Right? And rule of many is they do get to vote. Right? The people do get to vote, basically. And then essentially, congress as in this sort of permanent bureaucratic class in Washington as the oligarchy in the middle.
And so the White House plus the people, I think have the power to do all kinds of things here. And I and I think that that would be the way I would watch it.
Speaker 1: The transparency. I mean, Elon just, by who he is in is incentivized to be transparent and show the bullshit in the system and to celebrate the victories. So it's gonna be so exciting. I mean, honestly, it just makes government more exciting, which is a win for everybody.
Speaker 0: These people are spending our money. Yeah. These people have enormous contempt for the taxpayer. Okay. Here's the thing you hear in Washington, here's one of the things.
So so the first thing you hear is this is impossible, they'll be able to do nothing. And then yeah, I walk them through this and they're like, they start to get it starts to dawn on them that this is a new kind of thing. And then they're like, well it doesn't matter because all the money is in entitlements, and the debt, and the military. And so, like, yeah, you've got, like, this silly fake whatever, you know, NPR funding or whatever. And, like, it just it's a rounding error.
It doesn't matter. And you look it up in the budget, and it's like, whatever, $500,000,000 or $5,000,000,000 or it's or it's the or it's the the the the it's the charging stations that don't exist. It's the $40,000,000,000 of charging stations and they bill 8 charging stations, or it's the it's the broadband Internet plan that delivered broadband to nobody. Right? And cost you $30,000,000,000.
You know, like, so these these boondoggles. And what everybody in Washington says is a $30,000,000,000 is a rounding error on the federal budget. It doesn't matter. Who cares if they if they if they make it go away? And, of course, any taxpayer is like, what the?
What do you mean? $30,000,000,000. Yeah. Right? And then then then then the experts are like and then the press is in on this too.
Then the experts are like, well, it doesn't it doesn't matter because it's surrounding you or no. No. It's $30,000,000,000 And if you're this cavalier about $30,000,000,000 imagine how cavalier you are about the 3,000,000,000,000.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Okay. Then there's the okay. $30,000,000,000 is $30,000,000,000 a lot of the federal budget in percentage? No, it's not. But $30,000,000,000 divided by 30 do the math.
$30,000,000,000 divided by let's say 300,000,000,000 taxpayers. Right? Like, what's that? Math Math expert? $100.
$100 per taxpayer per year. Okay. So a $100 to an ordinary person working hard every day to make money and provide for their kids. A $100 is a meal out. It's a trip to the amusement park.
It's the ability to, you know, buy additional educational materials. It's the ability to have a babysitter, to be able to have romantic relationship with your wife. It's there's, like, a 100 things that that person can do with a $100 that they're not doing because it's going to some bullshit program that is being basically where the money is being looted out in the form of just like ridiculous ridiculousness and graft. And so the idea that that $30,000,000,000 program is not something that is like a very important thing to go after is just like the level of contempt for the taxpayer is just off the charts. And then that's just one of those programs and there's, like, a 100 of those programs.
And they're all just like that. Like, it's not like any of this stuff is running well. Like, the one thing we know is that none of this stuff is running well. Like, we know that for sure. Right?
And we're, like, we know these people aren't showing up to work, and, like, we know that all this crazy stuff is happening. Right? And, like, you know, the the the do you remember, Elon's story of the, do you remember Elon's story of what got the Amish to turn out to vote in Pennsylvania? Oh, okay. So, like, Pennsylvania okay.
So Pennsylvania is, like, a wonderful state, great history. It has these cities like Philadelphia that have descended, like, other cities into just, like, complete chaos, violent madness, and death. Right? And the federal government has just, like, let it happen. It's incredibly violent places.
And so the Biden administration decided that the big pressing law enforcement thing that they needed to do in Pennsylvania was that they needed to start raiding Amish farms to prevent them from selling raw milk with armed raids. Right. And it turns out it really pissed off the Amish. And it turns out they weren't willing to drive to the polling places because they don't have cars. But if you came and got them, they would go and they would vote.
And that's one of the reasons why Trump won. Anyway, so, like, the law enforcement agencies are off working on, like, crazy things, like, the system's not working. And so you you add up pick a $130,000,000,000 programs. Alright. Now you're okay.
Math major, 100 times a 100.
Speaker 1: $20,000.
Speaker 0: Okay. $10,000 per taxpayer per year.
Speaker 1: And but but it's also not just about money. That's real obviously, money is a hugely important thing, but it's the cavalier attitude Yes. That then in sort of in the ripple effect of that, it makes it so nobody wants to work in government and be productive. It makes it so that corruption can it breeds corruption. It breeds laziness.
It breeds secrecy because you don't wanna be transparent about having done nothing all year, all this kind of stuff. And you wanna reverse that so it would be exciting for the future to work at government to because the the amazing thing, if you were to steal my own government, is you can do shit at scale. You have money, and you can directly impact people's lives in a positive, sense at scale. It's it's super exciting as long as there's no bureaucracy that slows you down or not huge amounts of bureaucracy that slows you down significantly.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So, here's here's the term. This blew my mind, because I was you know, you once you look at it once you open the hell mouth of looking into the federal budget, you you learn all kinds of things. So there is a term of art in government called impoundment. And so you you If you're like me you've learned this the hard way when your car has been impounded.
The government meaning of impoundment Federal budget meaning is a different meaning. Impoundment is as follows: The constitution, requires congress to authorize money to be spent by the executive branch, right? So the executive branch goes to congress, says we need money x, congress does their thing, they come back and they say you can have money y. The money is appropriated from congress, the executive branch spends it on their military or whatever they spend it on or on roads to nowhere or charging stations to nowhere or whatever. The the the and what's in the constitution is the the congress appropriates the money.
Over the last 60 years, there has been an additional interpretation of appropriations applied by the courts, and by the system, which is the executive branch not only needs congress to appropriate x amount of money, the executive branch is not allowed to underspend. Yeah. I'm
Speaker 1: aware of this. I'm aware of this.
Speaker 0: And so there's this thing that happens in Washington at the end of every fiscal year, which is September 30th, and it's the it's the great budget flush. And any remaining money that's in the system that they don't know how to productively spend, they deliberately spend it unproductively. Yep. To the tune of 100 and 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars. A president that doesn't want to spend the money cannot spend it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Like, okay, a, that's not what's in the constitution. There's actually quite a good Wikipedia page that goes through the the great debate on this. It's played out in the legal world over the last 60 years. And, like, basically, if you look at this with anything resembling, I think, I don't mind. You're like, alright.
This is not what the founders meant. And then number 2, again, we go back to this thing of contempt. Like, can you imagine showing up and running the government like that and thinking that you're doing the right thing and not going home at night and thinking that you've sold your soul? Right? Like, I it's just like I I actually think you sort of had it in a really good point, which is it's even unfair to the people who have to execute this.
Yeah. Right? Because it makes them it makes them bad people and they didn't they didn't start out wanting to be bad people. And so there is stuff like this like
Speaker 1: Yeah. Everywhere.
Speaker 0: Everywhere. And so we'll see how far these guys get. I'm I'm extremely encouraged what I've what I've seen so far.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of people will try to slow them down, but, yeah, I'm hoping to get far. Yeah. Another difficult topic, immigration. Yep. What's your take on the, let's say, heated h one b visa debate that's going on online and legal immigration in general?
Speaker 0: Yeah. So I should start by saying I am not involved in any aspect of government policy on this. I am not planning to be. This is not an issue that I'm working on or that I'm going to work on. I'm we're not this is not part of the agenda of what the firm is doing.
So my firm is doing. So, like, I'm not I'm not in I'm not in this in the new administration of the government. I'm not planning to be so purely just personal opinion. So I would say I would describe Sav as a complex or nuanced hopefully nuanced view on on this issue. This may be a little bit different than what a lot of my peers have.
And I think and I kind of thought about this. You know, I didn't say anything about it all the way through the big kind of debate over Christmas, but I thought about it a lot and read everything. I think what I realized is that I just have a very different perspective on some of these things, and the reason is because of the combination of where I came from and then where I ended up. And so, let's start with this. I where I ended up in Silicon Valley.
So, and I have made the pro skilled high skilled immigration argument many, many times, the h one b argument many times. In past lives. I've been in DC many times arguing with prior administrations about this, always on the side of trying to get more h-1b's and trying to get more high skilled immigration. And you know I think that argument is very strong and very solid and very you know, has paid off for the US in some in in many many ways and we can go through it but I think it's the argument everybody already knows. Right?
It's like the stock. You take any Silicon Valley person, you press the button, and they tell you why we need to brain drain the world to get more H1Bs. Right? So everybody kind of gets that argument.
Speaker 1: So it's basically just to summarize, it's a mechanism by which you can get super smart people from the rest of the world, import them in, keep them here to, increase the productivity of the u US companies.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And and then and then and then it's not just good for the them, and it's not just good for Silicon Valley or the tech industry, it's good for the country because they then create new companies and create new technologies and create new industries that then create many more jobs for Americans, native born Americans than would have previously existed. And so you've got a it's a positive some flywheel thing where everybody wins. Like, everybody wins. There are no trade offs.
It's all absolutely glorious in all directions. You cannot possibly there cannot possibly be a moral, right, argument against it under any circumstances. Anybody who argues against it is obviously doing so from a position of racism is probably a fascist and a nazi. Right? Right?
I mean, that Right. That's the thing. And like I said, I've made that argument many times. I'm I'm very comfortable with that argument. And then I'd also say, look, I I I would say number 1, I believe a lot of it.
I'll talk about the parts I don't believe, but I believe a lot of it. And then the other part is, look, I I benefit every day. I I I always describe it as I work in in the United Nations. Like, I my own firm and our founders and our companies and the industry, and my friends, you know, are just this, like, amazing, you know, panoply cornucopia of people from all over the world. And, you know, I just I don't know.
At this point, where people from it's gotta be, I don't know, 80 countries or something. And hopefully, over time, it'll be, you know, the rest as well. And, you know, it's just it's it's been amazing, and they've done many of the most important things in my industry, and it's been really remarkable. So so that's all good. And then, you know, there's just the practical version of the argument, which is we are the we are the main place these people get educated anyway.
Right? They the best and the brightest tend to come here to get educated. And so, you know, this is the old kind of Mitt Romney staple green card to every, you know, at least, you know, maybe not every university degree, but every technical degree. Maybe the sociologist we could quibble about, but, you know, the roboticist for sure for sure for sure we can all agree that
Speaker 1: At least I won you over on something today.
Speaker 0: Well, no. I'm I'm exaggerating for a fact. So
Speaker 1: And I lost you. I had you for I
Speaker 0: haven't got
Speaker 1: a second.
Speaker 0: I haven't gotten to the other side of the argument yet.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: So, surely, we can all agree that, we need to stay for a green card.
Speaker 1: The roller coaster is going up.
Speaker 0: The roller coaster is ratcheting slowly up. Up. So, yeah. So surely we can all agree that the roboticists should all get green cards. And again, like, there's a lot of merit to that.
Obviously, like, look, we want the US to be the world leader in robotics. What's step 1 to being the world leader in robotics is have all the great robotics people. Right? Like, you know, very unlike the underpants, no. It's like a very straightforward formula.
Right? Alright. That's all well and good. Alright. But it gets a little bit more complicated, because, there is a kind of argument that's sort of right underneath that that you also hear from, you know, these same people.
And I have made this argument myself many times, which is we need to do this because we don't have enough people in the US who can do it otherwise. Right? We have all these unfilled jobs. We've got all these, you know, all these companies that wouldn't exist. We don't have enough good founders.
We don't have enough engineers. We don't have enough scientists. Or or then the next version of the argument below that is our education system is not good enough to generate those people, and which is a weird argument, by the way, because, like, our education system is good enough for foreigners to be able to come here preferentially in, like, a very large number of cases but somehow not good enough to educate our own native foreign people. So there's, like, a weird these little cracks in the matrix that you can kind of stick your fingernail into and kind of wonder about. Now we'll come back to that one.
But, like, at least, yes, our education system has its flaws. And then and then underneath that is the is the argument that, you know, Vivek made, you know, which is, you know, we have a cultural rot in the country and, you know, native born people in the country aren't you know, don't work hard enough and spend too much time watching TV and TikTok and don't spend enough time studying differential, you know, equations. And again, it's like, alright. Like, you know, yeah, there's a fair amount to that. Like, there's a lot of American culture that, is, you know, there's a lot of frivolity.
There's a lot of you know, look at that. I mean, we have well documented social issues on many fronts, many things that cut against having a culture of just like straightforward high achievement and effort and striving. Anyway, like, you know, those are the basic arguments. But then I have this kind of other side of my, you know, kind of personality and thought process, which is well, I grew up in a small farming town in rural Wisconsin, the rural Midwest. And, you know, it's interesting.
There's not a lot of people who make it from rural Wisconsin to, you know, high-tech. And so it's like, alright. Why is that exactly? Right? And then I noticed I'm an aberration.
Like, I I was the only one from anybody I ever knew who ever did this. Like, I I know what an aberration I am, and I know exactly how that aberration happened, and it's a very unusual, you know, set of steps, including, you know, many that were were just luck. But, like, it there is in no sense a talent flow from rural Wisconsin into high-tech, like, not at all. There is also, like, in no sense of talent flow from the rest of the Midwest into high-tech. There is no talent flow from the south into high-tech.
There is no flow from the sun belt into high-tech. There is no flow from, you know, the deep south into high-tech. Like, it just, like, literally, it's like the blanks but there's this whole section of the country that just where the people just, like, for some reason, don't end up in tech. Now that's a little bit strange because these are the people who put a man on the moon. These are the people who built the World War 2 war machine.
These are the people, at least their ancestors are the people who built the second industrial revolution and built the railroads and built the telephone network telephone network and built, you know, logistics and transportation in the auto I mean, the auto industry was built in Cleveland and Detroit. And so at least these people's parents and grandparents and great grandparents somehow had the wherewithal to, like, build all of this, like, amazing things, invent all these things. And then there's many, many, many, many stories in the history of American invention and innovation and capitalism where you had people who grew up in the middle of nowhere. Philo Farnsworth invented the television and just like you know tons and tons of others endless stories like this. Now you have like a puzzle right and the conundrum which is like okay like what is happening on the blank spot of the map and then of course you also can't help noticing there's a blank spot on the map the Midwest, the South, you've also just defined Trump country.
The Trump voter base, right? It's like, oh, well, that's interesting, like, how did that happen? Right? And so either you really, really, really have to believe the very, very strong version of, like, the Vivek thesis or something where you have to believe that, like, that basically culture the the whole sort of civilization in the middle of the country and the south of the country is so, like, deeply flawed, either inherently flawed or culturally flawed such that for whatever reason they are not able to do the things that their, you know, their parents and grandparents were able to do and that their peers are able to do, or something else is happening. Would you care to guess on what else is happening?
Speaker 1: You mean, what affirmative action? Affirmative action.
Speaker 0: Okay. This is very think about this is very entertaining, right? What are the three things that we know about affirmative action? It is absolutely 100% necessary. But however, it cannot explain the success of any one individual.
Right. Nor does it have any victims at all.
Speaker 1: And that could explain maybe the disproportionate, but, like, it it surely doesn't explain why you're probably the only person in Silicon Valley from Wisconsin.
Speaker 0: What educational institution in the last 60 years has won at Farm Boyce from Wisconsin?
Speaker 1: But what institution rejected Farm Boyce from Wisconsin?
Speaker 0: All of them.
Speaker 1: All of them.
Speaker 0: Of course. Okay. So we know this. We know this. The reason we know this is because of the Harvard and UNC court Supreme Court cases.
So this was like 3 years ago. These were these were big court cases. You know that because the idea of affirmative action has been litigated for many many many years and through many court cases and the Supreme Court repeatedly in the past had upheld that it was a completely legitimate thing to do. And a lot of these And there's basically 2 categories of affirmative action that like really matter, Right? The one is, the admissions into educational institutions and then the other is jobs, right, getting hired.
Like, those are the 2 biggest areas. And education 1 is, like, super potent as has been a super potent political issue for a very long time for all, you know, people have written and talked about this for many decades. I don't I don't need to go through it. There's many arguments for why it's important. There's many arguments as to how it could backfire.
It's been this thing. But the Supreme Court upheld it for a very long time. The most the most recent ruling I'm not a lawyer. I don't have the exact reference in my head, but there was a case in 2003 that said that, Sandra Day O'Connor famously wrote that, you know, although it had been 30 years of affirmative action and although it was not working remotely as it had been intended, she said that, you know, well basically we need to try it for another 25 years. But she said basically as a message to future Supreme Court Justices, if it hasn't resolved basically basically the issues it's intended to resolve within 25 years, then we should probably call it off.
By the way, we're coming up on the 25 years. It's getting a couple of it's a couple years away. The Supreme Court just had these cases as a Harvard case and I think a UN University of North Carolina case. And what's interesting about those cases is the the lawyers in those cases put a tremendous amount of evidence into the record of how the admissions decisions actually happen, at Harvard and happen at UNC and it is like every bit as cartoonishly garish and racist as you could possibly imagine because it's a ring of power. And if you're an admissions officer to private university or an administrator, you have unlimited power to do what you want and you can justify any of it under any of these rules or systems.
And up until these cases that have been a black box where you didn't have to explain yourself and show your work. And and what the Harvard and USC cases did is they basically required showing the work. And so they and and there was, like, all kinds of, like, phenomenal detail. I mean, number 1 is there were text messages in there that will just curl your hair of people the students being spoken of and just like crude racial stereotypes that would just make you want to jump out the window. It's horrible stuff.
But also, there was statistical information. And of course, the big statistical kicker to the whole thing is that at top institutions, it's common for different different ethnic groups to have different cutoffs for SAT that are as wide as 400 points. Right? So different groups. So so so specifically, Asians need to perform at 400 SAT points higher than other ethnicities in order to actually get admitted into these.
I mean, this is not even about I mean, white people are a part of this, but like Asians are like a very big part of this and actually the Harvard case was actually brought by an activist on behalf of actually the Asian students who are being turned away. And it's basically I mean, it's the cliche now in the valley and in the medical community, which is, like, if you want a super genius, you hire an agent from Harvard because they are guaranteed to be freaking Einstein. Because if they weren't, they were never getting admitted. Right? Almost all the qualified agents get turned away.
So they've been running this. It's very, very explicit, very, very clear program. This, of course, has been a third rail of things that people are not supposed to discuss or under any circumstances. The thing that has really changed the tenor on this is I think 2 things. Number 1, those supreme court cases, the supreme court ruled that they can no longer do that.
I will tell you I don't believe there's a single education institution in America that is conforming with the supreme court ruling. I think they're all flagrantly ignoring it and we could talk about that.
Speaker 1: Mostly because of momentum probably or what?
Speaker 0: They are trying to make the world a better place. They are trying to solve all these social problems. They are trying to have diverse student populations. They are trying to live up to the expectations of their donors. They are trying to make their faculty happy.
They are trying to, have their friends and family think that they're good people. Right. They're trying to have the press write nice things about them. Like, it's nearly impossible for them. And, you know, to be clear, like, nobody has been fired from an admissions office for, you know, 25 years prior.
What we now the supreme court now has ruled to be illegality. And so they're all the same people under the exact same pressures. And so, like, I you know, the numbers are moving a little bit, but, like, I I don't think I don't know anybody in the system who thinks that they're compliant with the supreme court. Like, who's in charge in the rank ordering of who rules who? The universities rule the Supreme Court way more than the Supreme Court rules the universities.
Right? Well, another example of that is I think it's it's that every sitting member of the Supreme Court right now went to either Harvard or Yale. Right? Like the the level of incestuousness here is like is any anyway, so there's that. And so this has been running for a very long time.
So one is the Harvard and USC cases kind of gave up the game number 1 or at least showed what the mechanism was. And then number 2 the other thing is obviously the the aftermath of October 7th, right? And what we discovered was happening with, Jewish applicants. And what was happening at all the top institutions for Jewish applicants was they were being managed down as they were being actively managed down as a percentage of the of of the base. And, let's see.
I've heard reports of, like, extremely explicit, basically, plans to manage, to manage the Jewish admissions down to their representative percentage of the US population, which is 2%. And, you know, there's a whole backstory here, which is a 100 years ago, Jews were not admitted into a lot of these institutions, and then there was a big campaign to get them in. Once they could get in, they immediately became 30% of these institutions because there's so many smart talented Jews. So it went from 0% to 30% and then the most recent generation of leadership has been trying to get it done to 2%. And a lot of Jewish people, at least a lot of Jewish people I know sort of they kinda knew this was happening, but they discovered it the hard way, after October 7th.
Right? And so all of a sudden so so basically, the the supreme court case meant that you could address this in terms of the Asian victims. The October 7th meant that you could address it in terms of the Jewish victims. And for sure both of those groups are being systematically excluded, right? And then of course, there's the thing that you basically can't talk about which is all the white people are being excluded.
And then it turns out it's also happening to black people. And this is the thing that like blew my freaking mind when I found out about it. So, I just assumed that like this was great news for like American blacks because like, you know, obviously if you know whites, Asians and Jews are being excluded then you know the whole point of this in the beginning was to get the black population up and so this must be great for American blacks. So then I discovered this New York Times article from 2,004, called, Blacks are being admitted into top schools at greater numbers, but which ones? And And, again and by the way, this is in The New York Times.
This is not in, like, you know, whatever, National Review. This is New York Times, 2004. And the two authorities that were quoted in the story are Henry Louis Gates, who's the dean of the African American Studies, you know, community in the United States, super brilliant guy. And then Lana Guinier, who was a she was a potential Supreme Court, appointee under, I think, she was a close friend to Hillary Clinton. And there was for a long time, she was on the shortlist for Supreme Court.
So one of the top, you know, jurists, lawyers in the country, both black. But sort of legendarily successful in their in their in the academic and legal worlds, and black. And they are quoted as the authorities in this story and the story that they tell is actually very it's amazing. And by the way, it's happening today in, education institutions and it's happening in companies and you can see it all over the place and the government, which is, at least at that time, the number was half of the black admits into a place like Harvard were not American born blacks. They were foreign born blacks, specifically, northern African off generally Nigerian, or West Indian.
Right. And by the way, many Nigerians and Northern Africans have come to the US and have been very successful. Nigerian Americans as a group, like, way outperformed. They're you know, this is a super smart cohort of people. And then West Indian blacks in the US are incredibly successful, most recently, by the way, Kamala Harris as well as Colin Powell, like, just two sort of examples of that.
And so basically, what Henry Louis Gates and Lanny Grenier said in the story is Harvard is basically struggling to either whatever it was identify, recruit, make successful whatever it was American born native blacks. And so therefore, they were using high school immigration high school immigration as an escape hatch to go get blacks from other countries. And then and then this was 2004 when you could discuss such things. Obviously, that is a topic that nobody has discussed since. It has sailed on.
All of the DEI programs of the last 20 years have had this exact characteristic. There's large numbers of black people in America who are fully aware of this and are like, it's obviously not us that are getting these slots. We're we're obviously we're literally competing with people who are being imported. And, you know, if if you believe in the basis of affirmative action, you are trying to make up for historical injustice of American black slavery. And so the idea that you import somebody from, you know, Nigeria that never experienced that, you know, is, like, tremendously insulting to to to black Americans.
Anyway, so you can see where I'm heading with this. We have been in a 60 year social engineering experiment to exclude native born people from the educational slots and jobs that high skill immigration has been funneling foreigners into. Right? And so it turns out it's not a victim free thing. There's there's like 100% there's victims because why?
There's only so many for sure there's only so many education slots and then for sure there's only so many of these jobs. Right? You know, Google only hires so many, you know, whatever level 7 engineers. Right? And so so so that's the other side of it.
Right? And so you're a farm boy in Wisconsin. Right? Or a, you know, black American whose ancestors arrived here, you know, on a slave ship 300 years ago in Louisiana or a, you know, Cambodian immigrant in, you know, the Bronx, and you're a kid or a Jewish immigrant, or, you know, from a very successful Jewish family, and, you know, your entire you know, for 3 generations, you and your parents or grandparents went to Harvard. And what all of those groups know is the system that has been created is not for them.
Right? It's designed specifically to exclude them. And then what happens is all of these tech people show up in public and say, Yeah, let's bring in more foreigners. Right? And so so anyway, so the the the short version of it is you can't anymore, I don't think, just have the the the, the the quote high skill immigration conversation for either education or for, or for employment without also having the DEI conversation.
And then underneath and then DEI is just another word for affirmative action. So it's it's the affirmative action conversation. And you need to actually deal with this at substance and to see what's actually happening to people you needed to join these topics. And and and I think it is much harder to make the moral claim for high school immigration given the the extent to which DEI took over both the education hiring, education process and the and the hiring process.
Speaker 1: Okay. So first of all, that was brilliantly laid out, the nuance of it. So just to understand, it's not so much a criticism of h one b, high school immigration. It's that there needs to be more people saying, yay. We need more American born hires.
Speaker 0: So I spent the entire Christmas holiday reading every message on this and not saying anything. And when I was which Yeah. You know me well enough to know that's a serious level of Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's very Zen.
Speaker 0: Yes. Thank you. No. It wasn't. There was tremendous rage on the other side of it, but Sure.
We I I suppressed it. So so, I was waiting for the dog that didn't bark. Right? And the dog that didn't bark was I did not and you tell me if you saw 1. I did not see a single example of somebody pounding the table for more high school immigration who was also pounding the table to go get more smart kids who are already here, into these educational institutions and into these jobs.
I didn't see I didn't see a single one.
Speaker 1: That's true. I I I think I agree with that. There's there really was a divide.
Speaker 0: But it was like literally it was like the proponents of high skilled immigrants. And again, this was me for a very long time. I mean, I kind of took myself by surprise on this because I was on, you know, I I had the much say, simpler version of this story for a very and like I said, I I've been in Washington many times under past presidents lobbying for this. By the way, never made any progress, which we could talk about. Like, it never actually worked.
But, you know, I I've been on the other side of this one. But I was literally sitting there being, like, alright. Which of these, like, super geniuses, geniuses, who, you know, many of whom by the way are very, you know, successful high school immigrants or children of high school immigrants? You know, which of these super geniuses are gonna, like, say, actually, we have this, like, incredible talent source here in the country? Which again, to be clear, I'm not talking about white people.
I'm talking about native born Americans, whites, Asians, Jews, blacks, for sure. For sure. For sure. Those four groups.
Speaker 1: But also Yeah. White people.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And and also white people.
Speaker 1: People that are making a case for American born hires are usually not also supporting h one b. This is it's an extreme divide, and those people that are making that case are often not making it in a way that's, like, make making it in quite a radical way. Let's put it this way.
Speaker 0: But you have this interesting thing. You have a split between the sides that I've noticed, which is one side has all of the experts.
Speaker 1: Experts.
Speaker 0: Right. Right? And I'm using scarecrow for people listening to audio, I'm making quotes in the air with my fingers as vigorously as I can. One side has all the certified experts. The other side just has a bunch of people who were like they know that something is wrong and they don't quite know how to explain it.
And what was so unusual about the Harvard UNC cases, by the way, in front of Supreme Court is they actually had sophisticated lawyers for the first time in a long time. I actually put all the 7 hours together and actually put it in the public record. They actually they actually had experts, which is just which is just really rare. Generally, what you get is you get because if you don't have experts, what do you have? You know something is wrong, and you have but you have primarily an emotional response.
You feel it. But can you put it, you know, can you put it in the words and tables and charts, you know, that a that a certified expert can? And and, no, you can't. Like, that's not, you know, that's not who you are. That doesn't mean that you're wrong, and it also doesn't mean that you have less of a moral stance.
Yeah. And so it's just, like, alright. Now by the way, look, I think there's there I I think there are ways to square the circle. I think there's a way to have our cake and eat it too. Like, I I think there'd be many ways to resolve this.
I I think, again, I think the way to do it is to look at these these these issues combined. Look at the at DEI combined with, high school immigration. It so happens the DEI, is under much more scrutiny today than it has been for probably 20 years, affirmative action is. The supreme court did just rule that it is not legal, for universities to do that. They are still doing it, but they should stop.
And then there are more and more you've seen more companies now also ditching their DEI programs. In part, that's happening for a bunch of reasons, but it's happening in part because a lot of corporate lawyers will tell you that the Supreme Court rulings in education either already apply to businesses or just as a clear foreshadowing, the supreme court will rule on new cases that will ban on businesses. And so so so there there is a moment here to be able to look at this, on both sides. Let me add one more nuance to it that makes it even more complicated.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: So the the cliche is we're gonna brain drain the world, right? You've heard that? We're gonna we're gonna take all the smart people from all over the world, we're gonna bring them here, we're gonna educate them, and then we're gonna keep them, and then they're gonna raise their families here, create businesses here, create jobs here, right?
Speaker 1: In the cliche, that's a super positive thing.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Okay. So, what happens to the rest of the world?
Speaker 1: They
Speaker 0: lose. Well, how fungible are people? How many highly ambitious, highly conscientious, highly energetic, high achieving, high IQ supergeniuses are there in the world? And if there's a lot, that's great. But if there just aren't that many, and they all come here and they all aren't where they would be otherwise, what happens to all those other places?
So it's almost impossible for us here to have that conversation in part because we become incredibly uncomfortable as a society talking about the fact that people aren't just simply all the same, just a whole thing we could talk about. But, it it it also, we we are purely the beneficiary of this effect. Right? We are brain drain in the world, not the other way around. There's only 4 so if you look at the flow of high skill immigration over time, there's only 4 permanent sinks of high skill immigration in places people go.
It's the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the Oh, what? Australia.
Speaker 0: It's the 4 it's 4 of the 55 eyes. It's the major anglosphere countries. And so for those countries, this there this seems like a no lose proposition. It's all the other countries that basically what we what we 4 countries have been doing is draining all the smart people out. Mhmm.
It's actually much easier for people in Europe to talk about this, I've discovered, because the eurozone is whatever, you know, 28 countries. And within the eurozone, the high skilled people over time have been migrating to originally the UK but also specifically I think it's the Netherlands, Germany and France. But specifically they've been migrating out of the peripheral eurozone countries and the the the one where this really hit the fan was in Greece. Right? So you know, Greece falls into chaos, disaster, and then, you know, you're running the government in Greece, and you're trying to figure out how to put an economic development plan together.
All of your smart young kids have left. Like, what are you gonna do? Right? By the way, this is a potential I know you care a lot about Ukraine, this is a potential crisis for Ukraine. Not because in part because of this, because we enthusiastically recruit Ukrainians of course, and so we've been brain draining Ukraine for a long time.
But also of course, you know, war does tend to cause people to migrate out. And so, you know, when it comes time for Ukraine to rebuild as a peaceful country, is it gonna have the talent base even that it had 5 years ago? It's, like, a very big and important question. By the way, Russia, like, we have reined a lot of really smart people out of Russia. A lot of them are here, right, over the last you know 30 years.
And so there's this thing. It's actually really funny if you think about it. Like the one thing that we know to be the height of absolute evil that the west ever did was colonization and resource extraction. Right? So we know the height of absolute evil was when the Portuguese and English and you know everybody else went and had these colonies and then went in and we you know took all the oil and we took all the diamonds or we took all the whatever lithium or whatever it is, right?
Well for some reason we realized that that's a deeply evil thing to do when it's a physical resource, when it's a non conscious physical matter. For some reason, we think it's completely morally acceptable to do it with human capital. In fact, we think it's glorious and beautiful and wonderful and, you know, the great flowering of of, of peace and harmony and and moral justice of our time to do it. And we don't think for one second what we're doing to the countries that we're pulling all these people out of. And I, this is one of these things like, I don't know, like, maybe we're just going to live in this delusional state forever and we'll just keep doing it and it'll keep benefiting us and we just won't care what happens.
But, like, I I think there may come this is one of these this is like one of these submarines under 10 feet under the waterline. Like, I think it's just a matter of time until people suddenly realize, oh my god, what are we doing? Because, like, we need the rest of the world to succeed too. Right? Like, we need these other countries to, like, flourish.
Like, we don't wanna be the only successful country in the middle of just, like, complete chaos and disaster. And we just extract and we extract and we extract and we don't think twice about it. Well,
Speaker 1: this is so deeply profound, actually. So what is the cost of winning, quote, unquote? If these countries are drained in terms of human capital on the on the level of geopolitics, what does that lead to? Even if we talk about wars and conflict and all of this, we actually want them to be strong in the way we understand strong, not just in every way so that cooperation and competition can build a better world for all of humanity. It's interesting.
I've been this is one of those, truths where you just speak and it it resonates. And I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1: So this is what you were sitting in during the holiday season and just boiling over. So all that said Yeah. There's still to use some good to the h one b.
Speaker 0: Okay. So then you get other okay. So then there's come come
Speaker 1: all the way around.
Speaker 0: There's another nuance. So there's another nuance. There's another nuance, which is mostly the valley we don't use h one b's anymore. Mhmm. Mostly we use o ones.
Mhmm. So there's a there's a you you mean, there's a separate class of Visa. And and the o one is like this. It it turns out the o one is the super genius visa. Mhmm.
So the o one is the basically our our founder. Like, when we have, like, a when we have somebody from anywhere in the world and they've, like, invented a breakthrough in new technology and they want to come to the US to start a company, they come in through an o one visa. And and that actually is, like, a it's a fairly high bar. It's a high acceptance rate, but it's like a pretty high bar and they they do a lot of work and they there's like a you have to put real work into it really really prove your case. Mostly what's happened with the h one b visa program, is that it has gone to basically 2 categories of employers.
1 is basically a small set of big tech companies that hire in volume, which is exactly the companies that you would think. And then the other is it goes to these what they call kind of the mills, the consulting mills, right? And so there's these set of companies with names I don't want to pick on companies, but you know names like Cognizant that you know hire basically have their business model, is primarily Indian bringing primarily Indians, in large numbers. And, you know, they often have offices next to company owned housing. And they'll have organizations that are, you know, they'll have organizations that are literally thousands of Indians, you know, living and working in the US, and they do basically, call it mid tier, like, IT consulting.
So, you know, these folks are making good good good wages, but they're making 6 or 8 a year, a $100,000 a year, not the, you know, 300,000 that you'd make in the valley. And so, like, in practice, the start up's basic like, little tech as we call it or the start up world mainly doesn't use h one b's at this point and and mainly can't because the system is kind of rigged in a way that we really can't. And then and then and then again you get to the sort of underlying morality here which is it's like well you know Amazon like Amazon's a in like I love Amazon but like they're a big powerful company. You know they've got you know more money than God, they've got resources, they've got long term planning horizon, they do big you know profound things over you know, decades at a time. You know, they could, you know, or any of these other companies could launch massively effective programs to go recruit the best and brightest from all throughout the the country.
And, you know, you'll notice they don't do that. You know, they bring in, you know, 10,000, 20,000 H1Bs a year. And so you've got a question there. And then these mills, like, there's lots of questions around them and whether they should, you know, whether that's even an ethical way to you know, I don't wanna say they're unethical, but there's questions around, like, exactly what what the trade offs are there. And so, you know, this this yeah.
And this is like a Pandora's box that really, you know, nobody really wanted to be opened, you know, to to to play devil's advocate on all this in terms of, like, national immigration issues. You know, none of this is, like, a top end issue just because the numbers are small. Right? And so, you know, I don't think you know, the administration has said, like, this is not, like, a priority of theirs for right now. But I guess what I would say is, like, there is actually a lot of complexity and nuance here.
I have a lot of friend like I said, I have a lot of friends and colleagues who are you know, who came over on h one b zero ones, green cards, many are now citizens. And, you know, every single one one of them was not every single one. A lot of them were enthusiastic to, you know, defend the honor of immigrants throughout this whole period. And they said to me, it's like, well, Mark, how can we, you know, how can we how can we more clearly express, you know, the importance of high school immigration to the US? And I was like, I think you can do it by advocating for also developing our native born talent.
And be like, do you wanna inflame the issue, or do you wanna diffuse the issue? Mhmm. Right? And I I think I think the answer is to diffuse the issue. Let me give you one more positive scenario, which and then I'll also beat up on the university some more.
Do you but do you know about the National Merit Scholarship System? Have you heard about this?
Speaker 1: Not really. Can you explain?
Speaker 0: So there's a system that was created during the cold war, called the National Merit Scholars and, it is a basically, it was created, I forget, in the late fifties or sixties when it was when people in government actually wanted to identify the best and the brightest. As heretical an idea as that sounds today. And so it's basically a national talent search for basically IQ. Its goal is to identify basically the top 0.5% of the IQ in the country, by the way, completely regardless of other characteristics. So there's no race, gender, or any other aspect to it.
It's just going for straight intelligence. It uses the first, the PSAT, which is the preparatory SAT that you take, and then the SAT. So it uses those scores. That that is the scoring. It's a straight PSAT SAT scoring system.
So they use the SAT as a proxy for IQ, which it is. They run this every year. They identify. They all they they it's like they get down to like 1% of the population of the kids, of 18 year olds in any given year who score highest on the PSAT and then they get down to further qualify down to the 0.5% that also replicate on the SAT. And then it's like the scholarship amount is like $2,500.
Right? So it's like there's a lot of money 50 years ago, not as much today. But it's a national system being run literally to find the best and the brightest. How many of our great and powerful universities use this as a scouting system? Like our universities all have sports teams, they all have national scouting, they have full time scouts who go out and they go to every high school and they try to find all the great basketball players and bring them into the NCAA into all these leagues.
How many of our great powerful and enlightened universities use the National Merit System to go do a talent, search for the smartest kids and just bring them in?
Speaker 1: Let me guess. Very few. 0. As you say it, that's brilliant. There should be that same level of scouting for talent internally.
Speaker 0: Go get the smartest ones. Give you one more kicker on this topic if you're not if I haven't beaten it to death. You know, the SAT has changed. Mhmm. So the SAT used to be a highly accurate proxy for IQ, that caused a bunch of problems.
People really don't like the whole idea of IQ. And so the SAT has been actively managed over the last 50 years by the College Board that runs it and it has been essentially, like everything else, it's been dumbed down. And so the the in in two ways. Number 1, it's been dumbed down where, an 800 from 40 years ago does not mean what an 800 means today. And 800 40 years ago, it was almost impossible to get an 800.
Today, there's today, there's so many 800 that you could stock the entire Ivy League with 800. Right? And so so so so it's been deliberately dumbed down. And then 2 is they have they have tried to pull out a lot of what's called the g loading and so they've they've tried to detach it from being an IQ proxy because IQ is such an inflammatory concept and and the consequence of that is and this is sort of perverse, they've made it more coachable. Right?
So the IT for the SAT 40 years ago coaching didn't really work and more recently it has really started to work. And one of the things you see is that the Asian spike, you see this like giant leap upward in Asian performance over the last decade and I think looking at the data I think a lot of that is because it's more coachable now and the Asians do the most coaching. So there's a bunch of issues with this and so the coaching thing is really difficult because the coaching thing is a subsidy then to the kids whose parents can afford coaching. Right? And I don't know about you but where I grew up there was no SAT coaching.
So there's like an issue there. I didn't even know what the SAT was until the day I took it, much less that there was coaching, much less that it could work, so much less we could afford it. So number 1 there's issues there. But the other issue there is think about what's happened by the dumbing down. 800 no longer captures all the smart it it it 800 is too crude of a test.
It's like the AI benchmarking problem. It's it's the same problem we have in AI benchmarking right now. 800 is too low of a threshold. There are too many kids scoring 800. Because what you want is you want whatever, if it's going to be a 100000 kids, I don't know what it is, it's gonna be 50,000 kids a year scoring 800.
You also then want kids to be able to score 910,011, 1200 and you want to ultimately get to, you know, this you'd like to identify ultimately identify the top 100 kids and make sure that you get them in MIT. And the resolution of the test has been reduced so that it actually is not useful for doing that. And again, as I would say, this is part of the generalized corruption that's taken place throughout this entire system where we we have been heading in the reverse direction from wanting to actually go get the best and brightest and actually put them in the places, where they should be. And then just the final comment would be the great thing about standardized testing and the national merit system is it's complete like I said, it's completely race blind. It's gender blind.
It's blind on every other characteristic. It's only done on test scores. You know? And then you can make an argument about whether that's good or bad, but it is, you know, for sure, you know, it's the closest thing that we had to get to merit. It was the thing that they did when they thought they needed merit to win the cold war, and of course, we could we could choose to do that anytime we want.
And and I just say I find it, like, incredibly striking, and an enormous moral indictment of the current system that there are no universities to do this today. So back to the immigration thing just real quick, it's like okay we aren't even trying to go get the smart kids out of the center of south. And even if they think that they can get into these places they get turned down. And the same thing for the smart Asians and the same thing for the smart Jews and the same thing for the smart black people. And like it just like it's just like like I don't know how, like, I I don't know how that's moral.
Like, I I don't get it at all.
Speaker 1: As you said about the 800, so I took the SAT and ACT many times, and they're I've always gotten perfect on math 800. It's just and I'm not that I'm not special. Like, the it it it it it doesn't identify genius. I think you wanna search for genius, and you wanna create measures that find genius of all different kinds, speaking of diversity. And I guess we should reiterate and say over and over and over, defend immigrants.
Yes. But say we should hire more and more native born.
Speaker 0: Well, you asked me in the beginning, like, what what would what what's the most optimistic forecast, right, that we could have? And the most optimistic forecast would be, my god, what if we did both? Like
Speaker 1: So that's the reasonable, the rational, the smart thing to say here. In fact, we don't have to have a war.
Speaker 0: Well it would diffuse it would diffuse the entire issue. Yeah. If everybody in the center of the south of the country and every Jewish family, Asian family, black family knew they were getting a fair shake, like it would diffuse the issue. Like, how about diffusing the issue? Like, what a crazy radical sorry.
I don't mean to really get out of my skis here, but
Speaker 1: I think your profile on x states it's time to build. It feels like 25 2025 is a good year to build. So, I wanted to ask your device and maybe, for a device for anybody who's trying to build. So who's trying to build something useful in the world. Maybe launch a startup or maybe just launch apps, services, whatever, ship software products.
So maybe by way of advice, how do you actually get to shipping?
Speaker 0: So I mean, a big part of the answer, I think, is we're in the middle of a legit revolution. And I know you've been talking about this on your show, but, like, AI coding. I mean, this is the biggest earthquake to hit software in certainly my life, maybe since the investment software. And I'm sure, you know, we're involved in various of these companies, but, you know, these these tools, you know, from a variety of companies are, just, like, absolutely revolutionary. And and and they're getting better at leaps and bounds right every day.
And and you you you know all this, but, like, the thing with coding, like, there there's, like, open questions of whether AI can get better at, like, I don't know, understanding philosophy or whatever, creative writing or whatever. But, like, for sure, we can make it much better at coding. Mhmm. Right? Because you can validate the results of coding.
And so, you know, there's all these methods of, you know, synthetic data and self training and reinforcement learning that for sure you can do with with coding. And so everybody I know who works in the field says AI coding is gonna get to be phenomenally good. And it's it's already great. And you you can I mean, anybody wants to see this just go on YouTube and look at AI coding demos, you know, get little little kids making apps in 10 minutes working with an AI coding system? And so I think it's the golden I mean, I think this is an area where it's clearly the golden age.
The toolset is extraordinary, you know, in a in a day as a as a coder for sure in a day, you can retrain yourself, you know, start using these things, get a huge boost in productivity. As a non coder, you can learn much more quickly than you could before.
Speaker 1: That's that's actually a tricky one in terms of learning as a noncoder to build stuff. It's still I feel like you still need to learn how to code. It it becomes a superpower. It helps you be much more productive. Like, you could legitimately be a one person, company and get quite far.
Speaker 0: I agree with that. Up to a point. So the, I think for sure for quite a long time, the people who are good at coding are gonna be the best at actually having AIs code things, because they're gonna understand what I mean, very basic. They're gonna understand what's happening. Right?
And they're gonna be able to evaluate the work, and they're gonna be able to, you know, literally, like, manage AIs better. Like, even if they're not literally handwriting the code, they're just gonna have a much better sense of what's going on. So I definitely think, like, a 100%, my 9 year old is, like, doing all kinds of coding classes, and he'll keep doing that for certainly through 18. We'll see after that. And so, like, for sure that's the case.
But but look, having said that, one of the things you can do with an AI is say, teach me how to code. Right? And so and, you know, there's there's a whole bunch of, you know, I'll I'll name names, you know, Khan Academy. Like, there's a whole bunch of a whole bunch of work that they're doing at Khan Academy for free. And then we, you know, we have this company, Replit, which is was originally specifically built for kids for coding, that is has AI built in that's just absolutely extraordinary now.
And then, you know, there's a variety of other of other systems like this. And, yeah, that that mean the AI is gonna be able to teach you to code. AI, by the way, is, as you know, spectacularly good at explaining code. Mhmm. Right?
And so, you know, the tools have these features now where you can talk to the code base. And so you can, like, literally, like, ask the code based questions about itself. And you can also just do the simple form, which is you can copy and paste code into chat gpt and just ask it to explain it, what's going on, rewrite it, improve it, make recommendations. And so there there's yeah, there's dozens of ways to to to do this. By the way, you can also I mean, even more broadly than code, like, you know, okay, you wanna make a video game.
Okay. Now you can do AI art generation, sound generation, dialogue generation, voice generation, right? And so all of a sudden, like you don't need designers, you know, you don't need, you know, voice actors, you know? So, yeah. So there's just like unlimited.
And then, you know, because, you know, a big part of coding is so called glue, you know, it's, it's interfacing into other systems. So it's interfacing into, you know, Stripe to take payments or something like that. And, you know, AI is fantastic at writing glue code. So, you know, really, really good at making sure that you can plug everything together, really good at helping you figure out how to deploy. You know, it'll even write a business plan for you.
So it it's just this it's it's like everything happening with AI right now. It's just it's like this latent superpower and there's this incredible spectrum of people who have really figured out massive performance increases, productivity increases with it already. There's other people who aren't even aware it's happening. And there's some gearing to whether you're a coder or not, but I think there are lots of non coders that are off to the races. And I think there are lots of professional coders who are still, like, you know, the blacksmiths were not necessarily in favor of, you know, car business.
So, yeah, there's the old William Gibson quote, the future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. And this is maybe the most potent version of that that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's, you know, the old meme with the, with the bell curve. The the the people on both extremes say AI coding is the future. Right. It is very common to programmers to say, you know, if you're any good of a programmer, you're not going to be using it.
That that's just that's just not true. I consider myself reasonably good programmer, and I my productivity has been just skyrocketed. And the joy of programming skyrocketed is every aspect of programming is more efficient, more productive, more fun, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 0: I would also say code is, you know, code has code has of anything in, like, industrial society, code has has the highest elasticity, which is to say the easier it is to make it, the more it get the more it gets made. Like, I think effectively there's unlimited demand for code. Like, in other words, like, there's always some other idea for a thing that you can do, a feature that you can add, or a thing that you can optimize. And so and so, like, overwhelmingly, you know, the amount of code that exists in the world is a fraction of even the ideas we have today, and then we come up with new ideas all the time. And so I I think that, like you know, I was I was late eighties, early nineties when sort of automated coding systems started to come out, expert systems, big deal in those days.
And there were all these there was a famous book called the decline and fall of the American programmer, you know, that predicted that these new coding systems were gonna mean we wouldn't have programmers in the future. And, of course, the number of programming jobs exploded by, like, a factor of a 100. Like, my guess will be we'll have more my guess is we'll have more coding jobs probably by, like, an order of magnitude 10 years from now. That that will be different. There'll be different jobs.
They'll they'll involve orchestrating AI. But, we'll there will be we will be creating so much more software that the that the whole industry will just explode in size.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing the size of companies decrease in terms of start ups? What's the landscapes of Little Tech?
Speaker 0: All we're seeing right now is the AI hiring boom of all time.
Speaker 1: Oh, for the big tech?
Speaker 0: People are ants in Little Tech. And
Speaker 1: Little Tech.
Speaker 0: Everybody's trying to hire as many engineers as they can to build AI systems. It's just, it's a 100%. I mean, there there's a handful of company. You know, there's a little bit. There's there's a customer service.
You know, there we have some companies and others, I just think it's Klarna that's publicizing a lot of this, in in Europe, where, you know, there there you know, there are jobs that can be optimized, and jobs that they can be automated. But, like, for engineering jobs, like, it's just an explosion of hiring. But at least so far, there's no trace of any sort of diminishing effect. Now having said that, I am looking forward to the day. I I am waiting for the first company to walk in saying, yes, like the more radical form of it.
But so basically the the companies that we see are basically one of 2 kinds. We we see the companies that are basically sometimes use weak form, strong form. So the the weak form companies, I sometimes use the term it's it's the called the 6th bullet point. AI is the 6th bullet point on whatever they're doing.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 0: Right? And it's on the slide. Right? So they've got the you know whatever dot dot dot dot and then AI is the 6th thing. And the reason AI is the 6th thing is because they had already previously written the slide before the AI revolution started and so they just added the 6th bullet point on the slide, which is how you're getting all these products that have, like, the AI button up in the corner.
Right? The little sparkly button. Yep. Right? And all of a sudden, Gmail is offering to summarize your email, which I'm like, I don't need that.
Like, I need I need you to answer my email, not summarize it. Like, what the hell? Okay. So we see those, and that's fine. That's, like, I don't know, putting sugar on the cake or something.
But then we see the strong form, which is the companies that are building from scratch for AI. Right? And they're they're building it. I actually just met with a company that is building literally an AI email system as an example. So just people are gonna
Speaker 1: Oh, nice. I can't wait.
Speaker 0: Yeah. They're gonna completely right. So the very obvious idea, very smart team. You know, it's gonna be great. You know, and then, you know, Notion just, you know, another not one of our companies but just came out with a product.
And so now companies are going to basically come through, sweep through, and they're going to do basically AI first versions of basically everything. And those are like companies built, you know, AI is the first bullet point. It's the a strong form of the argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Cursor is an example that they basically said, okay. We're gonna re rebuild the thing with AI as the first citizen.
Speaker 0: What if we knew from scratch that we could build on this? And and and and, again, this is, like, this is part of the full employment act for startups and VCs is it just, like, if if a if a technology transformation is sufficiently powerful, then you actually need to start the product development process over from scratch because you need to reconceptualize the product. And and then usually, what that means is you need a new company because most incumbents just just won't do that. And so yeah. So that that's underway across many categories.
What I'm waiting for is the company where it's like, no. Our org chart is redesigned as a result of AI. Right? So I'm looking at I'm waiting for the company where it's like, no. We're gonna have, like, you know, And and the cliche here's a thought experiment.
Right? The cliche would be we're gonna have, like, the human executive team and then we're gonna have the AIs be the workers. Right? So we'll have a VP of engineering supervising a 100 instances of of coding of coding agents. Right?
Okay. Maybe. Right? By the way, or maybe, maybe the VP of engineering should be the AI.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Maybe supervising human coders who are supervising AIs. Right? Because one of the things that AI should be pretty good at is managing. Mhmm.
Because it's, like, not you know, it's like a process driven. It's the kind of thing that AI is actually pretty good at. Right? The performance evaluation coaching. And so should it be an AI executive team?
And then, you know, and then, of course, the ultimate question, which is AI CEO. Right? And then, you know, and then there's and then maybe the most futuristic version of it would be an actual AI agent that actually goes fully autonomous. Yeah. What if you really set one of these things loose and let it let it, basically build itself a business?
And and so I will say, like, we're we're not yet seeing those, and I think there's a little bit of the systems aren't quite ready for that yet. And then I think it's a little bit of you really do need at that point, like, a founder who's really willing to break all the rules, and really willing to take the swing. And I and and I those people exist, and so I'm sure we'll see that.
Speaker 1: And some of it is as as you know with all the startups is the execution. The the idea that you have a AI first email client, this seems like an obvious idea, but, actually creating one, executing, and then taking on Gmail is really is really difficult. I mean, Gmail it's it's it's fascinating to see Google can't do it because because why? Because the momentum because it's hard to reengineer the entirety of the system. Feels like Google is perfectly positioned to to do it.
Same with, like, you know, perplexity, which I love. Like, Google could technically take on perplexity and do it much better, but they haven't. Not yet. So it's fascinating why that is for large companies. I mean, that that is an advantage for little tech.
They could be agile. Yeah.
Speaker 0: That's right.
Speaker 1: They can move fast.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Little companies can break glass in a way big companies can't. Right. This is sort of the big breakthrough that Clay Christensen had in the Innovator's Dilemma, which is sometimes when big companies don't do things, it's because they're screwing up, and that certainly happens. But a lot of times, they don't do things because it would break too much glass.
It would specifically, it would, it would it would interfere with their existing customers, and their existing businesses, and they just simply won't do that. And by the way, responsibly, they shouldn't do that. Right? And so they just get this is Clay Christensen's big thing is they they often don't adapt because they are well run, not because they're poorly run. But they're optimizing machines.
They're they're they're optimizing against the existing business. And and and as as you kinda just said, this is like a permanent state of affairs for large organizations. Like, every once in a while, one breaks the pattern and actually does it. But for the most part, like, this is a very predictable form of human behavior, and this fundamentally is why startups exist.
Speaker 1: It feels like 2025 is when the race for dominance AI will, see some winners. Like, it's it's a big year. So who do you think wins the race? OpenAI, Meta, Google, xai. Who do you think wins the AI race?
Speaker 0: I would say I'm I'm not gonna predict. I say there's questions all over the place. And then we have we have this category question we call the $1,000,000,000,000 question, which is, like, literally depending on how it's answered. People make or lose a $1,000,000,000,000. And I think there's, like, I don't know, 5 or $6,000,000,000,000 questions right now that are hanging out there, which is an unusually large number.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And I just you know, I'll just hit a few of them, and we can talk about them. So one is big models versus small models. Another is open models versus closed models. Another is whether you can use synthetic data or not. Another is chain of thought.
How far can you push that in reinforcement learning? And then another one is political $1,000,000,000,000 questions. We have policy questions, which, you know, the US and the EU have both been flunking dramatically, and the US hopefully is about to really succeed at. Yeah. And then there's probably another, you know, half dozen big important questions after that.
And so these are all just like say this is an industry that's in flux in a way that I even more dramatic, I think, than the ones I've seen before. And and look, the most example most obvious example, the flux is sitting here 3 sitting here in the summer you know, sitting here less than 3 years ago, sitting here in December 22, we would have said that OpenAI is just running away with everything. Mhmm. And sitting here today, it's like, you know, there's at least 6, you know, world class god model companies and teams that are, by the way, generating remarkably similar results. That's actually been one of the most shocking things to me is, like, it turns out that once you know that it's possible to build one incredibly smart Turing test passing large language model, which was a complete shock and surprise, to the world.
It turns out within, you know, a year, you can have 5 more. There's also a money component thing to it, which is, to get the money to scale one of these things into the 1,000,000,000 of dollars. There's basically right now only 2 sources of money that will do that for you. 1 is, the hyperscalers giving you the money which you turn around and round trip back to them, or, you know, foreign sovereigns, you know, other, you know, countries sovereign sovereign wealth funds, which can be, you know, difficult in some cases to for companies to access. So there's a there's another this may be another $1,000,000,000,000 question is the financing question.
Here's one. So Sam Altman has been public about the fact that he wants to transition OpenAI from being a nonprofit to being a for profit. Mhmm. The way that that is legally done is that, there there is a way to do it. There is a way in US law to do it.
The IRS and and other legal entities, government entities scrutinizes very carefully because the US takes foundation nonprofit law very seriously because of the tax exemption. And so the way that historically, the way that you do it is you start a for profit, and then you you raise money with the for profit to buy the assets of the nonprofit at fair market value. And, you know, the last financing round at OpenAI was, you know, a 150 some $1,000,000,000. And so logically, the if if the flip is going to happen, the for profit has to go raise a $150,000,000,000 out of the chute to buy the assets. You know, raising a 150,000,000,000 is a challenge.
So, you know, is that even possible? If that is possible, then OpenAI maybe is off to the races as a for profit company. If not, you know, you know, I don't know. And then, you know, obviously, the Elon lawsuit. So so just because they're the market leader today, you know, there's big important questions there.
You know, Microsoft has this kind of love hate relationship with them. Where does that go? Apple's, you know, lagging badly behind, but, you know, they're very good at catching up. Amazon, you know, is primarily hyperscaler, but they now have their own models.
Speaker 1: And then there's the other questions like you laid out brilliantly, briefly and brilliantly of open versus closed, big versus little models, synthetic data. That's a huge, huge question. And then, test time compute with, chain of thought, the role of that. And this is fast and these are I think it's fair to say $1,000,000,000,000 questions.
Speaker 0: Yeah. These are big, like, look, you know, it's just it's like, oh, here's a $1,000,000,000 question, which is kind of embedded in that, which is just hallucinations. Right? Like, so if you are trying to use these tools creatively, you're thrilled because they can draw new images and they can make new music and they can do all this incredible stuff, right? They're creative.
The flip side of that is if you need them to be correct, they can't be creative. That's you know the term hallucination. And these things do hallucinate. And, you know, there have been, you know, court cases already where lawyers have submitted legal briefs that contain made up court citations case citations. The the judge is like, wait a minute.
This doesn't exist. And the very next question is, did you write this yourself? And the lawyer goes,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why with Elon with Grock, looking for truth. I mean, that's an open technical question. How close can you get to truth with LMS? Yeah.
Speaker 0: That's right. And and I I my my sense, this is very contentious topic at the industry. My sense is if to the extent that there is a domain in which there is a definitive and checkable and approvable answer and you might say math satisfies that, coding satisfies that, and maybe some other fields, then you should be able to generate synthetic data. You should be able to do chain of thought reasoning. You should be able to do reinforcement learning, and you should be able to ultimately, you know, eliminate hallucinations.
For but by the way, that's a $1,000,000,000,000 question right there is whether that's true. But then but then there's questions like, okay, is that gonna work in the more general domain? Like, so for example, one possibility is these things are gonna get be truly superhuman at, like, math and coding, but at, like, discussing philosophy, they're gonna just They're basically as smart as they're ever gonna be. And they're gonna be kind of, you know, say midwitt grad student level. And the theory there would just be they're already out of training data.
Like they they they literally If you know, you talk to these people like literally the big models the big models are like within a factor of 2x of consuming all the human generated training data to the point that some of these big companies are literally hiring people like doctors and lawyers to sit and write new training data by hand. And so does this mean that like you have to if you want your model to be better philosophy, you have to go hire, like, a 1000 philosophers and have them write new content? Then is anybody gonna do that? And so, you know, maybe maybe these things are topping out in certain ways and they're gonna leap way ahead in other ways. And so anyway, so we just don't you know, I guys, this is this is I'd say maybe my main main conclusion is I I don't any of these anybody telling you know, anybody telling you these big sweeping conclusions, you know, this whole super you know, all of these abstract generalized superintelligence AGI stuff, like, it you know, maybe it's the engineering me, but, like, no.
Like, that that's not, like, that's not the core. That's too abstract. Like, it's gotta actually work. And then by the way, it has to actually be able to pay for it. I mean, this is a problem right now with, you know, the big models.
The big models that are, like, really good at coding and math, they're, like, actually very expensive to run. You know, they're quite slow. Another $1,000,000,000,000 question, future chips, which I know you've you've talked a lot about. Another $1,000,000,000,000 question. Yeah.
I mean, the all the global issue. Oh, another $1,000,000,000,000 question, censorship. Right? Like, and and and and, and all the as they say with all the, human feedback, training process. Exactly what are you training these things to do?
What are they allowed to talk about? How long do they give you these how how often do they give you these incredibly preaching moral lectures? How or here's a here's a here's a good here's a $1,000,000,000,000 question. How many other countries want their country to run its education system, health care system, new system, political system on the basis of an AI that's been trained according to the most extreme left wing California politics? Right?
Because that's kind of what they have on offer right now, and I think the answer to that is not very many. So there's, like, massive open questions there about, like, what, you know and by the way, like, what morality are these things gonna get trained on as well.
Speaker 1: And that one, we're cracking wide open with, what's been happening over the past few months. Censorship on every level of these companies and just the very idea what truth means and what it means to be expand the Overton window of LLMs or the Overton window of human discourse.
Speaker 0: So what what I experienced, you know, going back to how we started, what I experienced was, alright, social media censorship regime from hell, debanking Mhmm. Right, at, like, a large scale, and then the war on the crypto industry trying to kill it. And then basically declared intent to do the same thing to AI, and to put AI under the same kind of censorship and control regime as as social media and the banks. And I and I think this election tips in in America. I think this election tips us from a timeline in which things were going to get really bad on that front, to a timeline in which I think things are gonna be quite good.
But look, those same questions also apply outside the US. And, you know, the EU is doing their thing. They're being extremely draconian, and they're trying to lock in a political censorship regime on AI right now to that's so harsh that even American AI companies are not even willing to launch new products in the EU right now. Like, that's not gonna last, but, like, what what happens there? Right?
And what what are the trade offs, you know, what levels of censorship are American companies gonna have to sign up for if if they wanna operate in the EU? Or is the EU still capable of generating its own AI companies? Or have we brain drained them so that they can't? So big questions.
Speaker 1: Quick questions. So you're very active on x, a very unique character, flamboyant, exciting, bold. You post a lot. I think there's a meme. I don't remember it exactly, but that Elon posted something like, inside Elon, there are 2 wolves.
1 is, please be kind or more positive, And the other one is, I think, you know, doing the, take a big step back and fuck yourself in the face guy. How many wolves are inside, your mind when you're tweeting?
Speaker 0: To be clear, a reference from the comedy classic, tropic thunder.
Speaker 1: Tropic thunder. Yeah. A legendary movie.
Speaker 0: Yes. Any Zoomers listening to this who haven't seen that movie, go watch it immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's nothing offensive about it.
Speaker 0: Nothing offensive about it at all. So Tom Cruise's greatest performance. So, yeah. No. Look.
I'll just start by saying, like, I'm not supposed to be tweeting at all. So yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.
And so but, you know.
Speaker 1: So how do you approach that? Like, how do you approach what to tweet?
Speaker 0: I I mean, I don't. I like, so it's it's a it's a, it it I I don't I don't well enough. It's mostly an exercise in frustration. Look, there's a glory to it, and there's there's a there's an issue with it. And the glory of it is, like, you know, instantaneous global communication that, you know, in x x in particular is, like, the, you know, the town square on all these, you know, social issues, political issues, everything else, current events.
But I mean, look, there's no question the format. The format of at least the original tweet is, you know, prone to be inflammatory. You know, I'm I'm I'm the guy who at one point the entire nation of India hated me. Because I once tweeted something, it turned out that it's still politically sensitive, and the entire continent. I stayed up all night that night as as I became front page headline and bleeding television news in each time zone in India for a single tweet.
So, like, the single tweet out of context is a very dangerous thing. Obviously, x now has the the middle ground where they, you know, they they now have the longer form essays. And so, you know, probably the most productive thing I can do is is is longer form, is is longer form things.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna do it though, are you?
Speaker 0: I do. I do from time to time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes. I should
Speaker 0: I should do more of them. And then yeah. I mean, look. But and yeah. And then, obviously, x is x is doing great.
And then, like I said, like, substack, you know, has become the center for a lot, you know, lot of the I think the best kind of, you know, deeply thought through, you know, certainly intellectual content, you know, tons of current events, stuff there as well. And then, yeah. So and then there's a bunch of other, you know, a bunch of new systems that are very exciting. So I think one of the things we can look forward to in the next 4 years is number 1, just like a massive reinvigoration of social media as a consequence of the changes that are happening right now. I'm very excited to see the con to see what's going to happen with that.
And then, and it's happened on X but it's now going to happen on other platforms. And then, the other is, crypto is going to come, you know, crypto is going to come right back to life. And actually, that's very exciting. Actually, that's worth noting is that's another $1,000,000,000,000 question on AI, which is, in a world of pervasive AI and especially in a world of AI agents and imagine a world of 1,000,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 of AI agents running around, they need an economy. And crypto, in our view, happens to be the ideal economic system for that.
Right? Because it's a programmable money. It's a very easy way to plug in and do that, and there's this transaction processing system that can that can do that. And so I think the crypto AI intersection, you know, is potentially very a very, very big deal. And so when that was that was going to be impossible under the prior regime, and I think under the new regime, hopefully, it'll be something we can do.
Speaker 1: Almost for fun, let me ask, a friend of yours, Jan Lacun, what are your top ten favorite things about Jan Lacun? He's, I think he's a he's a brilliant guy. I think he's important to the world. I think you guys disagree on a lot of things, but I personally like vigorous disagreement. I, as a person in the stands, like to watch the gladiators go at it.
Speaker 0: And No. He's a super genius. I mean, look, it it I haven't said we're super close, but, you know, casual casual friends. I I worked with them at meta, you know, he's the chief scientist at meta for a long time and still, you know, works with us. And and, you know, and as obviously, he's a legendary figure in the field and one of the main people responsible for what's happening.
I it's my serious observation would be that it's it's it's the thing I keep I've talked to him about for a long time and I keep trying to read and follow everything he does is he's probably he is the I think see if you agree with this, he is the smartest and most credible critic of LLMs is the Pathway AI. And, he's not you know, there's certain, I would say troll like characters who are just like crapping everything. But, like, Jan has, like, very deeply thought through, basically, theories as to why LMs are an evolutionary dead end. And, and I actually, like, I I try to do this thing where I try to model you know, I try to have a mental model of, like, the 2 different sides of a serious argument. So I I tried to, like, internalize that argument as much as I can, which is difficult because, like, we're investing it behind LMs as aggressively as we can.
So if he's right, like, that could be a big problem, but, like, we should also know that. And then I sort of use his ideas to challenge all the bullish people, you know, to really kind of test their level of knowledge. So I like to kind of grill people. Like, I'm not like I'm not, you know, I'm I'm I'm I was not, you know, I was got my CS degree 35 years ago, so I'm not, like, deep in the technology. But, like, if to the extent I can understand Jan's points, I can use them to, you know, to really surface a lot of the questions for the people who are more bullish.
And that's been, I think, very productive. Yeah. So, yeah, just it's very striking that you have somebody who is, like, that central in the space who is actually, like, a full on a full on skeptic. And and, you know, and and again, as you could this could go different ways. He could end up being very wrong.
He could end up being totally right, or it could be that he will provoke the evolution of these systems to be much better than they would have been.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He could be both right and wrong. I I I first of all, I do I do agree with that. He's one of the most legit and, rigorous and deep critics of the LLM path to AGI. You know, his basic notions that there needs AI needs to have some physical understanding of the physical world, and that's very difficult to achieve with LLMs.
So there and that that is a really good way to challenge the limitations of LLMs and so on. He's also been a vocal and a huge proponent of open source
Speaker 0: Yep.
Speaker 1: Which is a whole another Yep. Which you have been as well.
Speaker 0: Which is very useful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's been just fascinating to watch.
Speaker 0: And anti doomer.
Speaker 1: Anti doomer.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He's he's
Speaker 0: He's very anti doomer.
Speaker 1: Embodies he also has many wolves inside of this.
Speaker 0: Yes. He does. Yes. He does. Yes.
He does.
Speaker 1: He does. Yep. So it's been really, really fun to watch.
Speaker 0: The other 2 okay. Here's my other wolf coming out. Yeah. The other 2 of the 3 godfathers of AI are, like, radicals. Like like, full on left, you know, far left, you know, the the like, the I would say, like, either Marxist or borderline Marxist, and they're, like, I think, quite extreme in their social and political views.
And I think that feeds into their dermis. And I think, you know, they they they are lobbying for, like, draconian government. I think what would be ruinously destructive government legislation, and regulation. And so it's it's actually super helpful, super, super helpful to have Jan as a counterpoint to those 2.
Speaker 1: Another fun question. Our mutual friend, Andrew Huberman. Yes. 1st, maybe what do you love most about Andrew? And second, what score on a scale of 1 to 10 do you think he would give you on your approach to health?
Speaker 0: Oh, 3. Physical.
Speaker 1: 3. You think you score that high, Okay.
Speaker 0: Exactly. 10.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 0: Exactly. Well, so he can he did he convinced me to stop drinking alcohol, which was a big Successfully. Well, it was, like, my other than my family, it was my favorite thing in the world. Yeah. And so it was a major major reduction.
Like, having, like, a glass of scotch at night was like a major like, it was like the thing I would do to relax. And so he has profoundly negatively impacted my emotional health. I, I blame him for making me much less happy as a person, but much much much healthier. Yeah. Physically healthier so that that I I credit him with that.
I'm glad I did that. But then his sleep stuff, like, I'm not doing any of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: I have no interest in his sleep shit. Like, no. This whole light, natural light, no. We're not doing it.
Speaker 1: Are you too hardcore for this?
Speaker 0: I don't see any I say I don't see any natural I don't see any natural light in here.
Speaker 1: It's all covered. It's all horrible.
Speaker 0: And I'm very happy. I would be very happy living and working here because I'm totally happy without natural light.
Speaker 1: In darkness. Yes. It must be a metaphor for something.
Speaker 0: Yes. It's a test look. It's a test of manhood as to whether you could have a blue screen in your face for 3 hours and then go right to sleep. Like, I don't understand why you should wanna take shortcuts.
Speaker 1: I now understand what they mean by toxic masculinity. Alright. So, let's see. You're exceptionally successful by most measures. But what to you is the definition of success?
Speaker 0: I would probably say it is a combination of 2 things. I think it is, contribution. So, you know, have you done something that mattered ultimately? And, and, you know, and specifically, it mattered to people. And then the other thing is I think happiness is either overrated or almost a complete myth.
And in fact, interesting, Thomas Jefferson did not mean happiness the way that we understand it when he said pursue to happiness in the declaration of independence. He meant it more of the the the Greek meaning, which is closer to satisfaction, or fulfillment. And so I think happiness is so I think about happiness as the first the first, ice cream cone makes you super happy. The first mile of the walk in the park during sunset makes you super happy. The first kiss makes you super happy.
The 1,000th ice cream cone, not so much. The south 1000th mile of the walk through the park. The 1000th kiss can still be good, but maybe just not right in a row. Right? And so happiness is this very fleeting concept, and the people who anchor on happiness seem to go off the rails pretty often.
So did the deep sense of having been I don't know how to put it useful.
Speaker 1: So that's a good place to arrive at in life?
Speaker 0: Yes. I think so. Yeah. I mean, like, can you sit can you yeah. You know, who was it who said the all this the source of all the ills in the world is man's inability to sit in a room by himself doing nothing?
But, like, if you're sitting in a room by yourself and you're like, alright, you know, 4 in the morning, it's like, alright. Have I, like, you know, have I lived up to my expectation of myself? Like, if you have, you know, people I know who feel that way are are pretty centered, and, you know, generally seem very I don't know how to put it pleased with, you know, proud, calm at peace. The people who are, you know, sensation seekers, you know, some of the sensations by the way, some sense you know, there's there's certain entrepreneurs, for example, who are, like, into every form of extreme extreme sport, and they get, you know, huge satisfaction out of that. Or, you know, there's sensation seeking in sort of useful and productive ways.
You know, Larry Ellison was always like that. Zuckerberg was like that. And then, you know, there's a lot of entrepreneurs who end up, you know, drugs. You know, like, sexual, you know, sexual escapades that seem like they'll be fun at first and then backfire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But at the end of the day, if you're able to be at peace by yourself in a room at 4 AM Yeah. I would even say happy, but I know. I understand Thomas Jefferson didn't mean it the way the way maybe I mean it. But I can be happy by myself at 4 AM with a blue screen.
Speaker 0: That's good. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Staring at cursor.
Speaker 0: Exactly.
Speaker 1: As a small tangent, a quick shout out to an amazing interview you did with Barry Weiss and just to her in general. Yep. Barry Weiss of, the free press. She has a podcast called Honestly with Bear Wise. She's great.
People should go listen. You were asked if you believe in God. One of the joys see, we talked about happiness. One of the things that makes me happy is making you uncomfortable.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So this this question is designed for many of the questions today are designed for that. You were asked if you believe in God, and you said after a pause that you're not sure. So it felt like the pause the uncertainty there was, some kind of ongoing search for wisdom and meaning. Are you in fact searching for wisdom and meaning?
Speaker 0: I guess I put it this way. There's a lot to just understand about people that I feel like I'm only starting to understand, and that's certainly a simpler concept than god. So, that's what I spent a lot of the last, you know, 15 years trying to figure out. I I I feel like I spent my first, like, whatever, 30 years figuring out machines, and then now I'm spending 30 years figuring out people, which turns out to be quite a bit more complicated. And then I don't know, maybe god's the last 30 years or something.
And then, you know, look, I mean, just, you know, like like, Elon is just like, okay, the known universe is, like, very, you know, complicated and, you know, mystifying. I mean, every time I, you know, pull up in astronomy, you know, like, get super in astronomy, and it's like, you know, you know, daddy, how many galaxies are there in the universe? And, you know, what how many galaxies are there in the universe?
Speaker 1: A 100,000,000,000?
Speaker 0: Okay. Like, how? Yeah. Like Yeah. Like, how is that freaking possible?
Like, what like, it it it like, it's just it's such a staggering concept that I
Speaker 1: I actually wanted to show you a tweet that blew my mind from Elon from a while back. He said, Elon said, as a friend called it, this is the ultimate skill tree. This is a wall of galaxies a 1,000,000,000 light years across. Yeah. So these are all galaxies.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Like, what the like, how how was it that big? Like, how the hell? And, like, you know, I can read the textbook into this and that and the whatever. 8000000000 years and the big bang and the whole thing.
And then it's just like, alright. Wow. And then it's like, alright. The big bang. Alright.
Like, what was what was before the big bang?
Speaker 1: Do you think we'll ever we humans will ever colonize, like, a galaxy and maybe even go beyond?
Speaker 0: Sure. I mean, yeah. I mean, in the fullness of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you have that of optimism. You have that kind of hope that extends across 1,000 people.
Speaker 0: Fullness of time. I mean, yeah. I mean, you yeah. You know, all the all the problem all the challenges with it that I do. But, like, yeah, why not?
I mean, yeah, again, in the fullness of time, it'll it'll take a long time.
Speaker 1: You don't think we'll destroy ourselves?
Speaker 0: No. I I doubt it. I doubt it. And, you know, fortunately, we have Elon giving us giving us the the the backup plan. So so I don't know.
Like, I grew up, you know, rural midwest or just, like, conventionally kind of Protestant Christian. It never made that much sense to me. Got trained as an engineer and a scientist. I'm like, oh, that definitely doesn't make sense. I'm like, I know.
I'll spend my life as an empirical, you know, rationalist, and I'll I'll figure everything out. And then, you know, and then again, you walk up against these things. You know, you you bump up against these things and you're just like, alright. I I like, okay, I guess there's a scientific explanation for this, but, like, wow. And then there's, like, alright.
Where did that come from? Right? And then how how far back can you go on the causality chain? Yeah. And then yeah.
I mean, and even even just, you know, experiences that we all have on earth, it's it's hard to it's hard to rationally explain it all. And then, you know, so yeah. I guess I just say I'm kinda radically open minded, at peace with the fact that I'll probably never know. The other thing though that's happened and maybe the more more practical answer to the question is, I think I have a much better understanding now of the role that religion plays in society that I didn't have when I was younger. And my partner Ben has a great he quotes his father on this.
He's like, if if a man does not have a real religion, he makes up a fake one. And the fake ones go very, very badly. And so there's this class it's actually really funny. There's this class of intellectual. There's this class of intellectual that has what appears to be a very patronizing point of view, which is yes.
I'm an atheist, but it's very important that the people believe in something. Right? And Marx had, like, the negative view on that, which is religion is the opium of the masses, but there's a lot of, like, right wing intellectuals who are themselves, I think, pretty atheist agnostic that are, like, it's deeply important that the people be Christian or or something like that. And on the one hand, it's like, wow, that's arrogant and presumptive. But on the other hand, you know, maybe it's right because, you know, what have we learned in the last 100 years is in the absence of a real religion, people will make up fake ones.
There's this, writer there's this political philosopher who's super interesting on this named Eric Vogel, and he wrote this he wrote in that sort of mid mid part of the century mid late part of the 20th century. He's, like, born in, I think, like, 1900 and, like, died in, like, 85, so he saw the complete run of communism and and, and Nazism. And himself, you know, fled the I think he fled Europe and and, you know, the whole thing. And, you know, his his sort of big conclusion was basically that both communism and Nazism fascism were were basically religions were were but like in the deep way of religions, like they were, you know, he called them political religions, but they were they were like actual religions. And, you know, they were the they were what Nietzsche forecasted when he said, you know, God is dead, We've killed him, and we won't wash the blood off our hands for a 1000 years.
Right? Is we will come up with new religions that will just cause just mass murder and death. And, like, you you read his stuff now and you're like, yep. That happened. Right?
And then, of course, as fully, you know, elite modernist, of course, we couldn't possibly be doing that for ourselves right now, but, of course, we are. And, you know, I would argue that Eric Vogel and for sure would argue that the last 10 years, you know, we have been in a religious frenzy. You know that woke has been a full scale religious frenzy, and has had all of the characteristics of a religion including everything from patron saints to holy texts to you know sin. It said, what what this is that every aspect of a Wokeness has said every I think he said every single aspect of an actual religion other than redemption, right? Which is maybe like the most dangerous religion you could ever come up with is the one where there's no forgiveness, right?
And so I think if Vogelund were alive I think he would have zeroed right in on that would have said that And, you know, we just, like, sailed right off. I I mentioned earlier, like, we we somehow rediscover the religions of the Indo Europeans. We're all into identity politics and environmentalism. Like, I don't think that's an accident. So is there so anyway, like, there there is something very deep going on in the human psyche, on religion that is not dismissible and needs to be taken seriously even if one struggles with the the, specifics of it.
Speaker 1: I think I speak for a lot of people that has been a a real joy. And for me, an honor to get to watch you, seek to understand the human psyche as you described. You're in that 30 year part of your life, and it's been an honor to talk with you today. Thank you, Mark.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Alex. Is that it? That's only only how long is that?
Speaker 1: 4 hours with, Mark Andrews. And it's, like, 40 hours of actual content.
Speaker 0: So I'll I'll I'll accept being one of the short ones. Oh, for the
Speaker 1: for the listener, Mark looks like he's ready to go for 20 more hours, and I need a nap. Thank you, Mark.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Lex.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this conversation with Mark Andreessen. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Thomas Sowell. It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's the links for my conversation with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca): YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHWnPOKh_S0 Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/marc-andreessen-2-transcript Podcast: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Transcript for Marc Andreessen: Trump, Power, Tech, AI, Immigration & Future of America | Lex Fridman Podcast #458 - Lex Fridman
This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #458 with Marc Andreessen. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links: Go back to this episode’s main page Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast Table of Contents Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation. Click link to jump approximately to that part in the transcript: 0:00 – Introduction 1:09 – Best possible future 10:32 – History of Western Civilization 19:51
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Lex Fridman Podcast - Lex Fridman
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reSee.it AI Summary
I had an intense and heartfelt conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, aiming to contribute to the push for peace. We communicated in English, Ukrainian, and Russian, with various audio and subtitle options available. The discussion covered key topics, including World War II, the invasion on February 24, 2022, negotiating peace, NATO, and the dynamics of power in Ukraine. I also shared insights on my podcast preparation and research process. The full conversation is accessible on X and YouTube, with timestamps for easy navigation.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy (@ZelenskyyUa). It was an intense and heartfelt conversation, my goal for which was to do my small part in pushing for peace. We spoke in a mix of 3 languages: English, Ukrainian, and Russian. It's fully dubbed in each of those 3 languages. The original (mixed-language version) is available as well. So the options are: - Audio: English, Ukrainian, Russian, Original (Mixed) - Subtitles: English, Ukrainian, Russian It's available here on X and everywhere else. On X, I'm uploading the Full English overdub version. The other versions will be available on YouTube (see comment thread). Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 3:29 - Introductory words from Lex 13:55 - Language 23:44 - World War II 40:32 - Invasion on Feb 24, 2022 47:07 - Negotiating Peace 1:07:24 - NATO and security guarantees 1:20:17 - Sitting down with Putin and Trump 1:39:47 - Compromise and leverage 1:45:15 - Putin and Russia 1:55:07 - Donald Trump 2:05:39 - Martial Law and Elections 2:17:58 - Corruption 2:26:44 - Elon Musk 2:30:47 - Trump Inauguration on Jan 20 2:33:55 - Power dynamics in Ukraine 2:37:27 - Future of Ukraine 2:42:09 - Choice of language 2:51:39 - Podcast prep and research process 3:00:04 - Travel and setup 3:05:51 - Conclusion
Video Transcript AI Summary
I hope the Kyiv airport opens soon for easier travel. The war will end, and it would be symbolic for President Trump to visit. Trust is crucial; we fight misinformation and corruption. We receive weapons, not money, and we are committed to fighting corruption. Putin does not love his country; he uses people as pawns. We need strong security guarantees for Ukraine, and NATO membership is vital. The future of Ukraine lies in digitalization and investment in various sectors. We aim for peace and a return of our people after the war. I respect Elon Musk for his innovations, and we are grateful for his support. Ultimately, we want to rebuild Ukraine and ensure our sovereignty.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: I hope the Kia of airport will open soon. Then it will it will be easier to fly in.
Speaker 1: Yes. I think that the war will end, and president Trump may be the first leader to travel here by airplane. I think it would be it would be symbolic by airplane.
Speaker 0: Again, January 25th, around that date. Right? Flying in, meeting the Air Force 1.
Speaker 1: That would be cool.
Speaker 2: There is the perception of corruption. People like Donald Trump and Elon Musk really care, about fighting corruption. What can you say to them to gain their trust that the money is going towards this fight for freedom, towards the war effort?
Speaker 1: In most cases, we did not receive money. We received weapons. And where we saw risks that something could be a weapon, we would slap everyone on the wrist. And believe me, this is not only about Ukraine. On the supply chain, everywhere.
There are some or other. People and companies who want to make money because everyone makes money on the war. We did not profit from the war. If we found someone, believe me, we slapped everyone on the wrist. And and we did that.
We did that, and we will continue to do so because because to this day, when someone says that Ukraine was selling weapons, and, by the way, Russia was the one pushing this narrative. We always responded. Our soldiers would kill such people with their own hands, without any trial. Do you honestly think anyone could steal weapons by the truckload when we ourselves don't have enough on the front lines, and yet we have to provide proof to defend ourselves? Because when there's an abundance of such misinformation, distrust starts to grow.
And you're right, people listen to various media outlets, see this, and lose faith in you. In the end, you lose trust. And with it, you lose support. Therefore, believe me, we are fighting more against disinformation than against particular cases. Although, I still emphasize once again, at the everyday level, such things are still important.
We catch these these people, and we fight them. As if Putin wants to sit down and talk, but Ukraine does not. This is not true.
Speaker 0: I think that, yes, he is in fact ready to talk. Did you talk to him? On the phone or what?
Speaker 1: How do you normally talk to him?
Speaker 0: I don't know. Normally by the sea. The same as with you. He invites you to the sea with me. Just the 3 of us.
Speaker 1: No. No. One of us may drown.
Speaker 0: Who? Are you good at swimming?
Speaker 1: Yes. I'm a good swimmer.
Speaker 0: You're a good swimmer. Well, if you think that the president of a country is completely crazy, It is really hard to come to an agreement with him. You have to look at him as a serious person who loves his country and loves the people in his country. And he conducts, yes, destructive military
Speaker 1: actions. Talking about now? Who loves his country? Putin.
Speaker 0: Do you think he doesn't love his country?
Speaker 1: No. What is his country? He happened to consider Ukraine his country. What is his country?
Speaker 2: When do you think there will be presidential elections in Ukraine? The following is a conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. It was an intense, raw, and heartfelt conversation. My goal for which was to understand and to do all I can to push for peace. Please allow me to say a few words.
1st, about language, then about the president, and finally, about history. Please skip ahead straight to our conversation if you like. We spoke in a mix of languages, continuously switching from Ukrainian to Russian to English. So, the interpreter was barely hanging on. It was indeed, in many ways, a wild ride of a conversation.
As the president said, the first of many. Language, like many other things in a time of war, is a big deal. We had a choice, speaking Russian, Ukrainian, or English. The president does speak some English, but he's far from fluent in it. And I sadly don't speak Ukrainian, yet.
So Russian is the only common language we're both fluent in. In case you don't know, the Russian language is one that the president speaks fluently and was his primary language for most of his life. It's the language I also speak fluently to the degree I speak any language fluently, as does a large fraction of the Ukrainian population. So the most dynamic and powerful conversation between us would be in Russian without an interpreter, who in this case, added about 2 to 3 second delay and, frankly, translated partially and poorly, for me at least. Taking away my ability to feel the humor, the wit, the brilliance, the pain, the anger, the humanity of the person sitting before me, that I could clearly feel when he was speaking fluently in the language I understand, Russian.
But all that said, war changes everything. The Ukrainian language has become a symbol of the Ukrainian people's fight for freedom and independence. So we had a difficult choice of 3 languages. And faced with that choice, we said yes to all 3. To the, consternation and dismay of the translators.
We make captions and, voice over audio tracks available in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. So you can listen either to a version that is all one language or to the original mixed language version with subtitles in your preferred language. The default is English overdub. On YouTube, you can switch between language audio tracks by clicking the settings gear icon, then clicking audio track, and then selecting the language you prefer, English, Ukrainian, Russian. To listen to the original mixed language version, please select the English UK audio track.
Big thank you to 11 Labs for their help with overdubbing using a mix of AI and humans. We will continue to explore how to break down the barriers that language creates with AI and otherwise. This is a difficult but important endeavor. Language, after all, is much more than a cold sequence of facts and logic statements. There are words, when spoken in the right sequence, and at the right time, they can shake the world, and turn the tides of history, that can start and end wars.
Great leaders can find those words, and great translators can help these words reverberate to the outskirts of a divided civilization. On another note, let me say that President Zelensky is a truly remarkable person and a historic figure. I say this as somebody who deeply understands the geopolitical complexity and history of the region. I am from this region. My parents were both born in Ukraine, Kyiv, and Kharkiv, both my grandfathers too.
I was born in Tajikistan and lived for a time there, then in Kyiv, then Moscow, then United States. And while I am now for almost 30 years and to the day I die, I'm a proud American. My family roots grow deep in the soil of nations that comprised the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Tajikistan. I've gotten to know and have spoken for hours with members of the president's team and people close to him. I spoke to 100 of Ukrainians since 2022, including soldiers, civilians, politicians, artists, religious leaders, journalists, economists, historians, and technologists.
I listened to hundreds of hours of programs that both support and criticize the president in Ukraine, in Russia, in the United States. I've read countless books about this war and the long arc of history that led up to it. If forced to recommend 2, at this moment, I would say the Russo Ukrainian war by Serhii Plokhii and the showman by Simon Shuster, which is, a good personal behind the scenes biography of the president focused on 2022. But there are many, many more. This is why I can comfortably say that he is a truly singular and remarkable human being.
It was an honor and pleasure to talk with him on and off the mic. Now it is true that I plan to travel to Moscow and to speak with president Vladimir Putin. And I hope to be back in Kyiv as well as president Zelensky said, this was our first of many more meetings. In all these cases, I seek to do my small part in pushing for peace. And in doing all this, I'm deeply grateful for the trust people have given me on all sides.
For the people attacking me, sometimes lying about me, for the critics in the stands, chanting the latest slogans of the mass hysteria machine like the sheep in animal farm. I love you too. And I assure you that drawing lines between good and evil on a world map is much easier than seeing that line between good and evil in every human being, including you and me. This is what I try to do. I'm simply a human being who seeks to find and surface the humanity in others.
And as I've said, no amount of money, fame, power, access can buy my opinion or my integrity. Now, finally, please allow me to briefly overview some history to give background for several topics that president Zelensky references in this conversation. I recommend my conversation with Sergey Plohy and many others about the history of the region. But here, let me start with 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence and the Soviet Union collapsed. From this point on, Russia Ukraine relations were defined in large part by whether Ukraine aligned more with Russia or with the West, meaning Europe, United States, NATO, and so on.
In 2004, with the Orange Revolution, a pro Western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, became president. In 2010, it went the other way. A pro Russia candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, became president. The internal tensions grew. And in 2013, Euromaidan protests broke out over Yanukovych's decision to suspend talks with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia.
This set forward a chain of important events in 2014. On the politics front, Yanukovych was ousted and fled to Russia, leading to the election of a pro Western president. Also, in 2014, on the war front, Russia annexed Crimea, and war broke out in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, which eventually killed over 14,000 people and continued all the way to 2022, when on February 24, 2022, Russian forces initiated a full scale invasion of Ukraine. This is when the world started to really pay attention. Now some history of peace talks.
Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidency in 2019, and he discusses in this conversation the ceasefire agreements he made with Vladimir Putin in 2019, which was one of many attempts at peace from the 2 Minsk agreements in 2014 and 15 to a series of ceasefire agreements in 2018, 19, and 20, all of which failed in part or in whole. All this shows just how difficult ceasefire and peace negotiations are, but they are not impossible. It is always worth trying over and over again to find the path to peace. I believe that presidents Zelensky, Putin, and Trump should meet soon after January 20th this year, and give everything they got to negotiate a ceasefire and security guarantees that paved the way for a long lasting peace. We discussed several ideas for this in this conversation.
As I said, this was one of my main goals here, to push for peace. This trip to Kyiv and this conversation was a truly special moment for me in my life. It is one I will never forget. So to reflect, I say a few more words and answer some questions at the very end if you like to listen. But here, let me say thank you to everyone for your support over the years.
It means the world. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. And now, dear friends, here's the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Speaker 0: If we can explain why the Ukrainian language is very important, our conversation will be most effective and impactful if we speak in Russian.
Speaker 1: I speak Russian perfectly, of course, and I understand everything you are talking about. However, I can't respond in Russian the entire interview. It's because this is how it is today. I am not making anything up. You can see it all for yourself.
You can feel and hear it. Today, there were 73 missile attacks against us, and people were killed. There were over 100 drones today, and this is a daily occurrence. The people who attack us, they speak Russian. They attack people who were only recently told that this was actually in defense of Russian speaking people.
And this is why I respect me neither the leader or director of today's Russia, nor the people. I just that's it. And I I don't think that you can just, can just pretend that nothing's happening, and give Putin a pass once again for saying that we are one people, that we speak one language, etcetera. They speak the language of weapons. That is a fact.
And we are peaceful people. Peaceful people who want to protect themselves and defend their freedom and their human choice. You know, at the beginning of the war, I addressed Russians in Russian. Zero effect. They're mute.
They they do not listen. They did not listen. Some are afraid. Some have other issues. They have different reasons.
It's like when a person is drowning, drowning, and people walk by because they can't hear them. And someone walks on by crying, afraid to save them. It doesn't change anything for the one drowning. They need someone to help them. This is why I honestly despise these people as they are deaf.
They they began the occupation in the supposed defense of the Russian language. And that's why, with all due respect, I would like to give an interview in Ukrainian. This is very this is very important to me. If there are some points that you want me to explain, in Russian, I can certainly do that. I can certainly occasionally speak Russian.
But in general, in general, no. I'm not sure that that you will understand me completely. Despite your Ukrainian roots, you are a citizen of the United States. Right?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm surprised that you don't understand. Well, it was a long time ago. I understand that it was a long time ago. Moreover, a lot has changed. A lot has changed.
Speaker 0: If I may please allow me to say this in Russian. Yes. Many things have changed, but I have hope. I hope that today many Russians will hear this, that Vladimir Putin will hear this, that the American president Donald Trump and the American people will hear this, that everyone will hear this. And, yes, Ukrainian language is important symbolically, but what is also important is that we understand each other well.
Speaker 1: Or Donald Trump? Is it important for Donald Trump whether I speak Russian or not?
Speaker 0: Yes. Because unfortunately, and it hurts to admit, but I cannot speak or understand Ukrainian yet. So your your wit, dynamism, and your humanity will not come through as well and as quickly. Remember, I need to wait for 2 to 3 seconds to hear it. You have a great sense of humor, great stories.
With an interpreter translating, I simply won't see this, but I understand that it's painful. Another reason is that I hoped we could show that even though it is sometimes said that Russian is banned in Ukraine This
Speaker 1: is not true. I'm speaking Russian now. Right? We have people who speak Russian. This is not true, really.
It's not. It's really not true. We disrespect Russian now because of Russians. That's all. When they were saving Russian speakers, they killed Russian speakers, many people who actually, many of whom are in the east.
Right? In the east, they live lived in the east. They destroyed their houses, destroyed their lives. It's not a rhetorical thing. It's not all talk and blah blah blah.
I don't have time for blah blah blah. Yes. So it's, very, very, very important and sensitive moment. The message is that we are not one nation. We are not, you know, the the same country.
We're different countries. Yes. Different countries. And I think what is most important is what we're talking about. Not how.
We're speaking about it. This is what I think. You're a smart guy. So you have a lot of experience in dialogue of this kind. That's why I think you will you will understand me.
Yeah. I anyway, I think it is far better for Donald Trump to hear my English, not my Russian.
Speaker 2: Your English is much better than my Ukrainian. It's getting better and better
Speaker 1: every That's true. I'm a very honest guy. That's why I will be very honest with you. Okay. Your Ukrainian is not very good, but we will but we will work on it.
Speaker 2: Yes. I have many flaws. That's one of them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I can speak English. Sometimes, as I understand, we can be very flexible. Right?
Speaker 2: Very flexible. Spanish, Swahili. Yeah. You see? Yeah.
Javier Malay needs to understand us. So
Speaker 1: By the way, Javier understood me without any words.
Speaker 2: The language of love Yeah. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Of respect. Respect. I respect him. I had a very good conversation with him. Really brilliant.
Speaker 0: May I sometimes speak Russian and sometimes English?
Speaker 1: Yes. You can use any language you like. And I think that's a very good rule for this first meeting between us. As you said, maybe we will meet in the future for the 2nd time.
Speaker 2: 2nd and 3rd and 4th?
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is this is good. You can ask questions in the language you'd like, and I will answer in the language I can.
Speaker 0: Well, you said you wanted to meet by the sea at some point. So for our next meeting, let's meet by the sea.
Speaker 1: With pleasure. Next time, it would be much better to meet by our Ukrainian black or our Azov Sea.
Speaker 0: You know, I've been to a lot of I have traveled to many cities in Ukraine, but I have never been to Odessa. And everyone tells me that, and I don't know why. You have to. Can you explain to me why everyone loves Odessa so much? What's
Speaker 1: there? You know, what's in Odessa? That's how they say it. What's there? In Odessa, we've got it all.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Odessa. I love Odessa because of its particular temperament. People have their own their own accent, and it's so there are many nationalities, you know. There are a lot of lot of stories. Authentic Odessa cuisine.
By the way, you know, the cuisine is very different from others. The dishes are not like any other dishes, and everything is very tasty. Also, there are beautiful people. And today, you know, you understand people very well, especially after after the attacks on Odessa. You understand what the people are like, just how Odessites are.
Very Ukrainian. And that's that's very cool. I love Odessa. I go there several times a year. I go there several times a year now because, well, now because of strengthening of air defense systems, because of this grain corridor, etcetera.
I go there more often. They have the sun there. They have the sea. It's Ukraine, and it's very cool there.
Speaker 0: Well, when you come and visit me in Texas as a guest for the 3rd time
Speaker 1: With pleasure.
Speaker 0: Let's do this. How about you, my friend Joe Rogan, and I will go get some Texas barbecue together.
Speaker 1: Who will pay?
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: Putin. Putin. For everything. He has to pay.
Speaker 0: Well, yes. We'll invite him too.
Speaker 1: No. No. No. No. Okay.
Without him.
Speaker 0: Okay. I get it. Understood.
Speaker 1: But if the Rome statute, will be accepted by your government before this moment
Speaker 0: Okay. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but Joe has a great comedy club in Austin.
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan?
Speaker 0: Joe Rogan. Yes. And I think that as a person who respects comedy and stand up comedy, it would be interesting for you to have a look at it.
Speaker 1: No. No. He is I know him, and I saw, a lot of different videos. He's, he's a very talented person. So it would be a pleasure if you invite me, and I'm able to do it.
I'm a I am a little bit busy. Yeah. But, if I'll be if I'll be in the United States, I I hope that I will have a conversation and a meeting with president Trump. And, of course, during my visit, if I'll have the time, it would be a pleasure if you'll invite me with pleasure.
Speaker 2: You know what? I will pay. Good. Yeah. I you know, I had to think about it, but, you know, you are the president.
Speaker 1: Yes. With you, with pleasure.
Speaker 2: When the war is over, please come. Thanks so much. Busy.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: If we can go go back many years, World War 2, tell me the story of your grandfather who fought in World War 2.
Speaker 1: My grandfather, he he graduated from the military, military academy. And from the very beginning of the war, he went to fight. He was in the infantry, and he fought through the entire war. He had many wounds, as they used to say back then. His chest is covered in medals.
And it's true. He had more than 30. Yes, more than 30. He was the kind of man he was such he was such a serious man. I loved him very much, and we had a very close relationship.
He didn't like to tell details about the war. He never he never boasted. Although I asked him, as a boy would, how many fascists did you kill? He never talked about it. He believed that the war was a great a great tragedy, a tragedy for everyone.
And, Ukraine was occupied, and it was a tragedy for Ukraine, a tragedy for Europe, and a tragedy for the Jewish people. His own brothers, his entire family were executed. They were tortured by fascists who had occupied Ukraine and their village. His father was the head of the village, and he was killed. They were shot.
It was a mass. A mass grave. Right? Yes. It was a communal burial.
Some of them were killed outright, and others were they were buried alive. His 4 brothers, they all went to war. As soon as the war began, they were all there. He was the only one who had a military education, and they all died in the war. He was the only one who came back.
He had nobody. He came back and he found found my, grandmother, his future wife, and she was she managed what was it called then? I don't know. They don't have them anymore. It was a childcare facility, an orphanage, so to speak.
A place where orphans lived. Children who who don't have parents, children of war. And she managed this childcare facility with difficult children, as they used to call them. Difficult children who went through the war, who saw their parents killed, and this is how they met. Because, these difficult children, they, well, sometimes behave differently.
They could steal something, do something bad. There were, many, many children in the orphanage. Yes. That's how she met my grandfather. And I loved him very much.
And I think that my grandfather, frankly, would never have believed that this war is possible. He would never have believed it. Because he worked in the police after the war, he was a colonel, he worked in, criminal investigation all his life. So he fought with, bandits all his life after the 2nd World War. But also, I believe he fought for justice all his life.
And we all lived in one apartment. And even after his death, I lived with both of my grandmothers and my parents, 2 grandmothers, who both lost their husbands. Both of them died. Well, it was an ordinary family. An ordinary family that lived like everyone lived back then in the Soviet Union, and even after the Soviets in the nineties.
We lived in one apartment altogether. What else is there to say? But I think the most important thing was values, respect. They gave me an education. My parents gave me an education.
No one left me money or apartments, so I didn't inherit anything material. But I believe that our real inheritance is here in our minds and in our hearts. I believe that.
Speaker 2: There's a one second delay.
Speaker 0: So if, I'm sorry if you It's fine. Tell a joke, I will laugh about 1, 2, or 3 seconds later. There's a delay.
Speaker 2: So a ordinary family, but not an ordinary time, a World War 2
Speaker 0: World War 2. Speaking of mass graves, I was at Bab and Yar yesterday. A large part of my family died there. In moments like this, such a place serves as a stark reminder of the profound historical gravity of the 2nd World War. I remember I remember this song from my youth.
On June 22nd at 4 o'clock, Kyiv was bombed and the war began. I always wondered how it would feel to live in a moment when when everything changed. The path of humanity completely shifts in a single moment just like that. What do you think what do you think about that moment in 1941? Now after the 2022 invasion, how do you perceive the 2nd World War after you have witnessed all of it?
Speaker 1: Well, well, firstly, the war actually started earlier. It started here in Ukraine. Kyiv was bombed, as you quoted, but the war had already begun before that. And I think I perceived it, as a start of the full scale invasion. Well, I think it's hard.
It's hard to understand why nobody wants to listen, look at, and analyze history. War, the rise of fascism and Nazism, the emergence of Hitler, Goebbels, and their entire team. At the time, this wasn't just about one party or even one country. It was, essentially a wave, a wave of hatred, a wave of 1 race, 1 race above the rest. They were, in fact, constructing and ultimately implemented a theory around this idea, later seizing Europe.
They created a theory of 1 nation, 1 race, 1 world. Their world. Of course, this idea is absolutely senseless,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker 1: it has become radicalized over the years and even gained support. A vision of one world, and in principle, the so called Russian world, the ideology Putin promotes and imposes, it wasn't originally like that. He was a different person back then, or maybe he was always like this, but his rhetoric was different. At the beginning, remember, he talked about the EU, and even about Russia's future being tied to NATO. There were even talks of joining the European Union.
NATO, he spoke about shared values with the West. That's how it all sounded back then. And we must also look at Hitler, who was seriously, before the radical idea of taking over the whole world, he actually made certain steps. And everyone believed he was helping the economy. And to be fair, he did take some steps in that direction.
But he was a terrifying person. None of those actions justify him, nor do they excuse his actions. And that's why we cannot look at the 2nd World War as if it started in 1939. It didn't begin in 1941 either. We need to draw conclusions.
When did it start? With the weaknesses of the world. The division of European states. The Molotov Ribbentrop pact. All of this happened before 1941.
People who were more informed, those who dug deeper, whether they were politicians or not, whether they were from different walks of life. Biz including
Speaker 3: business,
Speaker 1: which was different back then, were speaking about all of this. Hitler won't stop. There'll be a world war. Hitler will destroy nations. Nations.
And that's what happened. Someone looked the other way. What I told you about. Europe was sinking then. I gave you an example of it.
But the whole world looked the other way, and didn't pay attention, and said, no, we can negotiate with him. I'm telling you he is okay. We can negotiate with him. He's just more right leaning, or it does not matter what they said. He's just he's just pro, very pronationalist.
This is all nonsense, and this is not the first time. And Hitler isn't the first such case in history. We're dealing with a person who is allowed to stick to this desire to destroy. He was consumed by it and enjoying it. And what happened to Hitler?
Now what about Putin? This invasion was also at 4 in the morning. Around 4 in the morning, there were missile strikes on Ukraine. This is the same. I believe that intentions are also the same, but more on that later.
By the way, you tell me, if this is too long, you you you can stop me.
Speaker 2: Never long enough. It's beautiful. Okay.
Speaker 1: So it happened here around 4 in the morning. I before this, I must honestly say. Everyone said something, predicted something, etcetera, but I asked only for one thing, primarily from the United States. If you are sure, if you have the evidence, if you talk to him, and he tells you that there'll be an invasion, if all this scares you, I only asked for 2 things. Send us weapons, or better yet, strengthen us with preventive measures so there would be no war.
It wasn't the weapons that I was asking for. I asked for sanctions. Intimidate him. Please don't say that. If he comes, if he crosses borders, if he kills, we're imposing sanctions.
Well, this is complete bullshit. Sorry, but really
Speaker 0: Oh, I understand this.
Speaker 1: Oh, wonderful. Yes.
Speaker 0: I understood one word.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So they did not help. I believe that no, and this is a fact. We didn't receive help. If we assume that words are help, well, then yes.
We received a lot of it because there were plenty of words. Even more than plenty. Yes? At 4 in the morning, there were strikes. Morally, is it possible to prepare for war?
No. It doesn't happen like you read in books, see in movies, and so on. What happens to you? I was just looking at my wife and children. My children were asleep, but my wife was awake.
There were strikes. Missile strikes, we heard them. To you as a living person. How can this be? You just can't fully believe this.
You just don't understand. Why now, given everything that happened in World War 2 when, when millions of people died? None of it mattered. Still at 4 at 4 in the morning. Around 4, 3:40, 345.
Remember? Around this time, yes, there were missile strikes. And later, by the way, a few days after, after the first days of the war, I spoke with Lukashenko on the phone. And he apologized. And he said that it was not me.
Missiles were launched from my territory, and Putin was the one launching them. These are his words. I have witnesses. And I apologize, he said. But believe me, that's what he told me.
Volodya, this is not me. I'm not in charge, he told me. I'm not in charge. These are just missiles. This is Putin.
I told him, don't do that. This was done without me. That's it. He just on the phone, I remember this conversation. I told him that I believed.
I told him, you are a murderer too, I'm just saying. And he told me, you must understand, you can't fight the Russians. I told him that we never fought them. I said, it's war. The missiles came from your land, from Belarus.
How did you allow this? Then he replied, alright. Retaliate then. I still remember him telling me, hit the refinery. You know how much I care about it.
Moser Oil Refinery? Is that it? Can't recall. Moser Oil Refinery? I told him, what are you on about?
What retaliation?
Speaker 0: Forgive me, Veladio.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes.
Speaker 0: Yes. This this was at 5 in the morning?
Speaker 1: No. No. No. This was during the first or maybe the second day. 2nd or third day of the war.
Yes.
Speaker 0: I see.
Speaker 1: Well, after that, I went back home. I was home with my children, with my wife. I just went to my wife very quickly that night at 4 o'clock. Yes. And just told her.
Get the children. Get ready. You'll probably need to go to my office very soon. And I left. That's it.
At this moment, you're you're no longer a father. What happened to me, unfortunately, because I believe that this is and not only do I believe, I understand, especially now that all of this is the most important thing, because your country is your family. It's the strength is in your family, and this is the most important thing. And I'm the president, and therefore, I had to stop being a father in my own family. And my wife had to do everything.
She had to do everything regarding children, regarding safety. And and I had to deal with the state because I'm the president, and this is my duty. And I, by the way, taking this very seriously. I went to the office, and here we are now. You're very welcome.
Speaker 0: Well, at that moment, on February 24th 2022, everything changed again just like in June 1941. Everything changed, and, history took a turn. The history of humanity took a turn, for you too. You were the president. You were you were talking about fighting corruption, about the country's freedom, about interesting and innovative reforms.
But that morning of February 22nd, everything changed. Could you tell me about that morning, the details of your actions when you had to quickly make difficult decisions? What what was the process for you? How did you make these decisions? Did you discuss them with people you trust to understand how to respond to this invasion in every technical, political, and military aspect?
What was the process for you? How did you make the decision?
Speaker 1: According to our legislation, in principle, I'm, well, I'm I'm the supreme commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so I had to give corresponding orders. Yes. I have a military office. And then later, there was a military headquarters where all key people gathered. This is not only about the military, it's about energy, etcetera, all key things.
But at that moment, I made the decisions, quickly and without a doubt. And and I cannot say that I am just that kind of person. I'm just a living person who believed that if help is needed right now to to help to help evacuate people, help with children. Several cities were blocked. I was only thinking about how to deliver food there within within a day.
We did a lot of things, although we understood that that they, in fact, occupied part of our state. And it we distributed weapons to people. That's how it was. Trucks came and simply distributed weapons to people so that they could defend the capital to ordinary people, just on the street, to ordinary people who who understood that if the Russians entered a city, then we would have the same thing that's happening in other cities per the information we received. Thanks to digitalization, by the way.
We had very good digitalization before this. We preserved a lot. And even when they were surrounding certain cities, a lot of things still worked. The banking system, the Internet. We had television, and thanks to this I made several decisions to ensure that people are united and have all the information.
Russia is very good at spreading large scale disinformation. Fortunately, I I have, 2 decades of experience, 2 decades of experience managing a production studio, TV channels, and large media resources, I understood that we needed, to build an information network very quickly. Thanks to this, I began to address the people constantly. This happened several times, 3 to 5 times a day. In fact, I became that, an information source for people who were in cities that were cut off from other information.
And it was very important for me to keep, all things digital, to keep the Internet, to stay in touch with everyone, with all the people. Initially, that's the contact we had, and then, we also built a media platform. So, where we had all the news agencies, agencies of Ukraine, and this network was called Marathon. And it was also very important for the people to trust us. And people had to receive information.
Why? There were waves. There were waves of Russian on the 1st day, who said he ran away. I had to go out into the street. I left the office and went outside.
I had to do this because I was showing that this was no green screen. You know? To show that it was the street, not some digital some digital manipulation. I mean, I did these things, then I touched various objects. Now people might think that these are small things.
But I was actually showing that I was in a real place. All of this had an impact. I was absolutely sure of my actions. And these contacts, several contacts. And then I spoke to the Russians.
I addressed Russians. I really did. And then only after that, I gathered it was the first day when I invited, all of the journalists here, wasn't it? That was on the 1st day, I think well, not here here to the press center in this building. I talked to journalists.
I asked them not to leave because we needed weapons. At that moment, they were handing out rifles to people. And for me, journalists and media platforms were essential voices. There were there were various journalists from different countries here, and they were essentially stuck. And I asked them for contacts, those who had access to to Russians, Belarusians, Kazakhs who understood everything.
The same information. And I I spoke to them. And I spoke to them and spoke in Russian. I told them, you must stop Putin. This is terrible.
This is horror. This is war. You must stop him. And if you stand up now, if you speak out, and if you go out into the streets This was very important. I spoke to them in Russian to show them that there was no problem.
And that all of these pretexts were were made up. This is why it's so painful to talk about the Russian language too. Because, look, if a person does not want to listen, they will not listen no matter what language we speak.
Speaker 0: I disagree with you here. I think and hope that many people in Russia will hear us today.
Speaker 1: They blogged YouTube recently. Are you aware of this? In their country.
Speaker 0: I know. And I simply guarantee that this conversation will travel fast on the Internet. Everyone will hear you. They will hear you. Including the president of Russia will hear you.
This is why I have hope.
Speaker 1: He is actually deaf even if he speaks to you. He is deaf by his very nature. Do you understand the difference? You know, for instance, when you talk to Musk, you're talking to an innovator, a scientist about rockets. You talk about how to save on costs, and how they land.
And on the other hand, Putin doesn't launch rockets to save money but to kill people. Do you think you can talk to Putin about technology? Your guys were were interviewing him, and he told them about about tribal history. Do you understand? Imagine a Russian man in his country listening to him.
You know what Musk is about? Technology, Mars, artificial intelligence. And this guy Putin is standing there bare assed, pontificating about tribes. You've got to understand. You think that when you do interviews, like mister Tucker, who did an interview there, that that you're about to make them friends.
How could you what does this have to do with friends? He's different. He is he is simply different.
Speaker 0: But it's still necessary.
Speaker 1: A mammoth stands before you.
Speaker 0: By the way, I must say that when you said bare assed, it was not translated. Could the interpreter please translate?
Speaker 1: This is so that you can understand.
Speaker 0: Now he explained everything to me. I understand.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: Now I
Speaker 0: fully understand.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 0: But we still need to talk.
Speaker 1: One should always speak with someone who listens. And you must speak when you know that this will benefit you, bring peace and calm to the world, not the other way around. I love president Trump's message when he speaks. I I think that we share a position on peace through strength. That is very important.
It means that if you are strong, you can speak, and we need to be strong, and Ukraine has to be strong. Strong enough. Otherwise, what for? So he you you know who like like Voldemort who must who must not be named. Yes.
He's he's like Voldemort. He thrives, subsists, and lives on being subjectivized. Instead of isolation, he is offered to step out into the light. He's darkness personified, and you offer him, as it were, to be subjectivized. Why?
There's only one reason. Fear. And you say we need to talk. Listen. We need to be in a strong position and not talk, but end the war.
Yes. Yes. It is possible through dialogue. We're not opposed to it. You just need to be in a strong position.
To make the other person want it, do you think he wants to end the war? That's what you suggested. I think this is naive. I'm sorry. With all due respect, it's naive to think he wants to finish the war.
It's,
Speaker 0: tell you what.
Speaker 1: The circumstances sorry for interrupting. The the there's something we need. I think that president Trump not only has will, he has all these possibilities, and it's not just talk. I really count on him. And I think that our people really count on him.
So he has enough power to pressure him. To pressure Putin, not into wanting to stop it. No. He will not want to. To pressure him to actually stop it.
That is the difference. Don't rely on his will, Putin's will, to stop. You won't see it. That's what I think. Sorry.
Speaker 0: No. Sorry. I interrupted you first. But what I would want I do have what some, what some might call a naive dream of you sitting down with Putin and Trump and negotiating a deal about, a ceasefire and together finding a path to long term peace. And I think this requires strength, requires negotiations.
There are a lot of carrots and sticks here that can be used to make a real deal, and Trump is very keen on making a deal and ready to negotiate.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just really want you and I to be on the same page. It's very important to be in the same information space. Extremely important. Let's talk a bit about the ceasefire.
Let me describe the situation to you. In December 2019, in Normandy, in Paris, at the Elysee Palace, Macron, Merkel. Putin and I agreed. On the ceasefire, the US wasn't there. And this, by the way, was a weak point of the meeting.
If you'd like, we can later discuss why they weren't there. It's a security guarantee thing in general. It's Germany's position, etcetera. We agreed on an exchange of hostages and all for all exchange. We made a deal to exchange everyone for everyone.
I think you know that. And there was also a meeting that lasted many hours, a meeting where we made we made a deal with him. Everyone was tired. It was just the 2 of us in the end. And I proposed a cease fire.
By the way, no one in Ukraine believed. Few believed in the cease fire, and he wanted troop withdrawal. I calculated that if there were a withdrawal of troops from the line of contact the way Russians proposed, it would take 20 years. I proved it to him just in terms of time. Square kilometers.
Namely the length of the line of contact or delamination line. And we agreed on what I told him that, it will not work out. But but I I had many points because I was deeply involved in the issue. I was involved very deeply. It's my thing in general.
If I start doing something, I can't stand there like that guy I spoke about with my ass out. You know? I must be dressed. I must be prepared. I must be prepared better.
Better than anyone in front of me. You do sports. Right? Mhmm. I practiced for many years.
And we know what fights are like, what boxing is, what Thai boxing is. This is what I did, and I loved it very much. When you step into the ring, you understand everything pretty much. Mhmm. And so I stepped into it, and I was I was definitely well prepared.
But he wasn't. No. He was not deeply involved in the process. What border? Where is it?
How long will it take to disengage troops? And why wasn't he involved? You want to know? Because he wasn't gonna do any of this. This is what confused me.
If you are not deeply involved in the issue, well, then you it's, it's as if you don't really need the result. That's what I think. So what happened? We agreed that there will be gas continuation, gas transit in 2019. We agreed with him.
This was a security for Europe. Merkel asked me for it, And this was extremely important for Germany. We agreed with him. Secondly, we agreed that, for him, it was just money. So, secondly, we agreed on an exchange.
For me, this was the most important thing. For them, gas was, for me, was the people. And this is a fact. Because I wanted to have a humanitarian advantage so that there would be further meetings that would lead to sustained peace. And 3rd, ceasefire.
Cease fire you spoke about. What happened? The gas contract was signed because he needed it. And by the way, he knew everything about it. As for exchange, we took the first step and exchanged the people.
Regarding the ceasefire, well, they started killing us in about a month, So I called him, and I told him, we agreed on a ceasefire, didn't we? Well, it wasn't a piece of toilet paper, was it? This is serious business. Or so it seemed. It really was serious.
Merkel, Macron, you and I, we all agreed on this together. A cease fire is important, isn't it? Not for New Year's because everyone was celebrating New Year's, and now they're offering us a Christmas ceasefire. It's all the same. A ceasefire for 2, 3 days just to get some praise.
But this isn't a performance. This isn't some kind of theater. No. This this is about people's lives. And that's what happened.
After that, I called him a few more times. I think I only had 2, 3 calls with him in total. I asked him for a cease fire. He told me, it couldn't be. We will, we will figure it out now.
People from, people from the occupied territory, Russians, and separatists, they were all there together. They continued to shoot and kill our people. Yes. The front lines were quiet, but they killed people. They were killing people.
And I kept calling him. I called again and again, but there was nothing. Until, after a few months, the Russians stopped answering the phone. We did not have any contact since. I wanted another meeting.
Like we had in Normandy, I wanted the next meeting. I wanted to find a solution, but the Russians refused. We tried to make it happen through various European countries, and not only European, but the Russians refused. They passed along some kind of bullshit, made excuses. They didn't want it.
Meanwhile, they were sending their snipers. We had evidence, living proof, even video evidence, because some of them were captured back then. Those were the snipers in training. They were training them. They were training them.
And later those snipers operated in Syria and Africa. These snipers were training in our country, in the east. Ukrainians were living targets. They were shooting from the other side, killing people, women, people, children. They were shooting.
It was a hunt. By the way, it was in the Russian speaking region in the east, where, according to him, everyone is speaking Russian. That's where they were shooting, where the situation currently is the most tense. They killed people. We sent this information, sent pictures, we sent them to the UN, sent them everywhere.
We worked very hard, very persistently. I met with everyone. But who thought of Ukraine back then? They didn't notice it much. They didn't pay much attention to to Crimea being illegally occupied either.
And to be honest, the United States of America too, everyone was somewhat silent about this issue. That's how it was. It was it was like that before a full scale war. I want to ask you a question about the ceasefire. For example, in Mariupol in Mariupol today.
There are American and Ukrainian journalists, and everyone will tell you who had contact, who has contact now with Mariupol, who fled from there in the last minutes just before the occupation, or who was able to leave to escape after the occupation. Chernoff, who won an Oscar, was among them. And the journalists that left Mariupol, they are here. By the way, we had a conversation. They will tell you that 20,000, 30,000 civilians were tortured and buried there.
We do not know the number of victims. People who didn't want to work with them, who refused to cooperate with them, people who went on strikes to protest, people who did not want to work with the Russians who occupied Mariupol. And this is one example, just with this city. And I have a question for you. What about the millions of children?
And I will ask you in Russian so that you hear this without delay. What about the millions of children over there? What if we just arranged a ceasefire without understanding what would happen next? Without understanding, what will happen to Ukraine's security guarantees? What about the millions of children in the occupied territories?
What should I tell them? What am I to tell them? What is it I should tell them? What? Whatever?
Hey. All of you over there, Sia, and those tens of thousands of people buried there, they were? Is that what we want? Are we ready to forgive them for this? We must at least take the first step.
If this is a cease fire, we must know that there is a security guarantee for the part of Ukraine under our control. We need it so that he will not come back. This is very important. And what do we say to the people who live in those territories? These are millions of people.
Did you know that since 2014, in Donetsk, in the Crimea, this is happening in Melitopol as well, as in Berdyansk now. They are making all these kids of drafting age go and fight. And if they don't go, they will be killed. This is do you understand what's happening? That is why a ceasefire.
Everything I said, what I wish for, and I believe in president Trump's power to use all of this information to come up with a way to make Ukraine strong and be strong. Why am I saying that? I will give you an example. President Trump will be in the same situation as I was in 2019. Precisely the same situation.
I want to end the war. We want a lasting peace for Ukraine. We must do this. The ceasefire, exchange people, and then diplomatically return all territories. And we will do this through diplomacy.
What will happen next with president Trump? If the ceasefire happens without security guarantees, at least for the territory we control, what does he get? If he manages to make a ceasefire deal? And 3 months later, Putin launches a new wave of attacks. What will Trump look like?
What will Ukraine look like? What will everyone look like? Putin will just do it. And why would Putin do it? Because today, he's afraid of Trump.
But once Trump manages, for example, to do a ceasefire deal without serious security guarantees for Ukraine, he will give a pass to Putin. Not that he wants to. No. He does not want that. I believe in what he says.
But he will give Putin an opportunity. Because in Putin's head, he wants me to fight with Trump. Putin's plan is to end the occupation of our territory. This is in his sick head, and I'm absolutely sure of this. That is why I told you, don't wait for Putin to want to stop the war.
Pressure him so that he is forced to stop the war. That's important.
Speaker 0: It's important to say that what you said about the children is a tragedy.
Speaker 2: War is hell.
Speaker 0: But let me say again, we must find a path to peace.
Speaker 1: There is one. What is it? There is one. Before ceasefire, strong Ukraine. Strong Ukraine's position?
Yes. We can speak about it with Trump. For me, we can we can speak about security guarantees, but a quick step a quick step is NATO. A partial membership NATO. Yes.
I understand. I understand. I understand Trump's feelings about NATO. I heard him. He's thinking through all of it, of course.
But, anyway, yes, NATO is a strong security guarantee for all the people, for us. Part of security guarantees. The second part is the arms aid package, which we will not use if a cease fire works, nobody will use the weapons. For what? But it has to stay.
But with all due respect to the United States and to the administration, not like before, I I don't want the same situation like we had with Biden. I ask for sanctions now, please. And weapons now. And then we will see. If they start it again, of course, we'll be happy if you'll give us more and you will stand with us shoulder to shoulder.
Of course, that is right. But, but, it's different when you have weapons. Putin wouldn't have been able to occupy so much territory. It was very difficult for us to push him out. But we didn't have weapons before, and that is the same situation.
It can be the same situation. I'm just sharing this with you. Like I said at the very beginning, I wanna be very honest with you and with your audience. Yes. It's true.
If we do not have security guarantees, Putin will come again.
Speaker 0: To make it clear, let's describe the idea that you are speaking about. I would like to offer you other ideas too. But right now, your idea is that NATO accepts Ukraine minus the 5 regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea.
Speaker 1: Just so you understand the situation, the invitation to NATO is legislatively issued to Ukraine. So to us, all those territories are still Ukraine. But the NATO, so far, can only act in the path That is under Ukrainian control. This can be negotiated. I am sure about that.
Yes. This would not be a great success for us. But if we see a diplomatic way to end the war, this is one of the ways. So it is. Sorry.
That is a start. Secondly, weapons, arms aid package. I'm not ready to discuss this publicly right now. It's all written down. And and president Trump might have seen it or not, but we've got no secrets from him.
Yes. So but mostly, it depends on the willingness of the United States. Because some of it will come from the EU, some from the United States, of course, together. So not just from the United States. No no no.
We need unity with this package. So the package and sanctions. Yes. Sanctions. But I think it's in the interest of all the smart people to not have Russian energy on the market in general.
So he he has to stop it. That's all. It's fine. American oil, American gas is okay. Why not?
And it's cheaper. So it will be cheaper for the whole world. The money will go to the United States. And I think he will be happy, and the president and your people will be happy. But it's your decision.
I'm just sharing. Yes, and cheap oil. So Putin won't have so much money for for the war, and that that's it.
Speaker 0: But this is difficult because it's a lot. You're saying to continue the sanctions on Russia to accept Ukraine into NATO. I need to ask you some difficult questions about this.
Speaker 1: Yes. Go on.
Speaker 0: I trust and respect your words today. Many people respect and love you in America. Trump respects you.
Speaker 1: Loves me?
Speaker 0: Oh, come on now. Remember last time you corrected me? When I said that you love Javier Millet, you said no. No. No.
I respect him. So let's not talk about love today. But could we talk seriously about about guaranteeing Russia's security?
Speaker 1: Okay. Can I interview you a little? Question is, what land is the war happening on, and where did it start? On our soil, on our territory. International law was violated.
The sovereignty of our country was violated. Civilians were killed. Tens of 1000 of our people were taken hostage. And everyone will tell you this happened. This is what happened.
When I speak with the global south, which is trying to balance the two sides because of the history, because of their roots, and because of their shared economic, interests with Russia in the past, and now, of course, when you talk to them. They are speaking a little bit like you. I mean, they're balancing a little bit, you know, yeah, a little bit in between, but we will work on it. Yeah. It's it's our first meeting.
During the second one, you will be more on our side.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But it's just just just You're very convinced. We will
Speaker 0: Very charismatic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you. But when I speak with them, when I speak, it's very important. Even with their balancing, attitude towards the war, they all recognize that this is a war. This is not just internal conflict.
This is a full scale war. That began that Putin began. And all of them, all of them, if you talk to them, they say but then they all recognize that, that it's his own big mistake. Putin's mistake. And that he's not right.
That's why I said, no, no, he's not right. And you have to begin from this. If you begin at the middle, between Ukraine and Russia, of course, we can speak like this. You are in the middle and say, okay, what's going on? There is a fight.
Where is the fight? It's not the fight like like in Europe. When Napoleon is fighting against somebody in the middle of Europe. No. This is not in the middle of somewhere of the planet.
Not the planet. It's concretely on our land. So, one, country with 1 army, one person came to another. That's it. It's very clear.
Speaker 0: Again, I would like us to find a path to peace. So let us nevertheless try to start in the middle. What other ideas do you think might you are a very intelligent person. And
Speaker 1: Your Russian isn't that good either. And I told you
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: That this is only our first meeting.
Speaker 0: My English is not very good either.
Speaker 1: Your English is very good.
Speaker 0: Thank you. To be honest, I'm terrible at speaking in every language. Well, there there are other ideas, for instance, that sorry to say this. It sounds crazy, but what if both Ukraine and Russia are accepted into NATO?
Speaker 1: Putin himself spoke about Russia, maybe about NATO. What you just said is very correct. What are the guarantees for Russia? It's not like I'm even interested what happens to them. To be honest, I don't care what will happen to them in the future after the war ends.
But these are our borders, and we must understand what is going on there. Well, the NATO guarantees for Ukraine. Actually, this is also a security guarantee for the Russians. Frankly, I talked about this many times before. Sorry.
I'm speaking figuratively, but as an example, if you were a father who lost his children. A grown man. A grown man, a man, an adult, and the war has ended, and he never got never got justice for real. For example, somebody decides to freeze support. We won't give you anything.
You can't fight. You can't continue. So we stop when we stop. Without any guarantees, without any support, without financing, without okay. And nobody is held accountable, but the man lost his children.
He he will not get anything. None of the killers will be in prison. All the sanctions will be removed, and, and he lost his children. And we have thousands of such people. Why do you think they will not go to Russia?
We'll find a way, and we'll not kill the Russian soldiers there or somebody there. Why wouldn't they? It's human nature. It's not about us. It's everyone.
Read American Writers Always after any war. If there is no justice for people, there must be punishment for the crime. It is only justice. How come my child was taken away? The war took him.
This is very scary. And even whether it was my son who was fulfilling his constitutional duty, or simply a missile that struck a civilian child. And if there is no justice, and the killers are not punished, why wouldn't these people come back with hate? They will definitely come back. So when we talk about NATO, NATO is not only stopping Russia.
Do not forget, NATO is stopping us too. Because there will not be justice for everyone. We know that NATO does not have the right to solve certain issues with war. NATO is a security alliance. It is protection, not brainwashing.
What Putin claims, that this is offensive, is not true. NATO is a defensive alliance, a security alliance, and it is security for Russia.
Speaker 0: But, unfortunately, there are many options for peace that don't involve NATO inviting Ukraine as a member. Can you imagine security guarantees without NATO membership? For example, if America simply leaves NATO, I believe there is a high likelihood that Donald Trump would do such a thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's very bad for NATO. That's the end. That is that's the death of NATO. It is a pity because I think that it's a very good alliance. Maybe not everything is good there from the bureaucracy or money, etcetera.
But, totally, countries who are in NATO, they they don't fight. There is no war on the land of any of these NATO countries. I think that is the answer. It works or not. It works politically or militarily.
I don't know. But it works. So without Trump, without the United States of America, there will not be NATO. That is the first. So and you say, can we imagine that that what?
That there could be security guarantee without No. We don't need guarantees without the United States. That's it. Because the United States is a very strong, powerful country. The United States puts the point.
Of course, Putin said that it's just the Soviet Union, where, by the way, Ukraine was the second strong republic militarily. Yes, by the way. But he he, of course, always forgets about it. But during the World War 2, without help of the United States. Support of your troops, support of your industry, industrially, militarily, without your money, without your people, Hitler could could win.
So the United States helped a lot. Of course, Europe, USSR, and, of course, everybody fought. Everybody did a lot. But without the United States, it couldn't be such. I don't use the war success because I think that there is no war which ends successfully.
Because this is a war. Seven figure losses. Heavy losses in World War 2. Millions of people. And that's why without the United States, security guarantees are not possible.
I mean these security guarantees, which can prevent Russian aggression. Of course, we have security guarantees, bilaterally, with some countries, financing, support of our internal military and defending and humanitarian issues, and demining, which is very important, and helping our children in the school networks. By the way, this is a very sensitive point. How many? How many bomb shelters?
How many bomb shelters we built with the partners for the children? And it's a pity that they are underground. But can you imagine their eyes? When they came after COVID, you understand what does it mean, COVID, but they had COVID and the war, and together they didn't see each other for so many years. And when they saw each other, even underground, they were very happy and and smiling.
So we have such security guarantees, but it's not enough to prevent. Yes. Preventive measures also work. To prevent the aggression of Putin. No.
To English is
Speaker 2: your English is better than my Russian. This is so this is wonderful.
Speaker 1: I I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I'm just giving you compliments.
Speaker 1: Thank you. No. No. I'm supposed to do that
Speaker 2: kind of thing to a president.
Speaker 1: Thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 0: Okay. Once again Come on. Without NATO guarantees, I have a dream that, let's say, on January 25 or sometime at the end of January this year, you will sit down with Donald Trump, with Vladimir Putin, and together negotiate a ceasefire with strict security guarantees, and an agreement will be signed. What will this look like without NATO?
Speaker 1: I will make it clear. And so first of all, I think January 25th or some other day. Well, you just call it January 25th. And I don't mind. It's my birthday.
And we sit down. First of all, with Trump. We agree with him on how we can stop the war, stop Putin. It is important for us to sit down with him. Secondly, it is very important for us that Europe, which is very important for us because we are part of Europe.
And not only geographically, geopolitically, but also in the European Union where we will be. For us, it is very important that Europe also has a voice. It's the second thing. It won't be long because Europe will be looking at us, and we'll be looking at Trump. And, by the way, I now see that when I talk about something with Donald Trump, whether we meet in person or we just have a call, all the European leaders always ask, how was it?
This shows the influence of Donald Trump. And this has never happened before. With an American president, I tell you, from my experience, this also gives you confidence, you know, that he can stop this war. That is why we and Trump come first, and Europe will support Ukraine's position. Because they understand that Ukraine has every right to have its voice heard in this because we are at war.
Trump and I will come to an agreement, and then if and I am sure that he can offer strong security guarantees together with Europe, and then we can talk to the Russians. That's right. Not just 3 of us sitting down at once. And you still talk to me like that? Do you know how?
As if Putin wants to sit down and talk, but Ukraine does not. This is not true.
Speaker 0: I think that, yes, he is in fact ready to talk.
Speaker 1: Did you talk to him?
Speaker 0: On the phone or what?
Speaker 1: How do you normally talk to him?
Speaker 0: I don't know. Normally by the sea. The same as with you. He invites you to the sea with me. Just the 3 of us.
Speaker 1: No. No. One of us may drown. Who? Are you good at swimming?
Yes. I'm a good swimmer.
Speaker 0: You're a good swimmer. Well,
Speaker 1: And I would like to add that if you have any contact with them, I just want to hear what happens then.
Speaker 0: I have never talked to Vladimir Putin, but I have a feeling that he is ready because Donald Trump is ready. I hope you are ready, and this is not just a feeling, but a dream.
Speaker 2: I have a dream here that the 3 of you will get together in a room and make peace. And I want to understand what it looks like, what security guarantees look like that would satisfy Ukraine, that would satisfy Russia.
Speaker 1: Ukraine needs security guarantees, 1st and foremost. We are in danger. That is why they are called so. This is no joke to me. Let's take a few steps back.
Interesting. Why are security guarantees, a strong position of Ukraine, strong weapons, and so on so important? I will give you a little history lesson. Although I think you have prepared yourself and know everything perfectly, well, you can correct me on that. Yes.
Ukraine had security guarantees, the Budapest memorandum. Nuclear weapons are the security guarantees that Ukraine had. Ukraine had nuclear weapons. I do not want to characterize it as good or bad. Today, the fact that we do not have them is bad.
Why? Because this is war. Today, we are at war. Because you unleashed we because you have unleashed the hands of a nuclear power. A nuclear power is fighting against us, against Ukraine, and doing what it wants.
By the way, even you are now talking about ceasefire, just a ceasefire. Maybe give flowers to Putin. Maybe to say, thank you so much for these years. That was a great part of my life. No.
We are not just ready for this. Why? The Budapest memorandum, nuclear weapons, this is what we had. Ukraine used them for protection. This does not mean that someone attacked us.
That doesn't mean that we would have used it. We had that opportunity. These were our security guarantees. Why am I talking about this in detail? Because if you take the Budapest memorandum, by the way, I discussed this with president Trump.
We have not finished this conversation yet. We will continue it. Regarding the Budapest memorandum, the Budapest memorandum included security guarantees for Ukraine. At first, 3, 3. The most important security guarantors for Ukraine.
3. Strategic friends and partners of Ukraine. This was an agreement. United States of America,
Speaker 3: Russia, Britain,
Speaker 1: France, and China joined. There were 5 states that these are not even security guarantees. We now understand that this is not a guarantee of security. Because on the one hand, these are security guarantees, but there was an English word, as far as I understand, assurance.
Speaker 3: It is translated as assurance. Assurance. Right?
Speaker 1: And in Russian, it will be an What? Assurance. That is give up nuclear weapons because you were under pressure of the US and Russia for Ukraine to give them up. These two powers were exerting pressure. These two states negotiated to ensure that Ukraine does not have nuclear weapons.
Ukraine agreed. These these are the largest states. This is the nuclear five that does not not even provide security guarantees. Now we just need to find these people, and we just need to put in jail all of those who, frankly, invented all this. So confidence.
So confidence.
Speaker 3: Assurance. Assurance that Ukraine will be
Speaker 1: territorially integral with its sovereignty. It was a piece of paper. If you are curious, by the way, that after occupying part of our Donbas and Crimea, Ukraine sent diplomats 3 times, I don't think I remember, 3 times within a few years. We sent letters to all security guarantors, to all members of the Budapest memorandum. What did they send?
That What was written on the piece of paper? Consultations. Ukraine holds consultations if its territorial integrity is violated, And everyone should be in consultation. Everyone must come. Everyone must meet urgently.
Speaker 2: USA,
Speaker 1: Britain, Russia, France, China. Did anyone come? You ask. No. Did anyone reply to these letters?
Official letters, they are all recorded by diplomats. Did anyone conduct consultations? No. And why not? They didn't give a fuck.
This is understandable in Russian. Right? That as Russia didn't give a damn, neither did all the other security guarantors of the Budapest memorandum. None of them gave a damn about this country, these people, these security guarantees, etcetera. We take a break.
This will be a Budapest memorandum. The last time with me, imagine how many years it was with me, in February 2022. In February 2022, the war began. A full scale war. Letters for consultations have been sent.
No one answers. Next, we are taking a break from the Budapest memorandum. The question is simple about Budapest. Can we trust this? No.
Whichever country out of these 5 sat at the negotiating table, just a piece of paper. Believe me we will save you. No. Another. This is a train.
This is a train with waste paper, with security guarantees, which Ukraine has been riding for many years. The second car on this train is the Minsk agreements. The Normandy format and the Minsk agreements, where it was written, where the signatories were. The United States of America was no longer there. I understand that Obama was here at the time.
And as far as I know, I think they were simply not interested in what happened to Ukraine and where it was in general, where it was located. Well, somewhere there. Part of something. People, well, people, and let it be. Let it be with these people.
The United States simply did not participate. In the Minsk agreements. There are no claims to the US because they were not guarantors. Where is the claim? A step back.
2008. Bucharest. Everyone has already learned from the Budapest memorandum. Bucharest. 2,008.
Bucharest. Mister Bush, president of the United States. Republican. Says that Ukraine should be in NATO. This is the voice of Republicans.
Check it out. Ukraine should be in NATO. Everybody's looking at the US, always. All in favor. Who is against?
Merkel. So she opposes, and she forced everyone not to give Ukraine an invitation to join NATO because that would be a step. Seriously, Republicans were in favor. The US was in favor. Because Republicans and Bush were not afraid of anyone.
They were not afraid of anyone, and they knew that Ukraine rightly wanted to join NATO. She chooses so. And what is the question? Well, people made their choice. Well, and the Russians will not look that way.
That was not the case then. Why? Because the Russians were different. Next, Minsk. We didn't succeed.
After the Minsk agreements, as I told you, hundreds of meetings were held. I have had hundreds of meetings since 2019. We could not think about a ceasefire. A ceasefire is our offer. This is not somebody's suggestion.
This is mine. I would like. I wanted to in Ukraine. Society was divided. Not everyone wanted to.
Half did not want to. Half were against. Half were in favor. Some of them shouted, do not believe it. Some of them shouted, believe it.
I am the president of Ukraine. I was given a mandate of trust by 70% of the population to take appropriate steps, and I made them. This is not a joke. We'll just sit the 3 of us. I am simply telling you what is.
This is how can I tell you? These meetings must be serious and prepared, and prepared with those who want peace. Ukraine wants peace. US wants peace. We have to sit down with Trump, and that is 100%.
1st and foremost, number 1. Moreover, he told me on the phone that he is waiting for us to meet, and there will be an official visit, and my visit would be the first or one of the first to him. And for him, this topic is very important. I know that he has his own matters. American issues, I understand.
I heard his election program. But regarding international affairs, I think our issue is one of the most pressing issues for president Trump. Therefore, I believe very much, I trust his words, and I hope we will meet again. We need to prepare. We have many plans to build on, and they exist.
And they are supported by many countries. But we need his vision. He needs to look at all these details. But his vision, please. Because he can stop Putin because Putin is afraid of him.
That's a fact. But Trump is a president of a democratic country. And he does not come for life. He is not Putin. He will not come for 25 years.
He will come for his term. Please tell me. Well, for example, he came for 4 years. And for the 5th year, Putin came with a war. Will it make Trump feel better that there was no war during his time, and that Ukraine was destroyed after him?
Why destroyed? Putin is whoever. A killer whoever, but not a fool. He will be prepared. He knows all mistakes.
He understands how we defeated his army after the invasion began. He realized that this was not a Soviet war, and that this would not happen with us. He will prepare. He will let everything into arms production. He will have lots of weapons, and there will be a very large army.
And you think that after such humiliation, 4 years without a war, he did not finish us. He will return and fight only against Ukraine. He will destroy everything around. And if you say there is a risk that Trump, president Trump, will withdraw from NATO, for example, this is a decision of the United States. I'm simply saying that if it does, Putin will destroy Europe.
Calculate the size of army in Europe. It's just that I say it for a reason. Do the calculation. Why did Hitler conquer all of Europe then? Almost.
Just count, remember, his armies of 1,000,000. Calculate what Europe has. What are the largest armies? We have the largest army. The Ukrainian army is the largest in Europe.
The second place after us is 4 times smaller than us. France. Yes. 200,000? I think the French have about 200,000.
We have 980.
Speaker 0: So this powerful coalition of European nations.
Speaker 1: That will not be enough.
Speaker 2: Yes. It's not gonna be enough. But you're a smart man. There's a lot of ideas. Partnerships, with Global South, India, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, partnerships, political partnerships.
Speaker 0: It all protects you.
Speaker 1: 1st of all, look at one example. North Korea. Just look at this example. 12,000 Has arrived. Today.
3,800. Killed. Or wounded. They can bring more. 30, 40,000, or maybe 500.
They can bring many people. Why? Because they have order, autocracy, and everything. Can Europe bring people together? No.
Will Europe be able to build an army consisting of 2 to 3000000 people? No. Europe will not want to do this. And for what? We definitely don't want a world war with you.
There is no such purpose. There is no such purpose as gathering everyone. We do not want any war. We want to stop the Russians. And they invite North Korean soldiers.
Invited. Their faces are burned. They themselves burn their faces. Those who cannot escape, injured or killed. There's a video.
Everything I'm telling you, there is evidence of this. So that they are not recognizable. Right? It means what does it mean? It's out of values which share Europe.
Europe counts. It means that those guys, they don't count. Rahuyut. It's count. Yes?
They don't count the number of people. That is the answer. Can they move more? Yes. Can they move dozen of thousands?
Yes. Because we see what they have. Last year, for example, Europe gave us 1,000,000 artillery rounds. We produced a lot ourselves, but they gave us initiative. It was initiative.
1,000,000 artillery rounds, and and of 155, and etcetera. We produce more, but North Korea gave Putin 3.7. Just gave him. So he also has a deficit for today. It means he needs what?
He needs time.
Speaker 2: But the number of soldiers
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And the number of artillery rounds is not everything.
Speaker 0: As you have said, let's say Donald Trump guarantees security for 4 years.
Speaker 2: You can form partnerships with with India, with Saudi Arabia that enforce punishment to stick on oil prices, for example, if any aggressive action is taken. You can actually even build the I've met a lot of incredible Ukrainian tech people, IT people. You could build great companies that form partnerships with the United States, that form partnerships with China, and that is a big leverage against aggression of however many million artillery rounds. And that sheet of paper, you don't need a sheet of paper of protection.
Speaker 1: That's you. You, well, when you speak.
Speaker 2: In English?
Speaker 1: In English. Yeah. You don't even need, answers because when you now were talking, you already answered on all the questions. The first one is that, during this time, you need just cooperation, a lot of money for for this military industry. In Ukraine or in Europe, with India, Saudi Arabia, Saudi, and the United States, you need a lot of money.
So the question is where you will get it. So my answer was to Trump. I said, this is one of the security guarantees. Take 300,000,000,000 of frozen Russian assets. We will take it.
Take money, what we need for our interior production, and we will buy all the weapons from the United States. We don't need gifts from the United States. It will be very good for your industry. For the United States, we will put money there. Russian money.
Not Ukrainian. Not European. Russian money. Russian assets. They have to pay for this.
We will put it, and we will make it. This is one of security guarantees. Yes. Of course. Because this is a military guarantee.
Yes. But then the second you said, that energy price and a lot of, sanctions on products, and the Russian shadow fleet, and etcetera. That is the second answer we spoke about before. Yes. Put more sanctions on them.
More sanctions. It's okay. Not but not to take off sanctions.
Speaker 2: That's okay with you. It's not a go be going to be okay with the president of Russia.
Speaker 1: Yes. But I'm not thinking how it will be very good for him. He's still a killer.
Speaker 0: I understand. But, unfortunately, the reality is that a compromise is needed in order to reach
Speaker 1: an agreement. Understanding the fact that he is no in jail after all the murders. He is not in jail assuming all the murders, and no one in the world is able to put him in his place, send him to prison. Do you think this is a small compromise?
Speaker 0: This is not a small compromise. And to forgive him will not be a small compromise.
Speaker 1: To forgive? No one will forgive. This is absolutely impossible to forgive him. We cannot get into the head and soul of a person who lost their family. Nobody never will accept this.
Absolutely impossible. I don't know. Do you have children?
Speaker 0: No. Not yet. Okay. But I would like to.
Speaker 1: Yes. God bless. And this is the most important thing in life? And they simply took away the most precious thing from you? Will you ask?
Who ruined your life before going to rip their head off? I'm just curious. They took your child away. Are you going to ask who did this? And they will answer that that dude did this.
You will say, oh, well, then there are no questions. No. No. No. You will go fucking hell and bite their head off, and it will be fair.
Can murderers be forgiven? That's why you make security guarantees, what I told you, for those who are here, and what we control and what will not happen. And that those who lost, we will we will we will never forget in a matter of time. But when you gave us NATO, I just said. This means that after a while, everything I said about NATO, after a while, Ukraine will not go against Russia.
And Russia will not go against Ukraine because you are in NATO. I am just saying, is not that a compromise? So NATO is a compromise. This is not just a security guarantee, in my opinion. Look.
When rockets were attacking Israel, and Israel is not in NATO, NATO countries' aircrafts were deployed. Air defense. The air defense worked. Operated by different Middle Eastern countries. These are also security guarantees.
And, by the way, Israel has nuclear weapons. So why do they need NATO when, in fact, they have more than NATO has? The American, British, and French aviation stepped in. There was ADA. I don't remember from from Jordan.
Listen. Thousands of missiles were shot down that way. This is this is what is this? So it's a guarantee of safety. It's just that it's not called NATO.
Is some uncle Vova irritated by the word NATO? There's a problem with the word? And I think he's simply irritated by people who who are alive and living here.
Speaker 0: If you believe this, it will be very difficult to negotiate. If you think that the president of a country is completely crazy, it is really hard to come to an agreement with him. You have to look at him as a serious person who loves his country and loves the people in his country. And he conducts, yes, destructive military actions.
Speaker 1: Talking about now? Who loves his country? Putin.
Speaker 0: Do you think he doesn't love his country?
Speaker 1: No. What is his country? He happened to consider Ukraine his country. What is his country? Explain it.
Tomorrow he will say that it's America.
Speaker 3: No pity for the Chechens? Do they look like Russians? Do they speak Russian?
Speaker 1: Of of course. Of course they learn in schools, like anywhere there's been Russification. Who are the Chechens? A different people. Another faith.
Other people. Another language. A million. Eliminated. And eliminated how?
How did he kill them? With love? I know fuck. By hugging. In Ukrainian, as we as we say, strangling by hugging.
I love you so so much. I love you so much that I want to kill you. That's his love. And that's not love. You're mistaken.
He does not love his people. He loves his inner circle. It's only a small part of the people. He doesn't love them. Why?
I'll explain. You cannot send your people to another land to die knowing that they will die. Children. My my daughter. My daughter.
She is she is 20 years old. For me, this is a child. She is already an adult. Of course. But she is she is a child.
The boys the boys he sends are 18 years old. 18 years old. They are children. He sends them. It's not that fascists came to his land, and he needs to defend it.
He he came to ours, and he sent them. Chechnya. He sent them. Syria. He sent them.
Africa. He sent them. Georgia. He sent them. Moldova, Transnistria, that was before him.
Fine. We can leave that aside. He has enough sins of his own. And and then there's Ukraine, the largest part. 700.
80,000. 788,000. Killed or or wounded. Russians. He calls them all Russians, even those who don't know who don't know how to speak, Russian.
On his territory of Russia, everything they've enslaved? Yes. Proud Varangians. So I wonder, is that love? What love is this?
And for what? Does he love his people? No. Does he love his land? His country is bigger than America.
How much land do you need? America is huge. America is simply an outstanding country. Outstanding country. Russia is bigger.
Well, just bigger. So so ask yourself, does he love them? What is he doing, and what does he love? Do you think he's been everywhere? In his Russia?
It's impossible to get around it. He hasn't been everywhere. He just hasn't.
Speaker 0: Well, I believe that Donald Trump loves America, and I don't think he has been to every single American city.
Speaker 1: No. No. No. I saw his rallies. So many rallies.
No. No. Let's let's be honest. Let's be honest. He had it, and I saw it, and it's very difficult.
He's not I mean, he's not 18. Yes. But he's strong, and this is his will. Everywhere where the war is, I'm sure. I pray to God it never will be on your land.
Yes. And I'm sure that it will not be. But I'm sure that if you have, in some region, the problems, how to say earthquake, hurricane, you have it all, well, I'm sure that president Trump would be there. After one day, 2 or 3 days, I don't know the security of all these things, but he will be. Otherwise, how will people look at him?
Yes. Of course he will. Of course. The same about me. I'm not comparing myself with him.
I'm just where it is difficult for people, I have to come. The question. The next question is very simple. Region. Kursk region.
The operation there. Did Putin was Putin in in Kursk during during 4 months?
Speaker 2: No. Listen, I have tremendous respect for you, admiration for many reasons. One of which is you stayed in Kyiv. And, another one is that you visit the front, and you talk to the soldiers in the front, and you talk to people all across Ukraine. Absolutely.
Tremendous respect for that. So Thanks. And not enough people say that, you know, I had a conversation with, Tucker Carlson, for example. And, you know, I said that you're a hero for staying in Kyiv. And he said, well, he just did a thing that every leader should do.
But I think not enough leaders do the thing that every leader should do. So tremendous respect. Thanks. I agree with you totally. Yes.
A leader should go to the to the front of a war. You know? That said, America has waged wars all across the world. That has the war in the in the in Afghanistan and Iraq costs $9,000,000,000,000 and killed over a 1000000 people. War is hell.
And that just because war is waged in in in terrible ways that it is, does not mean the leader does not love their country. But I take your point. I once again have a dream that even if there's hate that you sit down with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and you find a way to peace. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 0: What do you think? Will there ever be a day when the Ukrainian people forgive the Russian people, and both peoples will travel back and forth again and marry each other, rekindle and form friendships? Will there be such a time in the future?
Speaker 1: I think history has long answered this question. I don't know how it will be for us. It will be in the future. Without a doubt, history has shown this time. And again, after every devastating war.
One generation, one country recognizes that it, is, was an aggressor, and, it comes to realize this is impossible to forgive. This is precisely the kind of education they've had in Germany for many years. Even though these children had nothing to do with it, it was their grandfathers who who participated, and not all of them were participants of Nazi Germany's war against, essentially against the world. Yes. And against life.
And, therefore, they're still apologizing. Apologizing is not easy. They know that they were the aggressors. They were guilty. They do not look for compromise in history.
Compromise in itself buys time. And they understand this. There are convicted murderers, condemned both historically and by their own people. Reparations have been paid, and security guarantees have been established, by the way, and all this is done. And when all this is done and recognized, in any case, people develop relations with each other.
That's clear. But it can only happen, the way it always has always has in history. Russia will have to apologize. It will. This will happen because they are guilty.
They are guilty. And as I told you, the guilty are different. Both those who participated and, and those who remain silent because silence is also about participating, in my opinion.
Speaker 0: Can I ask about Donald Trump? We've already mentioned him a lot, but let's focus there.
Speaker 2: What do you admire? What do you respect about Donald Trump? And, also, maybe why do you think he won overwhelmingly the election in 2024, that American people chose him?
Speaker 1: He was stronger. He was much more stronger than Kamala Harris, Biden first, and then Kamala Harris. Yes? He showed that he can he can intellectually and physically. It was an important point to show that if you want to have a strong country, you have to be strong, and he was strong.
And this number of rallies, what I said, is not a simple thing. He showed that he can. He is strong. So he he doesn't have any questions with his I mean, this age and etcetera. Nothing.
He is young. He is young here, and his brains work. So I think I think it's important, very important. And, of course, a lot of interior questions. I I understand the the prices and etcetera.
Economic questions And the questions of you have the questions with with other things.
Speaker 2: Immigration. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of things. I understand. So maybe he answered answered on those on those questions which people had.
Speaker 2: One of the questions
Speaker 1: That he will finish the war.
Speaker 2: That he will finish the war?
Speaker 1: Yeah. For me, this is the main question. But I said that for him, he's the president of the United States. For him, his priority is his questions in the United States, and I understand and I respect it. But the second he was speaking about the world, yes, he said that he will finish the war.
And I hope very much because, I think that that our people really support his idea. And that's why I said it is for me. It's very, very important to have enough people around him who will have connections with him with the right things. For me, the truth is very right things. What's going on really in the battlefield?
What's going on really with Putin and Russia? What he really wants, and that is just to have it. You know? Before any decision, you have to be at the same level of information. And we need, really, we need him to know everything from us, from you, from from people in Ukraine, from people around who are really afraid afraid that Putin doesn't want to stop the war, afraid that he will come back with his aggression.
Speaker 0: So first of all, I should mention that, our conversation today will be translated and dubbed into Ukrainian, English, Russian, other languages, Spanish. So you're in your voice. So there are great guys originally from Poland. It's a company called 11 Labs. They use they've trained an AI.
Artificial intelligence sounds truly remarkable in your voice. You have the freedom to speak in any language you choose, but no matter what, you will always find yourself returning to speaking in Ukrainian. That is when you talk about Donald Trump. You can do it in Ukrainian or Russian.
Speaker 2: Everybody understands. Everybody understands. But you said that there's some things about the war that maybe Americans don't understand. So we talked about Putin. We we talked about the security guarantees, but the reality of war, what's happening on the ground, what do you think that people should understand?
Speaker 1: First of all, they have to understand the idea of Putin's war. It is very important for him. I consider this process. I think it is very important for him not to give Ukraine independence. To prevent Ukraine from developing, he's an independent country.
For him, influence influence on Ukraine cannot be lost. And for for him it is, you know, like, I think for him, this is such a goal, in this last mile. And certainly for him, the last mile and of his, of his political life. And I think that this is the goal for him. The second story, I do not want to talk about these banalities that he wants to return all the territories of the Soviet Union influence over them.
He does this little by little. I just don't wanna people need to know details. For example, Georgia, which was headed towards the EU and NATO, completely turns towards Russia regardless of of the fact that they have frozen conflicts. They have in Abkhazia what we have with Donbas, which is controlled by militant rebels. Abkhazia is not developing.
It's just a part, a very beautiful part of Georgia that has died. And if you have the opportunity, then go there someday. You will understand it simply died because Putin wanted to. He wanted not to allow them to develop because a frozen conflict means that you will not be accepted in the EU, and certainly will not be accepted into NATO. Because right now, yes, they do not take you because of a frozen conflict.
And this is what Putin did. It's very important for him not to lose this influence.
Speaker 2: That
Speaker 1: is, he turned back Georgia, young people, students, everyone leaves, and this is a fact. Georgia is quite small. And they will leave they they wanna live in Europe. They wanna develop somebody in the United States, somebody in Europe, somebody in the EU, somebody in Britain. He will he will now fight for the Moldovan parliament.
This is his second step. You will see in April what happens. You will see, oh, he will start turning Moldova away away from Europe. Although they want to go there, he does not care. They will, be a pro Russian party and they will do something with the current president because she she has she has won the the elections.
She is pro European, but he he will turn this back. The next steps are completely clear. He will do everything wherever he has lost influence, where there was influence influence of the Soviet Union. He'll turn it back as much as possible. And we understand at what price.
You have seen Syria. You saw these tortures, what we saw in Bucha, what we saw everywhere we came and where our territories were occupied. In Syria, the same happened. There were a 1,000 people there, and you have seen it. Scientists were found.
Doctors were found. It is clear that, any people are capable of generating their own opinion. Show their skills. Develop society. Everyone who can express an opinion.
Everyone who can shape the independence and maturity of society. Such people are not needed, and he wants this in Ukraine. And therefore, everyone should understand that Ukraine, is like a large wall. From that, Europe, and if, god willing, president Trump does not withdraw from NATO. Because, again, I believe that this is the biggest risk.
I think 2 steps. 2 steps that Putin would like to see is a weak NATO. And this without Trump and a weak Ukraine, which cannot survive on the battlefield, simply cannot survive, and prevent me from building a strong relationship with Trump. I think these two steps, leaving NATO and Ukraine's weakness, will lead to a large scale war, which Putin will wage on all the territories of that Europe post Soviet Europe I mean, Soviet Europe, not post Soviet, but post World War 2 period. That is Soviet Europe, Soviet era Europe.
In order to completely, control everything there. This is what he will do. And besides this, this will happen in any case, even if the US is thinking about leaving NATO. This war will affect the United States because North Korea is the first sign. North Korean skills, North Korean knowledge, which they are now gaining from this war.
These include mastering new technologies, large scale drones, missiles, how it works, the kind of technological war we have today, cyber war, etcetera. All these skills Korea will bring home and scale up in that region, and this will be a risk for the Pacific region. Security first and foremost. For Japan, and for for South Korea, they will face these risks 100%, and it will be clear that Taiwan will also have to face them. Without this, it is impossible.
This is already happening. This is already happening. Therefore, I think that president Trump has all power to stop Putin and give Ukraine strong security guarantees.
Speaker 0: We've been talking for 2 hours at the pause. You want to to take the pause?
Speaker 1: We will we will make a pause. We can have coffee. Right? Coffee?
Speaker 0: Let's do it. Yeah. And give the interpreter.
Speaker 1: He's he's struggling. Some water.
Speaker 2: We'll keep switching languages.
Speaker 1: Like a dragon, you know? Three heads, three translators.
Speaker 2: So one of the difficult decisions you had to make when the war began is to enact martial law. So when you won the presidency, you were the warrior for freedom. In fact, this war is for freedom, for, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom. But a lot of freedoms had to be curtailed, sacrificed in this fight because there's so much focus on the war. Is is do you see the tension do you feel the tension of that, the sacrifice that had to be made in democracy, in freedom, in hat in fighting this war.
Speaker 1: In any case, this war is for our freedom. Generally speaking, to be honest, when you understand, over time, when the war passes, you understand that your main values are, at home. This is your home, your children, your love. God willing, parents are alive. And if and if not alive, then their memory visiting their grave.
Choosing how to work, how much, preferably choosing where to work. All this is freedom. Freedoms are not just a desire. They are an opportunity. In any case, you are right because war is the limitation of opportunities.
In any case, you fight for these opportunities, your parents, your parents and God, gave you life. Right? You fight for your life. Your life. But we need to understand that first there is a war and then martial law is introduced.
Martial law is not introduced because someone wanted to. You say this is not Pinochet. This is not Pinochet, and so on. This is a completely different story. An aggressor came.
And according to your legislation, if the border is violated, if there is armed aggression, you have all this written down, long ago written out in legislation. You introduce martial law, and the introduction of martial law everywhere, at all times, means, in any case, a restriction of opportunities. If opportunities are limited, rights and freedoms are restricted. Therefore the war itself restricts rights and freedoms. Yes.
And you can't do anything about it. We we try honestly to balance as much as possible. I believe that, business sector works despite the difficulties of the war, and we do everything somewhere, you know, there, somewhere, to reduce some load. Unfortunately, we cannot reduce taxes. On the contrary, a military tax is used for war.
You need to take money somewhere. This, by the way, is about the fact the fact that the US gave us a lot, and Europe too. But compared to how much we needed for the war, this is not all. As for military salaries, you know, you know that we could not pay the salaries of a million strong army. We could not pay it using the money from our
Speaker 3: partners. These are all expenses.
Speaker 1: This is all the money that the country and people have accumulated. You can't do anything. I really want to reduce taxes. I will tell you, frankly. I really want to.
Well, I think that the whole new tax system, new deregulation, new steps, new reforms, all this will be after the war. Although there is something to brag about, this is proof. And this this is a document because if you want to get a, candidacy for European Union, You must implement the appropriate number of reforms. We do everything. During the war, we voted for many reforms, including anti corruption, banking reforms, land reforms, major reforms.
We started a large privatization, and the war did not stop us. Yes. It slowed down, but we went through a lot.
Speaker 2: When do you think you'll hold elections? Because for people who don't know, part of the martial law, elections were suspended, and they were delayed and delayed and delayed. And I think the next sort of plan is in February of, 2025. When do you think there will be presidential elections in Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Elections were postponed once. They were not delayed, to be clear. Elections did not take place in 2024. That year, first of all, we need to understand the constitution. They were scheduled to be held in the spring of 2024.
Due to martial law, under the constitution, you cannot do this. These these are the presidential elections. The parliamentary elections did not take place in the fall of 2024, according to the constitution. Yes. There are security things.
There is the constitution, but there are security things. That is, everyone in Ukraine understands that this cannot be done until the war is over, or legislation needs to be changed. I believe that elections will take place immediately after the end of martial law. This is according to the law. Or members of the parliament need to get together and change legislation, which will be will be very difficult to do because society is against it.
Why society against it? It is understandable why. Because we want elections that we want to trust. 8,500,000 people went abroad. The infrastructure needs to be created for these millions of people to vote, Millions of people in the occupied territories.
I'm not even talking about the occupation of 2014. I'm talking about the occupation right now. What to do with these people? This is a difficult question. And one of the most unfair ones is how to vote without having a 1000000 soldiers.
That is, it is impossible. We need to think about how to change the system if the elections are held in times of war, change the legislation, which should include changes to the voting system, To think about online voting. Everyone is afraid because of certain attacks, like cyber attacks, and so on. But we need to think about it. I really think that it's possible that we can end the war in 2025.
Speaker 0: In January. We've already agreed on it.
Speaker 1: I would very much like to. I would very much like to. After after the war? And immediately. Yes.
Immediately. In the year of the end of the war, it's a fact. Why? Because when martial law ends, you can immediately vote in parliament to hold elections. And then everyone, everyone will vote.
Because there are no restrictive measures. And after they vote, I think elections can be held in 90 days, something, Something like that. Yes. And this means that immediately after the end of the war, elections may take place in 90 days.
Speaker 2: Are you running for reelection?
Speaker 1: Even I don't know, really. I don't know. I don't know. It is a very difficult question. It depends on how this war will finish.
It depends on what people will want. Mostly, it depends on people. 1st of all, and, of course, my family. We had no time to speak about it with with my family and, and, of course, didn't have a chance because we we don't think about it now. I mean, it's something, you know.
There are a lot of, some not a lot of, but enough voices in Ukraine from politicians, opposition, and etcetera about this, I guess. But but we don't think really seriously. Didn't think seriously with my family about it. So this is war. I mean, how to think about what we'll be after?
It's very difficult, really very difficult.
Speaker 2: If we look at the field of candidates, I just maybe you can give your opinion about the set of ideas you see out there, including your own about the future of Ukraine. As I understand, the candidates include, and many others. This is the Internet speaking to me. What do you think is a space of ideas that these candidates represent?
Speaker 1: I think it can be there can be even a bigger number of candidates. Yeah. We I I don't I don't really know what will be. They have rights to participate if they want to. Yes.
If they really want to and can, they they can go and do what they want, honestly. Most important is what are they doing now? I think that all these people are the famous Ukrainian people, and and it's and it's important for them to do everything they can today not begin any, election campaign. I think this what can divide our people to have the elections, you know, during the war. I mean, this make steps, speak about elections a lot, you know, make a big mess about it.
I I think this is not right. That's why I'm not agreeing with some of these people. But they they can and they I I think that they can and maybe some of them will. And it's okay. It's normal.
It's very normal. Our system differs from the system in the United States. You have 2 parties, and the parties decide who will be the leader. And in Ukraine, everybody can participate. Let them.
Speaker 2: You think you're gonna win the debate? You versus, Zaluzhny Pashank or Hristovich, and you decide to run, do you think you're gonna win the debate? Or you're again focused on the war and
Speaker 1: everything Oh, I'm really focusing on the war, and
Speaker 2: I understand.
Speaker 1: I think, I I think the the most difficult debate is what will be brought to the table, and we spoke about it. It will be during the war. How to finish the war. I think that is my goal because it will be one of my most complicated debates. And for any president who is in a war, of course, but I think this is my goal, to win.
Those debates. And the other things are not not for today.
Speaker 2: As I said, the dream I have is it's a historic opportunity to make peace, to make lasting peace soon. So I'm glad you're focused on that. Let me ask a question about that a lot of people in the United States think about, and I I care a lot about about the future of Ukraine is corruption. This is something you have cared a lot about for a long time. You won the presidency 2019 in big part, your message of fighting corruption.
But there's a lot of accusations that during war I mentioned $9,000,000,000 in the United States. War breeds corruption. So can you speak to that, how you have been fighting corruption? And you can you respond to the accusations that has been corruption in Ukraine? You know it's very simple.
First of all,
Speaker 1: we really have a very sophisticated anti corruption system. Sophisticated not in the sense that it's difficult to understand, but in that it really consists of many elements. It's the most sophisticated in all of Europe. This is another requirement of the European Union. It was a requirement for, Ukraine.
And for many years, Ukraine was not trusted. I want to tell you that under me, we all voted for bills, all the anti corruption reforms, all well, almost all reforms. And all anti corruption bodies today are independent. They work. As requested.
I still believe that they are not perfect yet. There are many issues. There is a judicial system, but also a judicial reform that our partners, the United States plus the EU, demanded from us. This is all written out. This is written out in specific laws, in specific decrees, in specific decisions.
We did this. We've done 99% of this. If something has not been done, it means that it is on the way. But in principle, all this exists, and there is no such system as we have in Europe. To say that we do not have corruption would be lying.
We just talk about it openly. We are genuinely fighting against it. Look. We have, sitting in our prison, Ihor Kolomoisky, who is the most, influential Ukrainian oligarch since independence. And no one could do anything about him.
The United States of America wanted to have Kolomoisky, and they went to great lengths because of money laundering, etcetera. There are criminal cases in the United States, I think in Delaware, something like that. Neither Europe could do anything about it. That is, we did a lot with oligarchs. Russian oligarchs, sanctions were imposed.
They were thrown out. Some of them fled the state, but they are all they are all under sanctions. We exchanged some of them for our soldiers, such as Medvedchuk, to whose daughter Putin is godfather. That is, we fought against the strongest influential oligarchs, which, are and were in Ukraine, and we eliminated a lot of corruption. Of course, corruption exists in everyday life.
It exists. But institutionally, I am sure that Ukraine will overcome all this. This takes a little time, I would say honestly. That listen, what we call corruption, And in some state of the world, it's called lobbyism. But this does not mean, that there is no corruption there.
Let's take the aid you mentioned during the war. First of all, we have no money. We have no money except for the war. We received weapons from the United States of America, from Europe, if we take, for example, money from the United States of America. During all this time of the war, around a 177,000,000,000 have been voted for or decided upon.
177,000,000,000. Let's be honest. We have not received half of this money. The second point, which is very important, just as an example, is it corruption?
Speaker 3: The first question? Who's corruption?
Speaker 1: This is the second. Here is just one small example for you. When the United States began to transfer us weapons, it was American money, but American weapons. Money for these weapons. I had as a president, I had cargo jets.
Not in Ukraine because of the war. We moved them very quickly to Europe. We had cargo. We have good cargo fleet. Very good.
Of, because of Antonov? So I asked American side to grant me the opportunity because our jets are at, another, yeah, airfield. And I asked America to give me the opportunity to use our jets for transfer, not to pay a lot. To whom? To your companies.
To American companies. No. I didn't get this opportunity. My jets stayed put. And the United States jets, cargo jets, move these weapons.
But everywhere you have to spend money. So we could get more weapons, but we have to pay for this very expensive fleet. My question, is this corruption or not? Or lobbyism? What is it?
Speaker 2: You mean corruption on the part of the comp US companies?
Speaker 1: Yes. Making such decisions. Yes.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 1: The lobbying for such decisions involves some companies that make these decisions. But I can't be open about it, and I couldn't speak loudly about it. I didn't want I didn't want nor did I intend to cause any scandals to arise because otherwise, you can freeze the support and that's it. And that's why when we talk about corruption, we must ask, who is involved? If we had 177 and if we get the half, where is the half?
If you will find the second half, you will find, corruption.
Speaker 2: There is a perception of corruption. People like Donald Trump and Elon Musk really care, about fighting corruption. What can you say to them to gain their trust that the money is going towards this fight for freedom, towards the war effort?
Speaker 1: In most cases, we did not receive money. We received weapons. And where we saw risks that something could be a weapon, we would slap everyone on the wrist. And believe me, this is not only about Ukraine. On the supply chain, everywhere.
There are some or other. People and companies who want to make money because everyone makes money on the war. We did not profit from the war. If we found someone, believe me, we slapped everyone on the wrist. And and we did that.
We did that, and we will continue to do so because because to this day, when someone says that Ukraine was selling weapons, and, by the way, Russia was the one pushing this narrative. We always responded. Our soldiers would kill such people with their own hands without any trial. Do you honestly think anyone could steal weapons by the truckload when we ourselves don't have enough on the front lines, and yet we have to provide proof to defend ourselves? Because when there's an abundance of such misinformation, distrust starts to grow.
And you're right, people listen to various media outlets, see this, and lose faith in you. In the end, you lose trust. And with it, you lose support. Therefore, believe me, we are fighting more against disinformation than against particular cases. Although, I still emphasize once again, at the everyday level, such things are still important.
We catch these these people and we fight them.
Speaker 0: I mentioned Elon Musk. I would be interested to hear what you think of him. Why you respect him as a person, as an engineer, as an innovator, as a businessman. I would just like to hear from you what do you think about Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: First of all, I had a conversation with him at the beginning of the war. I talked with him. I respect him, 1st and foremost. I respect the self made man, right, in English. I love such people.
You know, no one, and nothing, fell into their lap. But the man did something, did it all himself. I worked myself, created a big production company, and I know what it means to make money. To make money, to select talented people, to impart knowledge to them, to invest money, and to create something. Something important for certain people, you know?
And I'm not I'm not comparing myself to Musk. He just well, the man is a great leader of innovations in the world, and I believe that such people move the world forward. Therefore, I respect the result of his work, and we see this result. And for me, it has always been important that your result can be used. That these are not words, but facts.
Let's take the war. We are very grateful for Starlink. It has helped. We used it after Russian missile attacks on the energy infrastructure. There were problems with the Internet, etcetera, with connection.
We used Starlink both at the front, and in kindergartens, it was used in schools. It helped children. We used it in various infrastructure, and it helped us very much. And I would very much like, Elon to be, on our side as much as possible to to support us. And, yes, I am grateful to him for Starlink.
Truly, I am. First of all, so that our guys have a connection and children too. And I am really I am really grateful to him for that. I think we need I would like him to come to Ukraine, to talk to people here, and to look around, and so on. Has Elon visited Kyiv or Ukraine yet?
No.
Speaker 0: I hope the Kyiv airport will open soon. Then it will it will be easier to fly in.
Speaker 1: Yes. I am, I am looking forward to it. Maybe we will open it, but only. And you must understand, if the war is over, there must be sustainable peace and air defense systems, to be honest. And we must ensure that they are long lasting and effective.
Let's take the airport, for example, and let's focus on the airport in Zysho, which you know very well as it is handling important cargo for Ukraine in Poland. And there are Patriot systems there? Because everyone understands what the risk is. Well, Russia is a risk, and therefore, we need air defense systems. And today, today take, for example, the air defense system of one city or another that is being shelled, and move it.
Move it to the airport. Well, that would be dishonest. People are more important than planes. But there will be a moment. And Trump, by the way, I think that the war will end, and president Trump may be the 1st leader to travel here by airplane.
I think it would be it would be symbolic by airplane.
Speaker 0: Again, January 25th around that date. Right? Flying in, meeting the Air Force 1.
Speaker 1: That would be cool.
Speaker 0: Elon Musk. I will meet you there for the second time too on the plane.
Speaker 1: With pleasure.
Speaker 0: And you, by the way, before I forget, let me ask, are you coming on January 20th for president Trump's inauguration?
Speaker 1: I would like to. Of course. I will be considering. What is happening then in the war? Because there are moments of difficulties, escalation, many missiles, etcetera.
But, honestly, well, I can't. I can't come, especially during the war, unless president Trump invites me personally. I'm not sure it's proper to come because I know that in general, leaders are, for some reason, not usually invited to the inauguration of presidents of the United States of America. Well, and I know that there are leaders who can simply come, want to come, and will come. Yeah.
Yeah. I know. And I know the temperament of some of these people. They can come at their discretion. This is very, very difficult for me.
I am the kind of person that cannot come without an invitation. This is Putin. We did not invite him. He came to us, so to say. And me?
I can't do that.
Speaker 0: No. But didn't he publicly say that? It would be great if you came to the inauguration, or you mean did he invite it officially?
Speaker 1: Oh, wait. Look. Look. Look. Listen.
I am against any bureaucracy. I get rid of it as as much as I can. But, well, you know, there are some complexities involving security. I decide, and I fly. And the United States of America officially provides security.
Not that I need this, mind you. I do not ask for helicopters to fly around and protect me. But they will simply do it themselves, the security service itself. They had to do it. I don't want it, and sometimes I don't need it, and I'm asking them.
It was, for example, before the war, is I think, yes, it was before before the war. I just I just I had a meeting, yes, with president Trump. It was in 2019. I just wanted just wanted to go for a run early in the morning because I really wanted to exercise. And they, those tall bodyguards, a lot of them, they decided to join me, but I couldn't really do it because they were in suits.
And I was in sportswear. I said, no, I can't. It's always funny. Well, I I'm not I don't wanna, you know, I don't want to disturb anybody and cause anyone problems with me. And that's that's why if he if he will invite me, I will come.
Speaker 0: I thought he invited you. Yeah? Yeah. I thought he publicly invited you, but okay. I hope to see you there.
Speaker 1: I think they had to to I mean, just to to do some of their steps. I don't know. But
Speaker 0: Step. Yeah. I don't The stamp was missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But with pleasure with my wife, of course, and and I think it's important. It's important.
Speaker 0: Alright. Let's get back to a serious question. Sometimes they say it in America, this question of who is really in power. So let me ask, is someone controlling you? For example, oligarchs, American politicians, I wanted to bringing this up because I have been here in Ukraine since the twice since the invasion of 2022.
And one of the things I've learned well is that, actually, nobody controls you, and this is this is one of your strengths as a president, as a person that oligarchs and other rich and powerful people like that cannot control you. Can you explain why that is, how you see it?
Speaker 1: I think, and it is indeed true, that I'm generally difficult to deal with. I am an ambitious person. I can't submit to anyone. I can live by rules, by laws. I believe that this is the only thing that can control any person today.
These are the rules and laws of the society or state where you live. And I believe that this is the most important thing. There's no person who could control me. As I once told president Trump, when we had a meeting, by the way, journalists asked if Trump influenced me during the phone call. I told him.
I told the journalist the truth then. Who can influence me? Only my my boy. My son. This is a fact.
When he calls asking for something, well, then I lift up my arms. Yes. And I cannot do anything about it because children are children. I have so little time with them. And therefore, when there are these moments, they are precious and important to me.
I am ready to do anything. Also, probably my parents, they are an authority for me. Beyond that, I view it more as a system. No one can control the president. Therefore, we have oligarchs who either fled or are in prison, because oligarchs usually control cash flows, and people, and influence politics.
And we have concrete examples with sentences. They are not just under house arrest. Not just that, there are some judgments under which their assets were frozen or sanctions were imposed. There are specific people who are behind bars. I think this is the answer regarding the influence.
Would they like to influence me in the same way as any president of Ukraine? Because finance and cash flows always influence politics. Well, at least, they want to do this. This is regarding the influence. And other people, on the vertical, they perform tasks as my my managers?
Andre, you mentioned, is one of those managers. Well, I am glad that I have such people. Well, probably, there is nothing else to add here.
Speaker 0: I will just say that your team that I spoke with is an excellent team, excellent people.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. One last question. The future of Ukraine. If you look 5, 10, 20 years into the future, what can help Ukraine flourish economically, culturally, politically in the future?
Speaker 1: Digital? It's very important. Digitalization of all the process. We began this work. We have special ministry of digital transformation.
Right. Yeah. So this is very good, and we also have our Dia. This is the name for all of these services. Yeah.
So I think that is the most important. This is, again, this is not only convenient that will cancel all the any possibilities for future corruption because you don't have any, you know, you don't have any personal connections with people in the government or elsewhere. So you're just on your phone or any other device. That's it. And I think we are doing very well.
We are the best in Europe. All of Europe recognizes it. Some countries of the African Union asked us to provide this, the same service, and we will do it after the war immediately. And I think that we can bring money to Ukraine from this, and I think what we also need, we need a tax reform. I think it will be very important for the businesses to return.
A lot of support will come, I think, from USA Business Investment, not as direct aid to us, just to the private sector and resources. And I mentioned this to president Trump and to some European leaders who are our key strategic partners that we'll be happy, especially with the Americans, we'll be happy to sign these contracts and engage in joint investments in many areas. And and I think we can we can develop oil, gas, green energy, including solar power. And we already have the resources. We can invest money into this.
We have oil reserves in the Black Sea that we can we can exploit, and we need your, expertise and the investment of your companies. We have gold and uranium reserves, the largest in Europe, by the way, which is also very important. For example, Russia has pushed France out of Africa. They urgently need uranium, which we have, so we are ready to open up for investments. And this will give us, of course, opportunities, jobs for people, revenue.
I don't want cheap labor, honestly. What I truly want, especially after the war, to open up for those people who can really contribute and earn. Yes.
Speaker 2: And give a reason to the 8,000,000 people to come back?
Speaker 1: Yes. It's so important. And they will come, and we will recover and rebuild Ukraine. We will be very open to companies, and, of course, we will welcome our people back. It's so important culturally.
I think the most important thing is to remain open and not change our direction. Because culturally aligning with Russia, it's one idea, while aligning with Europe is another. Our people have chosen Europe. It's their choice. It's our choice, the choice of our nation, and I think it's very important.
Speaker 2: But first, you have to end the war.
Speaker 1: Yes. You're right. And we will. We want peace, you know? I mean, just to make it clear, we want peace.
Just what I always say. You have to come to Ukraine and see for yourself, and people will tell you, no. We can't forgive those murderers who took our our lives. But we still want to make peace. And, honestly, I think that the highest approval rating of the president of the United States, of Trump, now is in Ukraine.
People really believe that he can truly help bring peace. Now they have faith faith that he can make it happen, that he can support Ukraine, and he can stop Putin. And that he will make sure Putin doesn't get everything he wants. This is very important, and it's why we believe that we must not lose this opportunity.
Speaker 2: I hope you find the path to peace. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you for talking
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 0: For coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You you started. Thank you very
Speaker 2: much. Thank you for listening to this conversation with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. And now let me answer some questions and try to reflect on and articulate some things I've been thinking about. If you would like to submit questions, including an audio and video form, go to lexfreedman.com/ama, or to contact me for whatever other reason, go to lexfreedman.com/contact. First, I got a bunch of questions about this.
So let me chat about the topic of language and, let's say, the mechanics of multilingual conversation. Perhaps the details are interesting to some people. It also allows me to reflect back on the puzzle of it in this episode, and what I can do better next time. I already explained in the intro the symbolic historic and geopolitical complexity of the choice of language in the conversation with president Zelensky. As I said, the Russian language is one that the president speaks fluently and was his primary language for most of his life.
I speak Russian fluently as well. It's the only common language we are both fluent in. So any other combination of languages required an interpreter, including when I spoke English. He did need an interpreter when I spoke English. And just like I was, was visibly encumbered and annoyed by the process of interpretation.
This is why I tried to speak in Russian to the president instead of English so that he can directly understand me without an interpreter. I'm willing to take the hit for that as I am for everything else. I'm not trying to protect myself. I'm trying to do whatever is best for the conversation, for understanding. Though it has been getting harder and harder to stay open, vulnerable, and raw in public, while the swarms of chanting Internet mobs stop by with their torches and their color coded hats, flags, frogs, pronouns, and hashtags.
Anyway, there is a lot of nuanced aspects of the conversational language that I would like to explain here. I'll try to be brief. I can recommend a lot of books on this topic of language and communication that reveal just how amazing this technology of language is. For example, for a good overview, I recommend John McWhorter's books and especially his lecture series for the great courses on language. There are several.
In the story of human language series, he gives a great discussion on spoken language versus written language, and that spoken language often relaxes the rules of communication. It, uses shorter packets of words, loads in a bunch of subtle cues and meanings, all of which, like I'm trying to describe, are lost when there's interpreter in the loop. Let me also describe some relevant characteristics of my peculiar language abilities in quotes. I was never good at speaking. I listen, think, and understand better than I speak.
For me, this is true for both English and Russian, but it is especially true for Russian. The Russian language allows for much more room for wit, nonstandard terms of phrase, metaphors, humor, rhyme, musicality, and let's say, deforming of words that create a lot of room for creativity in how meaning and emotion are conveyed. You could do the same in English, but it's harder. I actually find that, Brits are sometimes very good at this. Like, one of my favorite humans to talk to is Douglas Murray.
Setting the content of the conversation aside, the sheer linguistic brilliance and wit of dialogue with Douglas is a journey in itself. I think, Christopher Hitchens had the same and many others. Like I said, especially Brits. Anyway, I'm, able to detect and understand a lot of dynamism and humor in the Russian language, but I'm slow to generate it, in part because I just don't practice. I have very few Russian speaking friends.
Funny enough, most of them are Ukrainian, but they speak with me and each other in Russian. But, of course, as I mentioned, this is slowly changing due to the war. But I tried to speak to the president in Russian so he would avoid needing an interpreter as much as possible. One of the things I want to improve for next time is to make sure I get very good equipment for interpretation and arrange for an interpreter I trust to be exceptionally good for the dynamism and the endurance of a 3 hour conversation in the style that I tried to do. Just to give you some behind the scenes details of the experience.
So equipment wise, funny enough, it's not actually so trivial to set up wireless connections from us, the 2 people talking to the interpreter, and then back to us in a way that's super robust and has clean audio. The audio I had in my ear from the interpreter had a loud background noise. So the whole time, I'm hearing a sound with the voice of the interpreter coming in very quietly. What a wonderful experience this whole life is, frankly. Plus, his translation was often incomplete, at least for me, so I had to put together those puzzle pieces continuously.
But, again, it worked out. And, hopefully, our constant switching of languages and having a meta discussion about language provided good insights as to the complexity of this fight for nation's identity and sovereignty that Ukraine has gone through. Behind the scenes, off mic, on a personal level, president Zelensky was funny, thoughtful, and just a kindhearted person. And, really, the whole team were just great people. It was an experience I'll never forget.
After the conversation was recorded, the next challenge was to translate all of this and overdub it and do it super quickly. Like, these words I'm speaking now have to be translated and dubbed into Ukrainian and Russian. 11 Labs were really helpful here, especially in bringing the president's voice to life in different languages. But even more than that, they're just an amazing team who inspired me and everyone involved. Please go support 11 Labs.
They are a great company and great people. The translation is separate from the text to speech and was done in part by AI and a lot by human. This is where the fact that we had constant switching between 3 languages was the real challenge. So there are 6 transition mappings that have to be done, English to Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian to English and Russian, and then Russian to English and Ukrainian continuously, sentence by sentence, sometimes word by word. And each combination of language to language translation is best done by a person who specializes in that kind of mapping.
So it's all a beautiful mess, all of it. And on top of all that, great translation is super hard. For example, I've read and listened to a lot of the Cieszki in both English and Russian, and studied the process of how these books are translated by various translators. You can spend a week discussing how to translate a single important sentence well. Obviously, in this situation, we don't have weeks.
We have hours for the whole thing. One of the things I regret is not putting enough time into the hiring and selecting great translators, from Russian and Ukrainian to English, especially. I think translation is an art. And so getting a good translator that works well with us is a process that needs more time and effort. I'll be doing that more this month.
By the way, we have a small but amazing team. If you want to join us, go to lexfreedman.com/hiring. If you're passionate, work hard, and everyone on the team loves working with you, then we'll do some epic stuff together. Would love to work with you. Like I said about 11 Labs, there are a few things as awesome in life as being able to work hard with an amazing team towards a mission all of us are passionate about.
Anyway, I'll probably be doing a few more interviews in the Russian language. I do have a lingering goal of interviewing the mathematician, Gegory Perlman, but there's also others. I will also work on improving my whole pipeline, both equipment wise and interpreter wise, in doing these conversations in other languages because there are many that I would like to do in languages I don't speak at all, like Chinese, Mandarin, or Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, French, German. I see language as both a barrier for communication and a portal into understanding the spirit of a people connected by that language. It's all a weird and beautiful puzzle, and I'm just excited to get the chance to explore it.
Alright. I got a question on how I prepare for podcasts. So this has, evolved and expanded more and more over time. There are some podcasts that I prepare 100 of hours for. In AI terms, let's say, first, I'm training a solid background model by consuming as much variety on the topic as possible.
A lot of this comes down to picking high signal sources, whether it's blogs, books, podcasts, YouTube videos, x accounts, and so on. For this conversation with president Zelensky, for example, since February 2022, I've spoken with hundreds of people on the ground. I've read Kindle or audiobook about 10 books fully, and then I skimmed about 20 more. And I don't mean books about Zelensky, although he does appear in some of them. I mean, books where this conversation was fully in the back of my mind as I'm reading the book.
So, for example, I read Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. It's about Holodomor. Does it directly relate to Zelensky? Not on the surface, no. But it sort of continues to weave the fabric of my understanding of our people, of the history of the region.
But it's really important for me to read books from various perspectives, And I'm always trying to calculate the bias under which the author operates and adjusting for that in my brain as I integrate the information. For example, Anne Applebaum's book, Gulag, is very different from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. The former is a rigorous comprehensive historical account. The latter is a literary, psychological, and personal portrait of Soviet society. Both, I think, are extremely valuable.
On the bias front, for example, the rise and fall of the Third Reich by William Shire is a good example. It is full bias, but he was there. And to me, he has written probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest book on the Third Reich ever. But like I said, it has a lot of inaccuracies and biases. You can read about them online if you like.
But my job in this case and in all cases is to adjust based on my understanding of the author's biases, and take the wisdom from the text where it could be found, and, putting the inaccuracies aside into the proverbial dustbins of history. So as I'm reading, I'm writing down my thoughts as they come up, always digging for some deeper insight about human nature. If I'm at my computer, I'll write it down in Google Doc, sometimes use Notion or Obsidian. If I'm not on my computer, I'll use Google Keep. So, for example, if I'm listening to an audiobook and I am running along the river, if a good idea comes to mind, I'll stop, think for a few seconds, and then do speech to text note in, Google Keep.
By the way, listening to audiobook at 1 x speed. Old school. And, eventually, I get a gigantic pile of thoughts and notes that I look over to refresh my memory. But for the most part, I just throw them out. It's a background model building process.
By the way, LLMs are increasingly becoming useful here for organization purposes, but have not yet, been useful, at least for me, and I do try a lot for insight extraction or insight generation purposes. I should mention that my memory for specific facts, names, dates, quotes is terrible. What I remember well is high level ideas. That's just how my brain works for better or for worse. I realized that sometimes forgetting all of the details and the words needed to express them makes me sound simplistic and even unprepared.
I'm not. But that's life. We have to accept our flaws and roll with them. Aside from books, I also listen to a lot of podcasts and YouTube videos where people are talking about the topic. So for the president Zelensky episode, I listen probably to hundreds of hours of content from his supporters and from his critics from all sides.
Again, I choose who to listen to based not on their perspective, but based on SNR, signal to noise ratio. If I'm regularly getting insights from a person, I will continue listening to them, whether I agree or disagree. In the end, this turns out to be a lot of hours of prep, but to say that it's x hours per episode is not accurate because a lot of this preparation transfers from one guest to another even when there's an insane level of variety in the guests. We're all humans after all. There is a thread that connects all of it together somehow if you look closely enough.
For more technical guests in STEM fields, I'll read papers, a lot of papers, and also technical blog posts and technical tweet threads. This is a very different process. For AI or CS related topics, I will run other people's code. I will write my own, implement stuff from scratch. If it's a software company, I'll use their tools and software for relevance.
But in the actual conversation, I constantly am searching for simple but profound insights at various levels of abstraction. Sometimes, this means asking a trivial question in hopes of uncovering the nontrivial, counterintuitive, but fundamental idea that opens the door to a whole new way of looking at the field. And actually, every guest is their own puzzle. Like preparing for Rick Rubin was me listening to 100 of songs he produced and even learning some on guitar, like Heart by Johnny Cash. Preparing for the Cursor team episode meant, obviously, I had to use Cursor fully for several weeks, all of its features.
So I switched completely for Versus Code to Cursor. For Paul Rosely, round 2, especially, I literally went deep into the jungle with Paul and almost died. Fully taking the leap toward adventure with him. When he gets close to the conversation, I'll start working on the actual interview questions and notes. And there, I'm asking myself, what am I personally curious about?
Like, I love podcasts. I'm a big fan of many, many podcasts. And so I asked myself, what would I want this person to explain on the podcast? And maybe what aspect of their thought process or their humanity would I want to be surfaced or have the chance to be surfaced? In the actual conversation, I always try to put my ego aside completely and do whatever it takes to have a good conversation and serve the listener.
This means asking questions simply, trying to define terms and give context if needed, being open minded, vulnerable, curious, and challenging the guests when needed. Despite the claims on the Internet, I do ask a lot of challenging questions, including follow ups, but always with empathy. I don't need to be right. I don't need to signal my moral or intellectual superiority to anyone. I try to do the opposite actually because I want the guest to open up, and I trust the intelligence of the listener to see for themselves if the guest is full of shit or not, to detect the flaws and the strengths of how the guest thinks or who they are deep down.
A lot of times when interviewers grill the guest, it doesn't reveal much except give a dopamine hit to the echo chambers who hate the guest. As I said in the intro, I believe the line between good and evil does run to the heart of every man. The resulting conversations are sometimes a failure. Sometimes because they are too short. Sometimes because the chemistry was just not working.
Sometimes because I fucked it up. I try to take risks, give it everything I got, and enjoy the roller coaster of it all, no matter what. And as I said, I trust the listener to put it all together, and I trust the critic to tear it apart. And I love you all for it. Alright.
I got a bit of a fun question. It's a long one. So Delian, cool name, wrote in saying he spotted me out in the wild and had a question about it. He wrote, I saw Lex working at the Detroit airport between flights. I hesitated and ultimately decided not to interrupt since he was in focus mode.
True. Lex had his headphones earbuds on listening to brown noise. Microsoft Surface propped up at eye level, Kinesis Advantage Keyboard on the table. The use of Microsoft Windows is surprising, but it has been discussed in the past. True.
The ergonomics of the setup surface at eye level means that Lex cares about his health. But, the anomalously large Kinesis Advantage keyboard seems like such a burden to lug around airports. I cannot help but ask, why is it that Lex is going through the hassle to bring this absolutely large keyboard with him as carry on? It barely fits in a backpack. Carrying it around must be necessary for Lex for some reason.
I love the puzzle of this that you're trying to think through this. The pain of lugging this tool around must be much smaller than the problem it solves for him, question mark. What problem does this keyboard solve? What makes it necessary at the airport? Productivity?
Health? RSI? Good questions. Thank you, Dahlia. Great question.
It made me smile, so I thought I'd answer. I remember that day. There was something else about that day aside from the keyboard that, I miss. So I am filled with a melancholy feeling that is appropriate for the holiday season. So let me, try to set the melancholy feeling aside, answer a question about my computer setup when I'm traveling.
So whether I'm going to SF, Boston, Austin, London, or the front in Ukraine, I am always bringing the Kinesis keyboard. I don't have RSI or any other health issues of that kind that I'm aware of. Even though I've been programming, playing guitar, doing all kinds of combat sports my whole life, all of which put my hands and fingers in a lot of precarious positions and situations. For that reason, and in general, ergonomics have never been a big concern for me. I can work on a crappy chair and, table, sleep on the floor.
It's all great. I'm happy with all of it. So why Kinesis, which by the way is right here? I had to think about it. Your question actually made me reflect.
And I was hoping as I'm answering it, the truth will come off on many levels. So it is true that I'm more productive with it. I can type and correct mistakes very fast compared to a regular keyboard, both in natural language typing and in programming. So fast enough, I think, where it feels like I can think freely without the physical bottlenecks and constraints of fingers moving. The the bit rate in Neuralink parlance is high enough for me to not feel like there is cognitive friction of any kind.
But the real answer may be the deeper, more honest answer, something else. I've used the Kinesis keyboard for over 20 years, So maybe it's like one of those love stories, where a guy and a girl love each other. And, you try to quit because it doesn't quite work. But every time you leave, you ask yourself why. And then you realize that, when you're together, your life is just full of simple joys.
So what's the point of leaving? What's the point of life if not to
Speaker 1: keep close to you the
Speaker 2: things that bring you joy? Tell Ian. Like this keyboard. It brings me joy. It's a bad metaphor, over anthropomorphized, perhaps, but I never promised a good one.
I'm like a cheap motel on a road trip. Low quality is part of the charm. I do have some good motel stories for another time. This does not feel like the appropriate time. All that said, to disagree with myself, I did use Emax also for over 20 years.
And in a single week, recently, I switched to Versus Code and then cursor and never looked back. So take my romantic nature with a grain of salt. So, yes, eventually, I'll have to leave, but for now, you'll keep finding me on occasion in a random airport somewhere listening to brown noise, writing away the hours on this Kinesis keyboard. Now if you see me without it, maybe it'll give you the same change of melancholy feeling I feel now in looking back to that airport in Detroit. Anyway, more about my travel setup, if anyone is curious.
I usually do travel with a Windows laptop, but I am mostly using Linux on it through WSL, Windows subsystem for Linux. And in some cases, I'm dual booting Linux and Windows. I also need to be able to video edit, so on, longer trips, I usually have a bigger laptop with a bigger screen, lots of memory, good CPU, good GPU. All of that helps with video editing on Adobe Premiere. In general, I'm extremely minimalist, except for the few, let's call them sentimental things.
Like, all my podcast recording equipment fits into a small suitcase. I try to keep it as simple as possible. Thank you for the question, and, see you at the next airport. Alright. I think it's time to bring things to a close.
I'd like to give a big thanks to you for giving me your time and your support over the years. It means the world. If you want to get in touch with me, go to lexfirmid.com/contact. There, you can get feedback, ask questions, request guests for the podcast, or submit the coffee with Lex form if you just want to chat with me over a cup of coffee. I'll be traveling across the world a bunch this year from Europe to South America and more.
So it would be cool to do some small meetups and meet some interesting people. This has been a journey of a lifetime. Thank you for everything. On to the next adventure. I love you all.
reSee.it AI Summary
I had a fascinating conversation with Graham Hancock about the origins of human civilization, focusing on his theory of a lost civilization from the last Ice Age that was wiped out by a global cataclysm around 12,000 years ago. We discussed various topics, including Göbekli Tepe, early humans, astronomical symbolism, and the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. We also touched on the Great Pyramid, the Sahara Desert, and responses to his critics. You can find the full conversation on YouTube, along with a transcript and podcast links.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with @Graham__Hancock about the origins of human civilization, including his controversial hypothesis that that there existed a lost civilization during the last Ice Age, and that it was destroyed in a global cataclysm some 12,000 years ago. It's here on X in full, and is up everywhere else too. Links in comment. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:34 - Lost Ice Age civilization 8:39 - Göbekli Tepe 20:43 - Early humans 25:43 - Astronomical symbolism 37:11 - Younger Dryas impact hypothesis 55:31 - The Great Pyramid and the Sphinx of Giza 1:16:04 - Sahara Desert and the Amazon rainforest 1:25:25 - Response to critics 1:49:31 - Panspermia 1:56:58 - Shamanism 2:20:58 - How the Great Pyramid was built 2:28:17 - Mortality
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's the links for my conversation with @Graham__Hancock: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMHiLvirCb0 Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/graham-hancock-transcript Podcast: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Transcript for Graham Hancock: Lost Civilization of the Ice Age & Ancient Human History | Lex Fridman Podcast #449 - Lex Fridman
This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #449 with Graham Hancock. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links: Go back to this episode’s main page Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast Table of Contents Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation. Click link to jump approximately to that part in the transcript: 0:00 – Introduction 1:34 – Lost Ice Age civilization 8:39 – Göbekli Tepe 20:43 –
lexfridman.com
Lex Fridman Podcast - Lex Fridman
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reSee.it AI Summary
I had a conversation with Donald Trump that covers a wide range of topics, including the psychology of winning and losing, the dirty nature of politics, and the differences between business and politics. We discussed the war in Ukraine, a potential Trump-Harris debate, and issues like China, the 2020 election, and Project 2025. Other subjects included marijuana, division in society, communism, UFOs, and mortality. You can find the full conversation on various platforms, with links provided.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with @realDonaldTrump It's here on X in full, and is up everywhere else too. Links in comment. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:09 - Psychology of winning and losing 3:51 - Politics is a dirty game 5:28 - Business vs politics 8:04 - War in Ukraine 9:53 - Kamala Harris interview on CNN 10:36 - Trump-Harris debate 13:33 - China 15:47 - 2020 election 24:03 - Project 2025 24:52 - Marijuana 27:13 - Joe Rogan 30:54 - Division 38:00 - Communism and fascism 41:36 - Power 43:36 - UFOs & JFK 44:16 - Jeffrey Epstein 45:55 - Mortality and religion 47:25 - Lex AMA
Video Transcript AI Summary
The conversation covers a range of topics, including politics, success, and personal philosophy. Speaker 1 addresses being called a fascist, responding by labeling others communists. He discusses "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and suggests medical marijuana has been amazing.
Speaker 1 reflects on winning versus losing, noting that great champions in sports possess a unique, driven mindset. He emphasizes the importance of getting the word out and adapting to evolving platforms to win in politics. He acknowledges the difficulty for business people to transition to politics due to the need to speak in front of large crowds.
Speaker 1 claims he could negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine if elected, criticizing current leadership. He expresses concern about potential for World War 3. He defends his claims of election fraud and advocates for voter ID and paper ballots. He touches on Project 2025, marijuana legalization, and UFO footage release. He mentions Epstein and Kennedy, and expresses a willingness to release the Epstein client list. He concludes by emphasizing his love for the country and his belief that the upcoming election is crucial.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Don't know if you know this, but some people call you a fascist.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They do. So I figure it's alright to call them a communist. Yeah. They call me a lot worse than I call them.
Speaker 0: A lot of people listening to this, myself included, that doesn't think that Kamala is a communist. I believe you have to fight fire with fire. Politics is a dirty game.
Speaker 1: It is a dirty game. It's certainly true.
Speaker 0: How do you win at that game?
Speaker 1: They suffer from massive Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS, and I don't know if they're excurable from their standpoint.
Speaker 0: I think, would probably have a better world if everybody in congress took some mushrooms perhaps.
Speaker 1: First of all, medical marijuana has been amazing. It's been I I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing.
Speaker 0: The list of clients that went to the island has not been made public.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's very interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 0: The following is a conversation with Donald Trump on this, the Lex Fridman podcast.
Speaker 1: They're getting smaller and smaller?
Speaker 0: They're getting smaller. Right? I mean, peep people do respect you more when you have a big camera for some reason.
Speaker 1: It's cool. And about 20 guys that you pay a fortune to. Right?
Speaker 0: Alright. K. You said that you love winning, and you have won a lot in life in, real estate, in business, in TV, in politics. So let me start with a mindset, a psychology question. What drives you more?
The love of winning or the hate of losing?
Speaker 1: Maybe equally. Maybe, both. I don't like losing, and I do like winning. I've never thought of it as to which is more of a driving force.
Speaker 0: You've been close with a lot of the greats in sport. You think about Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali. You have people like, Michael Jordan who I think hate losing more than anybody. So what do you learn from those guys?
Speaker 1: Well, they do have something different. You know, the great champions have something very different, like the sports champions. And, you know, you have champions in other fields, but you see it more readily in sports. You see it over a weekend or you see it during a game. And you see that certain people stand out and they keep, they keep standing out.
But it's there for you. It doesn't take a lifetime to find out that somebody was a winner or a loser. And so the sports thing is very interesting, but, you know, I play golf with different people, and, you have there's a different mindset among champions. There's really a very different mindset. There's a different, there's a different thought process.
You know, talent wise, sometimes you can't tell the difference in talent, but at the end of a weekend, they seem to win. And it's very interesting. Like, as an example, Tiger or Jack Nicklaus, he was a phenomenal winner. And he does have a different way about him, and Tiger has a different way about him. And Michael Jordan and there's never one you would think that there'd be one way.
Arnold Palmer was the nicest guy you'd ever meet, and then you have some champions that aren't really nice. They're just focused on doing their job. So you have you know, there's not one type of person. But the one thing I I would say that everybody seems to have in common is they're very driven. They're driven, like, beyond.
Speaker 0: They don't seem to give up easily.
Speaker 1: They don't give up. They don't give up, but they do seem to be, you know, they have a passion that's maybe more than people that don't do as well. You said that
Speaker 0: politics is a dirty game Yeah. In the past.
Speaker 1: It is a dirty game. That's certainly true.
Speaker 0: So if it is a game, how do you win at that game?
Speaker 1: Well, you win at that game by getting the word out And by you using sense, you have to have a feeling where it's going. You also have to have a feeling of what's right. You can't necessarily just go what's popular. You have to do what's good for a country if you're talking about countries. But you you have to get the word out, and you have to just continuously like, for instance, you have a great show.
You have a great podcast. It's very well watched. And I'm sitting here, and I do this. A lot of people see it, and I do other things, and a lot of people see that. And I go traditional also.
You know? You have traditional television, which is getting a little bit, older and maybe less significant. Could be less significant. I don't know. But it's changing a lot.
The the, the whole plane of of platform is changing a lot. It's changed a lot in the last 2, 3 years. But from a political standpoint, you have to find out what people are doing, what they're watching, and you have to get it you have to get on. I just see that these platforms are starting to dominate. They're getting very big numbers.
I did Spaces with Elon, and they got numbers like nobody's ever heard before. So, you know, this is you wouldn't do that on, like, radio. You wouldn't do that those numbers. No matter how good a show, you wouldn't do those numbers on radio. You wouldn't do them on television.
Speaker 0: You've been successful in business. You've been successful in politics. What do you think is the difference between, gaining success between the 2 the 2 different disparate worlds?
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's different. Very different. I have a lot of people that are in business that are successful, and they'd like to go over to politics. And then you realize they can't speak.
They choke. You know, it's hard to make a speech in front of that. And let's say you're talking about a big audience, but I get very big audiences. And, you know, for many people, it's virtually impossible to get up and speak for an hour and a half and have nobody leave. You know, it's not an easy thing to do, and it's an ability.
But I have many people that are very, very successful in business, would love to do what I did, and yet they can't pull the trigger. And in many cases, I I don't think it would work almost almost for everybody. It's not gonna work. It's a very it's a very tough thing to do. It's a big transition.
And now if you talked about people in the business and politics going into business, likewise, that wouldn't generally work out so well either. It's different talents. It's different skills. I have somebody who wants to go into politics so bad, but he's got a little problem. He's got stage fright.
Now he's a total killer, but if he gets up into a stage in front of people, he doesn't do well, to put it mildly, actually. I mean, he does badly.
Speaker 0: So you have to be able to make hard decisions like you do in business, but also be able to captivate an audience.
Speaker 1: Look. If you're a politician, you have to be able to speak in front of large crowds. There are a lot of people who can't do that. I've seen it. They can't even think about doing it, and they don't.
There are many people in business right now. I could name them, but I don't wanna embarrass anybody. They've been talking about running for president for 15 years, And they're very big in business, very well known, actually. And but it takes guts to run. Like for president, I can tell you, it takes guts to run.
It's also a very dangerous profession, if you wanna know the truth, but, dangerous in a different sense too. But it takes a lot of courage to run for president. It's not easy. But you have, and you know the same people as I do, there are a lot of people that would like to run for president that are very, very successful in business, but they don't have the guts to do it. And they have to give up
Speaker 0: a lot. One of the great things about people from the business world is they're often great dealmakers. And you're a great dealmaker. And you've talked about the war in Ukraine, and that you would be able to find a deal that both Putin and Zelensky would accept. What do you think that deal looks like?
Speaker 1: I think the deal and I I wouldn't talk about it too much because, I think I can make a deal. If if I win as president-elect, I'll have a deal made, guaranteed. That's a war that shouldn't have happened. It's terrible. Look.
Biden is the worst president in the history of our country, and she's probably worse than him. That's, that's something that should have never happened, but it did happen. And now it's a much tougher deal to make than it would have been before it started. Millions of people I think the number's gonna be a lot higher when you see this all, at some point, iron out. I think the numbers are gonna be the death numbers are gonna be a lot higher than people think.
When you take a look at the destruction and the buildings coming down all over the place in Ukraine, I think those numbers are gonna be a lot higher. They they lie about the numbers. They try and keep them low. They knocked down a building that's 2 blocks long. These are big buildings.
And they say, one person was mildly injured. No. No. A lot of people were killed. And there's there are people in those buildings, and they have no chance.
Once they start coming down, there's no chance. So so, that's a war that absolutely has to get done. And then you have Israel, and then you have a lot of other places that are talking war. The world is is a rough place right now, and a lot of it's because of the fact that America has no leadership. And I believe that she'll be probably worse than by now, watching the interview the other night.
I mean, it was just a softball interview.
Speaker 0: So you would like to see her do more interviews, challenge more?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I I I can't believe the whole thing is happening. We had a man in there that should have never been in there. They kept him in a basement. They used COVID.
They cheated, but they used COVID to cheat. They they cheated without COVID too. But, you had somebody in there. And now we have a woman that is not I mean, she couldn't do an interview. This was a really soft interview.
This is an interview where they're given a multiple choice, questions, multiple guests. I call it multiple guests. And, I don't think she did well. I think she did very poorly.
Speaker 0: How do you think you'll do in the debate coming up? It's in a few days.
Speaker 1: So I've done a lot of debating only as a politician. I never debated. My first debate was the, Rosie O'Donnell debate. Right? The famous Rosie O'Donnell debate.
The answer. But I've done well with debates. I mean, I became president. Then the second time, I got millions more votes than I got the first time. So I was told if I got 63,000,000, which is what I got the first time, you you you would win.
You can't not win. And I got 1,000,000 of more votes than that and, lost by a whisker. But and look what happened to the world with all of the wars and all of the problems. And look what happened with inflation, because inflation's just eating up our country. Eating it up.
So it's too bad. But, there are a lot of things that could happen. We have to get those wars settled. We have to get I'll tell you, you have to get Ukraine done. You that could end up in a 3rd World War.
So could the Middle East. So could the Middle East.
Speaker 0: So maybe let's talk about what it takes to negotiate with somebody like Putin or or Zelensky. Do you think Putin would be willing to give up any of the regions already captured?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can tell you that this all of this would have never happened, and it would have been very easy because you don't have like, that question wouldn't be asked. You know, that's a tougher question. Once that starts happening because he has taken over a lot of territory. Now I guess they're insurgents now too, right?
So it's a little bit interesting, that that's happening and that it can happen, and it's interesting that Putin has allowed that to happen. Look. That's one that should have should have never started. We have to get it stopped. Ukraine is being demolished.
They're they're destroying a great culture that's largely destroyed.
Speaker 0: What do you think works better in those kinds of negotiations? Leverage of, let's say, friendship, the carrot or the stick? Friendship or sort of the threat of using the economic and military power?
Speaker 1: So it depends on who the person is. It's a you know, it's everyone's different. Negotiation's interesting because it depends on who the person is. And then you have to guess or know through certain knowledge which is, you know, more important, the carrot or the stick. And with some people it's the stick, and with some people it's the carrot.
I think the stick probably is generally more successful, in that, you know, we're talking about war, but, the kind of destruction that we're witnessing now that nobody's ever seen, I mean, it's it's a terrible thing, and and we're witnessing it all over. We're witnessing it in, in all parts of the world. And a lot of things are going to get started. Look what's going on with China. Look at Japan.
They're starting to rearm now. They're starting to rearm because China's getting, you know, taking over certain islands, and, there's a lot of danger in the war right now in the world. There's a lot of and there's a great possibility of World War 3. And we better get this thing done fast because 5 months with people like her and him, he's checked out. He just goes to the beach and thinks he looks good in a bathing suit, which he doesn't.
He sort of checked out. Hey. Look. You know, you can't blame him. That was a coup.
They took it over. They took over the presidential deal. The whole presidential thing was taken over in a coup. He had 14,000,000 votes. She had no votes, not one.
And nobody thought it was gonna be her, nobody wanted it to be her. She was a joke until 6 weeks ago when they said we're gonna have to politically, they felt they had to pick her, And if they didn't pick her, they thought there'd be a a problem. I don't know if that's right or not. I actually don't think it's right, but, you know, they they thought it was right. And now immediately, the press comes to their aid.
If we
Speaker 0: can go back to China on negotiation, how do we avoid war with China in the 21st century?
Speaker 1: Well, there are ways now. Here's the problem. If I tell you how, and I'd love to do it, but if I if I give you a plan, like, I have a very exacting plan how to stop Ukraine and Russia, and I have a certain idea, maybe not a plan, but an idea for China, because we do. We're, you know, we're gonna we're in a lot of trouble. They'll be in a lot of trouble too, but we're in a lot of trouble.
But I can't give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I'm not gonna be able to use them. They'll be very unsuccessful. You know, part of it's surprise. Right? Right.
But they won't be able to help us much.
Speaker 0: So you have a plan on what to say to Putin
Speaker 1: Yeah. No. To take office. No. I had a very good relationship with him, and I had a good relationship with Zelensky too, but had a very good relationship with Putin.
Speaker 0: Tough topic, but important. You said lost by a whisker. I'm an independent. I have a lot of friends who are independent, many of whom like your policies, like the fact that you're a deal maker, like the fact that you can end wars, but they are troubled by, what happened in the 2020 election and statements about widespread fraud and this kind of stuff, fake elector scheme. What can you say to those, independent voters to help them decide who to vote?
Right.
Speaker 1: I think the fraud was on the other side. I think the election was a fraud, and many people felt it was that, and they wanted answers. And when you can't challenge an election, you have to be able to challenge it. Otherwise, it's gonna get worse, not better. And there are lots of ways to solve this problem.
Go to paper ballots. Do it the easy way. I mean, paper ballots, and you, have voter ID, and you have same day voting, and you have proof of citizenship, which is very important because we have people voting that are not citizens. They just came in, and they're loading up the payrolls. They're loading up everything.
They're putting students in schools that don't speak a word of English, and they're taking the seats of people that are citizens of our country. So, look, we have the worst border in the history of the world. We have coming into our country right now millions and millions of people at levels that nobody's ever seen. I don't believe any country's ever seen it. And they would use sticks and stones not to make it happen, not to let it happen.
We don't we don't do anything. And we have a person who is a border czar, who now said she wasn't really the border czar, but she was. She was the border czar, but she was in charge of the border. And we have her, and she's saying, very strongly, oh, I did such a good job. She was horrible.
Horrible. The the harm she's done. But we have people coming in from other countries all over the world, not just South America, And they're coming in from prisons and jails. They're coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums, and they're street criminals. Right off the street, they take them.
And they're being given to our country, drug dealers, human traffickers, we're destroying our country. This is a sin, what's been allowed to take place over the last 4 years. We're destroying our country, and we'll see how that all works out, but it's not even believable. And now you see you saw in Aurora, Colorado, a group of very tough young thugs from Venezuela taking over big areas, including buildings. They're taking over buildings.
They have their big rifles, but they're taking over buildings. We're not gonna let this happen. We're not gonna let them destroy our country. And you know, in those countries, crime is way down. They're taking them out of their prisons, which is good because good for them.
I do the same thing. By the way, if I ran one of those countries, any country in the world, I would make sure that America has every one of our prisoners. Every one of our criminals would be here. I can't believe they're going so slowly, but some aren't. And but they all are doing it, and we can't let that happen.
They're emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions into the United States of America. We can't let that happen.
Speaker 0: So a lot of people believe that there was some shady stuff that went on with the election, whether it's, media bias or big tech, but still the the claim of widespread fraud is the thing that bothers people.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't focus on the past. I focus on the future. I mean, I talk about how bad the economy is, how bad inflation is, how bad things like, which is important. Afghanistan was, in my opinion, the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to our country, and because of that, I think Putin went in. When he said how stupid we were, Putin went in.
But it it was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. I really believe that. But, you know, we left we left 13 dead soldiers. Think of it, 13 dead soldiers, many soldiers horrifically hurt with arms and legs and everything else gone. We left hostages behind.
We left Americans behind. We left military equipment, the likes of which nobody's ever left behind before. 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars of equipment. They're now selling the equipment. They're one of the largest arms dealers in the world.
And, very sad. Very sad. And and, you know, we were there for a long time. I was going to get out. We were getting ready to get out, then we got interrupted by the election, but we would have been out with dignity and strength.
We were having very little problem with the Taliban when I was there because they knew it was gonna be tough. I dealt with Abdul. Abdul was the leader, and we got along fine. He understood. But, you know, they were shooting.
They were killing a lot of our people before I came down. And when I got there, I said I spoke to him. I said, you can't do it. Don't do it anymore. We went 18 months before this happened, this horrible day happened.
We went 18 months and nobody was shot at or killed.
Speaker 0: What do you think that was? The carrot or the stick in that case in Afghanistan?
Speaker 1: The stick. Definitely.
Speaker 0: The threat of military force.
Speaker 1: That was the stick. Yeah. It doesn't have to be, but that was the stick.
Speaker 0: Well, let me just linger on the election a little a little bit more. For this election, it might be a close one. What can we do to avoid the insanity and division of the previous election, whether you win or lose?
Speaker 1: Well, I hope it's not a close one. I mean, you know, I don't know how people can vote for somebody that has destroyed our country. The inflation, the bad economy, but but to me, in a way, the worst is what they've allowed to happen at our border, where they've allowed millions of people to come in here from places that you don't wanna know about. And I can't believe that there's gonna be a close election. You know, we're leading in the polls, but and it looks close, but I think in the end, it's not gonna be a close election.
Speaker 0: What do you think is the right way to solve the immigration crisis? Is mass deportation one of the solutions you would think about?
Speaker 1: Well, you've gotta get the the criminals out of here fast. Right? You know, the people from mental institutions, you gotta get them back into their mental institution. No country can afford this. You know, it's just too much money.
You look at what's happening in New York and Chicago and LA and lots of places, and you take a look at what's happening. There's no country can afford this. We can't afford it. And we've gotta get the bad ones out immediately, and the rest have to be worked on. You know, it's happened before.
Dwight Eisenhower was sort of a moderate president, moderate type person, but he hated when he saw people pouring into the country, and they were. Nothing like now. You know, I probably got elected in 2016 because of the border, and I told people what was happening, and they understood it. And I won the election, and I won the election, I think, because of the border. Our border is 25 times worse right now than it was in 2016.
I had it fixed to I had it the last week of my the famous chart that I put up was exactly that. You know the chart? When I looked to the right, I said, there's the chart. Bing, that was not a pleasant experience, but the chart that I put up said and that was done by border patrol. That was the lowest number that we've ever had come into our country in recorded history, And we have to get it back to that again.
We will.
Speaker 0: Let me ask you about Project 2025. So you've publicly said that you don't have any direct connection to
Speaker 1: Nothing. I know nothing about it. And they know that too. Democrats know that. And I purposely haven't read it because I wanna say to you, I don't I have no idea what it's all about.
It's easier than saying I read it and, you know, all other things. No. I purposely haven't read it, and I've heard about it. I've heard about things that are in there that I don't like, and there are some things in there that everybody would like. But there are things that, I don't like at all.
And I think it's unfortunate that they put it out, but it doesn't mean anything because it has nothing to do with me. Project 25 has it has absolutely nothing to do with me.
Speaker 0: You posted recently about marijuana and, that you're okay with it being legalized, but it has to be done safely. Can you explain your policy there?
Speaker 1: Well, I just put out a paper. And first of all, medical marijuana has been amazing. It's been I I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing, the medical marijuana. And we put out a statement that we can live with the marijuana. It's gotta be a certain age.
Gotta be a certain age to buy it. It's gotta be done in a very concerted, lawful way, and the way they're doing it in Florida, I think, is gonna be actually good. It's gonna be very good, but it's gotta be done in a good way. It's gotta be done in a clean way. You go into some of these places, like in New York, it's all it smells all marijuana.
You can't the way you've gotta have a system where there's control. And I think the way they've done it in Florida is very good.
Speaker 0: Do you know anything about psychedelics? So I'm I'm not a drug guy, but I recently did Ayahuasca. Yeah. And, there's a lot of people that speak to sort of the health benefits and the spiritual benefits of these different psychedelics. Mhmm.
I think, would probably have a better world if everybody in congress took some mushrooms perhaps. Now I know you don't you stay away from all of that stuff. I I know also veterans use it for dealing with PTSD and all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: it's Mhmm.
Speaker 0: It's great, and it's interesting that you're thinking about being more accepting of some of these drugs, which don't just have a recreational purpose, but a medical purpose, a treatment purpose.
Speaker 1: So we put out a statement today. We're gonna put out another one probably next week, be more specific. Although I think it's pretty specific. And we'll, we'll see how that all goes. That's a referendum coming up in some states, but it's coming up, and we'll see how it does.
I will say it's been very hard to beat it. You take a look at the numbers, it's been very hard to beat it. So I think it'll generally pass, but you wanna do it in a safe way.
Speaker 0: Speaking of marijuana, let me ask you about my good friend, Joe Rogan. So you had a bit of tension with him. So when he said nice things about RFK Junior, I think, you've, you've said some not so nice things about Joe, and I think that was a bit unfair. And as a fan of Joe, I would love to see you do his podcast because he is legit the greatest conversationalist in the world. So what's what's the story behind the tension?
Speaker 1: I don't think there was any tension. And, I've always liked him, but I don't know him. I mean, I only see him when I walk into the arena with Dana, and I shake his hand. I see him there, and I think he's good at what he does, but I don't know about doing his podcast. I mean, I guess I'd do it, but I haven't been asked, and I'm not asking them, you know?
I'm not asking anybody.
Speaker 0: It sounds like a challenging negotiation situation.
Speaker 1: No. It's it's not it's not really a negotiation. And he's sort of a liberal guy, I guess, you know, from what I understand, but he likes Kennedy. This was before I found this out, before Kennedy came in with us. He's gonna be great.
He's doing Bobby's gonna be great, but I like that he likes Kennedy. I do too. You know, he's a different kind of a guy, but he's got some great things going. And, I think he's gonna be beyond politics. I think he could be quite influential in taking care of some situations that you probably would agree should be taken care of.
Speaker 0: The Joe Rogan post is an example. I'd love to get your psychology, about behind the tweets and the post on truth. Are you sometimes being intentionally provocative, or are you just speaking your mind? And are there times where you regret some of the truths Yeah. You've posted?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do. I mean, but not that often, honestly. You know, I do a lot of reposting. The ones you get in trouble with are the reposts because you find down deep, they're into some group that, you're not supposed to be reposting.
You don't even know if those groups are good, bad, or indifferent, but the reposts are the ones that really get you in trouble. When you do your own words, it's sort of easier, but the reposts go very quickly. And if you're gonna check every single little symbol, and, I don't know. It's worked out pretty well for me. I tell you, it's, truth is very powerful.
Truth. And it's my platform, and it's been very powerful. Very, very powerful. Goes everywhere. I call it my typewriter.
You know? That's actually my typewriter.
Speaker 0: What are you doing usually when you're composing a truth? Like, are you chilling back on a couch?
Speaker 1: Couches, beds.
Speaker 0: K.
Speaker 1: Lot of different things. I mean
Speaker 0: Like late at night and just
Speaker 1: I'd like to do something late at night. You know, I don't I'm not a huge sleeper. But whenever I do them, you know, past, like, 3 o'clock Mhmm. They criticize you the next day. Trump was at true thing.
Okay? Trump was true thing at 3 o'clock in the morning, and there should be no problem with that. And then when you think about time zones, how do they know that you're, like, you know, in a time zone like an eastern zone? So but but every time I do it after, like, 2 or 3 o'clock, it's like, why is he doing that? But it's gotten, I mean, you know, the truth has become a very successful, platform, and I like doing it.
And it goes everywhere. As soon as I do it, it goes everywhere.
Speaker 0: The country seems more divided than ever. Yeah. What can you do to help alleviate some of that division?
Speaker 1: Well, you can get rid of these 2 people. They're terrible. They're terrible. You don't wanna have them running this country. They're not equipped to run it.
Joe, just Joe, it's a disaster. Okay? And Kamala, I think she'll end up being worse than him. We'll see. I think a lot's now you know, the convention's over with, and I I see them leading in just about all the polls now.
They had their little honeymoon period as they call it, and we'll see how that all goes. Who knows?
Speaker 0: From my personal opinion, I think you you are at your best when you're talking about a positive vision of the future versus criticizing the other side?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think you have to criticize, though. I think I think they're nasty. They came up with a story that I looked down and I called soldiers that died in World War 1 Suckers and losers. Okay.
Now number 1, who would say that? Number 2, who would say it to military people? Nobody. It was a made up story. It was just a made up story.
And they like to repeat it over again. They know it was made up. I have 26 witnesses that nothing was said. They don't wanna hear about that. Like, she lied on McDonald's.
She said that, that she worked at McDonald's. It's not a big lie, but it's a big lie. It's so you know, I mean, they just went and they checked. And unless she can show something they don't talk about the presses are gonna follow-up with it, but I I'll keep hammering it. But she never worked at McDonald's.
It was just a, you know, sort of a cool thing to say, hey. I worked at McDonald's. You know? But one of the worst was 2 days ago, I went to Arlington at the request of people that lost their children. There'll always be children to those people.
You understand that? That's not politically incorrect, a thing to say. The mother comes up, I lost my child, but, you know, the child is a soldier. And lost the child because of Biden and because of Kamala as just as though they had the gun in their hand because it was so badly handled. It should have been done at Bagram, which the big airbase.
It shouldn't have been done at a small, little airport right in the middle of town where people stormed it. It was a true disaster, and they asked me if I'd come and celebrate with them 3 years 3 years. They died 3 years ago. And I said I'm gonna try I got to know them because I brought them here, actually. One night, they they almost all came here, and they said, I wonder if Trump will actually come and see us.
I heard they were here. I came set so we stayed for, like, 4 hours listening to music up on a deck right upstairs. Beautiful. And they were great people. So they called me over the last couple of weeks, and they said, we're gonna have a reunion, a 3 year reunion.
Would you be able to come? It was very hard for me to do it logistically, but I said I'll get it done. And I got there, and we had a beautiful time. I didn't run away. I didn't, you know, I didn't just walk in, shake hands, and walk out like people do, and I wasn't looking at my watch like Joe Biden does.
And it was amazing. So I did it for them. I didn't do it for me. I don't need the publicity. I mean, I get more publicity probably than anybody.
You would know that better than me, but I think maybe more than anybody. Maybe more than anybody that's ever lived, I don't know, but I don't think anyone could have any more. Every time you turn on television, there's like 9 different stories all on different topics in the world of that show. As an example, you interview a lot of people, good people, successful people. Let's see how you do with this interview versus them.
Okay? I mean, I I can tell you right now, you're gonna get the highest numbers you've ever had by sometimes a factor of 10. But but, when a gold star family asks me to come in and spend time with them, and then they said, sir, we did a ceremony, and then we went down to the graves, which was quite a distance away. They said, sir, would you come to the grave? And then they said when we were there it's very sad, actually, Because these people shouldn't have died.
They shouldn't have died. They died because of Biden and because of Kamala. They died because just like if they pulled the trigger. Okay? Now I don't know if that's controversial to say, but I don't think it is.
Afghanistan was the most incompetently run operation I think I've ever seen. Military or otherwise, they're incompetent. But the families asked me if I'd go. I did go. Then the families said, could we have a picture at the tombstone of my son?
And we did. Son or daughter. There was a daughter too. And I took numerous pictures with the families. I don't know if anybody else that was in the pictures, but they were mostly families, I guess.
That was it, and then I left. I I spent a lot of time with them. Then I left, and I get home that night, and I get a call that the Biden administration with Kamala is accusing me of using Arlington for publicity. I was in use just the opposite. Just the opposite.
And and, actually, did you see that it just came out? The families actually put out a very strong statement defending me. They said, we asked him to be there.
Speaker 0: Well, politicians and the media can play those games. And you're right. Your name gets a lot of views. You're probably legit the most famous person in the world. But on the previous thing, in the spirit of unity, you used to be a Democrat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Setting the politicians aside, what do you respect most about people who lean left, who are democrats themselves, or of that persuasion, progressives, liberals, and so on?
Speaker 1: Well, look. I respect the fact that everybody's in there, and, you know, to a certain extent, life is what you do while you're waiting to die, so you might as well do a good job. I think in terms of what's happening now, I think, you know, we we have a chance to save the country. This country's going down, and I called it with Venezuela. I called it with a lot of different countries, and this country's going down.
If we don't win this election, the election coming up on November 5th is the most important election this country's ever had. Because if we don't win it, I don't know that there'll be another election, and it's gonna be a communist country. We're close.
Speaker 0: There's a lot of people listening to this, myself included, that doesn't think that Kamala is a communist.
Speaker 1: Well, she's a Marxist.
Speaker 0: Her her father's a Marxist. That's right. And she's advocating
Speaker 1: little unusual.
Speaker 0: Yeah. She's advocating for some policies that are towards the direction of, democratic socialism, let's say. But there are a lot of people that kinda know the way government works, and they say, well, none of those policies are going to actually come to reality. It's just being used during the campaign to, you know, groceries are too expensive. We need them cheaper, so let's let's talk about price controls, and that's never gonna come to reality.
Speaker 1: It could come to reality. Look. I mean, she came out with price control. It's been tried, like, a 121 different times at different places over the years, and it's never worked once. It it leads to communism.
It leads to socialism. It leads to having no food on the shelves, and it leads to tremendous inflation. It's just It's a bad idea.
Speaker 0: Whenever we use terms like communism for her, and I don't know if you know this, but some people call you a fascist.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They do. So I figure it's alright to call them a communist. Yeah. They call me a lot worse than I call them.
Speaker 0: They they do indeed. It's just sometimes It's
Speaker 1: interesting, though. They'll call me something that's terrible, and then I'll hit them back. And they'll say, isn't it terrible what Trump said? I said, oh, wait a minute. They just called me.
So I believe you have to fight fire with fire. I believe they're very evil people. These are evil people. You know, we have an enemy from the outside, and we have an enemy from within. And in my opinion, the enemy from within are radical left lunatics, And I think you have to fight back.
Speaker 0: Whenever there's a lot of fighting, fire with fire, it's too easy to forget that there's a middle of America that is, that's moderate and kind of sees the good in both sides and just likes one side more than the other in terms of policies. Like I said, there's a lot of people that like your policies, like your skill in being able to negotiate and end wars. And they don't see the the, impending destruction of America.
Speaker 1: You know, we had no wars when I was president. That's a big thing. Not since 78 years has that happened. But we had no wars when I was president. We defeated ISIS, but they were that was a war that was started that we weren't anywhere near defeating.
But think of it. I had no wars, and Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, said the world has to have Trump back because everybody was afraid of Trump. Now that's what he said, so I'm not using that term, but I think they respected me. But he said China was afraid, Russia was afraid, everybody was afraid. And I I don't care what word they use.
Probably, that's even a better word, if you wanna know the truth, but let's use the word respect. They had respect for me. They had respect for the country. I mean, I ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the Russian pipeline. Nobody else could have done that.
I ended it. It was done. Then Biden comes in, and he gave it. He approved it. So we're defending Germany and these other countries for peanuts compared to what it's worth, and they're paying the person we're defending them against 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars for energy.
I said, how does that work? And we had it out with them, and it worked out good, and they paid bill and they paid 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars, or you wouldn't even have a NATO right now. You wouldn't have NATO if it wasn't for me.
Speaker 0: As the leader of the United States, you were the most powerful man in the world. As you mentioned, not only the most famous, but the most powerful. And if you become leader again, you will have unprecedented power. Just on your own personal psychology, what does that power do to you? Does it is there any threat of it corrupting how you see the world?
Speaker 1: No. I don't think so. Look. I've I've been there for 4 years. I could have done a big number in Hillary Clinton.
I thought it looked terrible to take the president's wife and put her in prison. She's so lucky I didn't do anything. She's so lucky. Hillary is a lucky woman, because I had a lot of people pushing me to they wanted to they wanted to see something, but I had I I could've done something very bad. I thought it looked so bad.
Think of it. You have the president of the United States, and you also had secretary of state. Right? She was. But you're going to put the President's wife in prison, and yet when I got out there, you know, they have all these hoaxes.
They're all hoaxes, but they have all these dishonest hoaxes, just like they did in the past with Russia, Russia, Russia. That was a hoax. The 51 different, you know, agencies or agents, that was a hoax. The whole thing was a hoax. The whole there were so many hoaxes and scams, and but I didn't wanna put her in jail, and I didn't.
And I explained it to people. You know, they say, lock her up, lock her up. It does it. We won. I said, we don't wanna put her in jail.
We wanna bring the country together. I wanna bring the country together. You don't bring the country together by putting her in jail. But, then when I got out, you know, they went to work on me. It's it's amazing.
And, they suffer from massive Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS, and I don't know if they're it's curable from their standpoint.
Speaker 0: A lot of people are very interested in footage of UFOs. The the Pentagon has released a few, videos, and, there's been anecdotal reports from fighter pilots. So a lot of people wanna know, will you help push the Pentagon to release more footage, which a lot of people claim is available?
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Sure. I'll do that. I would do that. I'd love to do that.
I have to do that, but they also are pushing me on Kennedy. Mhmm. And I did release a lot, but I had people come to me and beg me not to do it. But I'll be doing that very early on. Yeah.
No. But I would do that.
Speaker 0: There's a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein, releasing some of the documents on Epstein. Why the hesitation?
Speaker 1: I don't think I had I mean, I'm not involved. I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did.
Speaker 0: Why do you think so many smart, powerful people allowed him to get so close?
Speaker 1: He was a good salesman. He was, you know, he was a hailing, hearty type of guy. He had some nice assets that he'd throw around, like islands, but a lot of big people went to that island. But fortunately, I was not one of them.
Speaker 0: It's just very strange for a lot of people that, the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's very interesting, isn't it? Probably will be, by the way. Probably.
Speaker 0: So if you're able to, you'll be Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'd certainly take a look at it. Now Kennedy's interesting because it's so many years ago. You know? They do that for danger too because, you know, it endangers certain people, etcetera, etcetera. So Kennedy, is very different from the Epstein thing.
But, yeah, I'd be inclined to do the Epstein. I'd have no problem with it.
Speaker 0: That's great to hear. What gives you strength when you're getting attacked? You're one of the most attacked people in the world.
Speaker 1: I think you you can't you can't care that much. I know people, they care so much about everything, like what people are saying. You can't care too much because you end up choking.
Speaker 0: One of the tragic things about life is that it ends. How often do you think about your death? Are you afraid of it?
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's very, very successful, and he's in his eighties, mid mid eighties, and he asked me that exact same question. I said I turned it around. I said, well, what about you? He said, I think about it every minute of every day. And then a week later, he called me to tell me something, and he starts off the conversation by going, tick tock.
Tick tock. Yeah. This is just dark. This is a dark person, you know, in a sense, but, it is what it is. I mean, you know, if you're religious, you have, I think, a better feeling toward it.
You know, you're supposed to go to heaven, ideally not hell, but you're supposed to go to heaven if you're good. I think our country is missing a lot of religion. I think it really was a much better place with religion. It was almost a guide, to a certain extent it was a guide. You wanna be good to people.
Without religion, there's no real there are no guardrails. I'd love to see us get back to religion, more religion in this country.
Speaker 0: Well, mister president, thank you for putting yourself out there, and thank you for talking today.
Speaker 1: Look. I love the country. I wanna see the country be great, and we have a real chance of doing it, but it's our last chance. And I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thanks for listening to this conversation with Donald Trump. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now as I've started doing here at the end of some episodes, let me make a few comments and answer a few questions. If you would like to submit questions, including an audio and video form, go to lexfreidman.com/ama, or get in touch with me for whatever other reason at lexfreidman.com/contact. I usually do this in a t shirt, but I figured, for this episode, I'll, keep my suit and tie on.
So first, this might be a good moment to, look back a bit. I've been doing this podcast for over 6 years, and I first and foremost have to say thank you. I'm truly grateful for the support and the love I've gotten along the way. It's been, I would say, the most unlikely journey. And on most days, I barely feel like I know what I'm doing.
But I wanted to, talk a bit about how I approach these conversations. Now each conversation is its own unique puzzle, so I can't speak generally to how I approach these. But here, it may be useful to describe how I approach conversations with world leaders, of which I hope to have many more and do a better job every time. I read a lot of history, and I admire the historian perspective. As an example, I admire William Shire, the author of many books on Hitler, including the rise and fall of the Third Reich.
He was there and lived through it and covered it objectively to the degree that one could. Academic historians, by the way, criticize them for being a poor historian because he editorialized a little too much. I think those same folks criticize Dan Carlin and his hardcore history podcast. I respect their criticism, but I fundamentally disagree. So in these conversations with world leaders, I try to put on my historian hat.
I think in the realm of truth and public discourse, there's a spectrum between the ephemeral and the eternal. The outrage mob and clickbait journalists are often focused on the ephemeral, the current thing, the, current viral shitstormer of mockery and derision. But when the battle of the day is done, most of it will be forgotten. A few true ideas will remain, and those, the historian hopes to capture. Now this is, much easier said than done.
It's not just about having the right ideals and the integrity to stick by them. It's not even just about having the actual skill of talking, which, I still think I suck at. But let's say, it's a work in progress. You also have to make the scheduling work and set up the entirety of the environment in a way that is conducive to such a conversation. This is hard, really hard, with political and business leaders.
They are usually super busy, and in some cases, super nervous because, well, they've been screwed over so many times with clickbait, gotcha journalism. So to convince them and their team to talk for 2, 3, 4, 5 hours is hard. And I do think a good conversation requires that kind of duration. And I've been thinking a lot about why. I don't think it's just about needing the actual time or 3 hours to cover all the content.
I think the longer form with a hypothetical skilled conversationalist relaxes things and allows people to go on tangents and to banter about the details. Because I think it's in the details that the beautiful complexity of the person is brought to light. Anyway, I look forward to talking to more world leaders and doing a better job every time as I said. I would love to do interviews with Kamala Harris and some other political figures on the left and right, including Tim Walz, AOC, Bernie, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary, and on the right, JD Vance, Vivek, George w, and so on. And on the topic of politics, let me say as an immigrant, I love this country, the United States of America.
I do believe it is the greatest nation on Earth. And I'm grateful for the people on the left and the right who step into the arena of politics to fight for this country that I do believe they all love as well. I have reached out to Kamala Harris, but not many of the others. I probably should do a better job with that. But I've been doing most of this myself, all the reach out, scheduling, research prep, recording, and so on.
And on top of that, I very much have been suffering from imposter syndrome with the voice in my head constantly pointing out when I'm doing a shitty job. Plus, a few folks graciously remind me on the Internet the, the very same sentiment of this aforementioned voice. All of this, while I have the option of just hiding away at MIT, programming robots, and doing some cool AI research with a few grad students, or maybe joining an AI company, or maybe starting my own, all these options make me truly happy. But like I said, on most days, I barely know what I'm doing, so who knows what the future holds. Most importantly, I'm forever grateful for all of you, for your patience and your support throughout this roller coaster of the life I've been on.
I love you all. Okay. Now let me go on to some of the questions that people had. I was asked by a few people to comment on Pawel Durov arrest and on X being banned in Brazil. Let me first briefly comment on the, Durov arrest.
So basic facts. Pawel Durov is CEO of Telegram, which is a messenger app that has end to end encryption mode. It's not on by default, and, most people don't use the end to end encryption, but some do. Paolo was arrested in France on a long list of charges related to, quote, unquote, criminal activity carried out on the Telegram platform and for, quote, unquote, providing unlicensed cryptology services. I think Telegram is indeed used for criminal activity by a small minority of its users.
For example, by terrorist groups to communicate. And I think we all agree that terrorism is bad. But here's the problem. As the old saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And there are many cases in which the world unilaterally agrees who the terrorists are.
But there are other cases when, governments, especially authoritarian inclined governments, tend to propagandize and just call whoever's in the opposition, whoever opposes them, terrorists. There is some room for nuance here. But to me, at this time, it seems to obviously be a power grab by government wanting to have backdoor access into every platform so they can have censorship power against the opposition. I think, generally, government should stay out of censoring or even pressuring social media platforms. And I think arresting a CEO of a tech company for the things said on the platform he built is just nuts.
It has a chilling effect on him, on people working at Telegram, and on people working at every social media company, and also people thinking of launching a new social media company. Same as the case of x being banned in Brazil. It's, I think, a power grab by Alexandre de Marias, a supreme court justice in Brazil. He ordered X to block certain accounts that are spreading, quote, unquote, misinformation. Elon and X denied the request.
Then de Marias threatened to arrest X representatives in Brazil. And in response to that, ex pulled the representatives out of Brazil, obviously, to protect them. And now ex, having no representatives in Brazil, apparently violates the law. Based on this, Demerias banned X in Brazil. Once again, it's an authoritarian figure seeking censorship power over the channels of communication.
I understand that this is complicated because there are evil people in the world, and part of the role of government is to protect us from those evil people. But as Benjamin Franklin said, those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. So it's a trade off. But I think in many places in the world, many governments have leaned too far away at this time from liberty. Okay.
Next up, I got a question on AI, which I emotionally connected with. I'll condense it as follows. Hello, Lex. I'm a programmer, and I have a deep fear of slipping into irrelevance because I am worried that AI will soon exceed my programming skills. Let me first say that I relate to your fear.
It's scary to have a thing that gives you a career and gives you meaning to be taken away. For me, programming is a passion. And if not for this podcast, it would probably, at least in part, be my profession. So I get an uncomfortable feeling every time Claude, the LLM I use for coding at this time, just writes a lot of excellent, approximately correct code. I think you can make a good case that it already exceeds the skill of many programmers, at least in the same way that, the collective intelligence of Stack Overflow exceeds the skill of many programmers many individual programmers.
But in many ways, it still does not. But I think eventually, more and more, the task, the profession of programming will be one of writing natural language prompts. I think the right thing to do and, what I'm at least doing is to ride the wave of the ever improving code generating LLMs and keep transforming myself into a big picture designer versus low level tinkerer. What I'm doing and, what, I recommend you do is continually switch to whatever state of the art tool is for generating code. So for me currently, I recently switched from Versus Code to Cursor, and before that, it was Emacs to Versus Code switch.
So Cursor is this editor that's based on Versus Code that, leans heavily on LLMs and integrates the cogeneration really nicely into the editing process. So it makes it super easy to, continually use the LLMs. So what I would advise and what I'm trying to do myself is to learn how to use it and to master its code generation capabilities. I personally try to now allocate a significant amount of time to designing with natural language first versus writing code from scratch. So using my understanding of programming to edit the code that's generated by the LLM versus sort of, writing it from scratch and then using the LLM to generate small parts of the code.
I see it as a skill that I should develop in parallel to my programming skill. I think this applies to many other careers too. Don't compete with AI for your job. Learn to use the AI to do that job better. But, yes, it is scary on some deep sort of human level, the threat of being replaced.
But at least I think we'll be okay. Alright. Next up, I got a very nice audio message and question from a gentleman who is 27 and feeling a lot of anxiety about the future. Just recently, he graduated with a bachelor's degree, and he's thinking about going to grad school for biomedical engineering. But there is a lot of anxiety.
He mentioned anxiety many times in the message. It took him an extra while to get his degree. So he mentioned he would be 32 by the time he's done with his PhD. So it's a big investment. But he said in his heart, he feels like he's a scientist.
I think that's the most important part of his message, of your message. By the way, I'll figure out how to best include audio and video messages in future episodes. Now onto the question. So thank you for telling me your story and for submitting the question. My own life story is similar to yours.
I went to Drexel University for my bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees, and I took a while just as you are doing. I did a lot of nonstandard things that, weren't any good for some hypothetical career I'm supposed to have. I trained and competed in judo and jujitsu for my entire twenties. Got a, black belt from it. I wrote a lot, including a lot of really crappy poetry.
I read a large amount of nontechnical books, history, philosophy, and literature. I took courses on literature and philosophy that weren't at all required for my computer science and electrical engineering degrees, like a course on, James Joyce. I played guitar in bars around town. I took a lot of technical classes. Many, for example, on theoretical computer science that, were way more than were needed for the degree.
I did a lot of research, and I coded up a bunch of projects that didn't directly contribute to my dissertation. It was pure curiosity and the joy of exploring. So like you, I took, the long way home as they say, and I regret none of it. Throughout that, people around me and even people who love me wanted, me to hurry up and to focus, especially because I had very little money. And so I had a sense, like, time was running out for me to, take the needed steps towards a reasonable career.
And just like you, I was filled with anxiety, and I still am filled with anxiety to this day. But I I think the right thing to do is not to run away from the anxiety, but to lean into it and, channel it into pursuing with everything you've got the things you're passionate about. As you said, very importantly, in your heart, you know you're a scientist. So that's it. You know exactly what to do.
Pursue the desire to be a scientist with everything you got. Get to a good grad school, find a good adviser, and, do epic shit with them. And it may turn out in the end that your life will have unexpected chapters. But as long as you're chasing dreams and goals with absolute unwavering dedication, good stuff will come with it. And, also, try your best to be a good person.
This might be a good place to read the words if by Rudyard Kipling that I often return to when I feel lost, and I'm looking for guidance on how to be a better man. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating. And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those 2 impostors just the same, if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings, and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, and lose and start again at your beginnings, and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they're gone, And so hold on when there's nothing in you except the will which says to them, hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you. If all men count with you, but none too much.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it. And which is more, you'll be a man, my son. Thank you for listening. And see you next time.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's the links for my conversation with @realDonaldTrump: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCbfTN-caFI Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/donald-trump-transcript Podcast: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Transcript for Donald Trump Interview | Lex Fridman Podcast #442 - Lex Fridman
This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #442 with Donald Trump. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links: Go back to this episode’s main page Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast Table of Contents Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation. Click link to jump approximately to that part in the transcript: 0:00 – Introduction 1:09 – Psychology of winning and losing 3:51 – Politics is a
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reSee.it AI Summary
I survived the jungle and had an incredible adventure. I'll be sharing videos soon, but for now, check out my 4-hour podcast conversation with Paul Rosolie. It covers everything from snakes to aliens and is available on various platforms. Links in the comments.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
I made it out of the jungle alive ❤ This was an adventure of a lifetime, from getting lost in dense unexplored wilderness to taking very high doses of ayahuasca. I'll post videos about some of these adventures in a week or so. First, here's a 4 hour podcast conversation with Paul Rosolie that we recorded deep in the jungle. This time in the jungle has deepened my gratitude for getting to exist on this beautiful planet with all of you. I love you all ❤ The podcast conversation is here on X and is up on YouTube, Spotify, and everywhere else. Links in comment. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 2:07 - Amazon jungle 4:25 - Bushmaster snakes 15:51 - Black caiman 34:11 - Rhinos 37:25 - Anacondas 1:07:42 - Mammals 1:19:48 - Piranhas 1:30:38 - Aliens 1:48:23 - Elephants 1:56:21 - Origin of life 2:09:40 - Explorers 2:22:57 - Ayahuasca 2:31:22 - Deep jungle expedition 2:45:29 - Jane Goodall 2:48:00 - Theodore Roosevelt 2:58:56 - Alone show 3:08:42 - Protecting the rainforest 3:24:55 - Snake makes appearance 3:33:06 - Uncontacted tribes 3:46:30 - Mortality 3:47:58 - Steve Irwin 3:55:38 - God
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this video, the speakers discuss their experiences in the Amazon jungle, highlighting the diverse wildlife they encountered and their admiration for these creatures. They discuss encounters with animals like snakes, caimans, hippos, and rhinos, emphasizing their unique characteristics and the importance of protecting them. The speakers also reflect on the interconnectedness of life in the rainforest and the responsibility humans have to preserve it. They touch on the exploration of the Amazon, the role of explorers like Percy Fawcett and Richard Evans Schultes, and the mysteries surrounding life's origins. The conversation also delves into survival in the jungle, the significance of documenting the natural world, and the resilience of explorers. The speakers stress the need to protect the rainforest from destructive activities and the importance of appreciating and preserving nature. They conclude by reflecting on the power of love and compassion in navigating life's challenges and expressing gratitude for the adventure and the positive impact of connecting with others.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Where are we right now, Paul?
Speaker 1: Lex, we are in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 0: It's the Amazon jungle. There's vegetation. There's insects. There's all kinds of creatures. A 1000000 heartbeats, a 1000000 eyes.
So, really, where are we right now?
Speaker 1: We are in Peru in a very remote part of the western Amazon basin. And because of the proximity of the Andean cloud forest to the lowland tropical rainforest, we are in the most biodiverse part of planet Earth. There's more life per square acre, per square mile out here than there is anywhere else on Earth, not just now, but in the entire
Speaker 2: fossil record.
Speaker 0: The following is a conversation with Paul Rosalie, his second time in the podcast. But this time, we did the conversation deep in the Amazon jungle. I traveled there to hang out with Paul, and it turned out to be an adventure of a lifetime. I will post a video capturing some aspects of that adventure in a week or so. It included everything from getting lost in dense, unexplored wilderness with no contact to the outside world to taking very high doses of Ayahuasca, and much more.
Paul, by the way, aside from being my good friend, is a naturalist, explorer, author, and is someone who has dedicated his life to protecting the rainforest. For this mission, he founded Jungle Keepers. You can help him if you go to junglekeepers.org. This trip, for me, was life changing. It expanded my understanding of myself and of the beautiful world I'm fortunate to exist in with all of you.
So I'm glad I went, and I'm glad I made it out alive. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Paul Roseley. I can't believe we're actually here.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you actually came.
Speaker 0: And I can't believe you forced me to wear a suit.
Speaker 1: That was the people's choice. Trust me. Alright.
Speaker 0: We've been through quite a lot over the last few days.
Speaker 1: We've been through a bit.
Speaker 0: Let me ask you a ridiculous question. What are all the creatures right now, if they wanted to, could, cause us harm?
Speaker 1: The thing is the Amazon rainforest has been described as the greatest natural battlefield on earth because there's more life here than anywhere else, which means that everything here is fighting for survival. The trees are fighting for sunlight. The animals are fighting for prey. Everybody's fighting for survival. And so everything that you see here, everything around us will be killed, eaten, digested, recycled at some point.
The jungle is really just a giant churning machine of death and life is kind of this moment of stasis where you you maintain this collection of cells in a DNA sequence and then and then it gets digested again and recycled back and renamed into everything. And, so so the things the things in this forest, while they don't want to hurt us, there are things that are heavily defended because, for instance, a giant anteater needs claws to fight off a jaguar. A stingray needs a stinger on its tail, which is basically a serrated knife with venom on it to deter anything that would hunt that stingray. Even the catfish have pectoral fins that have razor long steak knife sized defense systems. Then you, of course, the jaguars, the harpy eagles, the piranha, the candiru fish that can swim up a penis, lodge themselves inside.
It's the Amazon rainforest. The thing is, as you've learned this week, nothing here wants to get us with the exception for exception of maybe mosquitoes. Every other animal just just wants to eat and exist in peace.
Speaker 0: That's it. But there is each of those animals that you described have a kinda radius of defense. Yeah. So if you accidentally step into its home Yeah. Into that radius, it can cause harm.
Speaker 1: Or make them feel threatened.
Speaker 0: Make them feel threatened. There is a defense mechanism that is activated.
Speaker 1: Some incredible defense mechanisms. I mean, you're talking about 17 foot black caiman, crocodiles that with significant size that could rip you in half, anacondas, the largest snake on earth, Bushmasters that can grow up to be 9 to, I think, even 11 feet long, and I've caught Bushmasters that are thicker than
Speaker 0: my arms. So for people who don't know, Bushmaster snakes, what are these things?
Speaker 1: These are vipers. So I believe it's the largest viper on earth.
Speaker 0: Venomous.
Speaker 1: Extremely venomous with hinged teeth, tissue destroying venom. Like, if you get bitten by a bushmaster, they say you don't you don't rush and try and save your own life. You try to savor what's around you. Look at look look around at the world. Smoke your last cigarette.
Call your mom. That's it. So that moment of stasis
Speaker 0: that is life is going to end abruptly when you interact with one of those. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I even have even this this seemingly
Speaker 0: Can I just pause at how incredibly beautiful it is that you could just reach to your right and grab a piece of the chuck? It's like it's like a
Speaker 1: even this seemingly beautiful little fern, if you if you go this way on the fern, you're fine. As soon as out. As soon as you go this way, there's invisible little spikes on there
Speaker 2: if you wanna Oh, I
Speaker 0: see. I feel that.
Speaker 1: See that? It's like everything is defended. If you're driving on the road and you have your arm out the side or if you're on a motorcycle going through the jungle Yeah. And you get one of these, it'll just tear all the skin right off your body. It's kinda doing that to me now.
Speaker 0: So what what would you do? Like, we're going through the dense jungle yesterday, and you slide down the hill, your foot slips, you slide them down, and then you find yourself staring a couple feet away from a bushmaster snake. What are you doing? You're, for people who somehow don't know, are somebody who loves, admires snakes, who has met thousands of snakes, has worked with them, respects them, celebrates them. What would you do with a Bushmaster Snake?
Face to face.
Speaker 1: Face to face, this has happened. This happened this. Nice. I've come face to face with the bushmaster, and there's 2 things there's 2 reactions that you might get. 1 is if the bushmaster decides that it's vacation time, if it's sleeping, if you just had a meal, they'll come to the edges of trails or beneath the tree, and they'll just circle up, little spiral, big spiral, big pile of snake on the trail, and they'll just sit there.
And one time, there was a snake sitting on the side of a trail beneath a tree for 2 weeks. This snake was just sitting there, resting, digesting his food out in the open in the rain, in the sun, in the night. Didn't matter. You go near it, barely even crack a tongue. Now the other option is that you get a Bushmaster that's alert and hunting and out looking for something to eat.
And they're ready to defend themselves. And so I once came across a bushmaster in the jungle at night, and this bushmaster turned its head towards me, looked at me, and made it very clear I'm gonna go this way. And so I did the natural thing that any snake enthusiast would do and I grabbed its tail. Now 11 feet later, by the head, the snake turned around and just said, if you wanna meet God, I can arrange the meeting. I will oblige.
And I decided to let the Bushmaster go. Mhmm. And so it's it's like that with most animals. You know, a jaguar will turn and look at you and just remind you of how small you are.
Speaker 0: Like, what did you see in a snake's eyes? What how did you sense that this is not the right this is not this is gonna be your end if you proceed?
Speaker 1: His readiness. I I I wanted to get him by
Speaker 0: the tail and show him
Speaker 1: to the people that were there and maybe work with the snake a little bit. As an 11 foot snake, he the snake turned around and made it very clear, like, not today, pal. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 0: It's in the eyes and the movement and the tension of the body.
Speaker 1: It was the movement and the s of the neck. It was it was it was as if you pushed me, and I went, let's go. Make my day. Yeah. Like, he just looked a little bit too
Speaker 0: Yeah. Too ready. He's like, I love this. Okay. Alright.
So you know. You just know.
Speaker 1: You just know. Whereas, like, the snake you met last night
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Beautiful snake. Such a calm little thing. He just focuses on eating baby lizards and little snails and things, and that snake has no concept of defending itself. It has no way to defend itself. So even, even something the size of a blue jay could just come and
Speaker 0: just peck that thing in
Speaker 1: the head and swallow it, and it's a helpless little snake. So it's it's really it kinda depends on the animal. It depends on the mood you catch them in. Each one has a different temperament.
Speaker 0: The grace of its movement was mesmerizing. Curious almost. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing, projecting onto it. But it was The
Speaker 1: tongue flicking was a sign of curiosity. I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was like, why am I on this treadmill of human skin? You know? They're just trying to get to the next thing, trying to get hidden, trying to get away from the light.
Also, the texture of
Speaker 0: the scales is really fascinating. I mean, it's my first Fascinating. I've ever touched is so interesting. It was just such an incredible system of muscles that are all interacting together to make that kind of movement work and all the texture of its skin, of its scales. What what do you love about snakes?
From my first experience with a snake to all the thousands of experiences you had with snakes, what do you love about these creatures?
Speaker 1: I think it's when you just spoke about it, it was that's the first snake you've met, and it was a tiny little snake in the jungle. And you spoke about it with so much light in your eyes. And I think that because we've been programmed to be scared of snakes, there's something there's something wondrous that happens in our brain. Maybe maybe it's just this this this joy of discovery that there's nothing to be scared of. And whether it's a rattlesnake that is dangerous and that you need to give distance to, but you look at it from a distance and you go, woah.
Or it's a harmless little grass snake that you can pick up and enjoy and give to a child. It's they're just these strange legless animals that just exist, you know, they don't even have eyelids. They're so different than us. They have a tongue that sense senses the air, and they, to me, are so beautiful. And I've I've, my whole life, been defending snakes from humans, and it's it's they seem misunderstood.
I think they're incredibly beautiful. There's every color and variety of snakes. There's venomous snakes, there's tree snakes, there's huge crushing anacondas. It's just of the 2,000 600 species of snakes that exist on Earth, there's just such beauty, such complexity, and such simplicity. They're just they're just to me to me, I feel like I feel like I'm I am friend with snake, and and they rely on me to protect them from my people.
Speaker 0: Friend was snake.
Speaker 1: Me, friend, snake.
Speaker 0: Me, friend, snake. You said some of them are sometimes aggressive. Some of them are peaceful. Is this a mood thing, a personality thing, a species thing? Is it what is it?
Speaker 1: So the as far as I know, there's only really 2 snakes on Earth that could be aggressive because aggression indicates, offense.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And so a reticulated python has been documented as eating humans. Anacondas, although while it hasn't been publicized, they have eaten humans. Every single other snake from boa constrictor to bushmasters to spitting cobra to grass snake to garter snake to everything else, every single other snake does not want to interact with you.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: They have no interest. So there's no such thing as an aggressive snake once you get outside of anaconda and reticulated python. Aggression could be trying to eat you. That's predation. But for every other snake, a rattlesnake, if it was there, would either go escape and hide itself or it would rattle its tail and tell us, don't come closer.
A cobra will hood up and begin to hiss and say, don't approach me. I'm asking you nicely
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Not to mess with me. And most other snakes are fast or they stay in the trees or they're extremely camouflaged, but their whole MO is just don't bother me. Mhmm. I don't wanna be seen. I don't wanna be messed with.
In fact, all I wanna be do is be left alone. And once in a while, I just wanna eat. And by the way, when you see a snake drink, your heart will break. It's like seeing it's the only thing that's cuter than a puppy. Like, watching a snake touch its mouth to water and just you just see that that little mouth going as they suck water in, and it's like it's just so adorable watching the scaled animal just be like, I need water.
Speaker 0: In a state of vulnerability. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing cuter than a little puppy with
Speaker 1: a tongue like a baby ball python.
Speaker 0: Alright.
Speaker 1: Baby king cobra man. To take your baby elephant.
Speaker 0: So what are they? They're, like, at a puddle, and they just take it in?
Speaker 1: They can be at a puddle, and they just take it in. Or one time in India, I was with a snake rescuer, and we found this 9 foot king cobra, this this god of a snake. Their Ophiophagus hanna is their Latin name, and they're they're snake eaters. They're the king of the snakes, the largest venomous snake. And the people that call called the snake rescuer, because it's a profession in India, you know, it had gotten into their kitchen or their backyard, and so we showed up and we got the snake.
And the snake rescuer, he knew. He looked at the snake and he went to me. He said, you know, why do you think the snake would go in the house? And he's quizzing me. And I actually went, you know, I don't know.
Is it warm? Is it cold? You know, like, sometimes cats like to go into the warm warm cars in the winter. And he was, like, he's thirsty. He goes, watch this.
He took a water bottle, poured it over the now the snake is standing up. The snake stands up 3 feet tall. This is a huge king cobra with a hood, terrifying snake to be around. He leans over to the snake, and the snake is standing there trusting him. And he takes a water bottle and pours it onto the snake's nose, and the snake turns up its nose and just starts drinking from the water bottle.
Human giving water to snake, big scary snake, but this human understood. Snake gets water. Snake gets released in jungle. Everybody's okay.
Speaker 0: So sometimes the needs are simple. They just don't have the words to communicate them to us humans. Yeah. And is it disinterest or is it fear? Almost like they don't notice us, or is it where source the unknown aspect of it, the uncertainty is a is a source of danger?
Speaker 1: Well, animals live in a constant state of danger. Like, if you look at that deer that we saw last night, it's Yeah. Stalking through the jungle, wondering what's gonna eat it, wondering if this is the last moment it's gonna be alive. It's like the animals are constantly terrified of that this is their last moment.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Just for the listener, we're walking through the jungle late at night, so it's darkness except our headlamps on. And then all of a sudden, Paul stops, zich, and he looks in the distance. He sees 2 eyes. He's I think you thought, is that a jaguar or is that a deer?
And it was moving its head like this. Mhmm. Like, scared or maybe trying to figure it trying to localize itself, trying to figure out see around that. Doing the same to it. Yeah.
The the 2 of you, like, moving your head
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And, like, deep into the jungle. Like, I don't know. It's pretty far away through the trees. You can still see it.
Speaker 1: 30 feet or so. Yeah.
Speaker 0: That's the thing to actually mention. I mean, the with the headlamp, you see the reflection in their eyes. It's kind of incredible just to see a creature, to try to identify a creature by just the the reflection from its eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so the cats, sometimes you'll get, like, a greenish or a bluish glow from the cats. The deer are usually white to orange. Cayman, orange. Nightjar is orange.
Snakes can usually be like orange moths. Spiders sparkle. And so you have all these different as you walk through the jungle, you can see all these different eyes. And when something large looks at you, like that deer did, your first thing is, what animal is this that I am staring back at? Because through the light, you kinda get you see the reflection off the the bright light off the leaves.
And I couldn't tell at first because I actually that those big bright eyes, it could have been an ocelot, could have been a jaguar, could have been a deer. And then when it did this movement, that's what the cats do. They try to see around Mhmm. Your light. I thought maybe Lex Fridman's here.
We're gonna get lucky. It's gonna be a jag right off trail.
Speaker 0: Your definition of lucky is a complicated one. Yeah. It's a fascinating process when you see those two eyes trying to figure out what it is, and it is trying to figure out what you are in that process. Let's talk about Cayman. We've seen a lot of different kinds of sizes.
We've seen a baby one, a bigger one. Tell me about these, 16 foot plus apex predators of the Amazon rainforest.
Speaker 1: The big bad black caiman, which is the largest reptilian predator in the Amazon except for the anaconda, they kind of both share that that that notch of apex predator. They were actually hunted to endangered species level in the seventies because they're they're leather, black scale leather, but they're coming back. They're coming back, and they're huge, and they're beautiful. And I was I was walking near a lake, and I never understood how big they could get except for I was walking near a lake last year, and I was following this stream. You know what it's like when you're following a little stream, and there's just trickle of water, and all of a sudden this river otter had been running the other direction on the tree on the stream.
River otter comes up to me, and I swear to god this animal looked to me and went, hey. And I went, hey. He He's, like, didn't expect to see me there. And he turned around, he, like, did a little spin, started running down the stream, then he turned around, and you you could tell he was, like, let's go. And I you know, you I'm not anthropomorphizing here.
The animal was asking me to come with. So I followed the river otter down the stream. We started running down the stream, and the river otter looks at me one more time. He's like, yo. Jumps into the lake.
And I'm like, what does he want me to see? Now in the lake, this river otter is doing dives and freaking out and going up and down and up and down, and and they're very excited. They're screaming.
Speaker 2: They're screeching. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden and I've never seen anything like this except for, like, Game of Thrones. This crochead comes flying out of the water. All of the river otters were attacking this huge black caiman, 16 feet. Wow. Head half the size of this table.
And she was thrashing her tail around, creating these huge waves in the water, trying to catch an otter. And they're so fast that they were zipping around her, biting her, and then going around. And this otter, swear to god, interspecies, looked at me and went, watch this. We're we're fucking with this cannon. It was amazing.
And And I for the first time, I got to stand there watching this incredible interspecies fight happening. They weren't trying to kill the caiman. They were just trying to mess with it.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And the caiman was doing his best to try and kill these otters, and they were just having a good time in that sick sort of hyperintelligent animal, like wolf sort of way where they were just going, you can't catch us.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Like intelligence and agility versus, like, raw power Uh-huh. And dominance. I mean, I got to handle some smaller Cayman and just the power they had. You know, you scale that up to imagine what a 16 foot, even a 10 foot, any any kind of black apron, the kind of power they deliver.
Maybe can you talk to that? Like, the power they can generate with their tail, with their neck, with their jaw. Alligators and caiman and crocodiles have some
Speaker 1: of the strongest bite forces on earth. Think the saltwater crocodile winds as the strongest bite force on earth. And you got to hold about a what is it? A 4 foot spectacle came in. And you got to feel I mean, you're a black belt in jujitsu.
How do you how do you compare the the explosive force you felt from that animal compared to what a human can generate? It's,
Speaker 0: it's difficult to describe in words. There's a lot of power, and we're talking about the power of the neck. Like, the what is I mean, there's a lot it could generate power all up and down the body, so probably the tail is a monster. Mhmm. But just just the neck
Speaker 2: and, you
Speaker 0: know, not not to mention the the power of the bite. That and the speed too. Because, the thing I saw and and got to experience is how still and calm, at least from my amateur perspective, it seems calm, still. And then from that sort of 0 to 60, you could just just go wild. Thrash.
And then there's also a decision it makes in that split second whether, as it thrashes, is it going to kinda bite you on the way or not? Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And that's where that's where of the 4 species of caiman that we have here, you see differences in their personalities as a species. Yeah. And so you can, like just like, you know, like, generally, golden retrievers are viewed as a as a friendly dog. Generally. Not every single one of them, but as a rule.
Spectacle came in, puppies. You released 1 in the river and it did nothing. Didn't bite one of your fingers, it just swam away. We dropped 1 in the river and what did it do? It chose peace.
Now I had a smooth fronted Cayman a few weeks ago and this is probably about a 3 and a half footer. Not big enough to kill you, but very much big enough to grab one of your fingers and just shake it off your body. Just death roll it right off. And as I was being careful totally different cayman than the one that you got to see. This one has spikes coming off it.
They're like like like leftover dinosaurs. It's like they evolved during the dinosaur times and never changed. They have spikes and bony plates and all kinds of strange growths that you don't see on the other smoother caiman. And I tried to release this one without getting bitten, and I threw it into the stream gently into the water, just went and tried to pull my hands back. And as I pulled my hand back, this came in in the air, turned around, and just tried to give me one parting blow and just got one tooth whack right to the bone of my finger.
And, bone injury feels different than a skin injury. So you inch instantly and it just reminds you of that's a caiman with a head this big, and it hurt. And I know that it could have taken off my finger. Now if you scale that up to a black caiman, it's it's rib crushing. It's it's zebra head removing size, you know, just just meat destroying.
Speaker 0: It's it's incredible. It's nature's metal sort of, you know, just raw power. So what's the the the biggest crock you've been able to handle?
Speaker 1: We were doing Cayman surveys for years, and we would go out at night. And you wanna figure out what are the populations of black Cayman, spectacled caiman, smooth fronted caiman, dwarf caiman. And the only way to see which caiman you're dealing with is to catch it. Because a lot of times, you get close with the light and you can see the eyes at night, but you can't quite see what species it is. For instance, this past few months, we found 2 baby black caiman on the river, which is unprecedented here.
We haven't seen that in decades. So it's important that we monitor our croc population. So I started catching small ones. In Mother of God, I write about the first one that me and JJ caught together, which was probably a little bigger than this table. And, probably mid twenties bravado and competition with other young males of my species led to me trying to go as big as I could.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And I jumped on a spectacle came in that was slightly longer than I am. And I'm 59, so I I jumped on this probably 6 foot croc and quickly realized that my hands couldn't get around its neck, and my legs were wrapped around the base of its tail. And the thrash was so intense that as it took me one side, I barely had enough time to realize what was happening before it beat me against the ground. My headlamp came off, so now I'm blind in the dark, laying in a river, in the Amazon rainforest, hugging a 6 foot crocodile. And I went, JJ.
As I always do. But I in that moment, before I even let go, I knew I couldn't let go of the croc. Because if I let go of the croc, I thought she was gonna destroy my face. So I said, okay. Now I'm stuck here.
If I just stay here, I can't release her. I need help. But I was like, I'm never ever ever ever gonna try and solo catch a croc this big again. I was like, this is this is I knew in that moment. I was like, this is good enough.
Speaker 0: So anything longer than you, you don't control the tail. You don't have you have barely control of anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's a spectacle came in. A black came in is a is a whole other order of magnitude there. It's like saying, like, oh, you know, I play I I was play fighting with my golden retriever versus I was play fighting with, like, you know, what what's the biggest, scariest dog you could think of? This the the dog from Sandlot, a giant gorilla dog thing, like a like a Malamute, sometimes something huge. What do they call it?
Mastiffs.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Mastiffs. I mean, you mentioned dinosaurs. What what do you admire about black caiman? What they've been here for a very, very long time.
There's something prehistoric about their appearance, about their way of being, about their presence in this jungle.
Speaker 1: With crocodiles, you're looking at this this mega survivor. They're in a class with sharks where it's like, they've been here so long. When you talk about multiple extinctions, you talk about the 6th extinction. Earth's going through all this stuff. The crocodiles and the cockroaches have seen it all before.
They're like, man, we remember what that comet looked like, and they're not impressed.
Speaker 0: Yeah. They have this they carry this wisdom. Yeah. In their power
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: In the simplicity of their power, they carry the wisdom. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they're just sitting there in the streams, and they don't care. And even if there's a nuclear holocaust, you know that there would just be some crocs sitting there dead eyed in that stagnant water waiting for the life to regenerate so they could eat again.
Speaker 0: It's gonna be the remaining humans versus the crocs and the cockroaches. And the cockroaches are just background noise.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They'll always be there. Sons of bitches.
Speaker 0: Know, we're talking about individual black caiman and caiman and different species of caiman. But the whenever they're together and you see multiple eyes, which I've gotten to experience, it's quite a feeling. There's just multiple eyes looking back at
Speaker 1: you. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Of course, for you, that's immediate excitement. You immediately go towards that. You wanna see it. You want to explore it. Maybe catch them, analyze what the species is, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. What what's can can you just describe that feeling with the when they're together and they're looking at you? So head above water, eyes reflecting the light. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the other night, Lex and I were in the river with JJ, surviving a thunderstorm. We're in the rain, and we had covered our covered our equipment with our boats. And the only thing that we could do was get in the in the river to keep ourselves dry. And so we were in the river at night in the dark, no stars, just a little bit of canopy silhouetted with all this rain coming down. It was such a dim, you could hardly hear anything.
And all the way downriver, I just see this caiman eye in my headlamp light. Mhmm. And I started walking towards it because I was like, this is even better. We can catch a caiman while we're in this thunderstorm in the Amazon River. And, when JJ went, Paul, it's too far.
JJ very rarely very rarely like, he'll he'll make a suggestion. Like, he'll usually go, like, maybe it's far. But in that situation, deep in the wilderness, unknown came in size, he went, Paul, it's too far. Don't leave the 3 of us right now. Yeah.
We're too far out to take risks.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We're too far out to be walking along the riverbed at night because then, you know, right here at the research station, if you step on a stingray, you get evac'd. Out where we went, nothing. So so for me, seeing those eyes, I think I've become so comfortable with so many of these animals that I I may have crossed into the territory where I feel I feel so comfortable with with many of these animals that they just don't worry me anymore. Mhmm. I mean, you were I I I looked at you in a raft while you had a sizable, probably about 12 foot black came in right next to your raft.
Speaker 0: I watched
Speaker 1: its head go
Speaker 0: under Bubbles. The bubbles. It was all coming up right next to
Speaker 1: your raft as he he was just moving along the bottom of the river because he looked at me, went under, and then my raft passed and yours came over him. So now I'm looking back and your raft is going over this black caiman. And I'm going, I'm not worried at all. Mhmm. I was not worried.
I was not worried that the caiman would freak out. I was not worried that he would try to attack you. I knew a 100% that came and just wanted us to go so you could go back to eating fish. Yeah. That's it.
Speaker 0: Man, it's humbling. It's humbling these giant creatures. And especially at night, like you were talking about. I mean, for me, it's both scary, but and just beautiful when the head goes under. Because, like, underwater, it's their domain, so anything can happen.
So what is it doing that is its head is going under? It could be bored. It could be hungry, looking for some fish. It could be maybe wanting to come closer to you to investigate. Maybe you have some food around you.
Maybe it's an old friend of yours and just wants to say hi. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have a few on the river.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: No. When we see their heads go under, it's just they're just getting out of the way. We're we're shining a light at them, and they're going, why is there a light at night? I'm uncomfortable. Head under.
So these came in again, you think of it as this big aggressive animal, but I don't know anybody that's been eaten by a black came in. And the the smaller species, smooth fronted cayman, dwarf cayman, spectacled cayman, they're not gonna eat any but, again, at the worst, if you were doing something inappropriate with a cayman, like, you jumped on it and were trying to to do research and and it bit your hand, it could take your hand off. But that's the only time. I've been walking down the river and stepped on a caiman, and the caiman swims away. And so in my mind, caiman are just these they're peaceful dragons that sit on the side of the river.
And so to me, they are my friends, and I worry about them because 2 months ago, we were coming up river, and on one of the beaches was a beautiful about 5 foot black caiman with a big machete cut right through the head. The whole caiman was wasted. Nothing was eaten, but the Cayman was dead. What do you
Speaker 0: think that was? Curious humans. Just committing violence?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just loggers, people who aren't from this part of the Amazon because a local person would either eat the animal or not mess with it. Mhmm. Like, Piko would never kill a caiman for no reason because it doesn't make any sense. Mhmm.
So these are clearly people who aren't from the region, which usually means loggers because they've come from somewhere else. They're doing a job here, and they they're just cleaning their pots in the river at night, and they see eyes come near them because the Cayman probably smells fish. And then they just whack because they wanna see it, and they're just curious monkeys on a beach. And, again, me friend of caiman. I protect from my type.
Speaker 0: That said, you know, you, protect your friends and you analyze and study your friends, but sometimes friends can have a bit of a misunderstanding. And if you have a bit of a misunderstanding with a black came in, I feel like just a bit of a misunderstanding could lead to a, bone crushing situation.
Speaker 1: But not for a little 5 foot caiman. Yeah. And I think that's incredibly speciesist w.
Speaker 0: A ball humans or a ball caiman?
Speaker 1: No. I'm saying, like, all my friends do the same thing. They go, you swim in the Amazon rainforest? You know, you swim in that river? And I go, yes.
Every day. We, you know, backflips into the river. We've been swimming in the river how many times with the piranha and the stingray and the candiru and the caiman
Speaker 2: and the anacondas, all of it
Speaker 1: in the river with us. Mhmm. And Mhmm. And we just do it. And what's that for you?
Speaker 2: So what what allows you to doing that to
Speaker 1: do that, knowing and having researched all the different things that can kill you, which I feel like most of them are in the river? Mhmm. What allows you to just get in there with us?
Speaker 0: Well, I I think it's something about you where you become like this portal through which it's possible to see nature as not threatening but beautiful. And so in that, you kinda naturally, by hanging out with you, I get to see the beauty of it. There is danger out there, but the danger is part of it. Just like the there's a lot of danger in the city. There's danger in life.
There's a lot of ways to get hurt emotionally, physically. There's a lot of ways to die in the stupidest of ways. We went on a expedition to the forest, just twisting your ankle, breaking your foot, getting a bite from a thing that gets infected. It's is a lot of ways to die and get hurt in the stupidest of ways in a nondramatic came in eating you alive kinda way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It it it strikes me as unfair because humans are we're still in our minds so so programmed to worry about that predator. That predator. That predator. What predator?
We've killed everything. Black caimans are coming off the endangered species list. We exterminated wolves from North America. I actually heard a suburban lady one time tell her son, watch out. Foxes will get you.
Mhmm. Foxes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They eat baby rabbits and mice.
Speaker 0: Well, in the case of apex predators, I think when people say dangerous animals, they really are talking about just the power of the animal. And the black came in have a lot of power. Lot of power. And so it's almost just a way to celebrate the power of the animal. Sure.
Speaker 1: And if it's in celebration, then I'm all for it because my god is that power. Like, the waves of of of fury that you saw. Like, when that tail I mean, you saw you saw the tail, the spectacle, that perfect amazing thing with all those interlocking scales that works so it's like a perfect creation of engineering. And then and then when you have one that's this thick, and all of a sudden that thing is moving with all the acceleration of that power, wow. The volume of water, the sound that comes out of their throat, They're such they're dragons.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. We talked about the scales of the snake with, like, the came in just the way it felt. Yeah. Was, incredible. Just the armor, the texture of it was so cool.
Yeah. I don't know. Like, the the the the bottom one came in has a certain kind of texture, and it just all feels like power, but also all feels, like, designed really well. It's like it's like exploring through touch, like a World War 2 tank or something like that. Just Yeah.
It's the engineering that went into this thing Yeah. That, like, the mechanism of evolution that created a thing that could survive for such a long time is just, like, incredible. This is a work of art. The pot you know, the defense mechanisms, the power of it, the damage it can do, how effective it is as a hunter, all of that. All you could feel that in just by touching it.
Speaker 1: Do you ever see the the mash up where they put side by side the image of, I think it's a falcon in flight next to a stealth bomber, and they're almost the exact same design? It's incredible.
Speaker 0: Like, that What's the equivalent for for a croc?
Speaker 1: Like, I said, maybe a tank. Like, a ton, more like an armadillo turtle. Like hippos and Yeah. There may not be a a mash a machine a war machine equivalent of a crocodile. It would have to have, like, a big jaw element to it.
Yeah.
Speaker 0: In the water, I mean, we we talked also about hippos. Those are interesting creatures from all the way across the world, just monsters. Yeah. Hippos and rhinos. Hippos are bigger usually or rhinos are bigger.
Rhinos.
Speaker 1: Rhinos is after elephants is the largest. White rhinos. They can
Speaker 0: be terrifying too, again, when you step into the defense. Absolutely. But I have to
Speaker 1: tell you, after being around so many rhinos
Speaker 0: Your friends your friends
Speaker 1: I have rhino friends. Yeah. Black and white rhinos.
Speaker 0: Yep.
Speaker 1: And, they're all sweethearts. And I mean I mean sweethearts. And I mean when you look at a rhino, it's like a living dinosaur. I know it's a mammal, but somehow it screams dinosaur because it seems like Pleistoceneic and and and from another age with the giant horn. And they're so much bigger than you think, like, they're minivan sized animals.
Like, you're you're we're not taller than they are. At the shoulder, and they have the strange shaped head and the huge horn, and they sit there eating grass all day. So if a rhino is dangerous to a human, it's because the rhino is going, don't hurt me.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Don't hurt me. Don't don't hurt my baby. And they're like, you
Speaker 1: know what? I'll just kill you. It would be easier because you're scaring me
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: You're too close to that rhino.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so, like, there again, I just think it's funny because humans were so quickly to go, which snakes are aggressive? There are no aggressive snakes. You know, rhinos can be dangerous if provoked. Otherwise, they're peaceful, fat, grass unicorns. You know, like, they're they're really pretty calm.
They're in these incredible giant animals and the largest animals on our planet, the black caiman, the rhinos, the elephants, all the big beautiful stuff is becoming less and less. Yeah. And it almost reminds me, like, in Game of Thrones, yeah. They're in the beginning, they're, like, yeah. There used to be dragons.
And it was, like, this memory. And it's, like, yeah. We used to have mammoths, and we we used to have stellar sea cows that were 16 feet long manatees. And it's there were things we used to have, the Caspian tiger, that only went extinct in the nineties, our lifetimes. And it's that that's mind blowing to me.
That's that that has haunted me since I'm a child. I remember learning about extinction, and I went, wait. You're telling me that I remember being a kid and going, by the time I grew up, you're saying that gorillas could be gone. Elephants could be gone. And because we're doing it, and then I I just that I I remember I remember looking at the the night light being blurry because I was crying.
I was so upset. And, oh, and it was Lonesome George, that turtle, the galapagos towards where there was one left. And they said, if we just if we just had a female, he could live. And I, as a 6, 7, 8 year old, that destroyed me. We're all just trying
Speaker 0: to get laid, including that turtle. Including that turtle
Speaker 1: for a few 100 years.
Speaker 0: Dude. So for young people out there, you think you're having trouble, think about that turtle.
Speaker 1: Think about that turtle. Yeah. You know there's a turtle that Darwin and Steve Irwin both owned?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I heard about that turtle. Man, they live a long time. Yeah. They've seen things.
Speaker 1: They've seen things that there's a there's a great, like, Internet joke where they're, like, they're, like, accusing him of, like, being, incongruous with modern times. They're, like, he did nothing to stop slavery.
Speaker 3: He didn't fight in World War 2. Cancelled the turtle. Yeah. Cancelled the turtle.
Speaker 0: Oh, shit. What a world we live in. So it's interesting you mentioned black caiman and and, anacondas are both apex predators. So it seems like the reason they can exist in similar environments is because they feed on slightly different things. How is it possible for them to coexist?
I read that anacondas can eat cayenne but not black cayenne. How often do they come in conflict?
Speaker 1: So anacondas and cayman occupy the exact same niche.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And they're born at almost the exact same size. And unlike most species, they don't have sort of a size range that they're confined to. They start at this big. Baby came in or this big. Baby anacondas are a little longer, but they're thinner and they don't have legs.
So it's the same thing in in terms of mass. And they're all in the streams or at the edges of lakes or swamps. And so the baby anacondas eat the baby caiman. Baby caiman can't really take down an anaconda. They're they're going for little insects and fish.
They they have a quite a small mouth. So they again, it's in their interest to hide from everything. A bird, a heron can eat a baby came and pop it back. And so they have to survive, but the anaconda and the caiman kinda kinda joust as they grow.
Speaker 0: Can you actually explain how the anaconda would take down a a caiman? Like, would it
Speaker 1: first, use constriction then eat it, or what what's the meth methodology? Yeah. So anacondas have a kind of a, I don't know, like a 3 point constriction system where their first thing is anchor.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Something like jujitsu. So the first thing is latch on to you.
Speaker 0: I'll come writing this down. Like, alright. This is jujitsu like, master class here.
Speaker 1: This is for when you're wrestling an anaconda, just in case.
Speaker 0: And you'll be like the coach in the sidelines grooming. You got an
Speaker 2: ex? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Don't let him take the back.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Alright.
Speaker 1: So so so one time me and JJ were following a herd of collared peccary, and JJ's teaching me tracking. So we're following, you know, the the hoof prints through the mud, and we're doing this. And I'm talking about no backpacks, just machetes, bare feet running through the jungle. And we come to this stream and JJ's like, I think we missed him, you know? I think they went.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, no no no,
Speaker 1: they went here. Look. And not because I'm a great tracker, because I can see hun you know, a few dozen footprints, hundreds of individual footprints right there. And I'm going, no. No.
They just crossed here. And JJ was like, you know what? We're not gonna get eyes on them today. He was like, it's okay. He's like, we did good.
We followed them for a long time. And I was like, cool. And then I was trying to gauge, like, can I drink this stream? And I see a colpa, and a colpa is a salt deposit where animals come to to feed because sodium is a is a is a deficiency that most herbivores have here. And all of a sudden, I just hear, like, the sound of a wet stick snapping, just that bone crunch.
And I looked down, and there's about a 16 foot anaconda wrapped around a freshly killed peccary Mhmm. Wild boar. And what this anaconda had done was as the all the pigs were going across the stream, the anaconda had grabbed it by the jaw Mhmm. Swiped the legs, wrapped around it, bent it in half, and then crushed its ribs. And that's what the anaconda do, whether it's to mammals, to caiman, it's all the same thing.
It's grab on. They have 6 rows of backwards facing teeth. So once they hit you, they're never gonna come off. You actually have to go deeper in and then open before you can come out. Mhmm.
All those backward facing tees. So they have an incredible anchor system, and then they use their weight to pull you down to hell, to pull you down into that water, wrap around you, and then start breaking you. Mhmm. And every breath you take, you go, and you you you're up against a barrier. Mhmm.
And then when you when you exhale, they go a little tighter, and you're never gonna get that space back. Your lungs are never going to expand again. And I know this because I've been in that crush Mhmm. Before JJ pulled me out of it. And so this pig, the anaconda had gotten it, and as the pig was thrashing and the anaconda was wrapping around, I had bent it in half.
Mhmm. And I just heard those vertebrae going.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so for a caiman, it's the same thing. They just grab and they wrap around it, and then they have to crush it until there's no response. They'll wait an hour. They'll wait a long time until there's no response from the animal. They'll overpower it.
Then they'll reposition, probably yawn a little bit, open their jaw, and then start forcing that entire now here's the crazy thing, is that an anaconda has stomach acid capable of digesting an entire crocodile where nothing comes out the other side. Mhmm. And when you see how thick the bony plate of a crocodile skull is, that that can go in the mouth and nothing comes out the other side. That's insane. And so it always made me wonder, on a chemistry level, how you can have such incredible acid in the stomach that doesn't harm the anaconda itself.
And someone said that it's
Speaker 0: digest. Oh, it's some kind of mucus. Oh, oh, the mucus. There's a lot. Oh, interesting.
There's levels of protection from the anaconda itself. But it seems like the anaconda is such a simple system as an organism. I know. I But, like, that simplicity taking a scale could just do the can swallow the came and digest it slowly.
Speaker 1: I know, but my question was how how on earth is it physically possible to have this hellish bile that can digest anything, even something as as as horrendous as a as a a caiman scales and bones and all the hardest shit in nature, and then not hurt the snake itself. And I had a chemist explain to me that it's probably some sort of mucus system that that lines the stomach and and neutralizes the acid and keeps it floating in there, but my god, that must be powerful stuff.
Speaker 0: So what does it feel like being crushed, choked by an anaconda?
Speaker 1: You when an anaconda is wrapped around you and you you find yourself in in the in the shocking realization that these could be your last moments breathing, you are confronted with the vast disparity in power, that there is so much power in these animals, so much crushing, deliberate, reptilian, ancient power that doesn't care. They're just trying to get you to stop. They just want you to stop ticking, and there's nothing you can do. And there's I find it very awe inspiring when I encounter that kind of power. When you even if it's that you see, you know, you see a dog run you know, you you ever try to outrun a dog Mhmm.
And they just zip by you and you go, wow. You know? Or you see a horse kick and you go, oh my god. If that if that hoof hit anyone's head, it'd knock them 3 states over, and it's like it's like there there is muscular power that is so far that, like you said, that explosive
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: That we we dream of doing it. Like, imagine if, like, a a Muay Thai kickboxer could could harness that sort of Cayman power, that smash. And so it's it's just awe inspiring. I think it's really, really impressive what animals can do, and we're we're all, you know, we're all the same sort of makeup for the most part, all the mammals. You know, we all have our skeletons look so similar.
We all have, like you know, if you look at, like, a kangaroo's biceps
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And chest, it looks so much like a like a like a a man's. And if same thing goes for a bear or you ever see a naked chimp.
Speaker 0: There's, like,
Speaker 1: chimps with alopecia.
Speaker 0: Oh, shit.
Speaker 1: And so if
Speaker 0: Oh, they're shredded.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It looks like a bodybuilder. Like, it's
Speaker 1: got cuts and huge huge everything. Like, it's got pecs, and they got that face that's just like Yeah. Just let me in.
Speaker 0: What now?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Where's your wallet? Do something.
Speaker 0: But yeah. But there's a the specialization of a lifetime of doing damage to the world and using those muscles, it just makes you makes you just that much more powerful than most humans because humans, I guess, have more brain, so they get lazy. They start puzzle solving versus, you know, using the biceps directly.
Speaker 1: Well, yes and no. And I have this question. Okay? So I you know, that whole you are what you eat thing. Now we, one time here, had 2 chickens.
Now one of them was a wild chicken, like, from the farm, had walked around its whole life finding insects, and the other chicken was, like, factory raised.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And so we cut the heads off of both of them Mhmm. Started getting ready to cook them. Now the factory raised chicken was, like, a much higher percentage of fat, had less muscle on its body, was softer tissue, a a lighter color. The farm raised chicken had darker, more sinewy muscles, less fat, was clearly a better made machine. And so my question is, is that what's happening with us?
You know, like, if you go see a Sherpa who's been walking his whole life and pulling, you know, and walking behind musk oxes and lifting things up mountains and breathing clean air and not being in the city versus someone that's just been chowing down at IHOP for 40 years and never getting off the couch. Like, I imagine it's the same thing that you you become what you eat.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, like, you and I were, like, half dead running up a mountain. Meanwhile, there's a grandma just, like, walking, and she's been walking that road, and she's just built different.
Speaker 2: With her
Speaker 3: alpaca on her shoulders.
Speaker 0: With the babies,
Speaker 2: she just
Speaker 0: They're just built different when you when you apply your body in a physical way your whole life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, you can't replicate that. Like like, just like that chimp has those from constantly moving through the canopy, constantly using those arms. Just like if you ever, you know, if you see an Olympic athlete or you hug Rogan.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Exactly what
Speaker 1: you say. Go, why is there so much muscle in there?
Speaker 0: That's exactly what I, what I feel like when you give him a hug. This is this is definitely a chimp of some sort. How how does that, just just that the the constriction of the anaconda, just the the the feeling of that. Are they doing that based on instinct, or is there some brain stuff going on? Like, is this just, like, a basic procedure that they're doing, and they just really don't give a damn?
They're not, like, thinking, oh, Paul. This is this kind of species. It would taste good. Or is it just a mechanism to just start activating and you can't stop it?
Speaker 1: With an anaconda, I really think it's the second one. Yeah. I do think that they're impressive and beautiful and incredibly arcane. I think they're a very simple system, a very ancient system, and I think that once you once you hit predation mode, it's going down no matter what. The stupid mosquito, I'm going like this and every time he just flies around my hand, like, I'm a big slow giant, and he just goes around my hand and then he
Speaker 0: goes back to the same spot, like and I'm like, no. And then he comes right back to the same spot. It's like it's like he's just going fuck you. Now here's the question. If the mosquito is stupid and you can't catch it, what does that make you?
Speaker 1: Fucking stupid. Dude, I flicked a wasp off me the other day. It flew back, like, 12 feet, and then in the air corrected and then flew back at my face. It made so many, like, calculations and corrections and decided to come back and let me know about it. And I was like, shit.
Speaker 0: That was probably went back to the nest, said, guess what happened to that?
Speaker 1: This bitch ass kid from Brooklyn tried to flick me, and I showed him what's up. I had him running.
Speaker 0: They had a good chuckle on that one. Yeah. You actually mentioned to me, just on the topic of anacondas that you've been, participating in a lot of scientific work, on on the topic. So, like, really, in everything you've been doing here, you are celebrating the animals, you're respecting the animals. You're protecting the animals, but you're also excited about studying the animals and their environment.
So you've you're actually a coauthor on a on a paper, on a couple of papers.
Speaker 1: One of them is on anacondas and, studying green anaconda hunting patterns. What's that about? So, the lead authors of that paper, Pat Champagne and Carter Paine, friends of mine. And what we started noticing, for me, began at that story I told you where we were coming across the stream and we saw the anaconda had had had been positioned just below a colpa. And then other people began noticing that anaconda seemed to always be beneath these colpas, where mammals were gonna be coming, and that that contrasted with what we knew about anacondas.
Because what we understood about anacondas that they're purely ambush predators and they don't pursue their prey. But what we began finding out here, and Pat led the process of amazing scientists. He worked with Acadia University for a long time, worked with us for a long time, and and he he was one of the first to put a transmitter in an anaconda right around here, and we were able to see their movements. Mhmm. And that's what these papers are showing is that they actually do pursue their prey.
They do move up and down using the streams as corridors through the forest. They actually do pursue their prey. They actually do seek out food. So, I mean, think about it. It's a it's a giant anaconda.
Obviously, it's not it can't just sit in one spot. It has to put some work into it. And so they're using scent, and they're using communication to use the streams. You could be walking in the forest in a very shallow stream Mhmm. And see a sizable anaconda looking for a meal.
Speaker 0: So in the shallow stream, it moves not just in the water, but in the sand. Yeah. So it's it it also likes so is it to burrow
Speaker 1: a little bit? They burrow quite a bit. And so these large snakes operate subterranean more than we think.
Speaker 0: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Like, there's times that you'll go with a tracker, you go with the telemetry set, and it'll say, like, it will be over the snake. Snake's underground. Snake has found either a recess under the sides of the stream. You saw it last night where all the fish have have their holes under the side of the stream. There is a there is a 6 foot dwarf came in right in the stream, right where we were standing.
Mhmm. He had his cave. He goes under there.
Speaker 0: They know. They have their system. Yeah. We walked by it.
Speaker 1: We walked by it. And he stuck his head out because he thought we'd gone, and then we turned around, and I just got a glimpse of him because I was in the front of the line, and he just went, zhoomp, right back into his cave. You you guys are not gonna touch me. And so, yeah, with the Anaconda's, it's been really exciting. And, in 2014, JJ and me and Mohsen and Pat and Lee, we all we ended up catching what, at the time, was the record for Eunectes marinas scientifically measured.
It was 18 feet 6 inches 220 pounds, one of the largest female anacondas on record. And since that time, these guys have been continuing to study the species, continuing to just, again, just add a little bit by little bit to the knowledge we have of the species. And studying green anacondas in lowland tropical rainforest, you've seen how hard it is to to move, to operate, to navigate in this environment. And so when you think of the fact that in order to learn anything about this species, you have to spend vast amounts of time first locating them and then finding out a way to keep tabs on them. Because even if you get lucky enough to see an anaconda by the edge of a stream, to to be able to observe it over time, to learn its habits, or to put a radio transmitter on it, or to take any sort of valuable information from the experience is almost impossible.
And so a lot of the stuff that I wrote about mother of god, us jumping on anacondas and trying to catch them, and at first, it just seemed like something we were doing to learn to to just try and see them, but it ended up being that we were wildly trying to figure out methodology that have scientific implications later on because now it's allowing us to try and find the largest anacondas. And people used to say there's no way this 25 foot, 27 foot. Well, there's just that video of the guy swimming with the 20 foot anaconda. And so now as we keep going, I'm going, well, maybe through drone identification, we could find where the largest anacondas are sitting on top of floating vegetation. And even then, how do we restrain them so that we could measure them and prove this to the world?
It's sort of a side quest. But
Speaker 0: So by doing these kinds of studies, you figure out how they move about the world, what motivates them in terms of when they hunt, where they hide in the world as the size of the anaconda changes. So all of that. That's that's those are scientific studies.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look. There's so much that we don't know about this forest. We don't know what medicines are in this forest. We don't know with a lot of the 1500 there's something like 4,000 species of butterflies in the Amazon rainforest, and of the 1500 species that are here in this region, all of them have a larval stage, caterpillars.
Right? And each of the caterpillars has a specific host plant that they need to need to eat in order to become a successful butterfly to enter the next life cycle, and for most of the species that fill the butterfly book, we don't know what those interactions are. I recently got to see, the White Witch, which is a huge moth. It's it's one of the it's it's one of the 2 largest moths in the world. It's the largest moth by wingspan.
Wow. Huge. It looks like a bird. Mhmm. Big white moth.
We still I believe I believe that we still don't know what the caterpillar looks like. It's 2024. We have iPhones and penis shaped rocket ships. Like Yeah. We don't know where that moth starts its life.
Yeah. We still haven't figured that out.
Speaker 0: By the way, the rocket ships are shaped that way for efficiency purposes, not because they wanted to look make it look like a penis. Speaking of which, I have ran across a lot of penis trees while exploring you. And make me I this I know it's not just a figment of my imagination. I'm pretty sure they're real. In fact, you explained it to me, and they they make me very uncomfortable because there's just a lot of penises hanging off of a tree.
Yes. I don't know what the purpose is, who they're supposed to attract, but it certainly makes but certainly, Paul, like, really enjoys them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, clearly, you've you've done some some research, and you've noticed
Speaker 3: a lot of them.
Speaker 0: I haven't even seen them. There was there was there was a time when I almost fell, and to catch my balance, I had to grab one of the penises of the penis tree
Speaker 1: and Yep. Unforgettable.
Speaker 0: Anaconda, the biggest, baddest anaconda in the Amazon versus the biggest, baddest black caiman. Because you mentioned they're like, there's a race. If there's a fight, the CFC in cage who wins
Speaker 1: This is the biggest and
Speaker 0: the baddest. Biggest and the baddest. Do you have can imagine given all the studies you've done of the 2 animals, species
Speaker 1: and the baddest. You're talking about an 18 foot, several 100 pound black caiman versus a 26 foot, £350 Anaconda.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a it's a death stalemate. I think the Cayman slams the anaconda, bites onto it. The anaconda wraps the Cayman, and then they both thrash around until they both kill each other. Because I think the the Cayman will tear him up so bad. And And
Speaker 0: the caiman's not gonna let go. He's just gonna get
Speaker 1: never gonna let go, but then he's gonna he's gonna realize that he's he's also being constricted, so then he's gonna stop. And he's gonna he's gonna keep slamming down on that anaconda. Mhmm. And the anaconda's just gonna keep constricting. But if the Cayman can do enough damage before the end it's again, it's almost like a striker versus a jujitsu.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You You
Speaker 1: know, if you can get enough elbows in before they lock you
Speaker 0: How fast is the construction? So it's pretty slow.
Speaker 1: It's it's no. It's it's incredibly it's it's incredibly quick. So it's it's it's you to you see, you take the back and get me in choke hold. Uh-huh. It's that.
It's I have maybe 30 seconds, maybe on the upward side if you haven't cinched it under my under my throat. But if you've gotten good position, it's over.
Speaker 0: Is there any way to unwrap the choke, undo the choke No. Defending skin?
Speaker 1: Not unless you have outside help. Unless you have, you know, another human or another 10 humans coming to unwrap the tail or help you. But for an animal, like, if a deer gets hit by an anacos, no way. They don't stand a chance.
Speaker 0: So the the the the black camel would bite somewhere somewhere close to the head and then and just try and hold on and thrash.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't I don't think a large black caiman here's the thing. Every fisherman knows this. They're, like, the biggest fish, they're smart. Yeah.
And more importantly, they're shrewd. They're careful. A huge black caiman that's 16 feet long isn't gonna be messing with a big anacond. Like, they they they'll they won't they won't cross paths because while they technically occupy the same type of environment, that black caiman's gonna have this deep spot in the lake, and that Anacana's gonna have found this floating forest like sort of black stream backwater where it's gonna be. And they'll have made that their home for decades, and they'll already have cleaned out the competition.
So maybe if there was a flood and they got pushed together, that they they could have some sort of a showdown, but almost more certainly is that when they get to that size, that came in at any sign of danger, boom, right under the water. Just yeah. It's almost like it's like even if you what do you learn when you're a black belt? You know? What what do you what do you do with a street fight?
You still run away. Mhmm. There's no reason for a street fight, and I think the animals really understand that. There's no there's no reason for this.
Speaker 0: So, like, a giant anaconda and a giant black aemon, they'll they could probably even coexist in the same environment just knowing, using the wisdom to avoid the fight. Like, why?
Speaker 1: Or they would have a big showdown, and one of them would either die or have to leave. They'd have a territorial dispute.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Without killing either of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. On it, dude, nay nature. Anything could happen. One of the things that me and Pat wrote up was that I saw a yellow tailed creepo, which is like a 6 foot rat snake, eating an Oxyropus melanogenes, which is the the the red snake that we found last night. And just no one had ever in scientific literature, we'd never seen a a cribo eating an oxyrophis before.
And so I had the observation in the field. I sent it to Pat Champagne. Pat writes it up, paper. And so it's like, it's this really cool that's a really cool system because we're just out here all the time. You end up seeing things.
JJ's dad saw an anaconda eating a taper. Taper is the size of a cow. Damn. And it's that guy didn't lie. You know?
Some people you trust your sources on He he saw enough stuff. He didn't need to make up stories. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: And you
Speaker 1: know how you you know what I love now is when you go to so when you ask people when we were going up the mountain with Jimmy Yeah. JJ said to him he goes, have you ever seen a puma up here in the mountains? Mhmm. And Jimmy goes, they're up here. And JJ JJ went, no, no, no.
Have you seen it? And Jimmy went, no. Never seen one. And you know how most people go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen That makes me trust a person when they admit, no.
I haven't seen it.
Speaker 0: They're up here. I haven't seen it. And Jamie's been living there his whole life. His whole life. There's pumas in the mountains?
You know, mountain lions,
Speaker 1: pumas, whatever the you know, there's all different names for them. They're distributed from, I think, from Alaska down through Argentina. That's they're everywhere. It's an extremely successful species. Mhmm.
From deserts to high mountains, everything.
Speaker 0: I think you're saying pumas have a have a curiosity, have a way about them where they, like, explore, like, follow people? Like, just to kind of figure out, like, just that curiosity versus, like, as opposed to causing harm or hunting and that kind of stuff. Like, what is this about?
Speaker 1: I think it's based in predatory instincts, but I also think there is a playfulness to higher intelligence animals that you don't see in lower intelligence animals. And so something like a rabbit, for instance. You're never gonna see a rabbit come in to check you out. Or Yeah. You just would you just you can't even think of it like that.
Like, rabbit's just gonna either eat or run away. There's really
Speaker 2: 2 settings.
Speaker 1: When you think of something like a river giant river otter or a taira, which is, they call it manco here. It's a it's a huge arboreal weasel, and they'll come check you out. I woke up at my house the other day, and there was a tyra climbing up the side of the house, and he was looking down at me sleeping. And it's like, he came to check me out. Like, it's like they're smart enough, and they're brave enough.
Here's the important thing. They know that they can fend for themselves. They can fight. They can climb. They can run.
And so they're like, let me I'm curious. Mhmm. I got time. Let me check this out.
Speaker 0: Yeah. They're gathering information. I wonder how complex and sophisticated their world model is. Like, how they're integrating all the information about the environment, like, where all the different trees are, where all the different nests of the different insects are, what the different creatures are, dip by size, all that kind of stuff. I'm I'm sure they don't have enough, you know, storage up there to, like, keep all that, but they probably keep the important stuff.
Base you know, so sort of integrate the experiences they have into, like, what is dangerous, what is Mhmm. Tasty, all that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff. I think it's more complex than we realize. You go back to that Friends to Wall book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? There's so many incredible examples of controlled studies where the researchers weren't understanding how to shed being so insurmountably human and understand that there are other types of intelligence, and whether that's elephants or cats so big cats, for instance. We just saw a camera trap video Mhmm.
From last night Yeah. Where you see one of our workers walk down the trail, and then 5 minutes later, a cat behind him.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. By the way, we're walking just exactly the same area, also exact same time. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're out there, and there's deer, and there's cats, and there's a jaguar, and there's a puma, and there's all these animals out there. And we're out in the night, in the inky black night, in this ocean of darkness beneath the trees, and we're just exploring and getting to see everything. And there's all these little eyes and heartbeats. I love the jungle at night, man. It's the most exciting thing.
Speaker 0: You know, one of the things you do when you turn off the headlamp. Yeah. Complete darkness Yeah. All around you.
Speaker 1: It's just the sounds. Everything you hear, the cicadas, the birds, they're all screaming about sex Yeah. All the time. So they're just trying to get laid. Yeah.
So all of them are making mating calls. Now the trick is to make your mating call without attracting a predator. Yeah. But at night, what what what amazes me is that for us, it's so from the from the caveman logic of it's hard to make fire here, it's hard to even light a fire here, To having this this this incredible beam of of of it, you know, all of a sudden we can look at the jungle and walk through that darkness, then we're seeing the frogs on those leaves and the snakes moving through the undergrowth and the deer sneaking through the shadows. It's like it's almost as supernatural as skydiving.
It's a strange thing to be able to do that technology allows us to do. We're doing something really complex, and we're walking on trails that have been cleared for us
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: That we've planned out. And so walking through the jungle at night, you just get this freak show of of of biodiversity, and I'm I'm addicted to it. I truly love it.
Speaker 0: Except for the times over the last few days when we walked on through jungle without a trail. And that's just a different experience.
Speaker 1: Well, how would you categorize if somebody said, Lex, I think I'm gonna go for a hike through the jungle, not on the trail.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What would you tell them?
Speaker 0: Every step is really hard work. Every step is a puzzle. Every step is, full of possibility of hurting yourself in a multitude of ways. You just a wasp nest under a leaf. Mhmm.
A hole under a leaf on the ground where if you step in and you're gonna break a knee, ankle, leg, and going to, not be able to move for a long time. There's all kinds of ants that can hurt you a little or can hurt you a lot, bullet ants. There's snakes and spiders And, oh, my favorite that I've gotten to know intimately, is different plants with different defensive mechanisms, one of which is just spikes. So sharp. You have I don't know if you brought it, but there's I
Speaker 2: didn't bring it. I didn't bring it. There's a
Speaker 0: Where's my club? There's an epic club with spikes, but there's so many trees that have spikes on them. Sometimes they're obvious spikes, sometimes less than obvious spikes, and, you know, it could be just an innocent as you take a step through a dense jungle, it could be an innocent placing of a hand on that tree that could just completely transform your experience, your life by penetrating your hand with, like, 20, 30, 40, 50 spikes Yeah. And just changing everything. That's just a completely different experience than going on on a trail where you where you're observer of the jungle versus the participant of it.
Speaker 1: And Yeah.
Speaker 0: And it truly is extreme hard work to take every single step.
Speaker 1: Now just think about this. I think scientifically, because people like to summarize. People like to get really, really, sort of cavalier with our scientific progress. And they go, you know, we've already explored the Amazon. It's like, well, have we?
Because in between each tributary is, you know, let's say, just between some of them, let's just say, a 100 miles of of unbroken forest. Who's explored that?
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of the tribes have been there. Maybe. Some areas, they haven't been. Now when you're talking about scientists, whether they're indigenous scientists, western science, whatever, so many of the areas in this jungle that is the size of the continental US still have not been accessed. And the places where people are doing research see, I've been down here long enough.
I see all the PhDs come down here and they all go to the same few research stations. They're safe. They have a bed. If you get hella dropped into the middle of the jungle, in the deepest, most remote parts, you're gonna find microecosystems. You're gonna see little species variations.
You're gonna see a type of flower that JJ has never seen before, like what happened the other day. As you start walking through new patches of forest, you start finding new species, and everything here changes. You just go a little bit upriver, and the animals you see differ. You go on this side of the river versus on the north side of the river, there's 2 other species of primates there that don't exist here, and that's in the mammal paper that we did with the the emperor tamarins and the pygmy marmosets that the rangers found.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The the mammal paper is looking at the diversity of life in this one region of the Amazon. What kinda can can you talk talk more about that paper? Mammal diversity along the Les Piedras River?
Speaker 1: Once again, the mammal paper, Pat Champagne, the prodigy. He was sort of leading on this with a bunch of other scientists who have worked in the region, including Holly O'Donnell out of Oxford, myself. I really just made a few observations. The Jungle Keepers Rangers got featured because they're the ones that spotted a pygmy marmoset that had previously been unrecorded on the river. Mhmm.
I got to I got to contribute because I had I had the only photograph that I believe anyone has of an Emperor Tamarin on this river. It's the first proof of Emperor Tamarin on this river, and that's exciting. It's exciting because, you know, you'll you can post post a picture or share a scientific observation or write about something. And then what happens is you get these these, like, couch experts, these armchair experts who who will come and say, you know, no. No.
You don't get blue and yellow macaws there. I can tell from my bird book, it says they're not there. And they'll tell you you're wrong. You know? No.
You don't get wooly monkeys there or or emperor temperance. It's like but but we but we have proof. And so we're coming together to try and add to that knowledge.
Speaker 0: My general sort of amateur experience of the species I've encountered here is like, this should not exist. Whatever this is, this is not real. This is CGI. Like, what? Just the colors, the weirdness.
I mean, there's, I think I called it the the Paris Hilton, caterpillar because it's, like, fur it looks like a
Speaker 1: It sounds like Paris Hilton's dog. It's like yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: It it's, like, really furry, and it's transparent and and and sort of it's transparent. All you see is this white beautiful fur, and it's just, like, this caterpillar. It doesn't doesn't look real. Yeah. Do you think there are species like, how many species have we not discovered?
And is there species that are, like, extremely badass that we haven't discovered yet?
Speaker 1: If you look up how many trees are in the Amazon rainforest, it's something in the order of 400,000,000,000 trees. There's something like 70 to 80,000 species of plants, individual types of plants here, 1500 species of trees. It's it's so vast that it it it it's comparable, like, the the the scale is, like, only comparable to the universe in terms of stars and galaxies and and and and for the sheer immensity of it. And so we're we're we're describing new species every year. And just walking on the trail at night, you and I have seen you know, you see a tiny little spider hidden in a crevice.
And has the scientific eye ever seen that spider before? Has it been documented? Do we know anything about its life cycle? There's still so much that's here that is completely unknown. You know, we have pictures of all these butterflies.
Somebody went out with a butterfly net and caught these butterflies, took a picture of it, gave it a name, put it in a butt butterfly book. Do what do we know? What host plant do they use for their caterpillars? What's their geographical range? What what do we actually know?
Not that much. So are there creatures out here that haven't been described? Absolutely. And some
Speaker 0: of them could be extremely effective, predators in a niche environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, certainly certainly in the canopy, 50% of life in a rainforest is in the canopy, and we've had very limited access to the canopy for all of history. You know, if you wanted to get up into the rainforest canopy, you basically have to climb a vine. Or with with scientists, when I was a kid, I always used to see them with, like, the slingshots or the bow and arrows.
They would they would shoot a a piece of paracord over a branch, pull the rope up, and then, you know, do the ascension thing. And then you're up in this tree getting swarmed by sweat bees, getting stung by wasps. You're trying to do science up there in that environment. It's incredibly hostile, and so having canopy platforms. I actually met a guy at a French film festival who had used hot air balloons Mhmm.
To float over the canopy of the Amazon and then lay these big nets over the over the broccoli of the of the trees. Mhmm. And the nets were dense enough that humans could walk on the nets and then reach through and pull cactuses and lizards and snakes, whatever. Just take specimens from the canopy. That's how difficult it is that that scientists have resorted to using hot air balloons.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And so having a treehouse, having canopy platforms, having it's it's starting to get there's starting to be more and more access to the rainforest canopy, and so we're beginning to log more data. You know? We've even observed in our treehouse, which is supposed to be the tallest in the world, we're seeing lizards that we don't see on the ground, lizards that have never been documented on this on this river. Like, we're seeing snakes where they're saying we saw the snake inside a crevice on that tree in the strangler fig and we don't know what it is. It's just people haven't been
Speaker 0: up there. And that's where a lot of the monkeys are. That's where there's just a lot of dynamic left up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, when you when you wake up in the canopy in the morning in the Amazon rainforest, as soon as that the darkness lifts, as soon as that purple comes in the east in the morning, the howler monkeys start up. Yeah. And then the parrots start up. And then the tinamous start going, and then the macaws start going.
Pretty soon, everybody's going. And the spider monkey groups are all calling to each other, and it's just the whole dawn chorus starts, and it's so exciting. So you're saying when they're screaming, it's usually about sex? Sex or territory, usually. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: For sex and violence or implied violence or the
Speaker 1: threat of violence. Yeah. I mean, howler monkeys in the morning, they're letting other groups know this is where we're at.
Speaker 0: We're gonna
Speaker 1: be foraging over here. You better stay away. And so it's it's a little bit respectful as well. There's order in the chaos.
Speaker 0: So just speaking of screaming, macaws are like these beautiful creatures. They're, lifelong partners. They stick together, so there's you know, I can see just they're monogamous, so you see 2 of them together. But when they communicate, their love language seems to be very loud screaming.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What
Speaker 0: what do you learn about relationships from a cause?
Speaker 1: That that it can be loud and rough and still be loving.
Speaker 0: And still be loving. But is that interesting to you that there's, like, monogamy in some species that they they're lifelong partners, and then there's, like, total lack of monogamy in other species?
Speaker 1: It's all interesting. I mean, there's the anti monogamy crew who's like, you know, we were never meant to be monogamous. We're supposed to just be animals. And then there's the other side of the crew that's like, we were meant to be monogamous. We are monogamous creatures.
That's what god wanted between a man and a woman. And then other people, like, yeah. But I know about these 2 gay penguins, and so that's natural too. And so then everyone tries to draw their their identity. They're trying to to justify their identity off of the not the laws of nature.
So the fact that macaws are monogamous really doesn't have anything to do with anybody except for that it's beneficial for them to work together to raise chicks. It's difficult.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: They rely on ironwood trees or aguaje palms, and it's difficult to find the right hole in a tree. There's only so much Macaw real estate, and so they need to use those holes. And each one of those ancient trees, it's usually 500 years or more, is a is a is a valuable Macaw generating site in the forest. And so if those trees go down, you lose exponential amounts of macaws, and that's how you get endangered species. And so that's why we're trying to protect the ironwood trees.
Speaker 0: Another ridiculous question. Tell me. If every jungle creature was the same size
Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
Speaker 0: Who would be the new apex predator, the new alpha at the top of
Speaker 1: the food chain? Dude, that's like Super Smash Brothers of the jungle. That's incredible. Yeah. Like, bullet ants.
If you had a bullet ant that was the size Yeah.
Speaker 0: Can it be like, like a tournament?
Speaker 1: So everyone is pound for pound ratio ed Yeah. For efficiency. So you have, basically, like, a 6 foot bullet ant versus a a huge black Cayman versus an Anaconda versus an ocelots or the size of jaguars versus
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, let's let's go bullet ant versus black caiman. But they're they're comparable size. Size.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man. I never thought about it. I mean, bullet ant has these giant Yeah. Giant giant mandibles. It could probably grab the black caiman and then at that amount of venom, you're talking about a bucket of venom going into that black caiman.
Black caiman's gonna get paralyzed immediately. Well, insects have just a just a tremendous amount of, like, strength.
Speaker 0: I don't know how they generate or the geometry that is. The natural world can't create that same kind of power in a bigger thing, it seems like.
Speaker 1: It seems like. Yeah.
Speaker 0: It seems like ants and, like, just these tiny creatures are the ones that are able to have that much strength. I don't know how that works. What the physics of that is.
Speaker 1: Ant a leafcutter ant lifting that leaf. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Doesn't make any sense. I I don't know I don't know if that's a limit of physics. I think it's just a limit of evolution of how that that works.
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting limits that I heard, somebody talking about recently was the reason that dinosaurs didn't get bigger, even bigger because that's the the the the conditions on Earth were favorable towards it, was that at some point their eggs reached this physical limits, that their eggs reached a size that the eggs were so big that that eggs need to breathe for the embryo to survive and their eggs reached a limit where in order to have a shell that could hold the mass of the liquid and and the young dinosaur, if they got bigger it wouldn't be permeable anymore. Mhmm. And I thought that was so interesting because the entire size of physical creatures was determined by how thick shell can be before it breaks or before it can't pass air through it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. There may be a lot a lot of the, like, biophysics limits. That's You know? Fascinating stuff. Just like the the interplay between biology, chemistry, and physics of a, like, a life form.
Because, like, this thing, there's a lot involved in creating a single living organism that survive in this world. And bigger you know, being big is not always good, but being a big creature, it's for many reasons. Like you were saying, the big creatures seem to be going extinct Yeah. For many reasons. But in in the human world, it's because there seem to be of higher value.
Speaker 1: Given the current size of the jungle, I think that the the MVP, the pound for pound goat is ocelots. I mean, you're talking about, like, a midsize 40 40, 50 pound cat that can climb, that does unlike a jaguar. Jaguar, every time it hunts, it's going after a deer. It catches a deer. The deer could hit it with its with its antlers.
It could tear it with its hooves. It's risking its life Mhmm. For that meal. An ocelot ocelots walk around at night, and they climb a tree, eat a whole bunch of eggs, eat the mother bird too, kill a snake, maybe mess around and eat a baby came, and they can have whatever they like. And they're they're sleek enough and and smart enough to get away from predators.
They don't really have predators.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And so they sort they sort of occupy this perfect niche where they they can hunt small prey in high quantity without taking on big risks. And so if you had to choose an animal to be, it'd probably be like an ocelot or, I would say, giant river otters, which are so damn cool because they're the locals call them logos de rio, river wolves, because they're so tough and they're so social and they're so like us because they're intensely familial groups. They live in holes by the sides of lakes and swim through the water and they catch fish all day long, piranhas. They eat them just like the the scales go flying as they eat these piranhas. And they're so joyous in the way they swim, and they have friends, and they have family, and they, I think it would be I think we could relate to being a river otter, really, because I can't picture being a cat and being so solitary and just marching along a 15 mile route and making sure there's no other cats in in in coming in on your territory and marking that territory.
It seems it seems very solo and very
Speaker 0: Cat like. It's a lonely existence.
Speaker 1: Lonely existence.
Speaker 0: And we humans are social beings.
Speaker 1: We're so social.
Speaker 2: And so
Speaker 1: to me, river otters is like having a big Italian family. You're, like, constantly eating. You're freaking out. You know, just, like, causing problems with the black Cayman.
Speaker 0: Take down a black Cayman. Yeah. Start street fights. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's a family thing. You mentioned piranhas.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: What what do you think you know, they're they're a source of a lot of fear for people. What what do you find beautiful and fascinating about these creatures? They're also kind of social, or at least they hunt and operate in groups.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Not in the mammalian way, though. Piranhas are in large schools, but I fish are so different. Like, if you you I can talk to you all day about how how much I'd love to be an otter also. Yeah.
Going back to the fighting thing, otters and weasels, mussel a day, tend to be very loose in their skin. So if you grab an otter, it can still rotate around to bite you. So it's like if I grab you by the back, you you're stuck. You know? Like, we can't you grab them by the skin.
Yeah. They can rotate around and just shred you apart. So they're they're really cool fighters. Piranha fish fish, I don't I don't, you know, I don't identify with fish in in terms like that. I think living out here has made me think of fish as kind of rapid food that can or can't be gotten.
Like, you know? Mhmm. So to me, a piranha is just is when I see a piranha, I think about how I wanna how I want it to taste.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So, like, a fish is a is a food source for so many creatures in the jungle. So they're primarily food source. But piranhas are
Speaker 1: I mean, they're predators. They're serious predators. They are serious predators. I found a baby black came in not that long ago, and he was missing all of his toes because the piranhas had eaten them off. It was really sad.
He just had these stumps, and he was swimming around the water. And I was like, you are not gonna make it. He was, like, 8 inches, and he was such a cute little puppy. He had those big eyes. And I was just like, man, you already are missing all your toes.
I was like, just a matter of time. Okay. Now he can't get away, so some big agami heron's gonna come and just nail him, pop him down his throat. That's the end of that for the caiman. I mean,
Speaker 0: nature is metal.
Speaker 1: Nature sure shit is metal.
Speaker 0: Bite off a little bit and then makes you vulnerable, and then that vulnerability is exploited by some other species, and then that's it. That's the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But humans are are brutal too. Like like like that story we heard about that guy the other day who caught a stingray on a fishing hook, chopped its tail off to make it safe for humans, cut a piece of the stingray off so he could use it for bait, and then threw the live fish back in the river. To me, that is incomprehensible amounts of cruelty with with with flawed logic in every direction. Like, if you're gonna use the thing as bait, use it as bait.
If you're gonna remove its tail, well, then just kill it altogether. Yeah. Or if you wanna save the animal and not kill it, then don't maim it before you return it to its it was such a weird
Speaker 0: So if you kill an animal, you wanna use it to its fullest by using it as a food source, by cooking it, by, you know, eating every part of it, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we have we've been eating paco
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In your time here.
Speaker 0: Fried Paco is great. Fried Paco.
Speaker 1: It's delicious. Full of nutrients. You could tell it makes you healthy. I feel like we have better workouts so that we can go harder in the jungle. And so, a few months ago in August when the river was down, it was there was a day that the river was clear, and a friend of mine, Victor, who's who's married to a native girl, he said, it's time to go pako fishing.
And at the time, we were stuck out here, and we had no resupply. Everybody was busy, and so everyone was demoralized. The staff was hungry. We were hungry. And it really became this thing of, like, hey, go catch us in Paco.
They were working on the trails. They were installing the solar. We we were working hard, and we didn't have food. And so we went out to the river, and what we did was we went upriver. We camped on the beach.
And in the morning, Victor's wife was was canoeing with the with the paddle dead quiet. Don't let the paddle touch the wooden boat. Nikita was balanced in the middle of the thing. Victor's on the front with this huge fishing rod, and I'm sitting there, and he goes, I'll catch the first one, you catch the second one. And he's got this huge fishing rod and a piece of half rotten meat from the day before, and he's smacking it against the wall.
6 AM.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: He's just letting it smack against the water, and I'm going and we're floating down the river. And I'm going, this is not gonna work. And we're floating and we're floating, and a half hour passes, and I'm going, it's dawn. I wanna go back to sleep. I'm searching.
I'm just not a morning person. And all of a sudden, a fish hits that line, almost pulls this man off of his feet.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And he swings the thing in. The fish comes on the boat, and then I realized he's got a big metal mallet on the boat so that you could try to shut that fish off. And it's this huge, oar shaped, thick, muscular Paco.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I saw that fish, I just thought, wow. The strongest of this species for 1000000 of years have been swimming in this river. And suddenly, we've through this incredible combination of the boat and the and the and the cord and the hook, none of which we made, and the skill that he had from knowing how to fish a Paco. Because, otherwise, there's no chance that you're getting that fish. They hide.
They're very, very suspicious of what you're doing. We had gotten this fish onto the boat and, ploom, you hammer it like a caveman. Boom. Doesn't die. Boom.
You have to crush its skull. And now you have this fish, and you're you're holding this genetic material, the sustenance for your life that has been developing since the dinosaur times. It's so beautiful. Mhmm. The act, the sacred act of eating that Mhmm.
Of of the fish, of the competition with the fish. And we spent the morning fishing. We got 3 tacos, 3 huge giant vegetarian piranha. And I I just remember touching them with so much reverence thinking about the incredible history and how that before these rivers existed, those Pacos were were swimming through the water and and and and trying to survive through through through history through history through history until this until we we took just a few. And we did it respectfully and we did it when we needed it most, not at a time when it was just for fun and it was it was really really special.
Speaker 0: Well, humans using them for sustenance, there's a collaboration there. That's that's something also that I've seen in the jungle that there's creatures using each other, and it's like a dance of either, mutually using each other. It's or it's parasitic or symbiotic. It's interesting. Like, there's a, a medicinal plant you grabbed that was full of ants Yeah.
That were, like, trying to, murder you by biting, but they were defending the plant that they were using for whatever purpose. There's a clear dance there of the ants using the plant and the plant existing there for other applications and other use for humans, and there's that kinda circle of life happening. But the ants were a defense so the the plant didn't have its own defense mechanism. The ants, the army of ants was there to protect the plant. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And did you actually when you remember we put our backpacks down at that one spot, and it was like, the ants got on your backpack, and I said, oh, shit. This is that tree. Did you actually get bitten by one of those? Because they're incredibly painful. The Tangerana one.
They're like
Speaker 0: Yeah. Surprisingly painful because they're small. There there's nothing like luckily, I have not been bitten by a bullet ant yet.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's amazing because they live inside the tree. The tree comes standard with holes in it that allow the ants to to move and to exist safe, and it protects their eggs, and they protect the tree. And then so we saw that spot where there's a perfect circle around the trees because the ants had excavated the other vegetation so that those trees could have no competition to grow. The incredible calculation of how ants know to guard come programmed to garden that tree and the tree somehow has been genetically informed to have ant habitat within itself. It's it's it's mind blowing, and it actually is the foundation of a lot of existential confusion for me because how the hell is this possible?
Yeah. Well, one of the things you mentioned that's also a source of
Speaker 0: a lot of existential confusion for me is ants Yeah. And the intelligence of different creatures in the forest. There's these giant colonies. There's just giant systems. But even just looking at a single colony of ants, them collaborating, leafcutter ants, is an incredible system.
So individually, the ants seem kind of dumb and simplistic. Mhmm. But taken together, there is a vast intelligence operating that's able to be robust and resilient in any kind of conditions, is able to figure out a new environment, is able to be resilient to any kinds of attacks and all that kind of stuff. What do you find beautiful about them?
Speaker 1: Like, as you said, just leafcutter ants in this jungle. That's forgetting all the other hundreds of species of ants that are in this jungle. But just the leafcutters apparently digest roughly 17% of the total biomass of the forest. Everything, all these giant trees, all that leaf litter, 17% of that, almost a 5th of this forest cycles through leafcutter ant colonies. So they're constantly regenerating the forest.
They're a huge source of the of the driver of this ecosystem. And so to me, when you see them working, it's again, like I said, you see your friends as you go through the jungle. You see all the kapok trees, the tree. So there's leafcutter ants doing what they're supposed to do, and it's it's just so beautiful. I find them very beautiful.
Army ants, they're so tough. They're so ready to fight. They have these huge mandibles. They're just ready to they're just they're transporting their eggs. They're moving from here to there.
Anything that's in the way is getting eaten. They're just savage. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: they're kinda cute for that, unless you're tied to a tree. The savagery is cute. I find that Yeah. It's kind of reassuring. You know?
You want certain things to be tough. That's their part.
Speaker 0: Oh, that everybody plays a part in the entirety of the In the game. Mechanism.
Speaker 1: You know? A powerful play. But but but Yeah. But the army ants are so savage. You know, like, if you if you step on army ants, they will all kamikaze and just attack onto your feet, and they'll just they'll just sacrifice their own life for the good of the thing.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And they'll be trying to kill your your shoes, and there's something funny about that to me. There's something, like, kinda reassuring. Again, unless unless imagine if you're going through the jungle and you slip and you fall and you twist your knee
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you fall in just the right way, but you you can't get up. Yeah. You can't. You're stuck there.
Speaker 0: Yep.
Speaker 1: And then army ants find you. Yeah. They will take you apart. There are records of horses that have been tied up and army ants come, and they'll take out the whole horse.
Speaker 0: Imagine the pain of that.
Speaker 1: It might be raining on us very hard very soon.
Speaker 0: You wanna pause? Nope.
Speaker 1: I think we'll stay here until the ship goes down.
Speaker 0: We we should mention that there's this one source of light and we're shrouded in darkness.
Speaker 1: And and now with the night shift, it's gonna take over soon, and we are in the Amazon rainforest.
Speaker 0: What does the rainforest represent to you? When you zoom out, look at
Speaker 1: the entirety of it. Carl Sagan's pale blue dot resonated with a lot of people, That everything you've ever heard of, all the heroes, all the villains, all of your ancestors, every achievement, tragedy, triumph. Everything has happened on that one spot, this one tiny, tiny little rock that has life on it. And to me, the rainforests represent the crown jewel of that. As far as we know and to the best of our knowledge and with our shrewd scientific brains at their fullest capacity, this is still the only place that we know that has life.
And given that, the fact that there are still these tropical, towering complex ecosystems that we are barely understand crawling and full of the most incredible life. It's just to me, it's it's it's so wonderful. It's so incredible. Those the waterfalls and the birds and the macaws and the jaguars, it's barely believable. Like, if you were to theoretically tell a hypo hypothetical alien that I live on this planet, and there there's just these places where everything is interconnected.
Everything means something to something else, and the whole thing is this system that keeps us alive. And each tree is pumping air into the river. And there's an invisible river above the actual river.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing goes into stabilizing our global climate. And each little tiny leafcutter ant somehow contributes to this giant biotic orchestra that keeps us alive and makes our environment possible. That is beautiful. I love that. And so the the rainforest to me are the greatest celebration of life and probably the greatest challenge for us as a global society.
Because if we can't protect the crown jewel, the best thing, you know, the most beautiful part, then then we're really, really missing the point.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The diversity of organisms here is the biggest celebration of life. That is at the core of what makes Earth a really special thing. That said, you and I have been arguing about aliens for pretty much the day I showed up. Alright.
So you you brought a machete to this fight. Luckily, the table is long enough to I can't reach
Speaker 2: you. You
Speaker 0: can't reach me.
Speaker 1: See, to you, Earth is truly special. Yeah.
Speaker 0: You don't think there's other Earths out there, millions of other Earths in our galaxy. When you look up, you know, we were sitting in the Amazon rift
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 0: At dark. The storm rolled over. Yeah. And you started counting the stars. Yeah.
1, 2. And that was once you can count the stars, that was a sign that the storm will actually pass. Eventually, it'll pass, and that's what you're doing. 3, 4, 5, and it's going to pass. You're not gonna have to sit in that river for, like, all night.
So just a couple hours to keep yourself warm. Okay. Each of those stars
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: There's Earth like planets around them.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 0: Why do you think there's not alien civilizations there?
Speaker 1: You can write down a calculation on a napkin. You can cite different Hollywood movies. You can point up to the pieces of light in the stars. But if you if I talk about show me a single cell that's not from this planet, it's still not possible. And so I agree with you that the likelihood is there.
All indications point to it. It would be fascinating, especially if it was done in especially, you know, imagine finding a a planet of alternative life forms, not necessarily even intelligent. Imagine just a a planet of butterflies, whatever, you know, something else. That would be amazing, but but I'm concerned with the reality that we have in front of us is that this is spaceship. This is life.
Yeah. And so right now, given that reality, maybe that's maybe that's the case. Maybe maybe there are other planets.
Speaker 2: Or or
Speaker 1: maybe we are the first. Maybe life originated here. Maybe God, the universe, whatever. Maybe maybe this is it. This is the this is the this is the the testing ground for something bigger and and and and this complexity and this diversity of life and this life that we have is that important.
And I think that part of what we do when we go, Oh, yeah. But there's other planets. We're first of all, we're we're we're taking an assumption into reality without I mean, you know, aliens right now are about as real as Santa Claus. We think they're out there, but we're not sure. Maybe a little more real because, you know, it could make sense.
We no one has an alien. No one's seen an alien. No one's even seen cellular life. And so I'm not again, if they showed up tomorrow, great. Let's study them.
But right now, we have this very simple threat going on where we can't stop killing each other and our living environment. And so while some people can specialize in looking to the stars and to other planets and talk about being an interplanetary species, I'm very much concerned with the fact that here in our home turf, our living environment, where the air is good and the rivers are clean and the trees are big and there's macaws flying through the sky and salmon in the rivers, not only do we have a responsibility to each other and to our children to protect this incredible gift that is our entire reality, seems kind of weird to at some point, it conservation seems kind of ridiculous, like you're begging people to not pollute the things that keep them alive. It's it's it's almost kind of silly at a point. But but we have this incredible thing where there are fish in the ocean and in the rivers that come standard with life on Earth, and and we're we're we're harming the ability of Earth's ecosystems to provide for that life. And we are the generation that's gonna decide if those systems continue to provide life to all the people on Earth and all the generations and, by the way, all the other animals that exist for their own reasons.
Other consciousnesses that we're just beginning to understand, elephants, humpback whales, whatever, families of giant river otters, Not everything can be seen from a human perspective. These are other species that have their own stories. And so I'm I'm more biocentric than anthropocentric in that I I I think that that nature is important, but I also believe that we are we are special. We are the most intelligent animal.
Speaker 0: So one, I agree with you. There's some degree to which when you imagine aliens, you forget if by for a moment how special and important life is here on Earth. Yes. But it's also a way to reach out through curiosity in trying to understand what is intelligence, what is consciousness, what is exactly the thing that makes life on earth special. Another way of doing that, and I see the jungle in that same way, is basically treating the animals all around us, the life forms all around us, as kinds of aliens.
As that's a humbling way. It's a intellectual humility with which to approach the study of, like, what the hell is going on here? Yeah. This is truly incredible. Like, are are the animals we've met over the last few days conscious?
What is the nature of their intelligence? What is the nature of their consciousness? What motivates them? Are they individual creatures, or are they actually part of the large system? And how large is the system?
Is Earth one big system, and humans are just little fingertips of that system? Or, are each of the individual animals really the key actors, and everything else is in the emergent complexity of the system. So I think thinking about aliens is a necessary, I like my tongue with a little drop of poison from Tom Waist. It's a necessary perturbation of the system of our thinking to sort of say, hey. We don't know what the fuck's going on around here.
Sure. And aliens is a nice way to say, okay. The mystery all around us is immense. Because to me, likely, aliens are living among us. Not in a trivial sense, little green men.
But the force that created life, I think, permeates the entirety of the universe, that there's
Speaker 1: a force that's creative. Now, the force that created life is a is a big one. And then the other thing is, what do you mean by that? There's aliens living among us. You mean extraterrestrials
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: Living among us?
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: You believe that?
Speaker 0: Not like a 100%, but there's a as a good percentage. I don't understand how it's possible for them not to be a very large number of alien civilization throughout
Speaker 1: the just our galaxy. But that's different than saying that they're living among us. If you tell me that there's aliens living 5 galaxies over and that they're just out there somewhere, I'm kinda I'm kinda more on your side than that they're here. Because just like Bigfoot, like, we have camera traps. We have DNA sequencing through through water now.
Like, we can, you're telling me no one found one wing nut of a of a of a ship in all like, the Egyptians up until right now. No one in Russia saw, like, a a crashed ship, took a picture, tweeted that shit real quick, and, you know
Speaker 0: I I think there's no Bigfoot. There's no trivial manifestations of aliens. I think if they're here, they're here in ways that are not comprehendible by humans because they're far more advanced than humans. They're far more advanced than any life forms on Earth. So they're even if it's just their probes, which cannot just even comprehend it, I think it's possible that they operate in the space of ideas, for example, that ideas could be aliens, Feelings could be aliens.
Cautiousness itself could be aliens. So we can't restrict our understanding what is a life form to a thing that is a biological creature that operates via natural selection on this particular planet. It could be much, much, much more sophisticated. It could be in a space of computation, for example, as we in the 21st century are developing increasingly sophisticated computational systems with artificial intelligence. It could be operating on some other level that we can't even imagine.
It could be operating on a level of physics that we have not even begun to understand. We we barely understand quantum mechanics. We use it quantum mechanics is a way we used to make very accurate predictions, but to understand why it's operating that way, we don't. And there's so many gigantic, powerful, cosmic entities out there that we detect, sometimes can't detect dark matter, dark energy. But it's out there.
We know it exists, but we can't explain why and what the fuck it is. We give it names, black holes and dark energy and dark matter, but those are all names for things that mathematical equations predict, but we don't understand. And so all of that is just to say that aliens could be here in ways that are for now and maybe for a long time going to be impossible for humans to understand.
Speaker 1: So aliens in the in the strict biological sense, like like like horseshoe crabs, we agree that they're they're not we haven't found physical aliens.
Speaker 0: The only way I can imagine finding physical aliens is if alien species are trying to communicate with us humans, or with other life forms and are trying to figure out a way to communicate with us such that we dumb humans would understand. Like, let's create a thing.
Speaker 1: Yo. There's a moth the
Speaker 3: size the size of a small eagle.
Speaker 1: Just try to
Speaker 0: get us 15 minutes
Speaker 1: of a 10 minutes.
Speaker 2: It just
Speaker 0: might it just might I'm a fan of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Okay. Lex, I love you. Alright. So so what you're wouldn't it be interesting, it would be really fascinating to me, if we found out that there were aliens living among us and we couldn't see them. And what some of the people were calling aliens, the scientists, the the religious people were calling angels, and then everybody had this realization that whether you call them aliens or angels, there are these other there is more way more to the universe than we're realizing.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: I just for me,
Speaker 0: the fact that there's There's a skull on the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a skull on
Speaker 0: the table. Skull in your
Speaker 1: hand. There's now a skull in my hand of a monkey with a bullet in its head that I found on the floor of an indigenous community where they eat monkeys. I didn't kill the monkey, so save your comments. But, you know, in terms of of the animals, I think I think that when I see space, it my feeling, and I'm not requiring anybody else to have this feeling, but because we know because it's the only place that we know that there's life and we have no idea how it started. I just think it's so important to protect it.
And and and for me, it's just as much about our children as it is about the little spider monkeys and the little baby came in that are in the river right now because life is so beautiful.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a huge amount of intellectual responsibility that we can transfer off of ourselves if we go, yeah, the rivers are filled with trash, and, yeah, extinction is happening, but we have to be an interplanetary species anyway because at any moment, this could all end from an asteroid and, like, everything's going to shit anyway. And so it's like, we're fucking up this planet. It's like, that's that's we're just being angry teenagers who are, you know, going goth for a while. And it's like, what if you just rolled up your sleeves and said, holy shit. Wait a second.
You know, we can pretty much do whatever we want. We can fly all over the world. We have we can do heart transplants. We can watch Netflix in the Amazon if we wanted to. Like, we could do all this amazing stuff.
We can capture on video or adventures and go back and watch them again and again and again. There's so much incredible opportunity that technology has allowed us to do, and we're the we're the richest in history. I mean, we could do everything. We could cross the whole planet in a second. And it's like, that's an amazing time to be alive.
And if we just don't fuck up the ecosystems and kill all the other animals, We got it made.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So it is true that we can destroy ourselves in nuclear weapons, but it also is true that that snake that I got to handle yesterday is, like, one of the most beautiful things Earth has ever created. In the in that little organism, is encapsulated the entire history of Earth, and it's it's beautiful. So both things are true. Yeah.
We should we should worry about the existential destruction of human civilization through the weapons we create, and we should become multi planetary species as a backup for that purpose. But also remember that this place is is really, really special and probably, if not difficult, probably impossible to recreate elsewhere. It'll it
Speaker 1: it'll it'll it'll it'll weigh on you for a sec because you look into this the hollow eyes of this face, and suddenly you go. You feel your own teeth. You feel your own skull, and you go, holy shit. You go, what is going on? It's like taking acid.
You just go, oh,
Speaker 0: boy. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: I forgot that I'm a ghost inhabiting a meat vehicle on a floating rock. But even even a monkey
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like looking at a ancestor.
Speaker 0: You know, not a direct ancestor, but there's a it's like a, you know, like, you you're looking at a puddle at a reflection. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: A little blurry, but
Speaker 0: it's still there. Blurry, but it's still there. Yeah. It's still there. And, like, the roots of who we are is still there, and it's it's all kind of incredible.
Do you ever think of the the tree of life? Just kinda like where we came from. Yeah. The jungle is ephemeral. It just keeps it's a system that just keeps forgetting because it's just churning and churning and churning and churning has, in some ways, no history.
But to create the jungle, to create life on Earth, there's a deep history of lots of death, sex and death.
Speaker 1: A festival of sex and death, life on earth.
Speaker 0: That's what I see in the skull.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's something it's there's something kind of terrifying about that image to me. Like when I hold that skull every now and then at night, you hold that skull and you it just reminds you that you're temporary.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Both you and I will one day have one of those. Yeah. Mine will be bigger.
Speaker 1: My god. The male competition continues. The silverback slaps the lesser male once again. Do
Speaker 0: you have a lighter?
Speaker 1: Yeah, bro. You wanna light this blunt? Yeah.
Speaker 0: What are your favorite animals to interact with?
Speaker 1: I mean, my favorite absolute favorite animal to interact with is 100% elephants, which there's no elephants here. But I've been incredibly privileged to spend some time with elephants both in India and in Africa. And I think that they're so smart and so complex that we do a really bad job of understanding what an elephant really is.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: I think that most children probably think of elephants as, like, something kinda cuddly. Most adults probably think of have a a similar misconception of them. When you see an elephant, when you see a 12 foot tall bull elephant with bone coming out of its face with huge tusks and those giant it's a it's a octopus faced, butterfly eared behemoth that's a survival machine, and it'll look at you and just go, do I have to kill you to keep safe? And it's just they're so tough. And they have they have dirt on their back and they flower petals and their little hair you realize they have hair all over their body and the the power to throw a car over, to flip it.
Just one of the most impressive animals on Earth, and I think that I've gotten really good at interacting with wild elephants in a way that's respectful to them. And I think that that when an elephant allows you to be in its space, it's because you're you're showing submissiveness and and respect for the elephant space. And they're so intelligent that they're communicating with seismic vibrations through the Earth, that they have, you know, a matriarchal society, that they can remember the map the maps of their ancestors, and they know how to found find water, that they can solve problems. They're they're such beautiful animals, and they're so talk about aliens. They're so alien looking.
Mhmm. These big, weird heads and the trunks with
Speaker 2: all
Speaker 1: those muscles, and they're so different than us. But but yet, I actually think that we we grew up together. You know, they they they kinda raised us sibling species that we've been we've inhabited the same epoch in history. As soon as you start watching wild elephants truly in the wild and comfort comfortable with your presence, you see how they start caring for their babies or or how they can get annoyed. I once watched elephants around a waterhole, and there's this warthog.
And I don't know why, but this warthog decided he needed to get in. And and there's this young male elephant, and he kept turning around to this warthog and being like, don't make me do it. Now this elephant did not need to hurt the warthog. Yeah. And the warthog was just like, I need a drink.
Speaker 2: I need
Speaker 1: a drink. I need a drink. Much simpler brain. Mhmm. The elephant was like, you could just tell.
He was like, watch this. And he just went and crushed the warthog like it was a big beetle. Yeah. And crushed his pelvis, and the warthog dragged itself away on its front legs and probably went off to die. But this young elephant put out his ears, and he, like, paraded around with his tail up.
And he was like, look what I did. Destruction. And it's like, that's a very relatable type of he was annoyed with the war off.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and and and so you see them do these things. Mhmm. I mean, the most magical thing, and I've I've spoken about this many times, is that I was walking with a herd of semi wild elephants that were crossing through a village in India because elephants have lost a lot of their territory because there's so much so so much population in India and so we're crossing through a village which is very delicate because the matriarchs are leading the babies and there's villagers who have no idea what an elephant is and they're watching elephants cross. And the matriarchs backed this girl up against the wall and she was terrified standing there with her back against the wall and the elephant just put her trunk out and touched the girl's stomach, and then the other elephants came and they all started touching her stomach. And the the the the ranger there explained to me just went, she's pregnant.
They know she's pregnant. They can smell. They can tell, and they're curious. And they all the all the female elephants came to investigate the pregnant girl, and she had no idea what was going on. And so it's like, that stuff that stuff.
Speaker 0: And it's cool to hear that, you know, with the the the crushing and the pride of the young elephant, that there's a complexity of behavior just like with humans. I mean, you know, humans always pretty. That's the thing, man. Humans are capable of good and evil, and sometimes we attach these words. I love that there's just it's an orchestra of different sounds.
Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that that one is sex, which That's a bamboo rat calling out for a mate.
Speaker 0: A mate. Alright.
Speaker 1: Good luck. To you, buddy. Yeah. Good hunting.
Speaker 0: You know, humans are capable of evil things and beautiful things, and I wonder if animals are the same. You you think there's just different personalities and different life trajectories for animals, like, as they develop in their understanding of social interaction, of survival, of maybe even primitive concepts of right and wrong within the social system? Do you think there's a lot of diversity in personalities and and behavior? Just like different people, is
Speaker 1: there different elephants? Of course. And, and what I really like is, as you said, is there a perception of what's right and wrong? Because elephants have a code of ethics. And so as the for the simplest example is that as young males begin to grow, they start developing these tusks.
And those tusks are a tool and they use them. So for Indian elephants, the females don't have tusks and the males do. The females kick the males out of the herd. The females keep all the sisters and the ants and the cousins together, but the males are their own thing. And so here's the thing, if you have so what you get is these these crews of male elephants and the older males, will you know, there's play fighting that goes on around, you know, 2 young males can play fight, but the older males, they'll kick some ass.
They'll show them how to behave. They'll explain who gets to talk to the females, who gets to interact, who gets to mate, who gets the best vegetation to eat. And so there's an order established and so young male elephants have to be taught how to act. Just like a teenage human has to be taught, you know, you can't just haul off and and break another kid's nose. You gotta there's gonna be consequences.
Maybe you'll get suspended.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Or maybe that kid will get his friends and beat the living shit out of you. Whatever it is, society regulates your behavior and elephants have a very strict, very predictable sort of like, the males teach the males how to run things and the females, which which really have the final say, they're matriarchal, They're the ones leading the herd where to go. The males follow where the where the wise females tell them where to go.
Speaker 0: So that regulation mechanisms from that emerges as a kind of moral system under which they operate. What's right and wrong? For an elephant. Yeah. For an elephant.
Speaker 1: Right and wrong for an elephant is not the same as what's right and wrong for grizzly bear. Grizzly bear if you're a male grizzly bear and you see a female with cubs, you just kill those cubs, and then you can mate with that you can mate with her and put your own cubs in there. It's like but it's a whole different type of ethics.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The value of, child life is different Yeah. From species to species. Some of them hold the sacred. Some of them not at all.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think I I resonate so much with elephants because they're I think they're mat I think that we're we're we're we are kind of matriarchal. At least I grew up matriarchal. Like, women were the force in my life. My family and most of my friends' families, women kinda have the final say. And, I feel like that's the way it is with with with with elephants.
Like, you might be bigger and stronger, but it doesn't really account for much if you're not smarter and and more emotionally intelligent, and you know how to take care of the group.
Speaker 0: Just to zoom out into the ridiculous questions
Speaker 2: as
Speaker 0: we were talking about aliens. There's, a lot of people trying to understand, trying to study the origin of life. Oh, I love this. First of all, what do you think is life versus nonlife? Like, when you look at, like, ants or even, like, the simplest simplest of organisms.
We saw a frog in the stream yesterday. That was, like, a leaf frog. It was, like, as flat as a sheet of paper, and it does a lot of weird things. And it found a way to exist in this world. But that's a single living organisms with a bunch of components to it, but, like, there's a life form that exists in this world.
What is the difference between that and a rock? What what is, like, what is the essence of that life? This might be an unanswerable question. There's probably a chemistry, physics, biology way of answering that. Like, what to you is that?
Speaker 1: I I I think to me, life is something that grows in response to stimuli. Like, in basic biology 101, I think and I'm fine with that. I don't need it to be more romantic than that, but I think it's actually comical how how do you get from a rock to an orangutan?
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: You know? And and our answer for that is primordial soup. Maybe there was just stuff on Earth, and then the the the stuff just got up and started walking. Maybe there just there was nothing happening, and then there was all of a sudden there was a cell. Mhmm.
And the cell had functioned, and then it and then it started reproducing and found male and female parts and and what?
Speaker 3: Like, it we we are so
Speaker 1: under equipped to understand how the hell we got here, let alone ants or or or even bacteria.
Speaker 0: I see this so many, in very simple mathematical models, like something called Game of Life. There's cellular automata. You could see from simple rules and simple objects when they're interacting together, as you grow that system, complex objects arise. Like, that emergence of complexity is not understood by science, by mathematics at all. And it seems like from primordial soups, you can get a lot of cool shit.
And the force of getting from soup to, like, 2 humans on microphones?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Not understood, and it seems to be a thing that happens on Earth. I tend to think that it's a thing that happens everywhere in the universe, and there's some deep force that's pushing this along in some way. That there's something we, I don't want to sort of simplify it, but there is something that creates complexity out of simplicity that we don't quite understand. And that's the thing that created the first organism living organism on earth. That, like, leap from no life to life on earth, that's a weird one.
Speaker 1: That's a weird one. Because you can imagine I think that what the Earth is 4 or 4,500,000,000 years old, and you can imagine just this this rock of a planet with, like, rain and storms and elements and iron and granite and, like, just random stuff. It's pretty easy to imagine that. But then I remember that book that we think we all had the same book when we were kids and they're, like, they show this, like, fish like animal crawling out of
Speaker 0: a Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Out of the primordial soup. And it's like, bro, you just missed the most important part. Author of that book, bro. And and I think the first bacteria came in around 3, 3, 3, 700,000,000 years ago. So there's, like, at least, like, you know, a bunch of 1000000000 years where there's just nothing.
There's just a planet. And then we start seeing fossils of the first bacteria. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And the bacteria stuck around for for a long time, a 1000000000, 2,000,000,000 years. It's just very, very long.
Speaker 1: Just bacteria? Just bacteria,
Speaker 0: but a lot of them. A lot of them. There's probably a lot of innovation, a lot of murder, a lot of interaction. Yeah. Yeah.
And then, I mean, there's there's a bit a few big leaps along the history of life on Earth. Yeah. You know, the predator prey dynamic, that was a really cool innovation. It's almost like innovation. Like features on iPhone.
It's like it's nice. Like, predator prey, eukaryotes, so complex multicellular organisms, emerging from the water to land. That was weird. That was a that was a interesting innovation. There's how whatever led to humans, that there's a lot of interesting stuff there.
Speaker 1: I see. I can't even get that far. I can't get from rock and sand to cells. Yeah. That's that's a huge Yeah.
I mean I mean, to everything around us that has cells is just it's it's wild. Even and I I could imagine being on another planet and how incredibly valuable this thing would be. This this it's impossible to replicate it. I'm looking at it through the candlelight right now and I can see all of the structures in this leaf, the incredible structures in this leaf that look exactly like the veins in my arm, which look exactly like the rivers that are flowing across this landscape, and it's like life has this this overwhelming pattern that it uses and it's so beautiful. I just I just think it's yeah.
When when you imagine the the the the days of the lightning and the volcanoes and the primordial soup, it's it's there's a there's a big gap Mhmm. There. And it's it's fascinating to think about. And it's fascinating to see how different people's belief systems, lead them to different answers there.
Speaker 0: Not to give any spoilers, but Postcard from Earth or Darren Aronofsky's film, The idea there is is there's probes that are sent out from Earth
Speaker 1: Oh, that's true.
Speaker 0: To all these other planets, And each probe contains 2 humans, a man and a woman. Uh-huh. And those 2 humans are in love. So think of a couple in love. They're sent there with all the information, basically a leaf that holds the information of what it takes to create life on other plan to recreate an Earth and other planets.
And the 2 humans hold all the information for the things that make life on Earth special, especially in human civilization is love, consciousness, the the the social connection. So all that information is sent sent in the probe. And the postcard from Earth is, those humans waking up remembering all the information that is Earth. That like a celebration of all the things that make Earth magical throughout its history, all the diversity of organisms, all of that. You're loading all that in to create life on that new planet, which is something I think alien civilizations are doing.
They're sending probes all throughout the galaxy, and they just haven't arrived yet. But, anyway, that's another,
Speaker 1: that's so beautiful. And one of the things that I I think I I I wanna see that so much, and one of the things that I love about Aronofsky's work is is the fountain.
Speaker 2: Mhmm. And
Speaker 1: what I find so beautiful about that is that now here he's saying, okay. We're sending probes out to other worlds, alien civilizations. And in the fountain, it was sort of what I thought he did so beautifully was braid together those three stories where in one I don't remember if he's in a spaceship or if if that's supposed to be, like, his soul. Mhmm. The other one, he's a scientist in sort of, like, comparable times to hours, and then he's the the Spanish explorer.
But either way, there's the tree of life, and it sort of braids together all of the major religions. And it made me think of that quote that you hear where it says, you know, god. What was it? Christ wasn't a Christian, and Buddha wasn't a Buddhist, and Mohammed wasn't a Muslim. They were all just teachers who were teaching love.
And it's like the fountain the fountain sort of says nature is the that driving force, and it's our job to understand that the game is love. And that's what that's what the main character in the fountain needs to learn is that it's that it's nature that's going to just that's going to carry your soul through this this this thing and that there's so much you don't understand and the epiphany at the end. God, I love that movie. God, I love
Speaker 0: that movie. Among many things, you're also an artist who's trying to convert the thing that is nature into a thing that we humans can understand. The complexity, the beauty of it, that's what Darren Aronofsky tried to do with those couple of films. That's something that I hope you do, actually, in the medium of film too. That would be very interesting.
And you do that in the medium of books, probably. How much do you think we understand about the history of life on Earth?
Speaker 1: I think we got it all wrong. No. I don't know. It seems like they change it all the time, you know. They say they say that Easter Island you know, when I was in college, they were big on telling you that Easter Island, they ruined their environment and, their environmental collapse, and that's why there's nobody on Easter Island.
It was a cautionary tale. We could ruin our environment. And now it seems like they've changed their mind on that. And then when humans entered North America seems to be hugely up to speculation. And, you know, the the Africa spreading that we all spread out of Africa and then the the Pleistocene overkill extinction theory.
And it's like it seems like every few years they update it and they change it and they say, oh, the guys no, no, no, no, no, no. The guys from 10 years ago, actually my new theory is the best theory, let's write some books and get me on Letterman.' And it seems like there's a new prevailing theory that's really always exciting and edgy about how how we got here and where we came from and how we dispersed and maybe even has some political implications like
Speaker 2: how
Speaker 1: we should use the Amazon moving forward. Like, Amazon was engineered by people, so fuck it. Let's just cut it down.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's I I tend to believe that we mostly don't understand anything, but there's an optimism in continuously figuring out the puzzle of that. Sure. We offline talked about the the Graham Hancock, Flynn Dibble debate, on on Rogan. I like debates personally.
Yeah. So Flint Dibble represents mainstream archaeology. And I actually like the whole science, the whole field of archaeology. You're trying to figure out history with so little information. You're you're trying to put together this this this puzzle when you have so little, and you're desperately clinging on to little clues.
Mhmm. And from those clues, using the simple possible explanation to understand. And now with modern, technology, as as Flint was trying to express, that you can use large amounts of data that's, like, imperfect, but just the scale and using that to reconstruct civilizations. There are different practices from the little details of, what kind of things they eat, how they interact with each other, what kind of art they create to when they existed, what are the time frames, all that kind of stuff. Mhmm.
And that starts to fill in the gaps of our understanding, but still, the error bars are large in terms of what really happened. And that leaves room for things like Graham Hancock talks about, like lost civilizations, which I like also because it gives you have a kind of humility about maybe there's giant things we don't know about or we got completely wrong. And that's always good to, like, remember.
Speaker 1: It's confusing to me to imagine, like, what I I don't even know what, like, what ended the why where did the Egyptians go? Like, what happened? Yeah. Seemed like they were doing so good. They had so much cool shit.
But, I mean, I was reading anthropological stuff in the Amazon about about tribes that, you know, just through through their societal structures and through their hunting practices, that, that didn't really develop practices that worked and kind of bands of people that went extinct before they could turn into larger societies. And, and there's, there's a lot of people that got it wrong. You know, for every explorer that, that, that, that leaves Borneo and arrives in South America, there's probably 100, maybe 100 more that just die at sea, get eaten by sharks, you know, avalanche, and it's just it's so fascinating to me that we, all of us really, past our grandparents, don't really even know where we came from. Like, do you know who your great great great grandparents are? Like, no.
Speaker 0: I mean, there there's methods of trying to figure that out, but really, again, the air bars are so large that it's almost like we're trying to create a narrative that makes sense for us. You know, that I'm I'm 10% Neanderthal, therefore, I can bench press this much. And, therefore, my aggressive tendencies have far overshadow any possible histories we might have.
Speaker 1: Your aggressive tendencies don't have any explanation.
Speaker 0: You're No. You need to you listen to me right now.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Go
Speaker 2: to me again.
Speaker 3: Don't choke me out again.
Speaker 0: Yeah, man. One of the things you and I talk a lot about is different explorers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Who do
Speaker 2: you think is I'm just throwing
Speaker 0: a ridiculous question one after the other. Who do you think is the greatest explorer of all time?
Speaker 1: Oh, god. I love Shackleton, but I I hate the cold. So I can't I I don't really I can't even read about it. I hate the cold so much. I can't I can't even go there for fun.
I think Percy Fawcett in the Amazon was was was was the goat in terms of just sheer, the last of the Victorian era, you know, march forward, go deeper, just stop at nothing, and then eventually take such big risks that you never come back. It's it's hard for me to relate to that kind of exploration because to me, I'm such a softie. I wouldn't wanna, like, leave my family behind. I wouldn't wanna like, even if you told me that I could leave Earth and go exploring and I could go touch the moon, I'd be like, nope. Absolutely not.
Like, the highway is dangerous enough. Like, I would never risk dying in space. This guy left his home, went out into the jungle out there with horrendous gear compared to the camping gear we have today. No headlamp and just explored for years on end.
Speaker 0: Well, let me actually push back. You have that explorer. There is definitely a thing in you, just me having observed you behave in the jungle and in the world. You're pulled towards exploration, towards adventure, towards the possibility of discovering something beautiful, including, like, a small little creature or, like, a whole new part of the rainforest, a part of the world that, like, is like, holy shit. This is beautiful.
I think that's the same kind of imperative. So maybe not going out to the stars, but, like, like, I could see you doing exactly the same thing. So he disappeared in 1925 during an expedition to find an ancient lost city, which, he and other people believed existed in the Amazon rainforest. So there's that pull. Like Yeah.
I'm going to go into there Yeah. With shitty equipment with the possibility of finding something.
Speaker 1: And they said he ran into uncontacted tribes and started goofing off. I think he started I think he started dancing and singing. Like, the tribes were ready to kill him, and he started goofing and, like, doing a song and a dance and just being ridiculous. And the tribes are like, what now? Mhmm.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: they're like, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Don't shoot him yet. That's a funny one.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they they actually he kinda, like, on a human level, used used humor to save his own life on multiple occasions to the point where he de escalated the situation. He was like, look. We're not here to fight. We're here to we have a a pile of maps. You know, all my guys have beriberi, dengue, malaria.
Like, we're dying out here. If you guys just go on your merry way, we'll go on our merry way and, like incredible. He was so tough. And then that guy from Shackleton's expedition ended up on one of Fawcett's expeditions, and you go, oh, yeah. He's a he's a proven explorer.
He's been through the Antarctic. And the guy was like, fuck the jungle. Absolutely fuck the jungle. He was like and and there's a great quote where he says, without a machete and something, you know, I don't remember exactly the words he used, but he said, without a machete in this environment, you don't last. Yeah.
And you know that now. Like, you you in that tangle, to just take 3 steps that way would I would immediately be taking on I mean, I'm not wearing shoes right now. Yeah. Bullet ants, venomous snakes, spikes through my feet, tripping over myself. I don't have a headlamp.
Unbelievable risk right there. We're sitting on the edge of tragedy.
Speaker 0: Can you explain what the the purpose of the machete in this situation is? Like, what what is a machete? How does it work? How does it allow you to navigate in this exceptionally dense environment?
Speaker 1: So this is the tool that I spend most of my life carrying. This is in my hand for 90% of my time. And in the jungle, you really need a machete. There's so much plant life here that you have to cut your way through. And, like, a jaguar, an ocelot, a lot of these other animals that are more horizontally based and low to the ground, they can make it like, when we got stuck in those bamboo patches, and we were just hacking through them, and it's dangerous.
And there's as you hit the bamboo, it ricochets and it spikes, and then one piece falls, and it pulls a a train a vine that has spikes on it and that hits you in the neck and it just the jungle is savage to humans.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: But if you are an Agouti, a little rodent
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Or a jaguar or a deer, you can kinda slip through this stuff. And the deer have developed really small antlers. They can just kinda weave through, load to the ground. And so and so for us being these vertical beings walking through the jungle, it it really helps to be able to move the sticks that are diagonally opposing your movement at all times. So a machete is just a very, very useful tool.
It could help you pull thorns out of your body. As you saw last night, we can use it to find food. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: You want machete fishing. You cut a fish head off with a machete by, like it was swimming, and then you basically, you know Yeah. Machete the water. And the other fascinating thing about that fish without his head, it kept moving. So amazing.
Was just using, I guess, his nervous system to to swim beautifully. I mean, I that there's so many questions there about how nature works.
Speaker 1: You could well, let's explain it because he the the way the machete hit this fish, it kinda kinda took his just his his eyes off of and his lower jaw was still there. So it's really just like the brain Mhmm. And and the little top jaw that came off. And this fish as the the dust cleared in the stream, this fish was I found it very haunting in a very, like, interstellar way. Like, it was just the programming was still there Mhmm.
But the brain was gone, and the fish was just still moving. And it was gonna die, but it was still swimming, and it looks like an like an like a live fish. It was it was crap or something.
Speaker 0: And you're still trying to catch it,
Speaker 1: which is insane. Work to catch it. Because every time I caught it, it would it would freak out, and then it would jump back in the water. And I'm programmed here from years years of living in the Amazon that everything can hurt you, so you actually become quite, you know, if a moth lands on you, you flick it because it could be a bullet ant. And so even the fish here, a lot of the fish here have spikes coming out of them.
And so even though I know that fish, I know its name. I've eaten them many times. As I was holding it, when it would twitch with that explosive power just like the caiman, I would I would I would get that fear response and release it. Mhmm. And so that happened 3 or 4 times before I finally said, this is stupid.
Even though he's slippery, he hasn't got ahead. I can hold on to him. I put him in my pocket.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Put him in
Speaker 1: my pocket. And then we fried him up,
Speaker 0: and we And he was delicious. So and I'm grateful for his existence and for his role and for my existence on this planet, the brief existence, that I was able to enjoy that delicious, delicious fish. So the machete is used to cut through this extremely dense jungle. There's vines, by the way. There's rope like things
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: They're extremely strong, and they go all kinds of directions. They go horizontal and all of this. I I don't even how tree we have a tree right above us. That makes no sense. There's, like, a tree that kinda failed, and then a new tree was created on top of it.
That makes it just makes no sense. It feels like sometimes trees come from the, from the sky. Sometimes they come from the ground. I don't I don't really quite understand the how that works because there's new trees that grow on old trees, and the old trees rot away, and then new trees come up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That whole mechanism. Strangler figs. And so strangler figs as you go across the world's ecosystems, that whole belt of, you know, whether you're in rainforests in the Amazon, the Congo, Indonesia, all across the tropics, you have strangler figs. And the amazing thing that this that this species does, it's become a keystone species across the planet with a hyper influence on its ecosystem wherever it is because they produce fruit in the dry season when the rest of the forest is making it hard for animals to find fruit to find food.
And so the bats, the birds, the monkeys, they all go to the strangler fig. They eat the fruit, and the fruit, of course, is just tricking the animals. The the the plants are tricking the animals into carrying their seeds to another tree. And so they're getting free transportation. Monkey takes a poop on another tree after eating strangler figs and then that strangler fig sends out its vines, gets to the ground, and then as soon as it begins sucking up nutrients, outcompetes that tree for light, grows hyperdrive around the trunk of that tree.
And then eventually that tree will die and the strangler fig will win because it got a it got a boost up to the top. Whereas, these little trees down here, they're gonna have to wait their turn. They have to wait until a tree falls until there's a light gap, and then they have enough food to grow quick. And so this whole thing is an energy economy. Everything is just trying to get sunlight.
And so strangler figs, yeah, top down trees growing or parasitic top down octopus trees growing over other giant trees, and you've seen the size of some of the trees here.
Speaker 0: So, you know, back to Percy Fawcett and exploration. What what do you think it was like for him back then, a 100 years ago? Goddamn. Go into the jungle.
Speaker 1: Well, the see, the thing is those guys didn't go with the locals. They came down here with, like, mules, and they tried to do it their way.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so he's one of the people that wrote about the green hell, the jungle as the oppressive war zone where there's nothing to eat and everything is killing you and it's I I think I think that that image is so wrong because as you saw last night, we could go if we went out with JJ right now, we would machete fish some fish, we could start a little fire, We'd do it all in shorts. Like, to to JJ, it's green paradise. And it's intense, but but if you know what you're doing, which the local people surely do, well, then just beneath the sand, there's turtle eggs that you can eat. And inside the nuts on the ground, there's grubs that you can eat. And if you really needed to, you could just jump on a came in and eat that because their tails are pretty full of meat.
And it's like, there's actually unending amount amount amounts of food here.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: so it's it's they were pretty you know, they were strange bunch
Speaker 0: of food. To tune in to the that frequency, I feel like your you and JJ Yeah. Are able to tune to the to the frequency of the jungle that is a a provider, not a destroyer of human life. Right? Yeah.
Like, I think to be, collaborated with, not fought against.
Speaker 1: Yes. But we're coming at that with a with our modern lens. Because we're coming down here with I've survived how many infections in the jungle where those probably would have killed me before.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So my dead ass opinion of the jungle would have been overwhelming and collective murder, as Herzog says. And so Percy Fawcett was coming down here with this view of, it's trying to kill us at all times. We are flying down here and coming out here with our superior medicines and our ability to survive infections. And and so it's it is different for us. It is different.
We're we're we're we're coming at this very, very different. But Fawcett, to me, was like the last of, like, the real swashbucklers, like, the really batshit crazy explorers that just went out into the into the dark spaces on the map. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: it's very hard for me to identify with him. But with, for instance, Richard Evans Schultes from Harvard, that's someone where you go, okay. Now we're getting to the point where I can start to understand. Jimmy, just like the conquistadors. And they tell you the conquistadors showed up, you know, they killed the the Spanish killed 2,000 Inca on the first day, and then they they marched this city.
And they're like, when I hear about the can you imagine yourself just, like, slaughtering a bunch of women and children and and soldiers and then just, like, drinking some wine and doing it again tomorrow. I can't actually wrap my head around that. Yeah. It just seems like an entire different world. Nah.
Like, different world.
Speaker 0: Different value system. I
Speaker 1: Different value system.
Speaker 0: A different relationship with violence and life and death, I think. We value life more. We value we resist violence
Speaker 1: more. Yeah. Like, I I just I can't like, if we saw a car acts I feel like if I saw a car accident, like, you know, or if you see a little bit of war, some violence, like, it affects you. These people were so comfortable with those things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It
Speaker 1: was such a normal part of their the the Spartans, the the Comanches. Like, they became so comfortable with war to the point that it became what they did. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And they celebrated it too. They celebrated it. And direct violence too, like taking that machete and murdering me. I'll or if I got to the machete first, me murdering you.
Speaker 1: Not a chance, bitch.
Speaker 0: Alright. And then I would put it on Instagram and show off. And the number of DMs I would get from murdering you
Speaker 1: with a machete. Meanwhile, half the world right now is messaging me saying my DMs are filled with take care of Lex. Don't lose Lex. Make sure Lex comes back safe. Lex is a national treasure.
We love Lex. Make sure he holds a snake. The amount of love that is out there
Speaker 0: Meanwhile, I emerge from the jungle of blood around me with a machete, and I take over your Instagram account.
Speaker 1: He's very humble. He doesn't wanna hear about the love.
Speaker 0: Alright. So, what do you think makes a great explorer? Whether it's, Percy Fawcett, Richard Eben Sheldon. By the way, say who Richard, Eversheldes is. He's a biologist.
So that's another lens to wish to be an explorer
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Is to study the the biology, the the the the immense diversity of biological life all around us. Richard Evans Schulte's,
Speaker 1: I know about him from reading Wade Davis's book, One River, which is this big, hefty, you know, 5 or 600 page tome about the Amazon, and it covers 2 stories. It's Richard Evan Schulte's, and I think it's in the forties. I think it's, like, pre World War 2 era where he's in the Amazon looking for the blue orchid and the cure for this and that, and he's pressing plants. And he's going to these indigenous communities where they still live completely with the forest, and they and they drink Ayahuasca, and they they talk to the gods, and they he learns about how they believe that the anaconda came down from the Milky Way and swam across the land and created the rivers. And sort of he came down and and and even though he was a Western scientist from Harvard, he embraced the indigenous perspective on the world, on creation, on spirituality, and and he he sort of resigned himself and gave himself fully to that and spent years years traveling around parts of the Amazon that had hardly been explored and certainly never been explored in the way he was doing it, in the ethnobotanical spiritual way of of what medicinal compounds are contained in these plants and how do the local indigenous people use and understand them.
For example, you know, of 80,000 species of plants in the Amazon rainforest and 400,000,000,000 trees in the Amazon rainforest, the statistics of likelihood that through trial and error that humans could discover Ayahuasca. It's I it's astronomical that one of these trees and a root, when put together, allow you to go access the spirit realm
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And see hallucinogenic shapes and, and talk to the gods. That's that's that's almost almost enough to inspire spiritual thought itself. The fact that trial and error, it would take, like, 1,000,000 of years or something. It's it's it's I forget what the figure is. It's incredible.
But Richard Evan Schultes was one of the first people that came down and saw that. And then One River is where Wade Davis comes back, I believe, in the seventies. And the the heartbreak of the book is that all of these incredibly wild places with with naked native tribes and these these intact belief systems. Wade Davis comes back in a lot of the same places that Schulte's went. Now there's missionary schools, and they're wearing discarded Nikes and, you know, whatever.
I don't know if there's Nikes in the seventies, but, like, western stuff has made it in. They've been contacted, domesticated, forced into Western society and, you know, a lot of them then forget the 1000 and 1000 of years that have gone into creating the medicinal botanical knowledge that the indigenous possess about how to cure ear infections and how to treat illnesses from the medicinal compounds flowing through these trees is lost in a single generation
Speaker 0: with mud with the modernization. Yeah. He, he wrote the plants of the gods, their sacred healing, and the hallucinogenic powers. That is interesting. You mentioned, like, how to discover that.
Like, how do you find those incredible plants, those incredible things that can warp your mind in all kinds of ways. Of course, physically heal, but also, like, take you on a mental journey. That's interesting. So you don't think trial and error is possible?
Speaker 1: I was reading about, Ayahuasca, and they're saying they're saying statistically, if if, you know, if a bunch if you put a 1,000 humans in the Amazon and gave them villages to live in because humans are communal species, it would take tens and tens of thousands of years or perhaps even centuries before even the possibility it's like that thing, you know, a bunch of chips on a keyboard have could they write ham hamlet? It's like astronomical odds to get to oh, wait. This and this dosed together. And so what the local people believe is that the gods revealed this secret through the jungle to us as a link to the spirit world. And that that's how we know this because if they didn't remember it from their ancestors, we would have no idea how to get this information from the wild.
Speaker 0: So I will likely do Ayahuasca. What do you think exists in the spirit world that could be found by taking that journey?
Speaker 1: I think that Ayahuasca is I can only speak from personal experience. And for me, it was as if your brain is a house you've lived in your entire life, and it's a big house. It's a mansion, and there's many, many rooms that you didn't even know exist hidden rooms behind the bookshelves, under the floorboards, rooms that you had no idea were there. And some of them are fantastic and some of them are terrifying basements. And Ayahuasca takes you on a journey through that.
At at its at its at its most effective, You sit in front of the shaman with the candlelight, with the sounds of the jungle, and you drink the substance. And after that, what happens is the journey is all inside and and that the shaman is supposed to be able to guide you through that. But in my experience, you're, you're so deep inside, like falling through nebulas out in space, no physical form, or crawling through the jungle. Like, it's like you it's really, really powerful. Like, it's not like, it's not like the recreational drugs that that that everyone does, like, where you go, I did mushrooms and I could see so I could see music, like and I was talking to my friends, but no, no, no, like, you're face down on the floor, usually vomiting, sometimes shitting, you know, having dialogues with with the creator.
And that that that can be that can be traumatizing as well as amazing.
Speaker 0: It's a really good way of looking at it. It's It's a big house, and you get to open doors that you've never had before and discover what rooms are there inside you. You ever think about that, like, that there's parts of yourself you haven't discovered yet or maybe you've been suppressing? How much, are you exploring the shadow? Oh, boy.
So say you, me, Carl Jung, and Jordan Peterson are in a deserted island together. Fuck.
Speaker 1: I didn't even make my bed today.
Speaker 0: There's no bed in an island. Great. That's the campsite.
Speaker 1: I wanna see you and Jordan Peterson do Ayahuasca together. I I think I think, that's that's the thing. Ayahuasca to me, you know, I've I've kinda told you about, like, I've I've experienced some things that really made me believe that that there's that there's a benevolent force around us. But to me, Ayahuasca was like a was a ride through the scariest parts of the universe to sort of be like, here's here's what it could be like. You know?
The that's where I came up with my idea that, you know, like, deep space or just space, outer space. It's just the outside of the video game, and this is it. Because when I was on Ayahuasca, I was I was one of the jungle creatures, and I wasn't Paul, and I didn't have a name. And for a long time, I saw many things, and I was I arrived at this spot in the jungle where there's a big tree, and all the animals are there. And they were all not in words, not in and not in any language that we can understand, but they were all discussing what to do about the threat and the and and it was all it was all leaving.
It was all flying up, and it was fire. And the jungle was being destroyed. And it was like, I I went and then after that, it was just space and stars and silence, like crushing vacuum silence for years. And that was terrifying. That was fucking terrifying.
When I came back and I had hands, man, I can remember my own name.
Speaker 0: You're grounded. Things are simpler. You're back inside the video game. What are the chances you think we're actually living in a video game?
Speaker 1: When you say a video game, it implies that there's a player. Who's the player? Is God? No. There's a main player, usually.
Speaker 0: That's not gonna be God. God is the thing that creates the video game.
Speaker 1: Oh, so then we're just
Speaker 0: And there's somebody who's our NPCs. Like, I'm an NPC. You're an NPC. Jesus Christ. I'm a main character.
You yeah. Yeah. You created me. See.
Speaker 1: Is this like Halo where you can kinda kill the NPCs? Because I
Speaker 0: see how you put the machete behind you.
Speaker 1: Okay. I I think I'm just gonna take a stand here. I think that because people I'm just I'm just sick of fucking playing it halfway. I think that because people live indoors, in climate controlled boxes, in cities, far away from nature, they've completely lost track of everything that's real, and they've started to think that we're living inside of a simulation, notice that nobody carrying an alpaca up a mountain thinks that we're living inside of a video game. No.
They all know that it's real because they've had babies on the floor of a cold hut. Yeah. They understand the consequences of life. They understand the fish and how hard it is to get them and the basic rules of the wind and the rain and the river and that we all have to play by those and that it's and and you talk to a talk to a grieving mother and ask her if she's living inside a video game. And it's like, the people to me, this this whole thing about, oh, are we living in a simulation?
To me, that's a that's that's the that's the infirmary of of society starting to that to starting to to to to to parody itself. It's people going, I have no meaning in my life anymore. So is this even real? And, again, go ask the Sherpa. Go ask the Eskimo.
They're they're not they're not working.
Speaker 0: You forget what fundamentally matters in life. What is the source of meaning in the human life if you talk about such subjects. Nevertheless, you could, for a time, stroll in the big philosophical questions. And, if you do it for short enough of time, you won't forget about the things that matter. That there is human suffering, that there is real human joy, that is real, that that that the our time in the jungle was very hard.
Speaker 1: Did you suffer enough to know that it's real? Yeah.
Speaker 0: I man, I was hoping we're in a video game that whole time.
Speaker 1: So that's actually that's actually a really good way to there was this moment that I watched where you were washing a shirt in this pathetic puddle because we had no water and because we had walked all day and tripped all day and gotten thorns in our hands and our feet and our legs. And we were lost in the jungle, and it was nighttime. And we didn't know if a big tree was gonna just fall on us and mousetrap kill us. And there's a lot of uncertainty, but I watched something very special happen to you and that was I saw you crouching by the side of this puddle. It wasn't even a flowing stream, so we couldn't drink it.
And you were just trying to wash the sweat off of your shirt, and you you looked at me and you just said, the only thing that I care about right now is water.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And I feel like in that moment, we were united in the in the simple reality of the fact that we were so thirsty that it hurt
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And that it was a little scary.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It was scary. But, also, there's, like, a joy in the interaction with the water because it cools your body temperature down. And there's, like, a faith in that interaction that eventually we'll find clean water because, water is plentiful on earth. It's kinda like a delusional faith.
Eventually, we'll find it was just like a little celebration. I think the cooling aspect of the water, because, you know, the body temperature is really high from traversing the really dense jungle. It's just the cooling was somehow grounding in a way that nothing else really is. Yeah. It was a little celebration of life, of life on Earth, of Earth, of the jungle, of everything.
It was a nice it was a nice moment. I think about that. Had a couple of those. There's 1 in the puddle and 1 in the river. 1 was, full of delusion and fear, and the other one was full of, relief and celebration.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've I've you know, there's this thing that they they say where the the the all the pleasure in life is derived from the transitions. When you're cold, warm feels good. When you're hot, cold feels good. When you're hungry, food feels good.
And when you're that thirsty, water becomes God. Mhmm. And it's all you want. And also and also the other thing is that when you're when we're out there, it felt so good to be so lost and so tired and so like, we're doing level like like, how would you how would you describe, the physicality of what we were doing? The level of physical, like, exertion.
Speaker 0: Well, it's something that I've haven't trained I don't even know how you would train for that kind of thing, but it's extremely dense jungle. So every single step is, like, completely unpredictable in terms of the terrain your foot interacts with. So the different variety of slippery that is on the chunk of floor is fascinating because some things I mean, the slope matters, but some roots of trees are slippery, some are not. Some trees in the ground are already routed through. So if you step through, you're going to, potentially fall through.
So it could be a, shallow hole or it could be a very deep hole with some leaves and vegetation covering up a hole where if you fall through, you could break a leg and completely lose your footing or fall rolling downhill. And if you roll downhill, I'm I'm pretty sure there's a 90 9% probability that you'll hit a thing with spikes on it. So there's so many layers of avoiding dangers, of small dangers and big dangers all around you with every single step. So there's, like, a mental exhaustion that sets in. Like, there's just the perception.
And you're just observing you. You're ex extremely good at perceiving, having situational awareness of taking the information in that's really important and filtering out the stuff that's not important. But even for you, that's exhausting, and for me, it was completely exhausting, just paying attention, paying attention to everything around you. So that exhaustion was surprising because it's like, there there's moments when you're like, I don't give a damn anymore. I'm just gonna step.
I'm just going to, like
Speaker 1: and That's it. You go, I don't care anymore, and you reach out, and you're just gonna lean against this tree, and then what happened?
Speaker 0: And then you just spikes in it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then you have to care. Yeah.
Speaker 0: And then there's just bad luck because there is wasp nest. There there is there's just, like, a 1000000 things, and that is physically, is mentally, psychologically exhausting because there's the uncertainty. When is this gonna end? It's up, in our particular situation, up and down hills, up and down hills. Mhmm.
Very steep downward, very steep upward, no water, all this kind of stuff. It it it's, the most difficult thing I've ever done, but it's very difficult to describe what are the parameters that make it difficult because I I run long distances very regular. I do extremely difficult physical things regularly that on some surface level could seem much more challenging than what we did. But, no, this was another beast. This is something else.
But it was also raw and real and beautiful because it's like it's what the explorers did. Yeah. It's what Earth is without humans. And and also just like the massive scale of the trees around us was the humbling size difference between human and tree. It's both humbling in that, like, that tree is really old.
It's a it's a time difference, lifetime difference, and just the scale. It's like, holy shit. We live on an earth that can create those things. It makes me feel small in every way that life is short, that my physical presence on this earth is tiny, how vulnerable I am, all of those feelings are there. And in that, the physical, endurance of traversing the jungle, yeah, was the the hardest journey that I remember ever taking.
Every step. And then that made making it out of the jungle, and then made it The swim in the water that we could drink, that was just pure joy. It was probably one of the happiest moments in my life, Just sitting there with you, Paul, and with JJ in the water, full darkness, the rain coming down, and all just us all just laughing, having made it through that, having eaten a bit of food before, and the absurdity of the timing of all of it that it somehow worked out. And how were just 3 little humans sitting in a river. Just our heads emerged barely above water with jungle all around us.
What a life.
Speaker 1: That was a real adventure.
Speaker 0: That was a real adventure. Real one. Yeah. I'll never forget that. So, it's a real honor to have shared that.
Of course, we had very different experiences. When you saw I came in in that situation, you're like, I have to go meet that guy. He's a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were in the in the river in a thunderstorm just next above. We're all laughing our asses off. And, I mean, we're in the river with the stingrays and the black caiman and the piranha and all the electric eels and everything, and it's pitch black out. And then what were we doing? We're holding our headlamps up and there's those swirling moths.
Yeah. The infinity moths all making those geometric patterns, and it's like, we're just 3 ridiculous primates.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Three friends in a river just laughing. Yeah. Because we were safer in that river than we had been in there, and we were rejoicing Yeah. That that that the thunderstorm was was compared to the war zone that we'd been living in, the thunderstorm was safe, and it was it really was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 0: And also that, like, very different life trajectories have taken these 3 humans into this one place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like, what? Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Universe that would like, because we're kinda like those moths. You know what I mean? Like, we're we're we'd we'd come from some weird place on this earth, and we'd have all kinds of shit happen to us. And we're all pursuing some shit and some light, and we ended up here together enjoying this moment.
Yeah. That's something else. It just felt absurd. And in that absurdity was this, like, real human joy. And, damn, water tasted good.
Speaker 1: Oh, water's good. Man, water and those those little oranges.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Those things. And then I would just say, like, do you feel like I feel like running, like, no matter how much I run, I feel like the like, you run, you do a workout, and then you stop. Mhmm. Like, maybe all people who do ultras feel this, but, like, I felt like the we would we woke up.
It was, like, you know, wake up at dawn, 6 AM. Let's start walking. Mhmm. You know, break camp, go. And it's like pretty much you just don't stop all day.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And it's level 10 cardio all day long. And you're sweating buckets and there's no water. It's like you would never put yourself through that except for that we were trying to make it to the to freedom Mhmm. To get out. And it's like the the obsession of that with the compass and the machete and the navigating.
Fuck.
Speaker 0: I think there's something to be said about, like, the fact that we didn't think through much of that No. And we just dived into it. I think there was, like there we're, like, laughing and enjoying ourselves moments before. And once you go in, you're like, oh, shit.
Speaker 1: Oh, shit.
Speaker 0: And you just come face to face with it. Yep. That's I think that's what you know, whatever that is in humans that goes to that, that's what the explorers do.
Speaker 2: The
Speaker 0: you know? And the the best of them do it to the extreme levels.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that what we did was to to a pretty extreme level because we we left the safety of a river of knowing where we were and voluntarily got lost in the Amazon with very little provisions on an on a very now that we're back, I'm now that we experience what we experienced, I really can't stop thinking about how fucking stupid it was that we did that.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because if we had gotten lost, Pico was saying to me, even if you guys had if one of you had broken your leg, it's, you know, days in either direction. Even if they had sent help for us, help would take how long to to scour all that jungle? Sound doesn't travel. Even even a helicopter, even if they looked for us, they wouldn't be able to see us. How would we signal for help?
Can't really build a fire. And so it's like, if anything had gone wrong, if we'd gone a few degrees different different to the West, would have taken us 2 more days.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: If we'd if we'd gotten injured, it'd be it'd be carried through that.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so it somehow only afterwards am I really going, wow. Thank god we got out of this. Thank god. After I see so many people going, make sure, like, nothing happens to Lex Fridman Yeah. I'd be the deadest motherfucker on Earth.
Speaker 2: Uh-huh. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It somehow works out. It does seem to somehow work out.
Speaker 0: Let me ask you about Jane Goodall, another explorer of a different kind. What do you think about her? About her role in understanding this natural world of ours?
Speaker 1: I think that Jane is, like, a living historical treasure. Like, I think somehow she's alive, but she's she's already reached that level where it's like Einstein Jane Goodall. Like, there's these these these incredible minds and, you know, growing up as a child, my parents would read to me because I was so dyslexic. I hadn't learned to read until I was quite old. And my mom was a big Jane Goodall fan, and and all I wanted to hear about was animals.
And so I would I would get read to about this lady named Jane Goodall, this girl who went to she became she became this incredible advocate for Earth and for ecosystems and for and she seemed to realize as her career went on that that teaching children to appreciate nature was the key because they're going you know, that thing where she says we don't so much, inherit the earth from our ancestors but borrow it from our children. We're just here. We're just passing through. And so if we destroy it, we're we're we're we're we're dimming the lights on the lives of future generations. And so she's been really, really cognizant of that and she's been a light in the darkness.
She's sort of, in terms of saying that animals have personalities and culture and and their own inalienable rights and reasons for existing and and that human life is valuable. She's very big on that. Every day, we influence the people around us and and the events of the earth, even if you feel like your life is small and insignificant, that that that you do have an impact. And I think that's a really powerful little candle out there in the darkness that Jane carries.
Speaker 0: What do you think about her field work with the chimps?
Speaker 1: Badass. The fact that she did what she did at the age that she did Yeah. At the time that she did is is incredible. It's actually incredible. She has that explorer gene and she also has that relentless relentlessness is like this incredible quality.
She just, you know, she travels 300 days a year educating people, talking around the world, trying to help bolster conservation now before it's too late.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And traveling 300 days a year is not fun. Traveling at all can be not fun.
Speaker 0: So I I started reading the River of Doubt book you recommended to me, Antony Roosevelt. Yeah. So that guy is badass on many levels, but I didn't realize how much of a naturalist he was, how much of a scholar of the natural world he was. So that book details his journey into the Amazon jungle. What do you find inspiring about Teddy Roosevelt and that whole journey of just saying fuck it, of going to the Amazon jungle, of taking on that expedition.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Teddy Roosevelt, you could write volumes on what's inspiring about him. I think that, you know, he was he was a weak, asthmatic, little, rich kid that that wasn't physically able, that had no self confidence, and he was very and he and and he had pretty severe depression. He had tragedy in his life, and he was very, at least for me, he's been one of the people, like, in the one of the first historical figures who where where he wrote about the struggle to overcome those things and and to make himself from being a weak, asthmatic, little teenager to to to sort of strengthening himself and building muscle and becoming this barrel chested lion of a guy who could be the president, who could be an explorer, and, one of the rough riders. And he's he's just everything he does is so is so hyperbolically, you know, incredible. To come out of war and have the other people you fought with go, he this guy has no fear.
Yeah. I mean, he must have just been a psychopath and had no fear. And then proving it further was that thing where he was gonna give a speech to a bunch of people, and he got shot in the chest.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And went through his
Speaker 1: spectacle case and through his speech. And even though the bullet was lodged in his chest, this man said, don't hurt the guy that shot me. I believe he asked him why'd you do it, and then as he's bleeding and in the rain, said, no no no. I'm not going to the hospital. I'm gonna keep going with the speech.
What a badass. That's incredible.
Speaker 0: But going to the jungle on many levels is really is really difficult for him at that time. There's so many things that could so many more things even than now that can kill you, all the different infections, everything. Yeah. And the and the lack of knowledge, just the the sheer lack of knowledge. So that truly is an expedition, a really, really challenging expedition.
So there's lessons about what it takes to be a great explorer from that. The perseverance. How important do you think is perseverance in exploration, especially to the jungle?
Speaker 1: I think it's all there is. If you hear about the people and and and I think that that is a tremendous metaphor for life because whether you hear about that plane that crashed in the Andes and the people were alone and freezing and they had to eat each other and some of them made it out. Some of them kept the fire burning. And Teddy Roosevelt voluntarily, after being president, threw himself into the Amazon rainforest and survived. Came so close to dying but survived.
And so perseverance is all of it. I mean, that's that's I think that's our quality as a human.
Speaker 0: So they also mapped so on the biology side, it's interesting. Yeah. But they they mapped and documented a lot of the unknown geography and biodiversity. What what does it take to do that? So when I when I see a move about the jungle, you're always like you capture and creature, take a picture, write down, like, so you can find new creatures, find new things about the jungle, document them, sort of a scientific perspective on the jungle.
But the back then, there's even less known, much less known about the jungle. So what what do you think it takes to document, to map that world and you explored wilderness?
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're clearly pressing botanical specimens. They're probably shooting birds and and and Roosevelt knew how to knew how to preserve those specimens. I mean, he really was a naturalist, so he knew exactly if he's seeing these animals to them, whereas whereas we'll take a picture and identify it, they were harvesting specimens, taking them with them, drying them out. For them, it was totally different, and and it could be the first. You know, there's I don't know.
I forget what JJ said. There's something like 70 species of antbirds here. And it's like, so how likely are you to be the 1st person to ever see this one species of bird? And so for them, as you have this bird, and so perfectly preserving that specimen. I think a lot of non scientific people don't realize that every species from blue whale to elephant to blue jay to sparrow, whatever whatever it is, whatever species we have on record, they're scientific specimens and the first people to see them shot them.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And that's the museums are filled with these catalogues, preserved birds that these explorers brought back from New Guinea and South America and Africa and then put into these drawers. And and and now we we labeled them and we saw this is, you know, this is red and green macaw. This is scarlet macaw. This is brown crested antbird, and this is and it's just they're just categorized.
Speaker 0: That book of birds you have, like, encyclopedia birds.
Speaker 1: Yo. What The human achievement in these pages.
Speaker 0: So people are saying, Paul, just flipping through a huge number of pages. These are just, is this in the Amazon, or is this in Peru?
Speaker 1: This is just here. That birds of Peru. Dude, pages on pages of toucans and arasuries and and hummingbirds and antbirds and and smokey brown woodpecker and and tropical screech owl, which we just heard, by the way. Mhmm. It's just it's endless.
Mhmm. Who knew there were so many birds? I had
Speaker 0: no idea there were so many birds. All of that, analyze I mean, there's also which we got to experience, and you're you're you're pretty good at also is is actually making understanding and making the sounds of the different birds. Yeah. What's your favorite bird sound to make?
Speaker 1: Undulated tinamu because in the crepuscular hours of dawn and dusk, they're usually the ones that make up what is considered by many to be the anthem of the Amazon.
Speaker 0: Can you do a little bird for us?
Speaker 1: That's what a undulated tinamous sounds like, and it's usually like, oh, it is getting to be afternoon. It's kinda it's almost like hearing church bells on a Sunday. It's like you just there's something about it. You go, ah, there he is.
Speaker 0: And like you were saying, it's a reminder. Oh, that's a friend of mine. Yeah. Surrounded by friends.
Speaker 2: I have
Speaker 1: so many friends here. What does
Speaker 0: it take to survive out here? What is the basic principles of survival in the jungle? Cleanliness.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, but we talked about this, but, like, you know, keeping I have so many holes in my skin right now. Look, I have a mosquito. There we go. I have so many spots that I've scratched off of my skin because a mosquito bites me and then I scratch it, or the other big one is that I I I worry that I have a tick. Mhmm.
Not, deliberately, not with my thinking brain, but my my my simian brain just wants to find and remove ticks. And so I scratch, and then if my fingernails get too long, I remove my skin, and then those beget those get infected in the jungle. Mhmm. So staying hyper clean, using soap
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Like basic stuff, keeping order to your bags, order to your gear, things in dry bags. Make sure you know, we did we we explained that we got in the river during a thunderstorm. We didn't explain why we did that because the thunderstorm came when we had eaten dinner, but we hadn't set up our tents. Mhmm. And so we decided to cover our bags with our boats that we had been carrying, our packrafts that we've been carrying in our backpacks, so all of our gear would stay dry.
Mhmm. So the only thing we could do is either sit in the rain and be cold or sit in the river and be warm. Mhmm. And so keeping our gear dry, momentary discomfort for future, you know, that would that that to me was an incredibly smart calculation to make because you really just you gotta be smart out here. You can't, you know, not running out of a headlamp while you're out on the trail and being stuck in that darkness.
Yeah. It really takes just being a little bit on your toes. And I find that that that necessity of being on your toes is a is a place that I like to live in. It's just the right amount of challenge here.
Speaker 0: So So keeping the gear organized and all that, but also being willing to sort of improvise. I've seen you improvise very well because there's so much unknowns. There's so many so much chaos and dynamic aspects that, like, planning is not going to prevent you from having to face that in the end of the day.
Speaker 1: No. It's been really funny watching you sort of shed your planning brain. Like day like day 1, it was very much like, so are we gonna and then I I could tell I could see your I could see your brow sort of furrow when you, you I would go, I don't know what time we're gonna get there. And you'd go, well, well, just tell me. And I'd be like, I I don't know what the jungle's gonna let us do.
You know? Let's do let's record the podcast tomorrow. Okay. But we if it if it, you know, if it rains, if it gets windy, if a Friaje comes, if there's a a jaguar with rabies, like, anything could happen. Landslides, like, anything.
Literally.
Speaker 0: I mean, the thing you mentioned, trees falling, that's a thing in the jungle.
Speaker 1: That's a major thing in the jungle. Shit.
Speaker 0: First of all, a lot of trees fall. Yeah. And they fall quickly, and they could just kill you.
Speaker 1: They fall quickly. They're huge. We're talking about trees that are, like, the size of school buses stacked
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And connected to other trees with vines so that when they fall, this millennium tree, this 1000 year old tree, boom, it shakes the ground, pulls down other trees with it. So if you're anywhere near that for a few acres, you're getting smashed. Mhmm. That's the end of you. And so the jungle at any moment that you're out there could just decide to delete you.
And then the leafcutter ants and the army ants and the flies and everything, you'll be digested in 3 days. You'll be gone. Gone. No bones. Nothing.
Speaker 0: Who do you think would eat most of you?
Speaker 1: I would hope that that, like, a king vulture with a colorful face would just dramatically just get in there, like, just in the arts, just like nature's metal, just like when they, like, walk in through the elephant's ass. I'd I'd want that on camera trap. I think that would be a great way to go.
Speaker 0: And we slowly look up and you just kinda smile.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just rip out your intestines and just shake it. Yeah. Just victorious over your dead body.
Speaker 0: Well but also honor a friend. That's another Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure. But, you know, you just you'd look so you know, your white naked ass laying there in the jungle. You'd be, like, face down and shit.
Speaker 0: That's why you always have to look good. Any any moment of a trade can fall on you, and a vulture just swoops in and eats your heart.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 0: We talked about alone, the show a bit. Yo. Rock house. Yeah. Who is what what do you mean about that guy?
Rock house, Roland Welker from season 7. He built the rock house. He killed the muskox, with bow and arrow and then finished it with a knife.
Speaker 1: And it had the GoPro to mount to, you know Yeah. To to document it. That's really mind blowing.
Speaker 0: I mean, so for me, we don't know that show is you're supposed to survive as long as possible. On season 7 of the show, they literally said you can only win it if, you survive a 100 days. And and that's there's a lot of aspects of that show that's difficult. One of which is it's in the cold. The others, they get just a handful of supplies, no food, nothing, none of that.
So they have to figure all of that out. And, this is probably one of the greatest performers on the show, Roland Welker. He built a rock house shelter. So what I mean, what does survival entail? It's building a shelter, fire, catching food, sustain warm, getting enough energy to sort of keep doing the work.
It takes a lot of work. Like building the rock house, I read that it took 500 calories an hour from him. Woah. So he had to feed himself, right, quite a lot. You're lifting, 200 pound boulders, And still the guy lost, I read £44, which is 20% of his body weight.
So that's survival. What, lessons what inspiration do you draw from him?
Speaker 1: I think he was fun to watch because he had this indomitable spirit.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: He was just he wasn't there to commune with nature. He was there to win. And he was like, to me, that's the pioneer mental he just he was just he goes, I'm a hunting guide. I'm out here. I'm gonna win that money.
I'm gonna survive through the winter. He wasn't worried. I feel like so many people is like, they worry second guessing themselves. Am I in a video game? I don't know.
What's my you know, just questioning their entire existential identity. And this guy was like, you know what? There's a musk ox over there. Mhmm. I'm gonna shoot it.
I'm gonna stab it. And then I'm gonna make a pouch out of its ball sack, and I'm gonna live off that for the next few months and win a half $1,000,000. And that's an amazing amount of pragmatic optimism that I just enjoyed. And every time he would go, we gotta get back to Rock House. And it became Yeah.
Even though he was all alone, it was he had a big smile on his face, and what made that season so great was that it was him and then it was Cali. Mhmm. And and Rowland had, you know, the muscle and could make rock house, and then Cali was was the opposite. She was this girl who, yeah, she could hunt with her bow and she knew how to fish, and and she wasn't using raw power, but what was so endearing about her was that how much she loved being out there. As hard as it was and as isolation isolationist as it was, she was smiling every time every time the show cut to her.
She was
Speaker 3: like, hey, everybody.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 3: It's morning. Can you believe the frost? Like, you've been out there for a 100 days.
Speaker 1: Amazing op to I think it was really, an amazing show of that that the game is all here. The game of life. Mhmm. The game of alone and the game of life because it's the same thing.
Speaker 0: Yeah. She maintained that sort of silliness, the the goofiness all through it when the condition got really tough. And she had a very different perspective as, you know, Roland didn't want any of the spirituality. It's very pragmatic.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And from Cali's very spiritual collection connection to the land, She said something like she wanted not only to take from the land, but to give back. I mean, there's this kinda poetic, spiritual connection to the land. It's such a dire contrast to Roland. And but she's still a badass. I mean, to survive, no matter what, no matter the kind of personality you have, you have to be a badass.
I think she, took a, porcupine quill from her shoulder.
Speaker 1: That was crazy because it I think it went in Yeah. Somewhere completely different, and it migrated to her shoulder.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the way that I understood that is because they have I said that's impossible. Yeah. Because I remember that. She's, like, pulling up her shirt, and she she's, like, there's something, and then she, like, pushes it out. Yeah.
And I remember, like, I was, like, hold up. Hold up. Hold up.
Speaker 0: Hold up. How?
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it was because the barbs, once it goes in, as you move and flex your body, it it moves on a little bit each time, and it gets to migrate. Like, I didn't even think of that shit.
Speaker 0: Plus, if I remember correctly, I think she caught 2 porcupines. The second one was, like, rotting or something or even infected. It had an infected body whatever.
Speaker 1: Had the spots on it. Yeah. She chose not to eat it.
Speaker 0: No. And then she chose not to eat it at first, and then she decided to eat it eventually. Yeah. I forgot that. Yeah.
And she that was that was an insane sort of really thoughtful, focused, collected decision waiting a day and then saying, fuck it. I need I need this fat. And that was the other thing is, like, fat is important. Oh, yeah. It's like meat is not enough.
You learn about, like, what are the different food sources there. Apparently, there's, like, rabbit starvation is a thing because you when you have too much lean meat, it it doesn't nourish the body. Fat is the thing that nourishes the body, especially in, in cold conditions. So that's the thing.
Speaker 1: She, yeah, she she was she was incredible. And I thought as as as as brash and sort of fun as Roland was, she represented, a a much more beautiful take on on it, and it was really heartbreaking when she lost because, I mean and like you said, still a badass. Yeah. It's kinda like Forrest Griffin versus Stefan Stefan Bonner. Like, it was like, it doesn't matter who won.
Yeah. You guys beat the shit out of each other. Like
Speaker 0: And she didn't really lose. Right? So she she got ev evaced Yeah. Because her toe was, going Frostbite. Frostbite.
A 100 days. You think you can do a 100 days?
Speaker 1: Honestly, I've done a I'm I'm 18 years in the Amazon, man. I just at this point, it's, I could. I wouldn't sign up for another 100 days.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know? At this point, I don't I don't have that to prove. I've survived in the wild, and, I wouldn't wanna voluntarily take a 100 days away from everyone I know.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The loneliness aspect is is tough.
Speaker 1: We're not meant for that. I really love the people I have in my life, and I I wouldn't I wouldn't and you see it on the show. A lot of the people. Yeah. Big, tough ex Navy SEALs who are survival experts, who know what they're doing.
They get out there and they go, you know what? I miss my family. Yeah. And they go, it's not worth it. They have this existential realization.
They go, we only got I only got so many years here. Like, let's let's this is crazy. It's just some money. Fuck it. And they go home.
Speaker 0: You know, it's funny because you sometimes feel yourself in the jungle when you're alone. Mhmm. And there's, another guy, Jordan, Jonas Hobo Giorgio. He's the season 6 winner, and he said that the camera made him feel less lonely. I I've heard of him from multiple channels.
One of the things is he spent all of his twenties in, living in Siberia with the with the tribes out there.
Speaker 1: Woah.
Speaker 0: Herzog, happy people. And so he actually talked about that it's one of the loneliest time of his life because when he went up there, he didn't speak Russian, and he needed to learn the language. And even though you have people around you, when you don't speak their language, it feels really, really lonely. And he felt less lonely on the show because he had the camera, and he felt like he could talk to the camera. There there is an element when you have in these harsh conditions, if you, like, record something, you feel like you're talking to another human through it, even if it's just a recording.
I sometimes feel that, like maybe because I imagine a specific person that will watch it, and I feel like I'm talking to that person.
Speaker 1: Well, I noticed that when things got especially hard, and they did get especially hard when we were out in the wilderness, that you would begin filming to share that struggle. But I also think that I've used that at times where, yeah, you go, well, maybe if I because if you can tell someone else about it, then you're on the hero's journey.
Speaker 2: Mhmm. And
Speaker 1: and then it sorta has to make you braver. And it changes how you because you go, I'm I'm cold and I'm tired and I'm I'm hungry, and this hurts and that hurts, and I don't know when we're gonna make it, and how is this gonna go? And and all of a sudden, you go, well, guys, we're we're here. We're going that way. And and, and then you're like, well, I gotta keep going because because you're like, they're they're still out there if you forget.
Speaker 0: You have to step up. That's one of the reasons I I want a family. I think when you have kids Yeah. You have to be like you have to be the best version of yourself, like, for them.
Speaker 1: All my friends with kids that I've seen them go through where until you have a family, you're just you're just playing around, man. I mean, you could do important work. You can you can have skin in the in other games, but it's once you have a little tribe of humans that depends on you Yeah. If you take that seriously, if you wanna do that right, it's one of the hardest things you could do. And it it just it just changes everything.
Speaker 0: How has your life changed since we last met?
Speaker 1: Speak about changing everything. So you've been, for people who don't know,
Speaker 0: pushing jungle keepers forward into uncharted territories, saving more and more and more and more rainforests. There's a lot I I could ask you about that. There's a lot of stories to be told there. It's a fight. It's a battle.
It's a battle to protect this this, beautiful area of rainforest, of nature. But since we last met, you've made you've continued to make a lot of progress.
Speaker 1: So what what's what's the story of Jungle Keepers leading up to the moment we met and after and everything you go doing right now? 18 years ago when I first came to the jungle, I was a kid from New York who always dreamed since I was 6 years old, maybe even younger, of going to a place where animals were everywhere and there's big trees and skyscrapers of life. And so being dyslexic and and not fitting in in school and and reading about Jane Goodall and having Lord of the Rings be one of the things I grew up on. I just chose to come to the Amazon, and the first person I met was this local indigenous conservationist named Juan Julio Duran, who was trying to protect this remote river, the Las Piedras River
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Which in history, apparently Fawcett referenced either the Las Piedras, but he called it Tawomanu, and said, don't go there. You'll surely die from tribes. And so there's very few references to this this river in history. It stayed very wild because it's been a place that the law hasn't made it, that the government hasn't really extended to, like, you know, we're sort of past the police limit. And so JJ was out here ages ago trying to protect this river before it was too late.
And when I met him, I was just a barely out of high school kid with a dream of see just seeing the rainforest, let alone seeing a giant anaconda or having any sort of meaningful experience or contribution to the narrative. And somehow, over all the years that we began working together and sparked a friendship and began exploring and going on expeditions and bringing people to the rainforest and and asking them for help and manifesting the hell out of this insane dream that we had. I mean, we didn't even have a boat. We would take logs down the river. We would have to cut a tree down every time we wanted to return to civilization.
We'd have to cut down a balsa tree and float down the river.
Speaker 0: Down the river on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was it was it's madness. Like, it's madness. It's pure madness. And I don't know what made us keep going, but along the way, people showed up who cared and who wanted to help.
And if it was a movie, it wouldn't even necessarily be a good movie because you'd go, oh, please. You're just telling me that you just kept doing the thing and just magically people showed up? But, yeah, that's what happened. That's exactly the way it went. We kept doing the thing that we loved.
We said it doesn't matter if we don't have funding or a boat or gasoline or friends or or anything. We just kept going.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And along the way, we found someone who could help us start a ranger program. And then we found Daxa Silva, who helped us fund the beginning of Jungle Keepers. And then people like Mohsen and Stephane who were there making sure that this thing actually took flight off the ground. And then right around the time that we were wondering what was gonna happen and if we're all gonna have to quit and get real jobs and if we could actually save the rainforest from the destruction that was coming, Lex Fridman sends me a DM Mhmm. And honestly changed the entire narrative.
Because up until then, we had been we've been playing in the minor leagues, pretending, trying real, real hard, and the listeners of your show in the moments after you published your episode with with our conversation, began showing up in droves and supporting jungle keepers, putting in 5, 10, a 100, a 1000. We started getting these donations. And the incredible team that I work with, we all went into hyperdrive. Everybody. Everybody started going nuts.
We all started spending 16 hour days working to try and deal with the tidal wave that Lex sent towards us just because so many people knew that we were doing this, that was an indigenous led fight to protect this incredibly ancient virgin rainforest before it was cut and people resonated with that. And so we we got this this this huge swell of support And this year, we've we've protected thousands and thousands of more acres of rainforest because of that swell of support. So current 50,000 acres, what's the goal? What's the approach to saving this rainforest? Since we printed this, it's gone up to 66,000 acres.
It's and and as you know, in each of those little acres are millions and millions of animal heartbeats and societies of animals. And the goal here is that we're between Manu National Park, Altopurros National Park, the Tambopara Reserve. We're in a region that's known as the biodiversity capital of Peru, one of the most biodiverse parts of the Western Amazon. And we're fighting along the edge of the Trans Amazon Highway. And so it's it's just a small group of local people and some international experts who have come together and used these incredibly out of sight of the box strategies to sort of crowdfund conservation, to go, look, we know that this incredible life is here.
We have the scientific evidence. We have the National Park System. If we can protect this before they cut it down Mhmm. We could do something of global All these jaguars, all these monkeys, all these undescribed medicines, the uncontacted tribes that we share this forest with could all be protected. And people have stepped up and begun to make that happen, and there's people from all over the world, and it's incredible.
Speaker 0: But what's the approach? So trying to with donations to buy out more and more of the land and then protect it.
Speaker 1: So the approach is that currently the government favors extractors. So if you're a gold miner or a log an illegal logger, or you just wanna cut down and burn a bunch of rainforest and set up a cacao farm, the government's fine with that. Doesn't matter. You're not really breaking the law if you destroy nature.
Speaker 0: So as as long as you're producing something from the land, they don't see it as a loss, then then nature was destroyed permanently.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just wilderness. It's sort of just beyond the scope of it's not it doesn't or the local people that technically own the land out here, the local indigenous people. For instance, we fought this year to help the community of Puerto Nuevo who's been fighting for 20 years to have government recognized land. These are indigenous people in the Amazon fighting to protect their own land.
And you know what it was that was holding them back? They didn't understand how the the system of of of legal documents worked to certify that titled land. They didn't really have the funding to go from their very, very remote community into the offices, and so Jungle Keepers helped them with that. And so really all we're doing is helping local people protect the forest that is their world. That's it.
If people donate, how will that help? If people donate to Jungle Keepers, what what you're doing is you're helping someone like JJ who's an indigenous naturalist, who has the vision, who has seen forest be destroyed, he's trying to protect it before it's too late. You're saving mahogany trees, ironwood trees, kapok trees, skyscrapers of life, just monkeys, birds, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, this entire avatar on earth world of rainforest that produces a 5th of the oxygen we breathe and the water we drink, this incredible thing. As far as I know, it's the most direct way to protect that. So the fact that the fact that we've, you know, we have large funders who give us, you know, a $100,000 to protect this huge swath of land and that goes through through things like this and through Instagram, it, you know, it goes directly to the local conservationists who who work with the loggers to protect that land before it's cut.
But one of the most impactful things that has happened this year in the wake of our last conversation was that I got an email from a mother, and she said, you know, I'm a single mom and I work a few jobs, and I can't afford to give you a ton of money. But, me and my kids look at your Instagram often after dinner, and they really wanna protect the heartbeats. They really wanna protect the animals in the rainforest. And so we do we give $5 a month to jungle keepers. And it was to me, that was so impactful because I used to be that little kid worried about the animals.
And I saw how a few 1,000,000 raindrops can create a flood.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I ask that people donate, to Jungle Keepers. You guys are legit. That money is going to go a long way. Junglekeepers dotorg.
If you somehow were able to raise very large so the, the raindrops would make a waterfall, a very large amount of money. I don't know what that number is. Maybe $10,000,000, 20,000,000, 30,000,000. What are the different milestones along the way that could really help help you on the journey of, saving the rainforest.
Speaker 1: If we did if let's just say some company organization or or if enough people donated it, let's just say we got that 30,000,000, that money would go directly into stopping logging roads
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Into creating a corridor, a biological corridor that connects the uncontacted indigenous reserves with other tribal lands, with Manu National Park, with the Tambo Pata, which establishes essentially the largest protected area in the Amazon rainforest. And what makes this groundbreaking is that we're not doing this in the traditional way. We're doing this, take it to the people. Mhmm. And that's what's been so exciting is that, you know, when he started this when JJ started this 30 years ago, he had no idea.
His father wanted him to be a logger. He didn't have shoes until he was 13 years old. He grew up bathing in the river. He had no idea that a bunch of crazy foreigner scientists were gonna show up and some guy in a James Bond suit was gonna come down here with microphones and and that all of a sudden the world would know that he was on this quest to protect this this incredible ecosystem and all those little aliens.
Speaker 0: Well, that's the only important thing to remember that the the people that are cutting down the forest, the loggers, are also human beings. They have families. They're they're they're basically trying to survive, and they're desperate, and they're doing the thing that will bring them money. And so they're just human beings. At the core of it, if they have other option if they have other options, they will probably choose to, give their life to saving the community to, 1st and foremost, providing for their family.
And after that, saving the community, helping the community flourish. And I think probably a lot of them love the rainforest. They grew up in the rainforest. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at Pico. Yeah. Pico used to be a logger, full time logger, long time logger. Now he loves conservation. He goes,
Speaker 0: He's like
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know?
Speaker 0: It's all about just providing people people options. There's some dark stuff on the No. On the gold mine stuff you've talked about. You showed me parts of the rainforest where the gold mine are, and and they're just kind of erasing the rainforest. Yeah.
So at the edges, that's when the mining happens. And it's this ugly it's ugly process of they're just destroying the jungle just for the surface layer of the sand or whatever that they process to to to collect just little bits of gold. And there's also very dark things that happen along the way as the communities around the gold mines are created. So the entirety of the moral system that emerges from that has things like prostitution where 1 third of the of the women that are drawn into that sex traffic and prostitution are minors under, you know, under 17 years old, 13 to 17 year old. There's just a lot of really, really dark stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that we have a rare chance to do something against that darkness. I think that this is an example of local people who have taken action, done good work, been good to the people that have visited, harnessed a certain amount of international momentum, and now we're on the cusp of doing something historic. And so for the children in the communities along this river, it won't be being a prostitute in a gold mine. It'll be becoming a trained ranger. Like last month, our ranger coordinator and one of our female rangers went to Africa for a ranger conference.
And it's like we're beginning to this is someone from a little tiny village Mhmm. With thatched huts upriver. She went to Africa to talk about being a professional conservation ranger. And it's like, that's that's changing lives. And her her daughters then she's married to Ignacio, the guy.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: She like, her her their kids are gonna grow up seeing their parents walking around with the emblem on and go, oh, I wanna and then and then people like Pico and Pedro and all these guys that work here are gonna go, well, we have to we have to protect this forest.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And then they start getting fascinated about the snakes. Mhmm. And then they start caring about the turtle eggs. And then all of a sudden, they have a way of life and and nobody needs to go be nobody can nobody needs to go steal anybody's kids to be a prostitute in a gold mine. That's horrible.
And so it's really a it's a win win for the for the animals, for the river, for the rainforest, for people who are improve it's biocentric conservation. It's it's just making everything better.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I've read an article that said an estimated 1200 girls between ages of 12 17 are forcibly drafted into child prostitution, around the communities in the gold mines. At least 1 third of the prostitutes in the camp are underage. The girls had ended up in the camp after receiving a tip that there were restaurants looking for waitresses and willing to pay top dollar. They jumped on and bused together and came down to the rainforest.
What they found was not what they were expecting. The mining camp restaurant served food for only a few hours a day. The rest of the time, it was the girls themselves who were on the menu. Literally, at the end of the road and without the money to return home, the girls would soon become trapped in prostitution.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that the most devastating destruction of nature, the complete erasure of the rainforest burned to the ground, sucked through a hose, spit out into a disgusting mercury puddle, like the complete annihilation of life on earth goes hand in hand with the complete annihilation of a young life. It's like it's all based around the same thing. It's it's the light versus the dark. That's that's it's it's the destruction and the chaos versus a move towards order and hope. And and and it is incredibly dark and this region is heavy with it.
Speaker 0: Well, I'm glad you're fighting for the light. Is there, like, a milestone in your future that you're working towards, like, financially in terms of donations?
Speaker 1: There is. In in the next year and a half, as you saw in your time here, there's there's roads working around the general keeper's concessions. All the work that the local people are doing to protect this land is trying to be dismantled by international corporations that are subcontracting logging companies here. And really what we need is $30,000,000 in the next 2 years to protect the whole thing. You've seen the ancient mahogany trees.
You've seen the families of monkeys. You've seen the caiman in the river. All of this is standing in the pathway of destruction. That road, they're gonna come down that road and men with chainsaws are going to dismantle a forest that has been growing since the beginning. This is so magical.
Do you see the snake over there?
Speaker 0: Yep.
Speaker 1: Do you?
Speaker 0: There's a snake.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna don't move. I don't want you to move. I'm gonna just this is one of the most beautiful snakes in the Amazon rainforest. This is Snake. Blunt headed tree snake.
My favorite. Snakes. I've been hoping that you would get to see this snake. I have been praying.
Speaker 0: Oh, boy. Okay.
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's just let's just let's just go right back into this. Okay. Look at this little beauty creation. Let's keep you away from the fire.
Look at this little blunt headed tree snake.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Such an incredible
Speaker 0: So tell me about the snake.
Speaker 1: Harmless little snake. If you put your hand out, it'll probably just crawl onto your hand. Just be real careful with the fire. So, look, I'm just gonna put him like this. We're gonna Yeah, let's just snake safety.
So he's a tree snake. Yep, nice and slow, nice and slow, nice and slow. So you nice and slow, just really so just be the tree. Be the tree that he climbs on. And this is like again, this is a snake that's so thin and so small.
There you go. There you go. Nice and slow. Just just be the tree. Let him crawl around.
So he's going to try and do all this stuff. Let me see if I can just calm him down for
Speaker 0: a sec. Let me just see.
Speaker 1: He's a very active little snake. So see, like, the snake the other night? Okay, just look at this. I can see the light through his body. To me, this is an alien.
Mhmm. This is this strange little life form. His eyes are 2 thirds of his head. I'm not joking you. Look at their skull.
Speaker 0: He's so tiny. He's so tiny. People will say there's a snake in Paul's hands right now. It's very, it's long, of course, but very skinny. Very, very light.
Speaker 1: And and the also for everyone listening, the odds of that as we're sitting here doing this podcast that a snake would just be crawling by in the jungle might sound like something that would happen, but, the density of snakes in the Amazon rainforest makes this a very unique experience.
Speaker 0: Can you tell me a little bit about the coloration scheme? Yeah. So little bit brown.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just to describe this as we're as we were talking here, it's just a sort of banded white and brown snake with this tiny little head about the size of my pinky nail. 2 thirds of the snake's head is made up of its gigantic eyes. It's got a small mouth, and it's it's about about a third as thick as a pencil. It's basically a moving shoestring.
It's incredibly, incredibly thin. The only thing I am thinking, Lexo, is that if we have Dan come and just do some shots of. Yeah. That's true.
Speaker 2: Dan.
Speaker 0: So what what are we looking at?
Speaker 1: The snake that was crawling behind us in the jungle that I we I we were talking about jungle keepers and what we could do, and the snake just showed up at that moment. And this is a very active little snake who's out for a hunt tonight and wants to find something to eat. So this is a blunt headed tree snake, totally harmless little literally a moving shoestring.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Super beautiful little animal. When you talk about aliens, to me, this is this is an alien. Like, what are you thinking? What are you doing right now? What do you think about the fact that we are handled being handled by these giant humans?
Speaker 0: And as you were saying, it reaches up to the leaves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The snake just naturally knows to go, look, you just put them anywhere near leaves, and he's like, I got this. He just wants to go right up into that tree. I just want you to try holding him and, real gentle. Just be the tree.
Yeah. And just just kind of do the same thing you learned last night. Just nice and gentle. Yep. And see he's holding on to my finger right now.
He's just going up. There you go. Perfect. Nice and easy. He's a little erratic.
He's a little goofy.
Speaker 0: Maybe he's camera shy.
Speaker 1: Maybe a fan of the podcast
Speaker 0: and gigantic eyes relative to his body size. Huge.
Speaker 1: Oh. Jeez. Hello, moth.
Speaker 0: Traffic. Traveling the jungle.
Speaker 1: And then for everyone listening, as we're as we're as we're handling the snake that we found that was crawling by us, like, literally by our shoulders as we're talking, a bat flies through, no joke, 8 inches from Lex's ear, like, just zips past his head as he's holding a snake while we're sitting here in the jungle. It's just we're just in it now. Now he's gonna try and back up. And how do you Yeah. Why don't you why don't you Let's encourage him to come back this
Speaker 0: He's he's weaved this way.
Speaker 1: He's he's okay. He's just he's just trying to back out. Yeah. Right there. Release.
Oh. Release. Okay. I'm gonna this is what I'm gonna do. We're gonna say thank you, mister snake.
Speaker 0: Thank you, mister snake.
Speaker 1: Thank you, mister snake. Go back up into the tree. Here we go. There you go. There you go.
There you go. And then, we can resort resume normal podcasting now
Speaker 0: because our We really are in the jungle. We really
Speaker 2: are
Speaker 1: in the jungle. That's one of my favourite snakes. That's one of my favourite little aliens on this planet.
Speaker 2: Mhmm. Look at that.
Speaker 0: And it's going on some long journey.
Speaker 2: It's gonna
Speaker 1: onto the canopy.
Speaker 0: Carry the rest of the night. So that little snake is one of the millions of life forms, heartbeats that you're trying to protect.
Speaker 1: Exactly. To me, I, after almost 20 years down here, the people here have become my friends, the the Caiman on the river, the the monkeys. I when I fall asleep at night, I think about all the different heartbeats, all the different little creatures here that that when they bulldoze this forest, when they when they chop down these trees, that they that they vanish, that we we we take away their world. And in that very evolutionary historical sense of remembering the the primordial soup, it's like this these this little creature is surviving out here somehow, and we have the chance to save it. And even if you don't care about the little creature on the pale blue dot, each of these little creatures contributes to this massive orchestral whole that creates climactic stability on this planet.
And the Amazon is one of the most important parts of that. And each of these little guys is playing a role in there.
Speaker 0: So one of the other fascinating life forms is other humans but living a very different kind of life. So uncontacted tribes. Mhmm. What do you find most fascinating about them?
Speaker 1: What I find most fascinating about the uncontacted tribes is that while me and you are sitting here with microphones and a light, somewhere out there in that darkness, in that direction, not so far away as the crow flies, There are people sitting around a fire in the dark, probably with little more than a few leaves over their heads, who don't even have the use of stone tools, who only have metal objects that they've stolen from nearby communities. They're they're living such primitive isolated nomadic lives in the modern world, and they're still living naked out in the jungle. It's truly incredible. It's truly remarkable, and I think that it's because they can't advocate for themselves, they can't protect themselves. Sort of like, well, we can let them get shot up by loggers and get their to get let their land get bulldozed while they hide.
They have no idea that their world is being destroyed. But they're they're they're sort of the scariest and most fascinating thing out there right now in the jungle.
Speaker 0: What do you think their because you've spoken about them being dangerous. What do you think their relationship with violence is? I think Why is violence part of their approach to the external world? So from
Speaker 1: the best I understand it, that at the turn of the century, industrial revolution, we had sudden immense need for rubber, for hoses and gaskets and wires and tires and and the war machine. And the only way to get rubber was to come down to the Amazon rainforest and get the local people who knew the jungle to go out into the jungle and and cut rubber trees and collect the latex.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And Henry Ford tried doing Fordlandia, tried having rubber plantations, but leaf blight killed it. And so you had this period of horrendous extraction in the Amazon where the rubber barons were coming down and just raping and pillaging the tribes and making them go out to tap these trees. Mhmm. And the uncontacted tribes said no. They had their 6 foot long long bows, 7 foot long arrows with giant bamboo tips, and they moved further back into the forest.
And They said, we will not be conquered. And since that time, they've been out there, and it's it's confusing because in a way, they're still running scared a century later. And their grandparents would have told them, you know, the outside world, everyone you see in the outside world is trying to kill you. So kill them first. So can you blame them for being violent?
No. Is this river still wild because loggers were scared to go here for a long time, for almost a century late? That's why this forest is still here? Yes. And so is it a human rights issue that we protect the last people on earth that have no government, no no affiliation, no language that we can explain?
We don't know what their medicinal plant knowledge is. We don't know their creation myths. We know nothing about them. And they're just out there right now with bows and arrows, living in the dark, surviving in the jungle, naked, without even spoons. Forget about the wheel.
Forget about iPhones. They got nothing, and they're making it work.
Speaker 0: We don't know their creation myths. So they have a very primitive existence. But do you think their values first of all, do you think their nature is similar to ours? And how do their values Mhmm. Differ from ours?
Speaker 1: This is complicated because the the anthropologist in me wants to say that they have a a historical reason for the violent life that they have. You know, they experienced incredible generational trauma some time ago and that and because they've been living isolated in the jungle, that has permeated to become their culture. They've become a culture of violence. But yet the the the contacted modern indigenous communities that we work with, that are my friends, that work here. Just the other day, we were speaking to one of them who was pulling spikes out of your hand while he was explaining that he tried to help them, the brothers, Los Hermanos.
He tried to help them. He tried to give them a gift. And what did they do? They shot him in the head.
Speaker 0: Yeah. He said they're our brothers, and he tried to give them, bananas.
Speaker 1: Mhmm. Plantains.
Speaker 0: Plantains. Boat full of plantains.
Speaker 2: Mhmm. And they
Speaker 0: shot at him.
Speaker 1: They shot 3 arrows at him, and one of them actually hit him in the skull and put him in the hospital. And he got helicopter evacuated from his community. And so he's brave for surviving, but he's, he's a lucky survivor. They they are incredibly accurate those bamboo tipped arrows, and those arrows are 7 feet long. So when you get hit by 1, they come at a velocity that can rip through you.
And the range on a shotgun is way shorter than the range on a longbow. You're talking about a couple 100 meters on a longbow, and they're deadly accurate. They can take spider monkeys out of a tree. And so there's stories of loggers, and I've seen the photos of the bodies of loggers who attract who attacked one of the tribes. And the tribes hadn't done anything, but these loggers came around and bent.
They start shooting shotguns at the tribe, and the tribe scattered into the forest. And as the loggers' boat went around and bend, they just started flying arrows. Mhmm. Took out the boat driver boats, skidded to the side, and then everybody was standing in the river, and you can't run. And the tribe just descended on them and just porcupine them full
Speaker 0: of arrows. Shotgun versus bow. There's a shotgun shell here, by the way. Yeah. From the from the loggers.
Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We picked that up yesterday. Was that yesterday?
Speaker 0: That was I don't know. I don't know. One of the things that happens here is time loses meaning in a in some kind of deep way that it does when you're in a big city in the United States, for example, and there's schedules and meetings and all this kind of stuff. It transforms the meaning, your experience of time, your interaction with time, the role of time, all of this. I've forgotten time, and I've forgotten the existence of the outside world.
Speaker 1: And how does that feel?
Speaker 0: It feels more honest. It also puts in perspective, like, all the busyness, all the, it kinda takes the ant out of the ant colony and says, hey. This you're just an ant. This is just an ant colony, and there's a big world out there. Yeah.
It's a it's a chance to to be grateful, to celebrate this Earth of ours, and the things that make it worth living on, including the simple things that make the individual life worth living, which is water and then food. And the rest is the rest is just details. Of course, the friendships and social interaction, that's a really big one, actually. That one I'm taking for granted because I didn't get a chance yet to really spend time alone. And when I came here, I've gotten a chance to hang out with you, and there's a kind of camaraderie.
There's a friendship there that if that's broken, that's a that's a tough that's a tough one too. You spent quite a lot of time alone in the jungle.
Speaker 2: You ever get alone out here? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the first 15 years we were doing this, we there would be times that JJ would be busy in town with his family, and I would for sheer love of the rainforest, I would have to come alone out here. And we didn't have running I didn't have running water. I didn't have lights. All I had was a couple of candles in the darkness in a tent, and I was 20 something years old living in the Amazon by myself.
Your boat sunk, and, yeah, it's incredibly lonely. I I had to learn through experience because I thought there's a period I think when you're, you know, you're young as a young man, I I I had this thing, like, I wanted to prove that I could be like the explorers. I wanted to prove that I could handle the elements, that I could go out alone, that I could have these these deep connective moments with the with the jungle, and it's like I did that, and that's great. And you know what the kid from Into the Wild learned right before he died in that bus? That if you don't have somebody to share it with, doesn't matter.
Speaker 0: But, I don't know, some kinda, like, even just deep human level. Like, even if you have somebody to share it with. You ever just get alone out here? Just like this sense of, like, existential dread of, like, what you know, the jungle has a way of, not caring about any individual organism. It just kinda churns.
It's like it makes you realize that life is finite quite intensely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. For for for me, it's comforting being out here because I find the the rat race, the national narrative, the the the the need to make money, the to worry about war, to to be outraged about the newest thing that that politician said and what that actor did. And and it it just there's always just this just unending sort of media storm, and and and and everyone's worried, and everyone's trying to optimize their sunlight exposure and find the solution and buy the right new thing. And, to me coming out here, first of all, I mean something out here because I can help someone. I can help people.
I can help these animals. And so I find my meaning out here. But also, you know, there's the losing the madness over the mountains. It's it's nature has always and for many people been where things make sense. And to me, I think I'm a simple analog type of person that it makes sense that when it rains, you get in the river to stay warm.
And and you, you know, you wait for the dawn, and you see a little tree snake, and and you say it just it just it makes it makes more sense, and I think that the the the overwhelming, teeming complexity that is inside the the ant mound of society can be dizzying for some people. And I think that maybe it's the dyslexia. Maybe it's just that I love nature. But, now if I when I land in JFK, I I feel like a frightened animal on on like, it's
Speaker 0: like it's it's as if
Speaker 1: you as if you release, like, like, some animal that had never seen it onto, like into Times Square, and you could just imagine this dog with its ears back running away from taxis and just just cowering from the noise, and it's just hustle and bustle, and people are brutal. And how much you want it for? Get in the car. You know, screaming over the intercom and just everything everything sensory changes, and let's get home. Okay.
Let's go. You got a meeting. You got to get to the next place. You got to give a talk. You got to out out out here.
When we finish up here, what are we gonna do? We're gonna eat some food, maybe go catch a crocodile, go walk around the jungle, and I like, it's slower. It makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and there's that, again, there's that deep meaning of of of that here where we can be the guardians for good. We can we can be we can hold that candle up and and know for sure that we're protecting the trees from being destroyed. And it's that simple thing of just, this is good. There you go. It's simple.
In society, I feel like everyone's always losing their minds and forgetting the most basic of fundamental truths And out here, you can't really argue with them. You know, when we needed water, it was like, shit. If we don't get water, we're fucked.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And that and that's to me, that's where the camaraderie comes from because no matter what, we'll be we could go to the most fancy ass restaurant through the biggest, most famous people in the world. Doesn't matter. We still remember what it was like standing around in the jungle going, fuck. We're scared, and we don't have water.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: We got reduced to the simplest form of humans, and that's and that's something. And we survived, and that's and that's cool.
Speaker 0: And you take all the all those people in their nice dresses, in their fancy restaurants, and you put them in those conditions. They're all gonna want the same thing as water and Yes. It's all the same thing.
Speaker 1: All the beautiful people.
Speaker 0: How's your view of your own mortality evolved over your interaction with the jungle? How often do you think about your death?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't anymore because the I've come to believe that there is a benevolent God, spirit, creator taking care of us, and I don't I don't think about my own death. We have a little bit of time here, and we clearly know nothing about what we're doing here. Mhmm. And it seems like we just have to do the best we can. And so I just it doesn't it doesn't scare me.
I've come close to dying a lot of times, and, I just don't think I you don't wanna have a bad death, first of all. You don't wanna you don't wanna you don't wanna be a statistic. You don't wanna find out. You don't wanna, like, try out a be the first to try out a new product and, oops, it crushed you. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: You know?
Speaker 1: That that's that's a terrible way to go. Or the people that used to you know, in the gold rush, they were using mercury, and they're all getting, or lead. It was lead poisoning. And it's like, oh, mid you know, few million people died that way, and it's like, you wanna you want a good death. You know, you wanna staring down the eyes of a tiger or hanging off the edge of a cliff, saving somebody's something something something worthy.
Warrior's death. Mhmm. But if
Speaker 0: you a 16 foot black Cayman just
Speaker 1: Boots on, screaming. Yeah. That'd be fun. That'd be a good one.
Speaker 0: A lot of people say that you carry the spirit of Steve Irwin in in in your heart, in the way you carry yourself in this world. I mean, he that guy was full of joy.
Speaker 1: If I have a percentage of Steve Irwin, I would be honored. But that guy I think I think there's only one Steve. I think that he was he occupied his own strata of just shining light. Every everything was positive, enthusiasm, love, and happiness, and save the animals, and do better, and let's make it fun. And and and that was so infectious that that it sort of transcended his TV show.
It transcended his conservation work. It transcended business and entrepreneurship. It just through sheer magnetism and enthusiasm. He just I mean, everyone knew who Steve was. Everyone loved Steve.
We still all love Steve. And so it's, it's just it's just amazing what one spirit can do. So if anybody, you know, makes that comparison, I I get I get really uncomfortable because to me, Steve Irwin is, like, just just the goat. And so I'm okay with that. Well, I
Speaker 0: at least agree with that comparison, having spent time with you. There's just an eternal flame of joy and adventure too just pulling you. A dark question, but do you think you might meet the same end, giving your life in some way to something you love?
Speaker 1: That is a dark question, but I I I think most likely I'll get whacked by loggers. I think that loggers or gold miners will take me out. I don't I don't picture myself going from animals, but,
Speaker 0: that would be heartbreaking too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It would. But, yeah, at the same time, though, like, the Kurt Cobain value of that, if I died doing what I love to protect the river, I'd be so worth so much more a lot. Like, we'd get the 30,000,000 if I died tomorrow for sure. So we've already we've already talked about this with my friends.
I'm like, if I get whacked, do the foundation, make the documentary, protect the river, protect the heartbeats, call it the heartbeats, jumble keepers the heartbeats. You know, be ready for it because these these things do happen. People get pissed if you get in their way. And as many happy people as and who whose lives we're changing, there's also gonna be some jealous, shitty, upset people who are mad that they can't make prostitutes out of young girls and keep destroying the planet, and so they might just, erase you. Me.
Speaker 0: Well, I hope you, like a Clint Eastwood character. Just just impossible to kill. I don't see. Squinted your eyes. On cue.
Who do you think will play you in a movie?
Speaker 1: God. Somebody with the right nose. Yeah. Somebody who can live up to this schnozle. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Right? Italian?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: It's funny. Do you think of yourself as Italian or human American?
Speaker 1: That's the thing.
Speaker 0: I don't I you know? 8?
Speaker 1: My my life has been the United Nations of of whatever. Like, I just every to me, I I just I don't that's the other thing. You go back to society and everyone's obsessed with with race. To me, I'm like, look. Leopards have black babies and yellow babies.
One mother. Like, they're all leopards. Mhmm. And and I'm I'm so color blind and race blind and everything else. I've lived in India.
My friends are Peruvian. My family, we got Italian, Filipino, just everything. And so I've I'm so immersed in it that that when I I find it very jarring and, disconcerting how much time we spend talking about, different religions and just the differences in humans. I'm like, dude, we're we're talking about whether or not our ecosystems are gonna be able to provide for us. We're talking about nuclear.
What we're talking about, there's some pretty serious shit on the table. And we're over here arguing over, like, shades of gray of of it's it's so trivial, and that shit drives me crazy. And and as does the outrage where it's like, no. You you you have to care more. I've been I've been criticized for not caring enough about that.
And I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna who cares what the hell I am? Who gives a shit what the hell? I'm a human. We're all human. Yeah.
It's not that easy, but it's kinda fun sometimes. And and we're at a better time and hit like, when you think about, like, the middle ages, like, even if you were a king,
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 1: still didn't have it that good. You didn't have pineapples in the winter. You didn't even know what the fuck a pineapple was. We have pineapples whenever we want
Speaker 0: them. Mhmm. We can fly on planes to other countries. Let's clarify. We, you mean a large fraction of the world.
You know? I mentioned to you one of the biggest, things I've noticed when I immigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States is the how plentiful bananas and pineapples were, the fruit section, the produce section of the didn't have to wait in line at the grocery store, could just eat as many bananas and pineapples and cherries and watermelon as as you want. That's not everybody has that. No.
Speaker 1: That's true. Not everybody has that, but but but everybody could be that king. No. But but but a growing number of people today can feast on pineapple can feast on pineapple and have toasters and new distracting apps all the way until the grave.
Speaker 0: That's the thing that, I also noticed is I don't think so much about politics while I'm here. Or
Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about it. We haven't.
Speaker 0: Don't talk about the stupid, differences between humans Nah. Except to just kinda laugh at the absurdity of it
Speaker 1: on occasion. Busy trying to survive glaciers and jungles and avalanches and all kinds of shit.
Speaker 0: Do you think nature is brutal as Werner Herzog showed it or is it beautiful?
Speaker 1: I think the brutality of nature is the chaos, and I think that we are the only ones in it that are capable of organizing in the direction of order and light. So yes, there are going to be hyenas tearing each other apart. Yes, there's going to be war torn nations and poor starving children, but we as humans have the power to work towards something more organized than that. So
Speaker 0: there is a there is a force within nature that's always searching for order, for good.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a unifying theory if you think about it. I mean, all of the chaos of history and the wars and and and the chaos of nature, we we through technology and and organization, there's so many people, more people today than ever before, I think, who are so concerned, who realize that the incredible power, like what Jane Goodall says about, you know, how you can affect the people around you, how you can do good in the world, how you can change the narrative of conservation from one of loss and darkness to one of innovation and light. Like, we can we can do incredible things. We are the masters as humans. And I think that I think that we're on the cusp of, sort of, understanding the true potential of that.
Like, I just think I just think that more than ever, people people have harnessed this ability to do good in the world and be proud of it and and and just change the the the darkness into something else.
Speaker 0: When you, have lived here and taken in the ways of the Amazon jungle, how have your views of god you mentioned, how have you your views of god change? Who is God?
Speaker 1: I've come to believe that, again, back to that that Christ wasn't a Christian, Mohammed wasn't a Muslim, and Buddha wasn't a Buddhist, that, like, the game the game is love and compassion. And the universe is chaotic and dangerous, and nature is chaotic and dangerous, but we if if this is some sort of a biological video game, the our reality that the test is, can we be good? And we go through it every day. Can you can you be good to your parent? Can you be good to your partner?
Can you be good to your coworkers? Can it's so difficult. And we see how people can cheat and steal and hurt and destroy and and the incredible impact that it has on the world, the the returning exponential impact that one act of kindness, one act of good can do. And so I see nature as God. I see the religions as different cultural manifestations of the same truth, the same creative force.
Maybe me and you have the same beliefs and your aliens are my angels. Well, thank you for being one of the humans trying to do good in this world. And thank you for bringing me along for some adventure. And I believe more adventure awaits. Thank you for being enough of a psychopath to actually just sign on to come into the Amazon rainforest in a suit.
And a year ago, when you told me that you were gonna do this, I truly didn't believe you. So for being a man of your word and for the incredible work you do to connect humans and to create dialogue and to do good in the world and for all the adventures that we've had. Thank you so much. Thank you, Weather. Lex.
Thanks, man.
Speaker 0: Thanks for listening to this conversation with Paul Rosalie. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Joseph Campbell. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
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Here's the links for my conversation with Paul Rosolie, deep in the Amazon jungle... YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwN8u6HFH8U Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/paul-rosolie-2-transcript Podcast: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Transcript for Paul Rosolie: Jungle, Apex Predators, Aliens, Uncontacted Tribes, and God | Lex Fridman Podcast #429 - Lex Fridman
This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #429 with Paul Rosolie. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links: Go back to this episode’s main page Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast Table of Contents Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation. Click link to jump approximately to that part in the transcript: 0:00 – Introduction 2:07 – Amazon jungle 4:25 – Bushmaster snakes 15:51 – Black caiman
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reSee.it AI Summary
I recently came across a 5-hour Israel-Palestine debate featuring Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris, Mouin Rabbani, and Steven Bonnell. It was a passionate exploration of the history, present, and future of the conflict. The first 4 hours are available here, and the full 5 hours can be found on YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms. Thanks to the participants for the conversation. Links are provided in the comments.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's the 5-hour Israel-Palestine debate with Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris, Mouin Rabbani, and Steven Bonnell (aka Destiny). It was an in-depth, passionate exploration of history, present, and future of Israel and Palestine. First 4 hours are posted here (current X limit), and full 5 hours are up on YouTube, Spotify, and everywhere else. Links in comment. Thanks to Benny Morris, @NormFinkelstein, @TheOmniLiberal, and @MouinRabbani for the conversation! Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 4:42 - 1948 1:03:14 - Partition 2:07:47 - October 7 3:01:59 - Gaza 3:28:34 - Peace 4:33:18 - Hope for the future
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this video, a debate takes place on the topic of Israel and Palestine, featuring speakers with different perspectives. They discuss the events of 1948, the roots of the conflict, and the role of transfer in Zionist ideology. The Arab rejection of the partition plan and the Arab-Israeli war are also discussed. The conversation becomes heated as they argue about the causes and consequences of the conflict. They touch on various issues such as the role of Zionists and Arabs, the genocidal intent of Hamas, and the question of civilian casualties. The speakers also debate the intent behind Israeli military actions, the possibility of genocide in Gaza, and the obstacles to peace settlements. While they have differing views on the Israeli state and the desirability of a 2-state settlement, they conclude that there are legitimate questions and challenges in finding a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: That's a good point. No. No. It's a good point.
Speaker 1: Now some people accuse me of speaking very slowly, and they're advised on YouTube to turn up the speed twice to 3 times whenever I'm on. One of the reasons I speak slowly is because I attach value to every word I say.
Speaker 2: Norm will say this all over and over and over again. I only deal in facts. I don't deal in hypotheticals. I only deal in facts. I only deal in facts.
And that seems to be the case except for when the facts are completely and totally contrary to the particular point you're trying to push. The idea that Jews would have, out of hand, rejected any state that had Arabs on it or always had a plan of expulsion is just betrayed by the acceptance of the 47 partition plan.
Speaker 1: You understand politics. They forced
Speaker 0: the British to prevent immigration of Jerusalem Europe and reaching safe shores in Palestine. Well, that's what they did.
Speaker 3: Again, was that
Speaker 0: And they knew that
Speaker 3: the people who put them in persecuted in Europe Was Palestine the only spot of land on Earth?
Speaker 0: Yes. Basically, that was the problem. The Jews couldn't ever be
Speaker 1: anywhere else.
Speaker 3: What about your great friends in Britain, the architects of of the Balfour deck?
Speaker 0: By the late 1930s, they were happy to take in Jews and the Americans?
Speaker 3: And We're happy to take
Speaker 0: in Jews.
Speaker 3: Why are Palestinians, who were not Europeans, who had zero role in the rise of Nazism, who had no relation to any of this? Why are they somehow uniquely responsible for what happened in Europe
Speaker 1: and uniquely cults? The only safe haven for Jews. Professor Morris, because of your logic, and I'm not disputing it, that's why October 7th happened.
Speaker 0: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Because there was no options left for those people.
Speaker 0: The Hamas guys who attacked the kibbutzim, they're apart from the attacks on the military sites, when they attacked the kibbutzim, were out to kill civilians. And they killed family after family, house after house.
Speaker 1: Talk fast. I'm trying to think that you're coherent.
Speaker 2: I'm just reading from the UN.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But you say I
Speaker 2: mean, you like the guy time.
Speaker 1: I only
Speaker 2: wanna agree with you though. Yeah. But you've lied about this particular instance in the past. Those kids weren't just on the beaches as articles. Those kids were literally coming out of a previously identified Hamas contract that they have operated from.
They literally did
Speaker 1: you conclude Mister Mulally, with all due respect with all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron. It's terrifying.
Speaker 4: The following is a debate on the topic of Israel and Palestine with Norman Fitlestein, Benny Morris, Muir Rahmani, and Steven Bunnell, also known online as Destiny. Norman and Benny are historians. Wayne is a Middle East analyst, and Steven is a political commentator and streamer. All 4 have spoken and debated extensively on this topic. The goal for this debate was not for anyone to win or to score points.
It wasn't to get views or likes. I never care about those. And I think there are probably much easier ways to get those things if I did care. The goal was to explore together the history, present, and future of Israel and Palestine in a free flowing conversation. No time limits, no rules.
There was a lot of tension in the room from the very beginning, and it only got more intense as we went along. And I quickly realized that this very conversation in a very real human way was a microcosm of the tensions and distance and perspectives on the topic of Israel and Palestine. For some debates, I will step in and moderate strictly to prevent emotion from boiling. For this, I saw the value in not interfering with the passion of the exchanges because that emotion in itself spoke volumes. We did talk about the history and the future, but the anger, the frustration, the biting wit, and at times respect and camaraderie were all there.
Like I said, we did it in an perhaps all too human way. I will do more debates and conversations on these difficult topics, and I will continue to search for hope in the midst of death and destruction, to search for our common humanity in the midst of division and hate. This thing we have going on, human civilization, the whole of it, is beautiful. And it's worth figuring out how we can help it flourish together. I love you all.
Speaker 3: This is
Speaker 4: a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Norman Fikenstein, Benny Morris, Moyan Rabani, and Steven Bunnell. First question is about 1948. For Israelis, 1948 is the establishment of the State of Israel and the War of Independence.
For Palestinians, 1948 is an Nakba, which means catastrophe, or the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes as a consequence of the war. What to you is important to understand about the events of 1948 and the period around there, 47, 49, that helps us understand what's going on today, and, maybe helps us understand the roots of all of this that started even before 1948. I was hoping that Norm could speak first, and Benny, then Wayne, and then Norm?
Speaker 1: After World War 2, the British decided that they didn't want to deal with the Palestine question anymore, and the ball was thrown into the court of the United Nations. Now as I read the record, the UN was not attempting to arbitrate or adjudicate rights and wrongs. It was confronting a very practical problem. There were 2 national communities in Palestine, and there were irreconcilable differences on fundamental questions. Most importantly, looking at the historic record on the question of immigration and associate with the question of immigration, the question of land.
The UN Special Committee on Palestine, which came into being before the UN 181 partition resolution, the UN special committee recommended 2 states in Palestine. There was a minority position represented by, Iran, India, they supported one state, but, they believed that if forced to, the 2 communities would figure out some sort of modus vendi and live together. United Nations General Assembly supported partition between what it called a Jewish state and an Arab state. Now in my reading of the record, they understand there's new scholarship in the subject, which I've not read. But so far as I've read the record, there's no clarity on what the United Nations General Assembly meant by a Jewish state and an Arab state, except for the fact that the Jewish state would be demographically the majority would be Jewish, and the Arab state demographically would be Arab.
The UNSCOP, the UN special committee in Palestine, UNSCOP, the UN Special Committee on Palestine, it was very clear and it was reiterated many times that in recommending 2 states, each state, the Arab state and the Jewish state, would have to guarantee full equality of all citizens with regard to political, civil, and religious matters. Now that does raise the question if there is absolute full equality of all citizens, both in the Jewish state and the Arab state, with regard to political rights, civil rights, and religious rights, apart from the demographic majority, it's very unclear what it meant to call a state Jewish or call a state Arab. In my view, the partition resolution was the correct decision. I do not believe that the Arab and Jewish communities could at that point be made to live together. I disagree with the minority position of India, Iran and Yugoslavia.
And that not being a practical option, 2 states was the only other option. In this regard, I would want to pay tribute to what was probably the most moving speech at the UN General Assembly proceedings by the Soviet foreign minister, Gromyko. I was very tempted to quote it at length, but I recognized that would be taking too much time. So I asked a young friend, Jamie Stern Minor, to edit it and just get the essence of what foreign minister Gromyko had to say. During the last war, Gromyko said, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering Without any exaggeration, this sorrow and suffering are indescribable.
100 of thousands of Jews are wandering about in various countries of Europe in search of means of existence and in search of shelter. The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference. Past experience, particularly during the 2nd World War, shows that no Western European state was able to provide adequate assistance for the Jewish people in defending its rights and its very existence from the violence of the Hitlerites and their allies. This is an unpleasant fact, but, unfortunately, like all other facts, it must be admitted. Gromyko went on to say, in principle, he supports one state or the Soviet Union supports one state.
But he said, if relations between the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine proved to be so bad that it would be impossible to reconcile them and to ensure the peaceful coexistence of the Arabs and the Jews, the Soviet Union would support 2 states. I personally am not convinced that the 2 states would have been unsustainable in the long term if, and this is a big if, the Zionist movement had been faithful to the position it proclaimed during the unscathed public hearings. At the time, Ben Gurion testified, quote, I want to express what we mean by a Jewish state. We mean by a Jewish state simply a state where the majority of the people are Jews, not a state where a Jew has in any way any privilege more than anyone else. A Jewish state means a state based on absolute equality of all her citizens and on democracy.
Alas, this was not to be. As Professor Morris has written, quote, Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist. And then he wrote in another book, transfer, the euphemism for expulsion, transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism because it sought to transform a land which was Arab into a Jewish state. And a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population. And because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs, which in turn persuaded the Yeshiv's leaders, the Yeshiv being the Jewish community, the Yeshiv's leaders that a hostile Arab majority or a large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure.
Or, as Professor Morris retrospectively put it, quote, a removing of a population was needed. Without a population expulsion, a Jewish state would not have been established. The Arab side rejected outright the partition resolution. I won't play games with that. I know a lot of people try to prove it's not true.
It clearly, in my view, is true. The Arab side rejected outright the partition resolution. While Israeli leaders acting under compulsions inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism, found the pretext in the course of the first Arab Israeli war to expel the indigenous population and expand its borders. I therefore conclude that neither side was committed to the letter of the partition resolution, and both sides aborted it.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Norm. Norm asked that you make a lengthy statement in the beginning. Benny, I hope it's okay to call everybody by their first name in the name of camaraderie. Norm has quoted several things you said. Perhaps you can comment broader than the question of 1948 and maybe respond to the things that Norm said.
Speaker 0: Yeah. UNSCOP, the United Nations special committee on Palestine, recommended partition, the majority of UNSCOP recommended partition, which was accepted by the UN General Assembly in November 1947, essentially looking back to the Peel Commission in 1937. 10 years earlier, a British commission had looked at the problem of Palestine, the 2 warring national groups who refused to live together, if you like, or consolidate a unitary state state between them. And Peel said there should be 2 states. That's the principle.
The country must be partitioned in 2 states. This would give a modicum of justice to both sides, if not all their demands, of course. And the United Nations followed suit. The United Nations, UNSCOP, and then the UN General Assembly representing the will of the international community, said 2 states is the just solution in this complex situation. The problem was that immediately with the passage of the resolution, the Arabs the Arab states and the Arabs of Palestine said no, as Norman Finkelstein said.
They said no. They rejected the partition idea, the principle of partition, not just the idea of what percentage which side should get, but the principle of partition. They said no to the Jews should not have any part of Palestine for their sovereign territory. Maybe Jews could live as a minority in Palestine. That also was problematic in the eyes of the of the Palestinian Arab leadership.
Husseini had said, only Jews who were there before 1917 could actually get citizenship and continue to live there. But the Arabs rejected partition, and the Arabs of Palestine launched, in a very disorganized fashion, war against the resolution, against the implementation of the resolution, against the Jewish community in Palestine. And this was their defeat in that civil war between the two communities while the British were withdrawing from Palestine led to the Arab invasion, the Arab invasion by the Arab states in May 1948, of of the country. Again, basically, with the idea of eradicating or preventing the emergence of a Jewish state in line with the United Nations decision and the will of the international community. Norman said that the Zionist enterprise, and he quoted me, meant from the beginning, to transfer or expel the Arabs of Palestine or some of the Arabs of Palestine.
And I think he's sort of quoting out of context. The context in which the statements were made that that the Jewish state could only emerge, if there was a transfer of Arab population was preceded in the way I wrote it and the way it actually happened by Arab resistance and hostilities towards the Jewish community. Had the Arabs accepted partition, there would have been a large Arab minority in the Jewish state, which emerged in 48, 47. And in fact, Jewish economists and state builders took into account that there would be a large Arab minority and, its needs would be cared for, etcetera. But this was not to be because the Arabs attacked.
And had they not attacked, perhaps a a Jewish state with a large Arab minority could have emerged, but this didn't happen. They went to war. The Jews resisted. And in the course of that war, Arab populations were driven out. Some were expelled.
Some left because Arab, leaders advised them to leave or ordered them to leave. And at the end of the war, Israel said, they can't return because they just tried to destroy the Jewish state. And and that's the basic reality of what happened in 48. The Jews created a state. The Palestinian Arabs never bothered to even try to create a state, before 48 and in the course of the 1948 war.
And for that reason, they have no state to this day. The Jews do have a state because they prepared to establish a state, fought for it, and, established it, hopefully, lastingly.
Speaker 4: When you say hostility, in case people are not familiar, there was a full on war where Arab states invaded, and Israel won that war.
Speaker 0: Let me just add to to clarify. The war had two parts to it. The first part was the Arab community in Palestine, its militiamen, attacked the Jews from November 1947. In other words, from the day after the UN partition resolution was passed, Arab gunmen were busy shooting up Jews, and that snowballed into a full scale civil war between the two communities in Palestine. In May 1948, a second stage began in the war in which the Arab states invaded the new state, attacked the new state, and and they too were defeated, and thus, a state of Israel emerged.
In the course of this 2 stage war, a vast Palestinian refugee problem occurred.
Speaker 4: And so after that, the transfer, the expulsion, the the thing that people call the Nakba, happened. Wayne, could you speak to 1948 and the historical significance of it?
Speaker 3: Sure. There's there's a lot to unpack here. I'll try to limit myself to just a few points. Regarding Zionism and transfer, I think Chaim Weizmann, the head of the World Zionist Organization, had it exactly right when he said that the objective of Zionism is to make Palestine as Jewish as England is English or France is French. In other words, as as Norman explained, a Jewish state requires Jewish political demographic and territorial supremacy Without those three elements, the state would be Jewish in name only.
And I think what distinguishes Zionism is its insistence, supremacy, and exclusivity. That would be my first point. The second point is, I think what the Soviet foreign minister at the time, Andrei, Gromyko, said is exactly right with one reservation. Gromico was describing a European savagery unleashed against Europe's Jews. At the time, you know, it wasn't Palestinians or Arabs.
The savages and the barbarians were European to the core. It had nothing to do with developments in Palestine, or the Middle East. Secondly, at the time that Gromyko was speaking, those Jewish, survivors of the Holocaust and and others who were in need of safe haven were still overwhelmingly on the European continent and not on Palestine not in Palestine. And I think, given, the scale of the savagery, I don't think that any one state or country, should have borne the responsibility, for addressing this crisis. I think it should have been an international, responsibility.
Soviet Union could have contributed. Germany certainly could and should have, contributed. The United Kingdom and the United States, which slammed their doors shut to,
Speaker 2: the persecuted
Speaker 3: Jews of Europe as the what passed for the international community at the time decided to partition Palestine. And here, I think we need to, judge the partition resolution against the realities that obtained at the time. 2 2 thirds of the population of Jewish community in Palestine constituted about 1 third of the total population and controlled even less of, of of the land, within Palestine. Of of the land,
Speaker 2: within Palestine.
Speaker 3: As as a preeminent Palestinian historian, Walid Al Khalidi has pointed out the partition resolution in giving roughly 55% of Palestine to the Jewish community, and I think 41, 42%, to the Arab community, to the Palestinians, did not preserve the position of each community or even, favor 1 community at the expense of the others. Rather, it thoroughly inverted and revolutionized, the relationship, between between the two communities. And as many have written, the Nakba was the inevitable consequence of partition given the nature of Zionism, given the territorial disposition, given the weakness of Palestinian community whose leadership had been largely, decimated during a major revolt at the end of 19 thirties, given that the Arab states, were still very much under French and British influence. The Nakba was, the inevitable product of the, partition resolution. And one last point also about the the UN's partition resolution is, yes, formally, that is what the international UN General Assembly today for a very simple reason.
Through the UN General Assembly today for a very simple reason. It was a very different General Assembly. Most African, most Asian states, were not yet independent, were the resolution to be placed before the international community today, and I find it telling that, the minority opinion was led by India, Iran, and Yugoslavia, I think they would have represented the clear, majority. So Partition, given what we know about Zionism, given that it was entirely predictable what would happen, given, the realities on the ground in Palestine, was deeply unjust. And the idea that either the Palestinians or the Arab states could have accepted, such a resolution is is, I think, an illusion.
That was in 1947. We saw what happened in 48 and 49. Palestinian society was essentially, destroyed. Over 80%, I believe, of Palestinians resident in the territory that became the state of Israel were either expelled or fled, and ultimately were ethnically cleansed because ethnic cleansing consists of 2 components. It's not just forcing people into refuge or expelling them.
It's just as importantly preventing their return. And here and and and Benny Morris has written, I think, an article about Yosef Weitz and the transfer committees. There was a very detailed initiative to prevent their return, and it consisted of raising 100 of Palestinian villages to the ground, which was systematically implemented, and so on. And so Palestinians became a stateless people. Now, what is the most important reason that no Arab state was established, in Palestine?
Well, since the 19 thirties, the Zionist leadership and, the Hasmite, leadership of, Jordan, as it's been thoroughly researched and written about by the Israeli British historian Avi Islam, essentially colluded, to prevent the establishment of an independent Arab state, in Palestine, in the late 19 forties. There's there's much more here, but I think, those those are the key points I I would make about, 1948.
Speaker 4: We may talk about Zionism, Britain, UN assemblies, and all and all the things you mentioned, there's a lot to dig into. So, again, if we can keep it to just one statement moving forward Sure. After Steven, if you wanna go a little longer. Also, we should acknowledge the fact that the speaking speeds of of people here are different. Steven speaks about 10 times faster, than me.
Steven, do you wanna comment on 1948?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's interesting where people choose to start the history. I noticed a lot of people like to start at either 47 or 48 because it's the first time where they can clearly point to a catastrophe that occurs on the Arab side that they want to ascribe 100% of the blame to the newly emergent Israeli state to. But I feel like when you have this type of reading of history, it feels like the goal is to moralize everything first and then to pick and choose facts that kinda support the statements of your initial moral statement afterwards. Whenever people are talking about 48 or the establishment of the Arab state, I never hear about, the fact that a civil war started in 40 7.
That was largely instigated because of the Arab rejectionism of the 47 partition plan. I never hear about the fact that the majority of the land that was acquired happened by purchases from Jewish organizations of, Palestinian Arabs of the Ottoman Empire before the mandatory period in 1920 even started. Funnily enough, King Abdullah of Jordan, was quoted as saying the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in weeping about it. I never hear about the multiple times that Arabs rejected partition, rejected living with Jews, rejected any sort of state that would have even, had any sort of Jewish exclusivity. It's funny because it was brought up before that the partition plan was unfair, and that's why the Arabs rejected it.
And so they rejected it because it was unfair, because of the amount of land that Jews were given and not just due to the fact that Jews were given land at all, as though a 30% partition or a 25% partition would have been accepted, but I don't think that was the reality of the circumstances. I feel like most of the other stuff has been said, but I I noticed that, whenever people talk about 48 or the years preceding 48, I think the worst thing that happens is there's a there's a cherry picking of the facts where basically all of the blame is ascribed to this, this built in idea of Zionism that because of a handful of quotes or because of an ideology, we can say that transfer or population expulsion or the the basically, the mandate of all of these Arabs being kicked off the land was always going to happen when I think there's a refusal sometimes as well to acknowledge that regardless of the ideas of some of the Zionist leaders, there is a political, social, and military reality on the ground that they're forced to contend with. And, unfortunately, the Arabs, because of their inability to engage in diplomacy and only to use tools of war to try to negotiate everything going on in mandatory Palestine, basically always gave the Jews a reason or an excuse to fight and acquire land through that way, because of their refusal to negotiate on anything else, whether it was the partition plan in 47, whether it was the, the Hussein Peace Conference afterwards where Israel even offered to annex Gaza in in 51, where they offered to take in a 100,000 refugees.
Every single deal is just rejected out of hand because the Arabs don't want a Jewish state anywhere in this region of the world.
Speaker 1: I would like to engage professor Morris, if you don't mind. I'm not with the first name. It's just not my
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Way of relating.
Speaker 0: You can just call me Morris. You don't need to profess.
Speaker 1: Okay. There's a real problem here, and it's been a problem I've had over many years of reading your work. Apart perhaps from a grandchild, I suspect nobody knows your work better than I do. I've read it many times, not once, not twice, at least three times, everything you've written. And the problem is it's a kind of quicksilver.
It's very hard to grasp a point and hold you to it. So we're gonna try here to see whether we can hold you to a point. And then you argue with me the point. I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2: Your name, please? Steven Bunnell.
Speaker 1: Okay. Mister Bunnell referred to cherry picking and handful of quotes. Now it's true that when you wrote your first book on the Palestinian refugee question, You only had a few lines on this issue of transfer.
Speaker 0: Four pages.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In the first book.
Speaker 0: In the first book. Four pages.
Speaker 1: Day before. You know, I'm not gonna quarrel. My memory is not clear. We're talking about 40 years ago. I read it.
I read it, but then I read other things by you. Okay. And you were taken to task, if my memory is correct, that you hadn't adequately documented the claims of transfer. Let me allow me to finish. And I thought that was a reasonable challenge, because it was an unusual claim for a mainstream Israeli historian to say, as you did in that first book, that from the very beginning, transfer figured prominently in Zionist thinking.
That wasn't unusual if you read Anita Shapira, you read Shabtai Tevet. That was an unusual acknowledgment by you. And then I found it very impressive that in that revised version of your first book, you devoted 25 pages to copiously documenting the salience of transfer provocative and resonant phrase. You said that transfer was in inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism. We're not talking about circumstantial factors, a war, Arab hostility.
You said it's inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism. Now, as I said, so we won't be accused of cherry picking, those were 20 5 very densely argued pages. And then, in an interview and I could cite several quotes, but I'll choose 1 you said, removing a population was needed. Let's look at the words. Without a population expulsion, a Jewish state would not have been established.
Now you're the 1 again, I was very surprised when I read your book. Here, I'm referring to Righteous Victims. I was very surprised when I came to that page 37, where you wrote that territorial displacement and dispossession was the chi chief motor of Arab resistance to Zionism. Territorial displacement and dispossession were the chief motor of Arab resistance to Zionism. So you then went on to say, because the Arab population rationally feared territorial displacement and dispossession, it, of course, opposed Zionism.
That's as normal as Native Americans opposing the Euro American manifest destiny in the history of our own country, because they understood it would be at their expense. It was inbuilt and inevitable. And so now for you to come along and say that it all happened just because of the war, that, otherwise, the Zionists made all these plans for a happy minority to live there, that simply does not gel. It does not cohere. It is not reconcilable with what you yourself have written.
It was inevitable and inbuilt. Now in other situations, you've said, that's true, but I think it was a greater good to establish a Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous population. That's another kind of argument. That was Theodore Roosevelt's argument in our own country. He said, we don't want the whole of North America to remain a squalid refuge for these wigwams and teepees.
We have to get rid of them and make this a great country. But he didn't deny that it was inbuilt and inevitable.
Speaker 0: I think you've made your point. First, I'll take up something that Muin said. He said that the Nakba was inevitable
Speaker 3: As have you.
Speaker 0: And predictable. No. No. No. I've never said that.
It was inevitable and predictable only because the Arabs assaulted the Jewish community and state in 1947, 48. Had there been no assault, there probably wouldn't have been a refugee problem. There's no reason for a refugee problem to have occurred, expulsions to have occurred, a dispossession, massive dispossession to occur. These occurred as a result of war. Now, Norman has said that I said that transfer was inbuilt into Zionism in one way or another.
And this is certainly true. In order to buy land, the Jews bought tracts of land on which some Arabs sometimes lived. Sometimes they bought tracts of land on which there weren't Arab villages, but sometimes they bought land on which there were Arabs. And according to Ottoman law and the British, at least in the initial years of the British mandate, the law said that the people who bought the land could do what they liked with the people who didn't own the land, who were basically squatting on the land, which is the Arab tenant farmers. We're talking about a very small number, actually, of Arabs who were displaced as a result of land purchases in the Ottoman period or the mandate period.
But there was dispossession in one way. They didn't possess the land. They didn't own it. But they were removed from the land, and this did happen in Zionism. And there's a a, if you like, an inevitability in Zionist ideology of buying tracts of land and starting to work it yourself and settle it with your own people and so on.
That made sense. But what we're really talking about is what happened in 47, 48. And in 47, 48, the Arabs started a war. And, actually, people pay for their mistakes, and the Palestinians have never actually agreed to pay for their mistakes. They make mistakes.
They attack. They suffer as a result, and we see something similar going on today in in the Gaza Strip. They do something terrible. They kill 1200 Jews. They abduct 250 women and children and babies and and old people and whatever.
And then they start screaming, please save us from what we did, because the Jews are counter attacking. And this is what happened then, and this is happening now. There's something fairly similar in the situation here. Expulsion, and this is important, Norman, you should pay attention to this. You didn't raise that.
Expulsion transfer, whenever policy of the Zionist movement before 47, it doesn't exist in Zionist platforms of the various political parties, of the Zionist organization, of the Israeli state, of the Jewish Agency. Nobody would have actually made it into policy because it was always a large minority. If there were people who wanted it, always a large minority of Jewish politicians and leaders would have said, no. This is immoral. We cannot, start a state on the basis of an expulsion.
So it was never adopted, and actually, it was never adopted as policy even in 48. Even though Ben Gurion wanted as few Arabs in the course of the war staying in the Jewish state after they attacked it, he didn't want disloyal citizens staying there, because they wouldn't have been loyal citizens. But this made sense in the war itself. But the movement itself and its political parties never accepted it. It's true that in 1937, when the British, as part of the proposal by the Peel Commission, to divide the country into 2 states, 1 Arab, 1 Jewish, which the Arabs, of course, rejected.
Peel also recommended that the Arabs, most of the Arabs in the Jewish states to be, should be transferred. Because, otherwise, if they stayed and were disloyal to the emerging Jewish state, this would cause endless disturbances, warfare, killing, and so on. So Ben Gurion and Weizmann latched onto this proposal by the most famous America democracy in the world, the British democracy, when they proposed the idea of transfer side by side with the idea of partition, because it made sense. And they said, well, if the British say so, we should also advocate it. But they never actually tried to pass it as Zionist policy, and they fairly quickly stopped even talking about transfer after 1938.
Speaker 4: So just to clarify, what you're saying is that, 47 was an offensive war, not a defensive war.
Speaker 0: By the Arabs. Yes.
Speaker 4: By the Arabs?
Speaker 0: Yep.
Speaker 4: And you're also saying that there was never a top down policy of expulsion. Yes. Just to clarify the the point.
Speaker 3: If I understood you correctly, you're making you're making the claim that transfer, expulsion, and so on was was, in fact, a very localized phenomenon resulting resulting from individual land purchases. And that if I understand you correctly, you're also making the claim, that the idea that a Jewish state requires a, removal or overwhelming reduction of the non Jewish population
Speaker 0: was If the Arabs are attacking you, yes.
Speaker 3: But but that let's say prior to 1947, it would be your claim, that the idea that a significant reduction or wholesale removal of the Arab population was not part of of Zionist thinking. Well, I I think there's 2 problems with that. I think what you're saying about localized, disputes is correct. But I also think that, there is a whole literature that demonstrates, that transfer was envisioned by Zydus leaders on a much broader scale than simply individual land purchases. In other words, it it went way beyond we need to remove these tenants so that we can farm this land.
The idea was we can't have a state where all these Arabs remain, and we have to get rid of them. And the second, I think, impediment to to that view is that long before the UN General Assembly convened, to address the question of Palestine, Palestinian and Arab and other leaders as well had been warning ad infinitum that the purpose of the Zionist movement is not just to establish a Jewish state, but to establish an exclusivist, Jewish state. And that transfer, forced displacement, was fundamental, to that project. And just responding to, sorry, was it
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Bonnell or Bonnell. Yeah. With a b. Yeah. Yeah.
You made the point that, the the problem here is that people don't recognize is that the first and last result for the Arabs is always war. I think there's a problem with that. I think, you might do well to recall, the 1936 general strike conducted by Palestinians, at the beginning of the revolt, which at the time was the longest recorded, general strike in history. You may want to consult, the book, published last year by Laurie Allen, A History of False Hope, which discusses in great detail the consistent engagement by Palestinians, their leaders, their elites, their diplomats, and so on, With all these international committees, if we look at today, the Palestinians are once again going to the International Court of Court of Criminal Court to, do his job. They have launched widespread, boycott campaigns.
So, of course, the Palestinians have engaged in, military resistance. But I think the suggestion that this has always been their first and last resort and that they have somehow spurned civic action, spurned diplomacy, I I think really has no basis, in reality.
Speaker 2: I'll respond to that and then a question for Norm to take into account, I think, when he answers Ben. I am curious. Obviously, I have fresher eyes on this, and I'm a newcomer to this arena versus the 3 of you guys for sure. A claim that gets brought up a lot has to do with the inevitability of transfer in Zionism or the idea that as soon as the Jews envisioned a state in Palestine, they knew that it would involve some mass transfer of population, perhaps a mass expulsion. I'm sure we'll talk about plan d or plan d at some point.
The issue that I run into is, while you can find quotes from leaders, while you can find maybe desires expressed in diaries, I feel like it's hard to truly ever know if there would have been mass transfer in the face of Arab peace because I feel like every time there was a huge deal on the table that would have had a sizable Jewish and Arab population living together, the Arabs would reject it out of hand. So for instance, when we say that transfer was inevitable, when we say that Zionists would have never accepted, you know, a sizable Arab population, how do you explain the acceptance of the 47 partition plan that would have had a huge Arab population living in the Jewish state? Is your contention that after the acceptance of that, after the establishment of that state, that Jews would have slowly started to expel all of these Arab citizens from their country? Or how do you explain that in Lusan a couple years later that Israel was willing to formally annex the Gaza Strip and make 200,000 or so people those citizens? But I but I'm I'm just curious.
How how do we get this idea of Zionism always means mass transfer when there were times, at least early on in the history of Israel and and a little bit before it, where Israel would have accepted a state that would have had a massive Arab population in it. Is your, yeah, is your idea that they would have just slowly expelled them afterwards? Or
Speaker 3: Is that question to me or Norm?
Speaker 2: Either one. I'm just curious for the incorporation of the answer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's some misunderstandings here. So let's try to clarify that. Number 1, it was the old historians who would point to the fact, in professor Morris' terminology, the old historians were he called not real historians. He called them chroniclers, not real historians. It was the old Israeli historians who denied the centrality of transfer in Zionist thinking.
It was then professor Morris, who contrary to Israel's historic historian establishment, who said now you remind me it's 4 pages, but it came at the end of the book. It was No. No. It's at the beginning of the book. Transfer.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Transfer is dealt with in 4
Speaker 1: pages at the beginning Okay.
Speaker 0: Of my first book on the back of the refugee problem.
Speaker 1: It's a fourth of my memory, but the point still stands. It was professor Morris who introduced this idea in what you might call a big way.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But I didn't say it was central to the Zion design experimenter. Allow me. Allow me. You're saying centrality.
I never said it was central.
Speaker 1: I said
Speaker 0: it was there, the idea.
Speaker 4: It's by the way, it's okay to respond back and forth. This is great. And, also, just a quick question, if if I may.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 4: You're using quotes from from Benny, from professor Morris. It's also okay to say those quotes do not reflect the full confidence of the so, like, if we go back if, you know, to quotes we've said in the past, and you both here have written the 3 you have written on this topic a lot is we should be careful and just admit, like, well, yeah. Well, that's
Speaker 2: just real quick. Just to be clear that the contention is that Norm is quoting a part and saying that this was the entire reason for this, whereas Benny is saying it's a part of the
Speaker 1: I'm not quoting a part. I'm quoting 25 pages where professor Morris was at great pains to document the claim that appeared in those early four pages of his book. Now you say it never became part of the official Zionist platform.
Speaker 0: It never became part of policy.
Speaker 1: Fine. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's true.
Yeah. But it wasn't policy. You were also asked, well, this is true. Why did that happen? Why did that happen?
It's because it's a very simple fact which everybody understands. Ideology doesn't operate in a vacuum. There are real world practical problems. You can't just take an ideology and superimpose it on a political reality and turn it into a fact. It was the British mandate.
There was significant Arab resistance to Zionism, and that resistance was based on the fact, as you said, the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. So you couldn't very well expect the Zionist movement to come out in neon lights and announce, hey. We're going to be expelling you the first chance we get. Kicked it up. That's not realistic.
No.
Speaker 0: Kicked it up. Now Let let me respond. Look, you said you said it a number of times Mhmm. That the Arabs, from fairly early on in the big in the conflict, from the 18 nineties or the early 1900 said, the Jews intend to expel us. This doesn't mean that it's true.
It means that some Arabs said this, maybe believing it was true, maybe using it as a political instrument to gain support to mobilize Arabs against the Zionist experiment. But the fact is transfer did not occur before 1947. And Arabs later said, and then and since then, have said that the Jews want to build a third temple on the Temple Mount, as if that's what really the the mainstream of Zionism has always wanted and always strived for. But this is nonsense. It's something that Husseini used to use as a way to mobilize masses for the cause using religion as as the way to get them to to join join him.
The fact that Arabs said that they're, the the Zionists want to dispossess us doesn't mean it's true. It just means that there's some Arabs thought that, maybe and maybe said it even
Speaker 1: sincerely. Professor Morris
Speaker 0: Later, it became a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: This is true. Professor Morris.
Speaker 0: Arabs attacked the Jews.
Speaker 1: Professor Morris, I read through your stuff. Even yesterday, I was looking through righteous victim You should read out of things. You're wasting your time. No. You say that this wasn't inherent in Zionism.
Now would you agree that Ben Gurr David Ben Gurion was a Zionist?
Speaker 0: A zine an ancient Zionist leader. Right.
Speaker 1: Would you agree Chaim Weizmann was a Zionist? Yeah. Okay. I believe they were. I believe they took their ideology seriously.
It was the first generation. Just like with the Bolsheviks, the 1st generation was committed to an idea. By the 19 thirties, it was just pure realpolitik. The ideology went out the window. The 1st generation, I have no doubt about their convictions.
Okay? They were Zionists. Transfer was inevitable and inbuilt in Zionism. Now he's repeating the tapered. Because I have, as I said, Denny, mister Morris, I have a problem reconciling what you're saying.
It either was incidental, or it was deeply entrenched. Here, I read, it's deeply entrenched. 2 very resonant words, inevitable and inbuilt.
Speaker 0: Deeply entrenched, I never wrote.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure. It's something you just invented. Okay. But but Inevitable
Speaker 0: and it built The idea Okay.
Speaker 1: Let me concede let me concede something.
Speaker 0: The idea of transfer was there. Israel Zangville, a British Zionist, talked about it early on in the century. Even Herzl, in some way, talked about transferring population.
Speaker 1: Your 25 pages, everybody talked about it.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a we keep bringing up this line from the 25 page and the 4 pages. You know, we're lucky to have Benny in front of us right now. We don't need to go to the quotes. Like, we can legitimately ask how central is expulsion to Zionism, in its early version of Zionism and what whatever Zionism is today and how much power, influence does Zionism and ideology have in Israel and the, like, influence, the the philosophy, the ideology of Zionism have on Israel today?
Speaker 0: The Zionist movement up to 1948, Zionist ideology was central to the the whole Zionist experience, the whole enterprise up to 1948. And I think Zionist ideology was also important in the 1st decades of Israel's existence. Slowly, the the the hold of Zionism, like, if you like, like like Bolshevism held the Soviet Union, gradually faded. And a lot of Israelis today think in terms of individual success and then the capitalism and all all sorts of things which have nothing to do with the Zionism. But Zionism was very important.
But what I'm saying is that the idea of transfer wasn't the core of Zionism. The idea of Zionism was to save the Jews who had been vastly persecuted in Eastern Europe and incidentally, in the Arab world, the Muslim world, for centuries, and eventually ending up with the Holocaust. The idea of Zionism was to save the Jewish people by establishing a state or reestablishing a Jewish state on the ancient Jewish homeland, which is something the Arabs today even deny, that there were Jews in Palestine or the land of Israel 2000 years ago. Arafat famously said, what temple was there on Temple Mount? Maybe it was in Nablus, which, of course, is nonsense.
But but then they had a connect strong connection for 1000 of years to the land to which they wanted to return and return there. They found that on the land lived hundreds of thousands of Arabs, and the question was how to accommodate the vision of a Jewish state in Palestine alongside the existence of these Arab masses living on were indigenous, in fact, to the land by that stage. And the idea of partition, because they couldn't live together because the Arabs didn't want to live together with the Jews. And I think the Jews also didn't want to live together in one state with Arabs in general. The idea of partition was the thing which, the Zionists accepted.
Okay. We can we can only get a small part of Palestine. The Arabs will get in 37. Most of Palestine. In 1947, the the ratios were changed, but we can we can live side by side with each other in a partitioned Palestine.
And this was the essence of it. The idea of transfer was there, but it was never adopted but as policy. But in 1947, 48, the Arabs attacked, trying to destroy, essentially, the Jewish the Zionist enterprise and the emergent Jewish state. And, the reaction was a transfer in some way. Not as policy, but this is what happened on the battlefield.
And this is also what Ben Gurion, at some point, began to want as well.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, one of the first, books on this issue, I read, when I was still in high school, because my my late father had it, was the diaries of Theodor Herzl. And I think, you know, Theodor Herzl, of course, was was the founder of of the contemporary Zionist movement. And I think if you read that, it's very clear. For Herzl, the model upon which the Zionist movement would, would proceed, his model was Cecil Rhodes. His, I think, you know, Rhodes, from what I recall, correct me if I'm wrong, has quite a prominent place in, Hertzel's diaries.
I think Hertzel was also corresponding, with him and seeking his support. Cecil Rhodes, of course, was, was the, British, colonialist after whom the former white minority regime in, in Rhodesia, was named. And Herzl also says explicitly in his diaries that it is essential, to remove, the existing population from Palestine. Can I
Speaker 1: respond to this quite quickly?
Speaker 3: In a moment, please. He says we shall have to spirit the penniless population across the borders and procure employment for them elsewhere or something. And and Israel Zangwill, who you mentioned, a land without a people for a people without a land. They knew damn well it wasn't a people, a land without a people. I'll continue, but I'll please, go ahead.
Speaker 0: Just to this there is one small diary entry in Herzl's vast
Speaker 3: It's 5 volumes.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Five volumes. There's 1 paragraph which actually mentions the idea of transfer. There There are people who I think that Herzl was actually pointing to South America when he was talking about that. The Jews were going to move to Argentina, and then they would try and buy out or buy off or spirit the the penniless natives, to make way for Jewish settlement.
Maybe he wasn't even talking about the Arabs in that particular passage. That's the argument of some people. Maybe he was. But the point is, it it has only a one hundredth of a 1 percent of the diary which is devoted to this subject. It's not a central idea in in Herzl in Herzl's thinking.
The what Herzl wanted, and this is what's important, not Rhodes. I don't think he was the model. Herzl wanted to create a liberal democratic western state in Palestine for the Jews. That's that was the idea. Not some imperial enterprise serving some imperial master, which is what Rhodes was about.
But to have a Jewish state which was modeled on the Western democracies in in Palestine. And this, incidentally, was more or less what Weitzman and Ben Gurion Ben Gurion wanted. They Ben Gurion was more of a socialist. Weitzman was more of a liberal, Westerner. But they wanted to establish a social democratic or liberal state in Palestine.
And they both envisioned, through most of the years of their activity, that there would be an Arab minority in that Jewish state. It's true that Ben Gurion strived to have, as small as possible an Arab minority in the Jewish state because he knew that if you want a Jewish majority state, that that would be necessary. But it's not something which they were willing to translate into actual policy.
Speaker 4: Just a quick pause to to mention that for people who are not familiar, Caesar Herzl, we're talking about over a century ago, and everything we've been talking about has been mostly 1948 and before. Yes.
Speaker 3: Just one clarification on Herzl's diaries. I mean, the other thing that I recall from those diaries is he was, he was very preoccupied with, in fact, getting great power patronage, seeing Palestine, the Jewish state in Palestine, I think his words, an outpost of civilization against barbarism. Yes. In other words, very much, seeing his project as a proxy as a proxy for Western imperialism in the Middle East.
Speaker 0: The right word. Not proxy. He wanted to establish a Jewish state which would be independent. To get that, he hoped that he would be be able to, garner support from major imperial powers.
Speaker 3: Including the including the Ottoman Sultan
Speaker 0: Yes. Who
Speaker 3: he tried to cultivate. I just want to respond to a point you made earlier, which was that people expressed their rejection of the partition resolution on the grounds that it gave the majority of the of Palestine to the Jewish community, which formed only a third. Whereas, in fact, if I understood you correctly, you're saying the Palestinians and the Arabs would have rejected any partition resolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I I think A couple of things. So one, they would have rejected any. 2, a lot of that land given was in the Negev. It was pretty terrible land at the time.
And then 3, the land that would have been partitioned to Jews, I think, would have been, I think I saw it was, like, 500,000 air it would have been 500,000 Jews, 400,000 Arabs, and I think, like, 80,000 Bedouin would have been there. So the the state would have been Well, I
Speaker 3: I think you raise a valid point, because I think the Palestinians did reject the partition of their homeland in principle. And I think the fact that, the United Nations General Assembly then awarded the majority of their homeland, to the Zionist movement, only added insult to injury. I mean, one doesn't have to sympathize with the Palestinians, to recognize that they have now been a stateless people for 75 years. Can you name any country, yours for example or yours, that would be prepared to give 55%, 25%, 10% of your country to the Palestinians? Of course not.
And so, the issue was not the existence of Jews in Palestine. They had been there for centuries. And, of course, they had ties to Palestine and particularly to Jerusalem and and other places going back centuries, if not millennia. But the idea of establishing an exclusively Jewish state at the expense of those who are already living there, I think it was right to reject that. And I don't think we can look back now 75 years later and say, well, you should have accepted losing 55% of your homeland because you ended up losing 78% of The addition the remaining 22% was occupied in 1967.
That's that's not how things work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I can I can imagine I can imagine an American rejecting giving 10% of the United States to the Palestinians? And if that rejection leads to war and you lose half your country, I doubt that 50 years from now, you're going to say, well, maybe I should have accepted that.
Speaker 2: Sure. So I like this answer more than what I usually feel like I'm hearing when it comes to the Palestinian rejection of the 40 suburb petition plan. Because sometimes I feel like a weird switch happens to where the Arabs in the area are actually presented as entirely pragmatic people who are simply doing a calculation and saying, like, well, we're losing 55% of our land. Jews are only maybe 1 third of the people here, and we've got 45 and, no, the math doesn't work, basically. But it wasn't a math problem.
I think, like you said It was
Speaker 3: a matter of principle.
Speaker 2: It was an ideology problem.
Speaker 3: No. It was a matter of principle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ideologically driven. That that they, as a as a people, have a right to or entitled to this land that they've never actually had an independent state on, that they've never had even a guarantee of an independent state on, that they've never actually ruled
Speaker 0: a government bond.
Speaker 3: That last point is actually not correct because, for all its injustice, the mandate system recognized Palestine as a class a mandate, which provisionally recognized the independence of of that territory.
Speaker 2: Of what would emerge from but not
Speaker 3: the Palestinian. Was provisionally recognized.
Speaker 2: But not but the the territory itself was, but not of the Palestinian people to have a right or a guarantee to a government that would
Speaker 3: have It was the British mandate of Palestine, not the British mandate of Israel.
Speaker 0: The word exclusive, which you keep using, is nonsense. The state which Ben Gurion envisioned would be a Jewish majority state, as they accepted the 1947 partition resolution, as Stephen said, that included 400,000 plus Arabs in a state which would have 500,000 Jews. So the idea of exclusivity wasn't anywhere in the air at all among the Zionist leaders I
Speaker 2: think it was.
Speaker 0: In 47, 48. They wanted a Jewish majority state that were willing to accept the state which had 40% Arabs. That's one point. The second thing is the Palestinians may have regarded the land of Palestine as their homeland, but so did the Jews. It was the homeland of the Jews as well.
The problem was the Arabs were unable and remain to this day unable to recognize that for the Jews, that is their homeland as well. And the problem then is, how do you share this homeland? Either with 1 binational state or separate this partition into 2 states. The problem is that the Arabs have always rejected both of these ideas. The homeland belongs to the Jews as Jews feel as much as it does
Speaker 3: I think I would say for the Arabs. Jews.
Speaker 0: I would say for the Jews. It's the Jewish people who homeland.
Speaker 2: Real quick, I just want for both of you guys, because I haven't heard these questions answered. I really want these questions to be I'm just so curious how to make sense of them. It was correctly brought up that I believe that Ben Gurion had, I think Shlomo Benoming describes it as an obsession with getting validation or support from Western states. Great Britain and then a couple decades later It explains
Speaker 3: us it was war. Yeah. Crisis.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Correct. That was one of the major motivators, the idea to work with Britain and France on a military operation. Israel stood. But then the question again I go back to, if that is true, if Ben Gurion if the early, Israel saw themselves as a western fashion nation, how could we possibly imagine that they would have engaged in the transfer of some 400 1,000 Arabs after accepting the partition plan?
Would that not have completely and totally destroyed their legitimacy in the eyes of the entire Western world? Would that not have been how not?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I think that that Zionist leadership's acceptance of, the partition resolution, and I think you may have written about this, that they accepted it because it provided international endorsement of the the legitimacy of the principle of Jewish statehood. And they didn't accept the borders, and, in fact, later expanded the borders. 2nd of all,
Speaker 2: the borders, the borders were expanded in a war.
Speaker 0: They accepted the UN Partition Resolution, borders and all. They they accepted
Speaker 3: they accepted the
Speaker 0: You can say that some of the Zionists, deep in their hearts, had the the idea that maybe at some point, they're able to get more.
Speaker 3: Including their most senior leaders who said so. And I think you've quoted them, 6 states.
Speaker 0: Grudgingly accepted what the United Nations, the world community, had said this is what you're going
Speaker 3: to get. And and second of all, I mean, removing dark people, darker people, it's it's dark. It's it's intrinsic. It's intrinsic. As dark
Speaker 0: as Arabs.
Speaker 3: It's it's intrinsic to Western history. So the idea that Americans or Brits or the French would have an issue with I mean, the French had been doing it in Algeria for decades. The Americans have been doing it in North America for centuries. So how would Israel, forcibly displacing, Palestinians, somehow besmirch, Israel in the eyes of
Speaker 4: the West?
Speaker 1: In the 1940 4 resolution of the Labour Party. And at the time, even Bertrand Russell was a member of the Labour Party. It endorsed transfer of Arabs out of Palestine. As Muwins pointed out, that was a deeply entrenched idea in Western thinking that there was nothing, it doesn't in any way contradict or violate or breach any moral values to displace, the Palestinian population. Now I do believe there's a legitimate question.
Had it been the case, as you said, professor Morris, that the Zionists wanted to create a happy state with a Jewish majority, but a large Jewish minority. And if by virtue of immigration, like in our own country In our own country, given the current trajectories, nonwhites who become the majority population in our the United States quite soon. And according to democratic principles, we have to accept that. So if that were the case, I would say maybe there is an argument that had there been mass Jewish immigration, changed the demographic balance in Palestine, and therefore, Jews became the majority. You can make an argument in the abstract that the indigenous Arab population should have been accepting of that just as whites in the United States, quote, unquote, whites, have to be accepting of the fact that the demographic majority is shifting to nonwhites in our own country.
But that's not what Zionism was about. I did write my doctoral dissertation on Zionism, and I don't want to get now bogged down in abstract ideas. But as I suspect you know, most theorists of nationalism say there are 2 kinds of nationalism. 1 a nationalism based on citizenship. You become a citizen, you're integral to the country.
That's sometimes called political nationalism. And then there's another kind of nationalism. And that says, the state should not belong to its citizens, It should belong to an ethnic group. Each ethnic group should have its own state. It's usually called the German romantic idea of nationalism.
Zionism is squarely in the German romantic idea. That was the whole point of Zionism. We don't want to be Bundists and be one more ethnic minority in Russia. We don't want to become citizens and just become a Jewish people in England or France. We want our own state.
Like like the Arab,
Speaker 0: the 20 3 states. States.
Speaker 1: No. Wait. Let's before we get to the Arabs, let's get let's stick to the Jews for a moment or the Zionists. We want our own state. And in that concept of wanting your own state, the minority at best, lives on sufferance, and at worst, gets expelled.
That's the logic of the German romantic Zionist idea of a state. That's why they're Zionists. Now I personally have shied away from using the word Zionism ever since I finished my doctoral dissertation
Speaker 3: because as I painful.
Speaker 1: Because as I said, I don't believe it's the operative ideology today. It's like talking about Bolshevism and referring to Khrushchev. I doubt Khrushchev could have spelled Bolshevik. But for the period we're talking about, they were Zionists. They were committed to their exclusive state with with a minority living on sufferance or, at worst, expelled.
That was their ideology. And I really feel there's a problem with your happy vision of these western Democrats like Weizmann, and they wanted to live peacefully with the Arabs. Weizmann described the explosion in 1948 as, quote, the miraculous clearing of the land. That doesn't sound like somebody shedding too many tears at the loss of the indigenous population.
Speaker 0: Let me use you you the word
Speaker 1: on the
Speaker 3: letter of respondents.
Speaker 0: The the I don't agree with. I think that's wrong. Mhmm. The Jewish state came into being in 1948. It had a population which was 20% Arab when it came into being after Arab refugees.
Many of them had become refugees, but 20% remained in the country. 20% of Israel's population at inception in 1949 was Arab.
Speaker 3: 80% went missing.
Speaker 0: No. No. No. No. I was talking about what remained in Palestine, Israel after it was created.
The 20% who lived in Israel received citizenship and all the rights of Israelis, except, of course, the right to serve an army, which they didn't want to. And, they have Supreme Court justices. They have Knesset members. They enjoy basic under emergency laws until 1964. 4 period.
Sure. They lived under emergency laws until 1964. No no no no. No no no. Wait.
At the beginning at the beginning it's not fantasy. At the beginning, they received citizenship, could vote in elections for their own people, and they were put into parliament. But in the 1st years, the Israeli the Jewish majority suspected that maybe the Arabs would be disloyal because they had just tried to destroy the Jewish state. Then they dropped the military government, and they became fully equal citizens. So if the whole idea was they must have a state without Arabs, this didn't happen in 49, and it didn't happen in the in September.
So why did you
Speaker 1: say professor Morris Yes. Then why did you say without a population expulsion, a Jewish state would not have been established?
Speaker 0: Because the you're missing the first section of that paragraph, which was they were being assaulted by the Arabs. And as a result, a Jewish state could not have come into being unless there had also been an expulsion of the population which was trying to kill them.
Speaker 4: Norm, I'm officially forbidding you referencing that again. I I think Hold on a second, Wayne. We responded to it. So the the main point you're making, we have to take Beni Eda's word, is, like, there was, a war, and that's the reason why he made that statement.
Speaker 3: I think that just one last point on this. I I remember reading your book when it first came out and and and reading, you know, one incident after product of war, not design. I think we're exact and I remember reacting almost in in in in shock to that that I felt you had mobilized overwhelming evidence that it was a product of design, not war. And I think our discussion today very much, reflects, let's say, the dissonance, between the evidence and the conclusion. You don't feel that that the, the research that you have conducted and published demonstrates that it was, in fact, inherent and and built and inevitable.
And I think the point that Norm and I are making is is that your own historical research, together with that of others, indisputably demonstrates that it does. I think that's a fundamental disagreement we're having
Speaker 2: here. Can I wait? Yeah. Can I actually respond to that? Because this is actually, I think this is emblematic of the entire conversation.
I watched a lot of Norm's interviews and conversations in preparation for this. And I hear Normals say this all over and over and over again. I only deal in facts. I don't deal in hypotheticals. I only deal in facts.
I only deal in facts. And that seems to be the case except for when the facts are completely and totally contrary to the particular point you're trying to push. The idea that Jews would have, out of hand, rejected any state that had Arabs on it or always had a plan of expulsion is just betrayed by the acceptance of the 40 7 partition plan.
Speaker 1: I don't think you understand politics. Did I just say that there is a chasm that separates your ideology from the limits and constraints imposed by politics and reality. Now Professor Morris, I suspect, would agree that the Zionist movement from fairly early on was committed to the idea of a Jewish state. I am aware of only one major study, probably written 40 years ago, the the binational idea in mandatory Palestine by a woman. I forgot her name now.
You remember her.
Speaker 0: I'm trying to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Would you know the book?
Speaker 0: I think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She is the only one who tried to persuasively argue that the Zionist movement was actually not formally committed to the binational idea. But most historians of the subject agree the Zionist movement was committed to the idea of a Jewish state. Having written my doctoral dissertation on the topic, I was confirmed in that idea because professor Chomsky, who was my closest friend for about 40 years, was very committed to the idea that binationalism was the dominant trend in Zionism. I could not agree with I couldn't go with him there.
But, professor Morris, you are aware that until the Biltmore Resolution in 1942, the Zionist movement never declared it was for a Jewish state. Why? Because it was politically impossible at the moment until 1942. There is your ideology. There are your convictions.
There are your operative plans, and there's also, separately, what you say in public. The Zionist movement couldn't say in public, we're expelling all the Arabs. They can't say that. And they couldn't even say, we support a Jewish state until 1942.
Speaker 0: You're conflating 2 things. The the the Zionists wanted a Jewish state. Correct? That didn't That didn't mean expulsion of the Arabs. It's not the same thing.
They wanted a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, but they were willing, as it turned out, both in 37 and in 4047, and subsequently, to have an Arab minority. There was a trans A large Arab minority.
Speaker 1: 7. There was a trans
Speaker 0: to have a large Arab minority in the country, and they ended up with a large Arab minority in the country.
Speaker 1: 20% of the population in 49 was
Speaker 0: fed up. And it still
Speaker 1: is They ended up for about 5 minutes before they were expelled. They agreed to win until 47, and then they were gone by March 1949.
Speaker 2: What happened in between the rejection of the partition plan and the expulsion of the Arabs?
Speaker 0: The Arabs launched a war.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Well, I mean, like, it's not it wasn't random. Like, there is a potential that I agree.
Speaker 1: It wasn't random. There
Speaker 3: was I
Speaker 1: totally agree with that. Yeah. It was by design.
Speaker 2: You can say that you can say that, but in this case, the facts betray you. There was no Arab acceptance of anything that would have allowed for a Jewish state to exist. Of course. Number 1. And number 2, I think that it's entirely possible given how things happen after war that this exact same conflict could have played out, and an expulsion would have happened without any ideology at play.
That there was a people that disagreed on who had territorial rights to a land. There was a massive war afterwards and then a bunch of their friends invaded after to reinforce the idea that the Jewish people in this case couldn't have a state. There could have been a transfer regardless.
Speaker 1: Anything could have been, but that's not what history is about. History is about Palestinian rejections up
Speaker 2: to any peace deal As
Speaker 1: I said over
Speaker 2: and over and over again.
Speaker 1: When the ball was thrown into the court of the United Nations, they were faced with a practical problem. And I, for 1, am not going to try to adjudicate the rights and wrongs from the beginning. I do not believe that if territorial displacement and dispossession was inherent in the Zionist project, I do not believe it can be a legitimate political enterprise. Now you might say that's speaking from 2022 or 2020 where are
Speaker 3: we going? 4th now.
Speaker 2: 4th now. 4th now.
Speaker 1: 4th now. Okay. But we have to recognize that from nearly the beginning, for perfectly obvious reasons, having nothing to do with antisemitism, anti Westernism, anti Europeanism, but because no people that I am aware of would voluntarily cede its country.
Speaker 2: A terrible example of a soul can't voluntarily.
Speaker 1: You can perfectly understand Native American resistance to Euro colonialism, you can perfectly well understand it, without any anti Europeanism, anti whitism, anti Christianism. They didn't wanna cede their country to invaders.
Speaker 0: I think you're
Speaker 1: That's completely understandable.
Speaker 0: You're minimizing the anti Semitic element. You minimize In Arab and nationalist
Speaker 1: In all your books, you minimized.
Speaker 0: No. No. No. The the Husseini was an anti Semite, The leader of the Palestinian National Movement in the thirties and forties was an anti Semite. This was one of the things which drove him and also drove him in the end to work in Berlin for Hitler for 4 years with Nazi giving Nazi propaganda to the Arab world, calling on the Arabs to murder the Jews.
That's what he did in World War 2. That's the leader of the Palestinian Arab National Movement.
Speaker 1: Why is it?
Speaker 0: And he wasn't alone. He wasn't alone. Sir. He wasn't able
Speaker 1: What is it that if you read your book, Righteous Victims, you can read it and read it and read it and read it as I have, you will find barely a word about the Arabs being motivated by antisemitism.
Speaker 0: It exists, though.
Speaker 1: David, I didn't say it doesn't exist.
Speaker 0: You agree that it exists.
Speaker 1: Hey. I don't know a single non Jew who doesn't harbor antisemitic stuff.
Speaker 0: Arabs know.
Speaker 1: But I don't know anybody. That's just part of the human condition.
Speaker 0: Antisemitism. I'll
Speaker 2: just saying it was important
Speaker 0: and among the Arabs.
Speaker 1: So, Professor Morris, here's my problem. I didn't see that in your righteous victims. Even when you talked about the 1st intifada, and you talked about the 2nd intifada, and you talked about how there was a lot of influence by Hamas, the Islamic movement. You even stated that there was a lot of antisemitism in those movements, but then you went on to say, but, of course, at bottom, it was about the occupation. It wasn't about I've read it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. You're moving from different ages. Across the ages.
Speaker 1: About your
Speaker 0: whole book. The doctor Fechin began in 67, the one you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I looked and looked and looked for evidence of this antisemitism as being a chief motor of Arab resistance to, Zionism. I didn't see it.
Speaker 0: You like
Speaker 2: did he make that claim?
Speaker 0: I don't remember the word chief.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: it's a one of the elements.
Speaker 2: The very binary people. The communist. Yes. Binary.
Speaker 1: Anyways, don't give me this postmodernism binary. You're the one. Thinking in terms of black and white said to
Speaker 0: the chief motor. Point. Do you
Speaker 1: have your book here? You talk
Speaker 0: about black It's 130 7. Book in black
Speaker 1: and white concepts. 37.
Speaker 0: You're you're talking in black and white concepts when history is much grayer. Lots of things happen because of lots of reasons, not one or the other. And and you you don't you don't seem to see that.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a question? Because it's for them to talk to. Just a very quick question. What was what do you think the ideal solution was on the Arab side from 47? What would they have preferred?
Speaker 0: And what
Speaker 2: would have happened if and then then the second one, what would have happened if Jews would have lost the war in 48? What do you think would have happened to the Israeli population? Jewish population.
Speaker 3: I think the the Palestinians and the Arabs, were explicit that they wanted a unitary, I think, federal, state. And and they made their submissions to, UNSCOP. They made their, appeals at the UN General Assembly.
Speaker 0: What do you mean by Unitarian Federal? I don't get that. They wanted an Arab state. They wanted Palestine to be an Arab state.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes. They simply They're not
Speaker 0: the word unitary, federal. They wanted Palestine as Arab and exclusively Arab state.
Speaker 3: No. Wasn't an no. Wasn't an exclusively Arab state. I think we have to distinguish between Palestinian and Arab opposition to a Jewish state in Palestine on the one hand and, Palestinian and Arab attitudes to, Jewish existence in Palestine. There's a fundamental difference.
Speaker 0: Well, Husseini, the leader of the movement, said that all the Jews would come since 1917, and that's the majority of the Jews in Palestine in 1947, shouldn't be there. Well, he did say be citizens, and he shouldn't be there. He did he did say
Speaker 1: that. Yeah. Sure. He's not saying denial. Also said that.
It's true. I can understand the sentiment, but I think it's wrong.
Speaker 2: I want
Speaker 0: we agree with the I
Speaker 1: I wonder how to tell you guys earlier.
Speaker 2: You used the words earlier that it was supremacy and exclusivity that the Zion
Speaker 3: I wanna answer your question. As you Husseini did say that, and I'm sure there was a very substantial body of Palestinian Arab public opinion that endorsed that. But by the same token, I think, unitary Arab states, as you call it, or a Palestinian state could have been established with arrangements, with guarantees, to ensure the security and rights of of both communities. How that would work in detail had had been, discussed and proposed but never resolved. And again, I think, you know, Jewish fears about what would
Speaker 0: have happened. Holocaust. That's what Well,
Speaker 1: no.
Speaker 3: I I think That
Speaker 0: was the Jewish fear. A second Holocaust.
Speaker 3: That that may well have been the Jewish fear. It was an unfounded, Jewish fear.
Speaker 2: It was unfounded?
Speaker 3: Of course, it was unfounded.
Speaker 2: What about, like, in 48 and 56?
Speaker 3: You really think you really think that the Palestinians had they won the war were going to import ovens and crematoria
Speaker 2: from Germany. And and no across in almost every single Arab state where there were Jews living after after 48, after 56, after 67. There were always programs. There were always flights from Jews from those countries to Israel afterward. I don't think it would
Speaker 1: be I
Speaker 3: wouldn't I wouldn't say there were always pogroms in every Arab state. I think there was flight of of, Arab Jews for multiple reasons. In some cases, for precisely the reasons you say. If you look at the Jewish community in Algeria, for example, their flight had virtually nothing to do with, the Arab Israeli conflict. The issue of of Algerian Jews was that the French gave them citizenship during their colonial rule of Algeria, and they increasingly became identified, with French rule.
And when Algeria became independent and, all the French, ended up, leaving out of fear or out of disappointment or out of whatever, the Jews were identified as French rather than Algerian.
Speaker 0: This is a bit of a red herring. There were pogroms in the Arab countries, in Bahrain even, where there's almost no Jews. There was a pogrom in 1947. Was a pogrom in Aleppo in 1940
Speaker 3: I'm not denying any of that history.
Speaker 0: Killings, of Jews in Iraq and Egypt I'm not In 1948, 49.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing it.
Speaker 0: So so but the Arabs the Jews basically fled the Arab states, not for multiple reasons. They fled because they felt that the governments there and the societies amid amid which they had lived for 100 of years no longer wanted them.
Speaker 3: Look. Without without getting into the details, I think we can both agree that, ultimately, a clear majority of Arab Jews who believe that after having lived in these countries for Wait a for centuries Arabs. Wait a minute. For centuries before that happened. In Iraq.
Speaker 0: In Iraq.
Speaker 3: For centuries, if not millennia, came to the unfortunate conclusion that their situation had become untenable. Yes. I also think, that we can both agree that this had never been an issue prior to Zionism and the emergence of the state of Israel.
Speaker 0: Fired from Zionism.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm
Speaker 0: not Groms didn't begin with Zionism in the Arab world.
Speaker 3: The issue is is is is the point I raised, which is whether these communities had ever come to a collective conclusion that their position had become untenable in this part of the world. No. They were Arab Jews.
Speaker 2: Well, because untenable meant there was no alternative, but with the creation of Israel, there was an alternative. Right? A place where they could go and not be discriminated against or live as second class citizens or be subject to Arab majority states. I I also think it's interesting that, like, when you analyze the, the flight of Jewish people, and I've seen this that there it's not it wasn't just I agree with you. It wasn't just a mass expulsion from all the Arab states.
There were definitely push factors. There were also pull factors. Now Now I don't know how you guys feel about the Nakba, but when the analysis the Nakba comes in, again, it's back to that well that was actually just a top down expulsion, you know, the retreat of wealthy Arab people in the thirties didn't matter, any of the messaging from the surrounding Arab states didn't matter, it was just an expulsion from Jewish people or people running from their lives from Jewish massacres. Again, it's like I feel like it has selective. It's a selective critical analysis of the the
Speaker 3: term Jewish here because it wasn't the, you know, the Jews of England or the Soviet Jews.
Speaker 2: Why say Jewish is prior to 48? I think we should
Speaker 3: I think it's useful to to say, refer to Zionists before 1948 and Israelis after 48. We don't need to implicate.
Speaker 2: Well, sure. But the but the Jewish people that were being attacked in Arab states weren't Zionists. They were just Jews living there. Right?
Speaker 1: Just comment on that. I was rereading Shlomo Ben Ami's last book, and he does, at the end, discuss at some length the whole issue of the refugee question bearing on the so called peace process. And on the question of 48 and the Arab immigration, if you allow me, let me just quote him. Israel is particularly fond of the awkwardly false symmetry she makes between the Palestinian refugee crisis and the forced emigration of 600,000 Jews from Arab countries following the creation of the state of Israel as if it were, quote, an unplanned exchange of unpopulations, unquote. And then mister Ben Ami, for those of you who are listening, he was Israel's former foreign minister.
And he's an influential historian in his own right. He says, in fact, envoys from the Mossad and the Jewish Agency worked underground in Arab countries and Iran to encourage Jews to go to Israel. More importantly, for many Jews in Arab states, the very possibility of immigrating to Israel was the culmination of millennial aspirations. It represented the consummation of a dream to take part in Israel's resurgence as a nation. So this idea that they were all expelled after 1948, it's that's one area, professor Moritz.
I defer to expertise. That's one of my credos in life. I don't know the Israeli literature, but as it's been translated in English, there is very little solid scholarship on what happened in 1948 in the Arab countries and which caused the Jews to leave. Arab Jews. The Arab Jews.
Right. But, Shlomo Ben Ami knows the literature. He knows the scholarship.
Speaker 0: He knows the history. From Tangiers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. From Morocco. Right. So he knows the
Speaker 3: Islam from Iraq.
Speaker 0: And It's
Speaker 3: written on this issue.
Speaker 0: And they wrote that the Jews in the Arab lands were not pro Zionist. They weren't Zionist at all. So certainly, Avi Shlaim's family was anti Zionist.
Speaker 1: And Avi Shlaim, when he was interviewed by Meryn Rapoport on this question, he said, you simply cannot say that the Iraqi Jews were expelled. It's just not true. And he was speaking as an Iraqi Jew who left with his father, family in 1948. They were
Speaker 0: pushed out. They weren't expelled. That that's probably the right phrase.
Speaker 3: I I think it's I think it's more complex than than that. I think it was. Sorry. I interrupted you.
Speaker 1: You're not interrupting me because I don't I I only know what's been translated into English, and the English literature on the subject is very small and not scholarly. Now there may be an, Hebrew literature. I don't know. But I was surprised that even Shlomo Ben Ami, a stalwart of his state, fair enough, on this particular point, he called it false symmetry.
Speaker 0: No. No. Steven is right. There was a pull and a push mechanism in the departure of the Jews from the Arab lands post 48. But there was also a lot of push.
Speaker 3: That's that's indisputable. There was put
Speaker 4: and on the point of agreement, let us on this one brief light of agreement, let us wrap up with this, topic of history and move on to modern day. But before that, I'm wondering if, we can just say a couple of last words on this topic. Steven?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that when you look at the behaviors of both parties, in in the time period around 48 or especially 48 and earlier, there's this assumption that there was this huge built in mechanism of Zionism and that it was going to be inevitable from the inception of the first Zionist thought, I I guess, that appeared in Herzl's mind that there would be a mass violent population transfer of Arab Palestinians out of what would become the Israeli state. I understand that there are some quotes that we can find that maybe seem to possibly support an idea that looks close to that, but I think when you actually consult the record of what happened, when you look at the populations, the massive populations that Israel was willing to accept, within what would become their state borders, their nation borders, I just don't think that the historical record agrees with the idea that Zionist would have just never been okay living alongside Arab Palestinians. But when you look at the other side, Arabs would out of hand reject literally any deal that apportioned any amount of that land for any state relating to Jewish people or the Israeli people.
I think it was said even on the other end of the table that, Arab Palestinians would have never accepted the Arabs would have never accepted any Jewish state whatsoever. So it's interesting that on the ideology part where it's claimed that Zionists are people of exclusion and supremacy and expulsion, we can find that in diary entries, but we can find that expressed in very real terms on the Arab side, I think, in all of their behavior around 48 and earlier where the goal was the destruction of the Israeli state, it would have been the dispossession of any Jewish people, it probably would have been the expulsion of a lot of them back to Europe, And I think that very clearly plays out in the difference between the actions of the Arabs versus some diary entries of some Jewish leaders.
Speaker 4: Benny?
Speaker 0: Well, one thing which stood stood out, and I think made this point, is that the Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust, but then the world community forced the Arabs to pay the price for the Holocaust. That's the traditional Arab argument. This is slightly distorting the reality. The Arabs in the 1930s did their utmost to prevent Jewish emigration from Europe and reaching Palestine, which was the only safe haven available because America, Britain, France, nobody wanted Jews anywhere. And they were being persecuted in Central Europe and eventually would be massacred in large numbers.
So the Arab efforts to pressure the British to prevent Jews reaching Palestine's safe shores contributed indirectly to the slaughter of many Jews in Europe because they couldn't get to anywhere, and they couldn't get to Palestine because the Arabs were busy attacking Jews in Palestine and attacking the British to make sure they didn't allow Jews to reach the safe haven. That's important. The second thing is, of course, there's no point in belittling the fact that the Arab Palestinian Arab National Movement's leader, Husseini, worked for the Nazis in the 19 forties. He got a salary from, the German foreign ministry. He raised troops among Muslims in Bosnia for the SS, and he broadcast to the Arab world calling for the murder of the Jews in the Middle East.
This is what he did. And the Arabs, since then have been trying to whitewash, Husseini's role. I'm not saying he was the instigator of the Holocaust, but he did say he helped the Germans along in in doing what they were doing, and and supported them in doing that. So this can't be removed from the fact that the Arabs, as you say, paid a price for the Holocaust, but they also participated in various ways in helping it happen.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I'll make two points. The first is, you mentioned Hajime al Husseini and his, collaboration with the Nazis. Entirely legitimate point to raise, but I think one can also say definitively had Hajj, I mean, that Hosseini never existed, the holocaust would have played out precisely
Speaker 0: Certainly.
Speaker 3: As it did. Certainly. As far as Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration to Palestine, during the 19 thirties is concerned, it was of a different character than, for example, British and American, rejection of, Jewish immigration. They just didn't want Jews on their soil.
Speaker 0: Objectively, it helped the Germans kill the Jews.
Speaker 3: In the Palestinian case, their opposition to Jewish immigration was to prevent the transformation of their homeland into a Jewish state that would dispossess them. And I think that's an important distinction to make. The other point I wanted to make is we've we've spent the past several hours talking about, Zionism transfer and so on, but I think there's a more fundamental aspect to this, which is that, Zionism, I think, would have emerged and disappeared as yet one more utopian political project had it not been for the British, what the preeminent Palestinian historian, Waleed Khalidi, has termed the British shield. Because I think without the British sponsorship, we wouldn't be having this discussion today. The British, sponsored Zionism for a very simple reason, which is that during World War 1, the Ottoman armies attempted to march on the Suez, Canal.
Suez Canal was the jugular vein of, the British Empire, you know, between, Europe and India. And the British came to the conclusion that they needed to secure the Suez Canal from any threat. And as the British have done so often in so many places, how do you deal with this? Well, you know, you you bring in a, foreign minority, implant them amongst a hostile, population, and establish a protectorate over them. I don't think, a Jewish state in Palestine had been part of British intentions, and the Balfour Declaration very specifically speaks about a Jewish national home in Palestine.
In other words, a British protectorate, things ended up taking a different course. And I think the the the most important development was, World War 2, and I think this had maybe less to do with the holocaust and more to do with the effective bankruptcy of the United Kingdom, during that war and its inability to sustain, its global, empire. It ended up giving up India, ended up giving up, Palestine. And it's in that context, I think, that we need to see, the emergence of a, of a Jewish state in Palestine. And, again, a Jewish state means a state in which the Jewish community enjoys, not only a demographic majority, but an uncontestable demographic majority, an uncontestable territorial, hegemony, and uncontestable political supremacy.
And that is also why after 1948, the nascent Israeli state confiscated, I believe, up to 90% of, lands that had been previously owned, by Palestinians who became citizens of Israel. It is why the new Israeli state imposed a military government on its population of Palestinian citizens between 1948 and 1966. It is why the Israeli state effectively, reduced, the Palestinians living within the Israeli state as citizens of the Israeli state to second class citizens. On the one hand, promoting Jewish nationalism and Jewish nationalist parties, on the other hand, doing everything within its power to suppress and eliminate Palestinian or Arab, nationalist movements. And that's why today there's a consensus among all major human rights organizations that Israel is an apartheid state.
With the Israeli Human Rights Organization, B'Tselem describes a regime of Jewish supremacy No. No. No. Between the river Yes.
Speaker 4: And the sea. You're you're really tempting response from the other side on on the last few sentences. And we'll talk
Speaker 0: this. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about the claims of of apartheid and so on. It's a fascinating discussion. We need to have it. Norm?
Speaker 1: On the question of the responsibility of the Palestinian Arabs or the Nazi holocaust direct or indirect, I consider that an absurd claim. As Gromyko said, and I quoted him, the entire Western world turned its back on the Jews. To somehow focus on the Palestinian strikes me as completely ridiculous. Number 2, as Muin said, there's a perfectly understandable reason why Palestinian Arabs wouldn't want Jews because in their minds, and not irrationally, these Jews intended to create a Jewish state, which would quite likely have resulted in their expulsion. I'm a very generous person.
I've actually taken in a homeless person for two and a half years, but if I knew in advance that that homeless person was going to try to turn me out of my apartment, I would think 10000 times before I took him in. Okay? As far as the actual complicity of the Palestinian Arabs, if you look at, Raul Hilberg's 3 volume classic work, The Destruction of the European Jury, he has in those 1,000 plus pages, one sentence one sentence on the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem. And that, I think, is probably an overstatement, but we'll leave it aside. The only two points I would make aside from the Holocaust point is, number 1, I do think the transfer discussion is useful because it indicates that there was a rational reason behind the Arab resistance to Jewish or Zionist immigration to Palestine, the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession.
And number 2, there are 2 issues. 1 is the history, and the second is being responsible for your words. Now some people accuse me of speaking very slowly, and they're advised on YouTube to turn up the speed twice to 3 times whenever I'm on. One of the reasons I speak slowly is because I attach value to every word I say, and it is discomforting, disorienting, where you have a person who's produced a voluminous corpus, rich in insights and rich in archival sources, who seems to disown each and every word that you pluck from that corpus by claiming that it's either out of context or it's cherry picking. Words count.
And I agree with Lex. Everybody has the right to rescind what they've said in the past. But what you cannot claim is that you didn't say what you said.
Speaker 0: I'll stick to the history, not the current propaganda. 1917, the British the Zionist movement began way before the British supported the Zionist movement for decades. In 1917, the British jumped in and issued the Balfour Declaration supporting the emergence of a Jewish national home in Palestine, which most people understood to mean eventual Jewish statehood in Palestine. Most people understood that in Britain and in Israel, among the Zionists and among the Arabs. But the British declared the Balfour Declaration or issued the Balfour Declaration not only because of imperial self interest.
And this is what you're basically saying. They had the imperial interests, a buffer state which would protect the Suez Canal from the east. The British also were motivated by idealism. And this, incidentally, is how Balfour described the reasoning behind issuing the declaration. And he said the Western world, Western Christendom, owes the Jews a great debt, both for giving, the the world and the West, if you like, values, social values, as as embodied in the the Bible, social justice, and all sorts of other things.
And the Christian world owes the Jews because it persecuted them for 2000 years. This debt, we're now beginning to repay with the 1917 declaration favoring Zionism. But it's also worth remembering that the Jews weren't proxies or attached to the British imperial endeavor. They were happy to receive British support in 1917, and then subsequently, when the British ruled Palestine for 20, 30 years, but they weren't part of the British imperial design or mission. They wanted a state for themselves, the Jews.
Happy to have the British support them. Happy today to have the Americans support Israel. But it's not because we're stooges or extensions of American imperial interests. The British, incidentally, always described in Arab narratives of propaganda as consistent supporters of Zionism. They weren't.
The first British rulers in Palestine, 1917
Speaker 3: Herbert Samuel.
Speaker 0: No. Before Herbert Samuel. Samuel came in 1920. The British ruled there for 3 years previously. And most of the leaders, the British generals and so on, who were in Palestine were anti Zionist.
And subsequently, in the twenties thirties, the British occasionally, curbed Zionist immigration to Palestine. And in 1939, switched horses and supported the Arab National Movement and not Zionism. They turned anti Zionist and basically said, you Arabs will rule Palestine within the next 10 years. This is what we're giving you by limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. But the Arabs didn't actually understand what they were being given on a silver platter, Husseini again.
And he said, no, no, we can't accept the British white paper of May 1939, which had given the Arabs everything they wanted, basically. Self determination in an Arab majority state. So what I'm saying is the British, at some point, did support the Zionist enterprise, but at other points were less consistent than the support. And in 1939 until 1948, when they didn't vote even for partition for Jewish statehood in Palestine in the UN resolution, they didn't support Zionism during the last decade of the mandate. It's worth remembering that.
Speaker 3: I I'd like to respond to that. I mean, speaking of propaganda, I find it simply impossible to accept, that Balfour, who as British prime minister in 1905, was a chief sponsor of the aliens act, which was specifically He changed his mind. Which was specifically designed
Speaker 0: to keep
Speaker 3: persecuted Eastern European Jews out of the streets They changed of the UK and who was denounced as an anti Semite by the entire British Jewish establishment. A decade later, all of a sudden
Speaker 0: Changed his mind.
Speaker 3: People change their minds. But when the when when when the changing of the mind just coincidentally happens to coincide, with the British imperial interest, I think perhaps the transformation is is is a little more superficial than he's being given credit for. It it was clearly a British imperial venture, and if there had been no threat to the Suez Canal during World War 1, regardless of what Balfour would have thought about the Jews and their contribution to, history and their and their persecution and so on, there would have been no Balfour there.
Speaker 2: And so real quick as a question on that, why did the British ever cap immigration then from Jews to that area at all?
Speaker 3: Well, we're talking now about 29, 30
Speaker 2: I'm sure. But I'm saying that if it was you know, the whole goal was just to be an imperialist project. Like, there were terrorist attacks from Jewish, from
Speaker 3: But you're you're talking I'll answer you.
Speaker 2: The forties. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And we're talking now about 1917. And and as I mentioned earlier, I don't think the British had a Jewish state in mind. That's why they used the term Jewish national home. I think what they wanted was a British protectorate loyal to and dependent upon, the British. I think an outstanding, review of British policy towards these issues during the mandate has been done by Martin Bunton of the University of Victoria.
And and he basically makes the argument, that once the British realized the mess they were in, certainly by the late twenties, early thirties, they they recognized these the mess they were in, the irreconcilable differences, and basically pursued a policy of just muddling on. And and, and muddling on in the context of British rule in Palestine, whose overall purpose was to serve for the development of of Zionist Institutions, Yeshiva's economy and so on, meant even if the British, were not self consciously doing this, preparing the groundwork for the eventual establishment of Jewish state. I don't know if that answers your question.
Speaker 0: Except they did turn anti Zionist in 1939. And by
Speaker 2: the And
Speaker 0: to maintain that Zionist no. No. Before they were being shot off. But maintain that anti Zionist posture until 1948. Okay.
Speaker 3: And and if I may, just also one point. You mentioned Haj Amin al Husseini during a world. Entirely legitimate. But what I but what I would also point point out is that you had a Zionist organization, the Leahy.
Speaker 0: 300 people, Lord.
Speaker 3: 300 people, one of whom happened to become an Israeli prime minister, an Israeli foreign minister, a speaker of Israeli parliament.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should give his name.
Speaker 3: Yitzhak Shamir, proposing an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1941 Shamir proposed the Well, no. The Leahy proposed.
Speaker 0: Some people in the Leahy proposed. Which Shamir was a prominent leader. Herring also.
Speaker 3: No. No. Okay. Well, if he's a red herring, has The Lehi was an unimportant I'm sorry.
Speaker 0: The Lehi was an unimportant organization in the Yeshuv. 300 people versus 30,000 belong to the Haganah. So it was not a very important organization. It's true. Before the Holocaust actually began, they wanted allies against the British where they could talk about the 18/41 here,
Speaker 3: not 19:30. 41 from what I recall.
Speaker 0: 1940. They were they approached the the German emissary in Istanbul or something. Istanbul.
Speaker 3: And and and, if I may, proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany on what the Leahy described as on the basis of shared ideological shared ideological principles. Well, they said they did.
Speaker 0: No. They did. They did revile Why are you doing these things? Of course, you said you know what the
Speaker 1: state, but you know that reviled. You know what the statement said on the basis of a shared ideology. Why do you say no?
Speaker 0: Do you think that the You just Wait. The last people were Nazis.
Speaker 2: Is that
Speaker 1: what you're saying?
Speaker 0: They send you
Speaker 2: a letter.
Speaker 0: Said. No. Are you saying that? Forget statements. You like to quote things.
But were they were they Nazis?
Speaker 1: Cold facts.
Speaker 0: Where's the where are the lefty Nazis? That's what I'm asking.
Speaker 1: What did he say? Some
Speaker 0: of them said Stalin.
Speaker 1: He say to them. Basis of the pact was their agreement on ideology? There wasn't any pact. They suggested they proposed an agreement. Right.
And what did the agreement say?
Speaker 0: They wanted arms against the British.
Speaker 1: That's what
Speaker 3: they wanted. Well, that's what Hashemina Hoseidy wanted also.
Speaker 0: That's what No. No. But they
Speaker 1: they didn't work
Speaker 3: in India.
Speaker 0: Plenty of people didn't work in Berlin, helping the Nazi regime. I mean,
Speaker 3: what the IRA wanted also No.
Speaker 0: But this is what Khachamina al Khusseini did. You know that he was an anti Semite. You you probably read some of his works. Yeah. He wasn't just anti
Speaker 1: British. He
Speaker 0: was also anti Semitic. And and the They had a common ground with Hitler.
Speaker 1: I I think I think we can agree. Every anti Semite is a Hitlerite. I think we could that part
Speaker 2: He literally worked with the Nazis to recruit people. He wasn't just a guy posthumor.
Speaker 1: Absolutely revolting, disgusting human beings. There's something happening here. No.
Speaker 2: But the problem is you're saying that Hussein was a scandal.
Speaker 1: You're saying the movie was I don't even understand. Of all the crimes you want to ascribe to the Palestinian people, trying to blame them directly, indirectly, indirectly, or indirectly, 3 times removed for the Nazi holocaust is completely lunatic.
Speaker 0: Hold on.
Speaker 2: The wait. There's not a he's not blaming them for holocaust. He's saying that from the perspective wait. Wait. Wait.
No. He's saying that from the perspective of Jews in the region, Palestinians would have been part of the status quo.
Speaker 1: That's exactly
Speaker 2: what he said.
Speaker 1: I've read him. You have
Speaker 2: read him.
Speaker 1: You have
Speaker 2: read him. Understand him. He's just right here. Believe me.
Speaker 1: I'm a lot more literate than you, mister Baran.
Speaker 2: I don't believe
Speaker 1: the guy that wrote the stuff. Wikipedia said.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: I read that as Marx.
Speaker 2: Hebrew, and you call yourself an Israeli historian. I I I Raw you're on a different ground.
Speaker 3: I just want to know if I can just respond
Speaker 2: to No. No. No. I'm just saying that the there there were 2 there
Speaker 3: were 2 tricks.
Speaker 2: There were that's fine. There were 2 tricks that are being played here that I think is interesting. One is you guys claim that the Leahy was trying to forge an alliance with Nazi Germany because of a shared ideology.
Speaker 3: That's what they said.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But hold on. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No. It's about what you said.
You brought that up to imply that Zionism must be inactively linked. No. I'm I'm sorry. No.
Speaker 3: You're putting words in my mouth. No. No.
Speaker 2: Okay. Wait. Well, then what was the purpose of of saying that the Lehi claimed that they the Lehi who were
Speaker 3: The reason I put
Speaker 2: it up. People that were reviled by many in Israel.
Speaker 0: In small mainly by everybody, practically. Well, they
Speaker 1: were called terrorists. So reviled.
Speaker 0: The Zionist movement called them terrorists. Yes. Yes. And and Hagrid and Hagrid, the
Speaker 3: Shamir called himself a terrorist. They were so irrelevant that their leader ended up being kicked upstairs to the leader of the Israeli parliament
Speaker 0: That's Israeli parliament
Speaker 3: to the Israeli
Speaker 0: years then.
Speaker 3: To Israeli foreign minister.
Speaker 2: And Begin is also a par Yes.
Speaker 3: You wanna you wanna characterize him as irrelevant as well? Go ahead.
Speaker 2: No. Characterizing as relevant or irrelevant based on what happens decades later. The timeline matters.
Speaker 0: Well, the question is, what
Speaker 2: is the point of saying that the Leahy tried to forge an alarm?
Speaker 1: Why why is why is why is relevant is bringing up the Mufti of Jerusalem and trying to blame the Holocaust. No.
Speaker 2: But I blame the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: The Mufti is our president. The Mufti is our leader
Speaker 0: of the Palestine Arab National Movement. And he had
Speaker 1: as much to do with the Nazi Holocaust as I did.
Speaker 0: No. He recruited people for the SS. How can you get away from that?
Speaker 1: No. He recruited soldiers for the SS. He recruited soldiers in the Balkans, mostly Kosovars, which was disgusting. I have no doubt about that. But he had
Speaker 0: one let his
Speaker 1: army come. Just say don't
Speaker 0: let the Jews out. I do know him. Can I say can I
Speaker 1: say very important I do
Speaker 0: want him to help him out? Receive letters from Husseini during during the Holocaust. Once again During the Holocaust. Don't let the Jews out. Don't let the Jews out.
I'm not saying he was a major architect of the holocaust.
Speaker 1: Minor. But if we're agreed sentence. If we're agreed
Speaker 3: Yes. That Hajj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, collaborated with the Nazis during World War 2 and actively sought their sponsorship, why is it irrelevant?
Speaker 0: He probably wanted the destruction of European Jewry.
Speaker 3: He probably wanted a lot of things.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 3: Okay? If that's relevant, why is it irrelevant that a prime minister of Israel
Speaker 0: Not prime minister. 1940 41, he wasn't prime minister of Israel. He was a leader of a very small terrorist
Speaker 1: So do you consider terrorists as terrorists
Speaker 0: by the name of Zionists.
Speaker 3: Do you consider it irrelevant that many years ago Mahmoud Abbas wrote a doctoral thesis, which is basically tantamount?
Speaker 0: About Mahmoud Abbas. Okay. But But I don't but didn't bring it up. You're the one who's bringing
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 0: But you consider that But belittling the Holocaust. That's what you're saying. The president president of the Palestinian National Authority belittle the Holocaust saying it didn't happen, or only a few Jews
Speaker 3: died. That's a fair characterization of
Speaker 0: But I didn't bring
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 3: I brought it up.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay? Because my question is, then why is Shamir's antecedency relevant?
Speaker 0: He he was a terrorist leader of a very small marginal group. Who became say
Speaker 1: he was the head
Speaker 0: of the movement at the time.
Speaker 2: Also, the the point of bringing up Husseini not a terrorist. There's no point of The point of bringing up Husseini's stuff wasn't to say that he was a great further of the Holocaust. It's that he might have been a great further in the prevention of Jews fleeing to go to Palestine to escape the Holocaust. The point that I That was the point.
Speaker 3: That and I explained why I think, that's that's not an entirely, accurate characterization. But and then I wanted to make another point. If it's legitimate to bring up his role during World War 2, why is it illegitimate to bring up a man who would become Israel's speaker of parliament for ministers?
Speaker 0: For instance.
Speaker 3: Why is it and and also Museum Ferris. And was also responsible for the murder of of the United Nations' first international envoy, Bernadotte, Focci Bernadotte. Why is all that irrelevant?
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's interested. I think that the the reason why he was brought up was because Jewish people at the in this time period would have viewed it as, there was a prevention of Jews leaving Europe because of the Palestinians pressuring the British to put a curb, that 75,000, immigration limit. Yes. But it's not about, like, it's not about them furthering the holocaust or being an architect, major minor play in the holocaust. Well, absolutely.
We use a major play in that region. So how does it bring
Speaker 3: up, like Morris was made the specific claim that the Palestinians played an indirect role in the Holocaust.
Speaker 2: The indirect role would have been the prevention of people escaping from Yes. To And
Speaker 3: my response to that is, first of all, I I disagree with that characterization. But second of all
Speaker 0: disagree with that. They prevented they forced the British to prevent emigration of Jerusalem Europe and reaching safe shores in Palestine. That's what they did.
Speaker 3: Again, was that And
Speaker 0: they knew that the British would have
Speaker 3: been persecuted in Europe. Palestine the only spot of land on earth?
Speaker 0: Yes. Basically, that was the problem. The Jews couldn't elevate the world.
Speaker 3: What about your great friends in Britain, the architects of of the Balfour Declaration?
Speaker 0: 1930s. What about the United States? To take in Jews and the Americans? And and why and
Speaker 3: why are Palestinians, who were not Europeans, who had zero role in the rise of Nazism, who had no relation to any of this, why are they somehow uniquely responsible for what happened in Europe and uniquely cult cult?
Speaker 0: The only safe haven for Jews.
Speaker 2: That's
Speaker 1: all. The United States wasn't a say a potential state safe haven. The only one was Palestine.
Speaker 0: At the
Speaker 1: time The United States had no room. No.
Speaker 0: He had room.
Speaker 1: The Pacific. For Jews.
Speaker 0: During the thirties
Speaker 1: You are blamed, but nobody blames them for the holocaust. Well, indirectly indirectly. I've never heard it said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was indirectly responsible for the holocaust. I never heard that. Now maybe it's in Israeli literature because the Israelis have gone mad.
Your yes. Your prime minister said the whole idea of the gas chambers came from the Mufti of Jerusalem. That's nonsense. Yeah. We all know that.
That's nonsense. So we also know that Netanyahu
Speaker 0: said Netanyahu says Netanyahu says so many things which are And
Speaker 3: he happens to be the pro lies. I can't be responsible for them.
Speaker 0: No. I can't be responsible
Speaker 3: for them. For them, but it is relevant that he's the longest serving prime minister of Israel.
Speaker 0: Unfortunately, he says that Israeli public. Right?
Speaker 3: And he gets and he gets selected, not despite saying such things, but because he says
Speaker 1: such things.
Speaker 0: His voters don't care about Kajamil al Husseini or Hitler. They know nothing about, his voters They
Speaker 3: will be right.
Speaker 0: His base know nothing about know nothing about anything. And he can say what he likes, and they'll say yes or they don't care if he says these things.
Speaker 3: You may well be right. But but but anyway, not to beat a dead horse, but I don't I I still don't understand. Dead
Speaker 0: horse. You're right. I
Speaker 3: I'll just conclude by saying I don't understand why the Mufti of Jerusalem is relevant.
Speaker 0: He is relevant. He is relevant. But The head of the national Shamir is That's why Shamir wasn't the head of the national movement. He represented a 100 or 200 or 300 gunmen who are considered terrorists by the Zionist movement at the time. The fact that 30 years later, he becomes prime minister, that's the crux of
Speaker 3: of history. And his
Speaker 0: and his history. Khazamil al Hussein. He was the head of the Palestine Arab National Movement at the time.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I What can you do? I think we're speaking past each other.
Speaker 0: We're not. We believe that there
Speaker 4: are important facts. Let's move to the modern day, and we'll return to history maybe 67 and other important moments. But let's look to today in the recent months, October 7th. Let me ask sort of a pointed question. Was October 7th attacks by Hamas on Israel genocidal?
Was it was it an act of ethnic cleansing? Just so we lay out the moral calculus that we are engaged in. I don't maybe it was
Speaker 0: The the problem the problem with October 7th is this. The Hamas fighters who who, invaded southern Israel, were ordered to murder, rape, and do all the nasty things that they did. And they killed some 1200 Israelis that day and abducted them. As we know, something like 250 civilians, mostly civilians, also some soldiers, took them back to Gaza, dungeons in Gaza. But they were motivated not just by the words of their current leader in the Gaza Strip, but by their ideology, which is embedded in their charter from 8 1988, if I remember correctly.
And that charter is genocidal. It says that the Jews must basically from, the land of Israel, from Palestine. The Jews are described there as sons of apes and pigs. The Jews are a base people, killers of prophets, and they should not exist in Palestine. It doesn't say that they necessarily should be murdered all around the world, the Hamas Charter.
But certainly, the Jews should be eliminated from Palestine. And this is the driving ideology behind the massacre of the Jews on October 7th, which brought down on the Gaza Strip. And I think with the intention by the Hamas of the Israeli counter offensive because they knew that that counter offensive would result in many Palestinian dead because the the Hamas fighters and their weaponry and so on were embedded in the population in Gaza. And they hoped to benefit from this in the eyes of world public opinion as Israel chased these Hamas people and their ammunition dumps and so on and killed lots of Palestinian civilians in the process. All of this was understood by a Sinwar, by the head of the Hamas, and he strived for that.
But initially, he wanted to kill as many Jews as he could in the border areas, around the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 3: I'll respond directly to the points you made, and then, I'll leave it to Norm to bring in the historical context. That, Hamas Charter is from the nineties, I
Speaker 0: think. 1988.
Speaker 3: It's 1988. So it's from the eighties. I think your characterization of that charter as, anti Semitic is indisputable. K. I think your, characterization of that charter as genocidal is off the mark.
Speaker 0: It's important.
Speaker 3: And more importantly, that charter has been superseded by a new charter. In fact, has been well, there is there is a
Speaker 0: There is no new charter.
Speaker 3: There is
Speaker 2: no new charter.
Speaker 0: There is no new charter. Explanation. The state of
Speaker 1: the 2018,
Speaker 0: the new verticals and something. 2018. It Supposedly clarifying things which are in the charter. And But it doesn't actually step back from what the charter says. Eliminate Israel, eliminate the Jews from the land of Israel.
Speaker 3: In in 2018, the Hamas charter, if we look at the current version of the charter It's not a cult charter. Whether whether
Speaker 0: You're calling it a charter.
Speaker 3: It wasn't the
Speaker 0: only thing called the charter is what was issued in 1988 by Yacinth Sen.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it make it makes a clear distinction, between, Jews and Zionists in 2018. Now you can choose to dismiss it, believe it. It's sincere. It's insincere, whatever. I
Speaker 0: Insincere is probably the right word.
Speaker 3: Secondly, I'm really unfamiliar, with fighters who consult these kinds of documents, before before they go on system.
Speaker 0: In the kindergarten, they're told kill the Jews. They they practice with make believe guns and uniforms when they're 5 years old in the kindergartens of the Hamas.
Speaker 3: As the instruction 6. Secondly, you keep you keep saying Jews, to which I would respond They
Speaker 0: use the word Jews.
Speaker 3: To which I would respond that Hamas does not have a record of deliberately targeting Jews who are not Israelis. And in fact, it also doesn't have a record of deliberately targeting either Jews or Israelis outside Israel and Palestine. So, you know, all this talk of,
Speaker 0: Unlike the Hezbollah, which has
Speaker 3: started Well, we're talking about
Speaker 0: Jews outside of Palestine.
Speaker 3: We're talking about October 7th in Hamas. If you'd also like to speak about Hezbollah, let's let's get to that separately, if you if you don't mind. So, again, genocidal, well, if if that term is going to be discussed, my first response would be, let's talk about potentially genocidal actions against Israelis rather than against Jews for the reasons that I just mentioned. And, again, I find this constant conflation of of of of Jews, Israel, Zionism to be a bit disturbing. Secondly, I think, there are, quite a few indications in the factual record that raise serious questions about, the accusations of the genocidal intent and and genocidal practice of what happened on October 7th.
And my final point would be, I don't I don't think I should take your your word for it. I don't think you should take my word for it. I think what we need here is a proper independent international investigation. And the reason we need that of genocide during this conflict, whether by, Palestinians on October 7th or Israel thereafter. And the reason that we need such an investigation is because Hamas is there won't be any hearings on what Hamas did on October 7th at the International Court of Justice, because the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide deals only with with states and not with movements.
I think the International Criminal Court and specifically its current prosecutor, Karim Khan, lacks any and all credibility. He's been an absolute failure at his job. He's just been sitting on his backside for years on this file. And I think, I would point out that Hamas has called for independent investigations of all these allegations. Israel has categorically rejected any international investigation, of course, fully supported by the United States.
And I and I think what is required is to have credible investigations of these things because I don't think you're going to convince me. I don't think I'm going to convince you. And this is 2 people sitting across the table from each other.
Speaker 0: There's certain things you don't even have to investigate. You know how many citizens, civilians died in the October 7th Yes.
Speaker 3: Fall. But that's not You
Speaker 0: know that there are lots of allegations of rape. I don't know how persuaded you are of those. They did find bodies without heads, which is
Speaker 3: There were no beheadings.
Speaker 0: There were there were some beheadings, apparently.
Speaker 1: The Israelis didn't even claim that in the document they submitted before the ICJ. Go read what your government submitted. It never mentioned beheadings.
Speaker 0: Well, as far as I have heard, people who were beheaded. But they
Speaker 1: We could bring it up right now.
Speaker 0: Also deny that there were rapes there.
Speaker 1: I didn't deny. I said I've not seen convincing evidence that confirms it. I've said that from day 1, and I'll say it today, 4 and a half months later.
Speaker 0: Do you know that they killed 8 or 900 civilians
Speaker 1: in their assault? Absolutely. That seems to me indisputable.
Speaker 0: Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad that you're confusing something.
Speaker 1: I've said that from day 1.
Speaker 2: Well, to be clear, you haven't. You did a debate. I don't remember the talk show, but you seem to imply that there was a lot of cross it still
Speaker 1: thought of. I said that there is no question because the names were published in Haritz. There was no question that roughly of the 1200 people killed, 800 of them were civilians. I see 850. 850.
Fine. So I never said that, but then I said, no. We don't know exactly how they were killed. But 800 civilians killed? 850?
No question there. And I also said on repeat occasions, there cannot be any doubt, in my opinion, as of now, with the available evidence, that Hamas was responsible for significant atrocities, and I made sure to include the plural.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of tricky language being employed here. Do you think of the antififty?
Speaker 1: It's called attaching value to words and not talking like a motor mouth.
Speaker 2: K.
Speaker 1: I am very careful about qualifying because that's what language is about.
Speaker 2: That's great. Then let me just ask a clarifying question. Do you firmly believe that the majority of the 850 civilians were killed by Hamas?
Speaker 1: My view is even if it were half, 400 is a huge number by any reckoning. Know. I agree with Muinne Rabani. I'm not sure if he concedes the 400. I'll say
Speaker 0: Why 400?
Speaker 1: Because I have bought up the 100. Right.
Speaker 0: I said of 850. Well, because by Hamas.
Speaker 1: If I
Speaker 0: may be a couple of individuals
Speaker 1: who located in this video. I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: You're saying, hey, why you believe this particular thing, and you clearly don't. You clearly don't believe this thing.
Speaker 1: You go. 1, I see You said people died.
Speaker 2: That's not controversial.
Speaker 1: Wait. Hold on. Hold on.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's not controversial.
Speaker 1: Mister Bunnell, mister Bunnell, I attach value to words. Yes. You said that. When I When I ask you so much Mister Bunnell, please slow down the speech and attempt to listen. When I was explicitly asked by Piers Morgan, I said there can be no question that
Speaker 2: Hamas committed atrocities. I've heard this. Yes.
Speaker 1: On October 7th. If you want me to pin down a number, I can't do that. And ask you
Speaker 2: a number. You can listen to what
Speaker 1: I'm asking. No. My question is Okay.
Speaker 2: I'll ask you. I'll get very precise. Sorry.
Speaker 1: You'll be It's it's a very it's a very easy question. Your question correctly.
Speaker 2: My question is, do you think the majority of the people that were killed on October 7th, the civilians were killed by Hamas? Yes. Or are we subscribing to the idea that the IDF killed 104 or 500
Speaker 3: in the crossfire? Let me explain why that's a difficult question to answer. The total number of civilians killed was 800, 850. Mhmm. We know that Hamas is responsible, probably for the majority of those killings.
We also know that there were killings by Islamic Jihad. We also know
Speaker 0: We're we're bunching together the Islamic Jihad and Hamas. So that's splitting hairs and stuff.
Speaker 3: What specifically he
Speaker 0: means he means the raiders.
Speaker 2: I mean,
Speaker 0: the raiders.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking I'm speaking in opposition to the conspiracy theory that, people like you prefer Norm or professor Franklstein? Or what do you I don't know what you're how do you Well,
Speaker 3: it's not a conspiracy. There'd be
Speaker 2: Well, the conspiracy theory is the idea that the IDF killed the majority of them.
Speaker 3: It's not a conspiracy
Speaker 2: And there's also and there's also a theory that, as Norm pointed out on the show that he was on, that he thought that it was very strange that given how reputable, Israeli services are when it comes to sending ambulances, retrieving bodies, he thought it was very strange that that number was continually big adjusted.
Speaker 1: And do
Speaker 2: you know why? Say that in combination with, well, I'm not sure how many were killed by the other.
Speaker 3: Do you know why the number went down? The number went down because the Israeli authorities were in were in possession of 200 corpses that were burned to a crisp, that they assumed were Israeli, Israelis who had been killed on October 7th. They later determined that these were in fact Palestinian fighters. Now how does a Palestinian fighter get burnt to a crisp?
Speaker 0: No. You're mixing 2 things. Some of the bodies, they didn't weren't able to identify. And eventually, they just ruled that some of them were actually Arab, marauders rather than Israeli victims. Some a few of them also of the Jews were burnt to a crisp.
And it took them time to work themselves. And they came out initially with a slightly higher figure, 1400 dead, and eventually reduced it to 1200
Speaker 3: And and the reason is Israelis. And the reason is that a proportion of Israeli civilians killed on October 7th I don't believe it was a majority. We don't know how many. Some were killed in crossfire. Some were killed by, Israeli shell fire, helicopter fire, and so on.
And, the majority were killed by Palestinians. And of that majority, we don't know I mean, again, I I understood your question as referring specifically to Hamas, which is why I tried to answer it that way. But if you meant generically Palestinians, yes. If you mean specifically Hamas, we don't have a clear breakdown of Hamas. Mean specifically Hamas.
Speaker 1: But I
Speaker 2: just think when you use the word some, that's doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: Use some.
Speaker 2: That's fine. But some can mean anywhere from 1% to 49%.
Speaker 0: But we
Speaker 3: don't know. Some.
Speaker 4: So the numbers here and the details are, interesting and important almost from a legal perspective. But if we zoom out the moral perspective, are Palestinians from Gaza justified in violent resistance? Well, Palestinians
Speaker 3: have the right to resistance. Palestinian that right includes the right to armed resistance. At the same time, armed resistance, is subject to the laws of war. And there are very clear regulations, that separate legitimate acts of armed resistance from acts of armed resistance, that are not legitimate. And
Speaker 4: I The attacks of October 7th, where did they land for you?
Speaker 3: There's been, almost exclusive focus on the attacks on civilian population centers and and the killings of, civilians on October 7th. What is much much less discussed to the point of, amnesia is that there were very extensive attacks on Israeli military and intelligence facilities on October 7th. I would make a very clear distinction between those 2. And, secondly, I'm not sure that I would characterize the efforts by, Palestinians on October 7th to seize Israeli territory and Israeli population centers as in and of themselves illegitimate.
Speaker 0: You mean attacking Israeli civilians No. Legitimate?
Speaker 3: No. No. That's not what I said.
Speaker 0: Understand what you said.
Speaker 3: I think what you had on October 7th was an effort by Hamas to seize Israeli territory and population civilians. That's not what I said. What I said is I think I I'm I'm I would not describe the effort to seize Israeli territory as in and of itself illegitimate, as a separate issue from the killing of Israeli civilians where, in those cases where they have been deliberately kibbutz. But I'm making But
Speaker 0: many of them left wingers incidentally, who helped Palestinians go to hospitals in Israel and so on. Again Even drove Palestinian, cancer patients to hospitals
Speaker 3: to really I'm making a distinction here.
Speaker 0: To be very condemnatory of what the Hamas did.
Speaker 3: Well, I I don't do selective condemnation.
Speaker 0: I'm not talking about selective
Speaker 3: I don't do selective outrage.
Speaker 0: Condemnation of this specific Well, you know what?
Speaker 3: You know what it is?
Speaker 0: You know I would I would, for example, condemn Israeli assaults on civilians, deliberate assaults on civilians. Yes. I would condemn them, but you're not doing that with the Hamas.
Speaker 3: You know what the issue is? I've been speaking in public now, I would say since the late 19 eighties and interviewed and so on. I have never on one occasion ever been asked to condemn any Israeli act. When I've been in group discussions, those supporting the Israeli action or perspective, I have never encountered an example where these individuals are asked to condemn what Israel is doing. The, the the demand and obligation of condemnation is exclusively applied.
In my personal experience, over decades, is exclusively applied to Palestinians. No. This is
Speaker 0: as well as condemned day and night on every television channels No. No. On every and and has been for
Speaker 3: the last decade. That's our first a personal experience lasting decades.
Speaker 1: You said quote.
Speaker 2: Uh-oh. Oh, no.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to, quote what you just said.
Speaker 0: I should say said anything at any time. You should say Uh-oh.
Speaker 1: Professor Morris.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: You just said, I would condemn anytime Israel deliberately attacks civilians. Yes. Okay? The problem, professor Morris, is over and over again, you claim in the face of overwhelming evidence that they didn't attack civilians.
Speaker 0: That's not true. I've said Israel as a tax civilian.
Speaker 1: Professor Mark. Israel attacks terrorism. Professor Mark. Not
Speaker 0: I know that. In Qatar, Kasim, they carry the civilians.
Speaker 1: And I And now let's let's So
Speaker 0: you're you're you're just eliminating Okay. Selecting as as as Steven said, you're cherry pick. If I were you, you cherry pick.
Speaker 1: Let's fast forward when you were an adult. What did you say about the 1982 Lebanon War? What did I say? You don't remember? Okay.
Allow me.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 1: So it happens that I was not at all by any I had no interest in the Israel Palestine conflict with the young men until the true. Until the 1982 Lebanon war.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Lost the passage.
Speaker 2: I'll find it. Okay. Real quick. While he's searching for that. Yeah.
Allow me. You bring out something that's really important that a lot of people don't draw a distinction between, and that there is just causes for war, and there is just ways to act within a war. And these two things principally do have a distinction from one another. Correct. However, while I appreciate the recognition of the distinction, the idea that the the cause for war that Hamas was engaged in, I don't believe, if we look at their actions in war or the statements that they've made, it doesn't seem like it had to do with territorial acquisition.
Speaker 3: No. No. No. No. I the the point making land back.
The point I was making was, what was Hamas trying to achieve militarily on October 7th. And I was pointing out that the focus has been very much on, Hamas attacks on civilians and atrocities and so on. And I'm not saying those things should be ignored. What I'm saying is that what's getting lost in the shuffle is that there were extensive attacks on military and intelligence facilities.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 3: And as far as the, let's say, the other aspects are concerned, because I think either you or Lex asked me about the legitimacy of these attacks. I said, I'm I'm unclear whether efforts by Hamas to seize Israeli population centers in and of themselves are illegitimate as opposed to actions that either deliberately targeted Israeli civilians, or actions that should reasonably have been expected to result in the killings of Israeli civilians. Those strike me as by definition illegitimate, and I wanna be very clear about that. I have where I
Speaker 0: Illegitimate means you condemn them.
Speaker 3: Illegitimate means they are not legitimate. I I have a problem
Speaker 0: Condemning your side. Yes,
Speaker 3: sir. Not condemning my side. I have a problem with selective outrage, and I have a problem with selective condemnation. And as I I explained to you a few minutes ago, in in my decades of of appearing in public and being interviewed, I have never seen, I've never been asked to condemn an Israeli action. I've never been asked for a moral judgment on an Israeli action.
Exclusive request for condemnation has to do with what Palestinians do more and just as importantly, I'm sure if you watch BBC or CNN, when is the last time an Israeli spokesperson has been asked to condemn an Israeli act? I've I've never seen it.
Speaker 2: I don't think we condemn the Arab side either though. Right? I don't think there's any condemnation that
Speaker 3: we're watching. But now that we're talking about Israeli victims, all of a sudden morality is is Well, I
Speaker 2: I think the reason why it comes up is because there's no shortage of international condemnation for Israel. As Norm will point out a million times that there are 50,000,000,000 UN resolutions, you've got Embassy International, You've got multiple bodies of the UN. You've got, now, this case for the ICJ. So there's no question of if there's condemnation.
Speaker 3: But sorry if I can interrupt you. In 1948, the entire world stood behind the establishment of a Jewish state in the entire
Speaker 0: world. Except the Arab states and the Muslim states. Well Not the entire world.
Speaker 3: Okay. But I think you know what I mean by that.
Speaker 0: The western democracies. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Well, then also my quick question supported
Speaker 0: the establishment of Israel.
Speaker 2: My quick question was, you said that you believe that this is a very short one. You don't have to it's just you think that, you think that there's an argument to be made that the people in Gaza, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, whoever participated, had a just cause for war? Maybe they didn't do it in the correct way, but they maybe had a just cause for war.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a maybe there. The Palestinians absolutely
Speaker 2: had a just cause for it. Do you think that Israel has a just cause for Operation Sword of Iron?
Speaker 3: No. Of course not.
Speaker 2: Okay. Alright. You can say your quote.
Speaker 1: Okay. First of all, on this issue of double standards, which is the one that, irks or irritates Muin. You said that you are not a person of double standards, unlike people like Muin. You hold high a single standard, and you condemn deliberate Israeli attacks on, when they have killed. Yeah.
And I would say that's true for the period up till 1967. And I think it's accurate. Your account of the First Intifada. There, it seems to me you were in conformity with most mainstream accounts. And the case of the First Intifada, you also used surprisingly, you used Arab human rights sources like Al Haq, which I think Muin worked for during the First Intifada.
That's true. But then, something very strange happens. So, let's illustrate it. Wait, does something strange happen?
Speaker 0: Is the Arabs rejecting the
Speaker 1: peace holders? Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, by accepting the Oslo agreements.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I reject you. I can't pay a man. If we have time, I know the record very well. I'd be very happy to go through it with you, but let's get to those double standards.
So this is what you have to say about Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. You said Israel was reluctant to harm civilians, sought to avoid casualties on both sides and took care not to harm Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. You then went on to acknowledge the massive use of IDF firepower against civilians during the siege of Beirut, which traumatized Israeli society. Marx Mars quickly enters the caveat that Israel, quote, tried to pinpoint military targets, but inevitably many civilians were hit. That's your description of the Lebanon War.
As I say, that's when I first got involved in the conflict. I am a voracious reader. I read everything on the Lebanon war. I would say there's not a single account of the Lebanon war in which the estimates are between 15,020,000 Palestinian and Lebanese were killed, overwhelmingly civilians, the biggest bloodletting until the current Gaza genocide. Biggest bloodletting, I would say I can't think of a single mainstream account that remotely approximates what you just said.
So leaving aside, I can name the books voluminous, huge volumes. I'll just take one example. Now you will remember because I think you served in Lebanon in 82. Am I correct on that?
Speaker 0: Yep. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you remember that Dov Yarmiya kept the war diary. So with your permission, allow me to describe what he wrote during his diary. So he writes, the war machine of the IDF is galloping and trampling over the conquer conquered territory, demonstrating a total insensitivity to the fate of the Arabs who are found in its path. A PLO run hospital suffered a direct hit.
Thousands of refugees are returning to the city when they arrive at their homes, many of which have been destroyed or damaged. You hear their cries of pain and their howls over the deaths of their loved ones. The air is permeated with the smell of corpses. Destruction and fear are continuing.
Speaker 0: Does that make does that work? What you're making at least?
Speaker 1: Does that sound like you're the searching of the Lebanon
Speaker 0: war? Forget my descriptions.
Speaker 1: Forget it?
Speaker 0: The point you're making You're
Speaker 1: not current.
Speaker 0: We can't get it. Forget that. Finish my sentence. The point you're making
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Which you somehow forget is that there are Israelis who strongly criticize their own side and describe how Israelis are doing things which they regard as immoral. You don't find that on the Arab side. I'm talking about You don't find that.
Speaker 1: Mister Morris, I'm not talking about dead turkey. Netanyahu is the Lebanese talking about you, the historian. How did you depict the Lebanon war?
Speaker 0: I believe that the Israeli military tried to avoid committing a civilian capital.
Speaker 1: So Dev, as all the house by Robert Fisk in Pity the Nation. Yeah. I know.
Speaker 0: All all the candidates.
Speaker 1: I know. Journalists. I know.
Speaker 0: Has always been.
Speaker 1: Right. So that's why that's why you can say with such confidence that you don't commit you don't condemn deliberate Israeli attacks on Israeli. Because there weren't any.
Speaker 0: No. I didn't say there weren't any. Yeah. You didn't. You agreed that I have
Speaker 1: condemned Israeli attacks. Yes. There are Syrians. I never quarrel with facts. Your your description of the 19 eighties, 2 war is so shocking.
It makes my inners writhe.
Speaker 0: When Arab suicide bombers apologize. When Arab suicide bombers stone were destroying falls to the Jews in masses, in buses, and in restaurants. No. That's the second intifada. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1: You could try
Speaker 0: Suicide bombers in Jerusalem's buses, restaurants. I'm completely aware of that. I will.
Speaker 1: But if you forgot the numbers No.
Speaker 0: I don't forget the numbers.
Speaker 1: It was 3 to 1. The number killed Yeah. Mostly armed No. Palestinian government. That's what you say
Speaker 0: in your book. That's right.
Speaker 1: But that's not what Amnesty International said. That's not what human rights was.
Speaker 0: I don't remember what they said.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 0: No. Don't That's not what that said.
Speaker 1: Said. I
Speaker 0: this Am I for this right? Listen. Listen. In the 17 fathers, some 4000 Palestinian Palestinian powers. Most of them armed people, and the Israelis That's a 1000 Israelis were killed.
No. Almost all of them.
Speaker 1: No. They had 1,000,000. Professor Morris, fantasy, but I'm not gonna argue with here. Here's a simple challenge. You said not to look at the camera.
Sometimes Scares the people. It's a open challenge.
Speaker 0: You are going to I them.
Speaker 1: No. Professor Morris.
Speaker 3: Open challenge.
Speaker 1: Words are in print. I wrote 50 pages analyzing all of your work. I quote, some will say cherry pick, but I think accurately, quote you. Here's a simple challenge. Answer me in print.
Answer what I wrote and show where I'm making things up. Answer the
Speaker 0: I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with your
Speaker 1: That's no problem. You're a busy man. You're an important historian. You don't have to know everything that's in print, especially by modest publishers, but now you know. And so here's the public challenge.
You answer and show where I cherry picked, where I misrepresented
Speaker 0: Send me the article.
Speaker 1: And then we can have a civil scholarly discussion.
Speaker 0: I'm not sure we will agree even if We don't have to agree.
Speaker 1: The other side. It's for the reader to decide looking at both sides
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 4: Where this truth stands. No. And if I may ask, it's good to discuss ideas that are in the air now as opposed to citing literature that was written in the past as much as possible Mhmm. Because listeners were not familiar with the literature. So, like, whatever was written, just express it, condense the the key idea, and then we can debate the ideas of the social media.
Speaker 1: Two aspects. There's a public debate, but there's also written words.
Speaker 4: Yes. I'm just telling you that you as a as a academic historian put a lot of value in the written word, and I think it is valuable. But in this He's
Speaker 0: incidentally not the only historian who puts value to words. Yeah. I also do, actually. Yeah. But So we In the The one
Speaker 2: and just 1 or 2 sentences at a time.
Speaker 4: And for this this in this context, just for the educational purpose, the teaching table
Speaker 1: purpose is, why would people commit what I have to acknowledge because I am faithful to the facts, massive atrocities on October 7. Why did that happen? And I think that's the problem. The past is erased, and we suddenly went from 1948 to October 7th 2023, and there is a problem there.
Speaker 4: So first of all, you have complete freedom to backtrack, and we'll go there with you. Obviously, we can't cover every single year, every single event, but there's probably critical moments in time.
Speaker 2: Can I respond to something relating to that, the Lebanon war? I looked at the book that he got this from and what the quote was from. It sounds cold to say it, but war is tragic and civilians die. There is no war that this has not happened in in the history of all of humankind. The statement that Israel might take care not to target civilians is not incompatible with international humanitarian law or laws that govern conflict, where we say things like civilians dying is a war crime or civilian homes or hospitals getting destroyed isn't necessarily a war crime or is necessarily somebody intentionally targeting civilians without making distinctions between military targets or civilian ones.
I think that when we analyze different attacks or when we talk about the conduct of the military, I think it's important to understand, like, prospectively from the unit, of analysis of the actual military committing the acts, what's happening and what are the decisions being made rather than just saying retrospectively, oh, well, a lot of civilians died, not very many, you know, military people died comparatively speaking. So, it must have been war crimes, especially when you've got another side, I'll fast forward to Hamas, that intentionally attempts to induce those same civilian numbers because Hamas is guilty of any war crime that you would potentially accuse, and this is according to Amnesty International, people that Norm loves to cite. Hamas is guilty of all of these same war crimes, of them failing to take care of the civilian population, of them essentially utilizing human shields to try to fire rockets and free from attacks. Essentially. Essentially, yes.
Speaker 1: If I let me
Speaker 2: As in I'm just saying that, essentially, as in terms of how international law defines it, not how Amnesty International defines it. But Amnesty International describes times of human shielding, but they don't actually apply the correct international legal standard.
Speaker 1: What's the cover? I know absolutely. You have to put the cover. I
Speaker 2: absolutely think but I'm but I'm just
Speaker 0: saying Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying I'm just saying I'm fine. Believe it or not, normally, the entire Geneva Conratches is all on Wikipedia. It's a wonderful website. But I'm just saying I'm just saying that on the Hamas side, if there's an attempt to induce this type of military activity, attempt to induce civilian harm, that it's not just enough to say, like, well, here's a diary entry where a guy talks about how tragic
Speaker 3: I think the problem I think the problem with with with your statement is that if you go back and listen to it, the first part of it is war is hell. Civilians die. It's it's a fact of life. And and and you state that in a very factual matter. Then when you start talking about all of a sudden you've discovered morality, and you've discovered condemnation, and you've discovered intent, and and and you are unfortunately far from alone in this.
I'll give you I'll give you you know who for me is a perfect example?
Speaker 2: Hold on. Just a second. We don't need examples. So I I wait. The the the false equivalency of the two sides is astounding.
When Hamas kills civilians in a surprise attack on October 7th, this isn't because they are attempting to target military targets, and they happen to stumble into a giant festival of people that Well, they did happen to stumble into There wasn't a proportionality assessment done. It was just to kill civilians. Even the Amnesty International in 2008 and in 2014 and even today will like a type 2 attack.
Speaker 3: Anyone who will deny that Hamas has targeted civilians.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: You gave the example But there's
Speaker 2: a difference because
Speaker 3: of suicide bombings, during the 2nd Intifada. I mean, facts are facts.
Speaker 0: Sure.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying that the Hamas targeting against civilians is different than incidental loss of life that occurs when Israel does.
Speaker 3: How you know, genocide is the intentional mass murder.
Speaker 2: Genocide is a entirely separate claim.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But the idea that Israel is not in the business of intentionally targeting civilians, I know that's what we're supposed to believe, but but the historical record stands No. No. That clearly.
Speaker 2: I don't believe it does. You've written about Well, when you say historical, do you mean, like, in the the forties to the sixties? Or do you mean, like, over the past,
Speaker 3: like, last From the thirties of the last century to the twenties of this century. I just like to make, you know, the way the way you, characterized it. I think the best example of that I've come across during this specific conflict is is John Kirby, the White House spokesman. I've I've named him Tirz Tostaron for a very good reason. When he's talking about Palestinian civilian deaths, war is hell.
You know, it's a fact of life. Get used to it. When he was confronted with Israeli civilian deaths on October 7th, he literally broke down
Speaker 0: in tears. One is deliberate and one isn't.
Speaker 3: He understood that. No. That's what he tried to make us understand.
Speaker 0: No. He he he was speaking facts. The Hamas guys who attacked the kibbutzim, they apart from the attacks on the military sites, when they attacked the kibbutzim, were out to kill civilians. And they killed family after family, house after house. The Israeli attacks on Hamas installation better.
And fighting. You don't know better. No. You don't know Israeli pilots.
Speaker 1: That's Thank god. You know you no. You don't know Israeli pilots.
Speaker 0: They believe that they are killing Hamasniks. They're given instructions. I'm sure they believe it. They're not sure they believe it. And if the Hamas is hiding behind civilians believe civilians every
Speaker 1: time they target simple as that. Every time they target a kid, I'm sure they believe it's Hamas. When the kids yeah. When they yeah. When they killed the 4 kids in the on the, they believed Yeah.
Speaker 0: They believed
Speaker 1: I know they believed. Even though they were You know that even though they were
Speaker 0: a diminutive you don't see the side.
Speaker 1: No. They saw it. You don't see the side. Let's see the side.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know what he's quoting here.
Speaker 1: I'm like,
Speaker 2: you've lied about this particular instance in the past. Those kids weren't just on the beaches as his articles. Those kids were literally coming out of a previously identified Hamas contract that they had operated from. They literally did you
Speaker 1: do that? Rally. You with all due respect with all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron. It's terrifying. That that wharf was filled with journalists.
There were tens scores of journalists. That was an old fisherman's shack. What are you talking about? It's so painful.
Speaker 0: I'm lost, neighbor.
Speaker 1: It's so painful to listen to this idiocy.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, on the other side, you're implying that strike was okayed on the Israeli side where they said we're just gonna accept 4 Palestinians to do today for no reason.
Speaker 0: Hey. You believe that? You know You believe that? Do you believe that? Piles without I will even ask children.
Speaker 2: Animals. Because that was
Speaker 1: a strike.
Speaker 2: That was a drone strike. That was a proof. All
Speaker 1: we have to say
Speaker 2: is that we're gonna kill children. Okay. Kill Palestinian people. Do you want
Speaker 1: me to answer or do you want your motor mouth to go? Okay. Answer. In 2018, there was the great march of return in Gaza. By all reckonings of human rights organizations and journalists who were there, it was overwhelmingly nonviolent.
Speaker 0: It was by the Hamas.
Speaker 1: With whoever organized He's
Speaker 3: organized by Satan. Let's start
Speaker 0: with the Hamas.
Speaker 1: Okay. Satan. Yeah. I agree. Let's let's go for the big one.
The big Megillah. It's Satan. Okay? Overwhelmingly organ overwhelmingly nonviolent. Resemble at the beginning the first Bombs
Speaker 0: here and there.
Speaker 1: The first intifago. They both do it. Yeah. Okay. Not bombs.
But let's start. There may be rules
Speaker 0: in the sense.
Speaker 1: Okay. Obviously. Let's continue.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So But I'm not sure Israel behaved morally in
Speaker 1: that thing.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 1: No. No. No. I I Okay. Wait.
Wait. Wait. Wait. I'm willing to grant you Please. Please.
Speaker 0: I'm willing to
Speaker 1: Allow me allow me to You
Speaker 0: don't have to pretend. I'm
Speaker 1: willing to grant you. I
Speaker 3: don't know anything about this. I'd like to
Speaker 1: hear you. So as you know, along the Gaza perimeter, there was Israel's best trained snipers. Correct?
Speaker 0: I don't know best trained. It was snipers.
Speaker 1: Fine. Snipers. Okay. Alright.
Speaker 2: They are realizing Hey.
Speaker 1: Laugh. It's hilarious. The story is so funny.
Speaker 2: You're lying about it's very much your first had aspects of violence to it. Okay. What even the UN says it themselves. Okay. Okay.
But you you only select what the UN says that you like.
Speaker 1: Actually, the problem, mister Morelli, is you don't know the ling English language.
Speaker 2: You don't know the English language. I can read it from the UN website itself. In regards to the great March of Procedure, they said, while the vast majority of protesters have acted in a peaceful manner, under most protests, dozens have approached the fence attempting to Israeli territory. The latter results in an extensive damage to agricultural land and nature reserves inside Israel and risk the lives of Israeli civilians. Some in
Speaker 1: the midst of shooting
Speaker 2: and throwing an explosive
Speaker 1: possible. Fast. Talk fast. I'm trying to think that you're coherent.
Speaker 2: I'm just reading from the UN. Yeah. But you said I think you like the good times.
Speaker 1: I don't
Speaker 2: think they agree with you, though.
Speaker 1: You got the months wrong. You got the months wrong. We're talking about the beginning in March 30th to what you can see.
Speaker 2: That March is mostly people.
Speaker 1: Allow me to finish. So there were the snipers. Okay? Now you'll find it so far fetched, Israelis purposely, deliberately targeting civilians? That's such a far fetched idea.
An overwhelmingly nonviolent march. What did the International Democratic?
Speaker 0: It was a campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Whatever you wanna call. For months. Whatever you wanna call.
Speaker 0: For months.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What did the UN investigation find?
Speaker 0: Well, he just
Speaker 1: read it. I read the report. I don't read things off of those machines. I read the report. What did it find?
Brace yourself. You thought it was so funny, the idea of IDF targeting civilians. It found go look this up on your machine.
Speaker 2: I already know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say it found that only 1 or 2 of them were were justified by journalists.
Speaker 1: Targeted journalists, targeted medics, and here's the funniest one of all. It's so hilarious. They targeted disabled people who were 300 meters away from the fence and just standing by trees. True. If if it's true Mhmm.
Speaker 3: What you're saying.
Speaker 4: Just quick pause. Mhmm. Think everything was fascinating to listen to except the mention of hilarious. Nobody finds any of this hilarious. And if any of us are laughing
Speaker 1: not there.
Speaker 4: It's not at the suffering of civilians or suffering of anyone. It's at the, the obvious joyful camaraderie in the room. So I'm I'm enjoying it and also the joy of learning. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Can we
Speaker 2: talk about the targeting civilian thing a little bit? I think there's, like, an important underlying not necessarily that. I just I think it's important to understand yeah. I think it's important to understand. There's, like, 3 different things here that we need need to think about.
So one is a policy of killing civilians. Do we so I would ask the other side. I'll I'm gonna ask all 3 because I know there won't be a short answer. Do you think there is a policy top down from the IDF to target civilians? That's one thing.
Yeah. A second thing is
Speaker 0: He said yes.
Speaker 2: When I enter yeah. Sure. Good.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That's
Speaker 2: fine. Okay. But then then the second thing is or there's there's 2 distincts I wanna draw between. I think Benny would say this. I would say this.
I'm sure, undoubtedly, there have been cases where IDF soldiers, for no good reason, have targeted and killed Palestinians that they should not have done. That would have been prosecutable as war crimes
Speaker 0: as defined by rum, dash, and airbags. Some have been prosecuted.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I and I absolutely agree. You wouldn't agree. Practically none.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure What could you and your father? I'm sure I'm sure that we would all agree for soldiers that that happens. But I think that it's important I think that it's important that when we talk military strikes, when we talk about things especially involving bombings or drone attacks, these are things that are signed off by multiple different layers of command, by multiple people involved in an operation, including intelligence gathering, including weaponeering, and there also have typically lawyers involved. When you make the claim that an IDF soldier shot, a Palestinian, those 3 people, the 3 hostages that came up with white flags, did something horrible happen? I think that's a fair statement to make, and I think a lot of criticism is deserved.
But when you make the statement that 4 children were killed by a strike, the claim that you're making yes.
Speaker 1: Remember, like yeah.
Speaker 2: The claim that you're making the claim that you're making is that multiple levels of the idea have signed off I never on
Speaker 1: just killing I have no idea what was
Speaker 2: going on there. Understand the process, then let me educate you. I can tell you. I do understand the process. I'm telling you.
You're not really your ideas. I'm no. I it's basically Billy.
Speaker 1: You can ask
Speaker 2: anybody to stop talking. Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how to get people? You can talk to
Speaker 2: people who work in the military.
Speaker 1: What's your knowledge of the idea?
Speaker 2: Audience can look this up. Do you think that do you think that do you think that bombing and strikes are decided by 1 person in the field? Do you think one person responds with an airplane on a drone strike?
Speaker 0: Is a pilot doesn't do it though.
Speaker 2: Yes. They're not responding to the whole are designed to figure out how to strike and who to strike. So when you say that 4 children are targeted, you're saying that a full apparatus of trying to
Speaker 1: murder argument there 4
Speaker 2: Palestinian children. My argument there ridiculous argument.
Speaker 1: Because oh, really. That it's impossible at the command level. It's impossible at the command level. But you said that they couldn't have done it at the bottom if it weren't also
Speaker 2: So, Lisa, you don't understand the strength
Speaker 0: of the
Speaker 2: claim that you're making. You're saying that from a top down level that lawyers, multiple commanders are still looking to sign off. Or Palestinians. It's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. I don't spend my nights on Wikipedia. I read books. I admit that as a a signal. Waste of time.
Yeah. As as as I know, books are a waste of time. With all due regard, there
Speaker 2: Well, you, they are the letting you take from them or 2 or 3 quotes that you use to put forward.
Speaker 1: I completely respect the fact, and I'll say it on the air. As much as I find totally disgusting what's how come of your politics, a lot of the books are excellent. And I'll even tell you because I'm not afraid of saying it. Whenever I have to check on a basic fact, the equivalent of going to the Britannica, I go to your books. I know you got a lot of the facts right.
Speaker 4: Benny Morris, please
Speaker 1: tell us. I would never say books are a waste of time, and it's regrettable to you that you got strapped with a partner
Speaker 2: I never said books.
Speaker 1: Who thinks that all the wisdom. Time. All the wisdom. You didn't say they're
Speaker 0: a waste of time.
Speaker 3: I'd like to respond
Speaker 4: Yes, please.
Speaker 3: To what you were saying. The the I think the question that that we're trying to answer I think
Speaker 0: you don't understand Israel. You know?
Speaker 3: I Neither Let me let me finish really understands Israel how
Speaker 0: it works.
Speaker 3: I think we're all agreed
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That Palestinians have deliberately targeted civilians, whether we're talking about Hamas and Islamic Jihad today or previously
Speaker 0: I prefer the word murdered and raped rather than targeted. Target is too soft
Speaker 2: Oh, you're fine. For what
Speaker 0: the Hamas did.
Speaker 3: I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I'm not
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about
Speaker 0: I'm talking about this now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But I'm I'm trying to answer his question.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Historically, there is, substantial evidence that Palestinians have targeted, civilians. Whether whether it's been incidental or systematic is a different discussion. I don't wanna get into that now. For some reason, there seems to be a huge debate about whether any Israeli has ever sunk so low as as to target a civilian. I don't know.
Speaker 0: We've agreed both. We've agreed
Speaker 2: on this.
Speaker 0: We've said that this has happened here. Okay.
Speaker 3: And I think We've agreed on that.
Speaker 0: I think, what we're saying is not policy, which is what you guys are implying, that they kill civilians deliberately.
Speaker 3: If I understand you correctly, you're basically making the claim that none of these attacks could have happened without going through an entire chain of command.
Speaker 2: Strike cells that are involved in, like, drone attacks or plane attacks or yes.
Speaker 3: My understanding of the Israeli military, and you could perhaps, you've served in it, you would know better. It's actually a fairly chaotic organization.
Speaker 0: No. No. That's not true. Especially not the Air Force. Extremely, extremely organized.
The Air Force works in a very organized fashion, as he says, with lawyers, chain of command, and ultimately, the pilot drops the bomb where he's told to drop it.
Speaker 2: In protective edge, was that 202 100 strikes in, like, 60 seconds, I think? I think the opening of protective edge, like the yeah. The coordination between
Speaker 3: about 2,000 day.
Speaker 2: For I think, yeah, the address 2014. But I'm just saying that the coordination of the military is pretty tight.
Speaker 3: My my understanding of the Israeli military It's
Speaker 0: very old.
Speaker 3: Is that it's quite chaotic, and there's also a lot of testimonies from Israel. But be that as it may, okay, I'm I'm prepared to accept, both of your contentions that it's a highly organized and disciplined force. Air Force, under any scenario, is going to be more organized than the other branches. And and you're saying such a strike would have been inconceivable.
Speaker 2: I'm not necessarily saying, I'm just saying that, like, that would have required Okay.
Speaker 3: Your your basic intent
Speaker 2: for so many people. Yes. Your I don't think evidence of representative to say that that's
Speaker 3: Your your basic claim is that we we we it would be fair to assume that such a strike could have only been carried out with multiple, levels of authorization and and and signing off. Mhmm. Okay. Let's accept that for the sake of argument. We have now seen incident after incident after incident after incident where entire families are vaporized in in single strikes.
Speaker 0: Who is in the families? Who lives in the house? Families.
Speaker 3: Inside. No. Or
Speaker 0: next to the house. Families.
Speaker 3: Families. Families. We have seen incident Do
Speaker 0: you know that Hamasniks weren't in that house? Do you know that there are ammunition dumps
Speaker 3: Why do I have to prove a negative?
Speaker 0: You're saying that they'll deliberately talk about families. You know, if Israel wanted to kill civilians in in in Gaza, they could have killed 500,000 by now with a number of strikes and stuff.
Speaker 3: Therefore The fact
Speaker 0: that they only killed a certain small number of
Speaker 3: 30,000 is a small number.
Speaker 0: Small number in
Speaker 3: proportion. 30,000 small number
Speaker 0: in proportion. Over 4 months. 1,000 children is only is an indication that targeted and that there are Hamas targets in these places.
Speaker 3: So I've I've given 1,000
Speaker 1: children is only. And if that's the case, why is it use the Yeah. You said only. Only. Though, professor Mars, here's a question for you.
If we take every combat zone in the world for the past 3 years, every combat zone in the world And
Speaker 0: Vietnam Americans killed this.
Speaker 1: A 1000000 people.
Speaker 3: Well, they could've killed 40,000,000.
Speaker 1: I wasn't yeah. I was again in the anti war movement. So don't strap in the 1,000,000. Fine. Fine.
And and, 30,000,000 Russians were killed. So and during World War 2, everything else is irrelevant. Okay. Not at all. Here's the question.
Yeah. Stick to the war
Speaker 0: on the world.
Speaker 1: Professor Morris, here's the question. It's very perplexing. If you take every combat zone in the world for the past 3 years and you multiply the number of children killed by 4, every combat zone in the world, you get Gaza. Okay? So when you said
Speaker 2: What's the first approach?
Speaker 1: Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you. Firstly, you're
Speaker 0: aligned. Shut up. You're aligned. I'm not lying.
Speaker 1: I'm not lying. Lying.
Speaker 2: Numbers are not
Speaker 1: numbers are not numbers are not lying. To everybody else. I'm not lying in the numbers.
Speaker 2: Even though we take the numbers though. What is that?
Speaker 1: Those are a mass numbers. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 0: Which may not be true. Fine. They could invent any anything because
Speaker 2: you don't
Speaker 0: that they are a mendacious organoid.
Speaker 1: I know mendacious. Believe me. You like Mendacious as in Mendacious. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Okay.
So here's the thing. You say they could have killed 500,000, but they only killed only. That's your words. I'm not asking you to be killed. You
Speaker 0: believe that they deliberately targeted civilians, they could've would've killed many people. The fact is that professor Mars targets civilians. Professor Mars.
Speaker 2: For a
Speaker 1: historian, I don't want to understand Israeli society.
Speaker 0: You wanna know the truth.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to get inside their heads.
Speaker 0: That's the problem. 90
Speaker 1: percent of the
Speaker 0: 90 percent of the 90 90 historian tries to get into the heads
Speaker 1: of the very
Speaker 0: There's a
Speaker 1: limit. There's a limit. When 90 percent when 90% of Israelis think that Israel is using enough or too little force in Gaza, I don't wanna get inside that head. 40% think that Israel is using insufficient force in Gaza. I don't wanna get inside that head.
I don't wanna get inside the head of people who think they're using insufficient force against the population No. Against the population, half of which is children. I don't wanna get inside that head. But here is the point, because your partner wants to know the point. You don't understand political constraints.
1 of your ministers said that you drop an atomic bomb on You thought he
Speaker 0: really meant that?
Speaker 2: He said
Speaker 0: it through you. No. No. No. It was it was said in a sort of a Professor Morris.
Questionable way. He didn't say they should drop himself. The
Speaker 1: None other than Israel's chief historian, the famed, justifiably famed, Benny Morris, thinks we should be dropping nuclear weapons on Iran.
Speaker 0: Iran has, for years, its leaders, for years, have said we should destroy Israel.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: You agree with that? They've said we should destroy Israel. Israel must be destroyed. Yeah. Have you is that correct?
This is what the Iranian leaders have been saying since Khomeini. I
Speaker 1: would say Iranian leaders have sent mixed message.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. But some of them have said, including Khamenei If you don't know the evidence,
Speaker 1: if you don't know
Speaker 0: the fact that this
Speaker 2: is the Islamic fascism, it's
Speaker 1: To the extent that the Houthis are trying to stop the genocide in Gaza,
Speaker 2: you know, I
Speaker 1: I There are the right to act towards the end of the republic.
Speaker 2: I support I know or selectively support international law when it agrees with you. Okay. And then when it doesn't, you decide to throw international law on the fence.
Speaker 0: Can you say that? If you like Yeah.
Speaker 4: Hold on. Norm. Norm. Let me read Norm. Norm.
Stop, please. Mhmm. Norm, just for me, please. Mhmm.
Speaker 3: Just give
Speaker 4: me a sec. You said that there's no genocide going on in Gaza. Let me ask that clear question.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The same question I asked on the Hamas attacks. Is there from a legal, philosophical, moral perspective, is there a genocide going on in Gaza today?
Speaker 3: Is there a genocide going on in Gaza? Well, in several years, we will have a definitive response But
Speaker 0: after to
Speaker 3: that question.
Speaker 0: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: What has happened thus far is that on 29th December, the Republic of South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel pursuant to the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. South Africa basically accused Israel of perpetrating, genocide in the Gaza Strip. On the 26th January, the, the court issued its initial ruling. The court at this stage, is not making a determination on whether Israel has or has not, committed genocide. So just as it has not found Israel guilty, it certainly also hasn't found Israel innocent.
What the court had to do at this stage was take 1 of 2 decisions. Either South Africa's case was the the equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit and dismiss it and close the proceedings, or it had to determine that, South Africa presented a plausible case that Israel was violating its obligations, under the genocide convention, and that it would, on that basis, hold, a full hearing. Now a lot of people have, looked at the court's ruling of the 26th January and focused on the fact that the court did not order a ceasefire. I actually wasn't expecting it to order a ceasefire, and I wasn't surprised that it didn't because in the other cases that that the court has considered most prominently, Bosnia and Myanmar, it also didn't order a ceasefire. And South Africa, in requesting a ceasefire, also didn't ask the court to render an opinion on the legitimacy or lack thereof of Israel's, of Israel's military operation.
From my perspective, the key issue on the 26th January was whether the court would simply dismiss the case or decide to proceed with it.
Speaker 0: And it decided to proceed.
Speaker 3: And it decided to proceed. And I think that's enormously
Speaker 0: I don't think that was
Speaker 3: I think that's enormously
Speaker 0: You said they committed genocide. You already said they committed genocide.
Speaker 2: I also said
Speaker 0: I said committing genocide.
Speaker 1: But if I could just allow allow me allow me that word. That's correct. Now I I don't run away.
Speaker 0: So, Norman, you did say Israel's committing genocide.
Speaker 4: Can you let Mohan finish?
Speaker 3: Well, the end of the story is you specifically asked whether I think Israel is committing genocide. I explained formally there is no finding, and as you said, we won't know for a number of years. And I think there's legitimate questions to be raised. I mean, in the Bosnia case, which I think all 4 of us would agree was clearly a case of genocide, The court determined mean
Speaker 0: by the service?
Speaker 3: Yes. In in the Bosnian case, the court determined that of all the evidence placed before them, only Srebrenica qualified as genocide, and all the other atrocities committed did not qualify as genocide. You know, international law is a developing, organism. I don't know how the court is going to respond in this case. So I wouldn't take it as a foregone conclusion, how the court is going to respond.
Speaker 2: But my
Speaker 0: Norman has determined already.
Speaker 3: I have too because you're asking my personal opinion. Opinion is also So as as a matter of law, I wanna state very clearly, it has not been determined and won't be determined for several years. Based on my, observations and and the evidence before me, I would say it's indisputable that Israel is engaged in a genocidal assault against the Palestinian people who got
Speaker 2: the strip.
Speaker 0: The PLO
Speaker 1: line. That was the program. The PLO is long past.
Speaker 3: What what okay.
Speaker 0: The Palestine, you know, sorry.
Speaker 3: I as as as you were saying, genocide is is is not a body count. Genocide consists of 2 elements, the destruction of a people in whole or in part. So in other words, you can commit genocide by killing 30,000 people. It doesn't have well, 5 probably is below the threshold. Numbers.
Yes. But I think 30,000 crosses the threshold, and not reaching 500,000 is probably relevant. And the second element is there has to be an intent. In other words
Speaker 0: And you believe there's an intent?
Speaker 3: Yes. I think if if there is any other plausible reason for why all these people are being murdered, it's not genocide. And as far as intent is concerned
Speaker 0: hiding behind a human shield? You don't think that's the reason for them being killed?
Speaker 3: Well, let's get the intent part out of the way first. South Africa's,
Speaker 0: Forget South Africa.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd I'd like to finish.
Speaker 0: I'd like to talk about the government. That's that's got nothing to do with that.
Speaker 3: I think they're pro Satan as well last time.
Speaker 0: No. They're pro Hamas.
Speaker 3: You know, for some reason, you don't have a problem with people being pro Israeli at the time of of of of this. But if they support Palestinians' right to life or self determination, they get demonized and delegitimized as a propaganda.
Speaker 0: Supported an organization which murdered 1200 people deliberately. That's my fault.
Speaker 3: But supporting a state that has murdered 30,000.
Speaker 0: But they haven't, because these are 30,000 Okay. Are basically human shields used by the Hamas in which the Hamas want is norm. They build tunnels for their fighters, but
Speaker 1: not one shelter
Speaker 0: for their own civilians.
Speaker 3: You asked me about intent.
Speaker 0: They want them killed. Okay.
Speaker 3: You asked me about intent. And the reason that I bought in, the South African application is because it is actually exceptionally detailed on intent by quoting numerous
Speaker 0: All sorts of idiotic ministers in Israel.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, including the prime minister, the defense minister
Speaker 0: didn't say guilt. Didn't say genocide.
Speaker 3: Didn't say genocide.
Speaker 0: Staff. Say genocide.
Speaker 3: No. He said
Speaker 1: I'm not According to Asa Kasha use
Speaker 0: the word according to Asa Kasha or a real know
Speaker 1: what I mean. If I'm according to Asa Kasher, the philosopher
Speaker 0: of I said Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He said that Netanyahu He's a was violating genocide. So he's an idiot?
Speaker 3: So the Didn't
Speaker 0: say he's an idiot, but he Yeah. Passed it.
Speaker 3: So the the the reason I raised the South African application is twofold. Yeah. Hamas or no Hamas. It's exceptionally detailed Okay. On the question of on the question of intent.
And secondly, when when the International Court of Justice issues a ruling, individual justices, have have the right can give their own opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I found the German one to be the most interesting on on this specific question because he was basically saying that he didn't think South Africa presented a persuasive case. But he said their, their section on intent was so overpowering that he felt he was left with no choice but to vote with with the majority. So I think that answers, the intent part of your question.
Speaker 2: So for the ICJ case that South Africa has brought, I think there's a couple of things that need to be mentioned. 1 is and I saw you 2 talk at length about this. The plausibility standard is incredibly low. The only thing we're looking for is a basic presentation of facts that make it conceivable, possible that Plausible. Plausible, which legally, this is obviously below criminal conviction, below Yes.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Below Think
Speaker 3: of it as an indictment.
Speaker 2: Sure. Possibly. Maybe even a a lower level than even an indictment. So plausibility is an incredibly low standard, number 1. Number 2, if you actually go through and you read the complaint that South Africa filed, I would say, that if you go through the quotes and you even follow through to the source of the quotes, the misrepresentation that South Africa does and their case about all of these horrendous quotes, in my opinion, borders on criminal.
Well, 16 ICJ judges disagree. That's fine if 16 ICJ judges disagree. They must be awful incompetent. You know, they could be. But They must be awful.
Speaker 1: Even the American judge, she must have been awful incompetent if she was unable to see the misrepresentations that miss Bunnell, based on his Wikipedia entry, was able to find.
Speaker 2: So this is based on the official ICJ report that was released. I'm not sure if you've read the entire
Speaker 1: I read Okay. That's right. Did you
Speaker 2: go through and actually identify any of the sources for the underlying court?
Speaker 1: Actually, brace yourself for this, and Muinne could confirm it.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Yaniv Kogan, an Israeli, and Jamie Sternwinder, half Israeli, they checked every single quote in the Hebrew original. And Yaniv Kogan, love the guy, he has terrifying powers of concentration. He checked every single quote. Is that correct, Muin? And Jamie checked every single quote in the English, in the context, and where there were any contextual questions they told us.
Speaker 3: I think they found 1.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they found 1. So I do not believe that those 16 15 judges was 15 to 2.
Speaker 3: 16 to 2, I think.
Speaker 1: There are 15 on the court plus 2. So it's 17. So it's 15 to 2. I don't think those 15 judges were incompetent, and I certainly don't believe the president of the court, an American, would allow herself to be duped.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, that's what You might be cool.
Speaker 1: Let me
Speaker 2: read it. You might be cool.
Speaker 1: Let me
Speaker 2: read it. Let me read it.
Speaker 1: Let me read it. Alright.
Speaker 2: I just wanna read one.
Speaker 4: Let them read.
Speaker 2: Sure. So this was, taken from the, from the South African complaint. There's tons of these. Mhmm. But so here's one.
In the in the complaint for the ICJ, they said that on 12th October 2023, President Isaac Herzog made clear that Israel was not distinguishing between militants and civilians in Gaza Correct. Stating in a press conference to foreign media in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, over 1,000,000 of whom are children, quote, quote, it's an entire nation out there that is responsible.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved.
Speaker 3: I saw that.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely not true, and we will fight until we break their backbone, end quote. If you actually go to the news article that they even state, they even link it in their complaint, the full context for the quote was, quote, it is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up.
They could have fought against that evil regime, which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat, but we are at war. We are defending our homes. We are protecting our homes. That's the truth. And when a nation protects its home, it fights, and we will fight until we break their backbone.
He acknowledged that many Gazans had nothing to do with Hamas, but was adamant that others did. Quote, I agree there are many innocent Palestinians who don't agree with this, but if you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself? We have to defend ourselves. We have the right to do so. This is not the same as saying there's no distinction between militants and civilians in Gaza.
His statement here is actually fully compliant with international law to the letter, because if you are storing mill, military supplies in civilian areas, these things become military targets, and you're allowed to do proportionality assessments explained by military intent or by a conflict between 2 parties.
Speaker 3: I saw that press conference.
Speaker 0: Wait. Let let me just say something. All of this talk is a bit irrelevant because it sounds it may sound to the listeners that the the court in the Hague has ruled that Israel is committing genocide. No.
Speaker 3: I think It hasn't. That's No.
Speaker 0: It's just is going in the next few years to look at the whole stuff. Okay. There has to be no idea
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 0: No determination at all. Fine. And as, as Stephen says, some of the quotes are not exactly accurate quotes or taken out of his characterization. Yes.
Speaker 1: Okay. It is correct, as Muinne put it, that at least several years before the court makes a determination.
Speaker 0: And my guess is that it will determine there was no genocide. That's my guess. That's not I'm just giving you my guess.
Speaker 1: I can't predict. I got it all wrong, actually, as moving more attest. I got it all wrong the first time. I never thought the American judge would vote again would vote in favor of plausibility.
Speaker 0: So you admit that you were wrong?
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. I think I tell Maween twice a day I was wrong about this, and I was wrong about that. I'm not wrong about the facts. I try not to be. But my speculations, they can be wrong.
Okay. Leaving that aside. First of all, as Moeen pointed out, there's a difference between the legal decision by the ruling and an independent judgment. Now, South Africa is not filing a frivolous case. That was 84 pages.
It was even 84 pages. It was single page frivolous.
Speaker 2: It takes an hour and a half to read. It was not a massive case.
Speaker 1: It was single spaced and had literally hundreds of foot no.
Speaker 0: It can still be frivolous.
Speaker 1: With either it's a possible course, but it could be.
Speaker 3: Wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I read the report. To tell you the truth, I followed very closely everything that's been happening to October 7th. I was mesmerized. I couldn't believe the comprehensiveness of that particular report.
Number 2, there are 2 quite respected judges excuse me, there were 2 quite respected, experts of international law sitting on the South African panel, John Dugard and von Loh. Von Loh, as you might know, he argued the Wall case in 2004 before the International Court of Justice. Now they were not, they were alleging genocide, which in their view means the evidence in their minds we're not yet at the court. The evidence in their minds compels the conclusion that genocide is being committed. I am willing because I happen to know mister Dugard personally, and I've corresponded with von Low.
I've heard their claim. I've read the report. I would say they make a very strong case, but let's agree plausible. Now here's a question. If somebody qualifies for an Olympic team, let's say a regional person qualifies for Olympic team, it doesn't mean they're gonna be on the Olympic team.
It doesn't mean they're gonna win a gold medal, a a silver medal, or a bronze bronze medal.
Speaker 0: Can swim. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 1: No. I would say that's a very high bar.
Speaker 0: You're saying they can swim. They even qualify.
Speaker 3: They swim well enough to have a realistic
Speaker 0: prospect of winning a medal.
Speaker 1: So to even make it to plausible That is not true.
Speaker 2: That is not what plausible means.
Speaker 1: Hide. It is absolutely not your dead wrong. Mister Borelli, please don't teach me about the English language.
Speaker 2: So the declaration
Speaker 1: judge appoint said said possibility is not asked in the present phase. Qualifying.
Speaker 2: The court is not asked at this present phase of the proceedings to determine whether South Africa's allegations of genocide are well founded. They're not, well founded. They're not even well founded. The 47 you said that plausible was a high standard. It is absolutely not.
It is a misrepresentation of the strength of the case against Israel, just like the majority of the quotes they have in this case are. And also, you said it was an extremely well founded case. They spend, like, one 4th of all of the quotations. Some even pulled from the Goldstone report. They try to, that actually deal with the intent part.
Mhmm. Which is, by the way, I think you guys I don't know if you use the phrase, the dole specialis, that the intentional part of genocide
Speaker 3: I don't
Speaker 0: know that term.
Speaker 2: The the I it's I think it's called do lo specialis. It is the most important part of genocide, which is proving the special it is a highly special intent to commit genocide.
Speaker 1: It's possible that Israel could it's mens rellium.
Speaker 2: No. The mens rell they yes. I understand the state of mind, but the the and for genocide, there is. It's called Dola Specialis. It's a highly special intent.
Did you read the case? Yeah. It is a highly special intent.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you again. Yes. Please stop displaying your imbecility.
Speaker 2: Okay. I'm sorry. You think the declaration of the judges imbecility.
Speaker 1: Put on public display that you're a moron. At least have the self possession to shut up. Did I read the case?
Speaker 2: My display on I read you're putting yours in books.
Speaker 0: Is the
Speaker 1: I read the case around 4 times. I read all of the the the, the majority opinion, the declarations. I read Aaron Barak's declaration.
Speaker 2: Then why are you lying and saying plausible is my standard?
Speaker 1: Because I said even reaching the benchmark of plausibility is a very high standard in the world. It's the equivalent of a regional player qualifying for an Olympics. It's still 2 steps removed. You may not be on the team, and you may not get a medal. But to get qualified, which in this context is the equivalent of plausible, you must be doing something pretty horrible.
Speaker 2: That the court
Speaker 1: will rule As it happens Of course.
Speaker 2: That's what the court
Speaker 1: will rule. There was no evidence. As as as as
Speaker 0: the court rule. Remember what I just told you? The court I don't expect
Speaker 1: to be even around when the court reaches its final decision. Why? Why? They'll take a long, long time. 2 years, 3 No.
I don't think they'll take 2 or 3 years. I mean, the
Speaker 3: Bosnia, which was admittedly a special type of case because they were accusing Serbia of sponsoring the Bosnian Serbs. That took, I think, 17 years from 90
Speaker 0: I assume they'll take 2 or 3 years.
Speaker 4: But the point you're making so this is illegal.
Speaker 1: This is horrible. It must be happening to even achieve It's horrible.
Speaker 0: It's a war. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know. It's true.
Speaker 0: It's horrible.
Speaker 1: But I think They weren't rendering a ruling on a war. They were rendering a ruling on the genocide. And I think I think this suggests that
Speaker 2: they said it was plausible. They also said it's plausible that Israel is committing a military operation as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But I think the problem with with your characterization is you're saying in so many words that South Africans basically only have to show up in court with a coherent state.
Speaker 2: That is correct.
Speaker 0: In today's atmosphere, that's probably correct.
Speaker 1: They they
Speaker 3: needed to do a lot more.
Speaker 0: Not more. They needed to they
Speaker 1: needed to persuade today's atmosphere. The American judge. They
Speaker 3: need to persuade
Speaker 0: Judges go according to what the majority want want to hear. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: they needed president.
Speaker 3: They needed to persuade the court that it was worth investing several years of their time
Speaker 0: in hearing this case. For it. So they
Speaker 3: They're they're well paid whether they take this case or not. I mean, you know, they have a they have a full docket, whether they accept or reject this case. And I I think I don't think we should
Speaker 0: Remember what I just said. They won't rule there was genocide. Remember what I said.
Speaker 2: Also, I recommend people actually read the case and follow through a lot of the quotes that they just don't show genocide on the head. I don't think so. The Israeli minister of finance on the 8th October 2023, this is taken from the ICJ. This is from South Africa's submission. Bezalel Smotrich.
I can't read this. Stated Smotrich. There you go. Okay. At a meeting of the Israeli cabinet that, quote, we need a deal they blow that hasn't been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza, end quote.
But again, if you click through and you read the source, their own linked source, it says, as per this own source, quote, the powerful finance minister, settler leader, Besalel Smotrich, I can't pronounce this, demanded at the cabinet meeting late Saturday that the army, quote, hit Hamas brutally and not take the matter of the captives into significant consideration, end quote. Quote, in war, as in war, you have to be brutal, end quote. He was quoted as saying, quote, we need to deal a blow that hasn't been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza, end quote. You can't strip the quotation of Hamas, a entity that you're asking with, and then defend that there's genocidal intent.
Speaker 1: Take down Gaza.
Speaker 2: That's not how
Speaker 1: it goes.
Speaker 0: That's not genocide.
Speaker 2: Russian citizens?
Speaker 1: Professor Mars, here's another one. When the defense yep. Ridiculous?
Speaker 0: Yes. Ridiculous.
Speaker 1: The American judge He
Speaker 0: also doesn't determine policy.
Speaker 1: The American judge
Speaker 0: I didn't hear them.
Speaker 1: The American judge read You are
Speaker 0: holding the American judge to, you know
Speaker 1: No. She was the president. Yes.
Speaker 2: He'll he'll go to authority when it agreed with him, and we won't deal with the actual facts of the matter ever.
Speaker 1: The American judge read several of the quotes.
Speaker 0: Look at the American Okay. Supreme Court today. They may support Trump. Look. Shows
Speaker 1: you how we're dealing with judges. Professor Morris, without going too far afield, if you heard a statement by the defense minister, the defense minister said, we are going to prevent any food, water, fuel, or electricity from entering Gaza.
Speaker 3: He wanted
Speaker 0: to make Did Israel do that?
Speaker 1: Okay. No. I'm I'm I'm wondering.
Speaker 0: What he said I I'm asking you Isn't Israeli government policy?
Speaker 1: But we're talking about statements now, intent. How would you interpret that?
Speaker 0: After 1200 of your citizens are murdered the way they were, I would expect extreme statements by lots of politicians.
Speaker 3: But but but you're
Speaker 0: By lots of politicians.
Speaker 3: But you don't accept extreme And that's
Speaker 0: But you don't accept citizen
Speaker 2: Israeli policy.
Speaker 0: But you don't They let
Speaker 2: in water.
Speaker 0: They let in gas. I'm
Speaker 3: sure. Don't accept. That's why you don't accept extreme Palestinian statements after they lost their entire country, not just 1200 people.
Speaker 0: That's a good point. No. No. It's a good point.
Speaker 4: And on that, on on that moment, brief moment of agreement, let's just take a quick pause. We need a smoke break, you know, water break, you know, bathroom break.
Speaker 1: Down Gaza. It's not a genocide statement.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 0: Take down Gaza.
Speaker 2: To war with Iraq. If we wanted to destroy Iraq, that was a genocidal statement. There's a reason why genocide is so is such an importantly guarded concept. And it's not to to condemn every nation that goes to war. Entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: By your solicitum for international law.
Speaker 2: You should try lawyers sometime. It would help you sort out a lot of the civilian deaths.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, 15 judges disagree.
Speaker 2: You could keep citing the judges. You you should actually try reading the actual statements.
Speaker 0: This is tiring.
Speaker 4: How are you doing?
Speaker 0: You invited us to a tiring session. Yeah. There you go.
Speaker 4: How are you guys doing?
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. There's a there are major things to discuss here, not just when what some court is doing, and they're judging 2 years time.
Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. So what you just said is my whole one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about this particular conflict is because there are really important things to discuss, but they will never be discussed.
Speaker 0: They're not being discussed.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna talk about, like, like, area a, b, and c, or what a transference of territory. Instead, we're gonna talk about apartheid. We're not gonna talk about, you know, the differences in how do you conduct war in an urban environment, which will be we're just gonna talk about genocide. We're not gonna talk about
Speaker 1: No. No. No.
Speaker 2: What's a good solution for the Palestinians. We're just gonna say ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 4: Possible to talk, be productive over the next 2 hours and talk about solution?
Speaker 0: About solutions, I have no idea what to say. I mean, there there I don't see any solutions on you know, if you wanted a positive end to this discussion, which is what you said at the beginning, I can't contribute to this because I I'm pessimistic. I don't see anywhere any way forward here.
Speaker 2: But the lack of the solution is is easy. The reason why the solution is hard is because the histories and the myths are completely there's a different factual record.
Speaker 4: Right? One of the things would be good to talk about solutions with the future is going back in all the times it has failed. So every time But
Speaker 2: even at that, we're probably not gonna agree. He's gonna say, you could write that. I can predict the whole line. He's gonna say from 93 to 99, he's gonna say Israel didn't adhere to the Oslo courts ever. Settlement expansion continued.
Raids happened into the West Bank, that there was never a legitimate, that Netanyahu came in, and violated the, the Y, memorandum, the transference, the he's gonna say all of this, and he's not gonna bring up anything in the Palestinian side. And then for Camp David, he's gonna say that, yeah, that Arafat was trying, that the maps and the territorial exchange wasn't good enough, that they were asking Palestinians to make all the concessions, that Israel would have like, it's yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, but lay it all off. Lay it up.
Speaker 0: You do so quickly.
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I know. Yeah.
Speaker 0: And, yeah, my future book should interest you guys.
Speaker 3: Oh, what are you working on?
Speaker 0: It no. Not working on. It's actually going to come out.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 0: It deals with Israeli and Arab atrocities, war crimes, I call them, in the 48th war.
Speaker 3: Oh, really?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Just deals with that subject.
Speaker 3: Is this, because I know you've also, talked about the closure of the archives and stuff.
Speaker 0: Well, it's it's marginal. They do deals with that as well. But Yeah. They have tried to seal off documents which I'd already used and seen. So Now they don't let people see them.
That's happened. But it's it's marginal in terms of its effect on on on Were the British archives useful
Speaker 3: for you for for this new book?
Speaker 0: Well, for this list, it's mostly Israeli archives. Oh, yeah. The British and the Americans and the UN did deal with these subjects, but not not as well as Israeli documents.
Speaker 3: What's your, casualty count for Deir Yassin?
Speaker 0: It's about a 100. I think there's agreement on that by Israelis and Arabs. Uh-huh. 100, 105.
Speaker 3: Because before they were
Speaker 0: They used to say 245 or 254. Those were the figures the British and the Arabs and the Haganah agreed on at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Because the Red Cross, I think, was the one that first put out that number.
Speaker 0: I don't remember. Maybe it was what's his name? Jacques de Reynier or maybe. Other. Yeah.
Maybe he's he came up with that number. But it was just they didn't count. They didn't count bodies. They just threw the number out, and everybody was happy to
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Blame the Irgun and the Lehi for, you know, killing more Arabs than actually Well,
Speaker 3: and they and they put it to good use as well.
Speaker 0: Well, they said that it helped to precipitate more evacuations. So they were
Speaker 3: not big in it as Yeah.
Speaker 0: Yeah. They also use that in there. Yep. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So first of all, thank you for that heated discussion about the present. I would love to go back into history in a way that informs what we can look for in a, as a by way of hope for the future. So when has in Israel and Palestine, have we been closest to something like a peace settlement? To something that like where both sides would be happy and enable the flourishing of both peoples?
Speaker 0: Well, my my from my knowledge of the 120 years or so of conflict, the closest I think the two sides have been to reaching some sort of settlement appears to have been in the year 2000 when Barack and then subsequently Clinton offered a 2 state settlement to PLO Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat. And Arafat seemed to waver. He didn't immediately reject what was being offered, but ultimately came down at the end of Camp David in July 2000. He came down against the proposals. And the Clinton, who said he wouldn't blame him, later blamed Arafat for bringing down the summit and not reaching a solution there.
But I think they're on the table, certainly in the Clinton parameters of December 2000, which followed the proposals by Barak in July, the Palestinians were offered the best deal they're ever going to get from Israel unless Israel is destroyed, and then there'll just be a Palestinian Arab state. But, the best deal that Israel could ever offer them, they were offered, which essentially was 95% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, half of the old city of Jerusalem, some sort of joint control of the Temple Mount and the Gaza Strip, of course, in full. And the Palestinians said no to this deal. And nobody really knows why Arafat said no. That is some people think he was trying to hold out for slightly better terms.
But my my reading is that he was constitutionally, psychologically incapable of signing off on a 2 state deal, meaning acceptance of the existence of a Jewish state. This was really the problem.
Speaker 3: And Of Israel or of a Jewish state?
Speaker 0: Of a Jewish state. The Jewish state of Israel. He he wasn't willing to share Palestine with the Jews and put his name to that. I I think he just couldn't do it. That that's my reading.
But some people say it was because the terms were insufficient and he was willing, but was waiting for slightly better terms. I don't I don't I don't buy that. I don't think so. But other people disagree with me on this. What what do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, just briefly, in response, Arafat formally recognized Israel in in 1993.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Totally.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't think actually that in 2,000, 2,001, a genuine, resolution was on offer because I think the maximum Israel was prepared to offer, admittedly more than it had been prepared to offer in the past, fell short of the minimum that the Palestinians consider to be reasonable to state settlement, bearing in mind, that as of 1949, Israel controlled 78% of the British mandate of Palestine. Palestinians were seeking a stay on the remaining 22%, and this was apparently too much for Israel. My my response to your question would be Wait.
Speaker 0: Wait. They were being offered something like 22 or 21%.
Speaker 3: They they were being offered, I think, less than a withdrawal to the 1967 borders with mutual and minor and reciprocal land swaps and the just resolution of
Speaker 0: The refugee problem was one of the questions.
Speaker 3: Yes. You know, I I worked for a number of years with, International Crisis Group, and my boss at the time was Rob Malley, who was one of the American officials present at capitated.
Speaker 0: Thrown out of the state department or whatever.
Speaker 3: The point I'm the point I wanna make about, Rob was he wrote, I think, a very perceptive article in 2001 in the New York Review of Books. I know that you and Ehud Barak have had a debate with them, but I think he gives a very compelling reason of why and how, Camp David filled. But rather than going into that
Speaker 0: You wrote that together with Hussein Ara or
Speaker 3: Hussein Ara. Yes. Yes. Who was not at Camp David. Yes.
But in response to your question, I think there could have been a real possibility of Israeli Palestinian and Arab Israeli peace in the mid 19 seventies, in the wake of the 1973 October war. I'll I'll recall that in 1971, Moshe Dayan, Israel's, defense minister at the time, full of triumphalism about Israel's, victory in 1967, speaking to a group of Israeli military veterans, stated, you know, if I had to choose between, Sharm El Sheikh without peace or peace without Sharmesheikh. This is referring to the, resort in in in Egyptian Sinai, which was an under Israeli occupation. Dayan said, I will choose for Sharm El Sheikh without peace. Then the 1973 war came along.
And, I think Israeli calculations began to change very significantly. And I think it was in that context that had there been a joint US Soviet, push for, an Arab Israeli and Israeli Palestinian resolution that incorporated both an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state in in the occupied territories, I think it there was a very reasonable prospect for that being achieved. It ended up being aborted, I think, for several reasons. And, ultimately, the Egyptian, president Anwar Sadat, decided, for reasons we can discuss later, to launch a separate unilateral initiative for, Israeli Egyptian rather than Arab Israeli peace. And I think once that set in motion, the prospects, disappeared because Israel essentially saw its most powerful adversary removed from the equation and felt that this would give it a free hand in the occupied territories, also in Lebanon to get rid of the PLO and so on.
So, you know, and you ask when were we closest, and I can't give you an answer of when we were closest. I can only tell you when I think we we could have been, close, and that was a that was a lost opportunity. If we look at the situation today, you know, there's been a lot of discussion about a 2 state settlement. My own view, and I've I've written about this, I don't I don't buy the arguments of the naysayers that we have passed, the so called point of no return with respect to a 2 state settlement. Certainly, if you look at the Israeli position in the occupied territories, I would argue it's more tenuous than was the French position in Algeria in 1954, than was a British position in Ireland at 1916, than was a Ethiopian position in, Eritrea in 1990.
And so as a matter of practicality, as a matter of principle, I do think, the establishment of a Palestinian state, in in the occupied territories remains realistic. I think the question that we now need to ask ourselves, it's one I'm certainly asking myself, since October 7th and looking at Israel's genocidal campaign, but also looking at larger questions, is it desirable? Can you have peace with what increasingly appears to be an irrational genocidal state that seeks to confront and resolve each and every political challenge with violence, and that reacts to its failure to achieve solutions to political, challenges with violence by applying even more violence that has an insatiable lust for Palestinian territory, that, you know, a a genocidal apartheid state that seems increasingly incapable of even conceiving of peaceful coexistence, with with the other people on that land. So I'm very pessimistic that a a solution is possible. I look at, I grew up, in Western Europe in the long shadow of the 2nd World War, I think we can all agree that there could have been no peace in Europe, had certain regimes on that continent not been removed from power.
I look at, Southeast Asia in the late 19 seventies, and I think we're all agreed that there could not have been peace in that region had the Khmer Rouge, not been ousted. I look at Southern Africa during the 19 nineties, and I think we can all be agreed that had the white minority regimes of, that ruled Zimbabwe and South Africa not been dismantled, there could not have been peace in that region. And although I think it's worth having a discussion, I do think it's now a legitimate question to ask. Can there be peace, without dismantling, the Zionist, regime? And I make a very clear distinction between the Israeli state and its institutions on the one hand, and the Israeli people who I think, regardless of our discussion, about the history, I think you can now talk about an Israeli people and a people, that have developed, rights over time.
And, a formula for peaceful coexistence with them, will need to be found, which is a separate matter from, dismantling, the Israeli state and its institutions. And again, I haven't reached clear conclusions about this except to say, as a practical matter, I think a 2 state settlement remains, feasible. But I think there are very legitimate questions about its desirability and about whether peace can be achieved in the Middle East, with the persistence of an irrational, genocidal apartheid, regime, particularly because Israeli society is, beginning to develop, many extremely, extremely, distasteful supremacist, dehumanizing, aspects that I think also stand in the way of, coexistence that are being fed by this, regime.
Speaker 4: So if you look back into history, when we were closest to peace, and do you draw any hope from any of them?
Speaker 2: I feel like in 2000, I feel like the deal that was present, at least at the end of the Tabas summit, I think in terms of what Israel, I think, had the appetite to give and what the Palestinians would have gotten would have definitely been the most agreeable between the two parties. I don't know if in 73, I'm not sure if the appetite would have ever been there for the Arab states to negotiate alongside the Palestinians. I know that, in Jordan, there was no love for the Palestinians after, you know, 1970, after Black September. I know that Sadat had no love for the Palestinians due to their associate with association with the Muslim Brotherhoods, attempted assassinations in Egypt. Sorry.
What?
Speaker 3: PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Speaker 2: Sadat was upset because there were attempted assassinations by people and oh, no. An assassination. It was a personal friend of his, Yusuf Al Sibay. I can't pronounce that.
Speaker 3: He was assassinated in Cyprus by a Palestinian by the Abunidal Organization. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Admittedly, yeah. He says as much belongs to the Sonder Group, not below directly, but I think that, there was a history of, the Palestinians sometimes, fighting with their neighboring states that were hosting, but they weren't getting the political concessions they wanted. The assassination of the Jordanian king in 51 might be another example of that in Jordan. It feels like over a long period of time, it feels like the Palestinians have been kind of told from the neighboring Arab states that if they just continue to enact violence whether in Israel or abroad, that eventually a state will materialize somehow. I don't think it's gotten them any closer to a state.
If anything, I think it's taken them farther and farther and farther away from 1 and I think as long as the hyperbolic language is continually employed internationally, the idea that Israel is committing a genocide, the idea that there is an apartheid, the idea that they live in a concentration camp, all of these words I think further the narrative for the Palestinians that Israel is an evil state that needs to be dismantled. I mean, you said as much about the institution at least to the Zionist government. Israel's government is probably not going anywhere. All of the other surrounding Arab states have accepted that or at least most of them down in the Gulf, Egypt, and Jordan have accepted that. The Palestinians need to accept it too.
The the Israeli state where the state apparatus is not going anywhere, and at some point, they need to realize, like, hey. We need a leader that's gonna come out and represent us, represent all of us, is willing to take political risks, is willing to negotiate some lasting piece for us, it's not gonna be the international community or some invocation of international law or some invocation of morality or justice that's going to extricate us from this conflict. It's gonna take some actual difficult political maneuvering on the ground.
Speaker 3: Of accepting Israel.
Speaker 2: Of accepting Israel. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Which they formally did in 1993.
Speaker 2: Which they formally did in 1993. Yeah. But then no no lasting peace came after that in 2,000.
Speaker 3: No. Because, 1993 was not a peace agreement.
Speaker 2: Sure. The Oslo Accords weren't
Speaker 3: were an interim final solution. Were an interim Yeah. An interim agreement. And, Palestinians actually began clamoring for commencing the the permanent status resolutions on schedule, and the Israelis kept delaying them. In fact, they only began, I believe, in 99 under American pressure on on the Israelis.
Speaker 0: I think you're being a bit one-sided. Both sides didn't fulfill the promise of Oslo and the steps needed for Oslo. There was Palestinian terrorism which accompanied Israel's expansion of settlements and other things. The two things fed each other and led to what happened in 2000, which was a breakdown of the talks altogether when the Palestinians said no. But I I think there's a I I don't I don't agree incidentally with this definition of Israel or the Israeli state As a apartheid, it's not.
There is a some sort of apartheid going on in the West Bank. Israeli regime itself is not an apartheid regime. That's just nonsense. By any definition of apartheid, which
Speaker 3: Well, but by the formal definition, I think it qualifies.
Speaker 0: No. It doesn't qualify. Apartheid is a race race based distinction between different segments of the population. Correct. And some of them don't have any representation at all, like the blacks in South Africa.
That's not a that's not a at all. In Israel in Israel itself, the, the minority, the Arabs, do have representation, do have rights, and so on. I don't think Israel is also genocidal. I don't think it's been genocidal. It wasn't so in 48.
It wasn't so in 67, and it hasn't been recently in my view. And talk about dismantling Israel, and that's what you're talking about, is I think Steven said it correctly, is counterproductive. It just pushes Israelis further away from willing to give Palestinians anything.
Speaker 4: Please, Norm, tell me you have
Speaker 0: Something optimistic to say. Optimistic to say.
Speaker 1: I, even though I agree, I've thought about it a lot, and I agree with Mawin's analysis. I'm not really in the business of punditry. I rather look at the historical record where I feel more comfortable and I feel on terra firma. So I'd like to just go through that. I don't quite I agree and I disagree with Muin on the 73 issue.
After the 1973 war, it was clear that Israel was surprised by what happened during the war. And, it took a big hit. The estimates are, I don't know what numbers you use, but I hear between 23,000 Israeli soldiers were killed, during the 19th
Speaker 3: It was 25100?
Speaker 0: Yeah. 27100.
Speaker 1: Okay. So I got it right. I read different numbers. That's, you know, it's a very large number, of Israelis who were killed. There were moments at the beginning of the war where there was a fear that this might be it.
No. No.
Speaker 0: There wasn't. There wasn't. There wasn't. No. This is not Please.
Everybody forgets Israel's atomic weaponry.
Speaker 1: I know, but So how could they have been defeated?
Speaker 3: Didn't Dayan talk about the collapse of the 3rd temple?
Speaker 0: But then but there was hysterical Oh, so but
Speaker 1: there I can't
Speaker 0: Islamic weapons. They wanted
Speaker 1: let's not bog down on that. The war is over, and when president Carter comes into power, Carter was an extremely smart guy Jimmy Carter, extremely smart guy. And he was very fixed on details. He was probably the most impressive of modern American presidents, in my opinion, by a wide margin. And he was determined to resolve the conflict, on a big scale, on the Arab Israeli scale.
On the Palestinian scale, issue, he wouldn't go past what he called the Palestinian homeland. He would Palestinian
Speaker 3: national home.
Speaker 1: Palestinian national home. He wouldn't go as far as a Palestinian state. I'm not going to go into the details of that. I I don't think, realistically, forces, that was going to happen, but that's a separate issue. Let's get to the issue at hand, namely what is the obstacle, or what has been the obstacle, since the early 1970s.
Since roughly 1974, the Palestinians have accepted the 2 state settlement in the June 1967 border. Now, as it got as more pressure was exerted on Israel because the Palestinians seemed reasonable, the Israelis, to quote the Israeli political scientist Avner Yaniv, he's since passed from the scene, he said Yaniv in his book Dilemmas of Security he said that the big Palestinian big Israeli fear was what he called the Palestinian peace offensive. That was their worry, that the Palestinians were becoming too moderate. And unless you understand that, you can't understand the June 1982 Lebanon War. The purpose of the June 1982 Lebanon War was to liquidate the PLO in southern Lebanon because they were too moderate, the Palestinian peace offensive.
I'm going to have to fast forward. There are many events. There's the 1st intifada, then there's the Oslo Accord. And let's now go to the heart of the issue, namely the 2 1,000, 2,000 and 1 negotiations. Well, the negotiations are divided into 3 parts for the sake of listeners.
There's Camp David in July 2000. There are the Clinton parameters in December 2000. And then there are negotiations in Taaba in Egypt Taaba in Egypt in 2,001. Those are the three phases. Now I have studied the record probably to the point of insanity because there are so many details you have to master.
Speaker 0: I'll I'll vouch for that. I'll then send it
Speaker 1: to you about that. I I, actually, I will vouch for it. I will personally vouch for it. There is one extensive record from that whole period from 2000 to, you could say, 2007. And that is what came to be called the Palestine Papers, which were about 15,000 pages of all the records of the negotiations.
I have read through all of them, every single page, and this is what I find. If you look at Shlomo Ben Ami's book, which I have with me, Prophets Without Honor, it's his last book. He says, going into Camp David, that means July. Going into Camp David, July 2000, he said the Israelis were willing to return about not return, but will withdraw from 90 relinquish 92% of the West Bank.
Speaker 3: Then I was at Camp David.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then he was at Taba. Oh, yeah. He was also a candidate. They wanted Israel wanted to keep all the major settlement blocks.
It wanted to keep roughly 8% of the West Bank. They were allowing for you put it at 84% to 90% in your books. They put it at roughly 92%. Israel was willing to give up.
Speaker 3: How you calculate. Yeah.
Speaker 0: That depends what
Speaker 3: stage Camp
Speaker 0: David, because there were 2 weeks. I'm
Speaker 1: Yeah. The the I'll get to that.
Speaker 0: Proposals change during So
Speaker 1: Israel wants to keep all the major settlement blocks.
Speaker 0: Means the border area
Speaker 1: of the West Well, not the border. We have Ariel. We have Male Adumim. We have Yes. That is the right Condoleezza Rice called Ariel.
She said it was a dagger into the heart of the West Bank. So they want to keep 8% of the land. They want to keep the settlement blocks. They want to keep 80% of the settlers. They will not budge an inch on the question of refugees.
To quote, Ehud Barak in the article he coauthored with you in the New York Review of Books, we will accept, and I think the quote's accurate, no moral, legal, or historical responsibility for what happened to the refugees. So forget about even allowing refugees to return. We accept no moral, legal, or historical responsibility for the refugees. And on Jerusalem, they wanted to keep large parts of Jerusalem. Now how do we judge who is reasonable and who is not?
Then Ami says, I think the Israeli offer was reasonable. That's how he sees it. But what is the standard of reasonable? My standard is, what does international law say? International law says the settlements are illegal.
Israel wants to keep all the settlement blocks. 15 judges, all 15 in the rule decision in 2004 in July 2004, all 15 judges, including the American judge, Bergenthal, ruled the settlements are illegal under international law. They want to keep 80% of the settlers under international law. All the settlers are illegal in the West Bank. They want to keep large parts of East Jerusalem.
But under international law, East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory. That's what the international Well, not Palestinian because
Speaker 0: there was no Palestine. Okay. Under been a Palestinian state. How could we
Speaker 1: be Palestinian? I listened patiently to you. Sorry. Under international law, if you read the decision, all territory, they're not 2,004 wall decision, all territory beyond the green line, which includes East Jerusalem, is occupied Palestinian territory
Speaker 3: Except in the Golan Heights.
Speaker 1: The designated unit, according to the International Court of Justice, the designated unit for Palestinian self determination. And they they deny any right whatsoever on the right of return. The maximum I don't wanna go into the details now. The maximum formal offer was by Ehud Omar in 2008. He offered 5,000 refugees could return under what was called family reunification, 5,000 in the course of 5 years, and no recognition of any Israeli responsibility.
So if you use as the baseline what the UN General Assembly has said and what the International Court of Justice has said, if you use that baseline international law, by that baseline, all the concessions came from the Palestinian side. Every single concession came from the Palestinian site. None came from the Israeli site. They may have accepted less than what they wanted, but it was still beyond what international law allocated to them. Now you say
Speaker 3: Allocated to the Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Allocated to Palestinians. Yes. Thank you for the clarification. Now about Arafat, like the Mufti, never liked the guy. I think that was one of the only disagreements, Louin and I had when Arafat passed.
You were a little sentimental. I was not. Never liked the guy. But politics, you don't have to like the guy. There was no question.
Nobody argues it that whenever the negotiations started up, the Palestinians just kept saying the same things.
Speaker 0: No.
Speaker 1: And no. They kept saying no. No. Professor Morris, with due respect, incorrect. They kept saying international legitimacy, international law, UN resolutions.
They said, we already gave you what you what the law required. We gave that in 1988, November 1988, and then ratified again at Oslo in 1993. And they said, now we want what was promised us under international law, and that was the one point where everybody on the other side agreed. Clinton, don't talk to me about international law. Livni, during the Omar administration, She said, I studied international law.
I don't believe in international law. Every single member on the other side, they didn't want to hear from international law. And to my thinking, that that is the only reasonable baseline for trying to resolve the conflict, and Israel has, along with the
Speaker 0: US When has international law been relevant to any conflict they see
Speaker 1: in the world?
Speaker 0: That's why Over the last 100 years.
Speaker 1: Palestinians had to recognize Israel, because that's international law. But international law
Speaker 2: is not the right
Speaker 1: That was UN resolution 242.
Speaker 0: By international law or in accordance with international law.
Speaker 1: Professor Morris, for argument's sake, let's agree on that. Strictly for argument's sake. What's the alternative? Dennis Ross said, we're going to decide who gets what on the basis of needs. So he says, Israel needs this.
Israel needs that. Israel needs that. Dennis Ross decided to be the philosopher king. He's going to decide on the basis of needs. Well, if you asked me, since Gaza is one of the densest places on earth, it needs
Speaker 3: a Indonesia.
Speaker 0: Yes. It needs needs
Speaker 1: part of cyanide. A nice
Speaker 0: big chunk
Speaker 1: of cyanide. Not cyanide.
Speaker 0: That's what it actually needs.
Speaker 1: Okay. I I don't even want to go there. It needs a nice big chunk, but I have to accept international law says no. Okay? International law is irrelevant.
Now, Verdi says, I think the Israeli offer was reasonable.
Speaker 0: Okay. That's And he's a reasonable guy.
Speaker 1: That's your he seems to even though okay. I know I'm gonna go with you. I've debated him and partly agree with you. But who decides what's reasonable? I think the international community in its political incarnation, the General Assembly, the Security Council, all those UN Security Council resolutions saying the settlements are illegal, annexation of East Jerusalem is null and void, and the International Court of Justice.
That to me is a reasonable standard. And by that standard, the Palestinians were asked to make concessions, which I consider unreasonable.
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Transcript for Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris | Lex Fridman Podcast #418 - Lex Fridman
This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #418 with Israel-Palestine Debate. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links: Go back to this episode’s main page Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast Table of Contents Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation. Click link to jump approximately to that part in the transcript: 0:00 – Introduction 4:42 – 1948 1:03:14 – Partition 2:07:47 – October 7 3:01:59 –
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reSee.it AI Summary
I had a challenging and fascinating conversation with @TuckerCarlson about Putin, Navalny, Zelenskyy, CIA, NSA, Moscow trip, Jon Stewart, Trump, Israel-Palestine, China, nuclear war, and more. The full conversation is available on X, YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms. Check the comment for links.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with @TuckerCarlson about Putin, Navalny, Zelenskyy, CIA, NSA, Moscow trip, Jon Stewart, Trump, Israel-Palestine, China, nuclear war, and much more. This was a challenging and fascinating conversation. It's here on X in full, and is up on YouTube, Spotify, and everywhere else. Links in comment. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 3:53 - Putin 20:07 - Navalny 41:20 - Moscow 1:00:48 - Freedom of speech 1:07:03 - Jon Stewart 1:19:48 - Ending the War in Ukraine 1:29:15 - Nazis 1:37:42 - Putin's health 1:48:47 - Hitler 1:58:12 - Nuclear war 2:16:31 - Trump 2:33:27 - Israel-Palestine 2:39:37 - Xi Jinping 2:53:34 - Advice for young people 2:58:53 - Hope for the future
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this video, Tucker Carlson interviews Vladimir Putin, discussing topics such as Russia, Navalny, and the war in Ukraine. Carlson aims to provide honest information and challenge propaganda. He expresses concern about political freedom in Russia and criticizes US government surveillance. The speaker also discusses the importance of focusing on the practical effects of leaders' actions rather than their personalities. They criticize the lack of freedom of speech and press in Russia and Ukraine. The conversation touches on John Stewart, the war in Ukraine, and the mindset of individuals in Washington. The speaker also discusses various topics including aggression, technology's impact on society, and their concerns about rigged elections. They emphasize critical thinking and the pursuit of truth. The video concludes with discussions on censorship, the upcoming US election, and the qualities of a successful leader. The speaker highlights the importance of access to information and expresses concerns about American leadership. They mention their interest in interviewing world leaders and their admiration for Joe Rogan and Sheikh Mohammed of Abu Dhabi. The speaker advocates for ethical use of technology and pro-humanity leadership, emphasizing the importance of truth and love prevailing over tyranny.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: He said very specifically, depending on the questions you ask, Putin, you know, you could be arrested or not. And I said, listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US government has, like, control over my questions and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question? Like, how are we better than Putin if that's true? Killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60,000,000,000 in Ukraine funding?
Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all. I don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh, wait. No.
We do it a lot and have for 80 years.
Speaker 1: The following is a conversation with Tucker Carlson, a highly influential and often controversial political commentator. When he was at Fox, Time Magazine called him the most powerful conservative in America. After Fox, he has continued to host big impactful interviews and shows on x, on the Tucker Carlson podcast, and on tucker carlson.com. I recommend subscribing even if you disagree with his views. It is always good to explore diversity of perspectives.
Most recently, he interviewed the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We discussed this, the topic of Russia, Putin, Navalny, and the war in Ukraine at length in this conversation. Please allow me to say a few words about the very fact that I did this interview. I have received a lot of criticism publicly and privately when I announced that I will be talking with Tucker. For people who think I shouldn't do the conversation with Tucker or generally think that there are certain people I should never talk to, I'm sorry, but I disagree.
I will talk to everyone as long as they're willing to talk genuinely in long form for 2, 3, 4 more hours. I will talk to Putin and to Zelensky, to Trump and to Biden, to Tucker and to John Stewart, AOC, Obama, and many more people with very different views on the world. I want to understand people and ideas. That's what long phone conversations are supposed to be all about. Now for people who criticize me for not asking tough questions, I hear you.
But, again, I disagree. I do often ask tough questions, but I try to do it in a way that doesn't shut down the other person, putting them into a defensive state where they give only shallow talking points. Instead, I'm looking always for the expression of genuinely held ideas and the deep roots of those ideas. When done well, this gives us a chance to really hear out the guest and to begin to understand what and how they think. And I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind, to see through the bullshit to the degree there's bullshit, and to see to the heart of the person.
Sometimes I feel at this, but I'll continue working my ass off to improve. All that said, I find that this no tough questions criticism often happens when the guest is a person the listener simply hates and wants to see them grilled into embarrassment, called a liar, a greedy egomaniac, a killer, maybe even an evil human being, and so on. If you are such a listener, what you want is drama, not wisdom. In this case, this show is not for you. There are many shows you can go to for that, with hosts that are way more charismatic and entertaining than I'll ever be.
If you do stick around, please know, I will work hard to do this well and to keep improving. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for your support. I love you all. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2: What was your first impression when you met, Vladimir Putin for the interview? I thought
Speaker 0: he seemed nervous, and I was very surprised by that. And I thought he seemed like someone who'd overthought it a little bit, who had a plan, and I don't think that's the right way to go into any interview. My strong sense, having done a lot of them for a long time, is that it's better to know what you think, to say, you know, as much as you can honestly so you don't get confused by your own lies, and just to be yourself. And I thought that he went into it, like an overprepared student. And, and I I kept thinking, why is why is he nervous?
But, you know, I guess because he thought a
Speaker 2: lot of people were gonna see it. But he was also probably prepared to, to give you a full
Speaker 1: lesson in history as he did.
Speaker 0: Well, I was totally shocked by that and very annoyed because I thought he was filibustering. I thought he I mean, I asked him, as I usually do, the most obvious dumbest question ever, which is, you know, why'd you do this? And, he had said in a speech that I think is worth reading I don't speak Russian, so I I haven't heard it in the original. But, he had said at the moment of the beginning of the war, he had given this address to Russians in which he explained to the fullest extent we have seen so far why he was doing this. And he said in that speech, I fear that NATO, the West, United States, the Biden administration will preemptively attack us.
And I thought, well, that's interesting. I mean, I I can't evaluate whether that's a fear rooted in reality or or one rooted in paranoia, but I thought, well, that's well, that's an answer right there. And so I alluded to that in my question, and rather than answering it, he went off on this long, from my perspective, kind of tiresome, sort of greatest hits of Russian history. And the implication I thought was, well, Ukraine is ours or Eastern Ukraine is ours already. And I thought he was doing that to avoid answering the question.
So, you know, the last thing you want when you're interviewing someone is to get rolled, And I wanna be rolled, so I, a couple of times, interrupted him politely, I thought, but he wasn't having it. And then I thought, you know what? I'm not here to prove that I'm a great interviewer. It's kind of not about me. I wanna know who this guy is.
I think a Western audience, a global audience has a right to know more about the guy, and so just let him talk. You know? Because it's not you know, I don't feel like my reputation's on the line. People have already drawn conclusions about me, I suppose, to the extent they have. I'm not interested really in those conclusions anyway.
So just let them talk. And so I calmed down and just let him talk. And in retrospect, I thought that was really, really interesting. You know, whether you agree with it or not or whether you think it's relevant to the war in Ukraine or not, that was his answer, and so it's inherently significant.
Speaker 2: Well, you say he was nervous. Were you nervous? Were you afraid?
Speaker 0: This is Vladimir Putin. I wasn't afraid at all, and I wasn't nervous at all.
Speaker 2: Did you drink tea beforehand?
Speaker 0: No. I did my my normal, regimen of nicotine pouches and coffee. No. I'm not a tea drinker. I tried not to eat, you know, all the sweets they put in front of us, which is that that is my weakness is eating crap.
But you eat a lot of sugar before as you know before an interview, and it and it does dull you. So I I successfully resisted that. But I no. I wasn't nervous. I wasn't nervous the whole time I was there.
Why would I be? You know, I'm 54. My kids are grown. I believe in God. You know, I'm not I'm almost never nervous.
But, no. I wasn't nervous. I was just interested. I mean, I couldn't I you know, I'm interested in Soviet history. I studied it in college.
I've read about it my entire life. My dad, you know, worked in the Cold War. It was a constant topic of conversation. And so to be in the Kremlin in a room where Stalin made decisions, either wartime decisions or decisions about murdering his own population, I just I couldn't get over it. You know, we're in Molotov's old office.
So for me, that was I was just blown away by that. I knew I thought I knew a lot about Russia. It turns out I knew a lot about the Soviet period, you know, the 1937 purge trials, the famine in Ukraine. Like, I knew a fair amount about that, but I really knew nothing about contemporary Russia less than I thought I did, it turned out. And, but, yeah, I was just I was just blown away by where we were, and that's kind of one of the main drivers at this stage in my life of it.
You know, that that's why I do what I do is because I'm interested in stuff, and I wanna see as much as I can and try and draw conclusions from it to the extent I can. So I was very much caught up in that, but, no, I wasn't nervous. I didn't think he's gonna, like, kill me or something, and I'm not particularly afraid of that anyway. So
Speaker 2: Not afraid of dying?
Speaker 0: Not really. No. I mean, again, it's a tie you know, it's it's an age and stage in life thing. I mean, I've I've 4 children. So there were times when they were little where I was terrified of dying because if I died, it would have huge consequences.
But, no. I mean, at this point, I don't wanna die. I'm really enjoying my life, but I've been with the same girl for 40 years. And I have 4 children who I'm extremely close to. Well, now 5, a daughter-in-law.
And I love them all. I'm really close to them. I told them I love them every day. I I don't I've had a really interesting life.
Speaker 2: What was the goal? Just linger on that. What was the goal for the interview? Like, how were you thinking about it? What would success be like in your head leading into it?
Speaker 0: To bring more information. Just information. Public. Yeah. That's it.
I mean, I have really strong feelings about, what's, you know, happening, not just in Ukraine or Russia, but around the world. I think the world is resetting to the grave disadvantage of the United States. I don't think most Americans are aware of that at all. And, so that's my view, and I've I've stated it many times, because it's sincere. But my goal was to have more information brought to the west so people could make their own decisions about whether this is a good idea.
I mean, I just I guess I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective, which is, you know, a tiny group of dumb people in Washington has decided to do this for reasons they won't really explain, and you don't have a role in it at all as an American citizen, as the person who's paying for it, whose children might be drafted to fight it, you know, to shut up and obey. I just I just reject that completely. You know, I'm a I think I guess I'm a child of a different era. I'm a child of participatory democracy to some extent, where your opinion as a citizen is not irrelevant. And, so I I I'm just and I guess the level of lying about it was starting to drive me crazy.
And I've said and I will say again, I am not an expert on the region or really any region other than, say, Western Maine. I just don't, you know, I'm not Russian. And, but it was obvious to me that we were being lied to in ways that were just, it was crazy, the scale of the lies. And I'll just give you one example. The idea that Ukraine would inevitably win this war.
Now victory was never, as it never is, defined precisely. Nothing's ever defined precisely, which is always to tell that there's deception at the heart of the claim. But, Ukraine's on the verge of winning. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm hardly a tactician or a military expert.
For the 5th time, I'm not an expert on Russia or Ukraine. I just look at Wikipedia. Russia has a 100,000,000 more people than Ukraine, a 100,000,000. It has much deeper industrial capacity, war material capacity than all of NATO combined. For example, Russia is turning out artillery shells, which are significant in a ground war, at a ratio of 7 to 1 compared to all NATO countries combined.
That's all of Europe. Russia is producing 7 times the artillery shells as all of Europe combined? What? That's an amazing fact, and it turns out to be a really significant fact, in fact, the significant fact. But if you ask your average person in this country, even a fairly well informed person of good faith who's just trying to understand what's going on, who's gonna win this war?
Well, Ukraine's gonna win. They're on the right side. And they think that because our media, who who really just do serve the interest of the US government, period, they are state media in that sense, have told them that for over 2 years. And I I I was in Hungary last summer talking to the prime minister, Viktor Orban, who's a, you know, whatever you think of, he's a very smart guy, Very smart guy. Like, smart on a scale that we're not used to, in our leaders.
And I said to him off camera, so is Ukraine gonna win? And he looked at me like I was deranged. Like I was congenitally deficient. Are they gonna win? No.
Of course, they can't win. It's tiny compared to Russia. Russia has a wartime economy. Ukraine doesn't really have an economy. No.
Look at the populations. He was like, looked at me like I was stupid. And I said to him, you know, I think most Americans believe that because NBC News and CNN and all the news channels, all of them tell them that because it's framed exclusively in moral terms and it's Churchill versus Hitler. And, of course, Churchill's gonna prevail in the end. And it's just so dishonest that even it doesn't even matter what I want to happen or what I think ought to happen.
That's a distortion of what is happening. And if I have any job at all, which I sort of don't actually at this point, but if I do have a job, it's to just try to be honest, and that's a lie.
Speaker 2: There is a more nuanced discussion about what winning might look like. You're right. Sure. A nuanced discussion is not being had, but it is possible for Ukraine to, quote, unquote, win with
Speaker 0: the help of United States. I I guess that conversation needs to begin by defining terms, and the key term is when. What does that mean? Peace, a ceasefire, who owns which land Yes. Coming to
Speaker 2: the table with, as you call, the parent in the United States Yes. Putting leverage on the negotiation to make sure there's a fairness. Amen.
Speaker 0: Well, I of course, as a and and I should just restate this. I am, not emotionally involved in this. I'm American in every sense, and my only interest is in America. I'm not leaving ever. And so I'm looking at this purely from our perspective, what's good for us.
But I also as a human being, as a Christian, I mean, I I hate war, and anybody who doesn't hate war, shouldn't have power in my opinion. So I agree with those that definition vehemently. A victory is like not killing an entire generation of your population. It's not being completely destroyed to be eaten up by BlackRock or whatever comes next for them. So, yeah, we were close to that a year and a half ago, and the Biden administration dispatched Boris Johnson, the briefly prime minister of the UK, to stop it and to say to Zelensky, who I feel sorry for, by the way, because he's caught between these forces that are bigger than he is, to say, no.
You cannot come to any terms with Russia. And the result of that has not been a Ukrainian victory. It's just been more dead Ukrainians and a lot of profit for the West. It's it's a moral crime, in my opinion. And I tried to ask Boris Johnson about it because why wouldn't I after he denounced me as a tool of the Kremlin or something.
And, he demanded a $1,000,000 to talk to me. Wow. And this just happened last week. And, and by the way, in writing too, I'm not making this I'm not
Speaker 2: making this For the record, you demanded $1,000,000 from me to talk to me today.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 0: And you paid. No. I'm, of course, kidding. But, and I I said to his guy, I said, I just interviewed Putin, who was widely recognized as a bad guy, and he did it for free. He didn't demand a $1,000,000,000.
He wasn't in this for profit. Like, are you telling me that Boris Johnson is sleazier than Vladimir Putin? And, of course, that is the message. And so I I guess these are really it's not just about Boris Johnson being a sad, you know, rapacious fraud, which he is, obviously, but it's about, like, the future of the west and the future of Ukraine, this country that purportedly we care so much about. All these people are dying and, like, what is the end game?
It's also deranged that I didn't imagine and don't imagine that I could, like, add anything very meaningful to the conversation because I'm not a genius. Okay? But I felt like I could, at the very least, puncture some of the lies, and that's an inherent good.
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin, after the interview, said that he wasn't fully satisfied because you weren't aggressive enough. You didn't ask sharp enough questions.
Speaker 0: Uh-huh.
Speaker 2: First of all, what do you think about him saying that?
Speaker 0: I don't even understand it. I guess it I I it does seem like the one Putin statement that western media take at face value. Everything else Putin says is a lie except his criticism of me, which is true. But, I mean, I have no idea what he meant by that. I can only tell you what my goal was, as I've suggested, was not to make it about me.
I I watched you know, he hasn't done any any interviews of any kind for years. But the last interview he did with an English speaking reporter, Western media reporter, was like many of the other interviews he'd done with Western media reporters. Mike Wallace's son did an interview with him that was of the same variety, and it was all about him. You know, I'm a good person. You're a bad person.
And I just feel like that's the most tiresome, fruitless kind of interview. It's not about me. I I don't think I'm an especially good person. I've definitely never claimed to be, but people can make their own judgments. And, again, the only judgments that I care about are my wife and children and God.
So I'm just not interested in proving I'm a good person, and I just wanna hear from him. And and I had a lot of I mean, you should see the I I almost never write questions down, but I did in this case because I had months to well, I had 3 years to think about it as I was trying to book the interview, which I did myself. But they were all it was all about internal Russian politics and Navalny, and and I had a lot of, I thought, really good questions. And then at the last second, and you make these decisions, as you know, since you interview people a lot, often you make them on the fly. And I thought, no.
I want to talk about the things that haven't been talked about and that I think matter in a world historic sense. And then number 1 among those, of course, is the war and what it means for the world. And, so I stuck to that. I mean, I could I did ask about Gershkovich, who I felt sorry for, and I wanted Putin to release him to me, and I was offended that he didn't. I thought his rationale was absurd.
We wanna trade him for someone. I said, well, that doesn't that make him a hostage? You know, which, of course, it does. But other than that, I really wanted to keep it to the things that I think matter most. You know, people can judge whether I did a good job or not, but that was my that was that was my decision.
Speaker 2: In the moment, what was your gut? Did you wanna ask some tough questions as follow ups on certain topics? I don't know what
Speaker 0: it would mean to ask a tough question. Clarifying questions, I I suppose they would I guess. I just wanted him to talk. You know, I just wanted to hear his perspective. Again, I've probably asked more asshole questions than, like, any living American.
You know, I'm as as has been noted correctly, I'm a dick by my nature. And, so I don't I I just feel at this stage of my life, I didn't need to prove that I could
Speaker 3: like, Vladimir Putin answered a question.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 0: The bullshit. You know, know, I think if I had been, you know, 34 instead of 54, I definitely would have done that because I would have thought this is really about me, and I need to prove myself also. No. I just there's a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale people do not understand. The US dollar is going away.
That was, of course, inevitable ultimately because everything dies, including currencies. But that death, that process of death has been accelerated exponentially by the behavior of the Biden administration and the US Congress, particularly the sanctions. And people's don't understand what the ramifications of that are. The ramifications are poverty in the United States. Okay?
So I just I just wanted to get to that, because I'm coming at this from not a global perspective. I'm coming at it from an American perspective.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned Navalny. Mhmm. After you left, Navalny died in prison. Yes. What are your thoughts on just at a high level first about his death?
Speaker 0: It was awful. I mean, imagine dying in prison. You know, I've thought about it a lot. I've known a lot of people in prison a lot, including some very good friends of mine. So I felt instantly sad about it.
From a geopolitical perspective, I don't know any more than that. And I I laugh at and sort of resent, but mostly find amusing the claims by American politicians who really are the dumbest politicians in the world, actually. You know, this happened, and here's what it means. And it's like, actually, as a factual matter, we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened.
We have no freaking idea what happened. We can say, and I did say, and I will say again, I think I don't think you should put opposition figures in prison. I really don't. I don't, period. It happens a lot around the world, happens in this country as you know, and I'm against all of it.
But do we know how we died? Short answer, no. We don't. Now if I had to guess, I would say killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60,000,000,000 in Ukraine funding, Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all.
You know, I just don't I don't see it, but maybe, you know, maybe they killed him. I mean, they certainly put him in prison, which I'm against. But here's what I do know is that we don't know. And so when Chuck Schumer stands up and Joe Biden reads some card in front of him with lines about Navalny, it's like, I'm allowed to laugh at that because it's absurd. You don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of interesting ideas about if he was killed, who killed him? Yeah. Because it could be Putin. It could be somebody in Russia who's not Putin. Yep.
It could be Ukrainians because it would benefit the war.
Speaker 0: They killed Dugan's daughter in Moscow. So, yeah, that's possible.
Speaker 2: And it could be I mean, the United States could also be involved.
Speaker 0: I don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh, wait. No. We do it a lot and have for 80 years, and it's shameful. I can say that as an American because it's my money in my name.
Yeah. I'm really offended by that, and I never thought that was true, and I spent again, I'm much older than you, and so I spent my my my worldview was defined by the Cold War and very much in the house I lived in in Georgetown, Washington DC. You know, that's what we talked about. And, yeah, and the left at the time, you know, I don't know, the wacko MIT professor who I never had any respect for, who I know you've interviewed, etcetera. Like, the hard left was always saying, well, the United States government is interfering in other elections, and I just dismissed that completely out of hand, as stupid and actually a slander against my country.
But it turned out to all be true or or substantially true anyway. And that's been a real shock for me in middle age to to understand that. But anyway, as to Navalny, look, I don't know. But we should always proceed on the basis of what we do know, which is to say on the basis of truth, knowable truth. And if you have an entire policy making apparatus that is making the biggest decisions on the face of the planet, on the basis of things that are bullshit or lies, you're gonna get bad outcomes every time, every time.
And that's that's why we are where we are.
Speaker 2: Does it bother you that basically the most famous opposition figure in Russia is sitting in prison?
Speaker 0: Of course, it does. Of course, it bothers me. I mean, it bothered me when I got there. It bothers me now. I was sad when he died.
Yeah. I mean, that's one of the measures of it's one of the basic measures of political freedom. Are you imprisoning people who oppose you? You know, are you imprisoning people who pose a physical risk to you? I mean, there's some subjective decision making involved in these things.
However, big picture, yeah. Do you have opposition leaders in jail? It's not a free it's not a politically free society, and Russia isn't, obviously. And as I said, a friend of mine from childhood, an American actually, is a wonderful person, lives in Russia with his Russian Moscow with his Russian wife, and I had dinner with him. He's a very balanced guy, totally nonpolitical person, and, and speaks Russian and loves his many Russian children and and loves the culture, and there's a lot to love.
The culture that produced Tolstoy. You know, it's not a gas station with nuclear weapons. Sorry. Only an a moron would say that. It's a very deep culture.
I don't fully understand it, of course, but I I admire it. Who wouldn't? But I asked him, like, what's it like living here? And he goes, you know, it's great. Moscow is a great city, indisputably.
He said, you don't wanna get involved in Russian politics. And I said, what? He said, well, you could get hurt. You could wind up like Navalny if you did, but, also, it's just too complicated. You know, the the Russian mind is not is not exactly the same.
It's it's a western it's a European city, but it's not quite European. And, the way they think is very, very complex, very complex. It's just it's too complicated. Just don't get involved. And, I would just say 2 things.
1, I'm not I mean, like, I I don't know. But my strong sense is that Navalny's death, whoever did it, probably didn't have a lot to do with the the coming election in Russia. My sense from talking to Putin and the people around him is they're not really focused on that. Mean, in fact, I asked one of his top advisers when's the election, and she looked at me completely confused. She didn't know the date of the election.
Okay. She's like, March? Okay. And I asked a bunch of other people just in Moscow, who's who's Putin running against? Like, nobody knew.
So it's not a real election, right, in the in the sense that we would recognize at all. Second, I was really struck by so many things in Moscow and really bothered by deeply bothered by a lot of things that I saw there. But one thing I noticed was the total absence of cult of personality propaganda, which I expected to see and have seen around the world. Jordan, for example. I don't know if you've been to Jordan, but go to Jordan.
In every building, there are pictures of the king and his extended family, and and that's a sign of political insecurity. You know, you don't create a cult of personality unless you're personally insecure and also unless you're worried about losing your grip on power. None of that. That's it's interesting, and I expected to see a lot of it, you know, like statues of Putin. No.
There are no statues of anybody other than, like, Christian saints. So that was, like, I'm not quite sure. I'm just reporting what I saw. So, yes, it's not a in a political sense, it's not a free country. It's not a democracy, in the way that we would understand it or want I don't wanna live there.
Okay? Because I like to say what I think. In fact, I make my living doing it. But it's not Stalinist in a recognizable way. And anyone who says it is should go there and tell me how.
Speaker 2: I mean, this question about the freedom of the press is underlying the very fact of the interview you're having with him. Right. So you might not need to ask the Navalny question, but did you feel like are there things I shouldn't say?
Speaker 0: I mean, how honest do you want me to be? I mean it when I say I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there. Maybe I just didn't and I feel like I've got a pretty strong gut sense of things. I rely on it. I make all my decisions based on how I feel, my instincts, and I didn't feel it at all.
My lawyers before I left, and these are people who work for a big law firm. This is not Bob's law firm. This is one of the biggest law firms in the world, said you're gonna get arrested if you do this by the US government on sanctions violations. And I said, well, I you know, I don't I don't recognize the legitimacy of that actually because I'm American, and I've lived through my whole life. And that's so outrageous that I'm happy to face that that risk because I I so reject the premise.
Okay? I'm an American. I should be able to talk to anyone I want to, and I I plan to exercise that freedom, which I think I was born with. I gave them this long, long lecture. They're like, we're just lawyers.
But that was, it was it was a let me put it this way. I don't know how much you dealt with lawyers, but it costs many 1,000 of dollars to get a conclusion like that. Like, they sent a whole bunch of their summer associates or whatever. They sent they put a lot of people on this question, checked a lot of precedent, and I think and they sent me a 10 page memo on it, and their sincere conclusion was, do not do this. And, of course, it made me mad, so I was lecturing on the phone, and I had another call with the head lawyer, and he said, look, A lot will depend on the questions that you ask Putin.
Mhmm. If you're seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested when you come back. And I was like, you're describing a fascist country. Okay? You're saying that the US government will arrest me if I don't ask the questions they want asked.
Is that what you're saying? Well, we just think based on what's happened that that's possible. And so I'm just telling you what happened.
Speaker 2: So you were okay being arrested in Moscow? I didn't think
Speaker 0: I was arrested in I didn't think back in. For a second. I mean, maybe look. I don't speak Russian. I'd never been there before.
Everything about the culture was brand new to me. You know, ignorance does protect you, sort of, when you have no freaking idea what's going on. You're not worried about it. Like, this happened to me many times. There's a principle there that extends throughout life.
So it's completely possible that I was in grave peril and didn't know it. Because, like, how would I know it? You know? I'm like a bumbling English speaker from California. But, I didn't feel it at all.
But the lawyers did. Yeah. I mean, it scared the crap out of people. You're gonna and look. And I you have to pay in cash.
They don't take credit cards because of sanctions, and you have to go through all these hoops, just procedural hoops to go to Russia, which I was willing to do because I wanted to interview Putin because they told me I couldn't. But then there's another fact, which is that I was being surveilled by the US government, intensely surveilled by the US government. And this came out. They admitted it. The NSA admitted it a couple of years ago that they were up in my signal account, and then they leaked it to the New York Times.
They did that again before I left. And I know that because 2 New York Times reporters, one of whom I actually like a lot, said, oh, you're going and called other people. Oh, he's going to interview Putin. I didn't told anybody that. Like, anybody.
Like, my wife, 2 producers. That's it. So they got that from the government. Then I'm over there. And, of course, I wanna see Snowden, who I admire.
And so I have a we have a mutual friend, so I got his text and come on over, and and Snowden does not want publicity at all. And so but I really wanted to have dinner with him. So we had dinner in my hotel room, at the Four Seasons in Moscow. And I said I tried to convince him, you know, I'd love to do an interview, shoot it on my iPhone. You know?
I'd love to take a picture together and put it on the Internet because I just wanna show support because I think he's been railroaded. He'd he had no interest in living in Russia. No intention of being in Russia. The whole thing is alive. But, anyway, whatever.
All this stuff. And he just said, respectfully, I'd rather not anyone know that we met. Great. The only reason I'm telling you this is because and I didn't tell anybody, and I didn't text it to anybody, okay, except him.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Semaphore Semaphore, runs this piece saying report reporting information they got from the US intel agencies leaking against me using my money in my name in a supposedly free country. They run this piece saying I'd met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something. So, again, what my interest is in the United States and preserving freedoms here, the ones that I grew up with. And if you have a media establishment that acts as an auxiliary of or acts as employees of the national security state, you don't have a free country. And that's where we are.
And I'm not guessing because I spent my entire life in that world. 33 years, I worked in big news companies. And so I know how it works. I know the people involved in it. I could name them.
Ben Smith of Semaphore, among many others. And I find that really objectionable, not just on principle either in effect in practice. I don't wanna live in that kind of country, and people are like they externalize all of their anxiety about this, I have noticed. So it's like Russia is not free. Yeah.
I know. You know, neither is, you know, Burkina Faso. Like, most countries aren't free, actually, but we are. We're the United States. We're different.
And that's my concern. Preserving that is my concern. And so they get so exercised about what's happening in other parts of the world, places they've never been, know nothing about. It's almost a way of ignoring what's happening in their own country right around them. I find it so strange and sad and weird.
Speaker 2: So the NSA was tracking you as do you think CIA was? Who's is, people still tracking you?
Speaker 0: Look. One of the things I did before I went, just because of the business I'm in, all of us are in, and just because we live here, you know, we all have theories about secure communications channels. Like, signal is secure, telegraph isn't, or WhatsApp is owned by Mark Zuckerberg. You can't find okay. So I thought, you know, before I go over here, I was getting all this.
We're having all these conversations, my producers and I, about this. And I decide, you know, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna actually find out, like, what's really going on. So I talked to 2 people, who would know. Trust me. And that's I it's all I can say, and I'm I hate to be like, oh, I talk to people who don't by Kent Zubair, but I mean it.
They would know. And both them said exactly the same thing, which is, are you joking? Nothing is secure. Everything is monitored all the time if if state actors were involved. I mean, you can keep the, you know, whatever, the Malaysian mafia from reading your text, probably.
You cannot keep the big intel services from reading your text. It's not possible, any of them, or listening to your calls. So and that was the firm conclusion of people who've been involved in it, you know, for a long time, decades both in both cases. So I just thought, you know what? I don't care.
I don't care. I'm not sending a ton of naked pictures of myself to anybody. Not a ton. Just a little. Not a ton.
I'm 54, dude. Probably not too many. Right. But but you see so I'm like, I'm just so the guys, travel with 3 people I work with, who I love, who I've been around the world with for many years, and I know them really, really well. And they all got, you know, separate phones, and I'm leaving my other phone back in New York or whatever.
And I just decided I don't care, actually. And, yeah, I resent having to no privacy, because privacy is a prerequisite for freedom, But I can't change it, and so I have the same surveilled cell phone. And, you know, I do switch them out because, there it is, because if you have too much spyware on your phone, this is true, it wrecks the battery. And, no, I'm serious. It does.
And we got it was, I don't know, 5 or 6 years ago, we went to North Korea, and, my phone started acting crazy. And so I talked to someone on the National Security Council who's who actually who called me about this, somehow knew that your phone is being surveilled by the South Korean government. I was like, why the I like the South Korean government. Why would they do that? Because they want more information.
They thought I was talking to Trump or whatever. So but I could tell because all of a sudden, the thing would just drain in, like, 45 minutes. So that is that's a downside.
Speaker 2: So you you keep, switching phones, getting new phones for the battery life.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, I try not to do it. You know, I'm kind of flinty Yankee type in some ways, so I don't I don't like to spend $1,000 with a freaking Apple Corporation too often. But, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: I mean, you say it lightly, but it's really troublesome that you as a journalist would be tracked.
Speaker 0: Well, they leaked it to Semaphore, and they leaked it to the New York Times. Look, it's I would even put up well, there's nothing I can do, so I have to put up with everything. Okay? But I would probably not be actively angry about being surveilled because I'm just so old and I'm I actually do pay my taxes. I'm not sleeping with the makeup artist or whatever, so don't care that much.
The fact that they are leaking against me that the Intel services in the United States are actively engaged in US politics and media, that's so unacceptable. That makes democracy impossible. There's no defense of that. And yet NBC News, Kendalanian, and the rest will defend it. And it's like and and not just on NBC News, by the way, on the supposedly conservative channels too.
They will defend it, and there's no defending that. You can't have democracy if the intel services are tampering in elections and information, period.
Speaker 2: So you had no fear. You know, your lawyer said, be careful which questions you asked. You said, I don't have
Speaker 0: Well, the lawyer said no. He said very specifically, if, you know, depending on the questions you ask Putin, you know, you could be arrested or not. And I said, listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US government has, like, control over my questions and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question? Like, how are we better than Putin if that's true?
And, by the way, that's just what the lawyer said, but I I can't overstate one of the biggest law firms in the United States, smart lawyers we've used for years. So I was I was really shocked by it.
Speaker 2: You said leaders kill, leaders lie. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I don't believe in leaders very much. Like, this whole, like, oh, Zelensky is Jesus and Putin is Satan. It's like, no. They're all leaders of countries. Okay?
Like, grow up a little bit, you child. Do you have you ever met a leader? Like, all of the first of all, anyone who seeks power is damaged morally, in my opinion. You shouldn't be seeking power. You can't seek power or wealth for its own sake and remain a decent person.
That's just true. So there aren't any, like, really virtuous billionaires, and there aren't any really virtuous world leaders. You have grades of virtue. Some are better than others for sure. But I mean, in other words, Zelenskyy may be better than Putin.
I'm open to that possibility, but to claim that one is evil and the other is virtuous, it's like you're revealing that you're a child. You don't know anything about how the world actually is or what reality is. Like, it's I it's, it's
Speaker 2: that's quite a realist perspective, but there is a spectrum.
Speaker 0: There's a spectrum. Absolutely. I'm not saying they're all the same. They're not.
Speaker 2: And our task is to figure out where on the spectrum they they lie in the leaders' task is to confuse us and convince us they're one of the good guys. Of course.
Speaker 0: But I actually reject even that formulation. I don't think it's always about the leaders. I mean, of course, the leaders make the difference. A good leader has a healthy country, and a bad leader has a decaying country, which is something
Speaker 2: to think
Speaker 0: about. But it's about the ideas and the policies and the practical effect of things. So we're very much caught up in the personalities of various leaders, not just our political leaders, but our business leaders, our cultural leaders. Are they good people? Do they have the right thoughts?
It's like, no. I asked him much more basic question. What are the fruits of their behavior? And I always make it personal because I think everything is personal. Does his wife respect him?
Do his children respect him? How are they doing? Is the country he runs thriving, or is it falling apart? If your life expectancy is going down, if your suicide rate is going up, if your standard of living is tanking, you're not a good leader. I don't care what you tell me.
I don't care what you claim you represent. I don't care about the ideas or the systems that you say you embody. It's it's it's dogs barking to me. How's your life expectancy? How's your suicide rate?
What's drug use like? Are people having children? Are are people's children more likely to live in a freer, more prosperous society than than you did and their grandparents did? Like, those are the only measures that matter to me. The rest is a lie.
But, anyway, the point is we just get so obsessed with, like, the the theater around people or people, and we miss the bigger things that are happening, and we we allow ourselves to be deceived into thinking that what doesn't matter at all matters. That moral victories are all that matters. No. Actually, facts on the ground victories matter more than anything. I mean, you certainly see it.
This could be black lives matter, for example. How many black people did that help? It hurt a lot of black people, but in the end, we should be able to measure it. You know, like, what how many black people have died by gunfire in the 4 years since George Floyd died? Well, the numbers gone way way up, and that was a Black Lives Matter operation, defund the police.
So I think we can say, as a factual matter, database matter, Black Lives Matter didn't help black people. And if it did tell me how, well, these are important moral victories. I'm over that. That's just another lie, you know, long litany of lies. So I try to see the rest of the world that way.
And but more than anything, I try to see world events through the lens of an American because I am one. And what does this mean for us? And it's not even the war. It's the sanctions that will forever change the United States, our standard of living, the way our government operates, that more than any single thing in my lifetime screwed the United States. Levying those sanctions in the way that we did was crazy, and that was that for me, the main takeaway from my 8 days in Moscow was not Putin.
He's a leader with whatever. There are none of them are that different actually in my pretty extensive experience. No. It was Moscow that blew my mind. I was not prepared for that at all, and I thought I knew a lot about Moscow.
My dad worked there on and off in the eighties nineties US government employee, and he was always coming back Moscow. It's a nightmare and all this stuff, no electricity. I got there almost exactly 2 years after sanctions.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Totally cut off from Western Financial Systems kicked out of SWIFT, can't use US dollars, no banking, no credit cards. And that city, it just factually, it's I'm not endorsing the system, not endorsing the whole country. I didn't go to Lake Bacal. You know, I didn't go to Turkmenistan. I just went to Moscow, largest city in Europe, 13,000,000 people.
I drove all around it, and that city is way nicer, outwardly anyway, I don't live there, than any city we have by a lot. And by nicer, let me be specific. No graffiti. No homeless. No people using drugs in the street.
Totally tidy. No garbage on the ground. And no forest of steel and concrete soul destroying buildings, none of the postmodern architecture that oppresses us without without even our knowledge, none of that crap. It's a truly beautiful city, and that's not an endorsement of Putin. And by the way, it didn't make me love Putin.
It made me hate my own leaders because I grew up in a country that had cities kind of like that. There were nice cities, there were safe, and I we don't have that anymore. And how did that happen? Did Putin do that? I don't think Putin did that actually.
I think the people in charge of it, the mayors, the governors, the president, they did that, and they should be held accountable for it.
Speaker 2: So I think cleanliness and architectural design is not the entirety of the metrics that matter when you measure a city. They're the
Speaker 0: main metrics that matter. They're the main metrics that matter. The main metrics that matter are cleanliness, safety, and beauty, in my opinion. And one of the big lies that we are told in our world is that, no, something you can't measure that has no actual effect on your life matters most. Bullshit.
What matters most, to say it again, beauty, safety, cleanliness. Lots of other things matter too. A whole bunch of things matter, but if I were to put them in order, it's not some, like, theoretical well, I don't know if you know that the Duma has no power. Okay. I get that.
Freedom of speech matters enormously to me. They have less freedom of speech in Russia than we do in the United States. We are superior to them in that way. But you can't tell me that living in a city where, you know, your 6 year old daughter can walk to the bus stop and ride on a clean bus or ride in a beautiful subway car that's on time and not get assaulted, that doesn't matter. No.
That matters almost more than anything, actually. And we can have both, and, like, the normal regime defenders and morons, John Stewart or whatever he's calling himself, They're like, woah. That's the price of freedom. Like, people shitting on the sidewalk is the price of freedom. It's like, you can't fool me because I've lived here for 54 years.
I know that it's not the price of freedom because I lived in a country that was both free and clean and orderly. So that's not a trade off I think I have to make. You can't that is the beauty of being a little bit older because you're like, no. I remember that actually. It wasn't what you're saying.
We didn't have racial segregation in 1985. It was a really nice country that kind of respected itself. I was here, and I think with younger people, you can tell them that. They're like, oh, 1980 5, you were, you know, selling slaves in Madison Square Garden. It's like, no.
You they weren't. You're going to Madison Square Garden and not stepping over a single Fentanyl addict.
Speaker 2: It is true. There doesn't have to be a trade off between cleanliness and freedom of speech. But it is also true that in dictatorships, cleanliness is and architectural design is easier to achieve and perfect and often is done so so you can show off, look how great our cities are, while you're suppressing Of course.
Speaker 0: Of course. I agree with that vehemently. This is not a defense of the Russian system at all. And if I felt that way, I would not only move there, but I would announce I was moving there. I'm not ashamed of my views.
I never have been. And for all the people who are trying to impute secret motives to my words, I'm like the one person in America you don't need to do that with. If you think I'm a racist, ask me, and I'll tell you. Are you a racist? Of course.
No. I have a sexist, though.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
Speaker 0: Anyway no. But if I was, like, a defender of Vladimir Putin, I would just say I'm defending Vladimir Putin now. I'm not. I am attacking our leaders, and I'm grieving over the low expectations of our people. You don't need to put up with this.
You don't need to put up with foreign invaders stealing from you. You know, occupying your kid's school, your kids can't get an education because people from foreign countries broke our laws and showed up here, and they've taken over the school. That it's that's not a feature of freedom, actually. That's the opposite. That's what enslavement looks like.
And so I'm just saying, raise your expectations a little bit. You can have a clean, functional, safe country. Crime is totally optional. Crime is something our leaders decide to have or not have. It's not something just appears organically.
I wrote a book about crime 30 years ago. I I thought a lot about this. You have as much crime as you put up with, period. And it doesn't make you less free to not tolerate murder. In fact, it makes you unfree to have a lot of murders.
And so I just but it makes me sad that people like, well, you know, I guess this is I I can't, like, live in New York City anymore because of inflation and filth and illegal aliens and people shooting each other, but, you know, I'm just I'm glad because this is vibrant and strong and free. It's like, that's not freedom actually at all.
Speaker 2: Your point is well taken. You can have both. But do you regret
Speaker 0: We had both. That's the point. We had, but I saw it.
Speaker 2: Do you regret to a degree using the Moscow subway and the grocery store as a mechanism by which to make that point?
Speaker 0: No. I mean, I thought I I mean, look. I'm one of the more unself aware people you will ever interview. So to ask me, you know, how will this be perceived? Yeah.
I literally have no idea and kind of limited interest. But, I I was so shocked by it. I was so shocked by it. And and there were 2 and to the extent I regret anything and am to blame for anything, it would be not and I've done this a lot. Not giving it context, not fully explaining why are we doing this.
Mhmm. The grocery store, I was shocked by the prices. And, yes, I'm familiar with exchange rates, but very familiar with exchange rates. But those don't and I adjusted them for exchange rates. And this is 2 years into sanctions, total isolation from the West.
So I would expect in fact, I did expect until I got there that their supply chains would be crushed. How do you get good stuff if you don't have access to Western markets? And I didn't fully get the answer because I was occupied doing other things when I was there, but somehow they have. And that's the point. And they haven't had the supply chains prop problems that I predicted.
In other words, sanctions haven't made the country noticeably worse. Okay. So, again, this is commentary in the United States and our policymakers. Why are we doing this? It's forcing the rest of the world into a block against us called BRICS.
They're getting off the US dollar. That will mean a lot of dollars are gonna come back here and destroy our economy and imposters this country. So the consequences, the stakes were really high. They're huge, and we're not even hurting Russia. So, like, what the hell are we doing?
1, on the subway, that subway was built by Joseph Stalin right before the 2nd World War. I'm not endorsing Stalin. I obviously, Stalin is Stalin is a thing that I hate, and I don't want to come to my country. I'm making the obvious point that for over 80 years, you've had these frescoes and chandeliers. Maybe they've been redone or whatever, but, like, somehow the society has been able to not destroy what its ancestors built, the things that are worth having, and there are a lot.
And that, like, why don't we have that? And e even on a much more terrestrial plane, like, why can't I have a subway station like that? Why can't my children who live in New York City ride the subway? A lot of people I know who live in New York City are afraid to ride the subway. Young women, especially.
That's freedom? No. Again, it's slavery. And how can if Putin can do this, why can't we? Like, what?
It's not in other words, I mean, this is, like, so obvious. I'm a traitor? Okay. So if I'm calling for American citizens to demand more from their government and higher standards for their own society. And remember that just 30 years ago, we had a much different and much happier and cleaner and healthier society, where everyone wasn't fat with diabetes at 40 from poisoned food.
Like, how is the I'm not a traitor to my country. I'm a defender of my country. By the way, the people calling me a traitor, they're all, like, you know, whatever. They're not I I would not say they're people who put America's interest first. But Just put it mildly.
Speaker 2: There's many elements. Like you said, you don't like Stalinism. You know, you're a student of history. Central planning is good at building subways in a way that's really nice. The thing that accounts for New York subways by the way, there's a lot of really positive things about New York subways, not cleanliness, but the efficiency, like the accessibility of how how wide it spreads.
Like, that now the New York network is incredible. It is. But Moscow, for different in different under different metrics, results of a capitalist system. And you actually said that you don't think US is quite a capitalist system, which is an interesting question in itself.
Speaker 0: We have more central planning here than they do in Russia.
Speaker 2: No. That's not true. Of course, it is.
Speaker 0: You think that's true? The climate agenda? Of course. They're telling the US government has, in league with a couple of big companies, decided to change the way we produce and consume energy. There's no popular outcry for that.
There's never been any mass movement of Americans who's like, oh, I just I hate my gasoline powered engine. No more diesel. That has been central planning. That is central planning. And you see it up and down our economy.
There's no free market in the United States. You get crossways with the government. You're done. If you're at scale, I mean, maybe if you got a barber shop or a liquor store or something, but even then, you're regulated by politicians. And so, no, we I actually am for free markets.
I hate monopolies. Our economy is dominated by monopolies. Completely dominated in What do you mean? Google. What percentage of search does Google have?
90? Google's a monopoly by any definition, and Google is just rich enough to continue doing whatever it wants in violation of US law. So there's no monopoly in Russia as big as Google. I'm not, again, defending the Russian system. I'm calling for a return to our old system, which was sensible and moderate and put the needs of Americans at least somewhere in the top 10.
Somewhere in the top 10. I'm not saying that Standard Oil was, like, interested in the welfare of average Americans, but I am saying that there was a constituency in our political system in the congress, for example, different presidential candidates. Like, no. Wait a second. What is this doing to people?
Is it good for people or not? There's not even a conversation about that. It's like, shut up and submit to AI. And no offense. And so I'm just Offense taken.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'll I'll write we will get you.
Speaker 0: Yeah. We're strong. I have no
Speaker 2: doubt. You'll be the first one to know.
Speaker 0: A white man. I just won't even exist anymore. So
Speaker 2: So much to say on that one.
Speaker 0: I bet when you Google my picture Mhmm. 20 years from now, it'll be a black chick. A 100%.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope she's, attractive.
Speaker 0: I hope so too. It'd probably be an upgrade.
Speaker 2: So well, the the central planning point is really interesting, but I I just don't I I don't know where you're coming from. There's a capitalist system I mean, the United States is one of the most successful capital system in the history of of Earth. So to say the most successful?
Speaker 0: I'm just saying that I think it's changed a lot in the last 15 years, and that we need to update our assumptions about what we're seeing.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 0: And that's that's true up and down. That's true with everything. It's true with your neighbor's children who you haven't seen in 3 years, and they come home from Wesleyan and you're like, oh, you've grown. That is true for the world around us as well. And most of our assumptions about immigration, about our economy, about our tax system are completely outdated if you compare them to the current reality.
And so I'm just for updating my files, and I have a big advantage over you because I am middle aged. And so I don't You've called yourself old so many times throughout the talk. Trust my perceptions of things, so I'm constantly trying to be like, is that true? Yeah. I should go there.
You know? I should see it, and I guess just in the end, I trust I trust direct perceptions. Like, I don't trust the Internet, actually. Wikipedia is a joke. Wikipedia could not be more dishonest.
It's certainly in the political categories or things that I know a lot about. Occasionally, I read an entry written about something that I saw or know the people involved. I'm like, well, that's a complete liar. You left out the most important fact. And it's like, it's not a reliable guide to reality or history.
And that will accelerate with AI where history, our perception of the past is completely controlled, and distorted. So I think just getting out there and seeing stuff and seeing that Moscow was not what I thought it would be, which was a smoldering ruin, You know, rats in a garbage dump. It was nicer than New York. What the hell?
Speaker 2: Direct data is good, but it's challenging.
Speaker 1: For example, if you talk to a lot
Speaker 2: of people in Moscow or in Russia and you ask them, is there censorship? They will usually say, yes. There is.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Of course, there is. Well, I agree. I mean, just to be clear, I'm not I have no plans to move to Russia. I think I would probably be arrested if I moved to Russia.
Ed Snowden, who is, you know, the most famous sort of openness transparency advocate in the world, I would say, along with Assange, doesn't wanna live in Russia. He's had problems with the Putin government. He's attacked Putin. They don't like it. I mean, I get it.
I get it. I'm just saying, what are the lessons for us? And the main lesson is we are being lied to, like, in a way that's bewildering and very upsetting. I was mad about it all 8 days I was there because I feel like I'm better informed than most people because it's my job to be informed, and I'm skeptical of everything. And yet, I was completely hoodwinked by it.
I I would just recommend to everyone watching this, like, you think, you know, like, if you're really interested, if you're one of those people, and I'm not one, but it was, like, waking up every day and you've got a Ukrainian flag on your mailbox or whatever, your Ukrainian lapel pin or like, absurd theater. But if you, like, sincerely care about Ukraine or Russia or whatever, why don't you just hop on a plane for $800 and go see it? Okay? No. That doesn't occur to anyone to do that.
And I know it it's time consuming and kind of expensive, sort of, not really, But you benefit so much. I mean, I could bore you for, like, 8 hours. And I know you've had this experience where you think you know what something is or you think you know who someone is, and then you have direct experience of that place or person and you realize all your preconceptions were totally wrong. They were controlled by somebody else. Like, you know, for in fact, I won't portray confidences, but off the air, we're talking about somebody and you said I couldn't believe the person was not at all like what I thought.
Mhmm. Well, that's happened to me
Speaker 2: In the positive direction.
Speaker 0: In the positive direction. By the way, for me, it's almost always in that direction. Most people I meet, and I've had the great privilege of meeting a lot, you know, a lot of people over all this time, They're way better than you think, or they're more complicated or or whatever. But the point is a direct experience unmediated by liars, there's no substitute for that.
Speaker 2: Well, on that point, direct experience in Ukraine. So I visited Ukraine and witnessed a lot of the same things you witnessed in Moscow. So first of all, beautiful architecture. Yes. And this is a country that's really in war.
So it's not Oh, for real? Like, for real where most of the men are either volunteering or fighting in the war, and there's actual tanks in the streets that are going into your major city of Kyiv, and still the supply chains are working. Yes. It's a handful of months after the start of the war. Everything is working.
The restaurants are amazing. The most of the people are able to do some kind of job. Like, the like, the life goes on. Cleanliness, like you mentioned.
Speaker 0: I love that.
Speaker 2: Like, it's incredible. Like, there's the crime went to 0. They they gave out guns to everybody, the the the Texas strategy. It does work. Yeah.
When you witness it, you realize, okay. There's something to these people. There's something to this country that they're not as corrupt as you might hear. Right. You hear that Russia is corrupt.
Ukraine is corrupt. You're you assume it's just all gonna go to shit.
Speaker 0: Well, so that's been and I haven't been to Ukraine, and I've certainly tried, and they put me on some kill him immediately list, so I can't. I've tried to interview Zelensky. He keeps denouncing me. I just want an interview with him. He won't.
Yeah. Unfortunately, I would love to do it. I hope you do. I hope I do too. But one of the, things that bothers me most, I'd love to hear that what you just said about Kyiv and, but I'm not really surprised.
One of the things that I'm most ashamed of is the bigotry that I felt towards Slavic people, also toward Muslims, I'll just be totally honest, because I lived through decades of propaganda from NBC News and CNN where I worked, you know, about this or that group of people, and they're horrible or whatever. And then you whine, and I kind of believed it. And I see it now. Like, we can't even put the word Russia at Wimbledon because it's so offensive. What does the tennis player have to do with it?
Did he invade Ukraine? I don't think he did. You know, stealing all these business guys' yachts and denouncing those oligarchs. Like, what do they have to do with it? You know, whatever.
Here's my point. The idea that, like, a whole group of people is just evil because of their blood, I just don't believe that. I think it's immoral to think that, and I can just tell you my own experience after 8 days there. I think it's a really interesting culture, Slavic culture, which is shared, by the way, by Russia and Ukraine. Of course, they're they're first cousins at the most distant, and, I I found them really smart and interesting and informed.
I didn't understand a lot of what they're saying. I don't understand the way their minds work because I'm American, but it wasn't a thin culture. It's a thick culture. You know? And I admire that.
And I wish I could go to Ukraine. I would go tomorrow.
Speaker 2: So I think after you did the interview with Putin, you put a clip, I think, on TCN where, like, your sort of analysis afterwards.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It wasn't much of an analysis.
Speaker 2: No. But what stood out to me is you were kinda talking shit about Putin a little bit. Like, you were criticizing him.
Speaker 0: Why wouldn't I?
Speaker 2: It spoke to the thing that you mentioned, which is you won't you weren't, afraid. Now the question I wanna ask is it'd be pretty badass if you went to the supermarket and made the point you are making, but also criticize Putin. Right? Criticize that there is a lack of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And In the supermarket?
Yes.
Speaker 0: Oh oh, you mean if I also said that well, yeah. I mean, I of course, I think that. I'm not so I guess part of it is that I'm a little because I have such a low opinion of the commentariat in the United States and the and the news organizations, which really do just work for the US government. I mean, I really see them as I did Izvestia and Pravda in the eighties. Like, they're just organs of the government, and I think they're contemptible.
I think the people who work there are contemptible, and I say that as someone who knows them really well personally. I think they're disgusting. That I I'm a little bit cut off kind of from what people are saying about me because I'm not interested. But, so I try not to be defensive. Like, see, I'm not a tool of Putin.
But the idea that I'd be flacking for Putin when, you know, my relatives fought in the revolutionary war, like, I'm as American as you could be, It's, like, crazy to me, and Applebaum calls me a traitor to my okay. Right. It's just, like, so dumb. I but, no. Of course, they don't have no country has freedom of speech other than us.
Canada doesn't have it. Great Britain definitely doesn't have it. France, Netherlands, these are countries I spend a lot of time in, and Russia certainly doesn't have it. So that's why I don't live there. I'm just saying our sanctions don't work.
That's all I was saying, and we don't have to live like animals. We can live with dignity. Even the Russians can do it. That's kind of what I was saying. Even the Russians under Vladimir freaking Putin can live like this.
And, no, it's not a feature of dictatorship. That's the most, I think, discouraging and most dishonest line by people like John Stewart, who really are trying to prepare the population for accepting a lot less. He is really a tool of the regime in a sinister way, always has been. Like, how dare you expect that? What are you, a Stalinist?
It's like, no. I'm an American. I'm like a decent person. I just wanna be able to walk to the grocery store without being murdered. Is that too much to shut up that you don't believe in freedom.
It's really dark if you think about it. You know?
Speaker 2: So there is a fundamental way which you wanted Americans to expect more.
Speaker 0: You don't have to live like this. We don't have to live like this. You don't have to accept it. You don't. And everyone's afraid in this country they're gonna be shut down by the tech oligarchs or have the FBI show up at their houses or go to jail, and people are legit afraid of that in the United States.
And my feeling is, so? Like, show a little courage. Like, what is it worth to you for your grandchildren to live in a free prosperous country? It should be worth more than your comfort. That's how I feel.
Speaker 2: We should make clear that, you know, by many measures, you look at the World Press Freedom Index. You're right. US is not at the top. Norway Norway is. US is scores 71.
Same as It's Gambia Really? West Africa.
Speaker 0: Let me just ask
Speaker 2: Hold hold on hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second.
Speaker 0: Now you're raking me laugh.
Speaker 2: Ukraine is 61, and Russia is 35. The lower it is, the worse. Close to China at 23 and North Korea at the very bottom, 22.
Speaker 0: Ukraine put Gonzalo Lira in jail till he died for criticizing the government? How can they have a high press?
Speaker 2: Yes. That's why they're 61.
Speaker 0: But I'm saying I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 0: Because they're I don't know what the criteria are they're using to arrive at that. But I know press freedom when I see it. I try to practice it, which is saying what you think is true, correcting yourself when you've been shown to be wrong, as I have many times, being as honest as you can be all the time, and not being afraid. And those are wholly absent in my country, wholly absent. People are afraid in the news business.
I would know since I spent my life working there, and they're afraid to tell the truth. They're under an enormous amount of pressure, and a lot of them have little kids in mortgages. I've been there. So I have sympathy, but they go along with things. Like, you would you are not allowed.
If you stand up at any cable channel, any cable channel in the United States and say, wait a second. How did the Ukrainian government throw a US citizen in the prison until he died for criticizing the Ukrainian government, and we're paying for that. That's what's that's why it's offensive to me. We're paying for it. That happens all the time around the world, of course.
But this is a US citizen, and we're paying the pensions of Ukrainian bureaucrats. Like, we we are the Ukrainian government at this point. And, like, if you said that on TV, on any channel, well, you you know, you'd lose your job for that. So, like, that's not I don't care. Norway is at the top, really.
Norway. If I went to Nor Norwegian television and said NATO blew up Nord Stream, which it did. NATO blew up Nord Stream. The United States government, with the help of other governments, blew up, committed the largest act of industrial terrorism in history, and, by the way, the largest environmental crime, the largest emission of CO 2, methane. Could I keep my job now?
So how is that a food crisis?
Speaker 2: Know that. I mean, the whole point of
Speaker 0: In Norway? Yes. Well, as the Scandinavian, I can tell you, they would not put up with that. Norway for a second.
Speaker 2: It's been a while.
Speaker 0: Deviating for the majority? No.
Speaker 2: Well but in it's deviating maybe is, frowned upon, but
Speaker 0: Frowned upon. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But do you have the freedom to say it if you do deviate? That's the question.
Speaker 0: Can you keep your job? That's one measurement of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the only measurement.
Obviously, being thrown into prison is much worse than losing a job. I've been fired a number of times for saying what I think, by the way, and it's fine. I've enjoyed it. I don't mind being fired. It's I've always become a better person after it happened.
But it is one measurement of freedom. If, you know, if you have the theoretical right to do something, but no practical ability to do it, do you have the right to do it? And the answer is not really, actually.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Jon Stewart. The 2 of you have a bit of a history. I don't know if you've seen it, but he kind of grilled your supermarket and Subway videos. Hey. You got a chance to see it?
Speaker 0: I haven't seen it, but someone characterized it to me, which is why I pivoted against it early in our conversation about how the price of freedom is living in filth and chaos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was essentially it. So in 2004, that's 20 years ago, Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire, a show he hosted. And that was kind of a memorable moment. Can you, tell the saga of that as you remember it?
Speaker 0: I mean, for me, you know, as I was saying to you before about how it takes a long time to digest and process and understand what happens to you, or at least it does for me. I didn't understand that as a particularly significant moment while it was happening. I just got off on a plane from Hawaii. I mean, I was out of it as usual. And I was very literal as usual.
And so from my perspective, his criticism of me to the extent I remember it was that I was a partisan. Well, he had 2 curse. 1, that Crossfire was stupid, which it certainly was. In fact, I'd already given my notice and I was moving on to another company by that point. Crossfire was was stupid.
Crossfire didn't help. Crossfire framed everything as Republican versus Democrat, whatever. It was not helpful to the public discourse. I couldn't agree more, and that's why I left. So that was part of his critique.
Fair. I'm not sure I would have admitted it at the time because I worked there, and it's sort of hard to admit you're engaged in an enterprise that's, like, fundamentally worthless, which it was. But, but his other point was that I was somehow a partisan or a mindless partisan, which is definitely not true. It is true of him. He is a mindless partisan, but I am not.
And I haven't been for I really haven't been since I got back from Baghdad at the beginning of the Iraq war, and I realized that the Republican party, which I'd voted for, you know, my whole life to that point and had supported in general, I was like pushing this really horrible thing that was gonna hurt the United States, which in time it it really did. The Iraq war really hurt the United States. And I realized that I had been on the wrong side of that. I said so publicly immediately from Baghdad, I said that, to the New York Times, and I really meant it. I mean it now.
And so to call me partisan, you can call me stupid. You can call me wrong. I certainly have been wrong. But partisan, well, I just didn't think it was a meaningful I mean, it's, like, that's just not true. It's the opposite of true.
So I didn't really take it seriously at all. And, I and I never thought much of him, so I was like, whatever. Some buffoon jumping around on my show grandstanding. But I do think it was record. And by the way, that happened right at the moment that YouTube began.
I think that was one of the first big YouTube it was one of the first big YouTube videos. So it it had a virality that, if that's a word, it went everywhere, in a way that didn't used to happen in cable news. I mean, by that point, I had that was 20 years ago as you point out. I've been in cable news for 9 years. So in the before 2004, we would say something on television, and then it would kind of it would be lost.
Like, people could claim they heard it, but you'd have to go to the, I think, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville archives to get it. Suddenly, everything we said would live forever on the Internet, which is good, by the way. It's not bad, but it was a big change for me, and I just couldn't believe how widely that was discussed at the time because I thought he was not a an interesting person. I think he's he's obviously a very unhappy person. I just didn't take him seriously then, and I and I don't know.
But, so anyway, that was it. It was a smaller thing in my life at the time than other people imagine.
Speaker 2: Okay. You said a lot of words that will make it sound like you're a bit bitter even if you're not. So you you said unhappy person.
Speaker 0: Well, I Partisan person. Happy guy. Well, he's definitely partisan for sure.
Speaker 2: Can you elaborate why you think he's
Speaker 0: Well, so I think that and I see this a lot, not only on the left, but people who believe that whatever political debate they're engaged in is the most important debate in the world. And so they bring an emotional intensity to those debates, and they're inevitably disappointed because no no eternal question is solved politically. So they're kind of on the wrong path. Right? And they're doomed to frustration.
If they believe that, and many do, he certainly does, that whatever the issue is is so, you know, Clarence Thomas, stop a supreme court justice. And the implication is, well, if someone else's supreme court justice will live in a fair and happy society, but that's just not it's a false promise. So I think that people who bring that level of intensity to politics are, by definition, bitter, by definition disappointed, bitter in the way the disappointed people are. And that the real questions are like, what happens when you die? And how do the people around you feel about you?
You know, those are those are not the only questions in life, but they're showing the most important ones. And if we're spending a disproportionate amount of time on who gets elected to some office, not that it's irrelevant, it is relevant, but it's not the eternal question. And so I feel like he's not the only kind of bitter, silly person in Washington or in its in its orbit. There are many, and a lot of them are Republicans. So, but I just thought it was ironic.
I mean, everything is ironic to me, but, like, being called a Russia sympathizer by a guy who calls himself Boris, I guess, just made me laugh. No one else has ever laughed at that. Boris Johnson's real name is not Boris, as you know. He calls himself Boris. It's his middle name.
And so, like, if you call yourself Boris, you don't really have standing to attack anyone else as a Russia defender. Right? That's my I think that's funny. No one else, as I noted, does. But, but John Stewart, like, you know, if if he there are a lot of things you could say about me, but he's much more partisan than I am.
So to call me a partisan, it's like, what?
Speaker 2: He would probably say that he's not a partisan, that he's a comedian who's looking for the humor and the absurdity of the system.
Speaker 0: That's a done both sides. He's a dead sear he's a very serious person in this I will say this, and he shares this quality with a lot of comedians. I know a lot of comedians. I know a cross section of people just having done this job for a long time. And, a lot of them are very serious, like, about their views and their they have a lot of emotional intensity.
And he certainly is in that category. He's not that's that's like the silliest thing. Yeah. He's a comedian for sure. He can be very funny for sure.
He has talent. No doubt about it. I've never denied that. But he is a piece motivated by, by his moral views. You know, this is right.
That is wrong. And and I just think that's it's a misapplied passion. But do you
Speaker 2: think I'm just a comedian? Is, I don't
Speaker 0: think any serious person thinks that. I mean, if you're just a comedian, be and and I look. I'm I I'm not trying to claim. I couldn't claim, but I haven't said a lot of dumb things. And one of the dumbest things I ever said was when he was on our set lecturing me.
You know, he's he's a moralizer, which I also just don't really care for as an aesthetic matter. But he, he was lecturing me about something, and I said, I thought you're here to tell jokes, which I shouldn't have said because he wasn't there to tell jokes. He was there to to lecture me, and I should've just engaged it directly rather than trying to diminish him by, like, you're just a little comedian. He doesn't see himself that way. But I would just say this, John Stewart's a defender of power.
Like, John Stewart has never criticized like, what's John Stewart's view on, you know, the aid we sent to Ukraine, the $100,000,000,000 or whatever? Like, what happened to that money? What happened to the weapons that I bought? He doesn't care. He has the exact same priorities as the people permanently in charge in Washington.
So whatever. He does he's not alone in that. So does Mika Brzezinski, and her husband, and all the rest of the cast of dummies. But if you're gonna pretend to be the guy who's giving the finger to entrench power, you should do it once in a while, and he never has. There's not one time when he said something that would be deeply unpopular on Morning Joe.
That's all I'm saying. And so don't call yourself a truth teller. You're you're a court comedian or a a flatterer of power. Okay. That's fine.
There's a role for that, but don't pretend to be something else.
Speaker 2: I'll just be honest that I watched it just recently, that video.
Speaker 0: And I From 20 years ago?
Speaker 2: From 20 years ago, I watched it initially, and I remember very differently. I remembered that Jon Stewart completely destroyed you in that conversation. And I watched it, and you asked a very good question of him, which was and you there was no destruction, first of all. And you asked a very good question of him. Why, when you got a chance to interview John Kerry, did you ask a bunch of softball questions?
Yeah. I thought that was a really fair question, and then his defense was, well, I'm just a comedian.
Speaker 0: So I thought that was disingenuous, and I haven't watched it. I never have watched a clip one time in my life, and, I don't like to watch myself on television. I never have. So that and that's my fault, and I probably should force myself to watch it though. Of course, I never will.
But I, I think the takeaway for me, which was really interesting and life changing was, I agree with your assessment. I'm not just I've lost a lot of debates. I've been humiliated on television. I'm not above that. It certainly happened to me.
It will happen again. But I didn't feel like it was a clear win for him at all. You know, maybe a TKO, but it was not a knockout at all. And And yet it was recorded that way. And I remember thinking, well, that's kinda weird.
That's not what I remember. And then I realized, no. John Stewart was more popular than I was. Therefore, he was recorded as the winner. And that was hard for me to accept because that struck me as unfair.
You should rate any contest on points. Like, here are the rules. We're gonna judge the contest in the basis of those rules. And now, in the end, it's just like the more popular guy wins. Every TV critic like Jon Stewart, everyone hated me, therefore, he won.
And I was like, wow. That I guess, I have to accept that reality. And you do, like, the reality of the sunrise. You just have you know, you're not in charge of it. So that's just what it is.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it's a bit darker, I think. The reason he's seen as the winner and the reason at the time I saw as the quote, unquote winner is because he was basically shitting on you, like, personal attacks versus engaging ideas. And it was it was funny in a dark way and, like, making fun of the bow tie and all this kind of stuff. So I'm like hair on bow tie. I understand.
Speaker 0: And it was fair
Speaker 4: to call
Speaker 0: me a dick. I remember he called me a dick, and I remember even when he said that, I was like, yeah. I'm definitely a dick. Yeah. And that's not my best quality.
Speaker 2: Trust me. I but, also, to be kinda I thought John Stewart came off as a giant dick at that time, and I'm a big fan of his, And I think he has improved a lot. So That makes it true. We we should also say that, like, people grow. People like Oh,
Speaker 0: I certainly have or change anyway. You hope it's growth. You hope it's not shrinkage. But,
Speaker 2: but it is sold outside.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I
Speaker 0: I mean, look. I I I haven't followed Jon Stewart's, career at all. I don't have a television. Like, I'm pretty cut off from all that stuff. But, so I wouldn't really know.
But the measure to me is, are you taking positions that are unpopular with the most powerful people in the world, and how often are you doing it? It's super simple, not for its own sake. But do you feel free enough to say, you know, to the consensus, I disagree? And if you don't, then you're just another toady. That's my view.
Speaker 2: Well, I think he probably feels free enough to do it, but you're saying he doesn't do it.
Speaker 0: On the big things. Look. The big things this is my estimation of it. Others may disagree. The big things are the economy and war.
Okay? Yeah. The big things government does can be I mean, a lot of things government does. Government does everything at this point. But where we kill people and how and for what purpose and how we organize the economic engine that keeps the country afloat?
Those are the 2 big questions. And I hear almost no debate debate about either one of them in the media. And I and I have dissenting views on both of them. I mean, I'm I'm mad about the tax code, which I think is unfair. I don't think we should be The fact we have a carried interest loophole in the tax code and people are claiming that their income is investment income, and they're paying half the tax rate as someone who just goes to work every day, It discourages work.
It encourages lending at interest, which I think is gross, personally. I'm against it. Sorry. And, and the fact that we're creating chaos around the world, like, is the saddest thing that's happening right now, and nobody feels free to say that. So that's not good.
How do you hope the war in Ukraine ends? With a settlement with a reasonable settlement. And you know what a reasonable settlement is, which is a settlement, you know, where both sides feel like they're giving a little but can live with it. And I I mean, I was really struck in my conversation with Putin by how he basically refused to criticize Joe Biden and to criticize NATO. And it is I will just be honest.
As an American, it would be a little weird to be, like, pissing on Joe Biden with a foreign leader, any foreign leader, even though I don't think Joe Biden is a real person or really president. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous, but still he is the American president technically, and I don't want to beat up on the American president with a foreigner. Just don't. Maybe I'm old fashioned, so that's how I feel. So I didn't push it, but I thought it was really interesting.
And because, of course, Putin knows my views on Joe Biden. He knew I applied to the CIA, so they've done some done some digging on me. And, but he didn't mention it, and he didn't attack NATO. And the reason is, I know for a fact, because he wants a settlement. And he wants a settlement not because Russia is about to collapse despite the lying of our media.
That's just not true, and no one is even saying it anymore because it's so dumb. He wants because it's just it's just bad to have a war, and it changes the world in ways you can't predict people die. Everything about it is sad, and if you can avoid it, you should. So I would like to see a settlement where look, the thing that Russia wants, and I think probably has a right to, is not to have NATO missiles on this border. Like, I don't know why we would do that.
I don't know what we get out of it. I I just don't even understand it. I don't understand the purpose of NATO. I don't think NATO was good for the United States. I think it's an attack on our sovereignty.
I would pull out of NATO immediately if I were the US president because I don't think it helps the US. I know a lot of people are getting their bread buttered by NATO. But I anyway, that's my view as American. As if if I'm a Russian or Ukrainian, let's just let's just be sovereign countries now. We're not run by the US State Department.
We're just our own countries. Like, that's I believe in sovereignty. Okay? So that's my view. And I also wanna say one thing about Zelensky.
I I attacked him before because I was so offended by his cavalier talk about nuclear exchange because would kill my family. So I'm really offended by that. Anyone who talks that way, I'm offended by. But I do feel for Zelensky. I do.
That he didn't he didn't run for president to have this happen. I think Zelensky has been completely misused by the state department, by Torian Nulin, by our secretary of state, by the policymakers in the US who've used Ukraine as a vessel for their ambitions or geopolitical ambitions, but also the many American businesses who've used Ukraine as a way to fleece the American taxpayer and then buy just independent ghouls like Boris Johnson who are hoping to get rich from interviews on it. Like, the whole thing, Zelensky is at the center of this. He's not driving history. NATO and the United States is driving history.
Putin is driving history. There's this guy, Zelensky. So, you know, I I do feel for him, and I think he's in a perilous place.
Speaker 2: Do you think, Zelensky is a hero for staying in Kyiv? Because I do. To me, you can criticize a lot of things. You should call out things that are obviously positive.
Speaker 0: I I just tried to 2nd ago. I don't I don't know, the extent that he is in Kyiv. He seems to be in the United States an awful lot, like, way too much. You can do a satellite interview. You don't have to speak to my congress.
You're not an American. Please leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: That's my opinion. But,
Speaker 2: you got many zingers, Tucker.
Speaker 0: No. No. No. It's just heartfelt. It's bubbling up from the wellspring that never turns off.
But I would say this about Zelensky. Yeah. To the extent he's in Ukraine, good man. George w Bush fled Washington on 911. I lived there with 3 kids, and he ran away to some air force base in South Dakota.
And I thought that was cowardly, and I said so at the time. And I'm man, was I attacked for saying that. And I wrote a column about it in New York Magazine where I then had a column. Hard to believe. And, but I felt that.
I felt that. Like, that's I think the prerequisites of leadership are really basic. The first is caring about the people you lead. That's number 1. You know, deep in the way father cares for his children or an officer cares for his troops, a president should care for his people, and and that leads inexorably to the next requirement, which is bravery, physical courage.
And I believe in that, and I'm not like some tough guy, but I just think it's obvious if you're in charge, you you know I'm at my house, and I feel like someone broke in. I'm not gonna say to my wife, hey, baby. Go go deal with the home invade invasion. I'm a deal with it because I'm dad. Okay?
So if you're the president of a country and your capital city is attacked as ours was at the Pentagon, and you run away? And the Secret Service told me to. Bitch, are you in charge? Like, who's daddy here? The Secret Service?
Do do you know what I mean? I found that totally contemptible, and I said so. And, man, did I get a lecture, not just from Republicans, but from Democrats. Oh, you don't know. Put yourself in that position.
I was like, okay. I don't know what I would do under that kind of stress, enormous stress. I get it. I know one thing I wouldn't do is run away because you can't do that. And if you're not willing to die for your country, then you shouldn't be leading it.
So, yes, to the extent if if Zelensky really is in Ukraine most of the time, amen.
Speaker 2: Well, hold on a second. Let's clarify. It's not about whether he's in Ukraine most of the time or not.
Speaker 0: Well, I thought that was the whole premise of the No. No. No. No.
Speaker 2: At the beginning of the war, when the tank when Kiev when a lot of people thought that the second biggest military in the world is pointing its guns in Kyiv is gonna be taken. And a man, a leader who stays in that city says, fuck it. When everybody around him says flee, says everybody around him believes the city will be taken or at least destroyed, you know, leveled, artillery, bombs, all of this. He chooses to stay. You know a lot of leaders.
How many leaders would choose to stay?
Speaker 0: Well, the leader of Afghanistan, the US backed leader, when the Taliban came, got in a US plane with US dollars and and ran away and and, of course, is living on those dollars now. So, yeah, there's a lot of cowardly behavior good for him. I, I mean, I guess I'm looking at it slightly differently, which is what's the op what's the option? You're the leader of the country. You can't leave.
Like, Stalin never left Moscow. During the war, it was surrounded by the Germans as you know, for a year, and he didn't leave. And when I was in Russia, they're like, Stalin never left. It's like, how is the leader of the country? You can't.
I mean, like, that's just table stakes, of course. I would say, but you raised an interesting by implication question, which is, you know, what about Kyiv? Like, you think the Russians couldn't level Kyiv? Of course. Obviously, they could.
Why haven't they? They could, but they haven't.
Speaker 2: Well, there's there's military answers to that, which is urban warfare is extremely difficult.
Speaker 0: Do you think that Putin wants to take Kyiv?
Speaker 2: No. I do think he expected Zelensky to flee and and somebody else to come into power.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That may be total. I I don't I don't know. I don't think I have no idea what Putin was thinking, when he did that about Zelensky. I didn't ask him.
But it's a mistake to imagine this is a contest between Putin and Zelensky. This is Putin versus the US state department. I mean, Zelensky that and that's why I said I felt sorry for him. I mean, as I said, we're literally paying the pensions of Ukrainian bureaucrats. So there is no Ukrainian government independent of the US government.
And, you know, maybe you're for that, maybe you're against it, but you can't endorse that in the same sentence that you use the term democracy because that's not a democracy. Right? Obviously.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why it's interesting that he didn't really bring up NATO extensively.
Speaker 0: He wants a settlement. He wants a settlement, and he doesn't wanna fight with them rhetorically. And he just wants to get this done, and he made a bunch of offers, at the peace deal, and, you know, we wouldn't even know this happened if the Israelis hadn't told us. And I'm so grateful that they did, that Johnson was dispatched by the state department to stop it. And it's like I I mean, I think Boris Johnson is a husk of a man.
But imagine if you're Boris Johnson and you, you know, you spend your whole life with Ukraine flag pin. I'm for Ukraine, and then all those kids died because of what you did. And the lines haven't really moved. It hasn't been a victory for Ukraine. It's not gonna be a victory for Ukraine.
It's like, how do you how do you feel about yourself if you did that? I mean, I've done a lot of shitty things in my life. I feel bad about them, but I've never extended a war for no reason. Like, that's a pretty grave sin in my opinion. You know?
Speaker 2: Yes. That was a failure, but it doesn't mean you can't have a success over and over and over, keep having negotiations between leaders.
Speaker 0: Well, we're not the US government is not allowing negotiations. And so that for me is the most upsetting part. It's like, in the end, what Russia does, I'm not implicated in that. What Ukraine does, I'm not implicated in that. I'm not Russian or Ukraine.
I'm an American who grew up really believing in my country. I'm supporting my country through my tax dollars. And it's like I really care about what the US government does because they're doing it in my name, and I care a lot because I'm American. And we're the impediment to peace, which is another way of saying we're responsible for all these innocent people getting dragooned out of public parks in Kiev and sent to go die. Like, what?
That is not good. I'm ashamed of it.
Speaker 2: What do you think of Putin saying that justification for continuing the war is denazification?
Speaker 0: I thought it was one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand what it meant. Denazification? It literally means what it sounds like.
Speaker 0: You know, I yeah. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts on this. I don't I hate that whole conversation because it's it's not real. It's just ad hominem. It's a way of associating someone with an evil regime that doesn't exist anymore.
But in point of fact, Nazism, whatever it was, is inseparable from the German nation. It was a nationalist movement in Germany. There were no other Nazis. Right? There's no book of Nazism.
Like, I wanna be a Nazi. What is it? What does it mean to be a Nazi? There's no idea. There's no mind there's no Mein Kampf is not Das Kapital.
Right? Mein Kampf is, like, to the extent I understand it, it's like he's pissed about the Treaty of Versailles. Whatever. I'm very anti Nazi. I'm merely saying there isn't a Nazi movement in 2024.
It's a way of calling people evil. Okay. Putin doesn't like nationalist Ukrainians. Putin hates nationalism in general, which is interesting. But, of course, he does.
He's got 80 whatever republics, and he's afraid of nationalist movements. He fought a war in Chechnya over this. So I understand it, but I have a different I'm for national and for American nationalism. So, like, I disagree with Putin on that. But calling them Nazis, it's like, I thought it was childish.
Speaker 2: Well, I I do believe that he believes it.
Speaker 0: So that's so inter I agree with that. I was because I was listening to this because in the United States, everyone's always calling everyone else a Nazi. You're a Nazi. Okay. But I was listening to this.
I was like, this is the dumbest sort of not convincing line you could take. And I sat there and listened to him talk about Nazis for, like, 8 minutes, and I'm like, I think he believes this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I actually you know, having had a bunch of conversations with people who are living in Russia, they they also believe it. Now there's technicalities here, which the word Nazi the World War 2 is deeply in the blood of a lot of Russians in Ukraine.
Speaker 0: I get it. I get it.
Speaker 2: So you're using it as almost a political term. Yes. The way it's used in United States also, like, racism and all this kind of stuff. Since you know you can really touch people if you use the Nazis totally right. But it's also, to me, a really, like, disgusting thing to do.
Speaker 0: I agree.
Speaker 2: Because, and also to clarify, there is neo Nazi movements in Ukraine. They're but just just very small. You're saying that there's a distinction between Nazi and Neo Nazi. Sure. But it's a small percentage of the population, a tiny percentage.
They have no power in government. As far I have seen no data to show they have any influence on Zelensky and the Zelensky government at all. So, really, when, Putin says denazification, I think he means nationalist movements.
Speaker 0: I think I think you're right, and I I agree with everything you said. And I do think that the war the second World War occupies a place in Slavic society, Polish society, you know, Central Eastern Europe, that it does not occupy in the United States, and you can just look at the the death totals, you know, tens of 1,000,000 versus less than half a 1,000,000. So it's like this eliminated a lot of the male population of these countries. So, of course, it's it's still resonant in those countries. I get it.
I just I think I've watched I don't think I know. I've watched the miss misuse of words, the weaponization of words for political reasons for so long that I just I just don't like and though I do engage in it sometime, and I'm sorry, I don't like just dismissing people in a word. Oh, he's a Nazi. He's a liberal or whatever. It's like, tell me what you mean.
What don't you like about what they're doing or saying? And and Nazi, especially, it's I don't even know what the
Speaker 2: hell you're talking about. What troubled me about that is because he said that that's the primary objective currently for the war and that because it's, not grounded in reality, it makes it difficult to then negotiate peace. Because, like, what, what does it mean to get rid of the Nazis in Ukraine? So, like, he'll come to the table and say, well, okay. I will agree to do ceasefire once the Nazis are gone.
Okay? So can you list the Nazis?
Speaker 0: Agree. Plus, can you negotiate with the Nazi?
Speaker 2: Right. Exactly. No. I I
Speaker 0: totally agree with you.
Speaker 2: It was very strange, but maybe it's it was perhaps had to do with speaking to his own population, and also probably trying to avoid the use of the word NATO as a justification for the war.
Speaker 0: Yes. That's all I I of course, I I don't know, but I suspect you're right on both counts. But I would say it points to something that I've thought more and more since I did that interview, which was, like, 2 weeks ago, I guess. It would I didn't think he was, like, a as a PR guy, not very good. Like, he's not good at telling his own story.
You know, the story of the current war in Ukraine is the eastward expansion of NATO scaring the shit out of the Russians with NATO expansion, which is totally necessary. It doesn't help the United States. NATO itself doesn't help the United States. And so I'm not pro Russian for saying that. I'm pro American for saying that.
And I think that's a really compelling story because it's true. He did not tell that story. He told some other story that I didn't fully understand. Again, I'm not Russian. He's speaking to multiple audiences around the world.
I'm not sure what he hoped to achieve by that interview. I will never know. But I did think that, like, this guy is not good at telling his story. And I also think, honestly, on the basis of a lot I mean, I know this. Very isolated during COVID.
Very. We keep hearing that he's dying of this or that disease. He's got ALS. I mean, I don't know. I'm not his doctor.
There's a ton of lying about it. I know that. But one thing that's not a lie is that he was cloistered away during COVID, I know this, and only dealing with 2 or 3 people. And that makes you weird. It's so important to deal with a lot of people to have your views challenged.
And you see this with leaders who stay empowered too long. It's been empowered 24 years effectively. You've done it. You know, there have been upsides, I think, for Russia, the Russian economy, less worse than life expectancy, but there are definitely downsides. And one of them is you get weird, and you get autocratic.
The you know, like, this is why we have turmoil. That's very few kings don't get crazy in old age.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you said some of this also in your whilst in your post Kremlin discussion while you're in Moscow still, which was very impressive to me that you can just openly criticize. This is great. Well, I don't care. I understand this.
I just wish you did some more of that also with the supermarket video and perhaps some more of that with Putin in front of you. But I Putin in
Speaker 0: front of me. I understand.
Speaker 4: Such a good person.
Speaker 2: I I know you see it as virtue signaling.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It is. Have you seen some of the the interview he did with some NBC News trial?
Speaker 2: I understand. So I think you're just so annoyed by how bad journalists are that you just didn't wanna be them. Yeah. That's probably right, actually. Some some great conversations will involve some challenging.
Like, you were confused about denazification. Well, first of
Speaker 0: all, I accept your criticism, and I accept it as true that in some way, I'm probably pivoting against what I dislike. And I have such contempt for American journalists on the basis of so much knowledge that I probably was like, I don't wanna be like that. Fair. That is a kind of defensiveness and dumb. So you're right.
As for the Nazi thing, I was like, I really felt like we were just speaking so far past each other that we would never, like, come to it's like, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. And I that and especially when I decided or concluded that he really meant it, I was like, that's just too freaking weird to me. It's it's almost like, yeah, I can think of many other examples where you're interviewing someone else. Say something that's like I was interviewing a guy one time, and he started talking about the black Israelites. And we're the real Jews, and I was like, you know and it wasn't on camera, but I was like, I don't that was so it was so far out to me that I was like, we'll never kind of understand, common terms on that.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned there's a bunch of conspiracy theories about, Putin's health. How is he in person? Like, what do you feel like? Do they look healthy?
Speaker 0: You know, I'm not a health person myself. So, I mean, I can easily gain £30 and not know it. So, like, I'm probably not a great person to ask, but, no, he seemed fine. He seemed, he had his arm hooked through a chair. And I heard people say, oh, he's got Parkinson's.
And, Parkinson's can be controlled, I know, for periods with drugs. So it's it's it's hard to assess. I'm just not, one of the tells of Parkinson's is gait, you know, how a person walks, I think. And his walking seemed fine. I walked around with him and talked to him off camera.
His he's had some work done for sure. He's 71 or
Speaker 2: like, visual
Speaker 0: purposes? Yeah. I'm 54. He's, like, almost 20 years older than me. He looked younger than me.
Speaker 2: What was that like, the conversation off camera? Like, you walking around with him? What was, what was the content of the conversation?
Speaker 0: I mean, I can't
Speaker 3: I can't
Speaker 0: you know, I feel bad even with Putin or anybody, like, talking about stuff that is off the record. But I'll just say that, when I said that he didn't wanna fight with NATO or with the US State Department or with Joe Biden because he wants a settlement, that's a very informed purse you know, perspective. He doesn't. You know, say whatever you want about that, believe it or not, but, that is true. So, so he's open for peace?
Speaker 2: Or for peace
Speaker 0: and dictatorship? Russia tried to join NATO in 2,000. That's a that's a fact. Okay? They tried to join NATO.
So just think about this. NATO exists to keep Russia contained.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: It exists as a bulwark against Russian territorial expansion. And whether or not Russia has any territorial ambitions is another question. Like, why would it? It's the largest land mass in the world, Whatever. But that's why it exists.
So if Russia seeks to join NATO, it is by definition a sign that NATO's job is done here. We can declare victory and go home. The fact that they turned him down is, like, so shocking to me, but it's true. Then he approaches the next president, George w Bush. That was with Bill Clinton at the end of his term in 2000.
He approaches the next president and said, let's in our next missile deal, let's align on this, and we'll designate Iran as our common enemy. Iran, which is now, you know, effectively lead with Russia, thanks to our insane policies. But and and George w Bush, to his credit, is like, well, it seems like kind of an innovative good idea. And Condi Rice, who's like one of the stupidest people ever to hold power in the United States, if I can say, who's like monomaniacally anti Russia first because she had an adviser at Stanford who was or something during the Cold War. No.
We can't do that, and Bush is just weak, and so he agreed. It's like, what? That is crazy. If you're fighting with someone and the person says, you know what? Actually, our interests align, and you've spent 80% of your mental disc space on hating me and opposing me or whatever, but actually we can be on the same team, if you don't at least see that as progress, like, what?
Why would you if if your interest is in helping your country, what would be the what's the counterargument? I don't even understand it, and no one has even addressed any of this. The war of Russian aggression. Yeah. It was a war of Russian aggression for sure.
But how did how did we get there? We got there because Joe Biden and Tony Blinken dispatched Kamala Harris, who does not freelance this stuff, okay, fair
Speaker 2: to say, to
Speaker 0: the Munich Security Conference 2 years ago this month, February 2022, and said in a press conference to Zelensky, poor Zelensky, we want you to join NATO. This was not in a backroom. This was in public at a press conference knowing, because he said it, like, 4000 times, we don't want nuclear weapons from the United States or NATO on our western border. Duh. And days later, he invaded.
So, like, what is that? And if you even I raised that question in my previous job, and I was denounced as, you know, of course, a trader or something. But okay. Great. I'm a trader.
What's the answer? What's the answer? These are not into you know, Troy Nuland, who I know, not dumb, hasn't helped the US in any way, an architect of the Iraq war, architect of this disaster, one of the people who destroyed the US dollar. Okay. Fine.
But she's not stupid. So, like, you're trying to get a war by acting that way. What's the other explanation? By the way, NATO didn't want Ukraine because it didn't meet the criteria. So for admission, so why would you say that?
Because you want a war. That's why. And that war has enriched a lot of people to the tune of 1,000,000,000. So I don't care if I sound like some kind of left wing conspiracy nut, because I'm neither left wing nor a conspiracy nut. Tell me how I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: Who do you think is behind it if you were to analyze, like, zoom out looking at the entirety of human history? The military industrial complex. You said Kamala Harris. Is it individuals? Is it, like, this collective flock that people are just pro war as a collective?
It's the
Speaker 0: hive mind. It's and and I, you know, spent my whole life in DC from 85 to 2020, so 35 years. And, again, I grew up around it in that world. And I do think that conspiracies of course, there are conspiracies. But in general, the hive mind is responsible for the worst decisions.
It's a bunch people with the same views, totally, you know, views that have not been updated in decades. Putin said something that I thought was true absolutely true. I don't know how he would know this, but it is true because I lived among them. So the Soviet Union dissolves in August of 91 on on my honeymoon in Bermuda. I'll never forget it.
And it was a big thing. You know? If you lived in DC I mean, the receptionist in my office in 1991 was getting a master's in Russian from Georgetown. He was gonna be a Sovietologist, and he was among, you know, thousands of people in Washington on that same track. And so the Soviet Union collapses will so does the rationale for, like, you know, a good portion of the US government has been dedicated for over 40 years to opposing this thing that no longer exists.
So there's a lot of forward momentum. There's a huge amount of money. The bulk of the money in the richest country in the world aimed in this direction. It's very hard for people to to readjust, to reassess. And you see this in life all the time.
You know, I I, you know, I love my wife. All of a sudden, she ran off with my best friend. Holy shit. I didn't expect that this morning. Now it's a reality.
Like, how do I deal with that? Well, you know, I I got stage 4 cancer diagnosis. K. And it's it's all bad, but I'm just saying, like, that's the nature of life. Things you did not never thought you'd have to face happen out of nowhere, and you have to adjust your expectations and your goals.
And people have a hard time with that. Very hard time with that. So that's a lot of it. You know, people, if you're Condi rice, sort of, like, highly ambitious midwitt who gets this degree from Stanford, and you read Tolstoy in the original. Sure.
You did. And, and you spent your whole life, like, thinking that Russia is the center of evil in the world. It's kinda hard to be like, well, actually, there's a new threat, and it's coming from farther east. It's primarily an economic threat. And maybe all the threats aren't reduced to tank battles.
That's the other thing, is these people are so inelastic in their thinking, so lacking imagination and flexibility that they can't sort of imagine, like, a new framework. And the new framework is not that you're gonna go to war with China over Formosa, Taiwan. No. The the framework is that all of a sudden, all the infrastructure in Tijuana is gonna be built by China. And, like, that's a different kind of threat, but they can't kind of get there because they're not that impressive.
Speaker 2: So you actually have mentioned this. It's not just the cold war. It's World War 2 that populates most of, their thinking in Washington. You mentioned Churchill, Chamberlain, and, Hitler. And they kind of seeing the World War 2 as the kind of the good war and the successful role the United States played in that war.
They're kind of seeing, that dynamic, that geopolitical dynamic and applying it everywhere else still.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's a template for everything. And I think it's of huge significance to the development of the west, to the civilization we live in now, to world history was a world war. And so I think it's worth knowing a lot about and being honest about and and all the rest, but it's hardly the sum total of human history. It's a it's a snapshot, and and so you keep hearing people refer to not even the war.
No one ever talks about the war. Like, what how how much does Tony Blinken know about the Battle of Stalingrad? Probably 0. Doesn't know anything. Largest battle in human history, but I mean, he knows nothing.
But he knows a lot about the cliches surrounding the 38 to 40 period, 1938 to 1940. And everything is kind of expressed through that that that formula, and and not everything is that formula. That's all I'm saying. And the Republicans have a strange weakness for it, particularly the closeted ones, the weird the weird ones who were, like, have no life other than, like, starting more wars. Everything to them, the most vulnerable, I would say, among them, emotionally, psychologically vulnerable, the Dutch.
They will always say the same thing, and it appeals to Republican voters, unfortunately, that every problem is the result of weakness. Everyone's Chamberlain. Like, Germany never would have gone in to Poland, Czechoslovakia if England had been stronger. That's the argument. Is that true?
I don't I don't know, actually. Maybe. It might be totally true. It might not be true at all. I really don't know.
But not everything is that. That's not always true. If I go up to you in a bar and I say I hate your necktie, I'm being pretty aggressive with you, pretty strong. You might beat the shit out of me, actually, or shoot me if I do that. Like, an aggressive posture doesn't always get you the outcome that you want.
Sometimes it requires a more sophisticated Mediterranean posture. I mean, it kind of depends. It's a time and place thing, And, they don't acknowledge that. It's like everything is this same template, and I just that's not a the road to good decision making at all.
Speaker 2: Since we're on the time period, let me ask you a kinda almost cliche question, but it applies to you Mhmm. Which you've interviewed a lot of world leaders. Yep. If you had the chance to interview Hitler in 39, 40, 41, First of all,
Speaker 0: would you do it, and how would you do it? I assume you would do it given who you are. Man, there would be a massive cost for doing it. It may destroy my life to interview Putin, though I can tell you as as much as I want that I'm not a Putin defender. I only care about the United States.
That's a 100% true. Anyone who knows me will tell you what's true. I keep saying it. It. But history may record me to the extent it records me at all as a tool of Putin, a hater of America, You know?
That seems absurd to me, but absurd things happen. What would I ask Hitler? I don't even know. I I I guess that I'd probably ask him what I asked Putin, which is why I ask everybody. Like, what's your motive?
Why did you do I mean, if he'd already gone into Poland, like, why are you doing that? You know, what's your goal? And then, you know, the question is, is he gonna answer honestly? I don't know. You know, it's you can't you can't make someone answer a question honestly.
You can only sort of shut up while they talk and then let people decide what they think of the answer. Well, just like in the bar fight, there's different ways. There are different ways. That's exactly right. That's exactly man, is that true?
That is absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I mean, your energy with with Putin, for example, was such that it felt like he could trust you. I felt like he could tell you a lot. I think just wanted
Speaker 0: I just wanted to get it on the record. Yeah. That's all I wanted. You know?
Speaker 2: I I think it was extremely like, we have to acknowledge how important that interview was for the record and for opening the door for conversation. Like, opening the door to conversation literally is the path to, like, more conversations and peace peace talks.
Speaker 0: Well, I would flip it around and say anyone who seeks to shut that down by focusing on a supermarket video of 4 minutes versus a 2 hour and 15 minute long interview with a world leader. Anyone who doesn't want more conversation, who wants fewer facts, fewer perspectives is totalitarian. Probably doesn't have good intent. I mean, I I I can honestly say for all my many manifold faults, I've never tried to, like, make people shut up. You know?
I just it's not in me. I don't believe in that.
Speaker 2: So Putin's folks, have shown interest for quite a while to speaking with me. So you've spoken with him. What advice would you give?
Speaker 0: Oh, do it do it immediately. How's your Russian, by the way? Have you kept up with it? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Fluent. So he would most likely be in Russian. Oh. So, like, that that's the other thing is I I do have a question about language barrier. Like, did you feel it was annoying?
Speaker 0: It's horrible. Yeah. It's horrible. I mean, I don't have much of a technique as an interviewer other than listen really carefully. That's that's my only skill.
I don't have the best questions. I certainly don't have the best questions. All I do that I'm proud of and I think works is I just listened super carefully. I never let a word go by that I'm not paying it. It exhausts me actually.
But, you can't do that in a foreign language because there's a delay. Here, I'm just whining, but it's it's real.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not not whining. Like, can you actually describe the technical details of that? Are you hearing concurrently, like, at the same time?
Speaker 0: Yes. But there's a massive lag. So what's happening is so the translator so we were, of course, extremely uptight about the logistical details. So we brought our own cameraman who I've been around the world with, who worked at Fox, came with me now. Amazing.
And he did I mean, it was our cameras, lighting, everything. Like, we had full control of that, and we had control the tape. The Russians also had their own cameras and I don't know what they did with it. But we had full control of that and we brought our own translator. We got our own translator because I just you know, trust anyone.
Right? So, so I think we had a good translator. We had 2 of them actually and but the because they get exhausted. But the problem is, from my perspective, as someone who's, like, trying to think of a follow-up and listen to the answer, Putin will talk and you can in part of your ear hear, you know, the Slavic sounds. And then then over that is a guy with a Slavic accent speaking English.
And then you can hear Putin stop talking, and then this guy's answer goes on from their 15, 20 seconds. So it's super disconcerting, and it's really hard. And the other thing is it doesn't matter how good your translators are. I'm I'm interested in language. I speak only English fluently.
And but I'm really interested in language, and I know, and I work in language. You it doesn't matter how good your translator is. In literature and in conversation, you miss so much if the language is moving for you. I mean, you see this in in bible study. You see it in in Dostoevsky.
You see it everywhere. If you don't speak, you know, Aramaic, Hebrew, Russian, you're not really getting, I mean, even in romance languages. Like, I, you know, I like Balzac. Okay? I like this, obviously, written French.
You read Pere Goryeau, it's amazing novel, hilarious, and it's like you're not really getting it. And it's not that you know, French and English are not that far apart. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Russian? Like, what? Plus conversation. So the chemistry of conversation, the humor, the wit, the the play with words, all this stuff.
Speaker 0: Exactly. And my understanding of Russian as a lover of Russian literature in English is that it's it's not a simple language at all. The grammar's complex. Mhmm. There's a lot that's expressed that will be lost in the translation.
So, yes, I mean, the fact that you speak native Russian, I mean, I would run that walk to that interview because I think it would just be amazing. You would get so much more out of it than I did. And we should say that you've met a
Speaker 2: lot of world leaders. Both Zelensky and Putin are intelligent, witty, even funny. Yes. So, like, there's a depth to the person that can be explored through a conversation just on that element, the linguistic element.
Speaker 0: Putin speaks decent English. I spoke to him in English, so I know that. But he's not comfortable with it at all. But Zelensky is, I think.
Speaker 2: No. He is well, he's better than Putin in English, but he's still the humor, the like, the intelligence, all of that is not quite there in English. He says simple points, but the guy is a comedian. And he's a comedian primarily in Russian, the Russian language. So the the Ukrainian language is now used mostly, primarily as a kind of symbol
Speaker 0: I I'm aware of that.
Speaker 2: It's a political
Speaker 0: decision. No. I know.
Speaker 2: And he is, you know, his really his native language is Russian language.
Speaker 0: Of course. As a lot of people
Speaker 2: but you you can also understand his position that he might not want to be speaking Russian publicly. That's something I've
Speaker 0: I don't think they're allowed to speak in Russian in some places in Ukraine. Right? That's that's one of the reasons that Russia was so mad is that they were attacking language, and that's a fair complaint. Like, what? And by the way, if you haven't been to Moscow in a while, you should see
Speaker 4: it, and you will pick up
Speaker 0: a million things that were invisible to me. And you should assess it for yourself. And my strong advice would be, even if you don't interview Putin, go over there, spend a week there, and assess what you think. I mean, how restricted does the society feel? I mean, it would take a lot of balls to do this because you I mean, whatever you decide, you will be sucked into conversations that have nothing to do with you, political conversations.
Yeah. You're obviously not a political activist. Right? You're an interviewer, but I think it would be so interesting.
Speaker 2: But for interview itself, is there advice you have about how to carry interview? It is fundamentally different when you do it in the native language.
Speaker 0: But Yes. I mean, I think, you know, I approached the and maybe I did it incorrectly, but this was the product of a lot of thought. I was coming into that interview aware that he hadn't given an interview at all with anybody since the war started. Mhmm. So I had a 1000000 different questions.
And as noted, I didn't ask them because I just wanted to focus on the war. Yeah. But, I mean, there's so many I'll send you my notes that I wrote. I was like a diligent little girl. That would be amazing.
Speaker 2: But I think put
Speaker 0: it by ear. All these questions that some of them I thought were
Speaker 2: were pretty funny. In your in your case, I think, the very fact of the interview was the most important. Yeah.
Speaker 0: That's probably right. I did have the the the question that I really wanted to ask that I was almost gonna ask because it made me laugh out loud. I was sitting, having drinking coffee beforehand with my producers, and I was like, I'm gonna go there. My first question is gonna be, mister president. I've been here in the Kremlin for 2 days preparing, and I haven't seen a single African American in a position of power in the Kremlin.
Sure. But I thought that's too Yeah. Culturally specific and dry, and he'd be like, this guy's freaking crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You don't wanna open with a crazy No. I know. With a with humor.
I know. Alright.
Speaker 0: That's probably it doesn't translate.
Speaker 2: It doesn't. Oh, yeah. Then there'll be a small delay where you have to wait for the joke Like, what? To see if it lands or not.
Speaker 0: Not America.
Speaker 2: At Fox, you were, for a time, the most popular host. After Fox, you garnered a huge amount of attention as well. Same, probably more. Do you worry that popularity and just that attention gets to your head? Is it kind of drug that clouds your thinking?
Speaker 0: You think? I live in a spiritual graveyard of people killed by the quest for fame. Yes. I have lived in that, I mean, I would say the one advantage. The 2 advantages I have, and 1, I've I've a happy family and a stable family and a stable group of friends, which is just the greatest blessing and, and a and a strong love of nature and that my family shares.
So, you know, I'm in nature every day, and I have a whole series of rituals designed to keep me from becoming the asshole that I could easily become. And, but no. Of course. I mean, that's what I dis you know, that's I and I don't wanna beat up on who grateful to Elon who, you know, gave me a platform, and and I mean that sincerely. But I definitely don't spend a lot of time on social media or on the Internet for that exact reason.
Well, first of all, I think it's, as I've said, a much more controlled environment than we acknowledge, And I don't want lies in my head, but I also don't want to become the sort of person who's seeking the adulation of strangers. I think that's soul poison. And I said earlier that I think that the the desire for power and money will kill you, and I believe that and I've seen it a lot. But I also think the desire for the love of people you don't know is every bit as poisonous, maybe more so. And so yes.
And it's not just because I've, you know, obviously spent most of my life in public. And and in fact, I don't spend my life in public, and I'm completely private person, but, but, professionally, I've spent my life in public. It's not just that. It's like social media makes everybody into a cable news host. We're talking off the air.
My my new I just I'm obsessed with this. I don't know enough about it, but here's what I do know. South Korea, amazing country, great people. I grew up around Koreans, probably no group if I can generalize about a group that I like more than Koreans or just smart, funny, honest, brave. There's I really like Koreans.
I always have. My whole life growing up, it's only California with Koreans. South Korea is, like, dying. It's literally dying. It's way below replacement rate in fertility.
Its suicide rate is astronomical. Why is that? It's a rich country. But, of course, I don't know the answer. But I suspect it has something to do with the penetration of technology into South Korean society.
Is the high I think one of the highest, certainly one of the highest in the world. People live online there. And there was a belief in for a bunch of reasons in South Korea that Western technology would be a liberating progressive force, and I think it's been the opposite. That's my sense, strong sense, and I think it's true in this country too. I don't understand how people can ignore the decline in life expectancy or the rise in fentanyl use.
It's not just about China shipping precursor chemicals to Mexico. It's like, why would you take that shit?
Speaker 2: I hope those two things aren't coupled. Technological advancement and, the erosion.
Speaker 0: Well, let me ask you. And I know you're a technologist, and there's a and I respect it. And there's a lot of technology that I like and have benefited from. I had back surgery, and it worked. Okay?
So I'm not against all technology. But can you name a technology, a big technology in the last 20 years that we can say conclusively has improved people's lives?
Speaker 2: Well, conclusive is a tough thing
Speaker 0: Pretty conclusively.
Speaker 2: I I think that we can brag about. I think well, you've criticized Google search recently, but I think making the world knowledge accessible to anyone, anywhere across the world through Google search.
Speaker 0: Well, I love that. I love that idea. Are people better informed? Are they more superstitious and misled than they were 20 years ago? I I
Speaker 2: I think not close. I well, no. I don't know. I think they are more informed. It's just revealing the ignorance.
The the Internet has revealed the ignorance that people have, but I think the ignorance has been decreasing gradually. And, like, if if you look even you can criticize places like Wikipedia a lot, and many very many aspects of Wikipedia are very biased. But when you most of it are actually topics that don't have any bias in them because they're not political or so on, there's no battle over those topics. Right. And most of Wikipedia I think that's true.
It's like the fastest way to learn about
Speaker 0: a thing. I couldn't agree more. You can very quickly imagine you're an expert, and that may be the problem. I think, no. It's it's true.
I just experienced it in Moscow. It's like again, I feel like I'm in the top 1% for information, certainly intake because it's my job. And I had literally and, plus, I and I'm always out of the country. I've been I've been around the world many times. Like, I feel like I know a lot about the rest of the world or I thought I did.
And how did I not know any of that? And maybe I'm just, like, unusually ignorant or something or reading the wrong things. I don't know what it was, but all I know is the digital information sources that I use to understand just something as simple as what's the city of Moscow like were completely inadequate. And, anyway, look. The I just am worried that we're missing the obvious signs, and the obvious signs are reproduction, life expectancy, sobriety.
If you have a society where people just can't deal with being sober, don't wanna have children, and are dying younger, you have an extremely sick you have a suicidal society. Okay? And I'm not even blaming anyone for I'm just saying objectively that is true. And the measure of a health of your society is the number of children that you have and how well they do. It's super simple.
That's the next generation. We all die. And what replaces us? And if you if you don't care, then you're suicidal and maybe other things too. But, that's all I'm saying.
So what happened in South Korea? Like, why can't anyone answer the question? They're great people. They're rich. They have all these advantages.
They're on the cutting edge of every American. For a foreign country, they're more American than maybe any other country other than Canada. And, like, what happened?
Speaker 2: And, I mean, your fundamental worry is the same kind of thing might be happening or will happen in the United States.
Speaker 0: Well, let me just ask you this. I think North Korea seems like the most dystopian and horrible place in the world. Right? Obviously. It's a byword for dystopia.
Right? North Korean. I use it all the time, and I mean it. If in a 100 years, there are more North Koreans still alive than there are South Koreans, what does that tell us?
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's something to worry about.
Speaker 0: But, also How did it how did it happen? Like, why? I'm interested in the why. This is a question I asked Putin. You know, sometimes we don't know why, but why does no one ask why?
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of increased distrust in science, which is deserved in many places, it just worries me. Because some of the greatest inventions of humanity come from science and technological innovation.
Speaker 0: Okay. Then let me ask you a couple quick questions and perhaps you have the answer. I've always assumed that was true, and I should say that when I was a kid, I lived in La Jolla, California next to the Salk Institute, named after Jonas Salk, a resident of La Jolla, California Mhmm. Who created the polio vaccine and saved untold 1,000,000. And so my belief, which is still my belief, actually, that's a great thing.
It's one of the great additions to human flourishing ever. But if technology is so great, why is life expectancy going down? And why are fewer people having kids? And why would anybody who has Internet access ever use Fentanyl? What is that?
What is going on? And until we can answer that question, I think we have to assume the question whether technology is in that good or in that bad is an is unresolved, like, at best. Right?
Speaker 2: At best, perhaps. But technology is the very tool that just which will allow us to have that kind of discourse to figure out to do science better.
Speaker 0: I mean, I want that to be true. And when you said that the Internet allows people to escape the darkness of ignorance, man, I that resonate with me because I felt that way in 1993, 4 when it was first starting and I first got on it. And I thought, man, this is amazing. You can talk for free to anyone around the world. This is gonna be great.
But let me just ask you this. This is something I've never gotten over or gotten a straight answer to. Why is it that in any European city, the greatest buildings, indisputably, were built before electricity and the machine age? Why has no one ever built a medieval cathedral in the modern era ever?
Speaker 2: Well, what is that? Indisputably. You're have a presumption we have a good definition of what beauty is. There's a lot of people
Speaker 0: Right. Let's be specific. Pick a European city or any city in the world and tell me that there's a prettier building than, say, Notre Dame before it was set fire to.
Speaker 2: There's other sources of prettiness and beauty.
Speaker 0: There's a purely in architecture. Of of course. Trees are prettier than any building in my opinion. So I agree with that.
Speaker 2: But, also, there could be I I I grew up in the pre Internet age. Good. But if could. But if you grew up in the Internet age, I I think your eyes will be more open to beauty that's digital, that is in a digital
Speaker 0: I'm not discounting the possibility of digital beauty at all. And, you know, the Ted Kaczynski in me wants to, but I that's too close minded. I agree. I'm completely willing to believe there is such a thing as digital beauty. I I mean, I have digital pictures of my phone of my dogs and kids, so I know that there is.
But purely in the realm of architecture because it's, like, limited and and it is, you know, one of the pure expressions of human creativity. We need Mhmm. Places to live and work and worship and eat, and so we build buildings and every civilization has. But the machine age, the industrial age seemed to have decreased the quality and the beauty in our in that one expression of human creativity, architecture. And why is that?
Speaker 2: Well, I could also argue that, you know, I'm a big sucker for bridges. And Yeah. Modern bridges can give older bridges a run for their money. But I
Speaker 0: like bridges too. So I agree with you, sort of. But, like, the Brooklyn Bridge, I don't I don't know that there's any modern bridges. You know, that was built in late 19th century. Yeah.
Very much in the industrial age, but I'm just saying, like, the great cathedrals of Europe. Yeah. Even the pyramids, whoever built them. It doesn't it seems like if you I it's just it's, like, super obvious. I'm just, like, I'm dealing on the autism level here.
Just, like, why is that? But that's a good way to start. If all of a sudden you have electricity and hydraulics, and you have access I mean, I have machines in my woodshop at home that are so much more advanced than anything than any cathedral builder in 15th century Europe had. And yet, there's neither I nor anyone I know could even begin to understand how a flying buttress was built. Right?
And so what is that?
Speaker 2: And the other question is also consider that whatever is creating this technology is unstoppable. Well, there's that. And the question is, like, how do you steer it then? You have to look in a realist way at the world Uh-huh. And say that if you don't, somebody else will.
And you want to do it in a safe way. I mean, this is the Manhattan Project.
Speaker 0: Was the Manhattan Project a good idea to create nuclear weapons? That that's an easy call.
Speaker 2: No. For me, it's an easy call in retrospect in retrospect, yes. Because it seems like it stopped world wars. So the mutually assured destruction seems to have ended wars ended major military wars.
Speaker 0: Well, it's been, what, 80 years, not even 80 years, 79. And so we haven't had a world war in 79 years, but one nuclear exchange would, of course, kill more people than all wars in human history combined. So
Speaker 2: You're saying 79 makes it sound like you're counting.
Speaker 0: I am counting because I think it obviously, it's, like, completely demonic, and everyone pretends like it's great. You know, nuclear weapons are evil.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No.
Speaker 0: Absolutely. Of them is evil, and the technology itself is evil. And in my I mean, it's just like, if you can't, that's just so obvious. And that's what what I'm saying is, like, I'm not against all technology. I took a shower this morning.
Speaker 4: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: It was powered by an electric pump Yep. Heated by a water heater. Like, I loved it. I sat in an electric sauna. You know, like, I'm not against all technology, obviously.
But the mindless worship of technology?
Speaker 2: Sure. Mindless worship of anything is pretty bad.
Speaker 0: But I'm just saying so you said let's approach this from a realist perspective. Okay. Let's if we think that there is a reasonable or even a potential chance, it could happen maybe on the margins. Let's assign it a 15% chance that AI, for example, gets away from us. And we are now ruled by machines that may actually hate us.
Who knows what they want? Why wouldn't we use force to stop that from happening? So you're walking down the street in midtown Manhattan. It's midnight. You've had a few drinks.
You're coming from dinner. You're walking back to your apartment. A guy, a very thuggish looking guy, young man Mhmm. Approaches you. He's 50 feet away.
Mhmm. He pulls out a handgun. He lifts it up to you. You also are armed. Do you shoot him, or do you wait to get shot?
Because all the data look. He hasn't shot you. He's not committed a crime other than carrying a weapon in your city. Maybe he's got a license. You don't know.
Mhmm. Could be legal. But he's pointing a gun at you. Is it fair to kill him before he kills you even though you can't prove that he will kill you?
Speaker 2: If if I knew my, my skills with a gun because he already has
Speaker 0: the top But but it turns out that you, you know, you have some confidence in your ability k. K. To stop the threat by force. Are you justified in doing that?
Speaker 2: I just like this picture. Am I wearing a cowboy hat? No. No.
Speaker 0: But you're wearing cowboy boots, and they're clicking on the cobblestones. They're actually running meat packing.
Speaker 2: K. K. Great. I like this picture. I'm just Yeah.
I I think about this a lot, actually. No. Yeah. I I understand your point. But, also, the I just think that metaphor falls apart if, there's, if there's other nations at play here.
So if, the same as with a nuclear bomb, if US doesn't build it, will other nations build it? The Soviet Union build it, China or Nazi Germany? We've faced this.
Speaker 0: I mean, we face this. And the last president to try and keep in a meaningful way nuclear proliferation under control was John f Kennedy. And look what happened to him. But,
Speaker 2: but what what's your suggestion? Like, Like, is it No.
Speaker 0: It wasn't. But hold on. No. Inevitable? Their well, their position in 1962 was, no.
It's absolutely not inevitable. And or perhaps it's inevitable in the sense that our death is inevitable, but, you know, as human beings, but we fight against the dying of the light anyway because that's the right thing to do. No. We were willing to use force to prevent other countries from getting the bomb because we thought that would be really terrible because we acknowledged that while there were upsides to nuclear weapons, just like there are upsides to AI, the downside was terrifying in the hands of I mean, that's the thing that I kind of don't get. It's like the applications of that technology in the hands of people who mean to do harm and destroy.
It's, like, so obviously terrifying.
Speaker 2: It's not so obvious to me. What I'm terrified about is probably similar thing that you're terrified about, is using that technology to manipulate people's minds. That's much more reasonable to me as an expectation. Yeah. A real threat that's possible in the next few years.
Speaker 0: But what matters more than that?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that could lead to, like, destruction of human civilization through other humans, for example, starting nuclear wars.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is one of the reasons I wasn't afraid in the Vladimir Putin interview because it's like, it's all ending anyway. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, might as well dance on the deck of the Titanic.
Speaker 2: Don't be a pussy. Enjoy it. I think, we will forever fight against the dying of the light as the entirety of the civilization.
Speaker 0: The other day said that Biden ascribed that to Churchill. That was a Churchill quote. That's kind of what I'm saying. It's like, if you live in a society where people don't read anymore, like, people are by definition much more ignorant. Mhmm.
And you like, but they don't know it? It's like, I do think the Wikipedia culture and I think there are cool things about Wikipedia certainly is ease of uses. Hi. And that's great. But people get the sense that, like, oh, I know a lot about, you know, this or that or the other thing, and it's like the key to wisdom again, the key to wise decision making is knowing what you don't know, and it's just so important to be reminded of what a dummy you are and how ignorant you are all the time.
Yeah. That's why I like having daughters. It's like it's never far from mind how flawed I am, and that's important.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I the same way I hope to be a dad. Oh, I'm You
Speaker 0: should have a ton of are you gonna have a ton of pups?
Speaker 2: 5 oh, pup? What? You mean, like
Speaker 0: Children?
Speaker 2: Yes. Fives. But, also, I've been thinking of getting a dog. But, unrelated, I would love to have, like, 5 or 6 kids. Yeah.
For sure.
Speaker 0: What have you found a victim yet?
Speaker 1: You make it sound so romantic, Tucker.
Speaker 0: Sure. K. I love it. No. You should totally do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. 100%. But, also, in terms of being humble, you know, I I do jujitsu. It's a martial art where you get your ass kicked all the time.
Speaker 0: I love that.
Speaker 2: It's nice to get your ass physical humbling is unlike anything else, I think, because we're kinda monkeys at heart, and just getting your ass kicked is really helpful.
Speaker 0: I've had it happen to me twice,
Speaker 2: And, twice is enough. It got
Speaker 0: me to quit drinking. You know? I was good at starting fights, not good at winning them. But, no. I completely agree with that.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you. You've been pretty close with Donald Trump. Your private text about him around the 2020 election were made public. In one of them, you said you passionately hate Trump. When that came out, you said that you actually know you love him.
So how do you explain the difference?
Speaker 0: You know, my text reflect a lot of things, including how I feel at the moment that I sent them. That specific text I happen to know since I had to go through it forensically during my deposition in a case I was not named in. I had nothing to do with whatsoever. It's crazy how civil suits can, like, be used to hurt people you disagree with politically. But, I was mad at a very specific purse I mean, really what what that I mean, you're asking me.
I'll tell you exactly what that was. It was the second the election ended and they stopped voting stopped the vote counting on election night. I was like, well, this is and it's all now mail in ballots, electronic voting machines. I was like, that's a rigged election. I thought that then I think it now.
Well, now it's obvious that it was. But at the time, I was like, I feel like there's that was, like, crazy what just happened. I want but I don't wanna go on TV and say that's a rigged election because I don't have any evidence of a rigged election. You can't do that. It's irresponsible, and it's wrong.
So I was like, I want the Trump campaign was making all these claims about, you know, this or that fraud, so I was trying my best to to substantiate them, to follow-up on it. Everyone's like, shut up, Trump. You lost. Go away. We're gonna indict you.
But I felt like my job was to be like, no. The guys he's president. He's claiming the elections got stolen, and he's making these claims. Let's see if we can well, people around him were, like, so incompetent. It was just absolutely crazy.
And I so I'd I'd called a couple of times. I finally gave up, but I'd call and be like, alright. You guys claim that these inconsistencies and this, you know, whatever this happened. Give me evidence, and I'll put it on TV. You know, it's my job to bring stuff that is not gonna be aired anywhere else to the public.
I couldn't I it was, like, it was insane how incompetent and unserious They
Speaker 2: weren't able to provide, like Well,
Speaker 0: here's the here's the point of the story and of that text. So then they come and say, well, dead people voted. Well, that's just an easy call. Okay? If a dead person voted, we can prove someone's dead because, like, being dead is one of the few things we're good at, like, verifying
Speaker 2: because you
Speaker 0: check to smell. K. And there's a record of it.
Speaker 2: It's called a death certificate.
Speaker 0: So it's like, give me the names of people who are dead who voted, and then we can get their registration, and we can show they voted. Five names. So I go on TV, and I say, this girl, Caroline Johnson, 79 of Waukegan, Illinois voted. Here's her death certificate. She died.
And the campaign sends me this stuff now. I, in general, don't take stuff directly from campaigns because they all lie because their job is to get elected or whatever. So I I'm very wary of campaigns having been around it for 30 years. So, like but I made an exception to my rule, and I got a bunch of stuff from them. Well, like, of the 6 names, 2 of them were still alive.
What? I was so I immediately corrected the next night. CNN did a whole segment on how I was spreading disinformation, which I was, by the way. In this one case, they were right. I was so mad.
I was like,
Speaker 3: I hate you.
Speaker 0: I'm not talking about you. I'm so mad. Anyway, that's the answer. That's what that was. Who are you texting to?
My producer, and I was, like, venting. It's like a producer I was really close to, and I've known him for a long time. He's really smart, and, and he's, like he was someone I could, like, be honest with, and I was like, and by the way, it's so funny. I mean, now I'm doing what was me, which I I will keep to a minimum, but it's like stealing someone's text, like, what, how and by the way, I was an idiot. I should have said, come and arrest me.
I'm not giving you my freaking text messages. Okay? Yeah. But I got bullied into it by a lawyer. I didn't get bullied into it.
I was weak enough to agree with a lawyer. My fault. Never should have done that. Fuck you. They're my texts.
They're total I'm not even named in this case. I that's what I should have said, but I didn't. I said I was mad on the air the next day, but not in language that colorful. But whatever. Whatever.
I try to be I try to be transparent. I mean, I also think, by the way, if you watch someone over time, you don't always know what they really think, but you can tell if someone's lying. You know? You can sort of feel it in people. And I have lied.
I'm sure I'll lie again. I don't wanna lie. You know? I mean, I don't think I'm a liar. I try not to be a liar.
I don't wanna be a liar. I think it's, like, really important not to be a liar.
Speaker 2: You said nice things about me earlier. I'm starting to question.
Speaker 4: So I
Speaker 2: have questions.
Speaker 0: I have
Speaker 2: a lot of questions
Speaker 0: talking about.
Speaker 3: I hate lunch for
Speaker 0: you, man. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to see your texts after this.
Speaker 0: My texts are so uninteresting now. It's, like, crazy how uninteresting they are.
Speaker 2: Em emojis and GIFs. Lots of dog pictures. Nice. You said, just some degree, the election was rigged? Was was it stolen?
Speaker 0: Really it was a 100% stolen. Are you choking?
Speaker 2: Rigged to it that large of a Yeah.
Speaker 0: They they completely change the way people vote right before the election on the basis of COVID, which had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with me. Way it was rigged.
Speaker 0: Meaning percent.
Speaker 2: And then Manipulated.
Speaker 0: Then you censor the information people are allowed to get. Anyone who complains about COVID, which is like by the way, it might have hurt Trump. But, I mean, it's like or whatever. I mean, you could play it many different ways. You can't have censorship in a democracy by definition.
Here's how it works. The people rule. They vote for representatives to carry their agenda to the capital city and get it enacted. That's how they're in charge. And then every few years, they get to reassess the performance of those people in an election.
In order to do that, they need a they need access, unfettered access to information, and no one, particularly not people who are already in power, is allowed to tell them what information they can have. They have to have all information that they want, whether the people in charge want it or don't want it or think it's true or think it's false, doesn't matter. And the second you don't have that, you don't have a democracy. It's not a free election, period. And that's very clear in other countries, I guess, but it's not clear here.
So but I would say it's this election that I mean, it took me a while to come to this, but it's this election that's the referendum on democracy. Biden is senile. He's literally senile. He can't talk. He can't walk.
The whole world knows that. Leave our borders. People are, you know, everybody everybody in the world knows it. He can't he can't you can't a senile man is not gonna get elected in the most powerful country in the world unless there's fraud, period. Like, who would vote for a senile man?
He's lit he literally can't talk, and nobody I've ever met thinks he's running the US government because he's not. And so I think the world is looking on at this coming election and saying and a lot of world hates Trump. Okay. It's not an endorsement of Trump. But it's true.
If Joe Biden gets reelected, democracy is a freaking joke. It's just true.
Speaker 2: I think half the country doesn't think he's senile. Just thinks
Speaker 0: Do you really think that? Speaking they don't think he's senile?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he just has difficulty speaking. It's like, gradual speak. Like, gradual degradation just getting old. So cognitive ability is degrading.
What's the difference between degraded cognitive ability and senility? Well, senility has a threshold. Like, it's beyond the threshold to where he could be a functioning leader.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. That may be a term of art that I don't fully understand, and maybe there's, like, an IQ threshold or something. But I'm happy to go with degraded cognitive ability.
Speaker 2: Sure. But that's an age thing? But he's the leader of
Speaker 0: the United States with the world's 2nd largest nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 2: With you. I'm a sucker for great speeches and for speaking abilities of leaders. And Biden, with 2 wars going on and potentially more, the importance of a leader to speak eloquently, both privately in a room with other leaders and publicly is really important.
Speaker 0: I agree with you that rhetorical ability really matters convincing people if that your program is right, telling them what we're for, national identity, national unity, all come from words. I agree with all of that. But at this stage, even someone who grunted at the microphone would be more reassuring than a guy who clearly doesn't know where he is. And it and I think everyone knows that. And, like, I can't imagine there's an honest person in Washington, which is gonna vote for Biden by 90%, obviously, because they're all dependent on the federal government for their income.
But is there any person who could say, like, out of 350,000,000 Americans, like, that's the most qualified to lead or even in the top 80%. Like, what? That's so embarrassing that that guy is our president. And with wars going on, it's it's scary.
Speaker 2: But it's complicated to understand why those are the choices we have.
Speaker 0: I agree. Well, it's a failure of the system. Clearly, it's not working. If you've got one guy over 80, the the guy other guy almost at 80, like, people that it should not be running any. So white you
Speaker 2: have on the Democratic side, you have, Dean Phillips. You have, RK Junior until recently. I guess he's independent. And then you have Vivek who are all younger people. Yeah.
Why did they not connect to a degree to where It's such an interesting
Speaker 0: I mean, I think it's a really interesting there are oh, there are a 1000000 different answers, and and, of course, I'm I don't fully understand it, even though I feel like I've watched it pretty carefully. But, I would say the bottom line is there's so much money vested in the federal apparatus, in the parties, in the government. As I said a minute ago, our economy is dominated by monopolies, but the greatest of all monopolies is the federal monopoly, which oversees and controls all the other monopolies. So it's like it's really substantially about the money. It's not ideological.
It's about the money. And if someone controls the federal government, I mean, at this point, it's the most powerful organization in human history. Like, it's kinda hard to it's kinda hard to fight that. In the case of Trump, I I know the answer there. They raided Mar a Lago.
They indicted him on bullshit charges. Like and I felt that in myself too. Even I was like, come on. Come on. You know, like, whatever you think of Trump.
And I agreed with his immigration views, and I really like Trump personally. I think he's hilarious and interesting, which he is. But it's like, okay. There are a lot of people in this country. Let's let's get some you know, let's have a at at very least, like, let's have a real debate.
The second messed up your cameras here. Sorry. I'm getting excited. But, the second they raided Mar a Lago on a documents charge as someone from DC, I was like, I know a lot about classification and all that stuff and been around it a lot. That's so absurd that But I was like, now it's not about Trump.
It's about our system continuing. Like, if you can take out a presidential candidate on a fake charge, use the justice system to take the guy out of the race, then we don't have a representative democracy anymore. And and I think a lot of Republican voters felt that way. If they hadn't indicted him, I'm not sure he would be the nominee. I really don't think he would be.
Speaker 2: So now a vote for Trump is a kind of fuck you to the system.
Speaker 0: Or an expression of your desire to keep the system that we had, which is one where voters get to decide. Prosecutors don't get to decide. Look. They told us for 4 years that Trump was, like, a supercriminal or something. I've actually been friends with some supercriminals.
I'm a little less judgy than most, so I didn't discount the possibility that he had, I don't know, he's in the real estate business in New York in the seventies. Like, did he kill someone? I don't know. Yeah. You know?
No. I'm I'm Yeah. Yeah. I'm not joking. And I'm not for killing people, but, like, anything's possible.
Speaker 2: It's good that you took a stand on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No. I'm not joking.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I was like, well, who knows? You know? Real estate. And I didn't know.
And what they came up as was a documents charge? Are
Speaker 4: you joking?
Speaker 0: And then the sitting president has the same documents violation, but he's fine. It's like, it's crazy this is happening in front of all of us. And then it becomes, like, at that point, it's not about Joe Biden. It's not about Donald Trump. It's about preserving a system which has worked, not perfectly, but pretty freaking well for 250 years.
I know you don't like Trump. I get it. Let's not destroy that system. If we can handle another 4 years of Trump, I think we can. So I'll calm down.
What we can't handle is a country whose political system is run by the justice department. Like, that is just you're freaking Ecuador at that point.
Speaker 2: No. So speaking of the Justice Department, CIA and intelligence agencies of that nature, which you've been traveling quite a bit, probably tracked by everybody. Which is, the most powerful intelligence agency, do you think? CIA, Mossad, Mi 6, SVR? You know, keep going.
The chain the Chinese.
Speaker 0: I'd, it depends what you mean by powerful. Which one bats above its weight? We know. Which one
Speaker 2: is Massage, just to be clear, I guess, is what you Well,
Speaker 0: of course. Tiny country. Yeah. It was very sophisticated intel service. Which one has the greatest global reach in comms?
Which one is most able to read your text? I assume the NSA, but Chinese are clearly pretty good. Israel is pretty good. The French actually are Yeah. Surprisingly good for kind of a declining country.
Their intel services are pretty seem pretty impressive. No. I love France, but you know what I mean? And and all that. So the but the question I mean, I grew up around all that stuff.
It that's all totally fine. Like, a a strong country should have a a a strong and capable intel service so its policymakers can make informed decisions. Like, that's what they're for. And so as as Vladimir Putin himself noted, and I I don't talk about it very much, but it's true. I I applied to the CIA when I was in college because, you know, I was familiar with it because of where I lived and had grown up and everything, and I was, like, seemed interesting.
That's honestly the only reason. I was, like, live in foreign countries, see history happen. Like, I'm for that. I applied to the operations directorate. They turned me down on the basis of drug use, actually.
True. But, anyway, whatever. I was unsuited for it, so I'm glad they turned me down. But the point is, I didn't see CIA as a threat partly because I was bathing in propaganda about CIA, and I didn't really understand what it was and didn't wanna know. But second, because my impression at the time was it was outwardly focused.
It was focused on our enemies. I don't have a problem with that as much. The fact that CIA is playing in domestic politics and actually has for a long time was involved in the Kennedy assassination. That's not speculation. That's a fact.
And I confirmed that for someone who had read their documents that are still not public. It's shocking. Like, you can't have that. And I the reason I'm so mad is I really believe in the idea of representative government acknowledging its imperfections. But, like, I should have some say.
I live here. I'm a citizen. I pay your all your freaking taxes. So, the fact that they would be tampering with American democracy is so outrageous to me, and I don't know why Morning Joe is not outraged. This parade of dummies, highly credentialed dummies they have on Morning Joe every day, they don't seem to that doesn't bother them at all.
How could that not bother you? Why is only Glenn Greenwald mad about it? I mean, it's confirmed. It's not like a fever dream. It's real.
They played in the last election domestically. And I guess it shows how dumb I am because they've been doing that for many years. I mean, the guy who took out Mosaddegh lived on my street, you know, one of the Roosevelt's CIA officer. So, I mean, again, I grew up around this stuff, but I never really thought I never reached the obvious conclusion, which is that if the US government subverts democracy in other countries in the name of democracy, it will over time subvert democracy in my country. Why wouldn't it?
That is the corruption is like core. It's at the root of it. The purpose of the CIA was envisioned, at least publicly envisioned, as an intel gathering apparatus for the executives so the president could make wise foreign policy decisions. What the hell is happening in country x? I don't know.
Let me call the agency in charge of finding out. The point wasn't to freaking guarantee the outcome of elections.
Speaker 2: I'm doing a Israel Palestine debate next week. But I have to ask you just your thoughts. Maybe even from a US perspective. What do you think about Hamas attacks on Israel? What was what would be the right thing for Israel to do, and what's the right thing for US to do in this?
If you're looking at the geopolitics of it.
Speaker 0: I mean, it's not a topic that I get into a lot because I'm a non expert. And because I'm not unlike every other American, I'm not emotionally invested in other countries just in general. I mean, I admire them or not. I love visiting them. I love Jerusalem, probably my favorite city in the world, but I don't have an emotional attachment to it.
So, maybe I've got more clarity. I don't know. Maybe less. Here's my view. I believe in sovereignty as mentioned, and I think each country has to make decisions based on its own interest, but also with reference to its own capabilities and its own long term interest.
And it's very unwise for, I'm not a huge fan of treaties. Some are fine. Too many bad. But I think US aid military aid to Israel and the implied security guarantees, some explicit, but many implied security guarantees of the United States to Israel probably haven't helped Israel that much long term. You know?
It's a rich country with a highly capable population. Like every other country, it's probably best if it makes its decisions based on what it can do by itself. So I'm would definitely be concerned if I lived in Israel because I think fair or unfair. And, really, this is another product of technology, social media. Public sentiment in that area is boiling over.
And I think it's gonna be hard for some of the governments in the region, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey to contain their own populate. They don't want conflict with Israel at all. They were all pretty psyched actually for the trend in progress, the Saudi peace deal, which was never signed, but would have been great for everybody. Because, like, trade, peace, normal relations, like, that's good. Okay?
Let's just say. I know John Bolton doesn't like it, but it's it's good. And it's kind of what we should be looking for. But, now it's it's not possible. And, you know, if you had, like, a coalition of countries against Israel, I know Israel's nuclear weapons and has a capable military and all that and the backing of the United States, but, like, you don't it's a small country.
I think I'd be very worried. So there's that, and I don't see any advantage in, to the United States. I mean, I don't I I think it's important for each country to make its own decisions.
Speaker 2: But it also is a place, like you said, where things are boiling over, and it could spread across multiple nations into a major military conflict.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I think very easily could happen. In fact, probably right after Ramadan, if I had to guess. And, yeah, I pray it doesn't. But, again, I don't think you can overstate the lack of wisdom, weakness, short term thinking of American foreign policy leadership.
These are the architects of the Iraq war of the just the totally pointless destruction of Libya, totally pointless destruction of Syria, and the 20 year occupation of Afghanistan that resulted in a return to the status quo. So, like, their of the Vietnam War, their track record of the Korean War even going back 80 years is uninterrupted failures, one after the other. So I just don't have any confidence in those leaders to when was the last time they improved another country? Can you think of that? Oh, the Marshall Plan.
Well, you look at Europe now, and you're like, I don't know, you know, if that worked. But even if it did work, again, 80 years ago. So when was the last country American foreign policy makers improved? So if I were Netanyahu's in a very difficult place politically, impossible. I mean, I'm glad I'm not Netanyahu, and I'm not sure he's capable of making wise long term decisions anyway.
But if I was just, like, an Israeli, I'd be like, I don't know if I want, like, all this help and guidance. So, yeah, I actually think it's worse than just having just returned from the Middle East and talking to a lot of pretty open minded sort of pro Israeli Arabs who want stability above all. The merchant class always wants stability, so I'm on their side, I guess. And, they they're like, man, this could get super ugly super fast. American leadership is completely absent.
The pot it's just all posturing. It's like people like Nikki Haley. You just wonder, like, how does an advanced civilization promote someone like Nikki Haley to a position of authority? It's like, what? Adults are talking.
Adults are talking. Nikhil, can you please go away? Like, that that would be the the appropriate response, but everyone's so intimidated to be like, oh, she's a strong woman. She's so transparently weak and sort of ridiculous and doesn't know anything and is just, like, thinks that jumping up and down and making these absurd blanket statements, repeating bumper stickers is, like, leadership or something. It's like a self confident advanced society would never allow Nikki Haley to advance.
I mean, she's really not impressive. Sorry.
Speaker 2: I I just feel like you hold back too much, and don't tell us what you really think. Sorry. I think you just just speak your mind off.
Speaker 0: Are not I mean, you can completely disagree with my opinions. But in case of Nikki Haley, it's not like an opinion form just from watching television, which I don't watch. It's an opinion form
Speaker 2: from knowing Nikki Haley. So, strong words from Tucker. Well, felt too.
Speaker 0: Well, the world's in the balance. I mean, it's not just
Speaker 2: like This is important stuff.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's not just like, well, you know, what should the capital gains rate be? It's like, do we live or die? I don't know. Let's consult Nikki Haley.
So if you're asking, should we live or die in consulting Nikki Haley, clearly, you don't care about the lives of your children. That's how I feel.
Speaker 2: Not to try to get a preview or anything, but do you have interest of interviewing, Xi Jinping? And if you do, how will you approach that?
Speaker 0: I have enormous interest in doing that. Enormous. And a couple other people, and we're working on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I should also say, like, it's been refreshing you interviewing world leaders. I think when I've started seeing you do that, it made me realize how much that's lacking.
Speaker 0: Well, yeah. It's just interesting. I mean, I
Speaker 2: from even a historical perspective, it's interesting, but it's also important from a geopolitics perspective.
Speaker 0: Well, it's really changed my perspective, and I've been going on about how American I am, and I think that's a great thing. I love America. But it's also you know, we're so physically, geographically isolated from the world even though I traveled a ton as a kid a lot, you know, more than most people. But even now, I'm like, I'm so parochial. I'm so I see everything through this lens and getting out and seeing the rest of the world to which we really are connected, like, that's real, is is vitally important.
So I yeah. I mean, at this stage, I don't, you know, kind of need to do it, but I really want to just motivated by curiosity and trying to expand my own mind and not be close minded and really see the fullest perspective I possibly can in order to render wise judgments. I mean, that that's, like, the whole journey of life.
Speaker 2: I was just hanging out with Rogan yesterday, Joe Rogan, and, you know, I mentioned to him that it's me being a fan of his show, that I would love for him to talk with you. And he said, he's up for it. Any reason you guys haven't done it already?
Speaker 0: I don't know. I would I there's no I've only met Rogan once, and I and I liked him. I met him at the UFC in New York. He was with That's right. Somebody at we a mutual friend of ours, and, I you know, Rogan changed media.
I mean, maybe more than anybody. And he did it. What I love about what I admire about Rogen without knowing him beyond medium that one time. I mean, I'm still in media, but I've always been in media. You know, it's, like, not a great surprise.
I'm doing what I've always done, just a different format. But Rogen, like, he's got one of those resumes that I admire.
Speaker 2: You know, I like the guy who was like,
Speaker 0: I was a longshoreman. I was a short order cook. I was an astrophysicist. I was he's like, he's called a man of parts, and this guy was a fighter, a stand up comic. He hosted some, you know, Fear Factor.
Like, how did he wind up at the vanguard of, like, the deepest conversations in the country? Like, how did that happen? So I definitely respect that, and I think it's cool. And he Rogen is one of those people who just kind of came out of nowhere. Like, no one helped him.
Mhmm. You know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Doing he was doing the thing that he loves doing, and it somehow keeps accidentally, being exceptionally successful.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And he's curious. So that that's, like, the main thing. And there was a guy, without getting boring, but there was a guy I worked with years ago who, like, kind of dominated cable news, Larry King. And everyone would always beat up on Larry King for being dumb.
Well, I got to know Larry King well, and I was still in host for a while. And Larry King was just intensely curious. He'd be like, why do you wear a black tie, Lex? Look. Because I like black tie.
Why do you like black tie? No. Everyone else wears a striped tie. You wear a black one white. And he was like he was like really interested.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Genuinely. So. Yeah. Totally.
Speaker 0: And and I wanna be like that. I don't wanna think I know everything. That's so boorish and also false. You don't know everything. But I see that in Rogen.
Rogen is, like, wow, how does that work? And people and it's so funny how that's threatening to people. It's like Rogan will just sit there while someone else is, you know, free balling on some far out topic, which, by the way, might be true, probably truer than the conventional explanation. People are like, I don't know. How can he stand that?
You know, he had someone say the pyramids weren't built 3000 years ago, but 8000 years ago, and that's wrong. It's like, first of all, how do you know when the pyramids were built? 2nd, why do you care if someone disagrees with you? Like, what is that? This weird kind of, like, groupthink, it's it's almost like, you know, 4th grade.
There's always, like, some little girl in the front row who's, like, acting as the, you know, kind of the teacher's enforcer. Like, whip around and be like,
Speaker 3: sit down. Didn't you hear it? Missus Johnson said sit down.
Speaker 0: That's like the whole, you
Speaker 3: know, it's like the whole American media.
Speaker 0: How dare you ask that question? And Rogen just seems, like, completely on his own trip.
Speaker 2: Like, he
Speaker 0: doesn't even hear it. He's like, woah. Really? When were the pyramids built? And I was
Speaker 2: like, oh, I love that. Yeah. Curiosity, open mind, and stuff. The thing I admire about him most, honestly, is, that he's a good father. He's a good husband.
He's a good family man, for many years, and, like, that's his, place where he escapes from the world too. And it's just beautiful.
Speaker 0: Without that, man, you're destroyed. Yeah. If I had a wife who was interested at all in any way in what I did, I think I would have gone crazy by by now. When we get home, we don't she's like, how was your day? It was great.
Oh, I'm so proud of you. That's the end of our conversation about what I do for a living, And that is such a wonderful and essential respite from you said, how do I not become an asshole to the extent I haven't? I kinda have. But how do I have, like, not been, you know, transformed into a totally insufferable megalomaniac who, like, is checking his Twitter replies every day or every minute. It's that.
Yeah. You gotta have the core of your life has to be solid and enduring and not just ephemeral and silly.
Speaker 2: So the the 2 of you have known each other for, what, 40 years? We've been together 40 years. Together 40 years?
Speaker 0: 40 years. Yeah. 1984. It was the hottest 15 year old in New Fort, Rhode Island. Wow.
Sounds dirty, but I was I'm talking about myself. I thought I was the hottest person.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You were just looking in the mirror. Yeah. Very nice. So what's what's the secret to a successful relationship, successful marriage?
Speaker 0: I don't even know. I mean, no. I'm I'm serious.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: I got married in August 91, so that's well, it's her 30 3rd year of being married. Fall, but the collapse Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As as noted.
Yeah. So, you know, you hear these people it's actually changed my theology a little bit. Not that I have deep theology, but, like, I grew up in a society in Southern California when when when I was little that was, like, a totally self created society. I mean, Southern California was it was that root of libertarianism for a reason. It was, like, that's where you went to recreate yourself.
And so the the operative assumption there is that you are the sum total of your choices, and that free will is everything. And we never consider questions like, well, why do children get cancer? Like, what do they do to deserve it? Well, of course, nothing. Right?
Because that would suggest that maybe you're not the sum total. Your choices matter. If I smoke a lot, I get lung cancer. If I use fentanyl, I may OD. Got it.
But I don't exercise, I might get fat. Okay. But, like, on a bigger scale, you're not only the subtotal sum total of your choices. Like, things happen to you that you didn't deserve, good and bad. And marriage is and I'll speak for myself.
In that in my case, just one of them. And I could say, I mean, clearly spending time with the person you're married to, talking, enjoying each other. You know, I I have a lot of rituals. We have a lot of rituals that ensure that. But in 40 years, like, you you're like a different person.
You know, I, like, did drugs. I was drinking all the time when we met. You know, it's been a long time since I've been done that. I'm very different, so is she, but we're different in ways that are complimentary and happy. I've never been happier.
So, like, how do we pull that off? Just kind of good luck, honestly. And then I see other peep no. I'm I'm not kidding. But that's true.
I think it's so important not to flatter yourself if you've been successful at something. The thing I've been most successful at is marriage, but I it's not really me. I mean, I haven't.
Speaker 2: So I think what you're indirectly communicating is it's like humility, I think.
Speaker 0: It's not even humility. Humility is the result of a reality based worldview. Sure. Okay. Right.
Once you see things clearly, then you know that you were not the author of all your successes or failures. And I hate the implication otherwise because it suggests powers that people don't have. It's one of the reasons I always hated the smoking debate or the COVID debate. Someone die of COVID. It did not the vaccine.
Speaker 3: See, that's what you get. You smoke cigarettes, you die.
Speaker 0: Well, shit. I've you know? Yeah. If you smoke cigarettes, you more likely to get lung cancer. If you don't if you get whatever.
The cause and effect is real. I'm not denying its existence. It's obvious, but it's not the whole story. There are larger forces acting on us, unseen forces. That's just a fact.
You don't need to be some kind of religious nut, and they act on AI too, and you should keep that in mind. The idea that all
Speaker 2: the same way you said that.
Speaker 0: No. It's true. It's it it's demonstrably true. We're the only society that hasn't acknowledged the truth of that. And the idea that the only things that are real are the things that we can see or measure in a lab, like, that's insane.
That's just dumb.
Speaker 2: In the, religious context, you have these two categories that I really like that of the 2 kinds of people, people who believe they are god and people who know they are not, which is a really interesting division that speaks to humility and a kinda realist world view of where we are in the world. Oh. Can, can atheists be in the latter category?
Speaker 0: No. There are very few atheists. I've never actually met one. There are people who pose as atheists, but no one's purely rational. And everyone I mean, this is a cliche for a reason.
Everyone under extreme stress appeals to a power higher than himself because everyone knows that there is a power higher than himself. So, really, it's just people who are gripped with the delusion that they're god. No one actually believes that. If you're god, jump off the roof of your garage and see what happens. You know what I mean?
No one actually thinks that. But people behave as if it's true, and those people are dangerous. And I will say, by contrast, the only people I trust are the people who know their limits. And I was thinking, actually, this morning in my sauna, of all the people I've interviewed or met, this is someone I never interviewed, but I have talked to him a couple of times. The greatest leader I've ever met in the world is literally a king.
It's MBZ Sheikh Mohammed of Abu Dhabi, who is Muslim. I am definitely not Muslim. I'm Christian. Protestant Christian. And so I don't agree with his religion, and I don't agree with monarchies, but he's the best leader in the world that I've ever met.
And by far, it's, like, not even close. And why is that? Well, there I could bore you for an hour on the subject, but the the the reason that he's such a good leader is because he's guided by an ever present knowledge of his limitations and of the limits of his power and of his foresight. And when you start there, when you start with reality, it's not even humility. Humility can be a pose, like, oh, I'm so I'm so humble.
Okay. Humblebrag is a phrase for a reason. It's like way deeper, and that's just like no. Can I do I have magical powers? Can I see the future?
Speaker 4: No. Okay. That's just a fact.
Speaker 0: So I'm not god. But I've never seen anybody more at ease with admitting that and want than MBZ. Just a remarkable person. And for that reason, he is, like, treated as an oracle. I don't think people understand The number of world leaders who traipse through his house or palace to seek his counsel is there's I I'm not sure that there is a parallel since I don't wanna get too hyperbolic here, but, honestly, since, like, Solomon, where people come from, like, around the world to ask what he thinks.
Now why would they be doing that? Because Abu Dhabi's military is so powerful. I mean, he's rich. Okay. Massive oil and gas deposits, but, like, for a lot of you know, so is Canada.
You know what I mean? And no one is coming to Ottawa, Tahwa to ask Justin Trudeau what he thinks. No. It's humility. That's where wisdom comes from.
You start to think like because I spent my whole life, like, mad at America's leadership class because it's not just Biden or the people in official positions. It's the whole constellation of advisers and thrown sniffers around them. And I'm it's not even that I disagree with them. It's I'm not impressed by them. I'm just not impressed.
They're not that capable. Right? So that's what I was saying about Nikki Haley. I don't think she's Nikki Haley's the most evil person in the world. I think she's ridiculous, obviously.
Everyone's like, oh, Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo. What?
Speaker 2: Great leaders are so rare that when you see one, you know it right away. It blows your mind.
Speaker 0: And what blows my mind about Sheikh Mohammed in Abu Dhabi is that everyone in the world knows it. And I've never seen a story on this, and I and I'm I'm not guessing. I know this is true because I've seen it. Everyone in the world knows it. And so if there's a conflict, he's the only person that people call.
Like, everybody calls the same guy. And it's like he runs this tiny little country, the UAE. I mean, he's the in Abu Dhabi, they're a bunch of Emirates, but he's the president of the country. But still and it's got a ton of energy and all that, so wealth and all that. And Dubai's got great real estate restaurants, but but really it's a tiny little country that wasn't even a country 50 years ago.
So how did that happen? Purely on the basis of his humility and the wisdom that results from that humility.
Speaker 2: That's it. What advice would you give to young people? You got 4. You somehow made them into great human beings. What advice would you give to people in high school?
Speaker 0: Have children immediately. Oh, that Including in high school. Yes. I think that. That's all that matters.
Like, in the end, you know, again, these aren't even cliches anymore because no one says them. But when I was a kid, people always say, on your deathbed, you never wish you spent more time at work. And, I mean, everyone said that. It was like one of these things, and now now I don't think Google allows you to say that. It's like, no, you're gonna wish you spent more time at work.
Speaker 3: Get back to your cube.
Speaker 0: But, I can't overstate from my vantage how true that is. Nothing else matters but your family. And if you have the opportunity and a lot of people are being denied the opportunity to have children. And this messing with the gender roles, and I'm not even talking about the tranny stuff. I mean, the I mean, feminism has so destroyed people's brains and the ability of young people to connect with each other and stay together and have fruitful lives.
It's like nothing's been more destructive than that. It's such a lie. It's so dumb. It's counter to human nature. Nothing counter to human nature can can endure.
It can only cause suffering, and that's what it's done. But fight that. Stop complaining about it. Find someone. By the way, everyone gets together most people get together on the basis in a free in a western society where there's no arranged marriages.
They get together on a base of sexual attraction. Totally natural. Get off your birth control and have children. Oh, I can't afford that. Well, yeah.
You'll figure out a way to afford it once you have kids. It's like it's chicken and the egg, but it's actually not. When you have responsibility, when you have no this is true of men. I'm not sure if true of women, but it's definitely true of men. You will not achieve until you have no choice.
As I always think of men, men do nothing until they have to, but once they have to, they will do anything. That is that is true. Men will do nothing unless they have to, but once they have to, they will do anything. I really believe that from watching and from being 1, and I would never have done anything if I didn't have to, but I had to, and and I would just recommend it. And but by the way, even if you don't succeed, even if you're poor.
But having spent my life among rich people I grew up among rich people. I am a rich person. Boy, are they unhappy? Well, that's clearly not the road road to happiness. You know, you don't wanna be a debt slave or starve to death or anything like that, but, like, making a $1,000,000,000, that's not worth doing.
Don't do that. Don't even try to do that. If you create something that's beautiful and worth having and you make $1,000,000,000, okay, then you have to deal with your $1,000,000,000, which will be the worst part of your life. Trust me. But seeking money for its own sake is a is a dead end.
What you should seek for its own sake is children. Talk about a creative act. Last thing I'll say, the whole point of life is to create. Okay? The act of creation, which is like dying in the West, in the arts and in its most pure expression, which is children, that's all that's worth doing while you're alive.
It's creating something beautiful and creating children. By the way, it's super fun. It's not hard. I can get more technical off the air if you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Please. I have a lot
Speaker 0: of thoughts on it. Do you
Speaker 2: have documents or something?
Speaker 0: No. I can I can draw you a schematic?
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 0: But, yeah, that's the greatest thing. And the fact that corporate America denies oh, freeze your eggs. Have an abortion. What? You're you're evil.
Are you kidding? Because you're taking from people the only thing that can possibly give them enduring joy, And they are successfully taking it from people, and I hate them for it.
Speaker 2: You founded TCN, Tucker Carlson Network. Yeah. What's your vision for it?
Speaker 0: I have no vision for myself for my career, and and I never have. So I'm, like, the last person to explain.
Speaker 2: Just roll with it. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I'm an instinct guy. A 100%. I have a vision for the world, but I don't have a vision for my life or my career. So, really, my vision extended precisely this far. I just wanna keep doing what I'm doing.
I just wanna keep doing what I'm doing. And there was a, you know, a 5 hour period where I wondered if I would be able to because I I feel pretty spry and, like, alert. And I'm certainly deeply enjoying what I'm doing, which is talking to people and saying what I think and learning, constantly learning. And but I just wanted to keep doing that. And so, and I also wanted to employ the people who I worked with at Fox.
I've worked with the same people for years, and I love them. And so I had, you know, all these people, and I wanted to bring them with me, so we had to build a structure for that.
Speaker 2: But this feels like one of the first times you're really working for yourself. Like, the there's an extra level of freedom here.
Speaker 0: Totally. Totally. And the good you know, I'm not you don't want me doing your taxes. Like, I'm good at some things, but I'm really not good at others. So I'm more than would be, like, running a business.
No idea. I'm not interested. Not a commerce guy, so I don't buy anything. So it's, like, a whole thing I'm not good at. But, luckily, you know, I'm really blessed to have friends who are involved in this who are good at that.
So I feel I feel positive about it. But, mostly, I am I'm totally committed to only doing the things that I am good at and enjoy and not doing anything else because I don't wanna waste my time. And, so I'm just getting to do what I wanna do, and I'm really loving it.
Speaker 2: What hope, positive hope, do you have for the future of human civilization in, say 50 years, 100 years, 200 years?
Speaker 0: People are great just by their nature. I mean, they're super complicated, but I I like people. I always have liked people. You know, if I was sitting with Nikki Haley, who I've I guess I've been pretty clear I'm not, like, a mega fan of Nikki Haley's, I would enjoy it. You know, I've never met anybody I couldn't enjoy on some level given enough time.
So as long as nobody tampers with the human recipe, with human nature itself, I will always feel blessed by being around other people. And that's true around the world. Like, I've I've never been to a country, and I've been to scores of countries where I didn't, given a week, really like it and like the people. So, yeah, bad leaders are like a, you know, recurring theme in human history. Like, they're mostly bad, and we've got an unusually bad set right now, but we'll have better ones at some point.
I just don't wanna I don't the one the one thing I don't like more than nuclear weapons and more than AI, the one thing that really, really bothers me is the idea of using technology to change the human brain permanently because you're tampering with the secret sauce. You're tampering with God's creation and, totally evil. I mean, I've literally sat there the other day with Klaus Schwab. I was with Klaus Schwab. It's like a total moron.
I'm, like, 100 years old and, like, has no idea what's going on in the world. But he's, like, one of these guys who, speaking of mediocre, everyone's so afraid of Klaus Schwab. I don't think Klaus Schwab is gonna be organizing anything. He's just like a total figurehead, like a douchebag. But, anyway, but he was talking, and he's reading all these talking points, like, all what the cool kids are talking about at Davos and whatever, And he starts talking about
Speaker 4: it in his revere, in his accent.
Speaker 0: He was saying, I think it's
Speaker 4: so important that we follow in an ethical way, always in an ethical way, of course, very ethical. I'm a very ethical man. That we follow the, you know, using technology to improve the human mind and implant the chips in the brain. And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 0: You have no idea what you're talking about. You're like as senile as Joe Biden. But what was so striking is that no one in the room was like, wait. What?
Speaker 3: You're fucking with people's brains? Like,
Speaker 0: Like, what are you even talking about? Who do you think you are?
Speaker 2: I mean, you're right. The secret sauce. There the human mind is really special. Like, we should not mess with it.
Speaker 0: It's all about
Speaker 2: the truth. Careful. And whatever special thing it does, it seems like it's a good thing. Like, human beings are fundamentally good. Like, these sources of creativity, a creative force in the universe we don't wanna mess with.
Speaker 0: Oh, I mean, what else matters? I I don't understand. I mean, I guess look. I don't I don't wanna seem like the Unabomber, and I'm not We are in a cabin in the woods. No.
I don't. Well, I'm sympathetic to some of his ideas, but not, of course, sending mail bombs to people because I like people. But, and I don't believe in violence at all. But I I think the problem with technology one of the problems with technology is the way that people approach it in a very kind of mindless heedless way. And I think it's important this idea that it's inexorable, and we can't control it, and if we don't do it, someone else will.
And there's some truth in that, but it's not the whole story. We do have free will, and we are creating these things intentionally. And I think it's incumbent on us. It's a requirement of a moral requirement of us that we ask, like, is this a net gain or a net loss? What extent we can foresee them will the effects be?
Etcetera, etcetera. It's like it's not not super complicated. So I just I I prize long term thinking. I don't always apply to my own life, obviously. I I want to.
But, I prize it, and I think that people with power should think about future generations, and I don't see that kind of thinking at all. They all seem like children to me. And, like, don't give children handguns because they can hurt people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fundamentally, you want people in power to be pro humanity.
Speaker 0: By the way, you don't want people who are 81 who are gonna die anyway. Why do they care? And by the way, if your track record with your own family is miserable, why would I give you my family to oversee? I just don't I like, again, these are artistic level questions that someone should answer.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for asking those questions, first of all. And, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for welcoming you to the Cabin in the Woods.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this conversation with Tucker Carlson. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Mahatma Gandhi. When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible.
But in the end, they always fall. Think of it. Always. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's the links for my conversation with @TuckerCarlson: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_lRdkH_QoY Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/tucker-carlson-transcript Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL Podcast: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Transcript for Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #414 - Lex Fridman
This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #414 with Tucker Carlson. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links: Go back to this episode’s main page Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast Table of Contents Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation. Click link to jump approximately to that part in the transcript: 0:00 – Introduction 3:53 – Putin 20:07 – Navalny 41:20 – Moscow 1:00:48 – Freedom
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Humans evolved from a single-cell organism. This still blows my mind. Evolution is incredible 🤯
reSee.it AI Summary
The X algorithm in software engineering is remarkable. It condenses 500 million daily tweets into a personalized selection for each user. This algorithm runs 57,000 times per second, utilizing over 12 million CPU cores. The recommendation pipeline involves maintaining real-time interaction graphs, clustering interests, and ranking with a 48M param neural net. It's great that much of it is open source, and I hope more companies follow suit.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
The software engineering behind the X "algorithm" is epic. It has to distill 500 million daily tweets down to a personalized handful it shows each person. This algorithm runs ~57,000 times a second 🤯 ... and each execution takes 220 seconds CPU time, but runs in 1.5 seconds real time on average, which means compute is distributed across 12+ million CPU cores working continuously. Each step of recommendation algorithm pipeline is fascinating: maintaining real-time interaction graph, embedding spaces for clustering interests, ranking via 48M param neural net, etc. I love that it's mostly been made open source, and hope more companies do the same!
reSee.it AI Summary
In a captivating conversation, Walter Isaacson, renowned biographer, delves into the life of Elon Musk. From a challenging childhood to his groundbreaking work with Jennifer Doudna, Einstein, and Tesla, Isaacson covers it all. He explores Musk's humor, Steve Jobs' cruelty, time management, the power of groups, mortality, writing, love, and offers advice to young people. A remarkable insight into the mind of a visionary.
@lexfridman - Lex Fridman
Here's my conversation with @WalterIsaacson, author of the new biography on @elonmusk and one of the greatest biographers ever, having written incredible books on Einstein, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Jennifer Doudna, Benjamin Franklin, and many others. Outline of our conversation: 0:00 - Introduction 3:00 - Difficult childhood 20:04 - Jennifer Doudna 23:01 - Einstein 28:20 - Tesla 45:24 - Elon Musk's humor 49:34 - Steve Jobs' cruelty 52:58 - Twitter 1:05:07 - Firing 1:07:52 - Hiring 1:16:55 - Time management 1:24:39 - Groups vs individuals 1:28:25 - Mortality 1:31:57 - How to write 1:52:56 - Love & relationships 1:57:50 - Advice for young people
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this video, Walter Isaacson explores the lives of great individuals like Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Elon Musk, and the role of difficult childhoods in shaping their success. He emphasizes that while a challenging upbringing is not necessary for achievement, many driven individuals use their past struggles to fuel their ambitions. Isaacson shares stories of Elon Musk's challenging upbringing and the psychological scars that have influenced him. He also discusses the importance of harnessing one's demons, understanding one's strengths, and adopting a mission-driven mindset. Isaacson believes that through his biographies, readers can learn from these great minds and their experiences. The video also delves into Elon Musk's intense leadership style, his focus on excellence and trustworthiness when hiring talent, and his ability to build great teams and make bold decisions. Musk's time management style and his thriving under pressure are highlighted. The impact of individuals like Musk on history is explored, as well as the significance of storytelling and chronological structure in biographies. Isaacson also discusses the importance of biography and storytelling in academia, sharing his experiences with conducting interviews and gathering information for his books. He emphasizes the value of curiosity, genuine interest in others, self-awareness, and examining one's motives in life. The video touches on the topics of death, legacy, community, and giving back. Isaacson concludes by expressing his admiration for the interviewer and the profound impact of storytelling.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: I hope with my books, I'm saying, this isn't a how to guide, but this is somebody you can walk alongside. Mhmm. You can see Einstein growing up Jewish in Germany. You can see Jennifer Doudna growing up or as an outsider, a Leonardo da Vinci, or Elon Musk, you know, in really violent South Africa with a psychologically difficult father. And getting off the train when he goes to the anti apartheid concert with his brother, and there's a A man with a knife sticking out of his head, and they step into the pool of blood, and it's sticking on their souls.
This causes, You know, scars that lasts the rest of your life. And the question is not, how do you avoid getting scarred? It's you know, how do you deal with it?
Speaker 1: The following is a conversation with Walter Isaacson, One of the greatest biography writers ever. Having written incredible books on Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Jennifer Doudna, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, and now a new one on Elon Musk. We talked for hours on and off the mic. I'm sure we'll talk many more times. Walter is a truly special writer, thinker, observer, and human being.
I highly recommend people read his new book on Elon. I'm sure there will be short term controversy, But in the long term, I think it will inspire millions of young people, especially with difficult childhoods, with hardship in their surroundings or in their own minds to take on the hardest problems in the world and to build solutions to those problems no matter how impossible the odds. In this conversation, Walter and I cover all of his books and use personal stories from them to speak to the bigger principles of striving for greatness in science, in tech, engineering, art, politics, and life. There are many things in the new Elon book that I felt are best saved for when I speak to Elon directly again on this podcast, which will be soon enough. Perhaps it's also good to mention here that my friendships, like with Elon, nor any other influence, Like money, access, fame, power will ever result in me sacrificing my integrity ever.
I do like to celebrate the good in people to empathize and to understand. But I also like to call people out on their bullshit with respect and with compassion. If I fail, I fail due to a lack of skill, not a lack of integrity. I'll work hard to improve. This is the Let's Friedman Podcast.
To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, Here's Walter Isaacson. What is the role of a difficult childhood in the lives of great men and women, great minds? Is that a requirement? Is it a catalyst?
Or is it just a simple coincidence of fate?
Speaker 0: Well, it's not a requirement. Some people with happy childhood who do quite well. But it certainly is true that a lot of really driven people are driven because they're harnessing the demons of their childhood. Even Barack Obama's, sentence in his memoirs, which is I think every successful man He's either trying to live up to the expectations of of his father or live down the sin of his father. And for Elon, it's especially true because he had both a violent and difficult childhood and a very psychologically problematic father.
He's got those demons, dancing around in his head. And by harnessing them, it's part of the reason that he does riskier, more adventurous, wilder things and maybe I would ever do. You've written that, Elon talked about his father,
Speaker 1: and that at times, It felt like mental torture, the the interaction with him during his childhood. Can you describe some of the things you've learned?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, Elon and Kimball would tell me that, for example, when Elon got bullied on the playground. And one day was pushed down some concrete steps and had his face pummeled so badly that Kimball said I couldn't really recognize. I mean, he was in a hospital for almost a week. But when he came home, Elon had to stand in front of his father, And his father berated him for more than an hour and said he was stupid and took the side of the of the person who had beaten him.
Speaker 1: That's probably one of the more traumatic events of Elon's life.
Speaker 0: Yes. And there's also Beld School, which is a sort of Paramilitary camp that young South African boy's got sent to. And at one point, you know, he was scrawny. He has very, Bad at picking up social cues and emotional cues. He talks about being Asperger's.
And so he gets, traumatized at a camp like that. But the 2nd time he went, he'd gotten bigger. He had shot up to almost 6 feet, and he learned a little bit of judo. And he realized that if he's getting beaten up, he might It might hurt him, but it he would just punch the person in the nose as hard as possible. So that sense of always punching back has also been ingrained in Elon.
I spent a lot of time talking to Errol Musk, his father. Elon doesn't talk to Errol Musk anymore, his father, Nor does Kimble. It's been years. And, Errol doesn't even have, Elon's email. So a lot of times, Errol will be sending me emails.
And Errol had one of those Jekyll and Hyde personalities. He was, you know, a great mind of engineering and especially Material science, knew how to build a wilderness camp in South Africa using mica and how it would not conduct the heat. But he also would go into these dark periods in which he would just be psychologically abusive. And, of course, May Musk says to me, the his mother, who divorced Darryl early on, said, The danger for Elon is that he becomes his father. And every now and then, you've been with him so much.
Lex, and you know him well, He'll even talk to you about the demons, about Diopolo dancing in his head. I mean, he he gets it. He's self aware, But you've probably seen him at times where those demons take over, and he goes really dark and really quiet. And, Grimes says, you know, I can tell a minute or 2 in advance when demon mode's about to happen. And he'll go a bit dark.
I was, you know, here at Austin, wanted dinner with a group. And you could tell suddenly something had triggered him, And he was gonna go dark. I've watched it in meetings where somebody will say, we can't make that part for less than $200 or No. That's wrong. And he'll berate them.
And then he steps out of it. As as you know that too, the the huge snap out where Suddenly, he's showing you Monty Python skit on his phone, and he's joking about things. So I think coming out of the childhood, There were just many facets, maybe even many personalities, the engineering mode, the silly mode, the charismatic mode, the visionary mode, but also the demon in dark mode.
Speaker 1: A quote you cited about Elon really stood out to me. I forget, who it's from, but inside the man, He's still there as a child, the child standing in front of his dad.
Speaker 0: That was Tallulah, his 2nd wife, and she's great. She's An English actress. They've been married twice, actually. And Tallulah said that's just him from his childhood. He's a drama addict.
Kimball says that as well. And I asked why, and he said and Tallulah said, you know, for him, Love and family are kind of associated with those psychological torments. And in many ways, he'll channel. I mean, Tallulah would be with him in 2008 when the company was going back or whatever it may have been or later. And he would be so stressed, he would vomit.
And then he would channel things that his father had said, use phrases his father had said to him. And so she told me deep inside the man is this man child still standing in front of his father.
Speaker 1: To what degree is that true for many of us, do you think?
Speaker 0: I think it's true, but in many different ways. I'll say something personal, which is I was blessed, and perhaps it's a bit of a downside too, but the fact I had the greatest father you'd ever imagine, and mother. They were the kindest people you'd ever wanna meet. I grew up in a magical place in New Orleans. My dad was an engineer, an electrical engineer, and, You know, he was always kind.
Perhaps I'm not quite as driven or as crazed. I don't have to prove things. So I get to write about Elon Musk. I get to write about, you know, Einstein or Steve Jobs or Leonardo da Vinci, who, as you know, was totally torn by demons and had different difficult childhood situations, not even legitimized by his father. So Sometimes those of us who are lucky enough to have really gentle, sweet childhood, we grow up with Fewer demons, but we grow up with fewer drives, and we end up maybe being Boswell and not being doctor Johnson.
We end up being the observer, not being the doer. And so I always respect those who are in the arena. I don't you know?
Speaker 1: You don't see yourself as a man in the arena.
Speaker 0: I've had a gentle, sweet career, And I've got to cover really interesting people. But I've never shot off a rocket that might someday get to Mars. I've never moved us into the era of electric vehicles. I've never stayed up all night on the factory floor. I don't have quite those either the drives or the, Mhmm.
Addiction to risk. I mean, Elon's addicted to risk. He's addicted to adventure. Me, if I see something that's risky, I spend some time calculating, okay, upside, downside here. But that's another reason that people like Elon Musk get stuff done, and people like me write about the Elon Musks.
Speaker 1: One other aspect of this given a difficult childhood, whether it's, Elon or Da Vinci, I wonder if there's some wisdom, some advice almost that you can draw, that you can give to people with difficult childhoods.
Speaker 0: I think all of us have demons, even those of us who grew up in a magical Part of New Orleans with sweet parents.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: And we all have demons. And rule 1 in life is harness your demons. Know that you're ambitious or not ambitious or you're lazy or whatever. Leonardo da Vinci knew he was a procrastinator. You know?
I think it's usual to know what's eating at you, know how to harness it, Also know what you're good at. I'll take Musk as another example. I'm a little bit more like Kimbal Musk than Elon. I maybe got over endowed with the empathy gene. And what does that mean?
Well, it means that I was okay when I ran Time Magazine. It was a group about a 150 people on the editorial floors, and I knew them all, and we had a jolly time. When I went to CNN, I was not very good at being a manager or an executive of an organization. I cared a little bit too much that people didn't get annoyed at me or, mad at me. And Elon said that about John McNeil, for example, who is president of Tesla.
It's in the book. I talked to John McNeal a long time, and he says, you know, Elon just would fire people, be really rough on people. He didn't have the empathy for the people in front of him, and Elon says, yeah. That's right. And John McNeal couldn't fire people.
He cared more about pleasing the people in front of him than pleasing the entire enterprise or getting things done. Being over endowed with a desire to please people can make you less tough of a manager. And, that doesn't mean There are great people who are over endowed. Ben Franklin, over endowed with the desire to please people. The worst criticism of him from John Adams and others was that he was insinuating, which kind of meant he was always trying to get people to like him.
But that turned out to be a good thing. When they can't figure out the big state, little state issue at the constitutional convention, when they can't figure out the treaty of powers, whatever it is, He brings people together, and that is his superpower. So to get back to the lessons you asked and, you know, the 1st was harness your demons. The second is to know your strength and your superpower. My superpower is definitely not being a tough manager.
After running CNN for a while, I said, okay. I got proven I don't really enjoy this or know how to do this well. Mhmm. You know, do I have other talents? Yeah.
I think I have the talent to observe people really closely, to write about it in a straight, but I hope interesting narrative style. That's a power. It's totally different from running an organization. It took me until 3 years of running CNN that I realized I'm not cut to be an executive in a really high intense situations. Elon Musk is cut to be an executive in highly intense situation So much so that when things get less intense, when they actually are making enough cars and Rockets are going up and landing.
He thinks of something else, so he can surge and have more intensity. He's addicted to intensity. And that's his superpower, which is a lot greater than the superpower of being a good observer.
Speaker 1: But I think also, to build on that, it's not just addiction to, like, risk and drama. There's always a big mission Mhmm. Above it. So I would say, it's an empathy towards People in the big picture.
Speaker 0: It's an empathy towards humanity Humanity. More than the empathy towards the 3 or 4 humans who might be sitting in the conference room with you. And that's a big deal. And you see that in a lot of people. You see it, Bill Gates, Larry Summers, Elon Musk.
They always have Empathy for these great goals of humanity, and at times, they can be clueless about the emotions of the people in front of them or callous sometimes. Musk, as you said, It's driven by mission more than any person I've ever seen. And it's not only mission, it's like cosmic missions. Meaning, he's got 3 really big missions. One is to make humans a space faring civilization, make us multiplanetary, or get us to Mars.
Number 2 is to bring us into the era of sustainable energy, to bring us into the era of electric vehicles and solar roofs and, battery packs. And 3rd is to make sure that Artificial intelligence is safe and is aligned with human values. And every now and then, I'd talk to him and we'd be talking about Starlink satellites or whatever, or he would be pushing the people in front of him in SpaceX and saying, if you do this, we'll never get get to Mars in our lifetime. And then he would give the lecture how important it was for human consciousness to get to Mars in our lifetime. And I'm thinking, okay.
This is the pep talk of somebody trying to inspire a team, or maybe it's the type of of, pontification you do on a podcast. But on, like, 20th time I watched him, I was, okay. I believe it. He actually is driven by this. He is
Speaker 1: Frustrated and angry that because of this particular minor engineering decision, The big mission is not going to be accomplished. It's not a pep talk. It's a literal frustration.
Speaker 0: And impatience of frustration, and, It's also just probably the most deeply ingrained thing in him is his mission. He joked at one point to me about how much he loved reading comics as a kid, and he said all the people in the comic books, They're trying to save the world, but they're wearing their underpants on the outside, and they look ridiculous. And then he paused and said, but they are trying to save the world. And whether it's Starlink in Ukraine or Starship going to Mars or trying to get a global new Tesla, I think he's got this epic sense of the role he's gonna play in helping humanity on big things. And like the the characters in the comic books, it's sometimes ridiculous, But it also is sometimes true.
Speaker 1: When I was reading this part of the book, I was thinking of all the Young people who are struggling in this way. And I think a lot of people are in different ways, whether they grow up without a father, whether they grow up With physical, emotional, mental abuse, or demons of any kind as you talked about. And it's really painful to read, but also really damn inspiring That if you sort of walk side by side with those demons, If you don't let that pain break you or somehow channel it, if you can put it this way, that you can achieve you can do great things in this world.
Speaker 0: Well, that's, an epic view of why we write biography, which is more epic than I had even thought of. So I say thank you, Because in some ways, what you're trying to do is say, okay. I mean, Leonardo, you talk about being a misfit? He's born illegitimate in the village of Vinci. And he's gay.
And he's left handed. And he's distracted. And his father won't legitimize him. And, then he wanders off to the town of Florence. He becomes the greatest artist and engineer of the early renaissance of that part of the renaissance.
I hope this book inspires Jennifer Doudna, the gene editing Pioneer who discovers helps discover CRISPR, gene editing tool, which my book, The Code Breaker, She grew up feeling like a misfit, you know, in Hawaii, in a Polynesian village being the only white person and also trying to live up to a father who pushed her. So if people can read the books, and I I should've said about Jennifer Datta. My point was that She was told by her school guidance counselor, no. Girls don't do science. You know, science is not for girls.
You're not gonna do math or science. And so it pushes her to say, alright. I'm gonna do math and science.
Speaker 1: Just to interrupt real quick, but, Jennifer Donner, You've written an amazing book about her. Nobel Prize winner, Chris Perda, she's incredible. One of the great scientists in the 21st century.
Speaker 0: Right. And I'm talking about When Jennifer Doudna was young and she felt really, really out of place, like you and me and a lot of people when they feel in that way, They read books. They go into they curl up with the book. Mhmm. So her father drops a book on her bed called The Double Helix, the book by James Watson on the discovery of the structure of DNA by him and Rosalind Franklin and Francis Crick.
And She realizes, oh my god. Girls can become scientists. My school guidance counselor is wrong. So I think Books, like she read this book, and even if it's a comic book, like Elon Musk read. Books can sometimes inspire you.
And every one of my books is about people who were totally innovative, who weren't just smart, because none of us are gonna be able to match Einstein and mental processing power. But we can be as curious as he was and creative and think out of the box the way he did. Or Steve Jobs put it, think different. And so I hope with my books, I'm saying, this isn't a how to guide, but this is somebody you can walk alongside. Mhmm.
You can see Einstein growing up Jewish in Germany. You can see Jennifer Doudna growing up or as an outsider, a Leonardo da Vinci, or Elon Musk, you know, in really violent South Africa with a psychologically difficult father and getting off the train when he goes to anti apartheid concert with his brother. And there's a A man with a knife sticking out of his head, and they step into the pool of blood and it's sticky on their souls. This causes, You know, scars that lasts the rest of your life. And the question is not, how do you avoid getting scarred?
It's you know, how do you deal with it? Einstein too,
Speaker 1: one of my and it's hard to pick my favorite of your, Biographies. But I Einstein, I mean, you really paint a picture of another I don't wanna call him a misfit, But a person who doesn't necessarily have a a standard trajectory through life of of success. So Absolutely. And it's that's extremely inspiring. I don't know exactly what question to ask.
There's a million.
Speaker 0: Well, I'll talk about the misfit for a 2nd, because, you know, we talked about Leonardo being that way. You know, Einstein's Jewish in Germany at a time when it starts getting difficult. He's slow in learning how to talk, and he's a visual thinker, so he's always daydreaming and imagining things. The 1st time he applies to the Zurich Polytech, because he runs away from the German education system because it's too much learning by rote, He gets rejected by the Zurich Polytech. That's the 2nd best school in Zurich, and they're rejecting Einstein.
I tried to find but couldn't the name of the admissions counselor at the Azure College. Yes. Like, he rejected Einstein. And then he doesn't finish in the top half of his class. And once he Does, and he goes to graduate school.
They don't accept his dissertation, so he can't get a job. He's not teaching it. He even tries about 14 different high schools at gymnasium, to get a job, and they won't take them. So he's a 3rd class examiner in the Swiss patent office That's in 1905. 3rd class, because they've rejected his doctoral dissertation, and so he can't be 2nd class or 1st class because he doesn't have a doctoral degree, and yet he's sitting there on the stool in the patent office in 1905 and writes 3 papers that totally transform science.
And if you're thinking about being misunderstood or unappreciated. In 1906, he's still a third class Patrick. In 1907, he still is. It takes until 190 before people realize That this notion of the theory of relativity might be correct, and it might upend all of Newtonian physics. How is it possible for 3 of the greatest papers in
Speaker 1: the history of science to be written in 1 year by this 1 person. Is there some insights, wisdoms you draw? Plus, he
Speaker 0: had a day job as a patent examiner. Right. And there's really 3 papers, but there's also an addendum. Because once you figure out quantum theory, and then you figure out relativity, And you're understanding Maxwell's equations and the speed of light. He does a little addendum.
That's the most famous equation in all of physics, which is e equals m c squared. So it's a pretty good year. It partly starts because he's a visual thinker, And I think it was helpful that he was at the patent office rather than being the acolyte of, some professor at the academy where he was supposed to follow the rules. And so the patent office said doing devices to synchronize clocks, because the Swiss have Just going on standard time zones, and Swiss people, as you know, tend to be rather, you know, Swiss. They care if it strikes the hour in Basel, it should do the same and burn at the exact instant.
So you have to send a light signal between 2 distant clocks. And he's visualizing what's it look like to ride alongside a light beam. He says, well, if you catch up with it, if you go almost as fast, it'll look stationary, but Maxwell's equations Don't allow for that. And he said, it's making my palm sweat that I was so worried. And so he finally figures out, because he's looking at these devices, the synchronized clocks, That if you're traveling really, really fast, what's looks synchronous to you or synchronized to you is different Then for somebody traveling really fast in the other direction, and he makes the mental leap that time, that the speed of light's always constant, but time is relative depending on your state of motion.
So it was that type of out of the box thinking, those leaps That made 1905 his miracle year, likewise with Musk. I mean, After General Motors and Ford, everybody gives up on electric vehicles, to just say, I know how we're going to have a path to change the entire trajectory of the world into the era of electric vehicles. And then when he comes back from Russia, where he tried to buy a little rocket ship so he could send a experimental greenhouse to Mars, and they were poking fun of him and actually Spit on them at one point in a drunken lunch. This is very fortuitous because on the ride back home on the plane on the, you know, Delta Airlines flight, He's like doing the calculations of how much materials, how much metal, how much fuel, how much would it really cost? And so he's visualizing things that other people would would just say is impossible.
It's what Steve Jobs' friends called the reality distortion field, and it drove people crazy. It drove them mad, but it also that drove them to do things they didn't think they would be able to do.
Speaker 1: You said visual thinking. I wonder if you've seen parallels of the different styles and kinds of thinking that, that operate the minds of these people. So, is there parallels you see between Elon, Steve Jobs, Einstein, da Vinci, specifically in how they think.
Speaker 0: I think they were all visual thinkers, perhaps coming from slight handicaps as children, meaning, you know, Leonardo was left handed and a little bit dyslexic, I think. And certainly Einstein had At Koeya, he would repeat things. He was slow in learning to talk. So I think visualizing helps a lot. And with Musk, I see it all the time when I'm walking the factory lines with him or in product development, where he'll look at, say, the heat shield under the Raptor engine of a Starship booster.
And he'll say, why does it have to be this way? Couldn't we trim it this way? Or make it or even get rid of this part of it. And he can visualize the material science. There's a small anecdote in my book, but at one point, he's on the Tesla line, and they're trying to get 5,000 cars a week in 2018.
It's a life or death situation, and he's looking at the machines that are bolting something to the chassis. And he insists that Drew Bagley not Drew. Let Lars Moravey, one of his great lieutenants, come, and they have to summon him. And he says, why are there 6 bolts here? And Lars and others explained, well, For the crash test or anything else, the pressure would be in this way, so you have to, and they were blah blah blah blah blah.
And he said, no. If you visualize it, you'll see if there's a crash, it would the force would go this way and that way, And it can be done with 4 bolts. Now that sounds risky, and they go test it and they engineer it, but it turns out to be right. I know that seems minor, But I could give you 500 of those, where in any given day, he's visualizing the physics of an engineering or manufacturing problem. That sounds pretty mundane.
But for me, if you say, what makes him special? There's a mission driven thing. I give you a a lot of reasons. But one of the reasons is he cares not just about the design of the product, but visualizing the manufacturing and of the product, the machine that makes the machine. And that's what we failed to do in America for the past 40 years.
We outsourced so much manufacture. I don't think you can be a good innovator if you don't know how to make the stuff you're designing. And that's why Musk puts his designer's desk right next to the assembly lines in the factories so that they have to visualize what they drew as it becomes the physical object.
Speaker 1: So understanding everything from the physics all the way up to the to the software. It's like end to end.
Speaker 0: Well, having an end to end control is important, certainly with Steve Jobs. I'm looking at my iPhone here. It's a big deal. That hardware only works with Apple software, And for a while, the iTunes store only what what's you know? So he has an end to end that makes it like a Zen garden in Kyoto.
Very carefully curated, but a thing of beauty. For Musk, when he first was at Tesla And before he was the CEO, when he was just the executive chairman and basically the finance person person funding it, They were outsourcing everything. They were making the batteries in Japan, and the battery pack would be at some barbecue shop in Thailand, and then sent to the Lotus factory in England to be put into a Lotus Elise cha a chassis and then That was a nightmare. You did not have end to end control of the manufacturing process. So he goes to the other extreme.
He gets a A factory in Fremont from Toyota. And he wants to do everything in house, the software in house, the painting in house, you know, the the the, battery. He makes his own batteries, And I think that end to end control is part of his personality. I mean, there's a but it Also, what allows Tesla, to be innovative.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I got to see And understand in detail one example of that, which is the development of the brain of the car In the autopilot going from Mobileye to in house buildings, autopilot system to Mhmm. Basically, getting rid of all sensors that are not, rich in data to make it AI friendly, sort of saying that we can do it all with vision. And like you said, removing some of the bolts. So sometimes it's small things, but sometimes it's really big things like getting rid of radar.
Speaker 0: Well, vision only. Getting rid of radar is huge, And everybody's against it. Everybody and they're still fighting it a bit. They're still trying to do a next generation some form of radar. But It gets back to the 1st principles.
We talk about visualizing. Well, he starts with the first principles. And the first principles of physics, involve things like, well, humans drive with only visual input. They don't have radar. They don't have lidar.
They don't have sonar. And so there was no reason in the laws of physics that make it so that vision only won't be successful in creating self driving. Now That becomes an article of faith to him, and he gets a lot of pushback. But now and he's, by the way, not been that That's when meeting his deadlines of getting self driving. He's way too optimistic.
But it was that first principles of get rid of unnecessary things. Now you would think LiDAR, why not use it? Like, why not use a crust? It's like, yeah, we can do things vision only, but When I look at the stars at night, I use a telescope too. Well, you could use LiDAR, but you can't do millions of cars that way at scale.
At a certain point, you have to make it not only a good product, but a product that goes to scale. And you can't make it based on maps, like Google Maps, because it'll never be able to, you know, then drive from New Orleans to Slidell where I wanna go when it's too hot in New Orleans. Take for example, Full Self Drive. He has been obsessed with what he calls the robo taxi. We're gonna build the next generation car without a steering wheel
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Without pedals. Because it's gonna be full self drive. You just summon it. You won't need to drive it. Well, over and over again, all these people I've told you about, you know, Lars Moravey and Drew Baglino and others.
They're saying, okay, fine. That sounds really good, but, You know, it ain't happened yet. We need to build a $25,000 mass market global car that's just normal with a steering wheel. And, yeah, he finally turned around a few months ago and said, let's do it. And then he starts focusing on How's the assembly line gonna work?
How are we gonna do it? And make it the same platform for robo taxi so you can have the same assembly. Likewise, for full self drive, They were doing it by coding hundreds of thousands of lines of code that would say things like, if you see a red light, stop. If there's a blinking light, if the Two yellow lines, do this. There's a bike lane, do this.
If there's a crosswalk, do that. Well, that's really hard to do. Now he's doing it through artificial intelligence and machine learning only. FSD 12 will be based on the 1,000,000,000 or so frames from Tesla each week of Tesla drivers and saying, what happened when a human was in this situation? What did the human do?
And let's only pick the best humans, the 5 star drivers, the Uber drivers, as Elon says. And so that's Him changing his mind and going to first principles, but saying, alright. I'm even gonna change full self driving So that's not rules based. It becomes AI based. Just like ChatGPT doesn't try to answer your question, who are the 5 best popes or something by study Chattopty PD does it by having ingested billions of of, pieces of writing that people have done.
This will be AI, but real world done by ingesting video.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels like, he and others, they're building things in this world successfully. I basically, confidently exploring a dark room with a very confident, ambitious vision of what that room actually looks like. Like Mhmm. Like, they're just walking straight into the darkness. There's no painful toys.
Their leg goes on the ground. I'm just going to walk. I know exactly how far the wall is, and then very quickly willing to adjust as they run into they step on the Lego, And, their their body, is filled with a lot of pain. What I mean by that is there's this kind of evolution that's used to happen Where you discover really good ideas along the way that allow you to pivot. Like to me, Since, you know, since a few years ago when you could see with Andre Karpathy, the software 2.0 evolution of autopilot, It became obvious to me that this is not about the car.
This is about Optimus, the robot. This this is, like, if we look back a 100 years from now. The car will be remembered as a cool car, nice transportation, but the the autopilot won't be the thing that controls the car. It will be the thing that allows embodied AI systems to understand the world so broadly. And so that kind of approach and so and you kinda stumble into it.
Will Tesla be a a call company? Will it be an AI company? Will it be a robotics company? Will it be a home robotics company? Will it be an energy company?
And then you kind of slowly discover this as you confidently, like push forward with a vision. It's been interesting to watch that kind of evolution as long as it's backed by this confidence.
Speaker 0: There are a couple of things that are required for that. 1 is being adventurous. 1 doesn't enter a dark room without a flashlight and a map, unless you're a risk taker, unless you're adventurous. The second is to have iterative, brain cycles where you can process information and do a feedback loop and make it work. The 3rd, and this is what we failed to do a lot in the United States and perhaps around the world, is when you take risks, you have to realize you're gonna blow things up.
You know, first 3 rockets that the Falcon rockets that Musk does, they blow up. Even Starship, 3 and a half minutes, but then it blows up the first time. So I think Boeing and NASA and others have become unwilling to enter your dark room without knowing exactly where the exit is and the lighted path to the exit. And the people who created America, whenever they came over, you know, whether the Mayflower is refugees from the Nazis, They took a lot of risks to get here, and now I think we have more referees than we have risk takers, More lawyers and regulators and others saying you can't do that. That's too risky, than people willing to innovate.
And you need both. I think you're also right on 50, a 100 years from now, What Musk will be most remembered for besides space travel is real world AI. Not just Optimus the Robot, but Optimus the Robot and the self driving car. They're they're pretty much the same. They're using, you know, GPU clusters or dojo chips or whatever it may be, to process real world data.
We all got, and you did on your podcast, quite excited about large language model, you know, generative, predictive text, AI. That's fine, especially if you wanna chitchat with your chatbot. But the holy grail is artificial general intelligence. And the tough part of that is real world AI. And that's where Optimus, the robot, or Full self drive, or I think far ahead of anybody else.
Speaker 1: Well, I like how you said chitchat. I I would say for for for one of the greatest writers ever, It's funny that you spoke about language and the mastery of languages as merely chitchat. You know, people have fallen in love over Some words. People have gone to wars over some words. I think words have a lot of power.
It's actually an interesting question where the wisdom of the world, wisdom of humanity is in the words or is it in visual in in visual, is it in the physical?
Speaker 0: I don't really It's in mathematics.
Speaker 1: It may maybe it all boils down to math, and in the end, this kind of discussion about, real world AI versus languages all the same, maybe. I've, Gotten a chance to hang out quite a bit in the metaverse with mister Mark Zuckerberg recently, and boy, Is the realism in there? Then you like, the the thing that's coming up in the future is incredible. I got, scanned, in, Pittsburgh for 10 hours into the metaverse, and there's, like, a a virtual version of me, and I got to hang out with that virtual word version.
Speaker 0: Do you like yourself?
Speaker 1: Well, I I never liked myself, But it was easier to like that other guy. That was interesting.
Speaker 0: Does he like you?
Speaker 1: He didn't seem to care much.
Speaker 0: That's a lack of the empathy.
Speaker 1: But, that was you know, it made me start to Question even more than before, like, well, how important is this physical reality? Because I I got to see, You know, my myself and other people in that metaverse, like, the details of the faith, the like, all the all the things that You think maybe if you look at yourself in the mirror, our imperfections, all this kind of stuff. When I was looking at myself and at others, all those things are beautiful, and it was, like, It was real, and it was intense, and it it, it was scary because you're like, well, are you allowed to murder people in the metaverse? Because, like, are you allowed to because what are you allowed to do? Because you can replicate a lot of those things, and It's you start to question what are the fundamental things that make life worth living here as
Speaker 0: we know as humans. Have you talked to Elon about his views of when living in a simulation maybe and how you would figure out if that's true.
Speaker 1: Yes. There's a constant lighthearted, but also a serious sense that this is all a bit of a game.
Speaker 0: One of my theories on Elon, a minor theory, is that he read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy once too often. And, and as you know, there's a scene in there that says, that there's a theory about the universe, that if anybody ever discovers the secrets of meanings of the universe, it will be replaced by an even more complex universe. And then the next line Douglas Adams writes this. And there's another theory that this has already happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: So I I'm gonna try to get my head around that, but I know that Elon Musk tries to. Well, there there's a humor to that. There's an enormous humor to Hitchhiker's Guide. Now I really think that helped Musk out of the darkest of his periods to have sort of the sense of fun of figuring out what life is all about.
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is a smaller size we could say. Just, I haven't gotten to know Elon very well, like, his the the silliness, the willingness to engage in the absurdity of it all and have fun. What is that? What is that, is that just a quirk of personality, or is that a fundamental aspect of a human who's running 6 plus companies.
Speaker 0: Well, it's a release valve, just like video games and Polytopia and Elden Ring, a release valve's for him. And he does have an explosive sense of humor, as you know. And the weird thing is when he makes the abrupt transition from dark demon mode, and you're in a conference room. And he has really become upset about something. And not only their dark vibes, but there's dark words emanating, and he's saying your resignation will be accepted if you die, you know, etcetera.
And then something pops, and he pulls out his phone and pulls up a Bonnie Python skit, you know, like the School of silly walks or whichever John Cleese it would and then he starts laughing again, and things break. So it's It's almost as if he has different modes, the emulation of human mode, the engineering mode, the dark and demon mode, And certainly, there is the silly and giddy mode.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You've actually opened the Elon book with, quotes from Elon and from Steve Jobs. So Elon's quote is, to anyone I'm offended, I just wanna say it's an SNL. I just wanna say I reinvented electric Cars, and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you also think I was going to be a chill, normal dude?
And then the quote from Steve Jobs, of course, is The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. So, What do you think is the role of the old, madness and genius? What do you think the role of crazy in this? Well,
Speaker 0: First of all, let's both stipulate that Musk is crazy at times. I mean, and Then let's figure out. And I try to do it through storytelling, not through highfalutin preaching, where that craziness works. You know? Give me a story.
Tell me a anecdote. Tell me where he's crazy. And, You know, the almost final example, AI, but him shooting off Starship for the first time, in between an aborted countdown and the street off, he goes to Miami to an ad sales conference and meets Linda Iaccarino for the first time, makes her the CEO. I mean, there's a very impulsiveness to him. Then he flies back.
They launch Starship, and You realize that there's a drive and there are demons and there's also craziness, and You sometimes wanna pull those out. You wanna take away his phone so he doesn't tweet at 3 AM. You want to, say, quit being so crazy. But then you realize there's a wonderful line in of Shakespeare in measure for measure at the very end. He says even the best are molded out of faults.
And so you take the faults of Musk, for example, which includes a craziness that can be endearing, but also craziness that's just, like, Effing crazy, as well as this drive in demon mode. I don't know that you can take that strand out of the fabric, and the fabric remains whole.
Speaker 1: I wonder sometimes it saddens me that we live in a society that doesn't celebrate even the darker aspects of crazy in acknowledging that it all comes in 1 package. It's the man in the arena versus the critic.
Speaker 0: And the man in the arena versus the regulator, and to make it more prosaic.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask about not just the crazy, but the cruelty. So in, You've written when reporting as Steve Jobs. Well, I was told you that the big question to ask was, did he have to be so mean, so rough And cruel, so drama addicted. What is this answer for Steve Jobs? Did he have to be so cruel?
Speaker 0: For for Jobs? I asked Woz at the end of my reporting because that's what he asked said at the beginning. We're doing the launch of, I think, The iPad too, it may have been. Steve is emaciated because, you know, he's been sick. And so I say to Woz, what's the answer to your question?
And he said, well, if I had been running Apple, I would have been nicer to everybody. I would everybody got a stock option. We've been like a family. And then I I don't know if you know Woz, but he's like a teddy bear. He paused, he smiled, and he said, but if I had been running Apple, I don't think we would have done the Macintosh or the iPhone.
So yeah, you have to sometimes be rough And Jobs said the same thing that Musk said to me, which is he said, people like you love wearing velvet gloves. You know, I don't Not that I've worn Velvet Claws often, but you like people to like you. You like to sweet talk things, you sugarcoat things. He says, I'm just a working class kid, And I don't have that luxury. If something sucks, I gotta tell people it sucks, or I got a team of b players.
Well, Musk is that way as well, and it gets back to what I said earlier, which is, yeah, I probably would wear velvet gloves if I could find them at my haberdasher. And I do try to sugarcoat things, but when I was running CNN Yeah. It needed to be reshaped. It needed to be broken. It needed to have certain things blown up.
Yeah. And I didn't do it. Yeah. You know? So Bad on me, but it made me realize, okay.
I'll just write about the people who can do it. Well, that thing of saying,
Speaker 1: I think probably both of them, but Elon certainly Saying things like that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. By the way, I've heard Jeff Bezos say that. I've heard Bill Gates say that. I've heard Steve Jobs say it. I've heard Steve Jobs say it about a smoothie they were making in a Whole Foods or something.
People they use the word stupid really often.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And you know who else used it? Errol Musk. He kept making Elon stand in front of him and saying, that's the stupidest thing. You're the stupidest person. You'll never amount to anything.
Mhmm. I don't know. You know, as John McNeal, the president of Tesla said, Do you have to be that way? Probably not. There are a lot of successful people who are much kinder, but, It's sometimes necessary to be much more brutal and honest, Brutally honest, I would say, than people like or win boss of the year trophies.
Speaker 1: Well, as you said, this kind of idea did also send a signal. This idea of Steve Jobs of a players, it did send a signal to everybody. There was a kind of encouragement to the people that are all in.
Speaker 0: Right. And that happened to Twitter. When we went to Twitter headquarters the day before the takeover he was having, Andrew and, James, his 2 young cousins, and other people from the autopilot team, going over lines of code. And Musk himself sat there with a laptop on the 2nd floor of the building looking at the lines of code that had been written by Twitter engineers, and they decided they were gonna fire 85% of them because they had to be all in. And this notion of psychological safety and mental days off and working remotely, he said either and then It came up, actually one of his, I think it was one of the cousins or maybe Ross nor didn't came up with the idea of Let's not be so rough and just fire all these people.
Let's ask them, do you really wanna be all in? Because this is gonna be hardcore. It's gonna be intense. You get to choose, but by midnight tonight, we want you to check the box. I'm hardcore all in.
I'll be there in person. I'll work, you know, as well, Or that's not for me. I've got a family. I got work balance. And you got different type of people that way in different stages of their life.
I was a little bit more hardcore and all in when I was in my twenties and when I was, you know, in my fifties.
Speaker 1: And you write about this. It's a really nice idea, actually, that there's 2 camps Mhmm. And you find out I don't I wonder how true this is. It it rings True. You can just ask people, which camp are you in?
Are you the kind of person that prides themselves and enjoy staying up till 2 AM programming or whatever. Or do you see the value of quote unquote, you know, about life work life balance, all this kind of stuff. And it's interesting. I mean, you like, you you could people probably divide themselves in different stages of life, And you can just ask them, and it makes sense for certain companies in certain stages of the their development to be like, we all have teams.
Speaker 0: It doesn't even have to be a whole company. And you're right. It goes back to what I was saying about rule. The first secret is sort of know thyself, obviously, comes from Plato, and, everything comes from Plato and Socrates. But, and decide, in this stage of my life, Am I do I wanna be a hackathon all in, all night and change the world?
Or do I want to bring wisdom and stability, but also have balance? I think it's good to have different companies with different styles. The problem was Twitter was at Almost one extreme with yoga studios and mental health days off and, enshrining psychological safety as one of the mantras that people should never feel psychologically threatened. And he I remember the bitter laugh he unleashed when he kept hearing that word. He Said no.
I like the words har hardcore. I like intensity. I like a intense sense of urgency as our operating principle. Well, yeah, they're people that way as well. So know who you are and know what type of team you wanna build.
Speaker 1: Versus psychological safety and too many birds everywhere.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. A lot of times, Musk did things, and I go, what the hell? Yeah. And the bottom line was changing the name Twitter and getting rid of the birds. I said, hey, man.
So a lot invested in that brand. But when I watched him, he thought, okay. These sweet little chirpy birds tweeting away in the name Twitter, It's not hardcore. It's not intense. And so for better and for worse, I think he's taking x into the hardcore realm with people who post hardcore things, with people with hardcore views.
It's not a polite playpen for the blue checked, anointed elite, and I thought, okay. This is gonna be bad. The whole thing's gonna fall But well, it has had problems, but the hardcore intensity of it has also meant that there's new things happening there. So it's very Elon Musk to not like the sweetness of birds chirping and tweeting and saying, I want something more hardcore.
Speaker 1: As you've written in, referring to the the previous Twitter CEO, Elon said, Twitter needs A fire breathing dragon. I think this is a good opportunity to, maybe go through some of the memorable moments Of the Twitter saga as you've written about extensively in your book. It's from the early days of considering The acquisition to, how it went through to the details of, like you mentioned, the engineering teams.
Speaker 0: Well, at the beginning of 2022, He was riding high, but as we say, he's a drama addict. He doesn't like to coast. And, you know, Tesla sold a 1000000 vehicles. I think 33 Boosters, you know, Falcon nines have been shot up and landed safely in the past few months. And he was the richest person on Earth and Times person of the year.
And yet, He'd said, you know, I'm still wanna put all my chips back on the table. I wanna keep taking risks. I don't wanna favor things. He had sold all of his houses. So he started secretly buying shares of Twitter.
January, February, March Becomes public at a certain point. He has to, declare it. And we were here in Austin at Gigafactory on the mezzanine. And he was trying to figure out, well, where do I go from here? And at that time, it was early April, They were gonna offer him a board seat, and he was gonna do a standstill agreement and stop at 10% or something.
I remember, You know, we were standing around. It was Luke Nozick, whom you know well, Ken Howery, some of his friends on that mezzanine here, And all afternoon and then late into the evening at dinner is like, should we do this? And I didn't say anything. I'm just the observer, But everybody else is saying, excuse me. Why do you want to own Twitter?
And Griffin, his son, joined at dinner, and May, for some reason, was in town. And, like, everybody says, no. We don't use Twitter. Why would you do that? And May said, well, I use Twitter.
And then it's almost like, okay. The demographics are people my age or May's age. And so it looked like he wasn't gonna pursue it. They offered him a board seat And, then he went off to Hawaii to, Larry Ellison's a house, which he sometimes uses. He was meeting a friend, Angela Bassett, an actress.
And instead of enjoying 3 days of vacation. He just became supercharged Mhmm. And started firing off text messages, including the fire breathing dragon one. I think, You know, he used that phrase a few times, that Parag wasn't the person who was going to take Twitter to a new level. And then by the time he gets to Vancouver, where Grimes Meets him.
They stay up all night playing Elden Ring. He was doing a TED talk. And then, at 5 Thirty. He finishes playing Elden Ring and sends out that I've made an offer. Even when he comes back, People are trying to intervene and say, excuse me.
Why are you doing it? And so it was a rocky period between late April in October when the deal closed. And people ask me all the time, well, did he wanna get out of a deal? I said, which Elon are you talking about at what time of day? Because there'll be times in the morning when he'd say, oh, the Delaware court's gonna force me to do it.
It's horrible. Talk to his lawyers. You can win this case. Get me out of it. He met here in Austin with 3 or 4 investment bankers, Blair Efron, at Centerview, Bob Steele, and Perella Weinberg.
And they offered him options. Do you wanna get out? Do you wanna stay in? Do you wanna reduce the price? And I think is he was mercurial.
There were times he would text me or say to me, this is gonna be great. It's gonna be the accelerant to do x.com the way we thought about 20 years ago. We tell them at the beginning of October, right, when Optimus the robot is being unveiled in California, actually, Now the lawyer is saying you're not gonna probably win this case, but better go through with the deal. And by then, he's not only made his peace with it, he's kinda happy with it at time. Eventually, the deal is gonna close on a, I think a, Friday morning, I have it in the book.
And we're there on Thursday, and he's wandering around looking at the Stay Woke t charts and psychological safety lingo they're all using. And he and his lawyers and bankers hatched a plan to do a flash close. And the reason for that was if they closed the deal after the markets had closed for the day. And he could send a letter to Parag and 2 others firing them, quote, for cause, and this'll be something the courts will have to figure out. Then he could save 200,000,000 or so.
And it was both the money, but for him, a matter, I won't say of principle, but of, hey. They misled me about the numbers. I got forced into doing it, So I'm gonna I'm gonna try this jujitsu maneuver and be able to get some money out of him. Then when he takes over, it's kind of a wild scene, 15% of what it was, him deciding on Christmas Eve after he'd been in a meeting where they told him we can't get rid of that Sacramento server farm because it's need of a redundancy. He says, no.
It's not. And he's flying here to Austin, And young James says, why don't we just do it ourselves? He turns the plane around. They land in Sacramento, and he pulls them out himself. So it was a manic period.
Speaker 1: We should also say that underneath of that, there was a running desire to or consideration to perhaps Start a new, company to build a social media company from scratch.
Speaker 0: Well, Kimball wanted to do that, and Kimball here at A wonderful restaurant in Austin, and lunch is like, hey. Why are you buying Twitter? Let's start 1 from scratch and do it on the blockchain. Yeah. Now it took them a while, and you can argue it one way or the other, to come to the conclusion that the blockchain was not fast enough and responsive time enough to be able to handle a 1000000000 tweets, you know, in a day or so.
He gets mad when they keep trying to get him to talk to Sam Bankman Fried, who's trying to say I'll invest, but we have to do it on the blockchain. Kimball is still in favor of starting a new one and doing it on, blockchain based. In retrospect, I think starting a new media company would have been better. He wouldn't have had the baggage or The legacy that he's breaking now in breaking the, way Twitter had been, but it's hard to have millions and millions hundreds of millions of true true users, not just trolls, and start from scratch as others have found, as Mastodon and Blue Sky and threads, and not any threads even had a base, So it would have been hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, to do that in the way he did requires, another part that you write about with the 3 Gutierrez and the whole engineering, the firing, and the bringing in the engineers to try to sort of go hardcore. So there's a lot of interesting sort of questions to ask there, but The high level, can you just comment about that part of the saga, which is bringing in the engineers and seeing, like, what can we do here?
Speaker 0: Right. He brought in the engineers and figured That the amount of people doing Tesla full self driving autopilot and all the software there was about 1 tenth of what was doing software for Twitter. And he said, this can't be the case. And he fired 85% in 3 different rounds. The first was Just firing people because they looked at the coding, and they had a team of people from Tesla's autopilot team grading the codes of every of all that was written in the past year or so.
Then he fired people, you know, who didn't seem to be totally all in They're loyal, and then another round of layoffs. So, at each step of the way, Almost everybody said that's enough. It's going to destroy things.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: From Alex Spyro, his lawyer, to Jared Burchall. He's like, woah. Woah. Woah. You know?
And even Andrew and James, the young cousins who are tasked with making a list and figuring out who's good or bad, say, we've done enough. We're going to be in real trouble. And they were partly right. I mean, there was degradation of the service some, but not as much as half the services I use half the time, you know. And I wake up each morning and Hit the app and okay.
Still there.
Speaker 1: What do you think? Was that too much?
Speaker 0: I think that he has an Algorithm that we mentioned earlier that begins with question every requirement. But step 2 is delete, delete, delete. Delete every part. And then a corollary to that is if you don't end up adding back 20% of what you deleted, then you didn't delete enough in the 1st round because you were too timid. Well so he asked me, did he overdo it?
He probably overdid it by 20%, which is his formula. And they're probably trying to hire people now to keep things going.
Speaker 1: But it sends a strong signal to people that are hired back or the people that are still there, the the ape and
Speaker 0: the idea. What Steve Jobs has been the other great leaders Svelte and certainly Bezos and certainly in the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates. It was hardcore only a players.
Speaker 1: So how much of Elon's success would you say Elon's, Steve Jobs' success is the hiring and managing of great teams?
Speaker 0: When I asked Steve Jobs at one point what was the best product you ever created, I thought he'd say maybe the Macintosh or Maybe the iPhone. He said, no. Those products are hard. The best thing I ever created was the team that made those products. And that's the hard part, is creating a team, and he did, you know, from Johnny Ive to Tim Cook and, Eddie Que and Phil Shiller.
Elon has done a good job bringing in people. Gwen Shotwell, obviously. Linda Iacarino, she's you know, can navigate through the current crises. Certainly, stellar people at SpaceX, like Martin Chingosa, and then at Tesla, like Drew Baglino and Lars Maravi and Tom Zhu and many others. He's not as much of a team collaborator as, say, Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Who, by the way, that's the best team ever created, which is the founders. And you had to have really smart people like Jefferson and Madison and really Passionate people like John Adams and his cousin Samuel and really a guy of high rectitude like Washington. But you also needed A Ben Franklin who could bring everybody together and forge a team out of them and make them compromise with each other.
Speaker 1: Musk is a magnet for awesome talent. Magnet. Interesting. But there's the there's, like, the priorities of hiring of, Based on excellence, trustworthiness, and drive, these are things you've described Yeah. Throughout the book.
I mean, there there's a pretty, concrete and rigorous set of ideas based on which the hiring is done. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 0: And he has a very good, spidey, intuitive sense just looking at people who could I mean, not looking at them, but studying them, who could be good. One of his, ways of operating, is what he calls a skip level meeting. And let's take a very the big thing, like the Raptor engine, which is powering the, Starship.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And it wasn't going well. It looked like a spaghetti bush, and it was gonna be hard to manufacture. And he got rid of the people who were in charge of that team.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And I remember that he spent a couple of months doing what he calls skip level, which means instead of meeting with his direct reports on the Raptor team, He would meet with the people one level below them. And so he would skip a level and meet with them. And he said, this is and I just ask them what they're doing, and I drill them with questions. And he said, and this is how I figure out who's going to emerge. He said it was particularly difficult.
I was sitting in those meetings because people were wearing masks. It was during the height of COVID. Mhmm. And he said it made it a little bit harder for him because he has to Mhmm. Get the input.
But I watched as a young kid dreadlocks named Jacob McKenzie. He's in the book. He's sitting there, and he's a bit like you. Engineering mindset speaks in a bit of a monotone. Musk would ask a question and he would give an answer, and the answer would be very straightforward.
And he didn't, you know, get rattled. He was like this. And I said one day, called him up at 3 AM. Well, I wouldn't say 3 AM, but after midnight said, you still running? Yeah.
Jake said, yeah, I'm still at work. And he said, okay. I'm gonna make you in charge of the team building Raptor. And that was, like, A big surprise. But Jacob McKenzie has now gotten a version of Raptor, and when they're building them at least 1 a week, and they're pretty awesome.
And, that's where his talent must talent for Finding the right person and promoting them, that's where it is, and promoting it in
Speaker 1: a way where it's like a here's the ball. Or catch
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you run with it. I have I've interacted with quite a few, folks from even just the model x, the all throughout where people, you know, on paper don't seem like they would be able to run the thing, and they run it extremely successfully.
Speaker 0: And he does it wrong sometimes. He's had a horrible track record with the solar roof division. Wonderful guy named Brian Dow. I really liked him. And when they were doing the battery factory surge in Nevada, Musk got rid of 2 or 3 people, and there's Brian Dow.
Can do. Can do. Can do. Stays up all night, and he gets promoted and runs it. Until finally, he goes, Musk goes through 2 or 3 people running the solar roof division.
Finally calls up Brian Dow. I was sitting in Musk's house in Boca Chica, that little tiny 2 bedroom he has, And he offers Brian Dow the job of running Solar Roof. And, you know, Brian there okay. Can do. Can do.
And 2 or 3 times, Musk insisted that they put install a solar roof in one of those houses in Boca Chica. This is this tiny village at the south end of Texas. And late at night, I mean, I'd have to climb up to the top of the roof on these ladders and stand on this peaked roof as Musk is there saying, why do we need 4 screws to put in this single leg? And And Brian was just sweating and doing everything. But then after a couple of months, it wasn't going well, and boom.
Musk just fired him. So I always try to learn what is it that makes those who stay thrive.
Speaker 1: What's the lesson there? What do you think?
Speaker 0: Well, I think it's self knowledge like an Andy Krebs or others. They say, I am hardcore. I really wanna get a rocket to Mars, and that's more important than anything else. One of the people, I think it's I think it's Tim Zeman. I hope, when he hears this, I'm getting him the right person, who, you know, took time and was working for Tesla Autopilot.
It was just so intense. He took some time off and and then went to another company. He said, I was burned out at Tesla, But then I was bored at the next place, so I called, I think it was Ashok at 10. I said, can I come back? He said, sure.
Yeah. He said, I learned without myself. I'd rather be burned out than board.
Speaker 1: That's a good line. Well, can you just, linger on one of the 3 that, seem interesting to you in in terms of excellence, trustworthiness, and drive. Which one do you think is is the most important and the hardest to get at? The trustworthiness is an interesting one. Like, are you ride or die kind of thing?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think that, especially, when it came to taking over Twitter, he thought half the people there were disloyal. Yeah. And he was wrong. About 2 thirds were disloyal, not just half.
And it was how do we weed out those? And he did something and made, The firing squad, I call it, or the Musketeers, I think, is my nickname for them, which is, you know, the young cousins and 2 or 3 other people. He made them look at the Slack messages these people had post everybody at Twitter had posted, and they went through hundreds of Slack messages. So if anybody Posted on the internal Slack, you know, that jerk Elon Musk is gonna take over, and I'm afraid that he's a maniac or something. They would be on the list because they want all in loyal.
They did not look at private Slack messages, and I guess people who are posting on a corporate Slack board should Be aware that your company can look at them, but that's more than I would have done or most people would have done. And so that was to figure out who's deeply committed and loyal. I think that was mainly the case at Twitter. He done sitting around at SpaceX saying who's loyal to me. At, other places, it's excellent, but that's Pretty well a given.
Everybody is like a Marc Jinkosa, just whip smart. It's all you hardcore and all in, especially If you got to move to this spit of a town in the south tip of Texas called Boca Chica, you know, you gotta be all in.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's the drive, the the last piece. So you in terms of collaborating one of the great teams of all time, Ben Franklin. I like that. Thought it was the Beatles, but Ben Franklin is is pretty good.
Speaker 0: No. No. No. I'm sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sorry to offend you, sir.
Speaker 0: Read the constitution and read Abbey Road. Listen, every road. They're both good, but they're in a different league. Yeah. Different league.
Speaker 1: Okay. So, one of the many things that comes to mind with Ben Franklin is incredible time management. Is there something you could say about Ben Franklin and about, Steve Jobs, I think interesting with Elon is that he, as you write, runs 6 companies. Mhmm. Seven company.
Depends how you count with Starling because it's own thing. I don't know. What can you say about these people in terms of time management?
Speaker 0: Well, Musk is in a league of his own in the way he does it. First of all, you know, Steve Jobs had to run Pixar and Apple for a while, But Musk, every couple of hours, is switching his mindset from How to implant the Neuralink chip, and what will the robot that implants it in the brain look like, and how fast can we make it move, and then the heat shield on the Raptor or switching to human imitation, machine learning, full self drive. On the night that the Twitter board, agreed to the deal. This is huge around the world. I'm sure you remember.
Like, Musk buys Twitter. It wasn't when the deal closed. It was when the Twitter accepted his offer. Mhmm. And I thought, okay.
But then he went to Boca Chica, to South Texas, and spent time fixating on, if I remember correctly, A valve in the Raptor engine that had a methane leak issue, and what were the possible ways to fix it? And all the engineers in that room, I assume, are thinking about, this guy just bought Twitter. Should we say something? Yeah. And he's like and then he goes with Kimball to a roadside joint, in Brownsville and just sits in the front and listens to music with nobody noticing really him being there.
One of the things that one of his Strength and sort of weaknesses in a way. Is in a given day, he'll focus serially, sequentially on many different things. He will worry about, uploading video on to x.com or the payment system, and then immediately switch over to some issue with the FAA giving a permit for Star Ship or with how to deal with Starlink and the CIA. And when he's focused on any of these things, you cannot distract him. It's not like he's also thinking about, I'm dealing with Starlink, but I've gotta also worry about the Tesla decision on the new $25,000 car.
Now he'll, in between these sessions, process information, then let off steam. And for better or worse, he lets off steam by Either playing a friend in Politopia or fire off some tweets, which is often not a healthy thing, but It's a release for him, and he doesn't I once said he was a great multitasker, and that was a mistake. People corrected me. He's a serial tasker Mhmm. Which means focuses intensely on a task for an hour, Almost has a whatever they call it at restaurants where they give you a pallet cleanser.
Yeah. He does some palate cleanser with Polytopia Yeah. And then focus it on the next task.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there some wisdom about time management that you
Speaker 0: can draw from that? There are some things that these people do, and you say, okay. I can be that way. I can be more curious. I can question every rule and regulation.
I I just don't think anybody to try to emulate Musk's time management style. Because it takes a certain set of teams who know how to deal with everything else other than the thing he's focusing on, and a certain mind that can shift Just like his moods can shift. You and I go through transitions. And, also, if I'm thinking about what I'm gonna say on this podcast, I'm also thinking about The email my daughter just sent about a house that she's looking, you know, and I'm I'm multitasking. He doesn't actually do that.
He single tasks sequentially with a focus that's hardcore.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think there's wisdom to draw from that to, like First of all, he makes me Ben Franklin makes me feel that way, that there's a lot of hours in the day. Mhmm. There's a lot of minutes in the day. Like, There's no excuse not to get a lot done, and that requires just an extreme focus.
An extreme focus and, like, an urgency.
Speaker 0: I think the fierce urgency that drives him is important, And it's sometimes ginned up. Like I say, the fierce urgency of getting to Mars. Mhmm. And on a Friday night at the launch pad in Boca Chica at 10 PM. There are only a few people working because it's a Friday night.
They're not supposed to launch for another 8 months. And he orders a surge. He says, I want 200 people here by tomorrow working on this pad. We have to have a fierce Sense of urgency, oh, we will never get to Mars.
Speaker 1: That sense of urgency, you know, is also, a vibrancy That's, like, really taking on life fully. I mean, that to me, this the lesson is like, Even the mundane can be full of this just richness, and, like, you just have to really, take it in intensely. So, like, the switching enables that kind of intensity, because most of us can't hold that intensity in any one task for a prolonged period of time. Maybe that's also a lesson.
Speaker 0: Right. And I guess it goes back to also know who you are, meaning
Speaker 1: Know who you are.
Speaker 0: There are people who can focus intensely, and there are people who can see patterns across many things. Look. Leonardo da Vinci, he was not all that focused. He was easily distracted. Procrastinate.
It's why he has more unfinished paintings than finished paintings in his canon. Yeah. But his ability to see patterns across nature and to, in some ways, process, procrastinate, be distracted. That helped him some, but Musk is not that way. And there, Every few months as a new surge.
You you don't know where it'll be, but it'll be on solar roofs. And all of a sudden, we'll have a surge, and there has to be, You know, a 100 solar roofs built, or this has to be done by tomorrow, or make a starship dome by dawn, and surge, and do it. And there are people who are built that way. It is inspiring, but also let's appreciate, You know, that there are people who can be really good, but, also can savor The success, savor the moment, savor the quiet sometimes. Musk's big failing is he can't savor the moment or success.
And that's the flip side of hardcore intensity.
Speaker 1: In, Innovators, another book of yours that I love, you write about individuals and about groups. So one of the questions the book addresses is Is it individuals, or is it groups that turn the tides of history?
Speaker 0: When Henry Kissinger was on the shuttle missions for the Middle East Peace is the 1st book I ever wrote. He said, when I was a professor at Harvard, I thought that history was determined by great forces and groups of people. But when I see it up close, I see what a difference an individual can make. He's talking about the dot and Col de Meyer, probably talking about himself too, or at least in his mind. And, We biographers have this dirty secret that we know.
We distort history a bit by making the narrative too driven by an individual, But sometimes it is driven by an individual. Musk is a case like that. And sometimes, as I did with the innovators, there's Teams and people who build on each other, and Gordon Moore and Bob Noyes then getting Andy Grove and doing the microchip, which then comes out, And Wozniak and Jobs find it at, some electronic store, and they decide to build the Apple. And so sometimes there are flows of forces and groups of people. I guess I air a little bit on the side of looking at what a Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and Albert Einstein can do.
And I also try to figure out if they hadn't been around with the forces of history and the groups of people have done it without them. That's a good historical question as, you know, somebody who loves history. And you think about special relativity, one of the 1905 papers. Even after he writes it, it's 4 years before people truly get what he's saying, which is it's not just How you observe time is relative. It's time itself is relative.
And on the general theory, which he does a decade later, I'm not sure we would gotten that yet. What about moving us into the era of an iPhone in which it's so beautiful that you can't live without a 1,000 songs in your pocket, email, and, the Internet in your pocket and the phone. There are a lot of brain dead people from Panasonic to Motorola who didn't get that, and it may have been a while. I certainly think it's true of the era of electric vehicles. Jim and Ford, all the great people there, they crushed the boat, and I mean that literally.
They Ended up smashing them because they decided to discontinue it. Likewise, nobody was sending up rockets. Our space shuttle was about to be grounded 12 years ago. And so Musk does things, and there'll be people who say read the book. Once they read the book, they'll see the full story.
But let's say it wasn't Musk who did Tesla. It was Martin Eberhard or Mark Toppany. No. No. No.
You know, there were people who had helped create, you know, the shells of companies and other things, And they were all deserved to be called cofounders. But the guy who actually gets us to a 1000000 electric vehicles a year, Is Elon Musk? And without him, I don't think we look. If anybody 5 years from now buys a car that's gasoline powered, we'll think, that's quaint. You know?
That's odd.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: I mean, suddenly, we've changed. We're not gonna do it. 90% of that is Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: We're all mortal. When and how do you think Elon will retire from the insanely Productive schedule he's on now.
Speaker 0: I would think that he would hate to retire. I think that he can't live without the pressure, the drama, the all in feeling. It's never been anything that seemed to have crossed his mind. He's never said, maybe I love Larry Ellison's house on the beach in Hawaii. Be maybe I should spend time in doing.
Instead, he says things like, I learned early on that vacations will kill you. He gets malaria when he goes on 1 vac I mean, he goes on vacation at one point, and they oust him from PayPal. And then he goes to Africa one way. He gets malaria. He says, I've learned vacations kill you.
Lesson learned.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting because the projects are 100 plus year projects. Many of these
Speaker 0: One of the weird things is watching him think incredibly long term. One of the meetings every week, early on when I was watching him, was Mars Colonizer, And we did through a 2 hour meeting about what would the governance structure be on Mars, what would people wear, How would the robots work? Mhmm. And would there be democracy, or should there be a different form of governance. And I'm sitting there saying, what are they doing?
What are they talking about? I mean, they're trying to build rocket ships and everything else. They are worrying about the governance structure of Mars. Mhmm. And, likewise, when Ever he's in a tense moment, like there's a rocket's about to be launched, he'll start asking people about something in the way future, like the new, LEET Engine or something.
If we're gonna build that, do we have enough materials ready to order? Or I don't know. He'll just ask questions, Like when he's building RoboTaxi, the global car, the $25,000 That's not a total passion. He was talked into doing that. Mhmm.
His passion is robo taxis. But his passion is, How are we gonna make this factory to do a 1000000 cars a year? Mhmm. So even the robo taxi is a longer range vision. I mean, he's been touting it since 2016, but, you know, we're not.
I don't know. Robotaxis. I mean, there's Waymo may be doing a little experiments, have it, but there's not cars being manufactured without steering wheels that are going to take over the highways. Yeah. I'd say he's always looking way into the future is my point.
Speaker 1: I just hope that, There's a lot of da Vinci's and Steve Jobses and Einsteins and Elon Musk's that carry the The flame forward.
Speaker 0: That's one of the reason you write books about these people is so that if you're a young woman in a school where you're not Being told to do science, and you read The Code Breaker about Jennifer Doudna. You say, okay, I can be that. And when you say, Oh, maybe I'll be a regulator or you say, oh, no. Maybe I'll be the person who pushes the boundaries, who pushes the lines, who pushes, as Steve Jobs said, the human race.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you about your mind, your genius, Your process.
Speaker 0: I'll give you 2 out of 3.
Speaker 1: Alright. Take me through your process of writing a biography. I mean, the the the full of it And not not just writing a biography, but understanding deeply, which your books have done for the human story and, like, the bigger ideas underlying the human stories. You've written biographies both of individuals, which are hardly individuals.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: It's a really big complex picture,
Speaker 0: and biographies of ideas that involve individuals. Well, step 1 for me is trying to figure out how the mind works. What causes Einstein to make that leap? Freelon Musk to say stainless steel while he's looking at a Carbon fiber, rob rocket, or how do you make the mental leap? Because I write about smart people, but smart people are a dime a dozen.
They don't usually amount to much. You have to be creative, imaginative, to think different, as Jobs would say. And so what makes people creative? What makes them take imaginative leaps? That's the key question you got to ask.
You also ask the questions like you've asked earlier, which is what demons or jangling in their head, and how do they harness them into drives? So you look at all that, and you try to observe really carefully, the person. One of the more mundane things I do is A lot of writers try to give you a lot of their opinions and preach or whatever. As I said, this mentor said 2 people types come out, preachers, storytellers, to be a storyteller. I try whenever I'm trying to convey a thought.
There's 6 magic words that I almost should have written on a card penned above my desk, which is, let me tell you a story. So if somebody says, how does Elon Musk figure out good talent, as you did, I think, well, let me tell you the story. I tell you the story of Jake McKenzie. Mhmm. Or this is not something I invented.
I mean, this is way the good Lord does it in the Bible. I mean, has the best openings set lead sentence ever, you know, in the beginning, comma, and then it's stories. And secondly, to pick up on that lead sentence in the beginning, make it chronological.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Everybody in the 40th year of their life, has grown from the 39th year and the 38th year. And so you want to show help people evolve and grow. I had the greatest of all nonfiction narrative editors, Alice Mayhew at Simon Shuster, who, among other things, Created all the president's men with Woodward and Bernstein. But she had a note she'd put in the margins of my books that was a tigta, And it meant all things in good time. Keep it chronological.
If it's good enough for the Bible, it's good enough for you.
Speaker 1: Interesting. To me, like, that's a small note, but to you, it's it's extremely important.
Speaker 0: Because it's the framework for how you structure things, but also how you ban things, which is if you keep it a chronological narrative, then you're showing how a person has grown from one experience you've told, talked about to the next one. And that moral growth, creative growth, risk taking growth, Wisdom, that's the essences of creativity, but you can't do it. You know, there's a Tom Bildungsroman, you know, which is a, you know, book of you know, that carries a narrative and does help people learn something. I'm a big believer in narrative. If you're an academic, you sometimes not today, but in, like, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, There were 2 things you thought were bad.
1 was, having a great person theory of history in which you Decide to do biography. I had a great professor when I was in college. Her name was Doris Kearns. Mhmm. She later married Dick Goodwin.
And she, when she was going for tenure at the university, wrote a biography of Lyndon Johnson and the American dream. And they denied her tenure because it was beneath the dignity of the academy to write history through 1 person. That's great. It opened up the field of biography to us non academics, starting with David McCullough, Bob Caro, but maybe John Meacham and myself are in a new generation, and Certainly, and there's a generation coming after us. But the second thing besides telling it through people, which is the academy tended to disdain what they called imposing a narrative Mhmm.
In which you made it storytelling. Because that meant you were leaving things out and making it into a narrative. Well, that's how we form our views of the world.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this question. In terms of gathering and understanding, how much of it is 1 observing, And how much of it is interviews?
Speaker 0: Yeah. And, obviously, it depends on the subject. I mean, with a Ben Franklin. It's all based on archives. And every of course, we have 40 volumes of letters he wrote.
That was the good old days when every day you'd write 20 letters. The must book is based much more on observation than almost any of my books because he opened up in a way that was Breathtaking to me. You know? Even when you'd be sitting, playing polytopia or seething at other pea you know, he that'd be just sitting there watching. I mean, I spent a lot of time with Jennifer Doudna in her side.
I went to her lab and edited to the human gene and, you know, with a pipette and a test tube. But I would say I spent 30 hours with her. Mhmm. I can't count, you know, 100 hours or more just observing Musk. And I'm not Sure that any biographer, perhaps since Boswell took on doctor Johnson, has ever had quite as much up close, meaning 5 feet away at all times, access.
And because of that, I'll go back to what I said a moment ago. I try to get out of the way of the story. Mhmm. It's not about me. It's not about I try to just say, okay.
Here's what happened. Here's this story. Here's what happened the night he came in to Twitter for the 1st time and let you form
Speaker 1: your own judgment. What about the interviews? You've had a lot of conversations. You give acknowledgment to the people you've get you've done interviews with. Well, 1, I have to ask as an aspiring interviewer myself,
Speaker 0: how? People love to talk. People just love you know that. And I've had A 140, maybe a 150 people, they're all listed in the back. One of the little things that people won't notice, but I'll say it now, because all of them are on the record.
Getting them to talk is easy. They all wanna talk about Musk. But then at a certain point, say, I don't put anonymous quotes in my book. I cite things. I say, if you're tough enough and you've gone through this and a lot of times, it takes 2 or 3 calls back.
Somebody will tell me a story, say, oh, no. No. No. I don't enjoy it. But I think it's important to know where everything came from.
And with Musk, it's you know, I had that from the very beginning because I was a Time magazine reporter. I'd worked reported for the Times Picayune on New Orleans. I, 1st day on the job, I had to go cover a murder, and, phoned in the story from a payphone. And my editor you know, the city editor said, Well, did you talk to the family? I went, no, Billy.
I mean, the family, you know, the daughter just got he said, go knock on the door. I knocked on the door. An hour later, they were still talking. They were bringing out her yearbooks. Lesson 1 I learned, people want to talk if you're willing to just listen.
And whether it be Henry Kissinger, you just push the button and say Kissinger, and people tell you the stories, all the way through Elon Musk. Everybody talked. Everybody in his family, everybody he fired, everybody. I mean, I think it's important to listen to people. And the other thing I learned as a reporter, back when I was covering politics in New Hampshire in the early campaigns, I learned from 2 or 3 great reporters, a guy named David Broder and Tim Russert, the late NBC guy.
They do what was called door knocking. You just walk in the neighborhood, knock on the door, and ask people about the election. But they said, here's the secret. Don't ask any leading questions. Don't have any premise.
Just say, hey. I'm trying to figure out this election. What's going on? What do you think? Mhmm.
And then stay silent. With Musk a third secret. You know this well. He'll go silent at times. Sometimes A minute, 2 minutes, 4 minutes.
Mhmm. Don't try to fill the silences. If you're a listener, you gotta learn. Okay. He's not saying anything for 4 minutes.
I can outlast him.
Speaker 1: It's tough. As as humans, it's very tough. Respecting and silence is really, really difficult.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Speaking of demons, when there's silence, all the demons show up in my head.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: The fear, I think, is if I if I don't say anything, is boring, and if I say something, it's gonna be stupid. And that that that's the basic engine that just keeps running, not on the podcast well, on the podcast, but also in human interaction. And so I think there's that nervous energy when interacting with people.
Speaker 0: You can never go wrong by staying silent if if there's nothing you have to say. Not something I've mastered, but I do when I'm a reporter, try to master that, which is Don't don't ask complex questions. Don't interject. And when somebody hasn't fully answered the question, don't say, well, let me you know, I haven't fully just stay silent, and then they'll keep talking. Just give them
Speaker 1: a chance to keep talking even if they've kinda finished Yeah. Still.
Speaker 0: Sometimes if they haven't given you enough, instead of following up, I'll just nod and Keep waiting.
Speaker 1: You're making it sound simple. Is there a secret to getting people to open up more?
Speaker 0: I'm somewhat lucky Because, you know, I started off working for a daily newspaper, and people back then, they wanna talk to the Newspaper reporter.
Speaker 1: But you also have a way about you. Like, I feel like you have, like, a cowboy in a saloon. Like, you just kinda wanna talk. Like, there's a draw. I don't know I don't know what it is.
Maybe that's I don't know if it's developed or you're born with it, but there's a it feels like I wanna tell you a story of some sort.
Speaker 0: Good. Tell me a story. A couple things. I did learn to be more quiet. I'm sure I know when I was Younger or even I'll see videos of me at, you know, news Things where I'm always trying to interject a question.
And so you learn to be quieter sometimes. I haven't mastered it. I haven't learned it enough. You learn to be naturally curious. Many reporters today, when they ask a question, or either trying to play gotcha or trying to get a news scoop or trying to, you know, gig something that can make a lead.
And if you actually are curious, And you really wanna know the answer to a question, then people can tell that you asked it because you want the answer, not because You're playing a game with them.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure some of them off the record, some of them on the record you had, maybe, you know, What just some incredible conversations. I was gonna say some of the greatest conversations ever, but who knows? Some of the best conversations ever are probably Somewhere in South America between, you know, 2 drunk people that we never get to hear. So I don't I don't know. But, is there a device you can give From what you've learned to somebody like me and how to have good conversation, especially when it's recorded.
Speaker 0: Well, do we actually curious. I mean, every question you've asked me is because I think you actually want to know the answer, and you've done your homework, to be open, and not to have an agenda. I mean, we all suffer from there being too many agendas in the world today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that is just genuine curiosity, but, there's something when you talk about just 1 on 1 interaction, whether it's Elon or Steve Jobs or There's something beautiful about that person's mind, and it feels like It's possible to reveal that, to discover that together, efficiently. And that's kind of the goal of a conversation.
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, look. You're amongst the top podcasters and interviewers, you know, in the world today. You have an earnestness to you. Ben Franklin is the person who taught me, I mean, by reading him, the most about on conversation. He wrote a wonderful essay on that.
It includes On Silence, but it includes trying to ask sincere questions rather than get a point across. I mean, It's somewhat Socratic. But whenever he wondered, I wanted to, like, start a fireman's corps in Philadelphia. He would go to his group that he called the Leather Apron Club, And they would pose a question. Why don't we have it?
What would what would it take? What would be good? And then the 2nd part is to make sure that you listen. And if somebody has even just the germ of an idea, give them credit for it. Like, as Joe said, You know, the real problem is this.
And I do think that if I'm in situations, and I just mean even at dinner or something Mhmm. And I'm with somebody, I'm usually curious, and I'll the conversation will proceed, you know, with with questions. And I guess it's also because I'm pretty interested in what anybody's doing, whoever I happen to be with. And so that's a talent you you have, which is you're pretty genuine in your interests. They're people like Benjamin Franklin, like the, I'll say, Charlie Rose, even though he's in disfavor, who are interested in a huge number of subjects, and I think that helps as well to be interested in basketball and opera and physics and metaphysics.
That was a Ben Franklin. That was a Leonardo trick, which is they wanted to know everything you could possibly know about every subject knowable.
Speaker 1: But there's a different aspect of this, which is, that I would I would love to hear How you've solved it or if you've faced it, that you're certainly disarming. Tara. Trying to get you out. Disarming method. Yeah.
I've recently talked to Benjamin Netanyahu. We'll we'll talk again. We, unfortunately, because of scheduling and complexities, Only had 1 hour, which is very difficult. Mhmm. Very difficult with the charismatic posture.
I understand this. But he's also a charismatic talker, which is very difficult to break through in 1 hour. But there are people who have built up walls, Whether it's because of demons or because of, their politicians, and so they have agendas and narratives and so on. And so to to break through those, I wonder if there's some advice, some wisdom you've learned on how to, sort of wear down through water or whatever whatever method the the walls that we've built up as individuals.
Speaker 0: I mean, you call it disarming, which I don't know that I am, but disarming basically means you're taking down their shields also. And you know when people have a shield, And you try to give them comfort. I had zero of that problem with Elon Musk. I mean, it was like disarming to me, which is I kept waiting to say, okay, he's not gonna always, they've got a shell or he won't do that. But He was, almost crazily open and did not seem to, wanna be spinning or hiding or faking things.
And I've been lucky. Doudna was that way. Steve Jobs was that way, But you have to put in time too. In other words, you can't say, okay. There's a 1 hour interview, and I'm gonna break down every wall.
It's like on your 5th visit.
Speaker 1: Yes. Well, it actually that's one of the things in my situation. You learn 5th visit is very nice, but sometimes you don't get a 5th visit. Sometimes it's just the 1st date. Mhmm.
And, I think what it boils down to, and and we said disarming, but there's something about this person that you trust. I think a lot of it just boils down to trust in some deep human way. I think, with with, with many of the people I've spoken with, sometimes the trust happens, like, after the interview, which is really sad because it's like, oh, man.
Speaker 0: I've never been in your situation where I have a show. I usually have Midnight Max at the wheel. Yes. I, I'm not a first date person here. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know But then I'm lucky. I mean, I'm in I say lucky, but I'm in print. You know?
I understand. Print is a couple 1000 year old medium, but there are those of us who love it. Well,
Speaker 1: the nature of the podcast medium is that I'm a 1 1 night stand kinda girl. Let me ask you about objectivity. You Follow Elon. You've lost the like, you're you've you've I mean, I don't even know if you would say your front you have to be careful with words like that, but you're there's an intimacy. And how do you remain objective?
Do you want to remain objective while telling a deeply human story.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, I want to be honest, which I think is akin to being objective. I try to keep in mind who's who am I writing for? I'm not writing for Elon Musk. As I say, I haven't sent him the book.
I don't know if he I don't think he's read it yet. I've got 1 person I'm writing for, the open minded reader. And if I can put in a story and say, well, that will piss off the subject, or that will really make the subject happy. That's irrelevant, or I try to make that a minor consideration. It's, will the reader and have a better understanding because I put this story in the book.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit of a romantic, So to me, even your Einstein book Yeah. Had lessons on on romance and relationships. Oh, dear. So how important are romantic relationships to the success of, great men, great women, great minds?
Speaker 0: Well, Sometimes people who affect the course of humanity have better relationships with humanity than they do with the humans sitting around him. Einstein had 2 interesting relationships with wives. Just for, you know, Maleva, his first wife, was a sounding board and helped with the mathematics of the special relativity paper in particular. But he didn't treat her well. I mean, he, made her, like, sign a letter that She wouldn't interrupt him.
She wouldn't you know? And finally, when she wanted a divorce, he couldn't afford it because he was still a patent clerk. And so, he offered her a deal, which is, I think, totally amazing. He said, one of these days, one of those papers from 1905 is gonna win the Nobel Prize. If we get a divorce, you know, I'll give you the money.
That was a lot of money back then, like $1,000,000 now or something. And she's smart. She's a scientist. She consults with a few other scientists, and after a week or so, she takes the bet. It's not until, what, 1919 that he wins his Nobel Prize?
And she gets all the money. She buys 3 apartment buildings in Zurich. With his 2nd wife, Elsa, It was more a partnership of convenience. It was not a romantic love, But he knew, and that's sometimes what people need in life is just a partner. I mean, somebody who's gonna handle the stuff you're not gonna handle.
So I guess if you look at my books, they're not great inspiring guides to personal relationships.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about, actually, the process of writing itself. When you've observed, when you've listened, when you've collected all information, What's, maybe even just the silly mundane question of, what do you eat for breakfast before you start writing? When do you write?
Speaker 0: 1st of all, breakfast is not my favorite meal, and those people who tell you that you have to start with a hearty breakfast. Luke Askins. Yes. And morning is not my favorite day part, so I write at night. And Because I love narrative, it's easy to structure a book, which is I can make a outline that if I printed it out or notes, would be a 100 pages, but everything's in order.
In other words, if we serve if there's a Burning Man and he's coming back from Grimes and then there's a solar roof saying, and then there's something. I put it all in order day by day as an outline. And that disciplines me when I'm starting to write to follow the mantra from Alice Mayhew, my first editor, which is all things in good time. Don't get ahead of the story. Don't have to flash back.
Mhmm. And then after you get it so that it's all chronological, you know, things. Then you have to do some clustering. You know? You have to say, okay.
We're going to Do the decision to do Starship or to build a factory in Texas or to whatever. And Then you sometimes have the organizational problem of, yeah, and that gets us all the way up to here. Do I keep that in this that chapter, or do I wait until later when it's better chronologically.
Speaker 1: But those are easy. Well, what about the actual process of telling the
Speaker 0: story. Well, that's the mantra I mentioned earlier, which is whenever I get pause or I don't know how to say something, I just say, let me tell you a story. Yeah. And then I find the actual anecdote, the story, the tale that encompasses what I'm trying to convey. And then I don't say what I'm trying to convey.
I don't have a transition sentence that says, You know, Elon sometimes changed his mind so often, he couldn't remember whether he changed his mind. You know, you don't you don't need transition sentences. You just say, alright. Here's the point I need to make next. And so you start with a sentence that says, You know, one day in January in the factory in Texas, comma.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that I'd love to ask you is, for advice for for young people. To me, first advice would be to read biographies. In a sense, Because they help you understand of all the different ways you can live a life well lived. But from having written my address, having studied so many great men and women, what advice could you give to people, of how to live this this life.
Speaker 0: Well, I keep going back to the classics and Plato and Aristotle and Socrates. And I guess it's Plato's Max, somebody may be quoting Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living. And it gets back to the know thyself and other things, which is you don't have to figure out what is the big meaning of it all, but you have to figure out why you're doing what you're doing. And that requires something that I did not have enough of when I was young, which is self awareness and examining every motive, everything I do.
Speaker 1: Where does the examination lead you? Is it, to to, To
Speaker 0: a shift
Speaker 1: in in life's trajectory? I
Speaker 0: mean, it's not for me, Sort of, alright. I've now decided, having been a journalist, I'll run a think tank, or I'll run a network, or I'll write a bio. It is actually something that's more useful on an hourly basis. Like, why am I about to say that to somebody, or why Am I going to do this particular act? What's my true motive here?
And also, in the broader sense, to learn as I did after a couple years at CNN. I I my examination of my life is that I'm not great at running complex organizations. I'm not great as a manager. Given the choice, I'd rather somebody else have to manage me than me have to manage people. But it took me a while to figure that out, and I was probably too ambitious when I was young and at Time Magazine.
That was when I was green and oh, well. That was when I was in my salad days and green and judgment, And it was like chasing the next level at Tyme Incorporated, whatever it might be. And then one day, I caught the brass ringing. I became an editor and then the top editor. And after a while, I realized, that wasn't really totally what I'm suited to be, especially when I got put in charge of CNN.
I mean, all young people are almost by definition in their salad days and green in judgment, but You learn what's motivating you, and then you learn to ask, But is that really what I want? Should I be careful of what I'm wishing for?
Speaker 1: One of the big examinations you can do is the fact that you and everybody dies one day. How much do you, Walter, Isaac, think about death? Are you afraid of it?
Speaker 0: No. And I don't think about it a lot, but I do think about Steve Jobs' let me tell you Sure. You know, which is the wonderful Steve Jobs story of, I think after he was diagnosed, but before Probably. And he gave both a Stanford talk, but other things in which he said the fact that we are going to die Gives you focus and gives you meaning. If you're gonna live and Elon Musk has said that to me, which is a lot of the tech bros out in of Silicon Valley that looking for ways to live forever forever.
I can think, Musk says, of nothing worse. We read the myth of Sisyphus, and we know how bad it is to be condemned to eternal life. So There was in ancient Greece, the person who walked behind the king and said, memento mori. Remember, you're gonna die. And it kept people from losing it a bit.
Do you think about legacy? The lucky thing about being a biographer is that you kinda know what your legacy is. There's gonna be a shelf, and it'll be of interesting people. And you will have inspired a 17 year old Biology student somewhere to be gen you know, the next great biochemist or somebody to start a company like Elon Musk. And what I think more about, I won't say giving back.
That's such a trite thing. I moved back to New Orleans for a reason. First of all, the hurricane hit. And after Katrina, I was asked to be, vice chair of the recovery authority. And I realized everything I've got going for me, It all comes from this beautiful gem of a troubled city.
The wonderful high school I went to, the wonderful streets where I learned to ride a bike, the you know, and it's got challenges. I'm never gonna solve challenges at the grand global level. But I can go back home and say part of my legacy is going to be, I tried to pay it back to my hometown. Even by teaching at Tulane, which I don't do as a favor. I mean, I enjoy the hell out of it.
But it's like, alright. I'm part of a community. And I think we lose that in America because people who are lonely are lonely because they're not part of a community. But I've got all my high school kids. They're friends.
They're all So in New Orleans, I've got my family, but I also have Tulane institutions in New Orleans that have been there forever. And if I can get involved in helping the school system in New Orleans, helping the youth empowerment programs, of helping the innovation center at Tulane. I was even on the city planning commission, which worries about zoning ordinances for short term rentals. You know, go figure. But it was like, no.
Immerse myself in my community because my community was just so awesomely good and allowing me to become who I became, and has trouble year by year, hurricane by hurricane, making sure that each new generation can be creative. And it's a city of creativity from jazz to the food, to the architecture. So When I think of, I won't say legacy, but what am I gonna do to pay it forward, which is a lower level way of saying legacy. I pay it forward by going back to the place where I began and trying to know it for the first time. That was a, rip off of a TS Eliot line.
I don't want you to think I thought of that one.
Speaker 1: Always cite your sources. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0: PS Elliott, if you ever need to figure it out, the 4 debts, So if that part at the end, which is we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all of our exploring will be the return to the place where we started and know it for the first time to the unknown, but half remembered gait. It's just beautiful. And that's been an inspiration of What do you do in, I guess, if it's a Shakespeare play, you'd call it act 5. Well, you go back to the place where you came and See for legacy. Don't sit there worrying about legacy, but you'll that they're saying, how do I make sure that somebody else can have a magical trajectory starting in New Orleans?
Speaker 1: Well, to me, you're one of the greatest storytellers of all time. I've been a huge fan.
Speaker 0: Definitely not true, but it's so sweet of me. You see, you can be, rudely interrupting. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: The from, I think probably Ben Franklin, So for, I don't know, how many years, 15 years, Einstein, all the way through today, has been a huge fan of yours, and you're one of the people that I thought surely would not lower themselves to appear and have a conversation with me. And it's just a giant gift to me.
Speaker 0: Hey. I flew into Austin for this because I am a big fan and especially a big fan because you take people seriously, and you care.
Speaker 1: Thank you a 1000 times. Thank you for respecting me and for inspiring Just millions of people with your stories. Again, an incredible storytelling, incredible human, and thank you for talking today.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Alex.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this conversation with Walter Isaacson. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now Let me leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Carl Jung. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness Mhmm.
Conscious. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.