Datasets:

ianiket23

/

podcast_llama_chat_format-1k

like 0

<s>[INST] So you mean like from a research perspective, you can um like publications and sets of ideas about how to, from a sort of uh uh network theory perspective understand how we control the spread of a pandemic. [/INST] Yes. And that's what I'm doing right now. Is this is basically interdisciplinary research where maybe our side is bringing the technology and the network theory and the missing parts are epidemiology and public health expertise. And if the two things start to join also because everywhere that you deploy, let's just say that the world is different in the Philippines as it is in the United States. And just the natures of the, of the locality would mean that someone like me should not be trying to figure out how to do that. But if we can work with the researchers who are based there now, suddenly we might come up with a solution that will help scale in parts of the world where they are all getting the moderna and Pfizer vaccines which cost like $20 a pop in the U. S. So if they </s><s>[INST] want to participate, who did they reach out [/INST] to? Oh that would just be asked. I mean the nova dot org website has nova dot org. It has it has a feedback reach out form. And actually we are. I mean again this is the D. N. A. Of being a researcher. I am actually very excited by the idea that this could contribute knowledge that will outlast all of our generations. Like all of all of our lifetimes. </s><s>[INST] There you go. Reach out to nova nova dot org. What about individual people? [/INST] Should they install </s><s>[INST] the app and try it out or is this really geographically restricted? [/INST] Oh yeah. I didn't come on here to tell everyone to install the app. I did not come to tell everyone to install the app because it works best if your local health authority is working with us. God there's a reason. It's because this is back to the game theory. If anyone could just say I'm positive. Mhm. The high school senior prank would be to say that we have a massive outbreak on finals week. Let's not have final exams. So the way that our system works, it actually borrows some ideas borrows. We came up with them independently. But this idea is similar to what google and Apple do, which is that if the local health authorities working with this they can for everyone who's positive gives them a pass code that expires in a short time. So for hours if you're on the app and saying I'm positive, you can either just say that and that's called unverified or you can enter in one of these codes that you got from the local health authority. So basically for anyone who's watching this is not that you should just go and download it unless you want to go and look at it. That's cool. But if you, on the other hand, if you happen to know anyone that the local health authority, which is trying to figure out how to handle covid, well then, I mean we'd be very happy to also work with you. </s><s>[INST] Gotcha. So the verified there is really important because you're you're maintaining anonymity and because of that you have to have some source of verification in order to make sure that it's not possible to manipulate because it's ultimately about trust and information. And so it could be um verification is really important there. So basically individual people should um ask their local health authorities to just to sign up to contact you. I hope this spreads. I hope this spreads uh for future pandemics because I'm really, it's the amount the millions of people who are hurt by this. I think our response to the virus economically speaking, the number of people who lost their dreams, lost their jobs but also lost their dream entrepreneurs, you know, jobs often give meaning there's people who financially and psychologically are suffering because of our, I'll say incompetent response to the virus uh across the world but certainly United States that should be the beacon of entrepreneurial hope for the world. So uh huh I hope that we'll be able to respond to these kinds of events much better in the future and this is exactly the right kind of idea and now is the time to do the investment. Let's step back to the beauty of mathematics. Maybe ask the big, silly question 1st, which is uh, what do you find beautiful about mathematics? [/INST] I think that being able to look at a complicated problem which looks unsolvable and then to be able to change the perspective to come from a different angle and suddenly see that there's a nice solution. I don't mean that every problem in math is supposed to be this way, but I think that these reframing and changing of perspectives that cause difficult things to get simplified and crystallized and factored in certain ways is beautiful actually, that's related to what we were just talking about with even this fighting pandemics. The crystal idea was just quantify proximity by the number of relationships in the, in the physical network instead of just by the feet and meters. Right? It's just if you change that perspective now all of these things follow. And so mathematics to me is beautiful in the pure sense just for that. </s>

<s>[INST] contemplate your limitations. [/INST] Yeah. And there forever before me, you know, not hard to find in every day. And then on top of that, I suppose it's um in a way, you know, that line from Rudyard kipling's alternately brilliant and slightly nauseating poem f there's a there's a line just </s><s>[INST] enjoy a good punk and you [/INST] know, it can enjoy a great poem, but I mean a good poem. This is, you know, slightly off, but this is </s><s>[INST] this is this goes to your criticism of dostoyevsky. Take take, take take uh douglases criticism with a grain of salt. So [/INST] maybe I've heard it read it too many memorial services and things, but that line of is a good piece of rice, if you can learn to meet triumph and disaster and meet these, treat these two impostors just the same. That's a good line. It's a good line as is kicking off an amazing turn of line. But I do think that it's a very sensible thing to try to greet um triumphant disaster and regard them as impostors and greet them just the same. And actually, anyone who knows me knows that I never partly it's because I have a sort of belief in the old gods. And at the moment that I thought that I was at the moment of Triumph, the fates would hitch up their skirts and run at me at a million miles an hour. But it's also because anyone who knows me knows I never have a moment when I say um that's just great, I feel totally fulfilled and victorious. I mean, it happened to me recently when my when the war in the west went straight in at number one in the best seller. This how </s><s>[INST] long did that last in terms of years? Self satisfied. Not even for a brief moment. Mhm. [/INST] When I first saw that it was selling, I had that moment of elation. I thought good, I've done it is out and I did have a moment of elation then definitely. But it doesn't last part because I tell myself it mustn't last </s><s>[INST] because as you said, fate hitches up its skirt. Is that is that skirts I don't this you you brits with your with your poetry even when it's [/INST] nauseating </s><s>[INST] As of 2022 this year, what's your final analysis of the political leadership and the human mind and the human being of donald trump? [/INST] I sort of avoided this for years just </s><s>[INST] talking about trump. [/INST] Tried to avoid talking about trump years. Same reason I tried to avoid writing about Brexit. Do </s><s>[INST] you think that trump? Just sorry, in a small tangent, do you think the trump story Is over? We're just done with Volume one. [/INST] I have no idea. The people I know who know him said he's running. Um and and I think that in general republicans have to do have a choice in front of them one friend put it to me recently said you've got to go in with your toughest fighter and I understand that instinct And I also think it's very dangerous instinct because what if your toughest fighter is also your biggest liability? Um, what's the best way to get at? The Democrat voted in 2020 for them to have Donald Trump running. </s><s>[INST] And the people that are doing the war in the west are pretty tough fighters. [/INST] They are. And I'm cautious about this because I know every way I tread, it's dangerous. But let me just </s><s>[INST] gracefully [/INST] as graceful as I can in my wellington boots. I am my galoshes. I, here's here's the </s><s>[INST] thing, [/INST] I think everybody knows what trump is. I think we all knew for years and I feel sorry for the conservatives who had to pretend that he was something he wasn't, I felt sorry for the ones who had to pretend that for instance, he was some devout christian or a man of faith or a man of great integrity or all of these sorts of things, because in the public eye for years have been obvious, that wasn't the case, but but he has something extraordinary. One thing is a method of communication that you've just got to say is was unbelievable </s><s>[INST] in one fundamental way that you can't look away for some reason. [/INST] I I've been watching him clear everyone out of the way in 2016 was thrilling because those people needed clearing away, you know, it's just horrified what America is going to give us another bush. What's so great about this family um America is going to give us another clinton. We're gonna get to choose any clinton in the bush. Marc stein said whatever, we'll just wait for the day, the Clintons and the bushes into mary and then we can really have a monarchy again. Um so I was very pleased to see him clear them away. I was very clear to him. Please see him sort of raised some of the issues that needed raising. I thought it was a sort of breath of fresh air and I wished it wasn't him doing it. And then there was a question of him governing and it was just perfectly clear. He didn't know how to govern. He, what he did have. However, what he does have is an incredible ability to fight. And some of the forces he was arraigned against were arraigned against him. My gosh, they would have taken down anyone else. I mean if they'd have probably done some similar Bs against Ted cruz, if he, you know, or marco rubio, you know, they have said as some of the, some people admitted they have, they have accused all these people of racism and misogyny everything else as well. Just admit Romney just like they did john McCain but trump was the one ugly enough and bruise e enough to fight </s>

<s>[INST] sorry to to pause on that for a second. So these measures, I guess you don't want to sort of um romantic says anyone measure or something like that over interpret anyone measure, but it is internal conflict always a bad thing. Is some, is this a is it a complicated calculation? Or do you kind of the way we think about these measures that you've presented? We should be thinking like the higher the better, the lower worse or I mean, of course, depending on [/INST] the in many cases the conflict that produces the revolution produces revolutionary changes that lead to resolutions that and lead to new starts. Um And so their short term, a short term civil war is a hellacious experience. And at the same time it can be um the transition to a new beginning. Um Also there are different types of conflict, uh competition, which makes things, makes everything better, is a productive conflict. Whereas destructive conflicts um are um not good over the short time. So, you know, that's how those go. </s><s>[INST] So within each measure of the story is complicated. [/INST] Yeah, but my measures are, are sort of clear meaning how much political conflict, how much um social conflict, in other words, you can measure conflict, you can measure fighting, you can measure crime rates, you can measure um lots of different ways of conflict. So the measures are a composite of different types of internal conflict. </s><s>[INST] What are some other interesting measures maybe you could also mention like for me in particular interest is education and innovation. [/INST] The classic cycle, the most important leading indicator is the quality of education. Most importantly, broad based education drawn as a from the largest population because you can never tell who the talent is going to be. So where they're gonna come from. So for example if you look at the chinese dynasties, the great chinese dynasties and the confusion approach. It was meritocratic of um everybody could sit for exams and so on. Broad base of drawing in the populations. And you see that if you go across societies um because that draws on the largest number of population to get education and it also um that creates um a reality and a perception that the system is fairer equal opportunity, not just one of privilege and that helps to create social stability, but education is not just uh education in understanding facts and so on. It is education and um civility of how to behave together. And so if they're smart, they understand how to be productive because they work well together and they're productive and then that leads to the next stage, you can see in the lines and the charts we, I plotted these so that you could see in a typical cycle, you can see that education is the long leading uh indicator. And then you can see as you mentioned um that you, what you see is inventiveness and technology measures then follow. And you see then also competitiveness and world markets follows. For example, in the early stages of a cycle, the industries that they go into um um tend to be very basic industry because they have cheap labor, something like textiles and simple manufactured goods and so on. But as the education rises then they move up the value chain to tech, greater technologies and so on, which raises incomes and raises productivity. So yes, those and and you know as you say, there are 18 different measures like that, but education um and then Civility and the inventiveness. So you see it reflected in in whose inventing what and that corresponds then who's trading with who's a big trading country and where is the value of economic output and what our per capita incomes, they all follow the Ozarks. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Like you said the fascinating thing about your book. So there's philosophy, there's wisdom, but there's plots. [/INST] Yeah, </s><s>[INST] it's not just your opinion. It it's kind of like you can interpret it any way you like, but you're just giving a lot of of your own insights along with the numbers. If you were to look at the american nation, the american empire and the trajectory is looking into the future. Given these measures, what is the trajectory that leads to the collapse of the american empire Based on these measures? What are the concerning indicators? And if um if those break down further, what does that look like? [/INST] Well, all of those indicators are concerning. Um, maybe uh except for one which is technology, the technology niche, although even in that area of the United States is um improving at a slower rate than is china for various advantages that they have there, they put about eight times as many computer engineers, they have free data and so on. But if you look at them, so the financial is a concern. The internal order disorder is a concern. Then if you look at education levels, the United States is in any way is losing its educational advantage. If you were to look at comparing it with china, um, if you take general public education in the United States, it's deteriorated tremendously. And even in comparison to developed countries, There are scores, pieces, scores and so on and it's, you know, something like 38th in the world or something. And that was a big plunge. Average public education. If you look at the best universities in the world, the United States is unique in having the best universities in the world. So there are these privileged spots um that are, you know, excellent um uniquely excellent. So when you look at the comparison education in china is improving rapidly and it and the quantity is a quantity of educated people in the areas that they're moving in our is greater and the resources that they're putting behind it is greater. And so you see the results are greater. Um but it's sort of along the lines that I'm dealing with if you were to follow through in terms of um actual productions I think, you know, in terms of technologies um there are some areas that the United States is in a in a lead at the moment. There are some areas that china is in the lead but china's great gaining very quickly. When I first went to china 1984 I would bring $10 calculators and I gave them away as gifts to high ranking people and they thought they were miracle devices. Um right now in terms of areas like quantum computing and ai and you know many areas you have a race going on. And so if you take the trajectory of the competitiveness, not just look at the current level, you have a situation where they're improving at a much faster rate. This is all good for the world if the world can get along and the main thing I think is um and just in and how do you have a healthy world and how do you have a strong economy and how do you have a strong situation is be strong? The United States is war is with itself, That's the main war. You know, it's very simple in history. Um the financially sound earn more than you spend and be strong in these ways and pretty much everything will take care of itself. </s>

<s>[INST] I mean you also mentioned fasting potentially through this two day thing, it'd be cool to get your thoughts about fasting in general. Do you think Uh on a personal level and at a higher sort of level of studies that you're aware of and physiology and so on. What do you think about inter manifesting of like not eating for 16 hours and then having an eight hour window or something. I've been doing a lot recently, which is eating only once a day. So that's 24 hour fast I guess one meal a day or something of been thinking about doing haven't done yet of doing like 72 hours or some people do like five day fast in general. So this would be for this particular run will be a 48 hour fast if I don't need it all. What do you think about that for performance from mood for all those kinds of things? [/INST] I can speak a little bit to the science and a little bit of my own experience. And then some anecdotes of people that have done very hard, very long duration things and what they've told me. So I just want to make sure I'm separating those out. So people know my sourcing. I think now none of this is about the actual long term nutritional benefits of one thing or the other. But if you look at the science on intermittent fasting, it's pretty remarkable. Before I was at stanford, my love was in san Diego. One of my colleagues was such and panda at the sulk is phenomenal biologist and researcher wrote a book called the circadian code. It's very, very good and and kind of popularized intermittent fasting, although there were others that had um talked about this before. Corey Hoff Muckler talked about the warrior diet. People probably don't might not know who or he is, but he's sort of the originator of the this business of intermittent fasting. You didn't once a day are limited anyway. Sachin has published papers, peer reviewed papers and very good journals like Cell and elsewhere showing that limiting the consumption of calories to eight, you know, 46 or eight or even 10 hours of every 24 hour cycle and keeping that More or less correlated with the light with when the sun is out, leads to less liver disease, improved metabolic markers, less body fat, et cetera. In the mouse studies, they even gave the mice the choice to eat whatever they wanted as much as they want, as long as they restrict it to a certain period within the 24 hour cycle. They they did great. They They maintain a healthy weight or even lost weight when they took the same amount of food and they stretched it out across the 24, the entire 24 hour cycle. So this is eating every hour or two hours. The animals got fat and sick. So it's pretty remarkable data how much of that translates to humans isn't clear. But one thing that's really clear with humans is adherence right? We can talk a lot about nutrition and some of the problems with the studies and nutrition is that what people will do in a laboratory is often hard to do in the real world, low carbohydrate diets just they tend because they tend to focus on foods that have high amino acid content like meats. Generally, people are less hungry on their those than they are on calorie matched diet of fruits and vegetables and carbohydrates. Because when the insulin goes up, you get hungry and you want to eat more. So this is not a push for carnivore or push against one thing or the other. It's just, there are a lot of factors, but we know for sure that when you're fasted or when you have low amounts of carbohydrates in your system, complex carbohydrate, your alertness is going to go up fast, increases, increases alertness and epinephrine for the sole purpose of getting you to go out and find food. You can imagine if our ancestors got hungry and they were like, I'm too tired to go find food. We wouldn't be here would be like robots or someone of your alien, one of your alien buddies will be like running. So I think that um if you want to be alert fasting or keeping complex carbohydrates to a minimum is very valuable if you want to sleep and you want to be sleepy ingesting foods that have a lot of trip to fan, which is the precursor to serotonin, So complex carbohydrates, like rice and grains, Turkey, white meat. Those things do create a sense of sleepiness. However, there is a caveat and this is one problem with the once a meal once a day meal is that anytime you have a lot of food in the gut, you're increasing sleepiness because you're diverting blood to the gut, it's going to trigger the Vegas to signal to the brain to shut down your system and utilize those nutrients can digest and utilize those nutrients. So I've done the once a day eating thing. The problem is I eat so much in that meal that I'm exhausted and so it doesn't always lend itself well to the schedule. But so in a six or eight hour eating block for me is a little bit better. I do eat carbohydrates and probably one of the few people left on the west coast that actually consumes carbohydrates and we'll say that out </s><s>[INST] loud people eat carbs anymore. That's [/INST] weird. They don't. Do you even find card? Yeah, I like oatmeal. I like rice. The other time is if people are doing very high intensity weight train, they need to replenish glycogen </s>

<s>[INST] there's a rush processing to [/INST] is a rush processing now and we'll hide all the details from you, right? Yeah. And like that's kind of exactly what you're experiencing, right? You don't you don't need to worry about the details of how the sausage is made. </s><s>[INST] That's really cool. Uh So you picked like a vertical by vertical? You mean basically a service service [/INST] category. </s><s>[INST] Why translation is rev thinking of potentially going into other verticals in the future? Or is this like the focus now is translation transcription. Like language [/INST] the focus now is is language or uh speech services generally speech to text language services, you can kind of group them however you want. Um So but we originally the categorization was work from home. So one of the work that was done by people on the computer. You know, we weren't trying to get into, you know, task rabbit type of things and something that could be relatively standard. Not a lot of options. So we could kind of present the simplified interface. Right? So programming wasn't like a good fit because each programming project is kind of unique. Right? We're looking for something that transcription is, you know, you have five hours of audio, it's five hours of body. Right? Translation is sandwich similar in that, you know, you can have a five page document, you know, and then you just impressed by that and then you pick the language you want and that's mostly all it is to it. So those were a few criteria. We started with translation because we saw the need. Um and we picked up kind of a specialty of translation where we translate things like boys certificates, uh registration documents, things like that. And so they were fairly uh even more well defined. So it's easy to kind of tell if we did a good job, </s><s>[INST] you can literally charge pour type of document. Was that was was that the so what what is it now, is it per word or something like that? Like how do you like how do you measure the effort involved in a particular thing? [/INST] So now it looks for idea transcription. Right? It's Peruvian unit well that for translation we don't really uh actually focusing on anymore, but you know, back when it was still the main business of rabbit was for page right? Or per ward depending on the kind of because you </s><s>[INST] can also do translation now on the audio. Right? [/INST] Mm like subtitles. So it would be both transcription and translation. That's right. </s><s>[INST] I wanted to test the system to see how good it is to see like how how uh will is Russian supported? Thanks. So yeah, it'd be interesting to try it out. [/INST] One of the now it's only like the one direction, right? So you start with english and then you can have subtitles in Russian, you're not really not really the other way. </s><s>[INST] Got it because it's I'm deeply curious about this one. Covid opens up a little bit when the economy in the world opens up a little bit. [/INST] You want to build your brand in Russia. </s><s>[INST] No, I don't. First of all I'm allergic to the word brand. [/INST] I'm definitely not building </s><s>[INST] any brands in Russia but I'm going to paris to talk to the translators of dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, there's this famous couple that does translation and you know more and more thinking of how is it possible to have a conversation with in Russian speaker because I have just some number of famous Russian speakers um interested in talking to and my Russian is not strong enough to be witty and funny. I'm already an idiot in english, I'm an extra level of like awkward idiot in Russian, but I can understand it right? And I also like wonder how can I create a compelling english Russian experience for an english speaker. Like if I there's a guy named google lee Perlman who's a mathematician who obviously didn't speak in english, so I would probably incorporate like a Russian translator into the picture and then it would be like a not to use a weird term but like a three, like a three, three person thing was like a dance of where like I understand it one way, they don't understand the other way, but I'll be asking questions in english, I don't know, I don't know the right way, complicated, it's complicated but I feel like it's worth the effort for certain kinds of people, one of whom I'm confident that Vladimir Putin, I'm for sure talking to, I really want to make it happen because I think I could do a good job but the the right, you know, understanding the fundamentals of translation, it's something I'm really interested in. So that's why I'm starting with the actual translators of like Russian literature because they understand the nuance and the beauty of the language, how goes back and forth, but I also want to see like in speech, how can we do it in real times, that's that's like a little bit of a baby project that I hope to push forward, but anyway, it's [/INST] a challenging thing. So just to share uh my dad um actually that's translation um not not professional, he's uh he writes poetry that was kind of always his uh mhm not a happy, but he's uh you know, he had a job like a day job, but his passion was always writing poetry. Uh and then we get to America like you started also translating first was translating english poetry to Russia now, he also goes the other uh the other way you kind of gain some small fame in that world anyways, because recently this poet like Lewis Clark, I don't know if you know uh some american poet, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and so my dad had translated one of her books of poetry into Russian, he was like one of the few, so he kind of like they asked him and give an interview to Radio Svoboda, if you know what that is, and you kind of talked about some of the intricacies of translating poetry, so that's like an extra level of difficulty, right? Because translating poetry's even more challenging than splitting just, you know, it's for interviews, </s>

<s>[INST] We know. I understand that, but it's, especially when like, what is it, you know, 80 million people vote for you, or like some, like millions and millions and millions of people vote for you. It's crazy. It's crazy. This democracy thing is crazy. [/INST] George H.W. Bush won a war in the Middle East, right? He had 90% approval rating, and then a year later lost the election. To someone, Bill Clinton, he thought had none of the experience he had, someone didn't have, he believed didn't have the right moral character, and Bush did everything he could to help the next president get started well, and they became good friends. George W. Bush, he didn't love Obama. That's considered one of the smoothest transitions. George W. Bush ordered every single person in his administration to do everything they could to help the new admin. That's what a leader does. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Yeah. Humility is one of the things I admire in leaders. Well, that felt heated. Speaking of which, can you just linger on, how do you think we can heal the divide in this country? Do you think it's possible? [/INST] There feels to be a strong division. I think we can heal the divide. I think, as you said, there's so many opportunities with new technology to bring people together, just as we're using it to tear them apart. I have the best job in the world because I get to teach so many students. I'll have 300 in my class in the spring, in a US history class. What I've found with my students is they're mostly not Democrats or Republicans. They mostly care about the same things. </s><s>[INST] Every one of my students seems to care about climate change. I thought you were going to say TikTok, but okay. [/INST] Second to that climate change. Second to that. I think they offer a new future for us. Here's what I'll say as a historian. We go through cycles of division and cycles of less division, less partisanship. One moment when it seems people agree too much on the mainstream, encourages people to go to the extremes. When people see the extremes, they want to come back to the middle, and that is where my students are. Most of my students want lower inflation. They agree with Republicans on that, but they want more to be done about climate change. They're in the middle on these issues, and I think giving them more opportunity. What's the best way to heal our divisions, honestly? </s><s>[INST] Get the old men out, and the young women and men in. [/INST] Because they ultimately don't have that same division, and they're deeply baked in. Not only that, they find it disgusting in the way you and I do. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, that's true. What's the right way to have conversations, just to stay on that with people on the left and the right? Yeah, I don't know how often you practice this. You care about politics. Nothing too often. [/INST] Do you talk to people who voted for Trump or who are Republicans? It's hard. I try, but it's hard. </s><s>[INST] 75% of the people I talk to are not those people. Do you have people who are Trump supporters in your extended family, Thanksgiving? No, I don't in my extended. [/INST] Are they no longer... No, I don't in my extended. They're no in my family. It's all it fashion. I have taken them out of the photograph. You just erase? But I know I have friends, yeah, who fall into that, but it's still a minority of my friend group. So I want to be clear that I'm not as good at this as I should, but I think we do have to reach out. But I also, I'm less interested honestly in re-fighting old battles with old dogs. I'm more interested in finding ways to get a new crop of people educated and involved and engaged without imparting the same partisanship on them. So I will support, and this I have, I will support and encourage, especially any student of mine, but any young person who is smart, has good ideas. I don't care whether, I don't ask whether they're a Democrat or Republican. And I have given money to some young candidates who are not Democrats. So that's the way, I think it's a generational change. And I think it's reaching out and trying to get people to see beyond partisan divisions who are in their 20s and teens rather than, that's why we do our podcast. This is a democracy, Zachary and I do that, my son and I, because we're exactly like, you will never hear an episode where we take one side or another. Our goal is to explain the issue, whether it's the challenges of democracy in China, or it's climate change or whatever it is, or it's memory of war in our society. And to explain the issue and then offer people </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah. So that was the end. That was the end of really rigorous. What we would say is classical. Classical philosophy [/INST] is also this thing that in some sense the low hanging foods and philosophy were mostly wrapped. And the last big things that we discovered was the constructivist turned in mathematics. So to understand that the parts of mathematics network our computation, it was very significant discovery in the first half of the 20th century and it hasn't fully permeated philosophy. And um even physics yet physicists checked out the court libraries from mathematics before constructive vision became universal. </s><s>[INST] What's constructive is and what are you a friend of girls and completing the stairs, that kind of those kinds [/INST] of basically good to himself I think. Didn't get it yet. Hilbert uh could get it. Hilbert saw that for instance, countries set theoretic experiments and mathematics led into contradictions. And he noticed that uh with the current semantics we cannot build a computer and mathematics that runs mathematics without crashing and goodwill proof could prove this. And so what girl could show is using classical mathematical semantics, you run into contradictions and because girls strongly believed in these semantics and more than in what he could observe and so on. He was shocked, basically shook as well to the core because in some sense, he felt that the world has to be implemented in classical mathematics. And um for during it wasn't quite so bad. I think that during could see that the solution is to understand that mathematics was computation all along, which means you for instance Pie and classical mathematics is value. It's also a function, but it's the same thing and in computation function is only a value when you can compute it. And if you cannot compute the last digit of pi, you only have a function. You can plug this function into your local son. Let a drone until the sun burns out. This is it. This is the last digit of pi. You will know. But it also means there can be no process in the physical universe or in any physically realized computer that depends on having known the last digit of pi. Yes. Which means there are parts of physics that are defined in such a way that cannot strictly be too, because assuming that this could be two leads into contradictions. </s><s>[INST] So I think putting computation at the center of the world view is actually the right way to think about it. [/INST] And Wittgenstein could see it. And Wittgenstein basically preempted the largest program of Ai that Minsky started later, 30 years later. Um turing was actually a pupil of Wittgenstein and </s><s>[INST] I didn't know there's any connection [/INST] I Wittgenstein even canceled some classes, venturing was not present because he thought it was not worth spending the time on Uh if you read the track titles, it's a very beautiful book. They say one thought on 75 pages, very non typical for philosophy because it doesn't have arguments in it and it doesn't have references and it's just one thought that is not intending to convince anybody, says it's mostly for people that have the same insight as me. Just spell it out. And this insight is, there is a way in which mathematics and philosophy ought to meet. Mathematics tries to understand the domain of all languages by starting with those that are so formal Izabal, that you can prove all the properties of the statements that you make. But the price that you pay is that your language is very, very simple. So it's very hard to say something meaningful in mathematics and it looks complicated to people, but it's far less complicated than what our brain is casually doing all the time. And it makes sense of reality. And uh philosophy is coming from the top. So it's mostly starting from natural languages, which vaguely defined concepts and the hope is that mathematics and philosophy can meet at some point. And Wittgenstein was trying to make them meet. And he already understood that for instance, you could express everything with the non calculus, that you could reduce the entire logic to nand Gates as we do in our modern computers. So in some sense, he already understood turing Universality before touring spelled it out, I think when he wrote the track titles, he didn't understand yet that the idea was so important and significant. And I suspect then when turing wrote it out, nobody cared that much during, during was not that famous when he lived, it was mostly his work and decrypting the german quotes that made him famous and gave him some notoriety but the same status that he has to computer science right now. And the I something that I think he could acquire later. </s><s>[INST] That's kind of interesting. And do you think of computation and computer science and you kind of represent that to me is maybe that's the modern day you in a sense are the new philosopher by sort of the computer scientist who dares to ask the bigger questions that philosophy originally started is the new philosophy is the new philosopher [/INST] certainly not me. I think mostly kill this child that grows up in a very beautiful valley and looks at the world from the outside and tries to understand what's going on. And my teachers tell me things and they largely don't make sense. So I have to make my own model. So I have to discover the foundations of what the others are saying. I have to try to fix them to be charitable. I try to understand what they must have thought originally over their teachers or their teachers. Teachers must have thought until every single lost in translation and how to make sense of the reality that we are in. And whenever I have an original idea, I'm usually late to the party by say 400 years. And the only thing that's good is that the parties get smaller and smaller, the older I get and the more explore </s>

<s>[INST] I'm a huge introvert as you are, I think um I I feel very, very, very lucky that I get to get on the mic and run my mouth and for some people, some reason people like this, so I know what it's like to have a good convo, and I know what it's like to have a bad convo. So before I'll do a show, I will have like some things I would want to talk about then I'll think about how to say them in an engaging way. So I do my homework in that regard I'm also very good at, or I pride myself at taking people who are cerebral or intellectual and making them a little bit silly, but also making them feel safe to be silly because I'm not going to be making a buffoon of them that were having fun as opposed to disrespecting the person. I think we all saw that with your on who's very cerebral, very serious, but we were all cracking jokes um and he was having a good time and he knew even if I'm making fun of him to his face, it is coming from a place of kindness and he's in on the joke and we're all having fun. That is something I try to do as much as possible. I had an episode of my show a couple of weeks ago and someone who's been a friend of mine for a long time and someone I admire a lot Elizabeth Spiers, she was the founding member of Garc, founding editor of Gawker, you know, she's she's worked for the Observer for Jared Kushner, she's her resume second to none and she was on my show and she was talking, you know, her heart politics are pretty straightforward, like corporate journalist Blue pilled politics. And my audience was very upset that I wasn't pushing back or like whatever. I'm like my job, if someone is coming to a place where like the audiences at least give me somewhat hostile is not to make her have negative consequences for doing something that she didn't need to do. My job is to make sure that the experience is a positive one for her as the host. So when I'm the guest, I always feel that my job is to make the host look good and make the host not feel like it's work and the audience really likes that because instead of it being an interview or intense, it is a conversation, none of us know what's going to happen. And so this is something I think about a fair amount and I try to apply and insofar as you successfully. I'm delighted and there's times when it's not successful and that's a shame, but all we could do is do our best. [/INST] Yeah, I really enjoyed that conversation with her, I was surprised by uh the dislikes and all that kind of stuff. </s><s>[INST] Well, one of the things I always talk about is I don't I don't care what my friends politics are, I care about. If someone's, if I'm having a bad day, can I call them up and ask for advice? And Elizabeth has been there for me in the past and then when I do it on a camera in front of mix people freaking out, I'm like I'm practicing what I preach my relationships are more important than someone's political views and it's not hypocrisy at all to demonstrate that and not not to push [/INST] back and those great humor there, you're both a bit of trolls </s><s>[INST] in very different ways, [/INST] but nevertheless that connection, the humor and the mutual respect and love those all there. Yeah, she was fascinating. Um you've talked to Alex jones a couple of days ago, you've talked to him many times before, but you've had them on your podcast this week. Yeah, this week I was kind of surprised that um he mentioned that human animal hybrids was like the number, the main conspiracy that people should look into, to open their eyes to the, you know, all this to the globalists, all the conspiracies that are out there was that surprising to you. </s><s>[INST] Um No, because I came in there with questions and I was very focused on corralling him and having it be like kind of a coherent intellectual conversation. [/INST] It was a really, really good, it was only an hour, but it was a very good conversation. </s>

<s>[INST] Actually pulled almost a full Almighty yesterday working, doing a pretty cool thing. But the sleep I got when I finally got a chance to lay down was incredible. And a big part of that is thanks to a sleep. So go to a sleep dot com slash legs to get a special savings. That's eight sleep dot com slash lex. I feel like I have to stop doing this and read because the security guards are starting to get really nervous. This is the lex Fridman podcast and here is my conversation with frank Wilczek. What is the most beautiful idea in physics? [/INST] The most beautiful idea in physics is that we can get a compact description of the world. That's very precise and very full at the level of the operating system of the world. Um That's an extraordinary gift and we get, we get worried when we have find discrepancies between our description of the world and what's actually observed at the level even of a part in a billion. </s><s>[INST] You actually have this quote from Einstein that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is is is that it is comprehensible or something like [/INST] that. That's so, that's the most beautiful surprise that I think uh That that really was the, to me, the most profound results of the scientific revolution of this, of the 17th century with uh the shining example of Newtonian physics that you could aspire to complete this precision and a concise description of the world of the operating system and it's gotten better and better over the years to and that's the continuing miracle. Now there are a lot of beautiful sub miracles to the form of the equations is governed by high degrees of symmetry and and they have very surprising kind of mind expanding structure, especially in quantum mechanics. But if we have, I have to say that the single most beautiful revelation is that in fact the world is comprehensible. </s><s>[INST] Would you say that's a factor. Hope [/INST] it's a fact. We can do, we, you can point to things like the rise of gross gross national product per capita around the world as a result of the scientific revolution. You can see it all around you uh in recent developments with exponent, So exponential production of wealth, control of nature at a very profound level where we do things like since tiny, tiny tiny tiny vibrations to tell that there are black holes colliding far away. Or we test laws as I alluded to a part in a billion and two things and what appear on the service to be entirely different conceptual universes. I mean on the one hand, pencil and paper or nowadays computers that calculate abstractions and on the other hand, magnets and accelerators and detectors that look at the behavior of fundamental particles and and these different universes have to agree or else we get very upset. And that's uh, that's an amazing thing if you think about it. So, and it's telling us that we do understand a lot about nature at a very profound level and there are still things we don't understand of course, but as we get better and better answers and better and better ability to address difficult questions, we can ask more and more ambitious questions. </s><s>[INST] Well, I guess the hope part of that is because we are surrounded by mystery. So we've one way to say it, if you look at the growth of GDP over time that we figured out quite a lot and we're able to improve the quality of life because of that and we've figured out some fundamental things about this universe, but we still don't know how much mystery there is. And it's also possible that there's some things that are in fact incomprehensible to both our minds and the tools of science, like the sad thing is we may not no, it because in fact they are incomprehensible. And that's the open question is how much of the universe is comprehensible. If we figured out the the everything uh what's inside the black hole and everything that happened at the moment of the Big Bang? Does that still give us the key to understanding the human mind and the emergence of all the beautiful complexity we see around us? That's not uh like when I when I see these objects, like, I don't know if you've seen them like Celera Tamara, uh all these kinds of objects were the from simple rules emerges complexity. It makes you wonder maybe it's not reducible to simple beautiful equations. The whole thing, only parts of it. That's the tension I was getting out with the hope. [/INST] Well, when we say the universe is comprehensible, we have to kind of draw careful distinctions about or uh definitions about what we mean by that both the </s><s>[INST] university and the kind of and the comprehensive. [/INST] Exactly right. So the so in certain areas of understanding reality, we've made extraordinary progress, I would say in understanding fundamental physical processes in getting very precise equations that really work and allow us to do uh profound sculpting of matter, you know, to make computers and Iphones and everything else and they really work and their extraordinary productions uh on the other but and that's all based on the laws of quantum mechanics and you know, they really, and they really work and then uh, and they give us tremendous control of nature. On the other hand, as as, as we get better answers, we can also ask more ambitious questions. And there are certainly things that have been observed even in the, in what would be usually called the realm of physics that aren't understood. For instance, there seems to be another source of mass in the universe, the so called dark matter that we don't know what it is. And it's a very interesting question, what it is uh, then, uh, but also as you were alluding to there, there's, it's one thing to know the basic equations. It's another thing to be able to solve them in in important cases. So we run, we run up against the limits of that in things like chemistry where we'd like to be able to design molecules and predict their behavior from the equations. We think the equations could do that in principle. But in practice, it's very challenging to solve them in all, but very simple cases. Uh, and then there's the other thing which is that a lot of what we're interested in is historically conditioned. It's not, it's not a matter of the fundamental equations, but about what has evolved or come out of, of the early universe and formed into people and frogs and societies and things and the laws of physics, The basic laws of physics only take you so far in that it kind of provides a foundation, but doesn't really that you need entirely different concepts to deal with those kind of systems and all. We was one thing I can say about that is that the laws themselves point out their limitations, that they kind of, their laws for dynamical evolution. So they tell you what happens if you have a certain starting point, but they don't tell you what the starting point should be at least. Uh and uh the other, the other thing that emerges from the equations themselves is the phenomenon of chaos and uh sensitivity to initial conditions, which tells us that you have that there are intrinsic limitations on how well we can spell out the consequences of the laws if we try to apply them </s>

<s>[INST] but just as a fan, what do you think is beautiful about the game? What defines greatness? Is it, you know, with messy one? He's really good at finishing two. Very good at assist. Like three. There's just magic. It's just beautiful to see the play. So it's not just about the finishing, there's some, it's like Martinez Hand of God, there's some creativity on the pitch. Is that important? Or is it very important to get the World Cups and the big championships and that kind of stuff. [/INST] I think the World Cup is pretty, pretty overrated seeing as um, as it's such a small sample size. So uh, it's sort of annoys me always when, you know, titles are always um always appreciated so much. Even though that particular title can be, can be a lot of, a lot of luck or at least some at least some luck. Um So I do appreciate um, statistics a bit and all the statistics. Say that mess is the best finisher of all time, which I think helps a lot. Um and then there's the intangibles as well. The </s><s>[INST] flip side of that is the small sample size is what really creates the magic. It's so it's just like the olympics. You, you basically train your whole life for this. You live your whole life for this and it's a rare moment. One mistake and it's all over. That's [/INST] for </s><s>[INST] some reason, a lot of people either break under that pressure or rise up under that pressure. You don't, you don't admire the magic of that. [/INST] No, I I do. I just think that like rising and to the pressure and breaking on the under the pressure is often really oversimplified. Like taken on what's on what's happening. </s><s>[INST] We yeah, we do romanticize the game. Yeah. Well, let me ask you another ridiculous question and another. You're also a fan of basketball. [/INST] Yes. </s><s>[INST] Let me ask the goat question. The, you know, I'm biased because I went to high school in Chicago, you know, Chicago bulls during the Michael, Jordan era. Uh, let me ask the Jordan versus Lebron James question, let's let's continue on this threat of greatness. Which one do you pick or somebody else. So [/INST] I'll give you a completely different answer. Um, depending on my mood and depending who on whom I talked to? I picked one of one of the two and then I tried to argue for </s><s>[INST] the quantum mechanical thing. Well, can you, what again, what what would if you were to argue for either one? Statistically, I think Lebron James is going to surpass Jordan's. [/INST] Yeah, no doubt. </s><s>[INST] And so again, there's a debate between [/INST] unquantifiable greatness. No, that, I mean that's the whole that's the whole debate. </s><s>[INST] Yes. So it's, well, it's quantifiable versus unquantifiable. what's more important and your depending on mood all over the [/INST] place. </s><s>[INST] But what do you lean in general? With these, with these folks? With with with soccer, with anything in life towards the unquantifiable more? [/INST] No, definitely towards the quantifiable. </s><s>[INST] So when you're unsure, lean towards [/INST] the numbers, but </s><s>[INST] see like it's later generations, there's something that's what people say about maradona is, you know, he took arguably somewhat mediocre team to two world Cup. So there's that also uplifting nature of the player to be able to rise up the whole, it is a team sport. [/INST] So are you gonna like, I'm gonna punish um messy for taking a mediocre argentine squad to to the to the final in 2014 and punish him because they lost to a great team very narrowly after they missed. He he set up like a great chance for rain in the first half which he um which he fluffed and then eventually they lost the game. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] They do criticize cristiano Ronaldo messi for being on really strong squads in terms of the club teams and saying, yeah, okay, it's easy when you have like or whoever on your team. It [/INST] would be very interesting just if the league could make a decision. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Just random random allocation. [/INST] Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Um And just every single game just keep relocating maybe once a season um or every season you get random [/INST] but let's say every every </s><s>[INST] player [/INST] um if let's say they signed a five year contract for a team, like one of them you're gonna get randomly allocated to, to, let's say the bottom half team, </s><s>[INST] I bet you there's gonna be so much corruption around that [/INST] would never happen or work, but I think it's, </s><s>[INST] you never know. [/INST] So </s><s>[INST] on chess, let's zoom out. If you break down your approach to chess when you're at your best. What what do you think um What do you think contributes to that approach? Is that memory recall specific lines and positions? Is it intuition how much of it is intuition how much of it is pure calculation, how much of it is messing with the strategy of the opponent. So the game theory aspect, in terms of what contributes to the highest level of play that um that you do. [/INST] I think the answer differs a little bit now from what it did Eight years ago. For instance, like I've I feel like I've had like two peaks in, in my career in 2014. Uh well 2013, and also in 2019. And in those years, I was very different um in terms of um of my strength strength specifically in 2019, I benefited a lot from opening preparation While in 2013, I mostly tried to avoid my opponent's preparation rather than that being a being a strength. So I'm I'm mentioning that also because it's something something you didn't didn't mention. I think like my intuitive understanding of chess has over those years always been a little bit better than the others even though it has evolved as well. Um Certainly there are there are things that I understand now that I didn't understand back then, but that's not only for me that's for um for others as well. Um I was younger back then, so I played with more energy which meant that I could play better in long drawn out games. Um </s>

<s>[INST] start to wonder like what what kind of person do you want to be? So all the dreams you had, all the promises you made to yourself and to others, all the ambitions you had that haven't come yet, realized somehow that all becomes really intensely like visceral as, as the struggle is happening. And then when all of that is allowed to pass from your mind, you have this clear appreciation of what you really love in life, which is just like just living just the moment, the like take a step at a time. It's I think what meditation does and it's most effective, it's just that pain is and as a catalyst for the meditative process. I think for me, for me, I don't know um magnus said there's no meaning to life, do you guys agree or no, why are we here? [/INST] I do not know why we're here, but I do know that having some kind of meaning that I give my own life makes it a lot more motivating every day. So I just try to focus on finding meaning within my own life even if I know it's just self imposed </s><s>[INST] and then chess is a part of that, [/INST] chess is a part of it, maybe it was more so when I was younger because it was easier to just feel like I want to improve as a person and to use chess to kind of measure some kind of self improvement and now it's more different than that and I think I need to once again find what that you know northern stars basically I need to have a why for why I'm doing things and then you I feel like I could do very hard things, </s><s>[INST] what role does love play in the human condition, Alex and Andrea [/INST] Andrea start this one since I took the last. Sure and yeah just to add my answer for the last one I also kind of think well life is meaningless but I like the stoic idea where that's something that you live to revolt against but for the second question the </s><s>[INST] revolt against the fundamental meaninglessness [/INST] of life. Like </s><s>[INST] yeah [/INST] it was what does love play? What role does love play </s><s>[INST] in the human condition [/INST] the way I see it, love is a reason you want to share experiences with other people. That's how I see it like the people you really love, you want to share the things you're going through with them um </s><s>[INST] Yeah, [/INST] exactly, that's my simple take on love. My take on it. Is </s><s>[INST] that [/INST] part of what it is to be human is to be somebody who feels things emotionally. And love is one of the most intense feelings you can have. Um obviously there's the opposite of that and there's things like hate, but I think the love you feel for people like your parents and your friends and romantic love in that moment is much more intense than in other situations. Um and I think it's also just very unique to humans and that's what I appreciate </s><s>[INST] about the meaning of life. Maybe that's what the stoics are searching for. Andrea Alex, thank you so much for this and thank you for an amazing conversation. Thank you for creating, keep creating and thank you for putting knowledge and love out there in the world, [/INST] thank you for having us lex and we're both big fans of your podcast, so this was really exciting for us. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with Alexandra and Andrea bowties. To support this podcast. We check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from bobby Fischer Chess is life. [/INST] Thank </s><s>[INST] you for listening and hope to see you next time [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] Can they pull themselves into something that looks more like a symmetric war as opposed to a symmetric one? So accidentally engaging on the lone individual than getting themselves into trouble. Are they more aggressive in avoiding these kinds of battles? [/INST] They're very, very keen to avoid those kinds of battles, but occasionally, uh, they can make a mistake. Um, but so far there have been no observations, anything like a battle in which both sides maintain themselves. And I think you can very confidently say that overwhelmingly. What happens is that if they discover that there's several individuals on the other side, then both sides retreat. Nobody wants to get hurt. What they want to do is to hurt others. </s><s>[INST] Yes, So you mentioned jane Goodall, you've worked with her. What was it like working with her? What have you learned from her? [/INST] Well, she's wonderfully independent, courageous person, you know who she famously began her studies not as a qualified person um in terms of education, But qualified only by enthusiasm and a considerable experience even in her early 20s with nature. So she's courageous in the sense of being able to take on challenges. The thing that is very impressive about her is her total fidelity to the observations. Very unwilling to extend beyond the observations, waiting until they mount up. And you've really got a confident picture and tremendous attention to individuals. So that was an interesting problem from her point of view because When she got to know the chimpanzees of Gumby, this particular community of Kazakh alot about 60 individuals. So Gandhi was in Tanzania on Lake Tanganyika. She was there initially with her mother and then alone for uh two or three years of really intense observation um and then slowly joined by other people. What what she discovered was that there were obvious differences in individual personality. And the difficulty about that was that when she reported this to the largest scientific world. Initially, her advisers at Cambridge uh they said well you know we don't know how to handle that because you've got to treat all these animals as the same basically. Because um there is no research tradition of thinking about personalities. Well. Now Whatever it is 60 years later uh the study of personalities is a very rich part of the study animal behavior. Um It anyway the important point in terms of, you know what she like is that she stuck to her guns and she absolutely insisted that you know, we have to show, describe in great detail the differences in personality among these individuals and then you can leave it to the evolutionary biologists think about what it means. </s><s>[INST] So what is the process of observation like this? Uh Like observing the personality but also observing in a way that's not projecting your beliefs about human nature or animal nature onto chimps which is probably really tempting to project. So your understanding of the way the human world works, projecting that onto the chimp world. [/INST] Yes. I mean it's particularly difficult with chimps because chimps are so similar to humans in their behavior that it's very easy uh to to make those projections as you say. The process involves um making very clear definitions of order behavior is you know aggression can be defined in terms of a forceful hit a bite and so on. Um And writing down every time these things happen and then slowly totting up the numbers of times that they happen. You know from individual A. Towards individuals B. C. D. And E. Uh so that you build up a very concrete picture rather than interpreting at any point and stopping and saying well you know they seem to be rather aggressive. So the uh the formal system is that you build up a pattern of the relationships based on a description of the different types of interactions. The aggressive and the friendly interactions and all of these are defined in concrete and so that from that you extract a pattern of relationships and the relationships can be defined as um relatively friendly, relatively uh aggressive competitive based on the frequency of these types of interactions. And so one can talk in terms of individuals having relationship, which on the scores of friendliness is two standard deviations outside the mean. I mean, you know, it's weird </s><s>[INST] which direction? Sorry? Uh Both directions. [/INST] Well, I mean, you know that that there will be obviously the friendly ones would be the ones who have exceptionally high rates of spending time close to each other, of touching each other in a gentle way of grooming each other. Uh And by the way, finding that those things are correlated with each other. So it's possible to define a friendship with a capital F in a very systematic way. And and to compare that between individuals, but also between um communities of chimpanzees uh between different species. So that, you know, we can say that in some species, individuals have friends and others they don't at all. What about just </s><s>[INST] because there's different personalities and because they're so fascinating. What about sort of falling in love or forming friendships with chimps? You know, like really, you know, um connecting with them as an observer. What what role does that play? Because you're tracking these individuals that are full of life and intelligence form for long periods of time. Plus as a human, especially in those days for jane she's alone observing it gets lonely as a human. I mean, probably deeply lonely as a human being observed these other intelligent species. [/INST] It's a very reasonable question. And of course jane, in as early years, I think she's willing now to talk about the fact that she regrets to some extent how close she became. Um And the problem is not just from the humans. The problem is from the chimpanzees as well because uh they do things that are extremely affectionate if you like. You know, at one. offered a ripe fruit to a chimpanzee called david graybeard, David graybeard took it and squeezed her hand as if to say thank you. And then I think you gave it back if I remember rightly. </s>

<s>[INST] to be, but that's why it's great. Who can melt, who can rise under that pressure and who melts under that pressure? Uh What? There's a lot of people that look up to you, like they're inspired by you because you've taken a kind of non linear path through life. Is there any advice yet for people like in high school today, they're trying to figure out what they want to do. Do they want to go to stanford? They want to pursue a career um in I don't know uh in industry or or go kind of the path you guys have taken, which is have the ability to do all of that and still choose to make the thing that you're passionate about your life. I [/INST] always like the calculated risks approach where when you're younger it's okay to take more risks because you have a lot more time, But there has to be a reason why you're doing that particular risk. Is it something that you've spent a lot of time already really passionate and working on or is it just something that's trendy and you want to do it because you don't have a better option. And that's actually similar to what Andrea did when she decided to go into streaming instead of school. Yeah, it was the reason I got into streaming because I was initially going to go to college, but the pandemics, it was right at the beginning of the pandemic and all my classes were online and I never thought ever since I was 12, like my dream was school and I saw myself nowhere else than going to university um and I just, I thought of it and kind of laid out the risk, I'm like, well if I take a gap year and I tried streaming with my sister, um what do I have to lose? I gain some experience working with someone who has a lot more experience than I do um and then I can go back to school after um and if I go to school right now I do online classes for a year and that's something that I could do at any time, so that's why I made a lot of sense for me to go into this. Um but of course this is also a very unique opportunity, so I don't know how applicable, but I do think overall the calculated risk is a really good Exactly, exactly. </s><s>[INST] You also, have you considered a career in professional fighting? I saw you did a self defense class, Did [/INST] You see the 10 year old kid who </s><s>[INST] throwing her? Yes, [/INST] and apparently I could have broken a leg, but it's actually funny like chess boxing is a thing and I have been doing a lot of boxing like physical activities, like honestly one of my favorite things to do and I have been testing it out on content and we have a creative friend who's hosting a chess boxing tournament but there's no woman who's could match me unfortunately because all the opponents are male and I can't fight a guy. So you do a round of chess and round of boxing and we actually did a training camp for it before and of course like after you go into the ring, we went to the London Chess Boxing club and like </s><s>[INST] like it's something you [/INST] know it's real sport. Yeah it's very cool but after you get really tired you're more likely to make a mistake or something. </s><s>[INST] Yeah that's probably a good strategies like what do you want to because some of it is a cardio thing. Do you want to work on your chest? [/INST] It's very fun. But </s><s>[INST] yeah from a content perspective, I'm sure there's a lot of people that like [/INST] very entertaining. </s><s>[INST] Would love to see, I [/INST] don't want to see Andrea getting hit. That would be I would love to, </s><s>[INST] she doesn't get hit, [/INST] I would get in a fight and she did end up winning but seeing her get hit, I thought I was gonna throw, I just think it was so close, she had no experience in boxing whatsoever. And then coming from someone in the content world where you start like waking up six days a week at six a.m. And he's, she's training every day, like, you know, like a real professional athlete, I think like it's such a unique experience. And also like a really test of how much you can really commit to this and progress. And I think that's really rewarding. Did you ever end up doing the marathon with David Goggins that you were training? </s><s>[INST] But we're going to do it soon. That's on my bucket list. Just to see where your limits [/INST] are. What did you do leading up to this? Nothing. It's </s><s>[INST] mental. It's mental anyway. But I do run a lot to make sure. Like there's no um like, you know, you have to be, have a base level of fitness to make sure your body doesn't completely freak out. But other than that, You know, 50 plus miles is just about like uh taking it one step at a time and just being able to deal with the suffering and all the voices, the little voices to tell you all the excuses. Like, why are you doing this? This blisters bleeding, whatever, whatever the the thing that makes you want to stop, just just [/INST] feels like, you </s><s>[INST] know. Well, no, no. But the pain does seem to show the way to progress. So [/INST] what in </s>

<s>[INST] write to me by the way. The simulation thing is a really interesting engineering question, which is how difficult is it to engineer a virtual reality, a digital world that is sufficiently of high fidelity where you would want to live in it? I think that's a really testable and a fascinating engineering question because my intuition says like it's not as difficult as we think it's not nearly as difficult as having to create quantum mechanical simulation that's large enough to capture the full human experience. Like it might be just as simple as just a a really nice quake game like with a nice engine with, you know, that just creating all the basic visual elements that tricked or cognitive, our visual cortex into believing that we're actually in a the physical environment and I think that if that's true, then that's quite, you know, high fidelity digital world is actually achievable within, you know, a century and and that changes things. [/INST] Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe in my in our lifetime, I'm really hoping for that. I'm hoping somebody can copy my brain waves onto a virtual machine and, you know, allow those, allow that consciousness to continue to exist, whether that's that's death or not, I don't I don't know, but I think it's actually um going to require some serious sleeps. Like even even the VR headsets, right? They don't work if they go below 90 frame rates, right? People people start getting freaked out. So you have to go from one gaming screen of, you know, 60 frames per second, 2, 2 screens of 90 frames per second. And so the people's hardware today can't even handle that. And that's for these, for these two little screens by your eyeballs what it's gonna take to like, you know, completely tricked my consciousness into not knowing the difference in terms of like, you know, all the sensory inputs. Um I'm keeping my fingers crossed, whoever, whoever whoever does that and and it's close to doing that, they should contact me. I I want to have my brain waves turned into a virtual machine, </s><s>[INST] would you in that context? If more face came to you, would you take the blue pill or the red pill meaning, would you be happy, just living in that world and not knowing that you're living inside that virtual world that's running a computer or would you want to know the truth of it? [/INST] Well, actually, I think that's a very different question, right? There's a there's a there's a actually moral ethical question there about whether you should allow a bunch of people to get, you know, manipulated and killed enslaved, because in the Matrix they're all enslaved and as as like a, you know, a triple A battery to return a human being into the battery. Right? Um, so I I think the moral and ethical question of that fascinating life isn't actually different than the moral ethical questions we face today in modern daily life, But I probably have given the choice of just completely going along or going against it. I would probably go against it if I had to make this kind of binary choice because going going along with it. Um I think at that scale of scary, you know, stuff happening to people is probably something really, really, really difficult. </s><s>[INST] But for your individual life, it's way more fun to go along with it. So you're saying you value the opposing a system that includes the suffering of others versus just for yourself, enjoying the ride. I mean, what's what if there is such a binary choice? Why choose the opposing system? [/INST] I think it's the nature of um kind of the ethical dilemma that you face in that situation. There's kind of some, you know, this is obviously not something that's happening now right now </s><s>[INST] right now. I [/INST] don't know this, but at the end of the day, at that scale of of something like that happening. Yeah. That scale of of people being um, you know, manipulated and harmed then. I think pretty much almost all people have an obligation to go to go against it. Uh probably that's what that that looks like in my opinion. </s><s>[INST] So you've talked about the concept of definitive truth. What is it? And in general, what is the nature of truth and human civilization? And just talking about the digital age? Uh, the nature of truth in the digital age. [/INST] So the interesting thing about definitive truth is that it actually exists on on this, at least in my mind on this spectrum between objective truth and just, you know, somebody made something up, but nobody else agrees. So what I what I what I think definitive truth is is that somewhere in the middle on that spectrum where if you and me define uh what truth is right? Like if you and me have an agreement of some kind and we say as long as the weather is sunny or the weather isn't, there is no rain on that day, then there will be an insurance policy that results. And you and me both agree that as long as three sensors, three monitoring weather monitoring stations all say that then the definitive truth for us and for that agreement is the result of of those systems coming to consensus about what happened out in the real world. I think the objective truth definition from from kind of the philosophical world is really, really stringent and very, very hard to attain. And that's not that's not what this is. And that's actually not what commerce or the ability for people to interact about contracts needs. What I think the world of commerce needs is an upgrade from someone can unilaterally decide what the truth is too. There can be a pre agreed set of conditions where we define what the truth is under those conditions. And then, you know, you and me basically say If these 20 nodes are of these 30 data sources come to consensus within you know, this method of consensus with this threshold of agreement, then definitive truth has been achieved for you and me in our relationship for this specific agreement and the specificity and and our shared agreement to that kind of truth or that definitive truth being acceptable to both both of us is probably what's what's um kind of necessary and sufficient for everything to move forward in a better way in any case. Much better than, you know, I'm a bank or an insurance company. I'm going to unilaterally decide what happens. It's it's definitely an upgrade from that. Do </s>

<s>[INST] You have many minds right there is the thoughtful kind, Michael, there's like, I'm going to burn down the powerful, my God, yeah. And then there's like, I'm going to have this just lighthearted trolling of the world, which and which of those are most important to the 24 to the 27 demographic, [/INST] I think it is the combination, You know, it's like if you're making a meal, you know, chicken Kiev, you need the chicken, you need the ham, you need the butter sauce because I think people, when you're young, you need to see someone who's fought the fight for you and who is one. So it's very easy to be defeatist. </s><s>[INST] So this is what winning looks like. [/INST] No, this is not. This is most assuredly what winning does not look like. But in my normal clothes a little bit </s><s>[INST] more, uh, this is a good time to mention that clothes wise, you're, you're wearing sheath underwear And people should buy sheath underwear. Use code Malice 20. [/INST] If you go to sheathe underwear dot com, use promo code malice 20. What I love about why I'm glad to promote the product and wear it. It's the most comfortable underwear I've ever worn and you have a separate pouch for both parts of your genitals. </s><s>[INST] That's what I thought there was like a punch line coming. No, it's a very nice aspect of the product. [/INST] But I think what, here's something else just goes back and we're just talking about. There are so many and this is going to go into this. There are so many Small companies who have been devastated this year. We have not seen a sustained attack on mom and pop shops, uh, like we've seen in 2020 who are innovators and making something happen. And when you're just like one dude who's producing a product, they're sponsored, mind I'm happy to, first of all, it's funny that I'm pitching underwear but pitching, but it's also something I </s><s>[INST] interest. You said small [/INST] business, it's microscopic like a thimble. So this isn't a sponsor of mine, but this is a good segue. So this is the Russians, we celebrate New Year's Eve and God, um we have cameras. He comes down put the present under your pillow. So this is a company called jail Lawson. He's a fan of yours. He's a metal worker. And he said, can I give you something to give to lex? I have one of his worry coins. I'll tell you what it is. He's not a sponsor. This is not, I'm not getting paid for this. So what a worry coin is I carry around in my but if you have raw denim, it's great because it brings you fades. So you carried around with you all the time. It says worrying. It's like paying a debt, you don't know, right? And I carry this around and life has been like a year. Next time you're worrying. And this is a good advice. If you don't have to worry coin, Go think about 10 years ago and what you were worried about then and then think about, did any of those things pan out and some of them did, but you were able to handle it and that's a good way to maintain perspective. So jail Lawson is the company he sent me this president. I said let me give it to lex on air so enjoy. </s><s>[INST] It. Also opened up J. L. Lawson and Co two Lex from Anthony. [/INST] Yeah and I said make something mathematical for lex. I don't even know what's in there. You don't know what's in there and it got through a T. S. A. Could be a </s><s>[INST] bomb. It could [/INST] be just like this episode. Yeah. Make sure you unwrap it close to mine because it drives you crazy. That's really the best </s><s>[INST] part. Okay, I mean or is this what unboxing video looks like this conversation going to be a big hit on the internet boxing [/INST] community. </s><s>[INST] I need to have an excited look on my face to make sure the reaction video is being on boxing and a reaction video like screamin reacts. It's [/INST] another box. It's just a series </s><s>[INST] of boxes lex big fan since hearing you on Rogan months ago. Most of your guests are over my head but still enjoyable like this episode, Michael was kind enough to want to share my work with you keep doing what you do Anthony Lawson. Thanks Anthony. [/INST] There's a lot in there. What is in there. Give me some. Love it some okay, bye, </s><s>[INST] show it to the camera and then make sure you look excited or disappointed. [/INST] This is cool. This is a worry coin. Like I was showing you so you hold in your hand and when you can do this with your thumb? People have anxiety or whatever? </s><s>[INST] Oh there's a lot of cool stuff in here. Fibonacci coin. [/INST] Oh see yeah that's the math stuff. </s><s>[INST] That's really awesome. This is really cool. But [/INST] you got a big one liner too. </s><s>[INST] That's what she said. I'm telling you last time you offended me saying I don't have humor. Mhm. The spin tray Micro Aggress and copper bronze by the way the packaging is epic. [/INST] I think that's his top. He makes tops. Mhm. Cool. Yeah you spin in there </s><s>[INST] And it's a two different bronze and copper. [/INST] I think he's the only one who makes these machine tops </s><s>[INST] you sitting here I guess [/INST] you could spin them in that stack that section. Got it. Cool. </s><s>[INST] Where's the where's the worrying thing? Here is the worry coin Anyway. I wasn't listening. What were you worried about? 10 years ago [/INST] 10 years ago, 2010. What would I have been worried about that? The government. No I'm not that's not a worry. I </s><s>[INST] was in north Korea book [/INST] That came out in 2014. I went there in 2012. Came out in January 2014. It still pays my rent um with the royalties. So the North Korea. But yeah this is this is why it's so much better. I </s>

<s>[INST] So when you look up to the stars, do you think about that quickly approaching end of yours? Do you think about your own mortality? Do you think about your death? Are you afraid of your death? [/INST] I'm a huge fan of stoicism, right? I read a lot lot of stoicism, um, I think Ryan holiday's done a great job of bringing some of that back into the forefront. It's just uh really thought provoking to me and, and rings a lot of it rings, just hits me and says, I think that's right. And that memento memento mori thing, which is, hey, we're all going to die. So you should contemplate it, There is a finality to this thing and so I think if you can rightly frame that between fretting about it every day and being afraid and being so laissez faire that you think, you know, you're gonna, you're going to live forever. It will influence some of the decisions you make and it will influence the way you attack things. Um and hopefully the way that you live your life. So yes, I wouldn't say I obsess over it and I wouldn't say it's omnipresent. Um but because I read a lot of stoicism and just, I think it's, it's right to pause and say, who knows? Right, there's going to be an expiration date and if it happened tomorrow, am I have I done the things I wanted to do and am I the person I wanted to be? And I think it's important along the way to check those things. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I try to make sure that actually visualize this, that I'm okay dying at the end of the day, at the end of each day, like if this is the last thing I do in my life, is talking to you. Oh, good Lord! I'm [/INST] uh I'm happy. I </s><s>[INST] know you're joking, but I, you know that um yeah, I'm I'm happy, I get to live the life I do, and I think momentum or I think the Stokes have it, right? So you and you have it right in saying meditate on death enough to remember that this ride ends pretty quickly to help you appreciate every day and the people, you love, the people close to you and the cool ship that you're doing in your life, the cool shit you're creating, and the fact that you mr thomas tall are playing with the motherfucking Rolling Stones Tomorrow, you are the man in so many disciplines, so, so respect is so successful, it's truly an honor. You sit down and talk with me today, thomas, thank you so much for showing up in texas and for talking on this silly little podcast. [/INST] It's great man. I'm a huge fan of the show and have had a great time hanging with you and uh I really appreciate it. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with thomas tong. To support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from Mick, Jagger and the Rolling Stones. You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you might find you'll get what you need. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, beautifully put. So like you said, we're living in the era of the COVID. This is 2020, one of the craziest years in recent history. So if we zoom out and look at this pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic, maybe let me ask you this kind of thing. In viruses in general, when you look at viruses, do you see them as, as a kind of intelligence system? [/INST] I think the concept of intelligence is not that natural of a concept in the end. I mean that, I think human minds and bodies are a kind of complex self-organizing adaptive system. And viruses certainly are that, right? They're a very complex self-organizing adaptive system. If you want to look at intelligence, as Marcus Hutter defines it, as sort of optimizing computable reward functions over computable environments, for sure viruses are doing that, right? And I mean, in doing so, they're causing some harm to us. And so they're, you know, they're, you know, the human immune system is a very complex self-organizing adaptive system, which has a lot of intelligence to it. And viruses are also adapting and dividing into new mutant strains and so forth. And ultimately the solution is going to be nanotechnology, right? I mean, I mean, the solution is going to be making little nanobots that fight the viruses or, well, people will use them to make nasty viruses, but hopefully we can also use them to just detect, combat and kill the viruses. But I think now we're stuck with the biological mechanisms to combat these viruses. And yeah, we've been AGI is not yet mature enough to use against COVID, but we've been using machine learning and also some machine reasoning in OpenCog to help some doctors to do personalized medicine against COVID. So the problem there is given the person's genomics and given their clinical medical indicators, how do you figure out which combination of antivirals is going to be most effective against COVID for that person? And so that's something where machine learning is interesting, but also we're finding the abstraction we get in OpenCog with machine reasoning is interesting because it can help with transfer learning when you have not that many different cases to study and qualitative differences between different strains of a virus or people of different ages who may have COVID. </s><s>[INST] So there's a lot of different disparate data to work with in a small data sets and somehow integrating them. [/INST] You know, this is one of the shameful things that's very hard to get that data. So, I mean, we're working with a couple of groups doing clinical trials and they're sharing data with us like under non-disclosure, but what should be the case is like every COVID clinical trial should be putting data online somewhere like suitably encrypted to protect patient privacy so that anyone with the right AI algorithms should be able to help analyze it and any biologist should be able to analyze it by hand to understand what they can, right? Instead, instead that data is like siloed inside whatever hospital is running the clinical trial, which is completely asinine and ridiculous. So why the world works that way? I mean, we could all analyze why, but it's insane that it does. Look at this hydrochloroquine, right? All these clinical trials were done or reported by Sergesphere, some little company no one ever heard of, and everyone paid attention to this. So they were doing more clinical trials based on that. Then they stopped doing clinical trials based on that. Then they started again. And why isn't that data just out there so everyone can analyze it and see what's going on, right? </s><s>[INST] Do you have hope that we'll move, that data will be out there eventually for future pandemics? I mean, do you have hope that our society will move in the direction of? [/INST] It's not in the immediate future because the US and China frictions are getting very high. So it's hard to see US and China as moving in the direction of openly sharing data with each other, right? There's some sharing of data, but different groups are keeping their data private until they've milked the best results from it, and then they share it, right? So yeah, we're working with some data that we've managed to get our hands on, something we're doing to do good for the world, and it's a very cool playground for putting deep neural nets and OpenCog together. So we have a bio-adm space full of all sorts of knowledge from many different biology experiments about human longevity and from biology knowledge bases online. And we can do like graph to vector type embeddings where we take nodes from the hypergraph, embed them into vectors, which can then feed into neural nets for different types of analysis. And we were doing this in the context of a project called the REJUVE that we spun off from SingularityNet to do longevity analytics. I can understand why people live to 105 years over and other people don't. And then we had this spin-off Singularity Studio where we're working with some healthcare companies on data analytics. So there's bio-adm space that we built for these more commercial and longevity data analysis purposes. We're repurposing and feeding COVID data into the same bio-adm space and playing around with like graph embeddings from that graph into neural nets for bioinformatics. So it's both being a cool testing ground for some of our bio AI learning and reasoning. And it seems we're able to discover things that people weren't seeing otherwise. Because the thing in this case is for each combination of antivirals, you may have only a few patients who've tried that combination. And those few patients may have their particular characteristics. Like this combination of three was tried only on people age 80 or over. This other combination of three, which has an overlap with the first combination, was tried more on young people. So how do you combine those different pieces of data? It's a very dodgy transfer learning problem, which is the kind of thing that the probabilistic reasoning algorithms we have inside OpenCog are better at than deep neural networks. On the other hand, you have gene expression data where you have 25,000 genes and the expression level of each gene and the peripheral blood of each person. So that sort of data, either deep neural nets or tools like XGBoost or CatBoost, these decision forest trees are better at dealing with it than OpenCog because it's just these huge, huge, messy floating point vectors that are annoying for a logic engine to deal with, but are perfect for a decision forest or neural net. So it's a great playground for like hybrid AI methodology. And we can have singularity net have OpenCog in one agent and XGBoost in a different agent and they talk to each other and feeding. But at the same time, it's highly practical, right? Because we're working with, for example, some physicians on this project and the physicians in the group called Nth Opinion based out of Vancouver in Seattle, who are these guys are working every day like in the hospital with patients dying of COVID. So it's quite cool to see like neural symbolic AI, like where the rubber hits the road, trying to save people's lives. I've been doing bio AI since 2001, but mostly human longevity research and fly longevity research, trying to understand why some organisms really live a long time. This is the first time like race against the clock and try to use the AI to figure out stuff that, like if we take two months longer to solve the AI problem, some more people will die because we don't know what combination of antivirals to give them. </s>

<s>[INST] Which is strange because people pay a lot of money for the jokes you do. So it's not really [/INST] Yeah. Well, no, they don't have to pay me. It's it's appreciated but not expected. </s><s>[INST] I find my voice cracking every time I try to make a joke, like I failed miserably at this. Uh some people, [/INST] you're still in Beta, Alpha sure, being an office like being a lady, if you have to help people. You are, you aren't. </s><s>[INST] No, I meant Alpha version. I [/INST] don't know if your robot gobbledygook. </s><s>[INST] I'm not going there. Okay. Uh, talking to in my own head. I'm talking to myself in my own head. Okay. Speaking of north Korea, some people say that uh you know, I've read that comedy is about timing. Well, first of all, do you agree? And second of all, I'm serious, you're saying yes, time. It's funny. Okay. [/INST] Isn't a comedy is tragedy plus timing. Isn't that isn't that the full reference? </s><s>[INST] What is it? The interrupting cow knock knock joke? I'm not going to do it. But [/INST] uh that's not a timing thing. It's more of a repetition. And then the twist ending. No, </s><s>[INST] the move. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, interrupting cow. You thinking of the banana one anyway. Uh I'm not I'm not going there yet. You're talking a, your [/INST] small wonder do you stand sleeping in a wardrobe. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Uh That's so british, but yet you're very, I want to stay [/INST] in the closet because that has connotations. </s><s>[INST] Let's let's both come out of the closet for a second. Let's talk [/INST] about, I wasn't saying I love you Alex, I was saying I love you lex, </s><s>[INST] you're talking to me. Yes, that's there's a screen. So when you so you think about me, when you're with another man, I watch it when you're sleeping, Okay, So your Bangles song, you're really active on twitter. Uh and somebody else asked on your overly expensive membership site, uh what griff, how do you find uh humor different in writing on twitter versus spoken humor? So it's a great question if humor is about timing, how do you capture the timing and the brilliance of the whatever is underlying humor in the context of twitter, Like another word to say? It is uh how do you be funny and yet thoughtful on twitter? So [/INST] with twitter, you have to be the first one to the punch line. So when Ron paul had a stroke, I was immediately being like, he's still the most article libertarian, he's doing a great job, biden impression right now, all the libertarians got as mad people like too soon, or like when someone dies, you're making the jokes about them. It's like when do you want to make the jokes about someone just died a week later, it doesn't make any sense. Now </s><s>[INST] you might soon, it's perfect timing [/INST] or you could say it's not appropriate ever, but too soon. does not make sense in this context. Um So that is something that I enjoy doing. It's also fun ruffling people's feathers, something I enjoy doing. I think uh spoken versus writing is very different because when you are having good banter with someone for me as the audience, knowing that it is on the spot really adds an element of humor because then it's like, wow, this is fun, It's like a ping pong match or something, whereas in writing it's you're losing the tone, you're losing the relationship of a dynamic conversation. Um and a lot of times the joke is just gonna be different type of joke. </s><s>[INST] Well, it's funny, but twitter, there's a sense, especially your twitter that you're, you just thought of that and you just wrote it. Like there is, there's a feeling like it's literally you talking as opposed to what I imagine, Is there some editing? It doesn't look like it. Whoever your editors should be fired. There's an interesting effect actually, if I want to say something I don't know about, about the something that's bothering me about the presidential election or something like that. Like what are what is the actual central idea that I'm trying to convey to myself? Like if say I was having hypothetically conversation with myself, What, why [/INST] am I putting my pants back on? I'm more comfortable this way. Promo Code Malice? 20? She's underwear.com? </s><s>[INST] Okay. Uh that's she's uh what is it? What's the website? She's underwear dot com. She's underwear dot com. Promo code malice 20. And I forgot why is that underwear Really nice [/INST] because it has a dual pouch technology to keep your man parts separate. They've also got woman stuff, but I don't know how that works. There's a </s><s>[INST] thing going somewhere and the material is really refreshing. I mean it's really again, [/INST] it makes your gas look good. </s><s>[INST] That's promo code mouse 20 [/INST] and it's made by it's made by a former vet because he was in Iraq. So that's why I like promoting it. </s>

<s>[INST] What are some of the is it fundamental like software engineering challenges their social? Okay, so there's a social, so what are the biggest interesting challenges that you've learned about human civilization and in software engineering through this process? [/INST] So I guess one of the challenges for me is that like I'm one of the kind of apparently unusual geek scores kind of never treated with anything but kindness in school. Um and so when I got into crypto I kind of expected everyone would just kind of be the same kind of altruistic and nice in that same way. Um but the kind of The algorithm that I used for finding co founders for this thing was not very good, it was literally what computer scientists call the greedy algorithm, it's kind of the 1st 15 people who applied back offering to help kind of are the co founders, you </s><s>[INST] mean, like literally the people that form will form to be the the founders, co founders of the community, the algorithm, I like how you call [/INST] the algorithm. Yeah. Um and so what happened was that these like, especially as the project got really big, like there started to be a lot of this kind of infighting and there are a lot of like I wanted the thing to be a non profit and some of them wanted to be a for profit. Um and then there started to be people who are just kind of totally unable to work with each other, there were people that were kind of trying to get an advantage for themselves in a lot of different ways and this uh just about six months later led to this big governance crisis and then we got a reshuffled leadership a bit and then uh the project kept on going, then nine months later, there was another governance crisis and then there was a third governance crisis and so </s><s>[INST] is there a way to, if you're looking at the human side of things, is there a way to optimize this aspect of the Cryptocurrency world, it seems that there is uh from my perspective, there's a lot of different characters and personalities and egos and like you said, uh I don't know if, you know, I also like to think that most of the world, mostly people in the world, are well intentioned, but the way those intentions are realized may perhaps come off as uh as as negative, like what is there, is there a hopeful message here about creating a governance structure for Cryptocurrency that where everyone gets along [/INST] and after about four rounds of reshuffle, like I think we've actually come up with something that seems to be pretty stable and happy. Um I think uh I mean, I definitely do think that most people are well intentioned. I just think that like one of the reasons why I like decentralization is just because there's like this thing about power where power attracts people with egos and so that just allows us a very small percentage of people that just ruin so many things. </s><s>[INST] You think you go as a you think ego has a use like his ego always bad, it seems like [/INST] sometimes does, but then the theory research team, I feel like we've found uh some kind of a lot, a lot of very good people that are just and if primarily is just interested in things for the technology and uh things seem to just generally be going quite well. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, when you're when the focus and the passion is an attack, so on the so that's the human side of things, but the technology side, like what have you learned, what have been the biggest challenges of bringing a theory into life on the technology side? [/INST] So I think first of all just you know, there's like the first law of software development, which is that when someone gives you a timetable to which the unit of time to the next largest unit of time and had one and like we basically fell victim to that. Um and uh So instead of taking like three months and ended up taking like 20 months to watch the thing. Um and that was just I think underestimating this year, executable complexity over the thing. Um There are research challenges, like so for example, one of the things that we've been saying from the start that we would do one is a switch from proof of work to a proof of stake, more proof of stake is to this alternative consensus mechanism where instead of having to waste a lot of computing power on solving these mathematical puzzles that don't mean anything, you kind of proved that you have access to coins inside of the system and this uh that it gives you some level of participation in the consensus. </s><s>[INST] Can you maybe elaborate on that a little bit, I understand the idea of proof of work, uh I know that a lot of people say that the idea of proof of stake is really appealing. Can you maybe Lyn Gardner no longer explain what it is. [/INST] Sure. So basically the idea is like if I kind of lock up 100 coins, then I turned that into a kind of quote virtual minor and the system itself kind of automatically and randomly assigns that in a virtual minor has the right to create blocks at particular intervals and then if someone else has 200 coins and they lock unlock those 200 coins, then they get a kind of twice as big virtual minder, they'll be able to create blocks twice as often. So it tries to do similar things to proof of work except instead of the thing and a great limiting your participation being your ability to crank out solutions to kind of hash challenges the thing that really gets your participation is kind of how much coins here and of locking into this mechanism. </s>

<s>[INST] So what do the solvers give you? Do you start to memorize the optimal play for every single hand? [/INST] You try your best. So again, solvers are imperfect as well in terms of the way the humans uh utilize them, right? Because you can give solvers a certain number of inputs in terms of what you wanted to solve. But a solver can think on many, many levels. So for example, the way that a typical player would do a solve is to say, okay, what does the solver think is the best play here? That one third pot, that two thirds pot or about 1.5 times pot. Okay, you give it three parameters. It comes out with an output and it tells you what, what you should do with all the different hands, you know, you have however, that's a simplified version of what a solver would really do because the solver might decide that seven times the pot is best 10% of the pot, but but when you're putting in a solve, you can only put in, you know, specific parameters. So that's why frankly that's typically the number one third, two, third and 1.5 times pot is what people often do. So they say I have a vague idea of what a solver wants, but again, imperfect in terms of the implementation of it. Right? And memorizing all the variables like that King jack off suit with the king of diamonds is 13% to know, no human brain can do that. So what you do is you bucket it like you bucket it into say instead of 10,000 variables, you have 10 buckets and you say okay with these hands we do roughly this and we do roughly this and you try your best to, you know, stay within those lines. But again, what I love about live poker partly is that nobody will ever be able to master game theory, you know, mimic a solver </s><s>[INST] but you also have to incorporate your position where you are and obviously what cards you have, but also the size of your stack, how much money you have and also whether you have the ability or desire to buy in all those kinds of things, so you have to calculate all of that, right? So [/INST] the Yeah, so the solver will do that, right? And essentially you don't put your hand, </s><s>[INST] it [/INST] tells you you'll look at, you look at the grade and be like this is my hand and it tells you what it is, but it tells you what you what you would do with any hand gives you the full output </s><s>[INST] and that actually gives you a better idea because you're ultimately like you said playing a range of hands, not not the hand [/INST] and the solvers do things that are really interesting. You've seen Alphago, I would imagine brilliant film, right? I thought and I thought what was interesting is there was you know, accepted theory from all the top go players that this is what you do but the ai was doing things way different and they're like this has to be wrong, but really it wasn't. So for example a solver may say this right? You let's say you bet on the end and you bet a lot and a solver may say you should fold here with a pair of kings and a queen kicker, which is you know, a pair of kings but call with a pair of fours and an ace kicker. So it's essentially telling you that you should fold this hand, that is much better than this. So it begs the question why because what the solvers do is they use the information of your own cards to formulate all the possible hands your opponent can have. So if your opponent is. So basically if you had the king queen, you know, it may say um for lack of a better nerdy term, it blocks potential bluffing hands at your opponent can have. So let's say if your opponent will bluff with queen Jack, but you have a queen, so there are less combinations of queen jack, so it will find a better bluff catcher if you will. So that's what's really not intuitive to poker players, poker players usually think like this my hand is pretty good. So I got a call but that's not how a solver would think solver uses you know, common matrix and you know, you know </s><s>[INST] and sometimes it's tough to get the good, why answers you just did for why solver thinks something is better or maybe in poker it's a little bit easier, but in the case of go and chess it's not always obvious why because it's not gonna explain stuff to you. [/INST] But I think what's the, I think one of the best ways to learn poker is when you see a solver output and it tells you one of these things, try to figure out why why does this solver do this, why does it want you to call with this and fold this and try to think about it on a deeper and you go ah ha probably because this card that I have here, you know, changes the range of my opponents, you know, potential, </s><s>[INST] I'd like to give your opinion on on your relationship with solvers because for example, Magnus doesn't use them, his team uses them because he feels like he's going to rely on it too much and you can't use it when you're playing, what you really want is to build up an extremely strong intuition without the help of a solver, is there some aspect of that that rings true to you. [/INST] Absolutely, I totally can relate to what magazine saying first and foremost because when solvers was first introduced, I didn't come from that world, I didn't, I was so intimidated because I didn't know how to use it, I don't, I don't know how to do an input. So I had two guys, one guy is a data scientist and you know, and other guys like a poker savant if you will and they coached me and they did it, so today, if I was in a tough spot, you know, and I'm like, I don't know what would solve or do I will send them the hand and they'll run the solve for me and then sort of give me the parameters of of what to do when I was playing, you know, regularly using solvers with them, we were spending 6 to 8 hours a day going over all these solves. So intuitively I started to think and learn about what the solver would want, but I sort of understand where magnus is coming from and that you don't want to become a slave to the sim, as I say, right, there's one kid I know I joked with him, his name is Landon Tice and you know, he made a play that the sim, you know, would say this is a good play, but I'm like, it's a good play, you know, in a simulated world against the robot, it's not in practice against the human, right, you don't need to be doing that. So if you become a slave to the sim and always do what the sims says, you you're you're handcuffed to a certain degree. </s>

<s>[INST] obviously. So that that was was that the first time she articulated start articulated something that sounded like a philosophy of individualism. [/INST] I mean, the philosophy is there in we the living, right? Because at the end of the day, the woman is the hero with the living is this individual is stuck in soviet union. So she's struggling with these things. Uh so that the theme is there already it's not as fleshed out, it's not as articulated philosophically. And it's certainly then anthem, which is a dystopian novel where the this dystopia in the future has has uh there's no i everything is we And it's about one guy who breaks out of that. I don't want to give it away, but breaks out of that. So these themes are running and and then we have and and they've been published some of the early Iron Man stories that she was writing in preparation for writing her novel story she was writing when she first came to America. And you can see these same philosophical elements even in the male female relationships and the compassion and the you know, you in the conflict, you see them even in those early pieces and she's just developing them. It's same philosophically, She's developing her philosophy with her literature. And of course after the fountainhead, she starts on what turns out to be her magnus opus, which is atlas shrugged, uh which takes 12 years to publish by the time. Of course, she brings that out. Every publisher in New York wants to publish it because the fountainhead has been such a huge success. Um they don't quite understand it, they don't know what to do with ATlas shrugged, but they're eager to get it out there. And indeed it when it's published, it becomes an instant bestseller. And the thing about the particularly the Fountainhead and Atlas shrugged, but true of of even anthem and we're living. She is one of the only dead authors That sell more after they've died than when it was alive now, you know, that's true. Maybe music, we listened to more Beethoven when he was alive, but it's not true typically of novelists and yet here we are. Uh you know, uh was at 50, you know, 60 years after the 63 years after the publication of atlas shrugged. And it sells probably more today than it sold when it was a bestseller when it first came out </s><s>[INST] is true that it's like one of the most sold books in history. [/INST] No, okay. I've heard this kind of statement tom Clancy book comes out sells more than atlas shrugged or </s><s>[INST] red. [/INST] So it was very And I should say this, but it's the truth. I'll say it very unscientific study done by the Smithsonian Institute probably in the early 90s that basically surveyed ceos. And I asked them what was the most influential book on you and Alicia came out as # two, the second most influential book and Ceos in in the country. But there's so many flaws in the study. One was you want to guess what the number one book bible. The bible, but the bible was like, You know, so maybe they surveyed 100 people, I don't know what the exact numbers work. Let's say it's 100 people and 60 said the Bible and 10 said Atlas, shrug. And there were a bunch of books. </s><s>[INST] So, you know, [/INST] I don't that's again </s><s>[INST] the psychology discussion we're having [/INST] exactly well and it's it's one thing I've learned and maybe Covid has taught me and and uh no, but you know, there are very few people who know how to do statistics and almost nobody knows how to think probabilistic lee that is think in terms of probabilities that it is a skill. It's a hard skill and everybody thinks they know it's icy doctors thinking they're statisticians and giving whole analyses of the data on Covid and they don't have a clue what they're talking about. Not because there are good doctors, because not good statisticians, it's not, you know, people think that they have one skill and therefore it translates immediately into another skill and and it's just not true. Um </s><s>[INST] so [/INST] I've been astounded at how how bad people are at that. Mhm. </s><s>[INST] For people who haven't read any of the books that were just discussing, what would you recommend? What book would you recommend they read? And maybe also just elaborate what mindset should they enter the reading of that book with. [/INST] So, I would look into everybody read fountainhead and Atlas shrugged. And in </s><s>[INST] what that order. [/INST] So it would depend on where you are in life, right? </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] it depends on who you are and what you are. So found head is a more personal story. For many people, it's their favorite and for many people is their first book. And and they wouldn't replace that, Right? Um If ATlas shrugged is a it's about the world, it's about what impacts the world, how the world functions, how it's a bigger book in the sense of the scope if you that if you're interested in politics and you're interested in the world. Read Atlas shrugged first, if you're mainly focused on your life your career, what you want to do with yourself. Start with founded I still think you should read both because I think they are, I mean to me they were life altering and to many, many people, the life altering and you should go into reading them with an open mind I'd say. And with a put aside everything you've heard about Iron Man. Put aside any, even if it's true, just put it aside. Even what I just said about iron and put it aside, just read the book as a book and let it move you and let let let your thoughts let it shape how you think. Um and and it will have, you know, it either have you'll either have a response to it or you won't, but I think most people have a very strong response to it. And then the question is, do they, are they willing to respond to the philosophy? Are they willing to integrate the philosophy? They will need to think through the philosophy or not? Because I know a lot of people who completely disagree with the philosophical philosophical philosophy right here in Hollywood. Lots of people here in Hollywood love the fountain and interesting Oliver Stone who is I think a vowed Marxist, right? I think he, I think he's admitted to being a Marxist. He is his movies certainly reflect a Marxist theme um is a huge fan of the fountainhead and actually his dream project, he has said in public, his dream project is to make the fountain and now he would completely change it as movie directors do. And he's actually outlined what his script would look like and it would be a disaster for the ideas of the but he loves the story because to him the story is about artistic integrity. </s>

<s>[INST] right now in that that process, you know, with artificial neural networks, it's a very simple process back propagation that adjust the weights, the process of synaptic genesis genesis Chapter genesis it's even easier. It's even easier. [/INST] It's even easier. Back propagation requires something we uh it really can't happen in brains. This back propagation of this area. Signal that it really can't happen. People are trying to make it happen in brains. That doesn't happen. This is this is pure heavy and learning Well, it's not the genesis is pure heavy and learning. It's basically saying there's a population of cells over here that are active right now and there's a population of cells over here active right now, how do I form connections between those active cells And it's literally saying this guy became active, this these 100 neurons here became active before this neuron became active. So form connections to those ones. That's it. There's no propagation of error, nothing. All the networks, we do all models, we have work on almost completely on heavy and learning, but in in on dendritic segments and multiple synapses at the same time. </s><s>[INST] So now let's have turned the question that you already answered and maybe you can answer it again, if you look at the history of artificial intelligence, where do you think we stand? How far are we from solving intelligence? You said you were very optimistic. Can you elaborate on that? [/INST] Yeah. You know, it's always the crazy question to ask Because you know, no one can predict the future. So I'll tell you a story. I used to uh I used to run a different neuroscience institute called the redwood neuroscience to two and we would we would hold these symposiums and we got like 35 scientists around the world to come together. And I used to ask them all the same question, I would say well how long do you think it'll be before we we understand how the new york cortex works And everyone went around the room and they had introduced the name and they have to answer that question. So I got The typical answer was 50 200 years. Some people would say 500 years, some people said never. I said, what are you while you're a neuroscientist, it's good pay. Um it's interesting. Um so, you know, but it doesn't work like that, as I mentioned earlier, these are not, these are step functions, things happen and then bingo that happened. You can't predict that. Um I feel I've already passed that step function. So if I can do my job correctly over the next five years, um then meaning I can proselytize these ideas, I can convince other people that right? We can show that other people, uh machine learning people should pay attention to these ideas, then we're definitely in an under 20 year time frame, if I can do those things, if I if I'm not successful in that, and this is the last time anyone talks to me and no one reads our papers and you know, I'm wrong or something like that, then um then I don't know, But it's it's not 50 years, it's it, You know, it'll it'll, you know, the same thing about electric cars, how quickly are they going to populate the world? It's probably takes about a 20 year span. Um it'll be something like that, but I think if I can do what I said, we're starting it </s><s>[INST] and of course there could be other use of step functions, it could be, Everybody gives up on your ideas for 20 years and then all of a sudden somebody picks it up again, wait, that guy was onto [/INST] Something. So that would be that would be a failure on my part. Right. You know, think about Charles Babbage, you know, Charles Babbage. This guy has to have invented the computer back in 18 something, 1800s. Everyone forgot about it until, you know, 100 years later. Hey, this guy figured this stuff out a long time ago, you know, but he was ahead of his time, I don't think, you know, like, uh, as I said, uh, I recognize this is part of any entrepreneurs challenge and I use the entrepreneur broadly in this case, I'm not meaning like I'm building a business trying to sell something. I mean, I'm trying to sell ideas and this is the challenge as to how you get people to pay attention to you, How do you get them to give you positive or negative feedback? Um, how do you get people act differently based on your ideas? So, um, you know, we'll see how, what we do on them. </s><s>[INST] So, you know, that there's a lot of hype behind artificial intelligence currently, do you? Uh, as as you look to spread the ideas that are of no cortical theory, the things you're working on, Do you think there is some possibility will hit an Ai winter? Once again, [/INST] it's certainly it's certainly a possibility that I worry about. Yeah, well I guess do I worry about it. Um I haven't decided yet if that's good or bad for my mission. </s><s>[INST] That's true. That's very true because it's almost like you need the winter to refresh the palate. [/INST] Yeah. So it's like I want here's what you want to have. It is you want like to extend that. Everyone is so thrilled about the current state of machine learning and Ai and they don't imagine they need anything else that makes my job harder if if everything crashed completely and every student left the field and there was no money for anybody to do anything. And it became an embarrassment to talk about machine intelligence and Ai. That wouldn't be good for us either. You want you want sort of the soft landing approach, right? You want enough people in the senior people in AI and machine learning and say, you know, we need other approaches. We really need other approaches. But damn we need other approaches. Maybe we should look to the brain. Okay, let's look who's got some brain ideas. Okay, let's let's start a little project on the side here trying to do brain idea related stuff. That's the ideal outcome we would want. So I don't want a total winter and yet I don't want it to be sunny all the time </s>

<s>[INST] formal way? So, I think sometimes when you use the word formal, it kind of implies highly constrained And perhaps that's not, doesn't have to be highly constrained. So computational thinking does not mean like logic. It's a really, really broad thing. I wonder, I mean, I wonder if it's, if you think natural language will evolve such that everybody's doing computational thinking. [/INST] Ah, yes, well. So one question is whether there will be a pigeon of computational language and natural language. And I found myself sometimes, you know, talking to chat GPT, trying to get it to write Wolfman language code, and I write it in pigeon form. So that means I'm combining, you know, you know, NestList, this collection of whatever, you know, NestList is a term from Wolfman language. And I'm combining that and chat GPT does a decent job of understanding that pigeon, probably would understand a pigeon between English and French as well, of as a smooshing together of those languages. </s><s>[INST] But yes, I think that's far from impossible. And what's the incentive for young people that are like eight years old, nine, 10, that are starting to interact with chat GPT to learn the normal natural language, right? The full poetic language. What's the, why? The same way we learn emojis and shorthand when you're texting, they'll learn, like language will have a strong incentive to evolve into a maximally computational kind of language. [/INST] Perhaps, perhaps. You know, I had this experience a number of years ago. I happened to be visiting a person I know on the West Coast who's worked with a bunch of kids aged, I don't know, 10, 11 years old or something who'd learned Wolfram language really well. And these kids learned it so well, they were speaking it. And so show up and they're like saying, oh, you know, this thing, they're speaking this language. I'd never heard it as a spoken language. They were very disappointed that I couldn't understand it at the speed that they were speaking it. It's like kind of, it's, and so I think that's, I mean, I've actually thought quite a bit about how to turn computational language into a convenient spoken language. I haven't quite figured that out. All spoken, because it's readable, right? Yeah, it's readable as a way that we would read text. But if you actually want to speak it, and it's useful, you know, if you're trying to talk to somebody about writing a piece of code, it's useful to be able to say something and it should be possible. And I think it's very frustrating. It's one of those problems that, maybe this is one of these things where I should try and get an LLM to help me. </s><s>[INST] How do you know that? Make it speakable, how to... maybe it's easier than you realize when you watch it. [/INST] I think it is easier. I think it's one idea or so. I think it's going to be something where, you know, the fact is it's a tree structured language, just like human language is a tree structured language. And I think it's going to be one of these things where one of the requirements that I've had is that whatever the spoken version is, that dictation should be easy. That is, that shouldn't be the case that you have to relearn how the whole thing works. It should be the case that, you know, that open bracket is just a ah or something. And it's, you know, and then, but you know, human language has a lot of tricks that are, I mean, for example, human language has features that are sort of optimized, keep things within the bounds that our brains can easily deal with. Like I, you know, I tried to teach a transformer neural net to do parenthesis matching. It's pretty crummy at that. It, and in chatgbt is similarly quite crummy at parenthesis matching. You can do it for small parenthesis things, for the same size of parenthesis things, where if I look at it as a human, I can immediately say these are matched, these are not matched. But as soon as it gets big, as soon as it gets kind of to the point where sort of a deeper computation, it's hopeless. And, but the fact is that human language has avoided, for example, the deep sub clauses. You know, we don't, you know, we arrange things that we don't end up with these incredibly deep things, because brains are not well set up to deal with that. And it's found lots of tricks. And maybe that's what we have to do to make sort of a spoken version, a human speakable version. Because what we can do visually is a little different than what we can do in the very sequentialized way </s><s>[INST] that we hear things in the audio domain. Let me just ask you about MIT briefly. So there's now, there's a college of engineering and there's a new college of computing. It's just interesting. I want to linger on this computer science department thing. So MIT has EECS, electrical engineering computer science. What do you think college of computing will be doing? Like in 20 years? What, like? Yeah, what happens with computer science? [/INST] Like really. Yeah, what happens with computer science? Like really. This is the question. This is, you know, everybody should learn kind of whatever CX really is. Okay, this, how to think about the world computationally? Everybody should learn those concepts. And, you know, it's and some people will learn them quite formal level and they'll learn computational language and things like that. Other people will just learn, you know, sound is represented as digital data, and they'll get some idea of spectrograms and frequencies and things like this. And maybe that doesn't... Or they'll learn things like... A lot of things that are sort of data science-ish, statistics-ish, like if you say, oh, I've got these people who picked their favorite kind of candy or something, and I've got what's the best kind of candy, given that I've done the sample of all these people, and they all rank the candies in different ways. How do you think about that? That's sort of a computational X kind of thing. You might say, oh, it's... I don't know what that is. Is it statistics? Is it data science? I don't really know. But kind of how to think about a question like that. Or like a ranking of preferences. Yeah, and then how to aggregate those ranked preferences into an overall thing. How does that work? How should you think about that? Because you can just tell... You might just tell chatgbt, I don't know, even the concept of an average. It's not obvious that that's a concept that people... It's worth people knowing. That's a rather straightforward concept. People have learned in kind of mathy ways right now, but there are lots of things like that about how do you kind of have these ways to sort of organize and formalize the world. And these things, sometimes they live in math, sometimes they live in... I don't know what they... I don't know what... Learning about color space. I have no idea what... </s>

<s>[INST] So one of the challenges, of course, we don't know how to build either system currently or are we even close to knowing? Of course those things can change overnight, but at this time theorizing about it is very challenging uh, in either direction. So that's probably at the core of the problem is without that ability to reason about the real engineering things here at hand, is your imagination runs away with things. But let me sort of ask, what do you think was the motivation? The thought process of Ellen Mosko. I build autonomous vehicles. I study autonomous vehicles. I studied Tesla autopilot, I think it is one of the greatest currently application, large scale application of artificial intelligence in the world. It has a potentially a very positive impact on society. So how does a person who is creating this? Very good quote unquote narrow AI system also seem to be so concerned about this other general ai. What do you think is the motivation there? What do you think is to think? [/INST] Well, you probably have to ask him, but there and, and he is um notoriously flamboyant, uh, impulsive to the, as we have just seen to the detriment of his own goals of the health of a company. So, I I don't know what's going on on his mind, you probably have to ask him, but I don't think the and I don't think the distinction between special purpose AI and so called general I Ai is relevant that in the same way that special purpose AI is not going to do anything conceivable in order to attain a goal. All engineering systems have to are designed to trade off across multiple goals. When we build cars in the first place, we didn't forget to install brakes because the goal of a car is to go fast. It occurred to people. Yes, you want to go fast, but not always. So you build in breaks too. Likewise, if a car is going to be autonomous, that doesn't and program it to take the shortest route to the airport, it's not going to take the diagonal and mow down people and trees and fences because that's the shortest route. That's not what we mean by the shortest route when we program it. And that's just what uh, an intelligence system is. By definition it takes into account multiple constraints. The same is true, in fact even more true of so called general intelligence. That is if it's genuinely intelligent, it's not going to pursue some goal. Single mindedly omitting every other uh, consideration and collateral effect. That's not artificial general intelligence, that's that's artificial stupidity. Um, I agree with you by the way on the promise of autonomous vehicles for improving human welfare. I think it's spectacular. And I'm surprised at how little press coverage notes that in the United States alone, something like 40,000 people die every year on the highways vastly more than are killed by terrorists. And we spend, we spent a trillion dollars on a war to combat Deaths by terrorism, but half a dozen a year. Whereas every year and year out, 40,000 people are massacred on the highways, which could be brought down to very close to zero. Uh, so I'm with you on the humanitarian benefit. </s><s>[INST] Let me just mention that it's as a person who's building these cars. It is a little bit offensive to me to say that engineers would be clueless enough not to engineer safety into systems. I often stay up at night thinking about those 40,000 people that are dying and everything I try to engineer is to save those people's lives. So every new invention that I'm super excited about, every new, uh, uh, all the deep learning literature and CV pR conferences and nips everything I'm super excited about is all grounded in making it safe and help people. So I just don't see how that trajectory can all of a sudden slip into a situation where intelligence will be highly negative. [/INST] You and I, you and I certainly agree on that. And I think that's only the beginning of the potential humanitarian benefits of artificial intelligence. There's been enormous attention to what are we going to do with the people whose jobs are made obsolete by artificial intelligence. But very little attention given to the fact that the jobs are gonna be made obsolete? Are horrible jobs, the fact that people aren't going to be picking crops and making beds and driving trucks and mining coal. These are soul deadening jobs. And we have a whole literature sympathizing with the people stuck in these menial mind, deadening dangerous jobs. If we can eliminate them, this is a fantastic boon to humanity. Now, granted we you solve one problem and there's another one namely, how do we get these people a decent income? But if we're smart enough to invent machines that can make beds and put away dishes and handle hospital patients, I think were smart enough to figure out how to redistribute income to apportion, some of the vast economic savings to the human beings who will no longer be needed to make beds. </s>

<s>[INST] What are your thoughts about Sophia? The robot? This kind of mix of some basic natural language processing and basically an art experiment. [/INST] Yeah an art experiment is a good way to characterize it. I'm much less impressed with Sophia than I am with boston dynamics. </s><s>[INST] She said she likes you. She says she [/INST] admires you. She she followed me on twitter at some point. Yeah she tweets about </s><s>[INST] how much she likes you. So [/INST] so what does that mean? I have to be nice </s><s>[INST] or uh I was emotionally manipulating and uh no. How do you how do you think of the whole thing that happened with Sophia is quite a large number of people kind of immediately had a connection and thought that maybe were far more advanced with robotics than we are or actually didn't even think much. I was surprised how little people cared that they kind of assumed that well of course a I can do this. Yeah and then they if they assume that I felt they should be more impressed. [/INST] Well you know what I mean? Really overestimate where we are and so when something I don't even I don't even think Sophia was very impressive or is very impressive. I think she's kind of a puppet to be honest. But yeah, I think people have our little bit influenced by science fiction in pop culture to think that we should be further along than we are. </s><s>[INST] So what's your favorite robots and movies and fiction? [/INST] Wally </s><s>[INST] Wally. What do you like about Wally? The humor, the cuteness, the perception, control systems operating and Wally. That makes [/INST] it over </s><s>[INST] just in general. [/INST] The design of Wall E the robot. I think that animators figured out, you know, starting in like the 19 forties how to create characters that don't look um real but look like something that's even better than real that we really respond to and think is really cute. They figured out how to make them move and look in the right way. And while he is just such a great example of that </s><s>[INST] you think eyes. Big eyes or big something that's kind of fish. So it's always playing on some aspect of the human face right [/INST] often. Yeah. So big eyes. Well I think one of the, one of the first like animations to really play with this was Bambi and they weren't originally going to do that. They were originally trying to make the deer look as lifelike as possible. Like they brought deer into the studio and had a little zoo there so that the animators could work with them and then at some point they're like if we make really big eyes and a small nose and big cheeks kind of more like a baby face then? People like it even better than if it looks real. </s><s>[INST] Do you think the future of things like Alexa in the home has possibility to take advantage of that to build on that to create these systems that are better than real. That created close human connection. [/INST] I can pretty much guarantee you without having any knowledge that those companies are working on that on that design behind the scenes. Like </s><s>[INST] I totally disagree with [/INST] you really. So </s><s>[INST] that's what I'm interested in. I'd like to build such a company. I know a lot of those folks and they're afraid of that because you don't how do you make money off of it? [/INST] Well but even just like making Alexa look a little bit more interesting than just like a cylinder would do so much. </s><s>[INST] It's an interesting thought. But uh I don't think people are from amazon perspective of looking for that kind of connection. They want you to be addicted to the services provided by Alexa not to the device. So the device itself it's felt that you can lose a lot because if you create a connection and then it creates more opportunity for frustration for for negative stuff then it does for positive stuff is I think the way they think about it. [/INST] That's interesting. I agree that there is it's very difficult to get right and you have to get it exactly right Otherwise you wind up with Microsoft clip e </s><s>[INST] Okay, easy. Now, what's your problem with [/INST] clipping? You like clipping your friend? </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I just I just talked to that. We just had this argument. They Microsoft cto and they said he said he's not bringing clip e back. Um they're not bringing clipping back and that's very disappointing. I think it was clip he was the greatest assistance we've ever built. It was a horrible attempt of course, but it's the best we've ever done because it was in real attempt to have it like a actual personality. I mean it was obviously technology was way not there at the time. Being able to be a recommended system for assisting you in anything and typing in word or any kind of other applications. But still it was an attempt of personality that was legitimate. I thought was brave. [/INST] Yes. Yes. Okay. You've convinced me. I'll be slightly less hard on and </s><s>[INST] I know I have like an army of people behind me who also missed clippings. So [/INST] really, I want to meet these people who are these people, </s><s>[INST] it's the people who like to hate stuff when it's there and and miss it when it's [/INST] gone. Everyone, </s><s>[INST] everyone. Exactly. All right. Uh so Anke and Jimbo the two companies to amazing companies. Social robotics companies, they have recently been closed down? Why do you think it's so hard to create a personal robotics company. So making a business out of essentially something that people would anthropomorphize have a deep connection with? Why is that hard to make it work? Business case not there or what is it? [/INST] I think it's a number of different things. I don't think it's going to be this way forever. I think at this current point in time it takes so much work to build something that only barely meets people's like minimal expectations because of science fiction and pop culture giving people this idea that we should be further than we already are. Like when people think about a robot assistant in the home, they think about Rosie from the Jetsons or something like that and donkey and Jimbo did such a beautiful job with the design and getting that interaction just right. But I think people just wanted more, they wanted more functionality. I think you're also right that you know, the business case isn't really there because there hasn't been a killer application that's useful enough to get people to adopt the technology and great numbers. I think what we did see from the people who did get Jimbo is a lot of them became very emotionally attached to it, but that's not, I mean it's kind of like the palm pilot back in the day, most people are like, why do I need this. Why would I don't see how they would benefit from it until they have it or some other company comes in and makes it a little better. </s>

<s>[INST] uh and then uh every ai person who says who hears neural networks and and says like neural networks can learn everything. Like almost presuming that is kind of going to achieve general intelligence. The problem with all those Haters in the three communities is that they're looking one year ahead, Five years ahead. The hilarious thing about the quote unquote, ridiculous things that your mosque is saying is they have a pretty good shot at being true in 20 years. And so like when you just look at the, you know, uh when you look at the progression of these kinds of predictions, um, and sometimes first principles things and thinking can allow you to do that is you see that it's kind of obvious that things are going to progress this way. And if you just remove your prejudice, you hold about the particular battles of the current academic environment and just look at the big picture of the progression of the technology. You can usually uh you can usually see the world in the same kind of way. And so in that same way, looking at psychedelics, you can see like there is so many exciting possibilities here. If we fully engage in the research, same thing when you're a link, if we fully engaged, So we go from 1000 channels of communication of the brain to billions of channels of communication of the brain. And we figure out many of the details of how to do that safely with neurosurgery and so on, that the world would just change completely in the same kind of way that Ellen is, it's so ridiculous to hear and talk about uh symbiotic relationship between ai and uh the human brain, but it's like, [/INST] is it though, </s><s>[INST] Like it's is it because it's I can see in 50 years, that's going to be an obvious, like, everyone will have obviously have like, why are we typing stuff in the computer? Doesn't make any sense. That's stupid. People used to type on a keyboard with a mouse, what is [/INST] That? It seems pretty clear like we're gonna be there, like. And the only question is like, what's the time frame? Is that going to be 20 or 50 or 100? Like how could we not? </s><s>[INST] And and the thing that I guess upsets with Ellen and others uh is the timeline, he tends to do. I think a lot of people tend to do that kind of thing. I definitely do it, which is like, it will be done this year versus like it'll be done in 10 years. The timeline is a little bit too rushed. But from our leadership perspective and inspires the engineers to, uh, to do the best work of their life to really kinda believe because to do the impossible, you have to first believe it, which is a really important aspect of innovation. [/INST] And there's the delayed discounting aspect I talked about before. It's like saying, Oh, this is gonna be a thing 2050 years from now. It's like what motivates anybody. And even if you're fudging it or like wishful thinking a little bit or let's just say airing on one side of the probability distribution, Like there's value in saying like, yeah, like there's a chance we could get this done in a year and you know what, and if you set a goal for a year and you're not successful, Hey, you might get it done in three years. Whereas if you had aimed at 20 years, well you either would have never done it at all or you would have aimed at 20 years and they would have taken you 10. So there, the other thing I think about this, like in terms of his work and I guess we've seen with psychedelics is like, there's a lack of appreciation for like sort of the variability, you need a natural selection sort of extrapolating from biological, from evolution. Like, hey, maybe he's wrong about focusing only on the cameras and not these other things. Be empirically driven. It's like, yeah, you need to like when he's, you know, when you need to get the regulations, it's safe enough to get this thing on the road. Those are real questions and be empirically driven. And if he can meet the whatever standard is relevant, that's the standard and be driven by that. So don't let it affect your ethics. But if he's on the wrong path, how wonderful someone's exploring that wrong path, he's going to figure out it's a wrong path. And like other people, he's damn it, He's doing something like he's, you know, and, and appreciating that variability, you know, that like it's valuable even if he's not on it. I mean, this is all over the place in, in science. It's like a good theory. One standard definition is that it generates testable hypotheses and like the ultimate model is never going to be the same as reality. Some models are going to work better than others. Like, you know, Newtonian physics got us a long ways. Even if there was a better model, like waiting and some models weren't as good as, you know, we're never that successful. But just even like putting them out there and test it, we wouldn't know, something is a bad model until someone puts it out. Anyway, so </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, that's millions miles away besides physics. You also have poetry in your blood. So what has been your relationship to poetry? Music? What role did it play in your life? [/INST] Poetry a lot. But it is way later then then elementary school actually like music wise, you know, like all Teenagers, they're in love with music and it's just exactly the same now and 20 years ago and 30 years ago. Um, I would say at that time at that time we were all in love with one special group, which is beetles. Mm. And and what it was extremely later. It I wasn't 6th grade, 5th grade of the 60, 65, 66 and in soviet union beetles. They were forbidden. Believe me or not. It was absolutely strange but at the same time if something is forbidden, that's exactly what you laugh most. So I remember that for my big success in science, I was awarded. Who is going to the best of the best um, camps, pioneer camps, arctic in Crimea. And over there it was, it's international. So I met with, I lived together with a group people from friends because I was the only one kind of speaking fluently in french and uh, we just made trade. So we gave whatever we used to have and we got Beatles records. Beatles records. </s><s>[INST] That's the rebel and you're part of it. What about poetry? What when did you first I mean you've written a lot of culture. What poet? What maybe do you remember an early poem? You've written a bad one? [/INST] Good one. No, I started doing that late. So it was, I was in 7th grade I </s><s>[INST] think that's late writing poetry I thought [/INST] and writing poetry is a little bit related to when boys, they started looking at girls. It was a little bit different eyes. </s><s>[INST] We just love is somehow behind post even [/INST] not so much even love even just you know this imagination like uh, way far from reality is uh, it is romanticism. </s><s>[INST] Were you a serious poet or a funny pose because you have a lot of humor and with [/INST] that it's later. Yeah, but at that time I was extremely serious and extremely romantic which never ever after </s><s>[INST] that. But it's hard to imagine. [/INST] Yeah. But it is kind of a little bit like a childish romanticism or childish I mean you know that but but it was interesting enough that first poetry was actually almost immediately from my point. Very good. It's not like you know, you're doing something not good and then better and better and better. It's actually uh all the way opposite best stuff which I wrote. It was like 1/7 grade, well around more like eight and ninth grade. And I wrote a lot at that </s><s>[INST] time. Why do you think you were? So what does it mean? What does good poetry mean? That means it's not cheesy. It's beautifully worded and crafted and yes. And so where did that come from? Because most people, even great poets are terrible at first. So why why were you so clever quickly? Because most people know you as really clever? No, I mean Woodward's right. Very good words. So you're saying that was early on. You already had that. [/INST] Yes, I have no good answer. I just did. Comes from nowhere. Yeah, but my father insisted. Oh no, no, it was it was in circulation was it was actually to be honest. No, not so much connection. Uh but in Russian culture, romanticism? It is extremely important element. You know starting from 19th century romanticism. So just it was very popular. So either you are writing good poetry or bad poetry or you are an artist, you are like, you know, painting something. So, I have a lot of friends. They they were painting. </s><s>[INST] Do you remember a poetry? Do you remember a poem from that time that you've written by any chance? [/INST] Yeah, sure. I remember most of them by her. </s><s>[INST] Your mind, your mind reciting [/INST] uh, they're in the Russian, </s><s>[INST] Russian is good. As long as they're not in french [/INST] having french rolls. You want to me just to leave, </s><s>[INST] what do you think? What uh, what's comfortable? [/INST] You know, maybe I will read one poem, one poem which I like most from that period. And I'm not sure that I wrote something better after that. Well, it's a little bit cheesy. However, but not much. It's like a it's even not about girls, it's about music, </s><s>[INST] but still with a romantic, romanticized kind of with [/INST] very strong our medicine at was the result of me reading a book Para que Tenia que Tamara historia b china over capital Maestra. You're gonna chris laura. Actually, it's a story of a cat who found a book or like a notebook, but notebook. Mhm. Of people and he started reading about that and analyzing their life. So it's a life of people through the eyes of a very, very smart cat. So then I can read it in Russian. Right? I mean this poetry if you want, please, that would be great. Okay. Our abilities from Chrysler. Keep associated to Roswell? S koppel Mr. You gone Crazier budget plaque. It's the one you love us. Nobody has to be. This needs a french cafe global idea. And the woman noticed needs a little, I mean, the owner died in the mirror and cellist a pretty notice. Beattie snuck some keen only mirror share isn egret, what can you smoke? It's a real religion. Ou through the economic script coordinator. Don't, don't, I'm not sure. Ayala, paris smith, not Miriam. Senior it across the slush pile. See, Phyllis Gordon National Missouri chris lee. It was associated Roswell is koppel Mr again creates your bullet plaque. It's what? Leave us, </s><s>[INST] wow, that's good. [/INST] And it's like, uh, I would say that whatever I did later, it was, how </s>

<s>[INST] So stop thinking about biology for a second and let's start to think about optimization and computation. Uh a little bit more. So what about Geoff Hinton, what you've gotten a chance to work with him in that little the set of people involved there? It's quite incredible the small set of people under the P. D. P. Flag, it's just given the amount of impact those ideas have had over the years, It's kind of incredible to think about. But you know, just like you said like yourself, Geoffrey Hinton is seen as one of the, not just like a seminal figure in a I but it's just a brilliant person. Just a, like the horsepower of the mind is pretty high up there for him because he's just a great thinker. So what kind of ideas have you um learn from him? Have you influenced each other on, have you debated over what stands out to you in the in the full space of ideas here at the intersection of computation and cognition. [/INST] Well, so um Jeff has said many things to me that had a profound impact on my thinking. Um and he's written several articles which um we're way ahead of their time. Um He uh He had two papers in 1981 just to give one example. Uh one of which was essentially the idea of transformers, uh and another of which was a early paper on semantic cognition which inspired uh him and Rummelhardt and me uh throughout the 80s and um you know, still I think sort of grounds my own thinking about um the semantic aspects of cognition. Um he also In a small paper that was never published that he wrote in 1977, you know, before he actually arrived at UCS. D. or maybe a couple of years even before that, I don't know when he was a PhD student, he described how a neural network could do recursive computation. And um uh it was a very clever idea that he's continued to explore over time, which was sort of the idea that um when you when you call with subroutine, you need to save the state that you had when you called it, so you can get back to where you were, when you're finished with the subroutine. And the idea was that you would save the state of the calling routine by making fast changes to connection wade's and then when you finished with the subroutine, call those fast changes in the connection weights would allow you to go back to where you had been before and reinstate the previous context so that you could continue on with the that the top level of the computation anyway, that was part of the idea and I always thought, okay, that's really, you know, you just He had extremely creative ideas that were quite a lot ahead of his time and many of them in the 1970s and early early 1980s. Um so uh another thing about Jeff Hinton's way of thinking, which has profoundly influenced my um effort to understand human mathematical cognition is that he doesn't write too many equations and people tell stories like, oh, in in the hints and lab meetings, you don't get up at the board and write equations like you do and everybody else is machine learning lab, what you do is you draw a picture and and you know, he he explains aspects of the way deep learning works by putting his hands together and showing you the shape of a ravine and um using that as a geometrical metaphor for the what's happening as this gradient descent process, you're coming down the wall of a ravine. If you take too big a jump, you're going to jump to the other side. And um so that's why we have to turn down the learning rate. Uh for example, um and it speaks to me of the fundamentally intuitive character of uh deep insight together with a commitment to really understanding um in a way that's absolutely ultimately explicit and clear Uh but also intuitive </s><s>[INST] yeah, there's certain people like that, he's an example, some kind of weird mix of visual and intuitive and all those kinds of things. Five Men is another example, different style thinking, but very unique. And when you when you're around those people, for me in the engineering realm, uh there's a guy named Jim Keller who's a chip designer, engineer, he, every time I talk to him, it doesn't matter what we're talking about. Just having experienced that unique way of thinking transforms you, it makes your work much better. And that's that's the magic. Look at Daniel Kahneman, you look at the great collaborations throughout the history of science, that's the magic of that. It's not always the exact ideas that you talk about, but it's the process of generating those ideas being around that spending time with that human being, you can come up with some brilliant work, especially when it's cross disciplinary as it was a little bit in your case, Jeff. [/INST] Yeah, Jeff is uh a descendant of the logician boule, he comes from a long line of english academics and together with the um deeply intuitive thinking ability that he has, he also um has uh you know, it's been clear, he's described this to me. Um and I think he's mentioned it from time to time in other interviews with that he's had with people. Um you know, he's he's wanted to be able to sort of think of himself as contributing to the, to the understanding of reasoning itself, not just human reasoning like bull like is about logic, right? It's about what can we conclude from, what else? And how do we formalize that? And um as a computer scientist, uh logician philosopher, you know, um the goal is to understand how we derive truths from other from givens and things like this and the work that Jeff was doing in the Um early to mid 80s, um on something called the bolson machine was his way of connecting with that bullying tradition and bringing it into the more continuous probabilistic graded constraint satisfaction realm. Um and it was, it was beautiful uh a set of ideas linked with theoretical physics and um as well as with logic and um it's always been, I mean, I've always been inspired by the bolsa machine to its, it's like, well if the neurons are probabilistic rather than, you know, deterministic in their computations, then, you know, that maybe just somehow is part of the um serendipity or you know, advantage business of the moment of insight, right? It might not have occurred at that particular instant. It might be sort of partially the result of a stochastic process and uh and and that too is part of the magic of the emergence of some of these things. </s>

<s>[INST] Well, first of all, I think most people would agree your videos, your teaching, the way you see the world is fundamentally often new, Like you're creating something new? And it almost feels like research, even just like the visualizations, the multi dimensional visualization will talk about. I mean you're revealing something very interesting that uh yeah, just feels like research feels like sci fi, it feels like the cutting edge of the very thing of which like new ideas and new discoveries are made of. [/INST] I do think you're being a little bit more generous than is necessarily, and I promise that's not even false humility because I sometimes think when I research a video, I'll learn like 10 times as much as I need for the video itself and it ends up feeling kind of elementary. Um so I have a sense of just how far away, like the stuff that I cover is from the actual depth, </s><s>[INST] I think that's natural, but I think that could also be a mathematics thing. I feel like in the machine learning world you like two weeks and you feel like you've basically mastered field in mathematics, it's like [/INST] everything is either trivial or impossible and it's like a shockingly thin line between the two where you can find something that's totally Impenetrable and then after you get a feel for it's like, oh yeah, that whole that whole subject is actually trivial in some way. So maybe that's what goes on, every researcher is just on the other end of that hump and it feels like it's so far away, but one step actually gets them there. </s><s>[INST] What do you think about uh sort of vitamins teaching style or another perspective is abuse of visualization? [/INST] Well, his teaching style is interesting because people have described like the Feinman effect where while you're watching his lectures or while you're reading his lectures, everything makes such perfect sense. So as an entertainment session, it's wonderful because it gives you this, this intellectual satisfaction that you don't get from anywhere else that you finally understand it. But the fireman effect is that you can't really recall what it is that gave you that insight, you know, even a week later. And this is um this is true of a lot of books and a lot of lectures where the retention is never quite what we hope it is. Um so there is a risk that uh the stuff that I do also fits that same bill where at best it's giving this kind of intellectual candy on giving a glimpse of feeling like you understand something, but unless you do something active, like reinventing it yourself, like doing problems to solidify it. Um even things like space repetition memory to just make sure that you have like the building blocks of what do all the terms mean, unless you're doing something like that, it's not actually going to stick. So the very same thing that's so admirable about feynman's lectures, which is how damn satisfying they are to consume might actually also reveal a little bit of the flaw that we should as educators all look out for, which is that that does not correlate with long term learning, </s><s>[INST] we'll talk about it a little bit. I think what you've done some interactive stuff, I mean even in your videos, the awesome thing that fireman couldn't do at the time is you could sense it's programmed, you can like tinker like play with stuff, you can take this value and change it, you can like here, let's take the value of this variable and change it to build up an intuition to move along the surface or to change the shape of something. I think that's almost an equivalent of you're doing it yourself, It's not quite there, but as a viewer. Uh Yeah. Do you think there's some value in that interact development? [/INST] Yeah, Well, so what's interesting is you're saying that and the videos are non interactive in the sense that there's a play button and a pause button. Um and you could ask like, hey, while you're programming these things, why don't you program it into an interactive ble version that, you know, make it a jupiter notebook that people can play with, which I should do, and that would be better. I think the thing about interactives though is most people consuming them um just sort of consume what the author had in mind. Uh and that's kind of what they want, like I have a ton of friends who make interactive explanations and when you look into the analytics of how people use them. There's a small sliver that genuinely use it as a playground to have experiments and maybe that small sliver is actually who you're targeting and the rest don't matter. Um But most people consume it just as a piece of um like well constructed literature that maybe you tweak with the example a little bit to see what it's getting at. But in that way I do think like a video can get most of the benefits of the interactive like the interactive app as long as you make the interactive for yourself and you decide what the best narrative to spin is. Um As a more concrete example like my process with I made this video about S. I. R. Models for epidemics and it's like this agent based modeling thing where you tweak some things about how the epidemic spreads and you want to see how that affects its evolution. Um My format for making that was very different than others were. Rather than scripting it ahead of time. I just made the playground and then I played a bunch uh and then I saw what stories that were to tell within that um </s>

<s>[INST] well, you know, I think [/INST] a lot about it wolf </s><s>[INST] pack of one or small wolf pack as opposed to having like a new york talents behind you or a huge organizations with lawyers with a team with a history with [/INST] these people are less courageous. This is the, this is the dirty truth. The bigger the organization, the more conservative. A lot of them are, it's true that sometimes they like, and this is not to bash big organizations. I'm just saying this is an observation of someone who's talked to a lot of people and especially in the world of fraud, A lot of them are scared to engage in fraud that is obvious, but hasn't been litigated yet. This is why you'll never see documentaries about ongoing fraud on netflix, it's too much of a liability. they'll sue netflix to hell and they know that if they win netflix has the money to pay it. So corporations like the new york times, you know, a lot of these, some of them are very like they're as courageous as they can be, but at the bottom line, if someone sues you to hell and back and you have to pay up, you will disappear and you're relying on liability insurance, which you're already paying out the ask for to try to cover you if you get sued. But if you get sued, even if you win that liability insurance now goes up in price the next year. And if you're the new york times, it goes up by a lot. So I mean um I think there's work that independent journalists can do uniquely that they can actually take like in some ways more risk than a giant institution, which has a lot more in my sense to lose even though it would appear like they have more in terms of defense too, </s><s>[INST] but you get uh you can be bullied legally. [/INST] Yeah, </s><s>[INST] you get afraid of that. [/INST] Sure. I mean, I just uh all these things are things you have to be aware of and then forget to do your job. Like you have to be, you know, it's like, it's like being like a snowboarder and it's like, do you realize you could hit your head and it's like, yeah, of course. But in order to go do the like the flip or whatever, you have to just accept the risk, mitigate the risk as much as possible and move on. So we have um, we have like insurance, we keep like a pool of funds for that kind of thing. Like I'm, I'm very conservative with how I spend my money basically all on production and like trying to make my life as secure as I can and then I just do the work that I, you know, I, I want to do </s><s>[INST] because So 99% of your fund goes into the, in the studio, into the studio and then into into that elaborate space of yours. Um how many kittens had to die to manufacture that studio. But anyway, that's, that's my investigation for later. Um what what keeps you mentally strong through all of this? What's your source of mental like strength of your psychological strength through this? [/INST] Uh I think there was a time when I was getting a lot of cease and assists. Some people were like, actually like, like saying like they're gonna show up to my house, all that kind of stuff. I don't think I was that. Um I think I was pretty worried about that for a while. My wife was a huge source of strength here where she was like, hey, if you're not comfortable with it, you need to get out of the game or you need to basically like suck it up and like this is what it is. If you're gonna go after these people, you have to basically um be mentally strong around this. And seeing her have that realization helped me have the same realization and I really deeply admire and respect that about her and it solved a lot of my concerns around that. It's just, it just made me realize every profession has risks. It is what it is you mitigate and then you move on. </s><s>[INST] Why do you think there are so few journalists like you, you're, you're basically the embodiment at least in the space you operate of what great journalism should be. [/INST] Why </s><s>[INST] do you think there's very few like you [/INST] that's such an enormous compliment and probably overstatement, but um I first want to pay respect. There are a lot of great journalists and a lot of them are like, I don't want to just kind of take it and go, yeah, you know, it's just me, there's so many great journalists, Matt Levine Kelsey piper. Um you know, you've got anonymous journalists like dirty bubble, you've got citizen journalist like Tiffany Fong. </s><s>[INST] But [/INST] but I think if you're gonna be in the space in the long term, you do need to accept certain risks and I think in the long term it's like, I don't know how easy it is to play that game for a long period of time because you make to do great journalism, you don't get paid a lot compared to what you could get paid if you did press pieces or anything like that. You take a lot of risks legally. You take physical risks, you take. It's just like if you care about money, it's not the profession and I feel like a lot of people when they get notoriety, they move to like, well, I can just maximize the money security side of things. And I think it takes out a lot of would be great journalists. And </s>

<s>[INST] She is to design a system where, I mean, listen communism also was quote unquote incentivized to be a a feedback loop system that achieves that utopia. It just it wasn't working given human initially the incentives were not correct [/INST] given how do you uh incentivize people when they are getting colder off the ground to work as hard as possible because it's a terrible job and it's very bad for your health and right. How do you do this? And you can give them prices and metals and status to some degree, right? There's only so much status to give for that. And most people do not fall for this, right? Or you can pay them uh and you probably have to pay them an asymmetric way, because if you pay everybody the same and they uh you nationalize the coal mines, eventually, people will figure out that they can game the system. </s><s>[INST] So you're you're describing capitalism [/INST] capitalism is the president solution to the system. And what we also noticed that I think that Marx was correct in saying that capitalism is prone to crisis, that capitalism is a system that in its dynamics is not convergent by divergent, it's not a stable system and uh that eventually it produces an enormous uh potential for productivity, but it also is systematically miss allocating resources. So a lot of people cannot participate in the production and consumption anymore. Right? This is what we observe. We observed that the middle class in the U. S. Is tiny. It's a lot of people think that they're middle class, but if you are still flying economy, you're not middle class. Yeah. Right? Every class is a magnitude smaller than creative class and I classes is really like airline class. I a class, a lot of people our economy have. We really business class and very few are first class and some of it. </s><s>[INST] I mean some I understand. I think there's uh, yeah, maybe some people probably I would push back. Is that definition of the middle class? It does feel like the middle class is pretty large. But yes, there's a discrepancy in terms of wealth. [/INST] Um, so there's something about the terms of the productivity that our society could have. There is no reason for anybody to fly economy, right? We would be able to let everybody travel in style </s><s>[INST] well, but also some people like to be frugal even when they're billionaires. Okay, so like that, let's take [/INST] that into account. I mean we probably don't need to be traveling lavish, but you also don't need to be tortured. Right? There is a difference between frugal and uh, subjecting yourself to torture. </s><s>[INST] Listen, I love economy. [/INST] I don't understand why you're comparing why economy to </s><s>[INST] torture. I don't although the flight here, there's two crying babies next to me. So that, but that has nothing to do with the comment has to do with crying babies. They're very [/INST] cute though. So I kind of, I have two kids and sometimes I have to go back to visit the grandparents and back means going from the west coast to Germany and that's a long </s><s>[INST] flight. Is it true that, so when your father, you grow immune to the crying and all that kind of stuff. Like, you know, because like me just not having kids, it can be other people's kids can be quite annoying when they're crying and screaming and all that kind of stuff [/INST] when you have Children and you're wired up in the default natural way. You're lucky in this regard, you fall in love with them and this following the laugh is that means that you basically start to see the world through their eyes and you understand that in a given situation, they cannot do anything but um, being expressing despair. And so it becomes more differentiated. I noticed that for instance, my son is typically acting on pure experience of what things are like right now and it has to do this right now and you have this small child that is um, when he was a baby and so on. Where he was just immediately expressing what it felt. And if you cannot regulate this from the outside, but there's no point to be upset about it, right? It's like dealing with better or something like this, You all have to get through it and it's not easy for him either. But uh, if you also have a daughter, maybe she is planning for that, maybe she understands that, you know, she's sitting in the car behind you and she's screaming at the top of her lungs and you're almost doing an accident. You really don't know what to do, what should I have done was to make you stop screaming. You could have given me candy. I </s><s>[INST] think that's like a cat versus dog discussion. I love it because you said that like a fundamental aspect of that is love that makes it all like worth it. What in this monkey riding an elephant in a dream world? What role does love play in the human condition? [/INST] I think that love is the facilitator of non transactional interaction and you are observing your own purposes. Some of these purposes go beyond your ego. They go beyond the particular organism that you are and your local interests. That's </s><s>[INST] what you mean by non transactional. [/INST] Yes. So basically when you are acting and transactional way, it means that you are expecting something in return for you from the one that you're interacting with right? You are interacting with a random stranger. You buy something from them on ebay. You expect a fair value for the money that you sent them and vice versa. Because you don't know that person, you don't have any kind of relationship to them. But when you know this person a little bit better and you know the situation that they're in, you understand what they try to achieve in their life and you approve because you realize that they are in some sense serving the same human sacredness as you are and they need to think that you have maybe you give it to them as a present. </s>

<s>[INST] Like I had a couple tears in my eyes, I was like, this is so- But could you just pause on that? So he goes by MZ? MZ, yep. How incredible is that? It's, I think it's, you often don't realize the importance of individuals in human history. Like they define, because this could be, we were talking about the importance of Elon in particular. Most of the work is done by large groups of people that are collective intelligence that we band together. But like these individuals can be the spark of the catalyst of that progress. And I mean, just this idea of getting, not just civilians, which is already incredible, but civilians with a sort of an artistic flame that burns inside them, they're able to communicate. Whatever they do, are able to communicate something about that experience. And it's just a genius idea to spend quite probably a very large amount of money for that. [/INST] I mean, it's, and that will be part of history. Whatever they do, large amount. Yeah, and it's easy these days for people to be cynical, especially about like space flight and wealthy individuals. But really, in my opinion, and maybe just the time I was just so, couldn't believe this idea. I'm someone that has studied a lot about the Apollo program and the people that have been to the moon and they're incredible individuals. Incredible individuals, but they're so saturated with tasks and they're military trained and often that they didn't really have the luxury of just being able to soak in the experience of going around or to the moon and seeing the moon up close with your own eyes. that just psychologically has to be insane. And so to have this opportunity to be able to observe our closest celestial neighbor with your own eyes and your sole purpose is to soak it in and share it and communicate and create with the rest of our planet, </s><s>[INST] like that to me is just beautiful. [/INST] So that is the objective of the mission. </s><s>[INST] That right there is the objective of the mission. And how does it feel to be selected [/INST] as one of the nine to do it? It's a gradient. It's slowly, it's doing a few things. Since I've known it's become, I think the closer it gets, the more excited and the more nervous I get. The more real it becomes. The more real it becomes. The announcement was a big, it just got announced at the end of 2022 publicly, who's involved. And so prior to that, I had each step of the selection process, there's a pretty comprehensive selection process with interviews and stuff. Each step I'd try not to get my hopes up. And frankly, let me be clear, this was not something that I've always wanted to do. It's not like I'm out there, I didn't start doing YouTube videos because I wanted to even go to space, none of that. And I've said, hilariously, I've probably said dozens or hundreds of times on air, yeah, I don't ever want to go to space. Because it's not a driving force. It's not really a thing I even really, truly pictured or let myself fantasize about, frankly. So each step of the selection process, I didn't really let myself dream about it too much or it would kind of chip away. Like, oh my God, this is actually becoming more real. It's actually more and more of an opportunity. And I get equally more nervous too. Like, frankly, I've seen space flight stuff go wrong. I've think about this stuff a lot. So like, yeah, I get more nervous, but I also get more excited about that opportunity. Like, it's an opportunity that how can you pass? And it's still, I still have to actually stop, pause, think and actually realize the reality that like, that I am going to the moon. I'm going to see the moon up close, flying around the moon, I'm sorry. Some people get mad when I say going to the moon since I'm not landing on it. But flying around the moon, seeing the far side of the moon with my own eyes and seeing the earth rise behind it, yeah. It's going to, I just, I can't tell you what it's going to be like and feel like. So epic. But it's insane to me that we're having this conversation, that that is my reality, you know? And that someone was generous enough to consider the option of sharing this with, frankly, strangers. And the process that they had for selecting how much thought and time went into the selection process is incredible. </s><s>[INST] They did a public call at the beginning of 2021. [/INST] It's a, I just, I can't, I can't tell you what. And so the team's involved in whittling it down from a million applicants. There's a million applicants that whittled it. And they got it down to eight crew members and two backups. Amazing people. I would have, you know, I don't know how they wound up, where they did, but it's incredible. I feel a very deep connection to everyone </s><s>[INST] that's already involved in. What can you say about the crew? You've gotten a chance to meet them and talk to them, and Steve Aoki's on the crew. Like, well, who else is there? So you are obviously the star athlete. [/INST] Who else, in terms of the artists that are there? So, oh man, we might just want to pull up, just so I don't totally butcher and forget anybody, but because so far I haven't actually had the chance to meet everyone in person. You know, so far a lot of this was done during the pandemic, but we've met through a couple of different things. We've had a couple of different times to get together. But so, so far I've not met Steve Aoki yet or Top. We've been on calls and stuff. I also have not yet met Dev Joshi, who is an actor from India. So yeah, we can get Steve, Steve Aoki, American DJ and producer and musician. Top from South Korea is also a musician and a producer. </s>

<s>[INST] 8% of it. His actual physical money The other 92% of money only exists digitally. So again, if you get cash app from the app store, google play and use the collects podcast, You get $10 and cash up will also donate $10 to first an organization that is helping to advance robotics and stem education for young people around the world. This show sponsored by master class, Sign up at masterclass dot com slash legs to get a discount and to support this podcast, when I first heard about master class, I thought it was too good to be true for $180 a year, you get an all access pass to watch courses from there was some of my favorites chris Hadfield on space exploration. Neither Grasse Tyson and scientific thinking and communication will wright creator some city and sims and game design, Carlos, Santana on guitar, Europa is probably one of the most beautiful guitar instrumentals ever. Garry Kasparov in chess, Daniel Negreanu on poker and many more chris Hadfield explaining how rockets work and the experience of being launched into space alone is worth the money. You can watch it and basically any device once again sign up a masterclass dot com slash lex to get a discount and to support this podcast and now here's my conversation with bob langer, you have a bit of a love for magic. Do you see a connection between magic and science? [/INST] I do, I think magic can surprise you and you know, and I think science can surprise you and there's something magical about about science. I mean making discoveries and things like that. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] So on the on the on the magic side is there some kind of engineering scientific process to the tricks themselves? Do you see? Because there's a duality to it. one is you're the you're you're sort of the person inside and knows how the whole thing works, how the universe of the magic trick works. And then from the outside Observer which is kind of the role of the scientists, you the people that observe the magic trick don't know at least initially anything that's going on to see that kind of duality. [/INST] Well, I think the duality that I see is fascination. You know? I think of it you know when I watch magic myself, I'm always fascinated by it. Sometimes it's a puzzle to think I was done. But just the the sheer fact that something that you never thought could happen does happen. And I think about that in science to you know, sometimes you it's something that that you might dream about and helping to discover maybe you do or in some way or form </s><s>[INST] what is the most amazing magic trick you've ever seen. [/INST] Well there's one I like which is called the invisible pack and the way it works as you have this pack and you hold it up. Well first you say to somebody, this is invisible and the stick and you say, well shuffle it and they shuffle it. But you know, they sort of make believe and then you say okay, I'd like you to pick a card any card and show it to me and you show it to me. And I look at it and let's say it's the three of hearts. And I said, well put it back in the deck. But what I'd like you to do is turn it upside down from every other card in the deck. So they do that imaginary. And I said, you want to shuffle it again And they shuffle it. And I said, well, so there's still one card upside down from every other card in the deck. I said, what is that? And I said, well, three hearts. So it just so happens in my backpack and I have this deck and you know, it's a real deck. I show it to you and I just open it up and there's just one card upside down and it's the three hearts. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] And uh and you can do this trick. [/INST] I can, I I I don't, I would have probably brought it. </s><s>[INST] All right, well, beautiful. Let's get into the, Into the science as of today you have over 295,000 citation an H index of 2 69 you're one of the most cited people in history and the most cited engineering history and yet nothing great I think has ever achieved without failure. So the interesting part what rejected papers, ideas, efforts in your life or most painful or had the biggest impact on your life? [/INST] Well, it's interesting. I mean I've had plenty of rejection to you know, but I suppose one way I think about this is that when I first started and they certainly had an impact both ways. You know, I first started we made two big discoveries and they were kind of interrelated. I mean one was I was trying to isolate with my post doctoral advisor Judah Folkman substances that could stop blood vessels from growing and nobody done that before. And so that was part a let's say a part B is we had to develop a way to study that. And what was critical to study that was to have a way to slowly release those substances for you no more than a day. I you know, maybe months and that had never been done before either. So we published the first one we sent to Nature the journal and they rejected it And then we send it, we revised it. Was sent it to science and they accepted it and the other the opposite happened. We sent it to science and they rejected it and then we sent it to Nature and they accepted it. But I have to tell you when we got the rejections, It was really upsetting. I thought, you know, I've done some really good work. And dr Folkman thought we'd done some really good work, and and but it was very depressing to, you know, get rejected like that </s>

<s>[INST] a few days ahead, [/INST] a few days ahead. I went over there was it happened that frank Parmenter who is a very, very sharp, he's a, he was a student at the time working on optimization was he was still in lab ah frank. We need to make this quadratic programming solver faster. Not like a little faster, it's actually, you know, um, and we wrote a new solver for that QP together that night </s><s>[INST] and you solved So there's a really hard optimization problem that you're constantly solving. You didn't make the optimization problem simpler, You're only solver. [/INST] So um, I mean your observation is almost spot on. What we did was what everybody, I mean, people know how to do this, but we had not yet done this idea of warm starting. So we are solving a big optimization problem at every time step, but if you're running fast enough, the optimization problem you're solving on the last time step, it's pretty similar to the optimization, you're going to solve the next. We of course had told our commercial solver to use Warm starting but even the interface to that commercial solver was causing us these delays. So what we did was we basically wrote, we called it fast QP at the time um we wrote a very lightweight, very fast layer which would basically check if nearby solutions to the quadratic program where which were very easily checked uh could stabilize the robot and if they couldn't we would fall back to the solver. </s><s>[INST] You couldn't really test this well. Right. [/INST] Um or I mean so we always knew that if we fell back to if we got to the point where if for some reason things slowed down and we fell back to the original silver, the robot would actually literally fall down. Um So it was it was a harrowing sort of edge were large, we're sort of on but I mean I actually like the £400 human, I could come crashing to the ground if you if you if you're solvers not fast enough, but you know that we have lots </s><s>[INST] of good experiences. Like uh can I ask you a weird question. I I get it about the idea of hard work. So um actually people like students of yours that I've interacted with and just in robotics people in general but they they have moments at moments of work harder than uh most people I know in terms of if you look at different disciplines of how hard people work but they're also like the happiest, like just like I don't know um it's the same thing with like running people that push themselves to the limit. They also seem to be like the most like full of life somehow. Uh and I get often criticized like you know you're not getting enough sleep, what are you doing to your body, blah blah blah like this kind of stuff and I usually just kind of respond like I'm doing what I love, I'm passionate about, I love it, I feel like it's uh it's invigorating. I actually think, I don't think the lack of sleep is what hurts you. I think what hurts you is uh stress and lack of doing things that you're passionate about. But in this world. Yeah I mean can you comment about uh why the heck robotics people are earth uh willing to push themselves to that degree? Is there value in that and why are they so happy? [/INST] I think I think you got it right. I mean I think the causality is not that we work hard and I think other disciplines work very hard to but I don't think it's that we work hard and therefore we are happy. I think we found something that we're truly passionate about it makes us very happy and then we get a little involved with it and spend a lot of time on it. Um What a luxury to have something that you want to spend all your time on. Right, </s><s>[INST] we could talk about this for many hours, but maybe if we could pick, is there something on the technical side on the approach you took? That's interesting. That turned out to be a terrible failure or a success that you carry into your work today about all the different ideas that were involved in um making, whether in the in the simulation or in the in the real world, making the semi autonomous system work. [/INST] I mean, it really did teach me something fundamental about what it's going to take to get robustness out of a system of this complexity. I would say the DARPA challenge really was foundational in my thinking. I think the autonomous driving community thinks about this, I think lots of people thinking about safety critical systems that might have machine learning in the loop are thinking about these questions for me, the DARPA challenge was the moment where I realized, you know, we've spent every waking minute running this robot and again for the physical competition days before the competition, we saw the robot fall down in a way, it had never fallen down before. I thought, you know, how could we have found that? You know, we only have one robot, it's running almost all the time. We just didn't have enough hours in the day to test that robot, something has to change. Right? And I think that, I mean I would say that the team that won uh was was from Kaist was the team that had two robots and was able to do not only incredible engineering just absolutely operate engineering, but also they were able to test at a rate and um discipline that we didn't keep up with. </s>

<s>[INST] Okay, so interesting. So that that limited participation doesn't require you to run a lot of compute uh does that mean that the richer you are so rich people um are more like their identities more [/INST] right. And </s><s>[INST] this stable, [/INST] Yeah, verifiable </s><s>[INST] or whatever, whatever the right terminology is. [/INST] Right. And this is definitely a copied critique. I think my usual answer to this is that like proof of work is even more of that kind of system is Exactly yeah because </s><s>[INST] I I didn't mean it in that statement is a criticism. I think you're exactly right. That's equivalent that proof of work is the same kind of thing. But in the before Q. Have to also use physical resources. [/INST] Yes. And burn computers and burn trees and all of that stuff. </s><s>[INST] Is there a way to mess with the system of the proof of proof of stake? [/INST] There is but you'll once again need to have a very large portion of all the coins that are locked in the system to do anything bad. Got it. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. And just that maybe take a small change in one of the criticisms of Cryptocurrency is the fact that I guess for the proof of work mechanism have to use so much energy in the world is one of the motivations of proof of stake is to move away from this. Like what's your sense of the uh maybe I'm just under informed. Is there like legitimately environmental impact from this. [/INST] Yeah. So the latest thing was that Bitcoin consumed as much energy as the country of Austria or something like that. And then ethereum is like right now maybe only like half an order of magnitude smaller than Bitcoin. </s><s>[INST] I've heard you talk about a theory into. So what's the What's the dream of a theorem two. So what's the the status of proof of stake because the mechanism that a theory moves forwards and also how do you move to a different mechanism of consensus with within the Cryptocurrency? [/INST] So ethereum 2.0 is a collection of major upgrades that we've wanted to do to ethereum for quite some time. The two big ones, one is a proof of stake and the other is called charting. Um, charting solves another problem with block chains, which is a scalability and what Chardin does is it basically says instead of every participant in the network having to personally download and verify every transaction. Every participant in the network only downwards and verifies a small portion of transactions and you kind of randomly distribute who gets how much work. Um and because of how the distribution is random, it still has the property that you need a large portion of the entire network to corrupt what's going on inside of any shard but the system is still at a very redundant and very secure. </s><s>[INST] That's brilliant. How hard is that to implement and how hard is proof of stake to implement? Like on a technical level, software level, [/INST] proof of stake and charting are both challenging. Might say charting is a bit more challenging. The reason is that proof of stake is kind of just a change to the cow, the consensus lawyer works, charting does both that but it's also a change to the networking layer. Um the reason is that charting is kind of pointless if at the networking layer, you still do what you do today, which is your kind of gossip everything. Which means that if someone publishes something every other note and the client hears it from on the networking layer. And so instead we have to have a sub networks and the ability to quickly switch between sub networks and other sub networks talk to each other. This is all doable, but it's a yeah, more complex architecture and it's definitely the sort of thing that has not yet been done in Cryptocurrency. </s><s>[INST] So most, most of the networking layer and uh Cryptocurrency is you're shouting, you're like broadcast messages and this is more like at hawk networks [/INST] like you're shouting within smaller groups, </s><s>[INST] smaller group. But do you have like a bunch of subjects like exactly, you have to switch between. Oh man, I'd love to see the uh it's a beautiful idea uh from a graph theoretic perspective, but just the software that who's responsible is the theorem project, like the people involved, would they be implementing like, what's the actual, you know, this is like legit software engineering, uh who like how does that work? How do people collaborate build that kind of project? Is this like almost like is there a soft engineering lead? Is there? It's like is a legit almost like large scale open source project. There [/INST] is, Yeah. So we have someone named Danny Ryan on our team who has just been brilliant and great all around and he is a kind of de facto kind of development coordinator, I guess it's like you have to invent job titles for this stuff. And the reason is that like we also have this unique kind of organizational structure where they fear and foundation itself and it does research in the house, but then the actual implementation is done by independent teams that are separate companies and they're located all around the world and like fun places like Australia um and so you know, you kind of just need a bunch of and almost nonstop cat hurting to just keep getting these people to kind of talk to each other and kind of implement this back, make sure that everyone agrees on kind of what's going on and kind of how to interpret different things. </s><s>[INST] So how far into the future are we from these two mechanisms and ethereum 2.0 like what's what's your sense at the time line? Keeping in mind the previous comment you made about the sort of general curse of software projects. [/INST] So Ethereum 2.0, is split into three phases. So phase zero just creates a proof of stake network and it's actually separate from kind of proof of uh the proof of work network at the beginning, just to kind of give it time to grow and improve itself. </s>

<s>[INST] and things that are out of my control again. In your public, you made a couple of videos about it. I have a brain tumor, my brain tumor is back. You kind of, you name your tumor, Brian, you kind of make it a lighthearted thing, but so you don't reveal much of the darkness, but were you scared or some low points? [/INST] Yeah, of course I was, of course I was scared. I mean, it's terrifying. It's like, and also when it's in your brain, like, you know, I was like, take any other part of me, but don't take my brain. No, it's this unfathomable thing that happens. And you're like, I'm healthy. How can this possibly be a brain tumor? Like my eye is swollen. Like there's nothing there. I haven't had any seizures. I haven't had any cognitive issues. I haven't had any headaches even. Like how is that even possible? So you go through a lot of different stages of just trying to understand what it is. And I think I remember being hit like right as I found out when we were in like an Uber, poor Uber driver from where I had my MRI scan to the ER where they sent me. And I was really both really grateful that I've gotten so much more out of life than I ever thought I would. Like I've had a hell of a life. And even if it would have ended really early, I would have done so much more than I ever thought. But I was also really, really sad that I hadn't had kids yet. Like that was my big grief of like, fuck, I haven't had time to have kids yet. But no it's terrifying. I mean, the prospect of somebody cutting up your head. Like that's terrifying, but it honestly wasn't as bad </s><s>[INST] as I thought it was gonna be. What about the radiation treatment? What are some things that people should, you learned about it, about the process and about yourself through that, [/INST] that people might be interested about? I think surgery was both harder and easier than radiation treatment because it was harder because it was so much more intense and it's such a dramatic thing, like going to the hospital that morning and being like, I don't know, and you feel so awful when you wake up. But then the recovery from it was pretty linear. Like almost every week I would get a little bit better. The thing about radiation is that it was not linear at all and it kind of drained me in this weird, like it was so hard to predict. And also they put me on these, I spent months feeling like I was high out of my mind and I couldn't process reality in a way that I normally would, like everything just felt off. Like I felt, yeah, I felt like I was high on drugs and I kept on asking my doctors what was going on and they're like, no, I don't know, don't think it's anything related. And I was on this Alzheimer's medicine that they put you on to prevent dementia from radiation treatment, like kind of as a preventative. And I found all these subreddits of people using that Alzheimer's medicine to get high. And people be like, oh my God, bro, I was like 20 milligrams yesterday and I was high out of my mind. And I'm like, man, I'm on 30 milligrams a day. Like of course it feels weird. And that was honestly one of the scariest parts of it because that was the first time where I felt like it genuinely affected my way of processing reality. And yeah, I was so relieved when I found out that that was what was causing it because I felt like I was going crazy. But even after surgery, like I woke up and I felt like myself, like everything was, I got no brain injury. So obviously this is like my experience from somebody who came out of it pretty unscathed, who didn't get any brain injuries and didn't have to do any of that recovery. It's more just the recovery from like the physical act of somebody cutting your skull open </s><s>[INST] and taking a large chunk out. Did you research all the things that can go wrong? [/INST] No. Brain surgery? No. I honestly, I'm a bit surprised by how I acted. It's pausing for you to pour. You're welcome, editors. </s><s>[INST] Still got commercials, still got commercials. [/INST] Yeah, this is like work injury from being a YouTuber. It's all like freeze if there's audio that comes in. Ah, yeah, sponsored by Capwater. I was surprised by how little I was willing to think critically about what my doctors told me to do. Like I very early on, the neurologist that I worked with, he was the one who was on call at the ER the day where I came in. And he was the one who ended up doing my surgery and he kind of became like my rock in this. And I just 100% trusted him. And he turned out to be an amazing doctor and like did a great job and was just like, I got so, so lucky. But I remember my mom being like, oh, but we should like talk about second opinions and like we should try to do more research. And I was like so unwilling to do that because opening up to the idea that there are multiple ways or multiple things that might be right or wrong was so terrifying. Like I wanted there to just be like, no, this is the only option. This is what we need to do. And if I started questioning that, then I don't know if I would have been able to go through with it. So yeah, it was a strange, I just really wanted to trust the doctors that I worked with. </s>

<s>[INST] What do you think about like MIT open courseware and the release of lectures by universities? [/INST] I think it's good. I think it's good. I think the that is what started the mook I did was using that platform. </s><s>[INST] You ultimately think like the Udacity models is a little bit more effective than just a plain two hour lecture. [/INST] I think there's definitely, you can bring in good pedagogy into online learning. And I think the idea of putting things online so that people all over the world can access them, it's great. I don't think the initial excitement around moocs sort of democratizing education and make it more equal, um, came about because they found that the people taking moocs tended to be the more privileged people. So that was, I think there's still something to be found in that there's still more to be done to help that online learning reach those principles. But um, definitely, I think it's, it's a good invention and I have an online class, that's for kids that's little free </s><s>[INST] class, that gives the topic, [/INST] it's called How to learn maths. Um, it shows maths is this visual, creative subject and it shares mind certain some brain science and um, kids, you take it do better in math class. We've studied it with like randomized controlled trials and Given it to middle school kids and other middle school kids who don't take it, but are taught by the same teachers. So their teachers are the same and the kids who take the online class end up 68% more engaged in their mouths class and do better at the end of the year. So That's a little succession, 15 minute class and it changes kids, maths relationship. So it is true that we can do that with some words that aren't, you know, it's not a huge change to the education system. </s><s>[INST] Do you have advice for young people? We've been talking about mathematics quite a bit, but in terms of their journey through education through their career choices through life, maybe middle school, high school undergrad students how to live a life they can be proud of. [/INST] I think if I were to give advice to people, especially young people, my advice would be to always, it sounds really corny, but always believe in yourself and know that you can achieve because although that sounds like obvious, of course we want kids to know that they can achieve things. I know that millions of kids are in the school system have been given the message. They cannot do things and adults too. They have the idea, oh, I did ok in this, I went into this job because those other things I could never have done okay in, so actually when they hear, hey, maybe you could do those other things, even adults think, you know, maybe I can and they go back and they encounter this knowledge and they re learn things and they change careers and amazing things happen. So, for me, I think that message is really important. You can learn anything. Scientists try and find a limit. They're always trying to find a limit like how much can you really learn? What's the limit to how much you can learn and they always come away not being able to find it. People can just go further and further and further and that is true of people born with brain um you know, areas of their brain that aren't functioning well that have what we call special needs, some of those people also go on to develop and do amazing things. So I think that really experiencing that, knowing that feeling, not just saying it, but knowing it deeply you can learn anything is um um something I wish more people would have </s><s>[INST] actually also applies when you've achieved some of of success to what I find like in my life with people that love me. When you achieve success, they keep celebrating your success and they want you to keep doing the thing that you were successful at, as opposed to believing in that you can do the something else something, but whatever your heart says to do. And one of the things that I realized the value of this uh you know quite recently was just had to say is how important it is to seek out when you're younger to seek out mentors to seek out the people like surround yourself with people that will believe in you, it's like a little bit is on you, it's like you don't get that. Um sometimes if you go to Grad school, you think you kind of land on a mentor, maybe you pick a mentor based on the topic they're interested in. But the reality is the people you surround yourself with, they're going to define your life trajectory. So select people are really [/INST] true and get away from people who don't believe don't you? </s><s>[INST] Sometimes parents can be that loves you deeply, but they be, you know, they set it's the math thing we mentioned, they might set certain constraints on the beliefs that you have. And so in that if you're interested in mathematics, your parents are not that interested in. Don't listen to your parents on that one dimension. [/INST] Exactly, yeah. And if people tell you you can't do things, you have to hear from other people who who believe, you know, I think you're absolutely right about that. So sad. The number of people who have had those negative messages from parents in my limitless Mind book, I interviewed quite a few people have been told they couldn't do math. Sometimes my parents sometimes by teachers and fortunately they had got other ideas at some point in their life and realized there was this whole world of mathematical thinking that was open to them. So it's really important that people do connect with people who believe in them. However hard that might be to find those people. </s>

<s>[INST] him. Well it's such an important thing man, especially for a first principles thinker because he made a decision that driver monitoring is not the right way to go and I could see that decision and I could even make that decision like I was on the fence to like I'm not driver monitoring is such an obvious simple solution to the problem of attention. It's not obvious to me that just by putting a camera there, you solve things, you have to create an incredible, compelling experience. Just like you're, you're talking about and I don't know if it's easy to do that, it's not at all easy to do. In fact, I think so, as a creator of a car that's trying to create a product that people love, which is what Tesla tries to do, right. It's not obvious to me that uh, you know, as a design decision, whether adding a camera is a good idea from a safety perspective either. Like in the human factors community, everybody says that like you should obviously have driver sensing driver monitoring, but like that that's like saying it's obvious as parents, you shouldn't let your kids go out at night, but okay, but like they're still going to find ways to do drugs. Like, yeah, you have to also be good parents, like it's much more complicated than just like you need to have driver [/INST] monitoring. I totally disagree on, okay, if you have a camera there and the cameras watching the person, but never throws an alert, they'll never think about it, right? The driver monitoring policy that you choose to how you choose to communicate with the user. And it's entirely separate from the data collection perspective. Right? So, you know, like there's one thing to say, like, you know, tell your teenager they can't do something. There's another thing too, like, you know, gather the </s><s>[INST] data so you can make informed decision. That's really interesting. But you have to make that that's the interesting thing about cars, but even true with comedy, I like you don't have to manufacture the thing into the car is you have to make a decision that anticipates the right strategy long term so that you have to start collecting the data and start making decisions, started it started [/INST] it three years ago. I believe that we have the best driver monitor exclusion in the world. Um, I think that when you compare it to super cruise is the only other one that I really know that shift and ours is better. </s><s>[INST] What what do you like and not like about super cruise? [/INST] Um, I mean I had a few super cruise uh, the sun would be shining through the window, would blind the camera and it would say I wasn't paying attention and I was looking completely straight. I couldn't reset the attention with a steering wheel touch and super cruise would disengage. Like I was communicating with the car. I'm like look I am here, I am paying attention. Why are you really going to force me to disengage? And it did. Um so it's a constant conversation with the user and yeah there's no way to ship a system like this if you can O. T. A. We're shipping a new one every month. Sometimes we we balance it with our users on discord. Like sometimes we make the driver monitoring a little more aggressive and people complain. Sometimes they don't, you know, we wanted to be as aggressive as possible where people don't complain. It doesn't feel intrusive. </s><s>[INST] So being able to update the system over the heirs and the central component that's probably to me, you mentioned, I mean to me that is the biggest innovation of Tesla that it made people realize that over the air updates is essential. Yeah. [/INST] I mean, was that not obvious from the iPhone? The iPhone was the first real product that Ot eight, I think. </s><s>[INST] What's it actually? That's brilliant. You're right. I [/INST] mean the game consoles used to not write the game consoles. And maybe the second thing that did </s><s>[INST] well, I didn't really think about one of the amazing features of a smartphone isn't just like the touch screen isn't the thing. It's the ability to constantly update. Yeah, it gets better. It gets better. [/INST] I Love My House 14. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Uh, well one thing that I probably disagree with you on, on driver monitoring as you said that it's easy. I mean, you intend to say stuff is easy. I'm sure. Uh, I guess you said it's easy relative to the external perception problem that. Mm hmm. Can you elaborate why you think it's easy. [/INST] Feature engineering works for driver monitoring feature engineering does not work for the external. </s><s>[INST] So human faces are not human faces and the movement of human faces and head and body is not as variable as the external environment. [/INST] Yes. And there's another big difference as well. Um, your reliability of a driver monitoring system doesn't actually need to be that hot. The uncertainty if you have something that's detecting whether the humans paying attention, it only works 92% of the time you're still getting almost all the benefit of that because the human, like you're training the human right? You're you're you're dealing with a system that's really helping you out. It's a conversation. It's not like the external thing where guess what if you swerve into a tree, you swerve into a tree, right? Like you get no margin for error there. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I think that's really well put, I think that's the right exactly. The place where where comparing to the external perception, the control problem. Driver monitoring is easier because you don't, the bar for success is much lower. Yeah. But I I still think like the human face is more complicated actually than the external environment, but for driving you don't give a damn. [/INST] I don't need I don't need something, I don't need something that complicated to to to have to communicate. The idea to the human that I want to communicate, which is IO system might mess up here. You gotta pay attention. Yeah. </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah. That's an interesting psychology, which reminds me, I need to explore that because I've noticed that, believe it or not, it's easy for me to believe, but there's people watching this right now who really hate me. And they're watching because they hate me. They hate the way I look, the way I speak, the mumbling, all of that, and they're still watching. And I'd like to say that as I nervously try to explain myself, I like to say that that's not a productive way. I get it. I understand. There's a kind of, because I, what is it? Is it the same psychological effect when you see a car crash and you keep staring? It's some kind of thing that pulls you in. Totally. But I feel like it's that feeling, this is probably slightly different, but you kind of want to, you want to maybe feel something and there's an anger in you already, frustrations from day-to-day life, life is hard, and you just want to channel that anger towards something. But I just, [/INST] the internet really makes that easy for some reason. Yeah. And it makes sense of your life. That's the problem. For people whose lives are chaos, hating you and blaming you </s><s>[INST] gives order to their lives. Yeah. If it makes you happy, please continue. It seems to bother you though, doesn't it? Yeah. Hate of any kind, not towards me, just the people. Because I think about them and I tend to think that most people are amazing human beings and that have a capacity to do great things in this world. And so I just think that's not a productive way of being. Like psychologically, for anything whatsoever, everybody has quirks that you can hate. But you just focus on the really positive stuff and you celebrate that stuff and that feels good. That has a momentum to it. I guess the hate has a momentum to it, too. And that's what I'm trying to highlight. If you follow the momentum of hate, that's going to maybe feel good in the short term, but it's not, it's going to fuck you over more and more in your life. And you have to be cognizant of that as you [/INST] interact with each other. I agree with everything you said, but, I think, people who do things that </s><s>[INST] are influential and serious, there always are some people who hate them. I suppose that, but But I want to show the difference between philosophical disagreement that borders on hate and like what's called like hate watching, where you just, which is what I would say TDS is, which is you're almost enjoying how much you hate this person, you're just sitting in their hate and you forgot, you lose all reason, you lose everything, your capacity to think as an individual, to empathize with others, you lose all of that. You're in this muck of hate and somehow it helps you make sense of this particular difficult moment in your life, but otherwise it just seems like a shitty way to live. [/INST] But disagreement, definitely, I like disagreement. But I guess what I'm saying is, and I think this is your message too, right, is that don't let the fact that people don't like you or even that some people hate you stop you from doing the right thing. Think about how you can perhaps trigger them less, but don't stop what you're doing. I see too many, and this is why I bring this up, too many of my students, too many young, very talented people who are afraid to take risks because they're afraid that someone will hate them. </s><s>[INST] And that can't get in your way. The reality is most people, or there'll always be at least one person that will have your back and that will support you and just focus on them. As long as you're doing the right thing, focus on them for the strength. But in general, I'm exaggerating here because most of the time, 99% of people are supportive on the internet. It's just that something about the human psychology [/INST] really stands out to you when somebody criticizes. Well, it's easy on the internet. This is historically different from where we were before in a society. It's very easy now to say hurtful things to people and not have to even deal with them looking at you in the face. One of the things that encourages politeness is the fact that we're looking at one another. And we are naturally programmed not to want the other person to react to us in certain ways. But when we don't see their face, </s><s>[INST] it's very easy to say all kinds of things. Let me actually comment on that point. A lot of people on the internet that say that I don't push back on points or criticize people or ask the hard questions enough, first of all, oftentimes I disagree with that assessment. But also, I don't think you guys realize how hard that is to do when you're sitting with a person. I don't care about access, I don't care about them being famous, just on a basic human level. It's really hard to ask a hard question from a place of empathy. [/INST] Except when I'm sitting here, </s>

<s>[INST] where you're called to do something else, so. What did it feel like to be a Muslim in a situation like that? Was there, were you a human being? [/INST] Were you a religious practitioner? I don't see, I can't separate anything about myself in that situation, right? So when I had to pray, I had to pray to help people out, to give people words of comfort, to try to appeal to the senses of whoever I could at the time. I didn't see myself as like a guy trying to, trying to show a particular part of Islam in there. I just saw myself as someone that was trying to help a family get their husband and father back, right? And so it was more of just like that part of me was there. You know, you can kind of see yourself, right? And this is the irony of it. When Christchurch New Zealand happened, that was kind of our worst nightmare as Texas Muslims because we've had armed groups in front of our mosques threatening to do what that man did in Christchurch. And so when you see a wife and kids wondering if they're gonna get their dad back, you kind of see yourself there. And so I just saw myself in that situation. What would I want people to be doing for me in that moment? What would I want people to be telling my family in that moment? So that's really where I went to. And that's really where I dug into. And I prayed a lot that day. A lot, a lot for the right words, </s><s>[INST] for the right actions, what I could do to just help. What are the lessons now a year later [/INST] that you take away from that day and the days? So many lessons just, don't be indifferent. Don't be indifferent to the suffering around you or even that's distant from you because it's somehow related to you. </s><s>[INST] So just don't be indifferent. So you're proud that you stepped up and you went there [/INST] and then- Yeah. Look, I don't think I did much. I'm being really honest. This is not me trying to be humble here. I don't think I did much. I think I did what I was called to do. I wish that it never happened, right, as a whole. but I'm glad that the relationships that have been built over time came into being in that day. When we could call upon people that we knew call upon each other and as a community really come together. Dallas has been through a lot of pain, but we've come together through a lot of pain as well. So it's kind of one of those things where we're united in our pain. When you suffer together, you build certain bonds together. So Dallas has been through a lot as a community, but we've come together through a lot as a community. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, the thing about violence and war, it destroys, it caused so much suffering, but it also sort of brings out some of the best aspects of human nature and unites people. So it's an interesting way [/INST] how our human civilization functions. Well, that's the beauty that you don't just want to see, but you also want to be. You know, we're living in a climate where there's a lot of that, right? So how do you actually get through that and actually not allow yourself to succumb to that </s><s>[INST] and be another voice in that polarization? It seems that throughout history and still in the world today, religion has been a source of some of the, of a lot of polarization, a lot of conflict, even war. [/INST] Why do you think that is? Listen, I think at the essence of it is always some sort of political instability that leaves behind a brutalized population and vulnerabilities that can be exploited. As I said, in the 20th century, with the bloodiest century that we've had to date, where does religion fall on any of that? Where does religion fall on the Ixoms? Where does religion fall in the world wars? Where does religion fall? And in much of that, even when we talk about things like the Crusades, remove the Islamic framing, the Crusades. The Crusades, were they really about religion? The Mongols and the destruction of the Mongols. Was it about religion? Myanmar and the Rohingya today, is it about Buddhism? So I think that these are essentially political issues, political causes where you have people that rise up and that use religion to disguise things that are far, far, far from religion. And if you want to manipulate a religious scripture, you could turn any book, any scripture, into a violent scripture if you have a violent aim. So I think that that's where you find people manipulating versus manipulating religion to justify sick ideologies </s><s>[INST] that are based and thrive in political instability. So these are fundamentally political, [/INST] geopolitical conflicts, not religious conflicts. Absolutely, look, when you talk about a group like ISIS, Islam has been in Iraq for a very, very long time. Iraq has been bombed by now five consecutive presidents or four, it's been bombed into the stone ages. There is no political infrastructure. It's devastation and destruction and desperation as a result of that. Many of the old Saddam loyalists and Saddam's regime was a secularist regime, are now heads of ISIS, right? It just moved into that. When you create that type of chaos, you generate an environment where groups like ISIS are bound to rise out of. And so Islam did not cause this. People didn't wake up in Iraq one day and say, hey, let's create a group called ISIS because Islam tells us to, right? Iraq was bombed into this place. And we have to, not just free religion from the responsibility, from having to bear the responsibility of much of the hatred and violence, but we have to interrogate the political instability that was caused where we justified as Americans, these are taxpayer dollars, where we justified with what was done in Iraq. Do we even know what was done in Iraq and Afghanistan? These drones that drop using our tax dollars under Democratic and Republican regimes and kill thousands of innocent people in weddings in Yemen and Somalia. Are these justified? And when you think about dehumanization, can the average American name a single victim of the Iraq war? Is there a picture that comes to your mind? Is there a person? Absolutely not, because that's the dehumanization. Now, I often talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his progression as a faith leader in America, as a political leader in America. Dr. King was deeply unpopular when he took his stand on Vietnam. And he mentions how first he had to see Vietnam through the lens of the soldiers because many of the soldiers that were lost, American soldiers, right? And that was a crime that they were sent to fight a war that they should not have been sent to fight. And there was an injustice that was done towards them. He said, but things really changed when he started to see it from the other side of the bullet, when he started to see the world through Vietnam, through the Vietnamese child. And that's where he resorted to breaking the silence. That's where he changed his tune. Because we dehumanize our victims so much that they're not even relevant to our discourse until they become able villains to our story. And then now they're attacking us because they hate us. Now they're blowing us up because they hate us. Their religion tells them to do this to us. What have we allowed to be done to them using our tax dollars in our name, right? So I think that we have to interrogate the political chaos that was caused, not just free religion from the groups that were created, but what was done to those countries and what continues to be done in many of these places. </s>

<s>[INST] Is there an escape from this tragedy in the future that you see? If you zoom out across a scale of decades, will we see, I hesitate to say peace, but a significant decrease in human suffering in this part of the region? [/INST] I certainly hope so. And I think, you know, my interest in Bitcoin comes from, came from a place of desperation with the situation there. Traditional politics is a dead end. I don't see what I can be doing to make things better there using traditional politics. And I think a good friend of mine, Pierre Rochard, you may know him on Twitter, one of the brightest minds in Bitcoin, in my opinion. He told me his theory is that Bitcoin is going to bring peace to the Middle East because land is a shit coin and land is a shit coin. I love it. I love it. And I think he's got a very good point there that this fixation with land and the bitterness of with which people have to the land is likely to decline when people are going to have a form of property that they can keep. And so hopefully that will help in one way. And of course, the more obvious way is that this is a conflict of governments and it's a conflict that is financed by fiat from day one, you know, the entirely insane notion that you could build a national and ethnic homeland. And of course, you know, this is the early 20th century. So the idea behind Zionism is coming from the same place where all these other ethnic nationalisms of Europe were emerging. You know, we saw how well how horribly these worked out. But the idea that you could, you know, it's one thing to say we want to build a homeland for Germans in Germany. It's one thing to say we want to build the homelands for Germans somewhere else. And that was, that was Palestine that was Zionism. And that was only possible thanks to Fiat thanks to the ability of the British government and all these other governments to continue to finance this colonialist effort over time. And you know, it continues to finance war, and we see war all over the world to continue to escalate because the people who make the decision to escalate are not the ones who are paying for it and they're not the ones who are fighting, they are the ones who sit in offices, and in the case of the Middle East, the conflict. It's people who live abroad, you know? It's people who are abroad who are not part of it who just are emotionally charged to it because they watch it on TV. So you have billions of Muslims around the world and Jews around the world who feel extremely emotionally attached to it. They're not the ones fighting. They're not the ones paying their own money. They're just getting governments to send money and to send weapons and to take part. And it's fun as a spectator sport for most of these people because they don't get to live in it. But I got to live in it. I saw it. I grew up there. I saw the settlement expansion. And recently, a few weeks ago, I went back to Ramallah and it's just, it's amazing every time you go, the settlements are just growing in an astonishing way. Like it's not just housing units that are going up. It's an entire attempt to basically suffocate Palestinian areas and force Palestinians to leave or keep them living in horrific conditions. </s><s>[INST] And if I may, just because I have family in Ukraine, I have family in Russia since this war, echoes of similar things are happening in that part of the world too. And I shudder to think about the decades to come of the hate that is brewing, the suffering that is brewing based on decisions and pressures and from not always people directly impacted by this. So again, it feels like that military conflict is not just the creation of people on the ground. It's the creation of leaders, power centers. And perhaps, again, I'm not smart enough, but even the monetary system probably has a role to play. [/INST] I absolutely think it does. Monetary system is what allows people to just continue to treat war as a spectator sport. That's really what it comes down to. And it starts with World War I and it's continued. And this is why really, I think I've said this before, I've tweeted this before and it was a pretty popular tweet, but it also got a lot of people to dismiss the idea with mockery, of course. But I really think Bitcoin is the only technology that's going to end World War I. Once World War I started, we got into this endless conflict that's been ongoing since then. If you look at all the world's conflicts today, pretty much they all trace back to World War I. And it's because when that Pandora's box of government control of money was opened, there was no longer a real restraint on war except complete defeat and complete destruction and complete death. The war had to be total. Before that, under the gold standard, kings would send professional armies to fight each other in battlefields. And as soon as it became clear that one side was establishing an advantage, the fighting would stop and the king would settle, would agree to new terms. Because it was extremely expensive to build a professional army and you ran out of money. So it was always the smartest thing to do is to just stop fighting whenever you could. And wars would take place. The countries would fight each other in the battlefield. But in the cities, life went on as normal. And people within the same cities, within the cities of the two countries would be trading with one another. Life would go on, but the war would be there. And it was just an independent part of politics. All right, we have a problem over this piece of land. Let's take it outside. We don't fight in the civilian areas. We go to the battlefield, we fight with professional armies. And in fact, sometimes the conflicts would be, the armies would line up and they would just have a small contingent of the two armies fight with one another. And as soon as one of them establishes an advantage, then all right, well, you won, let's move on with it. Governments were far, far, far more careful about their monetary policy and their, sorry, their war policy when they couldn't print their money. And that has changed with fiat. And that has allowed this new emergence of this class of what I like to call chicken hawks, of people who sit in office like the entire foreign policy establishment in Washington, DC. People who have never fought a war, whose children will never fight a war, who will never pay to fight a war, who will never suffer a broken window in their house because of war. Sitting there and based on these fucking moronic garbage that they teach at moronic fiat universities about politics and geopolitics, making decisions about, we need to invade that country and we need to send war there. And they can do that because they have this endless money printer. And that's why back under gold, if you were a warrior, you wed then actually joined the war. And the people who pontificated about war were the people who had experienced with war, the people who were sending their own children to war, the people who were fighting with their own money. Now you have all these fat parasitics come sitting in Washington D.C. deciding, and Washington's just an example, but all over the world this exists, people who have never fought who never carry the consequences are going to devalue the world's money in order to go and have other people's children fight each other because of stupid garbage they learned about politics and university. </s>

<s>[INST] When you talk about look ahead uh for deep stack or when they brought us, does it mean considering every possibility that the game can involve, Are we talking about extremely sort of like this exponentially growth of a tree? [/INST] Yes, so we're talking about exactly that much like you do in Alfa beta search or want to crawl research but with different techniques, so there's a different search algorithm and then we have to deal with the leaves differently. So if you think about what liberators did, we didn't have to worry about this because we only did it at the end of the game. So we would always terminate into a real situation and we would know what to pay out is it didn't do this depth limited local heads. But now in this new paper which is called depth limited, I think it's called depth limited search for imperfect information games, we can actually do sound depth limited, look ahead. So we can actually start to do with the local head from the beginning of the game on because that's too complicated to do for this whole long game. So in liberals we were just doing it for the end. </s><s>[INST] So and then the other side, the belief distribution. So is it explicitly modeled what kind of beliefs that the opponent might have? [/INST] Yeah, yeah, it is explicitly modeled but it's not assumed the beliefs are actually output, not input. Of course the starting beliefs are input, but they just fall from the rules of the game because we know that the dealer deals uniformly from the deck. So I know that every pair of cards that you might have is equally likely. I know that for a fact that just follows from the rules of the game of course, except the two cards that I have, I know you don't have those uh you have to take that into account. That's called card removal. And that's very important is </s><s>[INST] the dealing always coming from a single deck and heads up so you can assume [/INST] single deck that so it's hard for a mobile, you know that if I have the ace of spades, I know you don't have an ace of space. </s><s>[INST] So in the beginning, your belief is basically the fact that it's a fair dealing of hands. But how do you adjust start to adjust that [/INST] belief? Well, that's where this beauty of game theory comes. So nash equilibrium, which John Nash, introduced in 1950 introduces what rational play is when you have more than one player. And these are pairs of strategies where strategies are contingency plans, one for each player uh so that neither player wants to deviate a different strategy given that the other doesn't deviate, but as a side effect, you get the beliefs from base role. So nash equilibrium really isn't just deriving in this imperfect information games nash equilibrium, It doesn't just define strategies. It also defines beliefs for both of us. And the refines beliefs for each state. So at each state each if they call information sets at each information set in the game, there's a set of different states that we might be in. But I don't know which one we're in. Nash equilibrium tells me exactly what is the probability distribution over those real world states in my mind. </s><s>[INST] How does nationally give you that distribution? So while [/INST] I'll do a simple example, so you know the game rock paper scissors. So we we can draw it as player one moves first and then player two moves. But of course It's important that player two doesn't know what player one moved otherwise, players who would win every time. So we can draw that as an information set where player one makes one of three moves first and then there's an information set for player two. So player two doesn't know which of those notes the world is seen. But once we know the strategy for player one, nash equilibrium will say that you play one third rock, one third paper, one third caesar's from that. I can derive my beliefs on the information. Said that they're one third one third, one third, </s><s>[INST] there's a base gives you that gives you but is that specific to a particular player? Or is it uh is that something you quickly update with? [/INST] The game theory isn't really player specific? So that's also why we don't need any data, We don't need any history how these particular humans played in the past or how any ai or human had played before. It's all about rationality. So we just think the idea just thinks about what would a rational opponent do and what would I do if I were I am rational and what that's that's the idea of game theory. So it's really a data free opponent free </s><s>[INST] approach. So it comes from the design of the game as opposed to the design of the player. [/INST] Exactly. There's no opponent modeling per se. Okay, I mean we've done some work on combining opponent modeling with game theory. So you can exploit weak players even more. But that's another strand. And in liberators who didn't turn that on because I decided that these players are too good. And when you start to exploit an opponent, you typically open yourself self up to exploitation. And these guys have so few holes to exploit. And the world's leading experts in counter exploitation. So I decided that we're not gonna attend that stuff on </s><s>[INST] actually, I saw a few papers and exploiting opponents. It sounds very interesting to uh explore. Uh Do you think there's room for exploitation. Generally outside of Lebron does is their subject uh or people differences. That could be exploited maybe not just in poker, but in general interactions negotiations. All these other domains that you're considering? [/INST] Yeah, definitely. we've done some work on that and I really like the work that hybridize is the two. So you figure out what would a rational opponent to and by the way that's safe in the zero sum games, two player zero sum games. Because if the opponent does something irrational. Yes, it might show throw off my beliefs, but the amount of the player can gain by throwing off my belief is always less than they lose by playing poorly. So so it's safe. But still if somebody's weak as a player you might want to play differently to exploit them more so that you can think about it this way a game theoretic strategy is unbeatable but it doesn't maximally beat other opponents. So the winnings per hand might be better with a different strategy. And the hybrid is that you start from a game theoretic approach. And then as you gain data from about the opponent in certain parts of the game three, that in those parts of the game three, you start to tweet your strategy more and more towards exploitation While still staying fairly close to the game 30 strategy. So as to not open yourself up to exploitation too much. </s>

<s>[INST] it, no limitations. That kind of superpower if you choose to see it that way. Is there since you speak both languages, is there something that's lost in translation to you? Is there something you can express an italian that you can't in english and vice versa? Maybe is there something you can say to the musicality of the language? I mean from, I've been totally a few times and I'm not sure if it's the actual words, but the people are certainly very um, there's body language to, there's just the whole being is language. So I don't know if you miss some of that when you're speaking english in this country. Yes, [/INST] in fact actually I certainly I'm I miss it and somehow it was a sacrifice that I made consciously by the time and I I knew that this guy was not going to express myself a better level and uh and it was also sacrifice because given to you have also your mother tongue is Russian. So you know that you can be very expressive in your mother tongue and not very expressive and there's a new tongue, new language and then what people think of you in the new language because when the precise of expression of things, it generates no issues, you know, elegance or it shows you know knowledge or it shows as a census or it shows as a cast or education, whatever it is. So all of a sudden I found myself on the bottom Yeah, so I had to fight all my way up back up. But I think I got that suppressing very limitations are actually our strength in fact is a trick to limit yourself to exceed. Right? And you know, there are examples in history if you think about and all Hernan Cortez right, goes to invade Mexico. He has what A few 100 people with him And he has 100,000 people in arms on the other side. First thing he does, he limits himself, he sinks his own ship. There is no return. Okay, let pointy actually manager that's really, </s><s>[INST] I actually, first of all that's inspiring to me. I feel like I have quite a few limitations, but more practically on the Russian side, I'm going to try to do a couple of really big and really tough interviews in Russian. Once Covid lifts a little bit um traveling to Russia and I'll keep your advice in mind that the limitations as a kind of superpower, we should use it to our advantage because you do feel less like you're not able to convey your wisdom [/INST] in </s><s>[INST] The Russian language because I moved here, I was 13. So you don't, you know, the parts of life you live under a certain language are the parts of life you're able to communicate. You know, I became I became a thoughtful, deeply thoughtful human in english, but the pain from World War Two, this the music of the people that was instilled with me in Russian, so I can carry both of those and there's limitations in both. I can't say philosophically profound stuff in Russian, but I can in english express like that melancholy feeling of like the people and so combining those two. [/INST] I'll somehow he said thanks for sharing this is great. Yes, I told to strong understand you. Yes, </s><s>[INST] you've accomplished some incredible things in the space of science in the space of uh technology, space of theory and engineering. Do you have advice for somebody young and undergraduate student, Somebody in high school or anyone who just [/INST] feels young </s><s>[INST] about life or about career, about making their way in this world. [/INST] So I was tailing before, but I believe in the motion and my thing is to be true to your on emotion and that I think that if you do that, you're doing well because it's a life well spent and you are going never tired because you want to solve all this emotional north of that always intrigued you from the beginning. And I really believe of it, you know, to to live live meaningfully creatively and you had to leave your emotional life. So I really believe that whether you're a scientist or an artist even more but a scientist, I think of them as that as well if you are a human being. So you are really to live fully your emotions and to extend the possible sometimes emotions can be overbearing and man devices try to express them with more and more confident. Sometimes it's hard but that you are going to be much more fulfilled than by suppressing them. </s><s>[INST] What about love? One of the big ones, What role does that play? [/INST] It's a bigger part of emotions. It's a scary thing, right? Is a is a lot of vulnerability that comes up with a love. But there is also so much, you know, energy and power and and I love in all senses and in the traditional sense, but also in the sense of a broader sense for for humanity, this feeling of personal compassion with makes us one with other people and the suffering of other people. I mean all of this is uh is a very scary stuff, but it's really the </s><s>[INST] fabric of life or the yeah, the sad thing is it really hurts to lose [/INST] it. Yes. That's why the vulnerability that comes with </s><s>[INST] it. That's the thing about emotion is stop and down and the down seems to come always with up. Uh but the apple only comes with the down. So uh let me ask you about the ultimate down which is uh unfortunately we humans are mortal or appear to be for the most part. Do you think about your own mortality? Do you do you fear death? [/INST] I hope so. And because I mean we've had death. There is no life. So at least there is no meaningful life and death is actually, in some sense, our ultimate motivator to live a beautiful and meaningful life. I myself felt as a young man a better unless I gotten something that I wanted to do. I don't know why I got this idea, I said something to say if I'm not able to say out suicide. So maybe it was a way to motivate myself, but you don't need to motivate it because in some sense, unfortunately death is there. So you better get up and do your thing and because that is the best motivation to live fully </s>

<s>[INST] the following is a conversation with Jeff Atwood. He is the co founder of stack overflow and stock exchange websites that are visited by millions of people every single day, much like with Wikipedia, it is difficult to understate the impact on global knowledge and productivity that these networks of sites have created. Jeff is also the author of the famed blog coding horror and the founder of discourse and open source software project that seeks to improve the quality of our online community discussions. This conversation is part of the M I. T course and artificial general intelligence and the artificial intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on youtube itunes or your podcast provider of choice or simply connect with me on twitter at lex Friedman spelled F R I D and now here's my conversation with Jeff Atwood having co created and managed for a few years, the world's largest community of programmers in stock overflow 10 years ago. What do you think motivates most programmers? Is it fame, fortune, glory process of programming itself or is it the sense of belonging to a community? I think [/INST] it's uh puzzles really. I think it's this idea of working on puzzles independently of other people and just solving a problem sort of like on your own almost although nobody really works alone and programming anymore. But I will say there's there's an aspect of sort of hiding yourself away and just sort of beating on a problem until you solve it. Like brute force basically to me is what a lot of programming is is like the computer so fast, right? You can do things that would take forever for a human but you just do them like so many times and so often that you get the answer right? </s><s>[INST] You're saying just the pure act of tinkering with the code is the thing that drives most probably the joy the struggle balance within the joy of overcoming the brute force process of pain and suffering that eventually leads to something that actually works well. [/INST] Data is fun too. Like there's this thing called the shuffling problem, like the naive shuffle that most programmers right has a huge flaw and there's a lot of articles online about this because it can be really bad if you're like a casino and you have an unsophisticated programmer writing your shuffle algorithm. There's surprising ways to get this wrong but the neat thing is the way to figure that out is just to run your shuffle a bunch of times and see like how many orientations of cards you get. You should get equal distribution of all the cards. And with the naive method of shuffling, if you just look at the data, if you just brute force and say okay I don't know what's gonna happen. Um you just write, write a program that does it a billion times and then see what the buckets look like of the data and the monty hall problem is another example of that where you have three doors and somebody gives you information about another door. So the correct answer is you should always switch in the monte hall problem which is not intuitive and it freaks people out all the time. Right? But you can solve it with data if you write a program that does the Money hall, you know game and then never switches and always switches just compare. You would immediately see that you don't have to be smart, right? You have to figure out the answer, algorithmic lee. You can just brute force it out with data and say, well I know the answer is this because I ran the program a billion times and these are the data buckets that I got from it. Right? </s><s>[INST] So empirically find it. But what's the joy of that? What's so for you, for you personally? Outside of family, what motivates you in this process is, Well [/INST] to be honest, like I don't really write a lot of code anymore. Like what I do. And discourses like man injury stuff, which I always kind of despised right? Like as a programmer you think of managers, people who don't really do anything themselves. Uh but the weird thing about code is like you realize that like languages code like the ability to direct other people, lets you get more stuff than you done than you could by yourself anyway. You </s><s>[INST] said languages [/INST] code languages meaning </s><s>[INST] communication with other humans. [/INST] Yes. You </s><s>[INST] can think of it as a systematic. So what is it like to be? What makes before we get into programming? What makes a good manager, what makes a good leader? [/INST] Well, I think the leader, it's it's all about leading by example, first of all like sort of doing and being the things that you want to be. Now. This can be kind of exhausting particularly have kids because you realize that your kids are watching you like all the time. Like even in ways that you've stopped seeing yourself like the hardest person to see on the planet, It's really yourself, right? It's a lot of you see other people and and make judgments about them, but yourself, like you're super biased, you don't actually see yourself the way other people see you often you're very, very hard on yourself in a way that other people really aren't going to be. So you know, that's one of the insights is, you know, you've got to be really diligent about thinking like, am I behaving in a way that represents how I want other people to behave right? Like leading through example, there's a lot of examples of leaders that really messed this up, right? Like they make decisions that are like, wow, that's why would, you know, it's just, it's a bad example for other people. So I think leading by example is one uh the other one, I believe it is working really hard and I don't mean like working exhaustively, but like showing a real passion for the problem, like, you know, not necessarily your solution to the problem, but the problem itself is just one that you really believe in, like with this course for example, the problem that we're looking at which is my current project is how do you get people in groups to communicate in a way that doesn't like break down into the howling of wolves? Right? Like how do you deal with trolling? Not like technical problems and how to get people to post paragraphs, how to get people to use bold, how to get people to use complete sentences, although those are problems as well, but like how do I get people to get along with each other right? Like and then solve whatever problem is they set up to solver, you know, reach some consensus on discussion or just like not hurt each other even really like maybe it's a discussion doesn't really matter, but are people like yelling at each other? Right and why? Right? Like that's not the purpose of this kind of communication. So I would say, you know, leadership is about you know, setting an example, you know, doing the things that represent what you want to be and making sure that you're actually doing those things and there's a trick to that too because the things you don't do also say a lot about what you are. Yeah, so let's pause </s><s>[INST] on that one. So those two things are fascinating. So how do you have as a leader as that self awareness? So you just said it's really hard to be self aware. So for you personally, or maybe for other leaders you've seen or look up to, how do you know the both of the things you're doing are the wrong things to be doing, the way you speak to others, the way you behave and the things you're not doing, How do you how do you get that? There's [/INST] two aspects that one is like processing feedback that you're getting. So </s><s>[INST] how do you get feedback? [/INST] All right. So are you getting feedback? Right. So one way we do it, for example, discourse, we have three co founders and we periodically talk about decisions before we make them. So it's not like one person can make a mistake or like, wow, that's, you know, there can be misunderstanding things. So it's part of like, group consensus of leadership is like, it's good to have I think systems where there's one leader and that leader has the rule of absolute law are just really dangerous in my experience for communities, for example, like if you have communities run by one person, that one person makes all decisions, that person is gonna have a bad day, something could happen to that person. You know, something, you know, there's a lot of variables. So like at first when you think about leadership have multiple people doing leadership and have them talk amongst each other. So giving each other feedback about the decisions that they're making and then when you do get feedback, I think there's that little voice in your head, right? Like or your gut or wherever you want to put it in your body. I think that voice is really important. Like I think most people who have any kind of moral compass or like want to do, most people want to do the right thing, I do believe that. I mean there might be a handful of sociopaths out there that don't but most people, they want other people to think of them as a good person and why wouldn't you? Right? Like do you want people to despise you? I mean that's just weird, right? So you have that little voice that sort of the angel and devil on your shoulder sort of talking to you about like what you're doing, how you're doing, how does it make you feel to make these decisions right? And I think having some attunement to that voice is important, </s><s>[INST] but you said that voice also for I think there's a programmer situation to where sometimes the devil on the shoulder is a little a little too loud, so you're a little too self critical for a lot of developers, especially when you have introverted personality, how do you struggle with the self criticism of the criticism others. So one of the things of leadership is to do something that's potentially unpopular or where people doubt you and you still go through with the decision. So what's that balance? Like I [/INST] think you have to walk people through your decision making right? Like this is where blogging is really important. Communication is so important. Again, code language is just another kind of code is like here is the program by which I arrived at the conclusion that I'm gonna reach, right? It's one thing to say like this is a decision, it's final deal with it, right? That's not usually satisfying to people. But if you say, look, you know, we've been thinking this problem for awhile. Here's some stuff that's happened. Here's what we think is right? Here's our goals here is we want to achieve. And we've looked at these options and we think this available options is the best option. People be like, oh, ok, right. Maybe I don't totally agree with you, but I can kind of see where you're coming from. And like I say, it's not just arbitrary decision delivered from a cloud of flames in the sky, right? It's like a human trying to reach some kind of consensus about goals and their goals might be different than yours. That's completely legit, right? But if you're making that clear, it's like, oh well the reason we don't agree because we have totally different goals, right? Like how could we agree? It's not that you're a bad person is that we have radically different goals in mind when we started looking this problem </s><s>[INST] and the other one you said is passion, so or hard work. Sorry, uh [/INST] those are tied together to me in my mind, I mean that's a hard work compassion like for me like I just really love the problem discourse is sending out to solve because in a way it's like there's a there's a vision of the world where it all devolves into facebook basically owning everything and every aspect of human communication, right? And this has always been kind of a scary world for me. Um first because I don't think facebook is really good at execution, I gotta compliment them, they're very competent in terms of what they're doing. But facebook has not much of a moral compass in terms of facebook cares about facebook really, they don't really care about you and your problems, What they care about is how big they can make facebook right, </s><s>[INST] is that you're talking about the company or just a mechanism how facebook works kind [/INST] of both really right? Like and the idea with this course, the reason I'm so passionate about it because I believe every community should have the right to own themselves right? Like they should have their own software that they can run that belongs to them, that's their space where they can set the rules and if they don't like it, they can move to different hosting or you know, whatever they need, they need to happen can happen, but like this, this idea of a company town where all human communication is implicitly owned by WhatsApp instagram and facebook. And it's really disturbing to because facebook is really smart, like I said, they're great execution buying and what's happened buying instagram were incredibly smart decisions. Um and they also do this thing on, if you know, but they have this VPN software that they give away for free on smartphones and it indirectly feeds all the data about the traffic backed facebook so they can see what's actually getting popular through the VPN right? They have low level access to the network data because users have let them have that. So, </s><s>[INST] so let's let's take a small pause here. First of all discourse, can you talk about, can you lay out the land of all the different ways you can have community. So there's stack overflow that you've built, there's discourse. So stack overflow is kind of like a wiki Wikipedia you talk about? Uh and it's a very specific scalpel. Very focused. So what is the purpose of discourse and maybe contrast that with facebook first of all, say, what is discourse? Start from the beginning? Well, [/INST] let me start at the very being so stack overflow is very structured wikis, L Q and A. For programmers, right? And that was the problem, we first worked on it when we started we thought it was discussions because we looked at like programming forums and other things, but we quickly realized we were doing Q. And A. Which is a very narrow subset of human communication. </s><s>[INST] So when you started talking about what you thought, you didn't even know the Q. And A. [/INST] Not really. I mean, well we didn't know. We did. We had an idea of like, OK, these are things that we see working online. We had a goal, right? Our goal was there was this site experts exchange with a very unfortunate name. </s><s>[INST] Thank you for killing that site. [/INST] Yeah, I know right? Like a lot of people don't remember it anymore, which is great. Like that's the measure of success. When people don't remember the thing that you're trying to replace, then you've totally one. Uh so it was a place to get answers to programming questions, but it wasn't clear if it was like focused Q. And A. If it was a discussion, there are plenty of programming forums. So we weren't really sure. We were like, okay, we'll take aspects of digg and Reddit. Like voting were very important. Reordering answers based on votes, wiki style stuff like being able to edit post, not just your post, but other people's posts to make them better and keep them more up to date ownership of blogging of like, okay, this is me, I'm saying this in my voice, you know, this is the stuff that I know and you know, you get your reputation accrues to you? Uh It's pure recognition. So you asked earlier like what motivates programmers? I think pure recognition motivates them a lot. That was one of the key insights of stack overflow was like recognition from your peers is why things get done initially money and I'm still your boss, but like your peers saying, wow, this person really knows their stuff has a lot of value. So the reputation system came from that. Um so we were sort of Frankenstein in a bunch of stuff together in stack overflow, like stuff we had seen working and we knew worked. Uh and that became stack overflow and over time we realized it wasn't really discussion. It was very focused questions and answers. There wasn't a lot of room on the page for let me talk about this tangential thing. It was more like, okay, is it answering the question? Is it clarifying question or could it be an alternative answer to the same question? Because there's usually more than one way to do it and program, there's like Say 5-10 ways. And one of the patterns we got into early on stack overflow was there are questions where there would be like hundreds of answers were like wow, how can there be a programming question with 502 105 100 answers. And we looked at those and we realized those were not really questions in the traditional sense. They were discussions. It was stuff that we allowed early on that we eventually decided wasn't allowed such as what's your favorite programming food, you know, what's the funniest programming cartoon you've seen? And we had to sort of backfill a bunch of rules about like why isn't this allowed such as is this a real problem you're facing? Like nobody goes to work and says, wow, I can't work because I don't know what the funniest programming cartoon is. So sorry, can't compile this code now. Right. It's not a real problem you're facing in your job. That was run rule and the second like what can you really learn from that? It's like what I call accidental learning or reddit style learning where you just like, I just browse some things and wow, you know, did you know tree frogs only live three years? I mean I just made that up. I don't know that's true, but I didn't really set out to learn that. I don't need to know that, right? It's accidental learning. It was more intentional learning were like, okay, I have a problem and I want to learn about stuff around this problem having right. And it could be theory, could be compiler theory. Could be other stuff, but I'm having a compiler problem. Hence I need to know the compiler theory. That aspect of it. That gives me the gets me to my answer, right? So kind of a directed learning. We had a backfill of these rules as we sort of figured out what the heck it was we were doing. And the system came very strict over time and a lot of people still complain about that. And I wrote my latest blog entry, what to stack overflow. Want to be want to be when it grows out </s><s>[INST] Celebrating the 10 Year anniversary. [/INST] Yeah. So 10 years and the system has trended towards strictness. There's a variety of reasons for this one is people don't like to see other people get reputation for stuff as they they view as frivolous, which I can actually understand because if you saw a programmer got like 500 up votes for funniest programming cartoon or funniest comment they had seen in code. It's like, well, why do they have that reputation is because they wrote the joke? Probably not. I mean, if they did maybe or the cartoon right there getting a bunch of reputation based on someone else's work. That's not even like programming. It's just a joke, right? It's related program. So you begin to resent that you're like, well that's not fair and it isn't at some level they're correct. I mean, I empathize because like it's not correct to get reputation for that versus here's a really gnarly regular expression problem and here's a really clever, insightful, detailed answer laying out, oh, here's why you're seeing the behavior that we're seeing here. Let me teach you some things about how to avoid that in the future. That's, that's great. Like that's gold, right? You want people to go reputation for that. not so much for, wow, look at this funny thing I saw. Right? </s><s>[INST] Great. So there's this very specific Q and A format and then take me through the journey towards discourse and facebook and twitter. So you start at the beginning that stack overflow evolved to have a purpose. So where does discourse this uh passion you have for creating community for discussion. What? Where is that? When was that born? And how? Well part [/INST] of it is based on the realization the stack overflow is only good for very specific subjects where there's sort of a it's, it's based on data facts and science where answers can be kind of verified to be true. Another form of that is there is the book of knowledge, like the tome of knowledge that defines like whatever it is, you can refer to that book and I'll give you the answer. There has to be, it only works on subjects where there's like semi clear answers to things that can be verified in some form. Um Now again, there's always more than one way to do it. There's complete flexibility in system around that, but where it falls down, it's stuff like poker and lego like we had, if you go to stock exchange dot com, we have an engine that that tries to launch different Q and A topics, right and people can propose que topics um sample questions and and if it gets enough support within the network, we launched that Q. And a site. So some of the ones we launched where poker and lego and they did horribly right Because um I mean there might still be there lingering on in some form, but it was an experiment. This is like a test right? And some subjects work super well in the stack engine and some don't. But the reason lego and poker don't work is because they're so social really. It's not about, you know, what's the rule here in poker? It's like, well, you know, what kind of cigars do we like to smoke while playing poker or you know what's what's a cool set of cards to use when I'm playing poker or you know what some strategies like say I have this hand come up with some strategies I could use. It's more of a discussion around like what's happening like with lego, you know, something like here's this cool lego set I found, look how awesome this isn't like Yeah, that's freaking awesome, right? It's not a question right? There's all these social components of discussions that don't fit at all. Like we literally have to just allow those on stack overflow because it's not about being social, it's about problems that you're facing in your work that you need concrete answers for right? Like you have a real demonstrated problem that sort of blocking you and something nobody's blocked by. You know what should I do when I have a straight flush, right? Like a walking problem in the world. It's just an opportunity to hang out and discuss. So discourse was a way to address that and say, look, you know, uh Discussion Forum software was very, very bad. And when I came out of stack overflow in late 20, early 20, early 2013, early early 2012, um it was still very, very bad. I expected it improved in the four years since I last looked, but it had not improved at all. And I was like, well that's kind of terrible because I love these communities of people talking about things that they love, you know that there's just communities of interest, right? And there's no good software for them, like startups would come to me and say, hey Jeff, I wanna, you know, have this startup, here's my idea. And the first thing I would say to them is like, well, first, why are you asking me? Like, I don't really know your, your field, right? Not necessarily like why aren't you asking like the community, like the people that are interested in this problem, the people that are using your product, why aren't you talking to them? And then they say, oh, great idea, like how do I do that? And then that's when I started playing sad trombone because I realized all the software involving talking to your users, customers, audience, patrons, whatever it is, it was all really bad. It was like stuff that I would be embarrassed to recommend to other people. And yet that's where I felt they could get the biggest and strongest, most effective input for what they should be doing with their product, right? Is from their users, from their community, right? That's what we did on stack overflow. </s><s>[INST] So what we're talking about with forms, the, what is it, the dark matter of the internet. It's still, I don't know if it's still, but for the longest time has some of the most passionate and fascinating discussions and what's the usual structure? There's usually what, it's a, it's linear. So it's sequential to opposed to one after the other and there's pagination. So it's everything. There's a 10 posts and you go to the next page and that format still is used by like I'm, uh, we're doing a lot of research with Tesla vehicles and there's a Tesla Motors club before them, which is extremely, [/INST] really wanted to run that actually they picked us about. I don't think we got it, but I really would like to go on that one. But </s><s>[INST] they started Before even 2012, I believe. I mean they've been running for a long time. It's still an extremely rich source of information. So what, what's broken about that system and how are you trying to fix it? [/INST] I think there's a lot of power in, in connecting people that love the same stuff around that specific topic, meaning facebook's idea of connection is just any human that's related to another human, right? Like, like through friendship or you know any other reason. Facebook's idea of the world is sort of the status update, right? Like a friend of yours did something ate at a restaurant, right? Um, whereas discussion forums traditionally around the interest graph, like I love electric cars, specifically, I love Tesla right? Like I love the way they approached the problem, I love the style of the founder, I just love the design ethic and there's a lot to like about Tesla, if you saw the oatmeal, he did a whole love comic to Tesla and it was actually kind of cool because I learned some stuff, he was saying how great Tesla cars were specifically, like how they were built differently and he went into a lot of great detail, that was really interesting to me that oatmeal post if you read it is the genesis of pretty much all interest communities. I just really love this stuff for me. For example, Yo yo's right, like I'm into the Ohio communities and there's these interest communities are just really fascinating to me. I feel more connected to the communities that I do too, you know, friends that I don't see that often, right? Like to me that the powerful thing is the interest graph and facebook kind of dabbles in the interest graph. I mean they have groups, you can sign up for groups and stuff, but it's really about the relationship graph, like this is my co worker, this is my relative, this is my friend, but not so much about the interest, so I think that's the linchpin of which forums and communities are built on that. I personally love, like I I like I said leadership is about passion, right? And being passionate about stuff is is a really valid way to look at the world and I think it's a way um a lot of stuff in the world gets done, like I once had someone described me as, he's like Jeff, you're a guy who you just get super passionate about a few things at a time and you just go super deep from those things and I was like that's kind of right, that's kind of what I do, I'll get into something and just be super into that for a couple years or whatever, I just learn all I can about it and go super deep in it, and that's how I enjoy experiencing the world, right? Like not being shallow and a bunch of things, but being really deep on a few things that I'm interested in, so forums kind of unlock that, right? And you know, you don't want a world where everything belongs to facebook at least I don't, I want a world where communities can kind of own themselves, set their own norms, set their own rules, um control the experience because community is also about ownership, right? Like if, if you're meeting at the Barnes and Noble, every thursday and Barnes and Noble says, get out of here, you guys don't buy enough books, well, you know, you're kind of hosed right, Barnes and Noble owns you, right? Like you can't, but if you have your own meeting space, you know, your own clubhouse, you can set your own rules, decide what you want to talk about there and just really generate a lot better information than you could, like hanging out at Barnes and Noble every thursday at three PM, right? Uh, so that's kind of the vision of discourses, a place where it's, it's fully open source, you can take the software, you can sell it anywhere and you know, you and a group of people can go deep on whatever it is that you're into and this works for startups, right, startups, or a group of people who go super deep on a specific problem, Right? And they want to talk to the comedians like well installed this course, right? That's what we do in this course. That's what I did a stack overflow. I spent a lot of time on meta stack overflow, which is our internal, well public community feedback site and just experiencing what the users are experiencing because they're the ones doing all the work in the system and they had a lot of interesting feedback and there's that 90 10 rule of like 90% of the feedback you get is not really actionable for a variety of reasons, it might be bad feedback, it might be crazy feedback, it might be feedback, you just can't act on right now, but there's 10% of it, that's like gold, it's like literally gold and diamonds, where it's like feedback of really good improvements to your core product that are not super hard to get to and actually make a lot of sense and my favorite is about 5% of the stuff I didn't even see coming, it's like oh my God, I never even thought of that, but that's a brilliant idea, right? And I can point to so many features of stack overflow that we drive from meta stack overflow feedback and meta discourse. Right, Same exact principle of discourse, you know, we're getting ideas from the community is like oh my God, I never thought of that, but that's fantastic, right? Like I love that relationship with the community </s><s>[INST] from having built these communities, what have you, what have you learned about what's the process of getting a critical mass of members in the community? Is it luck skill timing, persistence, what is is it the tools like discourse that empower that community, what what's the key aspect of starting for one guy, a gal and then building it 2 to 1 and 10 and 100 1000 so on, [/INST] I think we're starting with an end of one, I mean, I think it's persistence and, and also you have to be interesting like somebody I really admire once said something that I always liked about blogging. He's like, here's how your blog, you have to have something interesting to say and have an interesting way of saying it, right and then do that for like 10 years. So that's the genesis is like, you have to have sort of something interesting to say. That's not exactly what everyone else is saying and an interesting way of saying, which is another way of saying, kind of entertaining way of saying it. Uh and then as far as growing it, it's like ritual, you know like you have to like say you're starting a blog, you have to say, look, I'm gonna blog every week three times a week and you have to stick to that schedule right? Because until you do that for like several years you're never gonna get anywhere. Like it just takes years to get where you need to get to. And part of that is having the discipline to stick with the schedule and it helps again, if it's something you're passionate about, this won't feel like work. Like I love this, I can talk about this all day every day right? Uh you just have to do in a way that's interesting to other people and then as you're growing the community um that pattern of participation within the community of like generating these artifacts and inviting other people to help you like collaborate on these artifacts. Like even in the case of blogging, like I felt in the early days of my blog, which I started in 2000 and four, which is really the genesis of stack overflow. If you look at all my blog, it leads up to stack overflow, which was, I have all this energy in my blog. But I don't like 40,000 people were subscribing to me and I was like, I want to do something. And then then I met Joel and said, hey Joel, I want to do something, take this ball of energy for my blog and do something. And all the people read my blog. So that's like, oh cool, you're involving us, you're saying, look, you're part of this community. Let's build this thing together. Like they picked the name, like we voted on the name for stack overflow on my blog. Like we came and naming is super hard. First of all, I the hardest problem computer science coming with a good name for stuff. Right? Um but there you can go back to my blog. There's the pole where we voted and stack overflow became the name of the site and all the early beta users stack over. We're audience of my blog plus Joel's blog. Right? So we started from like if you look at the genesis, okay, I was just a programmer who said, hey, I love programming but I have no outlet to talk about it. So I'm just gonna blog about it because I don't have enough people to work to talk to about it because at the time I worked a place where, you know, programming wasn't the court output of the company was a pharmaceutical company and I just love this stuff, you know, to an absurd degree. So I was like, I'll just blog about it and then I'll find an audience and eventually found an audience. Eventually found Joel and eventually build stack overflow from that one core of of activity, Right? But it was that repetition of feeding back in feedback from my blog comments, feedback from Joel, feedback from the early stack overflow community. Um when people see that you're doing that, they will follow along with you, right? That's cool. You're here in good faith. You're actually, you know, not listening to everything. That's impossible. That's impossible. But you're actually, you know, waiting our feedback and what you're doing because and why wouldn't I? Because who does all the work on stack overflow. Me, Joel. No, it's the other programmers that are doing all the work. So you gotta have some respect for that. And then, you know, discipline around. Look, you know, we're trying to a very specific thing here on stack overflow. We're not trying to solve all the world's problems. We're trying to solve this very specific Q. And a problem in a very specific way. Not because we're jerks about it, but because these strict set of rules help us get really good results, right? Um and programmers that's an easy sell for the most part because programmers are used to dealing with ridiculous systems of rules like constantly. That's basically their job. So they're they're very, oh yeah, super strict system of rules that lets me go, I want that's programming, right? That's what stack overflow is. So, </s><s>[INST] So you're making it sound easy. But in 2004, let's go back there. In 2004 you started the blog coding horror. What's it called that at the beginning? At the very beginning [/INST] it was one of the smart things I did. It's it's from a book by steve McConnell Code Complete, which is one of my favorite programming books. Still, probably my number one programming book for anyone to read. Uh one of the smart things I did back then, I don't always do smart things when I start stuff. I contacted steven said, hey, I really like this. It was a sidebar illustration indicating danger in code, right? Coding horror was like watch out. And I love that illustration because it spoke to me because I saw that illustration, Oh my God, that's me. Like I'm always my own worst enemy. Like that's the key insight in programming is every time you write something, think how am I going to screw myself because you will constantly, right? So that the icon was like, oh yeah, I need to constantly hold that mirror up and look and say, look, you're very fallible, you're gonna screw this up. Like how can you build this in such a way that you're not going to screw it up later? Like how can you get that discipline around making sure that every step I'm thinking through all the things that I could do wrong or that other people could do wrong, because that is actually how you get to be a better programmer a lot of times, Right? So that sidebar illustration, I loved it so much and I wrote steve before I started my blog and said, hey, can I have permission to use this? Because I just really like this illustration and steve was kind enough to give me permission to do that and just continues to give me permission. So yeah. Really? </s><s>[INST] That's awesome. Uh [/INST] but in </s><s>[INST] 2004 You started this blog, you know, you look at Stephen King, this book on writing or Stephen Press Field War of Art book. I mean, it seems like writers suffer. It's a hard process of [/INST] writing, right? There's a lot of there's gonna be suffering. I mean, I won't get you like, well the work is suffering, right? Like doing the work. Like even when you're every week, like, okay, that blog post wasn't very good or you know, people didn't like it or people said disparaging things about it, you have to like have the attitude like, you know, no matter what happens, I want to do this for me, it's not about you, it's about me, I mean in the end it is about everyone because this is how good work gets out into the world, but you have to be pretty strict about saying like, you know, I'm selfish in the sense that I have to do this for me. You know, you mentioned Stephen King like his book on writing, but like one of things I do, for example, when when writing is like I I read it out loud, one of the best pieces of advice for writing anything is read it out loud like multiple times and make it sound like you're talking because that is the goal of good writing. It should sound like you said it with with slightly better phrasing because you have more time to think about what you're saying, but like it should sound natural when you say it and I think that's probably the single best writing advice and give everyone just just read it over and over out loud, make sure it sounds like something you would normally say, it sounds good </s><s>[INST] and what's your process of writing. So there's usually a pretty good idea behind the blog post. [/INST] So ideas, right? So I think you gotta have the concept that there's so many interesting things in the world, like I mean my God, the world is amazing, right? Like it, you can never write about everything that's going on because it's so incredible, but if you can't come up with like, let's say one interesting thing per day to talk about, then you're not trying hard enough because the world is full of just super interesting stuff. And one great way to to like mine stuff is go back to old books because they bring up old stuff that's still super relevant. And I did that a lot because I was like reading classic program books and a lot of the early blogs are like, oh, I was reading this program book and they brought this really cool concept and I want to talk about it some more and you get the, I mean you're not claiming credit for that, but it gives you something interesting to talk about that kind of evergreen, right? Like you don't have to go, what should I talk about? So we'll just go dig up some old classic programming books and find something that, oh wow, that's interesting. Or how does that apply today? Or what about X and Y? Or compare these two concepts. So </s><s>[INST] pull a couple of sentences from that book and then uh sort of play off of it almost were disagree that. So In 2007 you wrote that you are offered a significant amount of money to sell the blog. You chose not to what were all the elements you were thinking about because I'd like to take you back. It seems like there's a lot of, not only your decisions you made through life. Uh so what was that decision like? [/INST] Right. So one of the things I love is the choose your own adventure books, which I loved as a kid. And I feel like the early programmer books because they're they're all about if then statements right, if this then this and they're also very, very unforgiving. Like there's all these sites that map the classic Children's picture books and how many outcomes are bad? A lot of bad outcomes. So part of the game, it's like, oh I got a bad outcome, Go back one step, go back one further steps. Like how did I get here? Right? Like it's a sequence of decisions and this is True of life, right? Like every decision is a sequence right individually. Any individual decision is not actually right or wrong, but they lead you down a path, right? So I do think there's some truth that so this particular decision, The blog gotten fairly popular, there's a lot of RSS readers that I discovered and this guy contacted me out of the blue from this, like bug tracking companies, like I really want to buy your blog for like I think it was around $100,000, maybe like 80,000, but it was, it was a lot right? Like, and that's, you know, at the time, like I would have a year's worth of salary all at once. So I really think about like well you know and I remember talking to people that I was like wow that's a lot of money. But I don't really like I really like my blog right? Like do I want to sell my blog because they didn't really belong to me anymore at that point. And one of the guidelines that I like to, I don't like to give advice to people a lot. But one of the piece of advice I do give because I do think it's really true and it's generally helpful is whenever you're looking at a set of decisions like oh gosh I do a B. Or C. You gotta pick the thing that's a little scarier in that list because not you know, not like jump off a cliff scary. But the thing that makes you nervous because if you pick the safe choice, it's usually you're not really pushing, you're not pushing yourself, you're not choosing the thing that's gonna help you grow. So for me the scarier choice was to say no, I was like well no let's just see where this is going right because then I own it, I mean it belongs to me it's my thing. Uh And I can just take it and and some other logical conclusion, right? Because imagine how different the world would have been had I said yes and sold the blogs like there probably won't be stack overflow. Uh you know, a lot of other stuff would have changed. So for that particular decision, I think it was the same rule, like what scares me a little bit more. </s><s>[INST] Do the thing that scares you. So speaking of which startups, I think there's a specifics and more general questions that a lot of people would be interested in. You started stack overflow, you started discourse. So what's the it is 123 guys, whatever it is in the beginning, what was that process? Like do you start talking about it? You start programming, Do you start like where is the birth and the catalyst that actually well I can talk [/INST] about in the context of a stack overflow and discourse. So I think the key thing initially is there is a problem something, some state of the world that's unsatisfactory to the point that like you're upset about it right? Like in that case it was experts exchange Joel's original idea because I approached goals like look Joel, I have all this energy by my blog. I want to do something. I wanna build something but I don't know what it is because I'm not, I'm honestly not a good idea person. I'm really not. I'm like the execution guy. I'm really good at execution but I'm not good at like blue Skying ideas not my forte, which another reason why I like the community feedback because they blue sky all day long for you, right? So when I can go in and cherry pick a blue sky idea from community, even if I have to spend three hours reading to get one good idea, it's worth it, man. But anyway, so the idea of from Joel was hey, experts exchange, it's got great data, but the experience is hideous, right? It's it's trying to trick you, it feels like used car salesmen, it's just bad. So I was like, oh, that's awesome. It feeds into community, it feeds into like, you know, we can make a creative commons. So I think the core is to have a really good idea that you feel very strongly about in the beginning, that like, there's a wrong in the world that we will an injustice that we will right through the process of building this thing for discourse, it was like, look, there's no good software for communities to just hang out and like do stuff right? Like whether it's problem solving startup, whatever forms are such a great building block of online community, and they're hideous, they were so bad, right? It was embarrassing, like, I literally was embarrassed to be associated with this software, right? We have to have something to be proud of. Like, this is competitive with Reddit, this competitive twitter, this competitive facebook, right? That would be proud to have the software on my site. Um so that was the genesis of discourse, was feeling very strongly about um there needs to be a good solution for communities. So that's step one genesis funny, you feel super strongly about, right? And then people galvanized around the idea, like Joel was already super excited about the idea, I was excited about the idea. So with the forum software I was posting on twitter, I had researched as part of my research, I start researching the problem, right? And I found a game called forum wars, Which was a parody of forum. It's still very, very funny of like form behaviour circle, like I would say 2003 its age some right? Like the behavior is a little different in their of Twitter, but it was awesome. It was very funny and it was like a game is like an RPG and it had a forum attached to it, it was like a game about forums with a forum attached was like, this is awesome, right, this is so cool. And the founder of that company or that project, it wasn't really a company, contacted me. This guy, Robin Ward from Toronto said, hey, you know, I saw you been talking about forums and like, I really love that problem space, like I'd still love to build really good form software because I don't think anything else there is any good and I was like awesome at that point, I was like, we're starting a company because like, I couldn't have wished for a better person to walk through the door and say I'm excited about this to the same thing with Joel, right? I mean Joel is a legend in the industry, right? So when he walked through, so I'm excited about the problems like me too man, we can do this, right? So that to me is the most important step. It's like having your super excited about and another person a co founder, right? Because again, you get that dual leadership right? Of like, am I making a bad decision? Sometimes it's nice to have checks of like, is this a good idea? I don't know. Right? </s><s>[INST] So those are the crucial seeds. But then starting to build stuff, There's programming, there's prototype. [/INST] So there's tons of research, there's tons of research. Like what, what's out there that failed because a lot of people look at successes. So look at how successful exits everybody looks at the successes. Those are boring. Show me the failures because that is what's interesting. That's where people were experimenting. That's where people are pushing. But they failed. But they probably failed for reasons that weren't directly about the quality of their idea, right? So look at all the failures. Don't just look what everybody looks at, which is like, oh gosh, look at all these successful people look at the failures. Look at the things that didn't work. Research, the entire field. And so that's the research that I was doing that lead me to Robin Wright was that. And then when we, for example, we did uh stack overflow, we're like, okay, well I really like elements of voting and digg and reddit. I like the Wikipedia. Everything's up to date. Nothing is like an old tombstone that has horrible out of date information. We know that works. Wikipedia is an amazing resource, blogging. The idea of ownership is so powerful, right? Like, oh I I joe wrote this and look how good joe's answer is, right? Like all these concepts were together researching all the things are out there that we're working and why they were working and trying to like fold them into the again that Frankenstein's monster of what stack overflow is. And by the way, that wasn't a free decision because there's still a ton of tension in the stack overflow system. There's reasons people complain about stack overflow because it's so strict, right? Why is it so strict? Why guys always closing my questions? It's because there's so much tension that we built into the system around like trying to get good good results out of the system and you know, it it's not a free, that stuff doesn't come for free, right? It's not like we were all have perfect answers and nobody will have to get their feelings hurt or nobody will have to get down voted like that. It doesn't work that way. Right? Like, </s><s>[INST] so this is an interesting point and a small tangent, you write about anxiety. Uh So I've posted a lot of questions and written answers on stack overflow and the questions I usually go to something very specific to something I'm working on. This is something you talk about, that really. The goal of stack overflow isn't about is to write a question, not that's not about you, it's about the question that will help the community in the future, [/INST] but that's a tough sell, right? Because people are like, well, you know, I don't really care about the community, what I care about is my </s><s>[INST] problem, my problem. [/INST] Um and then that's fair, right? It's it's sort of that again, that tension, that balancing act of, we wanna help you, but we also wanna help everybody comes behind you right? The long line of people are gonna say, oh, I kind of have that problem too, right? And if nobody's ever gonna come up and say I have this problem too, then that question shouldn't exist on stack overflow because the question is too specific. And even that's tension, Right, How do you judge that? How do you know that nobody's ever gonna have this particular question in? Um So there's a lot of tension in the system. Do </s><s>[INST] you think that anxiety of asking the question? The anxiety of answering that tension is inherent to programmers is inherent to this kind of process, or can it be improved? Can't be happy land, where the, that tension is not quite so harsh. [/INST] I don't think stack overflow can totally change that. It works. One thing they are working on finally is the ask page had not changed since 2011. I'm still kind of bitter about this because I feel like you have a Q and a system and what are the core pages and security system? Well, first of all the question, all the answers and all the, also the ask page, particularly when you're a new user or someone trying to ask a question. That's the point at which you need the most help and we just didn't adapt with the times. But the good news is they're working on this from what I understand and it's gonna be more wizard based format and you could envision a world where as part of this wizard based program when you're asking questions, okay, come up with a good title. What are good words to put the title? One word that's not good to put in the title is problem for example, have a problem. Oh, you have a problem. Okay, a problem. That's great. Right? Like you need specifics, right? Like it's trying to help you make a good question title for example, that step will be broken out. Um, all that stuff. But one of those steps in that wizard of asking could say, hey, I'm a little nervous, you know, I've never done this before. Can you put me in a queue for like special mentoring, you can opt into a special mentor. I think that would be fantastic. Like I don't have any objection to that at all in terms of being opt in system, because there are people that are like, you know, I just want to help them, I wanna help a person, no matter what I want to go above and beyond, I want to spend like hours with this person. Um uh it depends what their goals are, right, Who am I to judge? Right? So that's fine. It's not precluded from happening, but there's a certain big city ethos that we started with like, look, we're in New york city, you don't come to New york city and expect them to be, oh, welcome to the city, joe, how's it going? Come on in, let me show you around. That's not how new york city works, right? I mean, and you know, again, new york city's reputation being rude, which I actually don't think it is having been there fairly recently. It's not really, people are just like going about their business right now. Look, look, I have things to do. I'm busy, I'm a busy professional, as are you. And since you're a busy professional, certainly when you ask a question, you can ask the best possible question, right? Because you're a busy professional and you would not accept anything less than a very well written question with a lot of detail about why you're doing what you're doing, what you researched what you found, right? Because you're a professional like me, right? And this rubs people sometimes the wrong way and I don't think it's wrong to say, look, I don't want that experience. I want just a more chill place for, for beginners And I still think sacrifice is not, was never designed for beginners, right? There's this misconception that, you know, even Joel says something oh yes stack overflow for beginners and I think if you're a prodigy, it can be, </s><s>[INST] but that's not [/INST] really representative, right? Like I think as a beginner, you want a totally different set of tools you want, like live screen sharing, live chat, you want access to resources, you want a playground, like a playground you can experiment in and like test and all the stuff that we just don't give people because that was never really the audience that we were designing a stack overflow for that doesn't mean it's wrong. And I think it would be awesome if there was a site like that on the internet or if stack over realizing, hey, you know, we're going to start doing this, that's fine too. You know, I'm not there, I'm not making those decisions, but I do think the pressure of the tension you described is there for people to be. Look, I'm a little nervous because I know I gotta do my best work, right. The other one </s><s>[INST] is something you talk about, which is also really interesting to me is duplicate questions or it's [/INST] a, it's a really </s><s>[INST] difficult problem that you highlight, super [/INST] proud, super hard. </s><s>[INST] Like you can take one little topic and you could probably write 10 2030 ways of asking about that topic and there would be all different. I don't know if there should be one page that answers all of it. [/INST] Is there a way </s><s>[INST] that stack overflow can help dis ambiguity like separate these duplicate questions or connect them together or is it a totally hopeless, difficult impossible task. I think [/INST] it's a very, very hard computer science problems and partly because people are very good at using completely different words. It always amazed me in psychology. So you have two questions that were functionally identical and one question had like zero words in common with the other question like oh my God, from a computer science perspective, how do you even begin to solve that? And it happens all the time. People are super good at this. Right? Accidentally at asking the same thing in like 10, 20 different ways and the other complexities. We want some of those duplicates to exist because if there's five versions with different words, have those five versions point to the one centralized answer right? It's like, okay, this is a duplicate, No worries. This here's here's the answer you wanted over here on this, this, this you know the prime example that we want to have? Um rather having 10 copies of the question and the answer because if you have 10 copies the question, the answer. There's also devalues the reputation system, which programmers hate. As I previously mentioned, you're getting a reputation for an answer that somebody else gave. It's like, well it's an answer, but somebody else gave that answer. So why are you getting a reputation for the same answer as the other guy gave it four years ago? People get offended by that. Right? So the reputation system itself adds tension to the system and that the people who have a lot of reputation become very incentivized to enforce the reputation system. Um and for the most part, that's good. I know it sounds weird, but for most parts like look strict systems, I think to use that powerful, you have to have the idea that okay, strict systems ultimately work better. And I do think in programming you're familiar with loose typing versus strict typing, right? The idea that you can declare a variable, not declare a variable. Rather you start using a variable and okay, I see. It's implicitly an integer bam, awesome. Duck equals five. Well Duck is now in another five, right? And you're like, cool, awesome, simpler. Right? Why would I wanna worry about typing? And for a long time, like in the ruby community, like, Yeah, this is awesome. Like you just a bunch of unit testing, which is testing your programs validity after the fact to catch any bugs that that that strict typing of variables would have caught. And now you have this thing called typescript from Microsoft from the guy who built C sharp Manders, who's one of the greatest minds in software development, right? Like in terms of language design and says no, no, no, we want to bolt on a strict type system to javascript because it makes things better. And now everybody's like, oh my God, we we deployed typescript and found 50 latent bugs that we didn't know about, right? Like this is super common. So I think there is a truth in programming that strictness. It's not the goal. We're not saying be super strict. His strictness is correct. No, it's no, no strictness produces better results. That's what I'm saying. Right? So strict typing of variables, I would say you almost universally of consensus now is basically correct. Should be that way in every language, right? Duck equals five should generate an error because you know, you didn't declare, you didn't tell me that Duck was an editor, right? That's a bug. Right? Or maybe you mistyped you type deck right? Instead of Duck. Right? You never know this happens all the time. Right? So with that in mind, I will say that the strictness the system is correct. Now, that doesn't mean cruel. That doesn't mean mean that doesn't mean angry. It just means strict. Okay, so I think where there's misunderstanding is and people get cranky right? Like another question you asked is like why are programmers kind of mean sometimes, well, who do programmers work with all day long? So I have a theory that if you're at a job and you work with assholes all day long, what do you eventually become </s><s>[INST] asshole? [/INST] And what is the computer except the world's biggest asshole? Because the computer has no time for your bullshit. The computer, the minute you make a mistake, everything else crashing down, right? One semi colon has crashed space missions, right? So that's normal. So you begin to internalize that. You begin to think, Oh my coworker. The computer is super strict and kind of a jerk about everything. So that's kind of how I'm going to be because I work with this computer and I have to exceed to its terms on everything. So therefore you start to absorb that and you start to think, Oh, well being really strict arbitrarily is really good. An error of error code 56249 is completely good error message because that's what the computer gave me. Right? So you kind of forget to be a person at some level and you know how they say great detectives internalized criminals and kind of are criminals themselves. Like this trope of the master detective is good because you can think like the criminal, Well, I do think that's true of programmers really good programmers think like the computer because that's their job. But if you internalize it too much, you become the computer, you come kind of become a jerk to everybody because that's what you've internalized. You're almost not a jerk. But </s><s>[INST] you have no patience for lack of strictness. As you said, [/INST] it's not out of a sense of meanness, it's accidental. But I do believe it's an occupational hazard of being a programmer is you start to behave like the computer. You're very unforgiving. You're very terse, you're very out wrong, incorrect move on. It's like, well, can you help me like what could I do to fix it up wrong? Next question. Right? Like that's normal for the computer, right? Just fail next right. </s><s>[INST] Like [/INST] And if you remember in Saturday night live like in the 90s they had this character was an IT guy. The move guy </s><s>[INST] move was that jimmy Fallon? No, no. [/INST] Who played </s><s>[INST] him? Uh Okay. Yeah, I remember move [/INST] right. He had no patience for it. Might have been mad. Tv actually might have been might have been. But anyway, that was the that's always been the perception, right? You start to behave like the computer. It's like, oh you're wrong. Out of the way. You know, </s><s>[INST] you've written so many blog posts about programming about programs, programming programmers. What do you think makes a good, let's start with what makes a good solo programmer. [/INST] Well, I don't think you should be a solo program I think to be a good solo programmer. It's kind of like what I talked about. Well not on mike, but one of the things john Carmack, one of the best points he makes in the book, Masters of Doom, which is a fantastic book. Anybody listening to this who hasn't read it? Please read. It's such a great book. Is that at the time they were working on stuff like Wolfenstein and Doom, like they didn't have the resources that we have today, They didn't have stack overflow, they didn't have Wikipedia, they didn't have like discourse forums, they didn't have places to go to get people to help them right? They had to work on their own and that's why it took a genius like Carmack to do this stuff because you had to be a genius to invent from first principles. A lot of stuff. He was, he was like the hacks he was coming up with, we're genius, right, genius level stuff, but you don't need to be a genius anymore. And that means not working by yourself. You have to be good at researching stuff online. You have to be good at asking questions. Really good questions that are really well researched, which implies, oh, I went out in research for three hours before I wrote these questions, like that's what you should be doing because that's what's gonna make you good right? To me, this is a big difference in programming in like the eighties versus programming today is like, you you kind of had to be by yourself back then, like where would you go for answers? I remember in the early days when I was a learning visual basic for Windows, like I would call the Microsoft help line on the phone when I had like program because I was like, I don't know what to do. So I would like go and call and they have these huge phone banks and like, can you imagine how alien that is now? Like who would do that? Right. Like that's crazy. So there was just nowhere else to go when you got stuck. Right. Like I had the books that came with it. I read those, study those religiously. I I just saw a post from steve Sinofsky that said this C plus plus version seven came with like 10,000 pages of written material. Because where else were you gonna figure that stuff out? Go to the library, you didn't have Wikipedia, you didn't have, you know, read it. You don't have anywhere to go to answer these questions. So you you've talked </s><s>[INST] about through the years, basically not having an ego and not thinking that you're the best programmer in the world. There's always kind of just looking to improve to become a better programmer than you were yesterday. So how have you changed as a programmer And as a, As a thinker designer around programming over the past. What is it? 15 years really of being a public figure. [/INST] I would say the big insight that I had as eventually as a programmer, you have to kind of stop writing code to be effective, which is kind of disturbing um because you really love it and but you realize like being effective at program at programming in the general sense, uh doesn't mean writing code in a lot of times, you can be much more successful by not writing code and writing code in terms of just solving the problems you have essentially hiring people that are really good and like setting them free and like giving them basic direction, right? Like on strategy and stuff, because a lot of the problems you encounter aren't necessarily solved to like really gnarly code. They're solved by conceptual solutions, which can then be turned into code. But are you even solving the right problem? I mean, so I would say for me, the main inside I have is to succeed as a programmer, you eventually kind of stopped writing code that's going to sound discouraging probably two people hearing, but I don't mean it that way. What I mean is that your coding at a higher level language eventually, like, okay, so we're coding in assembly language, right? That's the beginning, right? Your hard coded to the architecture, then you have stuff like, see I was like, wow, we can abstract across the architecture, you can write code, I can then compile that code for arm or you know, you know, whatever, you know, x 86 or whatever else is out there and then even higher level than that, right? Like you're looking at like python ruby interpreted languages. And then to me as a programmer like, okay, I want to go even higher. I want to go higher than that. How do I abstract higher than language? It's like, well you abstract in spoken language and written language, right? Like you're sort of inspiring people to get things done, giving them guidance. Like what if we did this? What if we did this? Um, you're writing in the highest level language that there is, which is for me, english, right? Whatever your spoken languages. So it's all about being effective, right? And I think uh Patrick McKenzie patio 11 on, on hacker news and works at stripe has a great post about this, of how calling yourself a programmer is a career limiting move at some level once you get far enough from your current I really believe that. And again, I apologize, this is sound discouraging. I don't mean it to be, but he is so right. Because all the stuff that goes on around the code, like the people like that's another thing, if you look at the early blog is about, wow programming is about people more than it's about code, which doesn't really make sense. Right? But it's about, can these people even get along together, Can they understand each other? Can you even explain to me what it is you're working on, are you solving the right problem? People were right. Another classic program book, which again up there with code complete. Please read people where it's that software is people people are the software first and foremost. So a lot of the skills that I was working on early in the blog, we're about figuring out the people. Parts of programming, which was the harder part, the hard part of programming. Once you get a certain skill of programming, you can pretty much solve any reasonable problem that's put in front of you. You're not writing algorithms from scratch right? That just doesn't happen. So any sort of reasonable problem from in front of you gonna be able to solve. But what you can't solve is our manager is a total jerk. You cannot solve that with code. That is not a code solvable problem. And yet that will cripple you way more than oh we had to use this stupid framework I don't like or or you know, Sam keeps writing bad code that I hate or you know, you know, Dave is off there in the wilderness writing God knows what Right? These are not your problems, your problems, your manager or a co worker is so toxic to everybody else in your team that like nobody can get anything done because everybody is so stressed out and freaked out right? These are the problems that you have to attack. </s><s>[INST] Absolutely. And so as you go to these higher level abstractions as you've developed as a programmer to higher, higher level abstractions go into natural language, you're also the guy who kind of preached, you know, building it, you know, diving in and doing it and and and like learn by doing yes. Uh Do you [/INST] do you worry </s><s>[INST] that as you get to higher higher level abstractions, you lose track Of the lower level of just building uh it's like, do you worry about that? You know? Even not, maybe not, but 10 years from now. 20 years from now? [/INST] Well no, I mean there is always that paranoia and oh gosh, I don't feel as valuable since I'm not writing code, but for me like when we started the discourse project it was ruby, which I didn't really know ruby. I mean as you pointed out and this is another valuable orchestration stack overflow, you can be super proficient, for example, C Sharp, which I was working and that's why we built stack overflow and still is written in and then switch to ruby and you're a newbie again, right? Like I'm but but you have the framework, I know what a for loop is, I know what incursion is, I know you know what a track stack traces right? Like I have all the fundamental concepts to be a programmer, I just don't know ruby so I'm still on a higher level, I'm not like a beginner beginner, like you're saying I'm just like I need to apply my programming concepts already know to ruby? </s><s>[INST] So that there's a question that's really interesting. So looking at ruby, how do you go about learning enough that your intuition can be applied? [/INST] Well that carried over that I was trying to get to is like what I realized when I started with just me and Robin, I realized if I bother Robin, I am now costing us productivity right? Every time I go to Robin rather than building the, the our first alpha version of discourse, he's now answering my stupid questions about ruby. Is that a good use of his time? Is that a good use of my time? The answer to both of those was resoundingly no, right? Like we were getting to an alpha and it's pretty much like, okay, we'll hire more programmers, right? Like we, we eventually hired Neil uh and then eventually SAm who came in as a co founder um actually was SAM first than Neil later. But the answer the problems, just hire other comment program. It's not like teach now, I shall pull myself up by my bootstraps and Norine ruby, but at some point writing code becomes a liability to you in terms of getting things done. There's so many other things that go on in the project, like building the prototype. Like you mentioned, like, well how do you, if you're not writing code has every keep focus on, like what, what are we building? Well, first, basic mock ups and research right? Like, like what, what do we even want to build? There's a little bit of that that goes on. But then very quickly get to the prototype stage. Like build a prototype. Let's reiterate on the prototype really, really rapidly. That's why we do this course. And that's what we we demo to get our, our seed funding for discourse was the alpha version of discourse um that we had running and ready to go. And it was very, it was bad. I mean it was just tell you it was bad. Um I have, we have screenshots of it. I'm just like embarrassed to look at it now. But it was the prototype. We were figuring out what's working what's not working because there's such a broad gap between between the way you think things will work in your mind or even on paper and the way they work. Once you sit and live in the software, like actually spend time living and breathing inside were so different. So my philosophy is get to uh, prototype and then what you're really optimizing for speed of iteration, like how you can turn the crank, how quickly can we iterate. That's the absolutely critical metric of any software project. And I had a tweet recently that people liked and I totally this is so fundamental to what I do is like if you want to measure the core competency of any software tech company. It's the speed at which somebody can say, hey, we really need this word in the product changed this word, right? Because it will be more clear to the user. Like, like instead of responding to reply or something. But there's some, from the conception of that idea how quickly that single word can be changed in your software rolled out to users. That is your life cycle. That's your health, your, your heartbeat. If your heartbeat is like super slow, you're basically dead. No, seriously, like if it takes two weeks or even a month to get that single word change, that was like, oh my God, that's a great idea. That word is so much clearer. I'm talking like a super like everybody's on board for this change. It's not like, let's just change it because we're bored. Like this is an awesome change. Um, and then it takes a month to roll out. Its like, well your dad, like you can't iterate, you can't how you can do anything right? Like, so anyway, about the heartbeat, it's like get the prototype and then iterate on it. That's, that's what I view as like the central tenet of modern software development. </s><s>[INST] That's fascinating. You put it that way. It's actually, so I work in a building autonomous vehicles and when you look at what may be compared Tesla to most other automakers. Uh, the psych, the whatever the heartbeat for Tesla is literally days now in terms of, they can, um, over the air deploy software updates to all their vehicles, which is markedly different than every other automaker, which takes years to update a piece of software. And so, and that's reflected in everything. That's, um, the final product that's reflected in really how slowly they adapt to the times [/INST] and to be clear. I'm not saying being a hummingbird is the goal either. It's like, you want a heartbeat that's like so fast. It's like, you're, you're, you know, you're just freaking out. But like it is a measure of health. You should have a healthy heartbeat. It's up to for people listening to decide what that means. But it has to be healthy. It has to be reasonable because otherwise you just get frustrated because like, that's how you build software, you make mistakes, you roll it out, you live with it. You see what it feels like and say, oh God, that was a terrible idea. Oh my gosh, this could be even better if we did. Why? Right? You turn the crank and then the more you do that, the faster you get ahead of your competitor is ultimately because you're its rate of change, right? Delta v. Right? How fast are you moving? Well within a year, you're gonna be miles away by the time they catch up with you, right? Like that's the way it works. And plus users, like I as a software development, I love software. That's constantly changing because I don't understand people get super piste off when like, oh, they changed the software on me. How dare they? I'm like, yes, changed the software. Change it all the time. Man, That's, that's what makes this stuff great is that it can be changed so rapidly and become something that that is greater than it is now. Now granted, there's some changes that suck. I admit I've seen it many times. But in general, it's like, that's what makes software cool. Right. Is that it is so malleable, like fighting. That is like weird to me because it's like, well you're fighting the essence of the thing that you're building. Like that doesn't make sense. You want to really embrace that. Not, not to be a hummingbird, but like embrace it to a healthy cycle of your heartbeat. Right? </s><s>[INST] So you talk about that people really don't change. [/INST] It's </s><s>[INST] true. That's why I probably, a lot of the stuff you write about in your blog probably will remain true. [/INST] There's a flip side of the coin, People don't change. So investing in understanding people is like learning UNIX in 1970 because, And nothing has changed, right? Like all those things you've learned about, people will still be valid 30, 40 years from now. Whereas if you learn the latest Javascript framework, that's going to be good for like two years. Right. </s><s>[INST] Exactly. So, but if you look at the future of programming? So there's a people component, but there's also the technology itself. Do you what do you see as the future of programming, will it change significantly or as as far as you can tell, uh people are ultimately programming and so it will not, it's not something that you foresee changing in any fundamental way. [/INST] Well, you gotta go look back on sort of the basics of programming. And one thing that always shocked me is like source control. Like I didn't learn anything about source control on the ground. I graduated college in 1992, but I remember hearing from people like as late as the 1998, like even maybe today they're not learning source control. And to me, it's like, well how can you not learn source control? That is so fundamental to working with other programmers working away. You don't lose your work, like just just basics off the bed, literal Bedrock. Software development is source control. Now you compare today like get up right, like Microsoft project Hope, which I think was incredibly smart acquisition, move on their part. Now they have anybody who wants like reasonable source controls and go see them and get hub. It's all set up for you, right? There's tons of walk through tons of tutorials. So from the concept of like has programming advanced from ST 1999 it's like, well hell we have git hub. I mean, my God, Yes. Right? Like it's it's massively advanced over over what it was now as to whether programming is significantly different. I'm gonna say no, but I think the baseline of like what we view is like fundamentals will continue to go up and actually get better, like source control. That's one of the fundamentals that has gotten, I mean Hundreds of orders of magnitude better than it was 10, 20 years ago. So those are the fundamentals. </s><s>[INST] Let me introduce to things that maybe you can comment on. So one is mobile phones. So that could fundamentally transform what um what programming is or maybe not. Maybe you can comment on that. And the other one is artificial intelligence which promises to in some ways to do some of the programming for you is one way to think about it. So it's [/INST] really what a programmer is, </s><s>[INST] is uh using the intelligence that's inside your skull to to do something useful. Uh The hope with artificial intelligence is that it does some of the useful parts for you where you don't have to think about it. So, do you see Smartphones, the fact that everybody has one and they are getting more and more powerful as potentially changing programming. And do you see a i is potentially changing [/INST] Problem. Okay, so that's good. So smartphones have definitely changed, I mean, since, you know, I guess 2010 is when they really started getting super popular. I mean in the last eight years, the world has literally changed, right? Like everybody carries a computer around and that's normal. I mean that is such a huge change in society. I think we're still dealing with a lot of the positive negative ramifications of that, right? Like everybody's connected all the time. Everybody's on the computer all the time. That was my dream world as a geek, right? But it's like be careful what you ask for, right? Like wow now everybody has a computer. It's not quite the utopia that we thought it would be right, computers can be used for a lot of stuff that's not necessarily great. Um So to me that's the central focus of the smartphone is just that it puts a computer in front of everyone granted a small touch screen smallish touchscreen computer. But as for programming, like I don't know, I don't think that I've kind of over time come to subscribe to the UNIX view of the world when it comes to programming. It's like you want to teach these basic command line things and that is just what program is going to be for I think a long long time. I don't think there's any magical like visual programming that's going to happen. Um I just I don't know I've over time have become a believer in that UNIX philosophy of just you know they kind of had to write with UNIX that's going to be the way it is for a long long time and we'll continue to like I said raise the baseline the tools get better, it'll get simpler, but it's still fundamentally command line tools, you know, fancy I. D. S. That's kind of it for the foreseeable future. I'm not seeing any visual programming stuff on the horizon because you can't think like what do you do on a smartphone that will be directly analogous to programming? Like, I'm trying to think right, like, and there's really not much. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, so uh not necessarily analogous to programming, [/INST] but </s><s>[INST] the kind of things that the kind of program is that we need to write might need to be very different. Yeah. And the kind of language is, I mean, but I probably also subscribe to the same just because everything in this world might be written in javascript. Oh [/INST] yeah, that's definitely already happening. I mean discourse is a bet on discourses itself, shop script is another bet on that side of the table </s><s>[INST] and I still trying [/INST] to believe that. So, I would say smartphones, mostly a cultural shift more than a programming shift. Now, your other question was about artificial intelligence and like sort of vices predicting what you're going to do. And I do think there's some strength to that. I think artificial intelligence kind of over selling it in terms of what it's doing, it's more like people are predictable, right? People do the same things. Like, let me give an example 11 check, we put in a discourse that's in a lot of big commercial websites is say you log in from new york city and then an hour later you log in from san Francisco. It's like, well that's interesting. How did you get from new york to san Francisco in one hour? So at that point you're like, okay, this is a suspicious log in at that point. So we would alert you was like, okay, but that's not a I right? That's just a heuristic of like How did you in one hour get 2000 miles right, that doesn't mean you grab your VPN. There's other ways to happen, but that's just a basic prediction based on the idea that people pretty much don't move around that much. Like they may travel occasionally, but like nobody, I mean unless you're traveling salesman that's literally traveling the world every day, like there's so much repetition and predictability in terms of things you're going to do. And I think good software anticipate your needs, like for example, google, I think it's called google now or whatever. The google thing is that predicts your commute and predicts based on your phone location. Like where are you everyday. Well that's probably where you work, that kind of stuff. I do think computers can get a lot better at that, but I hesitate to call it like full blown ai it's just computer is getting better at like first of all they have a ton of, because everyone has a smartphone now all of a sudden we have all this data that we didn't have before about location about like, you know, communication and feeding that into some some basic heuristics and maybe some fancy algorithms that turn it into predictions of anticipating your needs. Like like a friend would write like, oh hey I I see your home. Would you like some dinner? Right? Like let's go get some food because that's usually what we do this time of day. Right? </s><s>[INST] In the context of actually the act of programming. D. C. I. D. S improving and making the life of programming is better. I [/INST] do think that is possible because there's a lot of repetition in programming, right? Oh you know, clip e would be the bad example of Oh I see. It looks like you're writing a for loop. Um but there are patterns in code, right? Like and actually libraries are kind of like that, right? Like rather than go, you know, code up your own http request library, it's like, well you'd use one of the existing ones that we have that's already trouble shot. Right? But it's not a I per se. It's just you know, building better lego bricks, bigger lego bricks that have more functionality in them. So people don't have to worry about the low level stuff as much anymore. Like Wordpress for example, to me is like a tool for somebody who's in a programmer to do something. I mean you can turn Wordpress into anything. It's kind of crazy actually, through plug ins, right? And that's not programming per se. It's just lego bricks stacking. Wordpress elements, right? A little bit of configuration glue. So I would say maybe in a broader sense what I'm saying, like there'll be more gluing unless like </s><s>[INST] actual programming [/INST] and that's a good thing, right? Because most of the stuff you need is kind of out there already. </s><s>[INST] You said 19 seventies UNIX. Do you see ph b and these kind of old remnants of of the early birth of programming remaining with us for a long time, like you said UNIX in itself, you see ultimately, you know, this stuff just being there out of momentum. [/INST] I kind of do, I mean, I was a big believer in Windows early on and I was a big, you know, I was like, you know what a waste of time, but over time I've completely flipped on that, where I was like, okay, the UNIX guys were right and pretty much Microsoft and Windows were kind of wrong, at least on the server side, not on the desktop, right? You need a gooey, you know, that stuff and you have the two philosophies like Apple built on UNIX effectively, Darwin. Um and on the desktop is a slightly different story, but on the server side where you're gonna be programming now, it's a question where the program is gonna be, there's gonna be a lot more like client side programming because technically discourses client side programming the way you get discourse, we deliver a big ball of javascript, which is the next few locally. Um so we're really using a lot more local computing power, will still retrieve the data. Obviously we have to display the posts on the screen and so forth, but in terms of like sorting and a lot of the basic stuff we're using the host processor um but to the extent that a lot of programming is still gonna be server side, I would say. Yeah, the evening's philosophy, definitely one and they'll be different veneers over UNIX but it's still, if you, if you peel away one or two layers, it's gonna be unique. See, for a long, I think UNIX one, I mean so definitively. </s><s>[INST] It's interesting to hear you say that because you've done so much excellent work on the Microsoft. And aside in terms of back end development, Cool. So what's the future hold for Jeff Atwood be discourse, continuing the discourse and trying to improve conversation on the web. [/INST] Well, this course is whatever it is and originally called a five year project that really quickly revised that to a 10 year project. So where we started in early to the 2013, we launched the first version. So we're still, you know, five years in this is the part where it starts getting good, like we have a good product now discourse, there's any any project you built in software, it takes three years to build what you wanted to build anyway. Like the one is gonna be terrible, which it was, but you ship it anyway because that's how you get better at stuff. It's about turning the crank. It's not about V. One being perfect because that's ridiculous. It's about V. One. Then let's get really good at V 1.11 point 21.3. Like how fast can we reiterate? And I think we're iterating like crazy on discourse. The point that like, it's a really good product now we have serious momentum. Um and my original vision was I want to be the wordpress of discussion, meaning someone came to you and said, I want to start a blog. Although the very question is kind of archaic now. It's like who actually blogs anymore. But uh, I wanted the answer to that to be, it would be a wordpress normally because that's the obvious choice for blogging most of the time. But if someone said, hey, I want to I need a group of people to get together and do something. The answer should be discourse, right? That should be the default answer for because it's open source, it's free. It doesn't cost you anything, you control, you can run it. Um, your minimum server across for discourse is five bucks a month at this point. Um they actually got the VPs prices down. It used to be $10 a month for one gigabyte of RAM, which were are dependent. We have, we have a kind of have a stack, like, there's a lot of stuff in discourse. You need postgres, you need red issue, need ruby on rails, um you need a sidekick for scheduling. It's not a trivial amount of stuff because we were architected for like, look, we're building for the next 10 years. I don't care about shared PHP hosting. That's that's not my model. My idea is like, hey, you know, eventually this is gonna be very cheap for everybody and I want to build it right? Using again, you know, higher by bigger building block levels, right? That have more requirements. </s><s>[INST] And there's a Wordpress model of Wordpress dot org. Wordpress dot com. Is there a central hosting for discourse, or? No, [/INST] there is. We're not strictly segmenting into the open source versus the commercial side. We have a hosting business, that's how discourse makes money </s><s>[INST] as we host discourse [/INST] instances and we have really close relationship with our customers of the symbiosis of them, giving us feedback on the product. We definitely wait feedback from customers a lot heavier than feedback from somebody who just wanders by and gives feedback, but that's where we make all our money, but we don't have a strict division. Um, we encourage people to use discourse, like the whole point is that it's free, right? Anybody can set it up. I don't want to be the only person that hosts discourse, that's absolutely not the goal, but it is a primary way for us to build a business and it's actually kind of a great business. I mean the business is going really, really well uh in terms of hosting, </s><s>[INST] so I used to work at Google Research is a company that's basically funded an advertisement, so it's facebook, let me ask if you can comment on it. I think advertisement is best. So you'd be extremely critical on what ads are, but at its best, it's actually serving you in a sense, is giving you it's connecting you to what you would want to explore. So it's like related posts related content is the same, that's the best of advertisement. So this course is uh connecting people based on their interest. It seems like a place where advertisement at its best could actually serve the users. Is that something that you're considering thinking about as a way to bring uh to financially support the platform? [/INST] That's interesting because I actually have a contrarian view of advertising which I kind of agree with you, I recently installed that blocker, like reluctantly, because I don't like to do that, but like the performance of the ads man, like they're so heavy now and like it's just crazy. So like it's almost like a performance argument more than like I actually am pro ads and I contrary, I have a contrarian viewpoint, I agree with you if you do ads right, it's showing you stuff, you would be interested in any way. Like I don't mind that, that actually is kind of a good thing. So plus I think it's it's rational to want to support the people that are doing this work through seeing their ads and but that said I run adblock now, which I didn't want to do, But I was convinced by all these artists like 30, 40 MB of stuff just to serve you ads. Um Yeah, </s><s>[INST] it feels like as now are like the experts exchange of whenever you start to stack overflow, it's a little bit, [/INST] it's there's so many companies in ad tech that's embarrassing. Like you can do that if you see this logo charts of like just a whole page, just like you can't even see them. They're so small. There's so many companies in the space, but since you brought it up, I do want to point out that very, very few discourse sites actually run using an ad supported model. It's not effective, like it's too diluted, it's too weird. It doesn't pay well and like users hate it. So it's a combination of like users hate it. It doesn't actually work that well in practice, like in theory, yes, I agree with you. If you had clean fast ads that were exactly the stuff you would be interested in, awesome. We're so far from that though, right? Like google doesn't okay job retargeting and stuff like that. But in the, in the real world discourse sites rarely can make ads work. It just doesn't work for so many reasons. But you know what does work? Is subscriptions? Patreon uh, affiliate codes for like amazon of like just oh here, here's a cool yo yo click and then you click and go to amazon, they get a small percentage of that, which is fair, I think because you saw the yo yo on that site and you click through and you bought it, right? That's fair for them to get 5% of that or 2% of that, whatever it is, those things definitely work. In fact a site that I used to participate on a lot. I helped the owner. One of things I I got them switch to discourse, basically paid them to switch to discourse because I was like, look, you guys gonna switch, I can't come here anymore on this terrible software. Um but I was like, look and on top of that, like you're serving people adds that, they hate like you should just go full on Patreon because he had a little bit of Patreon, go full on Patreon, do the amazon affiliates thing for any amazon links that get posted and just do that and just triple down on that stuff and that's worked really well for them and this creator in particular. So that stuff works. But traditional ads, I mean definitely not working, at least on discourse. </s><s>[INST] So last question, you've created the code keyboard. I've programmed most of my adult life in a kinesis keyboard. I have one upstairs. Now, can you describe what a mechanical keyboard is and why is it something that makes you happy? [/INST] Well, you know, this is another fetish item really? Like, it's not required. You can do programming on any kind of keyboard, right? Even like an on screen keyboard. Oh God, that's terrifying, right? Like, But you could touch, I mean, if you look back to the early days, there were chick lit keyboards, which are I mean, those are awful, right? But what's the chick like you? Oh God, okay, well, it's just like, thin rubber membranes. </s><s>[INST] Oh, the rubber ones. Oh, no, [/INST] super bad. Right? So, it's a fetish item. All that really says is, look, I care really about keyboards because the keyboard is the primary method of communication with a computer, right? So, it's just like having a nice mike for this, this podcast. You want a nice keyboard because it has a very tactile feel. I can tell exactly when I press the key. I get that little click. So, and it feels good. And it's also kind of a fetish items, like, wow, I care enough about programming that I care about the tool, the primary tool that uses the computer, make sure it's as good as it feels good to use for me and like, I can be very productive with it. So, to be honest it's a little bit of a fetish item, but a good one, it indicates that you're serious, indicates you're interested. It indicates that you care about the fundamentals because you know what makes you a good programmer. Being able to type really fast, right? Like this is true, right? So a core skill is just being able to type fast enough to get your ideas out of your head into the code base. So just practicing your typing can make you a better programmer. </s><s>[INST] It is also something that makes you well, makes you enjoy typing correct the actual act something about the process. Like I play piano. [/INST] There's </s><s>[INST] a tactile feel that ultimately uh feeds the passion makes you happy [/INST] right now, totally. That's it. I mean and it's funny cause artisanal keyboards have exploded. Like mass drop has gone ballistic with this stuff. There's probably like 500 keyboard projects on mass drop alone. And there's some other guy I follow on twitter, I used to write for the site of the tech report way back in the day and he's like every week he's just posting like what I call keyboard porn of like </s><s>[INST] cool keyboard. [/INST] Oh my god, that looks really cool, right? Like it's like how many keyboards this guy? It's like me with yo yo's how many of those do you have? How many do you need? Well, technically one but I like a lot, I don't know why. So. Same thing with keyboard. So yeah, they're awesome. Like I highly recommend anybody that doesn't have a mechanical to research it, Look into it and see what you like. And you know, it's ultimately a fetish item. But I think these sort of items, these religious artifacts that we have are part of what makes us human like that that part's important, right? Kind of </s><s>[INST] what makes life worth living. It's [/INST] not necessary in the strictest sense, but ain't nothing necessary if you think of you, right? Like, Yeah, why not so sure. </s><s>[INST] Thank you so much for talking today. [/INST] Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for having me. </s>

<s>[INST] What did it take to write, sort of a definitive book? Probably the definitive book on all of programs, like it's more definitive to a particular language than any other book on any other language and did two really powerful things, which is popularized the language, at least from my perspective, maybe you can correct me And second is created a standard of how, you know, the how this language is supposed to be used and apply. So what did it take? Did you have those kinds of ambitions in mind when we're working on that? [/INST] It's some kind of joke? No, of course not. Uh </s><s>[INST] an accident is an accident of uh of timing skill and just look [/INST] A lot of it is clearly timing was good. Now Dennis and I wrote the book in 1977 on the stretchy, right? Um And at that point UNIX was starting to spread. I don't know how many there were but it would be dozens to hundreds of unique systems. Um And see was also available on other kinds of computers that had nothing to do with UNIX. And so the language had some potential. Um And there were no other books on C. And Bell Labs was really the only source for it. And Dennis of course was authoritative because it was his language. And he had written the reference manual which is a marvelous example of how to write a reference manual. Really really very very well done. So I twisted his arm until he agreed to write a book and then we wrote a book. And the virtue or advantage at least I guess of going first is that then other people have to follow you if they're going to do anything. Um And I think it worked well because Dennis was superb writer. I mean he really, really did. And the reference manual in the book is his period, I had nothing to do with that at all. Um So just crystal clear prose. Very, very well expressed. Um And then he and I I wrote most of the expository material and then he and I sort of did the usual ping ponging back and forth refining it. But I spent a lot of time trying to find examples that would sort of hang together and they would tell people what they might need to know. What about the right time that they should be thinking about needing it. Um And I'm not sure it completely succeeded but it mostly worked out fairly well. </s><s>[INST] What do you think is the power of example? I mean you're you are the creator at least one of the first people to do the Hello World program. Just like the example if aliens discover our civilization hundreds of years from now, it'll probably Hello World programs just like a half broken robot communicating with them with the Hello World. So what and that's a representative example. So what what do you find powerful about examples? [/INST] I think a good example will tell you how to do something and it will be representative of, you might not want to do exactly that but you will want to do something that's at least in that same general vein. Um And so a lot of the examples in the sea book were picked for these very very simple straightforward text processing problems that were typical of UNIX. I want to read input and write it out again. There's a copy command, I want to read input and do something to it and write it out again there's a grab. And so that kind of find things that are representative of what people want to do and spell those out so that they can then take those and see the core parts and modify them to their taste. And I think that a lot of programming books that I don't look at programming books a tremendous amount these days, but when I do a lot of don't do that, they don't give you examples that are both realistic and something you might want to do. Some of them are pure syntax, here's how you add three numbers. Well, come on, I could figure that out. Tell me how I would get those three numbers into the computer and how he would do something useful with them and then how I put them back out again, deeply formatted </s><s>[INST] and especially if you follow the example, there's something magical of doing something that feels useful. Yeah. [/INST] Right. And I think it's the attempt and it's absolutely not perfect. Uh but the attempt in all cases was to get something that was going to be either directly useful or would be very representative of useful things that a programmer might want to do. But within that vein of fundamentally text processing, reading text, doing something, writing text. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] So you've also written a book on goal language. Uh I have to admit. So I worked at google for a while, I've never used go not you miss something well, I know I missed something for sure. I mean so go and rust, the two languages that I hear very uh spoken very highly of and I wish I would like to try. Well there's a lot of them, there's Julia, there's there's all these incredible modern languages, but if you can comment before or maybe comment on, what do you find, where does go sit in in this broad spectrum of languages. And also how do you yourself feel about this wide range of powerful, interesting language is that you may never even get to try to explore because of time. [/INST] So I think so go um go first comes from that same bell labs tradition in part, not exclusively, but two of the three creators, ken, Thompson and rob pike, </s><s>[INST] literally the people, yeah, people. Um [/INST] and then with this very, very useful uh influence from the european school uh in particular the clothes sphere of influence through robert Chrismer. Um it was, I guess the second generation down student uh e th um and so that's an interesting combination of things. And so some ways go captures the good parts of c, It looks sort of like, see it sometimes characterized to see for the 21st century um on the surface, it looks very, very much like c but at the same time it has some interesting data structuring capabilities. And then I think the part that I would Say is particularly useful and again, I'm not ago expert. Um in spite of co authoring the book, about 90% of the work was done by Alan Donovan and my co author who is ago expert. Um But go provides a very nice model of concurrency. It's basically the cooperating uh communicating sequential processes that Tony Hoare uh set forth, Jeez, I don't know, 40 plus years ago. Um and go routines are to my mind a very natural way to talk about um parallel computation. And in the few experiments I've done with them, they're easy to write and typically it's going to work and very efficient as well. So I think that's one place where go stands out that that model of parallel computation is very, very easy and nice </s>

<s>[INST] So it's difficult for somebody who's young [/INST] or an outsider to quickly become a candidate, young. I think that that's true, and I think also, in a lot of ways, it's just not, would you want to be president? No. I mean, I can't be, because I wasn't born in the US, </s><s>[INST] so it's easy for me to say, but. If everyone says no, then we'll get the people that we have. No, I understand that. So I would love to help somehow. Sure. And I feel like there's not even a mechanism for helping, except through the democratic, through the voting process. But I'm just annoyed how little technology there is in the whole process, how little innovation there is [/INST] in the whole process, all of this. The sad thing is, this is written about a lot, which is there's this thing called political hobbyism, and I think there's a good chance that some of the people in my audience are political hobbyists, in the sense that they follow this stuff as entertainment, to some degree. And I've written a lot about how, I've read a lot and talked a lot about how, okay, we vote every two years or every four years in our local elections, et cetera. And then we think about politics all the time. Neil Postman wrote about this in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. But what are you actually going to do about the kids starving in this country and the nuclear buildup in that country? Okay, if everybody refocused their attention on their immediate communities, and that could mean any number, it could mean the town or city you live in, or it might mean an athletic club or whatever. If everybody, this time they spent on political hobbyism, they moved somewhere else, which might put me out of a job. That's okay, I'm willing to lose my job because I think it would be so beneficial. Then our communities would just be that much better because you can actually affect change in a much more tangible way locally, whether it's obvious people talk about potholes, </s><s>[INST] but other things as well. Yeah, and I wish our system was more amenable to that kind of contribution, hopefully to the digital space it would be. Let me ask you about, on the Republican side, Ron DeSantis, what do you think of him as a candidate? [/INST] Money against Donald Trump. Think of him as a candidate. I think in the couple of weeks before our discussion today, his campaign, which hasn't even started, has sort of started to implode. And this was something that I started thinking about in September, October. He really doesn't seem ready for prime time in the sense that just being confronted, and confronted's not even the right word, just being asked about some topics he didn't really seem to want to talk about. He responded in such a sort of disproportionate, unhinged way during his recent trip to Asia. He was asked about, why aren't you, or why are you responding but in this weird way to Trump's attacks on you? And he went into this weird bobblehead thing with a weird smile, and something came out that didn't make any sense, and he sort of got mad at the reporter. And it was just like, if you can't handle that, you can't be on a debate stage with Donald Trump. And again, for all my criticisms of Trump, the guy gets you on a debate stage, he can make you look pretty silly. He was recently asked about his role at Guantanamo Bay when he was an officer in, I forget which branch of the armed forces, and he just sort of attacked the journalist asking the question, and it just looked very bad. And there are increasingly big Republican donors who are not fans of Trump, and were sort of hoping to put their eggs in the Ron DeSantis basket who are saying, this guy just doesn't have what it takes, I don't think he can do it. So I don't know if DeSantis will be able to get away. Once you're polling 20 something like he is, and you haven't even announced, it's very attractive. And he probably to some degree is thinking, if I wait till 2028, I might not have this opportunity again. But Trump's polling 5253, which means even if DeSantis gets all of the current non-Trump vote, he has to figure out how to take something more from Trump. </s><s>[INST] I just don't know how he does it. First of all, the implosion aspect, that's part of the process, isn't it? You kind of implode a bunch of times. And then rebuild yourself. [/INST] And rebuild them because the new cycle kind of forgets. And then rebuild yourself, it's possible. The problem is, the first debate is in August. So that's only a few months away. And the decision's going to have to be made pretty soon. And unless he can get a new momentum going, I just don't know how he gets what he needs </s><s>[INST] in order to really have a shot. [/INST] So would anyone else running against Donald Trump? It's very tough right now. I mean, there are other people running. There's this guy, Vivek Ramaswamy, who's running. Nikki Haley is running her campaign, basically dead on arrival. Trump actually does better in polls, the more people run. When it's just him and DeSantis, that's the best scenario for DeSantis. It's not great for DeSantis, but it's certainly better. But I think the difficulty is, this is a question for Republicans to figure out. The people who rightly recognized in 2016 that this guy is not good for their party, still believe this guy is not good for their party. But many of them recognize that most of the voters are still behind him. You can always say it's early, his polling doesn't really mean anything, anything could happen. Something major would have to happen for Trump to lose that lead. If he got more, if he was arrested two more times and had more indictments and it just became like, this guy can't even campaign because he's so busy going from court to court. Maybe that would make a difference. </s>

<s>[INST] later on in the id software days as well. So do efficient drawing where you don't have to draw the whole screen, but you draw from the bottom using the thing that was designed in the hardware [/INST] for text output. Yeah, where so much of, until recently, game design was limited by what you could actually get the computer to do, where it's easy to say, like, okay, I want to scroll the screen. You just redraw the entire screen at a slight offset. And nowadays that works just fine. Computers are ludicrously fast. But up until a decade ago or so, there were all these things everybody wanted to do, but if they knew enough programming to be able to make it happen, it would happen too slow to be a good experience, either just ridiculously slow or just slow enough that it wasn't fun to experience it like that. So so much of kind of the first couple decades of the programming work that I did was largely figuring out how to do something that everybody knows how they want it to happen. It just has to happen two to 10 times faster than sort of the straightforward way of doing things would make it happen. And it's different now because at this point, lots of things you can just do in the most naive possible way and it still works out. You know, you don't have nearly the creative limitations or the incentives for optimizing on that level. And there's a lot of pros and cons to that. But I do generally, you know, I'm not gonna do the angry old man shaking my fist at the clouds bit where back in my day programmers had to do real programming. You know, it's amazing that you can just kind of pick an idea and go do it right now. And you don't have to be some assembly language wizard or deep GPU Arcanist to be able to figure out how to make your wishes happen. </s><s>[INST] Well, there's still, see, that's true. But let me put on my old man with a fist hat and say that probably the thing that will define the future still requires you to operate at the limits of the current system. So we'll probably talk about this, but if you talk about building the metaverse and building a VR experience that's compelling, it probably requires you to not to go to assembly or maybe not literally, but sort of spiritually [/INST] to go to the limits of what the system is capable of. And that really was why virtual reality was specifically interesting to me where it had all the ties to, you could say that even back in the early days, I have some old magazine articles that's talking about doom as a virtual reality experience back when just seeing anything in 3D. So you could say that we've been trying to build those virtual experiences from the very beginning. And in the modern era of virtual reality, especially on the mobile side of things, when it's standalone and you're basically using a cell phone chip to be able to produce these very immersive experiences, it does require work. It's not at the level of what an old school console game programmer would have operated at where you're looking at hardware registers and you're scheduling all the DNA accesses, but it is still definitely a different level than what a web developer or even a PC Steam game developer usually has to work at. And again, it's great. There's opportunities for people that wanna operate at either end of that spectrum there </s><s>[INST] and still provide a lot of value to the world. Let me ask you sort of a big question about preference. What would you say is the best programming language? Your favorite, but also the best. You've seen throughout your career, you're considered by many to be the greatest programmer ever. I mean, it's so difficult to place that label on anyone, but if you put it on anyone, it's you. So let me ask you these kinds of ridiculous questions of what's the best band of all time, [/INST] but in your case, what's the best programming language? Everything has all the caveats about it, but so what I use, so nowadays, I do program a reasonable amount of Python for AIML sorts of work. I'm not a native Python programmer. It's something I came to very late in my career. I understand what it's good for. </s><s>[INST] But you don't dream in Python. [/INST] I do not. And it has some of those things where there's some amazing stats when you say, if you just start, if you make a loop, you know, a triply nested loop and start doing operations in Python, you can be thousands to potentially a million times slower than a proper GPU tensor operation. And these are staggering numbers. You know, you can be as much slower as we've almost gotten faster in our pace of progress </s><s>[INST] and all this other miraculous stuff. So your intuition is about inefficiencies [/INST] within the Python sort of- It keeps hitting me upside the face where it just, it's gotten to the point now I understand. It's like, okay, you just can't do a loop if you care about performance in Python. You have to figure out how you can reformat this into some big vector operation or something that's going to be done completely within a C++ library. But the other hand is it's amazingly convenient. And you just see stuff that people are able to cobble together by, you just import a few different things and you can do stuff that nobody on earth could do 10 years ago. And you can do it in a little cookbook thing that you copy paste it out of a website. So that is really great. When I'm sitting down to do what I consider kind of serious programming, it's still in C++ and it's really kind of a C flavored C++ at that where I'm not big into the modern template meta programming sorts of things. I see a lot of train wrecks coming from some of that over abstraction. I spent a few years really going kind of deep into the kind of the historical Lisp work and Haskell and some of the functional programming sides of things. And there is a lot of value there in the way you think about things. And I changed a lot of the way I write my C and C++ code based on what I learned about the value that comes out of not having this random mutable state that you kind of lose track of. Because something that many people don't really appreciate till they've been at it for a long time is that it's not the writing of the program initially, it's the whole lifespan of the program. And that's when it's not necessarily just how fast you wrote it or how fast it operates, but it's how can it bend and adapt as situations change. And then the thing that I've really been learning in my time at meta with the Oculus and VR work is it's also how well it hands off between a continuous kind of revolving door of programmers taking over maintenance and different things and how you get people up to speed in different areas. And there's all these other different aspects of it. </s>

<s>[INST] how do we do you think Combine The 2? How do we combine good point by point functions with programs which is what the symbolic ai type systems at which levels the combination happened. And you know, obviously we're jumping into the realm of where there is no good answers. You just kind of ideas and intuitions and so on. [/INST] Well, if you look at the really successful AI systems today, I think they're already hybrid systems that are combining symbolic ai with deep learning for instance, successful robotics systems are already mostly model based rule based things like planning algorithms and so on at the same time. They're using deep learning as perception modules. Sometimes they're using deep learning as a way to inject a fuzzy intuition into a rule based process. If you look at the system like a self driving car, it's not just one big into a neural network that wouldn't work at all precisely because in order to train that we need a dense sampling of experience space when it comes to driving. Which is completely unrealistic. Obviously instead the self driving car is mostly Symbolic. You know, its software is programmed by hand. So it's mostly based on explicit models in this case mostly 3D models of the environment around the car. But it's interfacing with the real world using deep learning models. So </s><s>[INST] the deep learning, their service is a way to convert the raw sensor information to something usable by symbolic systems. Okay, well let's linger on that a little more. Uh so dense sampling from input to output. You said it's obviously very difficult. Is it possible [/INST] in the case of self driving human, </s><s>[INST] let's say self driving. Self driving for many people, let's not even talk about self driving, let's talk about steering. So staying inside the lane, [/INST] lane following. Yeah, it's definitely a problem. You can still lose an end to end deep learning model but that's like one small substance, not a second, I don't know how you're jumping from the extreme so </s><s>[INST] easily because I disagree with you on that uh I think well it's not obvious to me that you can solve laying following. [/INST] It's no it's not it's not obvious, I think it's doable. I think in general, you know there is no uh hard limitations to what you can learn with a deep neural network. As long as uh the search space like uh is rich enough is flexible enough and as long as you have this dense sampling of the input cross output space, the problem is that, you know, this dense sampling could mean anything from 10,000 examples to like trillions and trillions. So </s><s>[INST] that's that's my question. So what's your intuition? And if you could just give it a chance and think what kind of problems can be solved by getting a huge amounts of data and thereby creating a dense mapping. So let's think about natural language dialogue. The turing test. Do you think that touring to us can be solved with and you will not work alone? [/INST] Well, the turing test is all about tricking people into believing they're talking to human and I don't think that's actually very difficult because it's more about exploiting human perception and not so much about intelligence. There's a big difference between mimicking into asian behavior and actually intelligent behavior. So okay, </s><s>[INST] let's look at maybe the Alexa prize and so on. The different formulations of the natural language conversation that are less about mimicking and more about [/INST] maintaining a fun </s><s>[INST] conversation that lasts [/INST] for 20 minutes. </s><s>[INST] That's a little less about mimicking that's more about I mean it's still mimicking but it's more about being able to carry forward a conversation with all the tangents that happened in dialogue and so on. Do you think that problem is learn a ble with this kind of with a neural network that does the point to point mapping? [/INST] So I think it would be very, very challenging to do this with deep learning. I don't think it's out of the question either. I wouldn't read that </s><s>[INST] the space of problems that can be solved with a large neural network. What's your sense about the space of those problems? So useful problems for us. [/INST] In theory it's infinite. You can solve any problem in practice. Well, deep learning is a great fit for perception problems in general. Any any problem which is naturally amenable to explicit and crafted rules or rules that you can generate by exhaustive search over some program space. So, perception, artificial intuition, as long as you have a sufficient training </s><s>[INST] and that's the question. I mean, perception, there's interpretation and understanding of the scene which seems to be outside the reach of current perception systems. So, do you think larger networks will be able to start to understand the physics and the physics of the scene? The three dimensional structure and relationships, advisors in the scene and so on or really. That's where symbolic God has to step in. [/INST] Well, it's always possible to solve these problems with Deep Learning is just extremely inefficient. A model would be an explicit rule based abstract model will be a far far better, more compressed representation of physics then learning just this mapping between in this situation. This thing happens if you change the situation slightly than this, other thing happens and so on. </s><s>[INST] Do you think it's possible to automatically generate the programs? That that would require that kind of reasoning or does it have to the expert systems fail. There's so many facts about the world. Had to be hand coded in thing is possible too learn those logical statements that are true about the world and their relationships. Do you think? I mean that's kind of what they're improving at a basic level of [/INST] trying to do. Right? Yeah. Except it's it's much harder to family statements about the world compared to formulating mathematical statements, statements about the world tend to be subjective. So can you, can you learn rule based models? Yes, definitely. That's the this is a field of program synthesis. However, today we just don't really know how to do it. So it's it's very much a grass search of research problem. And so we are limited to, you know, the sort of a three session grassroots algorithms that we have today personally. I think genetic algorithms are very promising. It's almost like genetic programming genic crime. Exactly. Can you discuss </s>

<s>[INST] being, as a human being, which [/INST] pittman when they could probably get away with treating most people without a whole heck of a lot of dignity. And I guess what does that always say that like, you know, again, like you can always tell someone of quality because they treat the king and the, and the janitor the same way. Yeah, but that's what we're seeing a lot. Like that was, I guess, I don't mean to like to nitpick, but that's where I take issue I guess a little bit or disagree </s><s>[INST] with criticized with the internet. [/INST] Again, no, keep on the internet. Old man yells yells at clouds. But uh, but uh, anyway, but I guess, uh, what I mean is just like the way that people address each other because it's so casual now, you know, and it's, it's great. On the one hand, it's nice on the other hand, you go, hey, just why can't do am I somehow diminish our my worried about diminishing myself. It's like the way that I'm sure that people talk to like talk to women sometimes and where it's what's up girl mrs bitch, you know, versus like how am I that was supposed to get a good response. What about that? Was going to elicit a favorable response, you know, versus being anything anything other than than just, you know, man, what's going on? And I guess that doesn't make any sense. </s><s>[INST] It makes total sense. And that southern thing that you're referring to, I I feel like that's an important, that's an important part of human communication. Let me ask you this, your new back attacks, instructional, first of all, awesome. Uh second of all, you drop, you drop a lot of fascinating insights in that, but you quote Galileo out of all people in saying that you can't teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. So we talked about how to start in jujitsu. What about if we zoom out even more and how do you learn how to learn? How do you optimize the learning process? [/INST] I don't know the answer to that, but I can tell you what I like to do and I would say like I can't step one. I don't I'm not, maybe this is a little bit easier for me because you know, I've never had a ton of friends. Honestly I've you know, I've got my close friends and people I don't know, but I've never had tons and tons of people, so I spent a lot of time, you know thinking and anyway uh I can't I can't control you, I can't control anybody else. I you know I uh all I can I want to take my gets a Marcus Aurelius thing. It's like, you know, I guess the trick to life is figuring out what's in our control and what's not and focusing on things that are in our control I guess. And uh so step one is figuring out both internally and then also out in the world as it pertains to jitsu, what is actually in my control and what is not like passing someone's guard is not in your control. People think it is, it ain't if I can't just do an activity and be unchecked then it ain't in my control entirely. I can always breathe, I can always um you know, be calm, I can always, no matter whether I'm concerned or not concerned, what do you want to call it, nerves? You know, I can step forward across the line and say I will I will face the challenge ahead. That is all entirely, no one can stop me from doing that. That's entirely out of control and that's why I know that every single time that I walk into the ring, I will walk in and out of there with my head held high because there's I, I will fight with everything that I have, I can't promise that I'll win. I would say I take that same first principles. You mentioned the last time we talked, you know with Ellen and uh the importance of that and going, what are the first principles and I guess to come back a lot of times, in my opinion, things that people think are the basics are not the basics. You can't learn if you think your reasoning for first principles, but you're actually like level six, you're actually like layers up, you're making so many, there's so many baked in assumptions to what's going on that you're going to struggle to understand why anything is actually happening internally externally, you name it. So I guess what I would start when it comes to learning is first principles and trying to understand what's going on. But then also simple things first I can control my posture, I can control my breathing, no one can stop me from doing that. I can control where I place my frames, I can control where I place my limbs, I can move my feet, I can develop the ability to do these things better of course, and I do that through practice through drilling through watching people. I've been incredibly fortunate in my time of martial arts, to train with many of my heroes, to train with many of the people that I looked and I was like, that guy is amazing, I want to train with this person like Stephen, Thompson, Kenny florian George ST Pierre Raymond Daniels for as a hobby, you know, I mean like Bruno Fernando, marcelo Garcia, you know, all of these guys that are just unbelievable and I go, well, they're moving in a way that's different, how do I do that? Sometimes you can ask them and they can tell you directly and other times people part of the genius of what they do is that it's intuitive and maybe they don't think and understand and see the world the same way that I do. That was something that I experienced Marcello. Um, he's amazing, but in, in a different way than his, it just, we see things fundamentally different, we experience the world differently. It seems to me that we do and again, that, that taught me a really important lesson because I was wanting, when I trained there to have someone go, hey Ryan do this, this, this and this and, and that's how it works and I'm like, all right, because that's how I understood martial arts at the time, um, I wasn't ready to have someone tell me like, hey, um, it feels a little bit like this and I just kind of do it, which is kind of what marcela would do at the time and he was less experience as a teacher, but that is what he was doing, I was completely so I couldn't separate in my mind, performance and understanding, I thought that if I understand I could do it and I would also wonder, I would also struggle sometimes to wonder why I couldn't execute things that I thought I understood and why guys like Marcello were just so elemental. I mean in like the like lightning when like that type of thing, like it's just so in touch with what they wanted with their capabilities, they could summon their powers. It will, I couldn't always do that. And I guess so, recognizing that there was more than one way to the top of the mountain and also I had a lot of science but I didn't have a lot of art, I had some science I should say, but didn't have a lot of art meeting people like Marcela taught me and then josh, wait skin, actually brilliant guy, Chess champion. Former owner, maybe owner of Marcello's Academy, Really great friend I think is a book learning. He does the art of learning. But yeah, he knows a thing or two about it, but a great guy. And anyway, he sat me down one time I was like, look man, you're doing this wrong, you're missing what they're missing the genius, the brilliance that's right in front of you. And it took me once, I mean that I was frustrated with uh, with my inability to grab certain things and and sometimes the teaching style being different, not wrong. It was, it was, it was tough for me at times, like, my </s>

<s>[INST] in terms of a deep meaningful connection? So you've mentioned the movie her as one of your favorite ai movies, Do you think it's possible for a human being to fall in love with an Ai system Ai assistant as you mentioned. So taking this big leap from what's the weather to, you know, having a deep connection [/INST] I think as people that's what we love to do. And I was at a showing of her where we had a panel discussion and somebody asked me what other movie do you think her is similar to? And my answer was Life of brian, which which is not a science fiction movie. Uh but both movies are about wanting to believe in something that's not necessarily real. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, by the way, for people don't know, it's monty python. Yeah, brilliantly put [/INST] so I mean I think that's just the way we are, we want to trust, we want to believe we want to fall in love and uh it doesn't necessarily take that much. Right? So uh you know my kids uh fell in love with her teddy bear and the teddy bear was not very interactive, right? So that's all us pushing our feelings onto our devices and our things and I think that that's what we like to do. So we'll continue to do that. </s><s>[INST] So yeah, as human beings will long for that connection and just a i has to uh do a little bit of work to uh catch us on the [/INST] other end. And certainly, you know, if you can get to uh dog level, a lot of people have invested a lot of love in their pets and their </s><s>[INST] pets. Some some people, as I've been told in working with autonomous vehicles have invested a lot of love into their own adamant cars. So it it really doesn't take much. So what is a good test to linger on the topic? That may be silly or a little bit philosophical? What is a good test of intelligence in your view is natural conversation, Like in the touring test, a good a good test. Put another way, what would impress you if you saw a computer do it these days? [/INST] I mean, I get impressed all the </s><s>[INST] time, [/INST] Right? So really, you know, go playing Starcraft, playing, uh those are all pretty cool, you know, And I think uh sure conversation is important. I think uh you know, we sometimes have these tests where it's easy to fool the system where you can have a chat pot that can have a conversation, but you never uh never gets into a situation where has to be deep enough that uh really reveals itself as being an intelligent or not. I think uh you know, turing suggested that uh but I think if he were alive, he'd say, you know, I didn't really mean that seriously, </s><s>[INST] right? [/INST] And I think uh you know, this is just my opinion. But but I think turing's point was not that this test of conversation is a good test. I think his point was having a test is the right thing. So rather than having the philosophers say, oh no, ai is impossible, you should say, well, we'll just have a test and then the result of that, we'll tell us the answer and doesn't necessarily have to be a conversation test. </s><s>[INST] That's right. And coming up with you. But a test as the technology evolves is probably the right way. Do you worry as a lot of the general public does about not a lot, but some vocal part of the general public about the existential threat of artificial intelligence. So looking farther into the future, as you said, most of us are not able to predict much. So when shrouded in such mystery, there is a concern of, well, you think it started thinking about worst case, is that something that occupies your mind space? Much? [/INST] So I certainly think about threats. I think about dangers. Uh and I think any new technology has positives and negatives and if it's a powerful technology, it can be used for bad as well as for good. So I'm certainly not worried about the robot apocalypse. Uh the terminator type scenarios, I am worried about change in employment. And are we gonna be able to react fast enough to deal with that? I think we're, you know, we're already seeing it today where a lot of people are are disgruntled about uh the way income inequality is working and uh an automation could help accelerate those kinds of problems. I see powerful technologies can always be used as weapons, whether they're robots or drones or whatever. Some of that we're seeing due to a i a lot of it you don't need a I uh and I don't know what's uh what's a worse threat of its autonomous drone or uh it's CRISPR technology becoming available or we have lots of threats to face. And some of them involve ai and some of them don't. </s><s>[INST] So the threats that technology presents you for the most part optimistic about technology also alleviating those threats are creating new opportunities or protecting us from the more detrimental effects of Yeah, [/INST] I don't know, it's again it's hard to predict the future. And </s><s>[INST] uh [/INST] as a society so far we've survived nuclear bombs and other things of course uh only societies that have survived are having this conversation. So uh maybe that's a survivorship bias </s><s>[INST] there. What problem stands out to you as exciting, challenging, impactful to work on in the near future for yourself for the community in broadly [/INST] so, you know, we talked about these assistants in conversation, I think that's a great area, I think combining uh common sense reasoning with the power of data is a great area </s><s>[INST] in which application in conversation relation was just broadly [/INST] just in general as a programmer. I'm interested in programming tools both in terms of the current systems we have today with tensorflow and so on. Can we make them much easier to use for broader class of people and also can we apply machine learning to the more traditional type of programming, right? So, you know, when you go to google and you type in a query and you spell something wrong, it says did you mean? And the reason we're able to do that is because lots of other people made a similar error and then they corrected it. We should be able to go into our code bases and our bug fix spaces. And when I type a line of code it should be able to say, did you mean such and such? If you type this today, you're probably gonna type in this bug fix tomorrow. </s>

<s>[INST] So this says something interesting about the human mind that as a computer is designed to be general. So that means you can so it's not it's not easily made specialized Meaning if you're going to be good at one thing uh Miyamoto Musashi has, this quote is an ancient warrior famous for the book of five rings in the martial arts world. And the quote goes if you know the way broadly you will see it in everything meaning if you do one thing is going to generalize to everything. And that that's an interesting thing about the human mind. So that that's what the G factor reveals. Okay so what's the difference if you can elaborate a little bit further between I. Q. And G. Factor? Just because it's a source of confusion for people [/INST] and I. Q. Is is a score. People use the word I. Q. To mean intelligence. But I. Q. Has a more technical meeting for people who work in the field and I it's an I. Q. Score score on a test that estimates the G. Factor. Um And the G factor is what's common among all these tests of mental ability. So if you think about it's not a Venn diagram but um I guess you could make a Venn diagram out of it but the g factor would be really at the core what's what's common to everything and I what I. Q. Scores do is they allow a rank order of people on the score and this is what makes people uncomfortable. This is where there's a lot of controversy about whether I. Q. Tests are biased toward any one group or another and um a lot of the the answers to these questions are very clear but they also have a technical aspect of it that's not so easy to to explain. </s><s>[INST] Well we'll talk about the fascinating and the difficult things about all of this. But so by the way when you say rank order that means you get a number and that means one person. You can now compare like uh you can say that this other person is more intelligent than me. What [/INST] you can say is I. Q. Scores are interpreted really as percentiles. So that uh if you have an I. Q. Of 100 and 40 and somebody else has 70. The metric is such that you cannot say the person with an I. Q. Of 100 and 40 is twice as smart As a person with an i. q. of 70. That would require a ratio scale with an absolute zero. Now you may think you know people with zero intelligence but in fact there is no absolute zero on on an I. Q. Scale it's relative to other people. So relative to other people. Somebody with an I. Q. Score of 140 is in the upper less than 1%. Whereas somebody with an I. Q. Of 70 is two standard deviations below the mean that's that's a different percentile. So </s><s>[INST] it's similar to like in chess you have an elo rating that's designed to rank order people. Uh So you can't say it's twice one person if if your your ratings twice another person, I don't think you're twice as good at chess. It's not stable in that way. But because it's very difficult to do these kinds of comparisons. But uh so what can we say about the number itself [/INST] is </s><s>[INST] that stable across tests and so on. And know [/INST] there are a number of statistical properties of any tests are called psychometric properties. You have validity, you have reliability, reliability. There are many different kinds of reliability. They all essentially measure stability and I. Q. Tests are stable within an individual. There are some longitudinal studies where Children were measured at age 11 and again when they were 70 years old and the two I. Q. Scores are highly correlated with each other. This comes from a fascinating study from Scotland. Uh in the 19 thirties some researchers decided to get an I. Q. Test on every single child age 11 in the whole country and they did. And those records were discovered in an old store room at the University of Edinburgh by a friend of mine Ian Deary who found the records digitized them. And has done a lot of research on the people who are still alive today from that original study including brain imaging research by the way. Really it's a fascinating group of of people who are who are are studied. Um not to get ahead of the story. But one of the most interesting things they found Is a very strong relationship between I. Q. measured at age 11 and mortality. So that You know in the 70 years later they looked at the survival rates and they could get death records from everybody. And Scotland has universal health care for everybody. And it turned out if you divide people by their age 11 I. Q. Score into court tiles. And then look at how many people are alive 70 years later. The I know this is in the book that I have the graph in the book but there are essentially twice as many people alive and the highest I. Q. Quartile than in the lowest quartile through in men and women. Um </s><s>[INST] interesting. So [/INST] it makes a big difference now why this is the case is not so clear since everyone had access to health care. </s>

<s>[INST] get this ordered thing produced from it. What does it mean to be a computationally bounded observer, observing a computational reducible system, so a computationally bounded? [/INST] Is there something formal you can say there? Right. So it means, okay, you can talk about Turing machines. You can talk about computational complexity theory and polynomial time computation and things like this. There are a variety of ways to make something more precise, but I think it's more useful, intuitive version of it is more useful, which is basically just to say that how much computation are you going to do to try and work out what's going on? And the answer is we're not able to do a lot of computation. In this room, there will be a trillion, trillion, trillion molecules, a little bit less. It's a big room. Right. And at every moment, every microsecond or something, these molecules are colliding, and that's a lot of computation that's getting done. And the question is, in our brains, we do a lot less computation every second than the computation done by all those molecules. If there is computational irreducibility, we can't work out in detail what all those molecules are going to do. What we can do is only a much smaller amount of computation. And so, the second law of thermodynamics is this interplay between the underlying computational irreducibility and the fact that we, as preparers of initial states, or as measurers of what happens, are not capable of doing that much computation. So, to us, another big formulation of the second law of thermodynamics is this idea of the law of entropy increase. </s><s>[INST] The characteristic that this universe, the entropy, seems to be always increasing. [/INST] What does that show to you about the evolution of the universe at the time? Well, okay, so first we have to say what entropy is. And that's very confused in the history of thermodynamics, because entropy was first introduced by a guy called Rudolf Clausius, and he did it in terms of heat and temperature. Okay? Subsequently, it was reformulated by a guy called Ludwig Boltzmann, and he formulated it in a much more kind of combinatorial type way. But he always claimed that it was equivalent to Clausius' thing, and in one particular simple example it is. But that connection between these two formulations of entropy, they've never been connected. Okay, so the more general definition of entropy due to Boltzmann is the following thing. So you say, I have a system and it has many possible configurations. Molecules can be in many different arrangements, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If we know something about the system, for example, we know it's in a box, it has a certain pressure, it has a certain temperature, we know these overall facts about it, then we say how many microscopic configurations of the system are possible given those overall constraints. And the entropy is the logarithm of that number. That's the definition. And that's the general definition of entropy that turns out to be useful. Now, in Boltzmann's time, he thought these molecules could be placed anywhere you want. But he said, oh, actually, we can make it a lot simpler by having the molecules be discrete. Actually, he didn't know molecules existed. In his time, 1860s and so on, the idea that matter made of discrete stuff had been floated ever since ancient Greek times, but it had been a long time debate about is matter discrete, is it continuous? At the moment at that time, people mostly thought that matter was continuous. And it was all confused with this question about what heat is, and people thought heat was this fluid. And it was a big model. And this Boltzmann said, let's assume there are discrete molecules, let's even assume they have discrete energy levels. Let's say everything is discrete. Then we can do sort of combinatorial mathematics and work out how many configurations of these things that would be in the box. And we can say we can compute this entropy quantity. But he said, but of course, it's just a fiction that these things are discrete. So he said, this is an interesting piece of history, by the way. That was at that time, people didn't know molecules existed. There were other hints from looking at kind of chemistry that there might be discrete atoms and so on, just from the combinatorics of two hydrogens and one oxygen make water. Two amounts of hydrogen plus one amount of oxygen together make water, things like this. </s><s>[INST] But it wasn't known that discrete molecules existed. And in fact, the people at the university [/INST] time, you know, it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that Brownian motion was the final giveaway. Brownian motion is, you know, you look under a microscope at these little pieces from pollen grains, you see they're being discreetly kicked. And those kicks are water molecules hitting them and they're discrete. And in fact, it was really quite interesting history. I mean, Boltzmann had worked out how things could be discrete and have basically invented something like quantum theory in the 1860s. But he just thought it wasn't really the way it worked. And then just a piece of physics history, because I think it's kind of interesting. And in 1900, this guy called Max Planck, who'd been a long time thermodynamics person who was trying to, everybody was trying to prove the second law of thermodynamics is including Max Planck. And Max Planck believed that radiation, like electromagnetic radiation, somehow the interaction of that with matter was going to prove the second law of thermodynamics. But he had these experiments that people had done on blackbody radiation. And they were these curves, and you couldn't fit the curve based on his idea for how radiation interacted with matter. Those curves you couldn't figure out how to fit those curves. except he noticed that if he just did what Boltzmann had done and assumed that electromagnetic radiation was discrete, he could fit the curves. But, you know, this just happens to work this way. Then Einstein came along and said, well, by the way, you know, the electromagnetic field might actually be discrete. It might be made of photons. And then that explains how this all works. And that was, you know, in 1905, that was how that piece of quantum mechanics got started. Kind of an interesting piece of history. I didn't know until I was researching this recently. In 1904 and 1903, Einstein wrote three different papers. And so, you know, just sort of well-known physics history. In 1905, Einstein wrote these three papers. One introduced relativity theory, one explained Brownian motion, and one introduced basically photons. So kind of, you know, kind of a big deal year for physics and for Einstein. But in the years before that, he'd written several papers. And what were they about? They were about the second law of thermodynamics. And they were an attempt to prove the second law of thermodynamics and their nonsense. And so I had no idea that he'd done this. Interesting. Neither. And in fact, what he did, those three papers in 1905, well, not so much about the proof of the paper, the one on Brownian motion, the one on photons, both of these were about the story of sort of making the world discrete. And then he got that idea from Boltzmann. But Boltzmann didn't think, you know, Boltzmann kind of died believing, you know, he said, that he has a quote, actually, you know, you know, in the end things are going to turn out to be discreet and I'm going to write down what I have to say about this, this, because eventually this stuff will be rediscovered, and I want to leave what I can about how things are going to be discrete, but I think he has some quote about how one person can't stand against the tide of history in saying that matter is discrete. Oh, so he's stuck by his guns in terms of matter is discrete. Yes, he did. What's interesting about this is at the time, everybody, including Einstein, kind of assumed that space was probably going to end up being discrete too, but that didn't work out technically because it wasn't consistent with relativity theory, it didn't seem to be, and so then in the history of physics, even though people had determined that matter was discrete, electromagnetic field was discrete, space was a holdout of not being discrete. In fact, Einstein, 1916, has this nice letter he wrote where he says, in the end, it will turn out space is discrete, but we don't have the mathematical tools necessary to figure out how that works yet, and so I think it's kind of cool that 100 years later we do. </s>

<s>[INST] objectives, but capitalism. So, and the idea that you focusing on the thing that you damn are damn good at whatever that is, maybe the best [/INST] thing for the world, sort of </s><s>[INST] part of it is also mindset, right, sort of like the thing I love is robots. So maybe I should focus on building robots and never even think about the idea of effective altruism. Uh, it was just kind of the capitalist notion, is there any value in that idea in just find anything you're good at and maximizing your productivity in this world and thereby sort of lifting all boats and benefiting society and yeah, and as a result, [/INST] yeah, I think there's two things I want to say on that. So one is what your competitive advantage is, what your strengths are. When it comes to clear, there's obviously super important because you know, there's lots of career paths. I would be terrible if I thought being an artist was the best thing one could do. Well I'd be doomed just really quite astonishingly bad. And so I do think at least within the realm of things that could plausibly be very high impact, choose the thing that you're gonna, that you think you're going to be able to like really be um passionate and excel that kind of over the long term. Uh, then on this question of like should one just do that in an unrestricted way and not even think about what the most important problems are. I do think that in kind of perfectly designed society, that might well be the case, that would be a society where we've collected all market failures, we've internalized all externalities. Uh and then we've managed to set up incentives such that people just pursuing their own strengths is the best way of doing good, but we're very far from that society. So, um, if one did that, then you know, it would be very unlikely that you would focus on improving the lives of non human animals that, you know, aren't participating in markets or ensuring the longer and future goes well where future people certainly aren't participating in markets or benefiting the global poor who do participate but have uh, so much less kind of power from a starting perspective that their views on accurately kind of represented by market forces too. </s><s>[INST] Got it. So yeah, instead of pure, pure definition capitalism and just may very well ignore the people that are suffering the most the white swath of them. So if you could allow me this line of thinking here. Uh, so I've listened to a lot of your conversations online, I find uh, if I can complement you, it's their very interesting conversations, your conversation on Rogan and joe Rogan was really interesting with uh huh Sam Harris and so on whatever. There's a, there's a lot of stuff that's really good out there. And yet when I look at the internet and I look at Youtube which has certain mobs, certain swaths of right leaning [/INST] folks whom </s><s>[INST] I dearly love. Uh well I love all people, all, especially people with ideas. Uh, they seem to not like you very much so, uh, I don't understand why. Exactly. So my, my own sort of hypothesis is there is a right left divide that absurdly so caricatured in politics, at least in the United States and maybe you're somehow pigeonholed into one of those sides and they're, you know, maybe that that's what it is. This may be your messages somehow politicized. [/INST] Yeah, I mean, </s><s>[INST] how do you make sense of that? Because you're extremely interesting, like you got the comments I see on Joe Rogan, there's a bunch of negative stuff and yet if you listen to it, the conversation is fascinating. I'm not speaking, I'm not some kind of lefty extremists, but just as a fascinating conversation. So why are you getting some small [/INST] amount of hate? So I'm actually pretty glad that effective altruism has managed to stay relatively un politicized because I think the core message to just use some of your time and money to do as much good as possible to fight some of the problems in the world can be, you know, appealing across the political spectrum and we do have a diversity of political viewpoints among people who have engaged in effective altruism. Uh, we do, however, do get some criticism from the left and the light. Uh, </s><s>[INST] interesting what's the chris both will be interesting [/INST] to hear. Yeah, so criticism from the left is that we're not focused enough on dismantling the capitalist system that they see as the, of most of the problems that we're talking about. Uh, and there I kind of disagree on partly the premise where I don't think relevant alternative systems would say to the animals or to the global poor, the future generations can much better. And then also the tactics where I think that a particular ways we can change society that would massively benefit be massively beneficial on those things that don't go via dismantling like the entire system, which is perhaps a million times harder to do then criticism on the right. There's definitely like in response to the joe Rogan podcast, there definitely were a number of a in land fans who weren't keen on the idea of promoting altruism. There was a remarkable set of ideas, just the idea that effective unmanly, I think was driving a lot of criticism. </s><s>[INST] Let me okay, so I love fighting. I've been in street fights my whole life. I'm uh, as alpha and everything I do as it gets. And the fact that, and joe Rogan said that I thought scent of a woman is a better movie than john Wick put me into this beta category [/INST] amongst </s>

<s>[INST] So that's actually a strong signal when there's no variation. That's so fast. [/INST] Exactly, genes that have very little variation are hugely important. You can actually rank the importance of genes based on how little variation they have and those genes that have very little variation. But no association with disease. That's a very good metric to say, oh, that's probably developmental gene because we're not good at measuring those prototypes. So it's jeans that you can tell evolution has excluded mutations from, but yet we can't see them associated with anything that we can measure nowadays. It's probably early embryonic, lethal. </s><s>[INST] What are all the words you just said early embryonic, [/INST] What lethal meaning meaning that you don't have that guy. </s><s>[INST] Okay, there's a bunch of stuff that is required for a stable functional organism across the board for our entire [/INST] for for </s><s>[INST] entire species. I guess [/INST] if you look at sperm, it expresses thousands of proteins. Does sperm actually need thousands of proteins? No, but it's probably just testing them. So my speculation is that misfolding of these proteins is an early test for failure. So the out of the millions of sperm that are possible, you select the subset that are just not grossly misfolding thousands of proteins. </s><s>[INST] So it's kind of an assert that this is folded correctly. Yeah. This just because [/INST] if this little </s><s>[INST] thing about the folding of approaching is incorrect, [/INST] that probably </s><s>[INST] means somewhere down the line, there's a bigger [/INST] issue. That's exactly right to fail fast. So basically if you look at the mammalian investment in a new born, that investment is enormous in terms of resources. So mammals have basically evolved mechanisms for fail fast. We're basically in those early months of development. I mean it's horrendous of course, at a personal level when you lose a your future child. But in some ways there's so little hope for that child to develop and sort of make it through the remaining months that sort of fail fast is probably a good evolutionary principle for mammals. And of course humans have a lot of medical resources that you can give those Children a chance. And you know, we have so much more success in giving folks, we'll have these strong carrier mutations a chance. But if they're not even making it through the first three months, we're not going to see them. So that's why when we, when we say, what are the most important genes to focus on? The ones that have a strong effect mutation or the ones that have a weak effect mutation? Well, you know, the jury might be out because the ones that have a strong effect mutation are basically, you know, not mattering as much the ones that only have weak effect mutations by understanding through genetics that they have a weak effect mutation and understanding that they have a causal role in the disease. We can then say, Okay, great evolution has only tolerated a 2% change in that gene Pharmaceutically. I can go in and induce a 70% change in the gene and maybe I will poke another hole at the bathtub that was not easy to control in, you know, many of the other sort of strong effect genetic variants. So, </s><s>[INST] okay, so there's this beautiful map of uh, across the population of things that you're saying, strong and weak effects or stuff with a lot of mutations and stuff with little mutations with no mutations and you have this map and lays out the puzzle. [/INST] Yeah. So, so when I say strong effect, I mean at the level of individual mutations. So, so basically jeans where So so you have to think of first the effect of the gene on the disease, remember how it was sort of painting that map earlier from genetics all the way to phenotype. That gene can have a strong effect on the disease. But the genetic variant might have a weak effect on the gene. So basically when you ask, what is the effect of that genetic variant on the disease? It could be that that genetic variant impacts the gene by a lot and then the gene impacts the disease by a little or it could be that the genetic variants impacts the gene pay a little and then the gene impacts the disease by a lot. So what we care about is genes that impact the disease a lot. But genetics gives us the full equation. And what I would argue is if we couple the genetics with expression variation to basically ask what genes change by a lot and you know, which genes correlate with disease by a lot. Even if the genetic variants change them by a little then that those are the best places to intervene. Those are the best places where pharmaceutically if I have even a modest effect, I will have a strong effect on the disease. Whereas those genetic variants that have a huge effect on the disease. I might not be able to change that gene by this much without affecting all kinds of other things, </s><s>[INST] interesting. So, you're okay. So that's what we're looking at and what have we been able to find in terms of which disease could be helped [/INST] again and don't get me started. This is um, we have found so much our understanding of disease has changed so dramatically with genetics. I mean places that we had no idea would be involved. So one of the worst things about my genome is that I have a genetic predisposition to age related macular degeneration. AMG. So it's a form of blindness that causes you to lose the central part of your vision progressively as you grow older. My increased risk is fairly small. I have an 8% chance. You only have a 6% chance. </s><s>[INST] You know, I'm an [/INST] average </s>

<s>[INST] So industrial is really important there. That is companies. So before then, weapons of war were created, were funded directly by the government were like um like who was manufacturing the weapons of war, They [/INST] Were generally manufactured by private industry. Um uh there were of course our arsenal sort of 19th century iterations where the government would produce its own weapons partly to make sure that they got what they wanted. But, but most of the weapons of war, for all of the European powers and the United States are produced by private industry. </s><s>[INST] So why do you say that the military industrial complex didn't start then? What was the, what was the important thing that happened in the Cold War? [/INST] I think, um one way to think about it is that it's the Cold War is a point at which it switches from being a dial to a ratchet, right? So during World War One, um, you know, the relationship between the military and industry dials up, you know fast and high and stays, you know, stays that way and it dials back down. Whereas during the Cold War sort of, the relationship between the two often looks more like a ratchet. It goes up again </s><s>[INST] in the way that you start, I think the way the military industrial complex is often involved um discussed is as a system that is unstoppable. [/INST] Like </s><s>[INST] it expands it almost, I mean, if you take a very cynical view, it creates war so that it can make money. It doesn't just find places where it can help through military conflict, it creates tensions that [/INST] directly or indirectly </s><s>[INST] lead to military conflict that can then fuel and make money from. [/INST] That is certainly one of the concerns of both people, um you know, who are critical of the First World War and then also of Dwight Eisenhower right, when he's president and and sort of in his farewell address where he sort of introduces the term military industrial complex and some of it is about the profit motive, but some of it is a fear that Eisenhower had, that no one had an interest in stopping this, right, and that no one had a voice in stopping it and that the ordinary american could could really do nothing to sort of, you know, to kind of to dial to dial things down. </s><s>[INST] Is it strange to you that we don't often hear that kind of speech today with like Eisenhower speaking about the military industrial complex. So, for example, we'll have people criticizing the spending on the on war efforts, but they're not discussing the yeah, the machinery of the military industrial complex, like the the basic way that human nature works, that we get ourselves trapped in this thing, they're saying like there's better things to spend money on versus describing a very seemingly natural process of when you build weapons of war, that's going to lead to more war, Like it pulls you in somehow [/INST] Yeah, I would say throughout the Cold War. Um and even after the end of it, there has not been a sustained conversation um in the United States about about our defense establishment, right? What we, you know, what we really need um and you know, what what serves our interest. Um and and to what extent sort of other things like market forces, profit motives, um you know, belong in that in that conversation. Uh what's interesting is that in the generation after the First World War, that was that conversation was on the table right through a series of investigations in the US the night committee Um in Britain, a Royal Commission journalistic exposes, you know, this would have been just talked about constantly in the years between about 1930 and 1936, as people were starting to worry, right, that storm clouds were gathering in Europe again. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, but it almost seems like those folks get pushed to the fringes, you made an activist [/INST] versus </s><s>[INST] uh into like versus a thinking leader. Those [/INST] discussions are often marginalized, framed as conspiracy theory um etcetera. Um And um you know, I think it's important to realize that, you know, uh in the generation after World War One, this was a serious civic conversation. It led to, you know, sort of investigations of defense, uh sort of finance. It led to experiments Um in Britain and France in public finance of war material. And I think those conversations need to be reconvened um now in the 21st century, </s><s>[INST] is there any parallels between World War One and the war in Ukraine? The reason I bring it up is because you mentioned, sort of there was a hunger for war, the capacity for war that was already established and the different parties were just boiling the uh, the tensions. So there's a case made that America had a role to play, NATO had a role to play in the current war in Ukraine. Is there some truth to that? Um, when you think about it in the context of World War One, or is it purely about the specific parties involved, which is Russia and Ukraine? [/INST] I think it's very easy to draw parallels between World War One, uh, and the war in Ukraine, but I don't think they really work um, that, you know, the First World War uh, in some ways is generated by a, You know, fundamental conflict in the European system of empires, right? In the global system of empires. Um, so in many ways, if there's a parallel, the war in Ukraine is the parallel to some of the conflicts in, you know, in the Mediterranean and the Balkans in 1911-1913, um, that, um, you know, that then later there was a much greater conflict. Right? And so I think if there's any lessons to be learned for how not to, you know, let World War Three look like World War One, um, it would be to make sure that, you know, that systems aren't locked into place. Um, that escalate wars out of out of people's expectations. </s>

<s>[INST] think there was like a day somewhere when you were young, when you're like you're sitting on a couch eating cheetos. [/INST] I don't think it was a day like a moment because for many years is I wasn't really training much as a child. You know, I've done a bit of, I used to train and then stop done a bit of judo. Never stay away from it much. But until you know that Like from 10 to 14 I barely trained judges so much. I used to, there was no Gracie school near where I used to live and I was doing, there was a jujitsu judo school, I used to go twice a week, I went to judy's torment. I lost in five seconds left crying. The guy you pulled me in five seconds anyway. So When I was 14 I went to the south of Brazil to see my uncle helium to spend summer holidays. I was there for like four weeks I think and I wanna go there. My cousin hollies were living with him holly is like bigger than me. It was, I think four years, four years older, so I was 14, he was already 18, 17, 18, probably a competitor and I think that was the first time in my life that I felt what it means, what it meant to be a gracie in terms of having a school teaching training, you know, living that you know judicial lifestyle, what grace meant to be. And I've just, I've loved that I was out of shape. My uncle was like, you know, incentivizing me to lose weight to train but you're not training why you know, it's like you've got a shape, you need to diet. So it's, I used to run every day. I was eating super well. I start, you know, I started when I started changing so when I got back to Rio was super motivated to follow up carry on and he, you know, he invited me to go back there to live with him but I couldn't, it was too soon to change schools and everything. My mom said no, but maybe next year if you want to go, you can. So I kept that in my mind next year. Hey, I moved to the south to live with him. I was 15 and it was him, my uncle Helen and my uncle crawling, they both used to live very close to each other. They also have their own schools close to each other. So I was with both and I stayed there for almost a year, I mean, I was the youngest in the academy, there was some, you know, blue purple bells, normal guy, but already competing training ahead of me and I just joined the group of training. I didn't compete while I was there because there was no composition that then and I wasn't really ready, but it's not about competing, it's more about the training and I start training every day, started improving and year after that when I came back to Rio, I was already on a mission, I was like, I love this, I'm just carry on training every day with my uncle Carlos, Carlos, gracie Jr, gracie Barra and the one I got there, I was training a little bit there before, but just 14, 15, but when I got there there was a, you know, there was one of that was one of the most competitive, one of the biggest tragedy to school at the time. There was so many high level world champions competitors in every single belt, so, and I've kinda joined in with that and I've carried, I don't remember when, but I remember, you know, looking and saying I'm gonna be the best in the world, but I used to be, I was at the </s><s>[INST] bottom of [/INST] the stairs, you know, no one really believed me, I didn't shout, you know, to to disguise, but you know, I told a few people, I'm like I'm gonna be the best and that's I think I was just losing. But I've never ever doubt. I've never divert from that mission. I would say, </s><s>[INST] did anyone believe you when you said you could be [/INST] great? Nobody </s><s>[INST] didn't matter. It didn't [/INST] matter. I don't care. I don't need </s><s>[INST] even people that like love you [/INST] everybody, my mom, my dad and I mean, no one thought no one in my family thought I was gonna be here today. Nobody because I just started late and I've never had any star that people or that kid is gonna be really good. You know, almost a chubby kid that didn't barely train. I mean, people used to look at me, he's just another grace. This, you know, what more, what </s><s>[INST] do you learn from that? Do you think most people lose that self belief? They quit when everyone around them doesn't [/INST] believe? I think if if it doesn't need approval, yes, </s><s>[INST] you shouldn't have approval. [/INST] I never need approval from anyone. I don't care if you believe you're not. If you not my problem, </s><s>[INST] it's tough. It's tough. I don't need approval but you're surrounded by people older wiser, better than you and they're kind of directly or indirectly saying you stop being silly kid. [/INST] No one ever told me that because I it's not that was not something that I used to say all the time. I maybe say it was very very few times. </s><s>[INST] I just you know, maybe that's the secret, of [/INST] course, I mean, if you start shouting, then you're just being silly, then it's not what you really want. Then you're saying that for another reasons, if you say it over and over again because you shouldn't. I mean, that's why, </s><s>[INST] well, to push back one of the reasons you might want to say it is to find the right people that believe in you. Yeah, [/INST] but more if you say over and over again, then it's just then you're just bragging. </s>

<s>[INST] What's the impulse to secrecy? [/INST] Yeah. Well, to protect institutions, you know, that's always that's a sinful instinct. I'm not altogether sure an institution is worth protecting, but if it reaches the point where you're indifferent to people's well being, then you're in trouble. </s><s>[INST] So, institutions role should be transparent and honest with the sins of its members and of itself. [/INST] Sure, yeah. </s><s>[INST] So maybe you can speak to the fact as a priest, the bishop, as part of Catholicism, you're not allowed to marry, not allowed to have sex. You're you're sworn to celibacy. What is what is behind that idea? What is the sort of, we talked about some broad stroke ideas of love, what's behind the idea of celibacy [/INST] and that's a good way to get out. It's a path of love. So, the church is always in favor of inculcating love, marriage is a path of love, but so is celibacy. Um, ST paul talks about someone who is preoccupied with the things of this world and family and those who are free from that are free or for doing the work of God. So that's kind of a pragmatic justification for celibacy, and we still, I think, take that seriously, look at my own life, I mean, celibacy has enabled me to do all kinds of things and go places and and and and minister in a way that I could not if I had been married, so I get it, I get the pragmatic side, but I'm more interested in the sort of mystical side of it ever, Jesus was challenged about the person who had, you know, a whole series of husbands and and then they all died, and so in heaven, which one will, will, you know, which which husband with the wife have, and his answer is in heaven, people don't marry and they're not given in marriage, there's a there's a higher way of love, it's a more radical way of love. It's not tied to a particular, but I think through God is tied to everybody, the celibate, and this has been to the beginning of the church, not as a law, but there were there were celibate from the very beginning of the church, including jesus of course, and paul, um they sense something that that way of living mystically anticipates the way we love in heaven, it's a sign even now within this world of how we will all love in heaven. So, in that way it's a bit like pacifists, um I'm glad there are pacifists in the church. And I've known some, you know, some very powerful witnesses to pacifism. I'm glad they're pacifists because they witness even now to how we will be in heaven when every tear is wiped away and we beat our swords into plowshares and you know, heaven is a place of radical piece that some people even now live in at the same time. I'm glad not everyone's a pacifist because I would hold with the church to a just war theory that there's sometimes all we can do in this finite world is to is to fight, you know, manifest wickedness. So </s><s>[INST] just in the same way there's just sex. [/INST] Well, no, right, I'm glad there are celibate, but I'm glad not everyone to celebrate, I wouldn't want that because because married love is a marvelous expression of the divine love. So that's why it's good, there are some and it's it's always been a small number. </s><s>[INST] The actual experience of it, Would you uh the spiritual nature of it, is it similar to fast things, I've been enjoying fasting recently, so not eating [/INST] uh </s><s>[INST] for several days, that kind of stuff. And that somehow brings you even deeper. I'm in general in love with everything and with nature and everything, I see the beauty in the world, but there's a greater intensity to that when you're fasting, for example. [/INST] Yeah, I might use the language of, you know, sublimation or redirection of energy and all that. I I think that's true. There's certain sublimation of energies into um prayer into mysticism, into ministry, a redirection of energies. So it's meant to be life enhancing the same way fasting is, is meant ultimately to be life enhancing and make you healthier and happier. So celibacy is a path of love. And I think it does involve you have certain redirection of energy. Say that, </s><s>[INST] don't you think, do you think it's a heavy burden for some humans to bear some priest to bear? Is that, is that the thing given this the the sexual abuse scandal, um, is that the thing that breaks? [/INST] No, I wouldn't tie that to celibacy. And that's been demonstrated over and over again. There's a priest named Andrew Greeley who was a priest from my home diocese of Chicago. And Andy did a lot of research, sociologists of religion to a lot of research into that very question. And there really is not a correlation between celibacy per se and the sexual abuse of Children or anybody. So I wouldn't make that correlation </s><s>[INST] bad people sinful people are going to do what they're going to [/INST] do. I think people who have a tendency toward uh abusing Children sexually are drawn to situations where they get ready access two kids and they get institutional cover. So that's how we go through the list of, you know, from sports and and Boy Scouts, etcetera. Um, and that's been proven again and again. So I would tie it more to that, I wouldn't tie into celibacy. </s>

<s>[INST] looking forward from a perspective of leadership. How do we avoid these kinds of mistakes? So obviously some interest some aspects of human nature led to this war. How do we resist that in the future? [/INST] Hang us beyond my moral and intellectual capacity to say this. I mean looking at again looking at it from my home ground is the university and I think of the the intellectual um yeah ways of ways of thinking that that students should develop themselves as citizens, right? Maybe that's where to start is like historical thinking. I mean these are all and I try to tell people, you know if you want to do robotics computer science you'd be a doctor whatever you </s><s>[INST] should study history. [/INST] Yeah. I mean you don't have a story like me and you know my job isn't perfect. My profession is deeply flawed, right? But as I get older I'm like there are fewer and fewer historians actually like you wanna hang out with and stuff. So it's like I'm not offering myself as like a model for anything but you know whether you're a you carry the mail or you're a brain surgeon whatever. I mean I think it's not it's it's a way of civic engagement in the way of like you know ethical thing in the world that we need to familiarize also because if you're american or if you're from a rich country, you know, you need to be aware of your effect on a, on an interactive world. You can't, you can't say anymore that you don't know or care what's happening in Afghanistan or really circle the globe and point to a place. I mean, we're all connected and we're all, we have ethical obligations. Um, that's one place. But I'll just say this though, and this is a lot for a self critique. And that is um some of my teaching and like the theme of my research about empire, how big states work, not only on big territories like the Russian empire and soviet union, stop it the way in which power often projected beyond those boundaries, in ways that we don't see. So this is where things like neoliberalism or just, you know, you want to take capitalism or just things that, you know, the idea of humanity or of liberalism or of humanitarianism, ideas that move beyond state boundaries are all things that we think about as affecting power in some ways that that often harm people, right? So I think part of I've seen my jobs as far as I think about, you know, building upon the work of my people in grad school and you know, scholars have affected me. I mean, you know, we're all concerned with how power works and its effects and trying to be attuned to understanding things that aren't visible, right, that we should be thinking about, that should be known to us. And the scholars, we can hopefully play some useful role in showing effects that aren't, you know, obvious initially. Um so empire is a framework to think about this. And so you think about invading foreign countries, obviously, if you're a scholar of empire, you've seen what that looks like and that's terrific, right. You think you look at things like racism as one of the ideological pillars of empire, You know, that's terrific, must be critiqued. It must be we must be educated against some of the gender exploitation of empire is also something to highlight to rectify and so on. Um you know, to be moral beings. When you think about past inequality and the legacies of legacies of violence and destruction that live on. I mean, living in America's, I mean, look at, you know, we're all on stolen land, we're all in the sense living with the fruits of genocide and slavery and all those things are hard to come to terms with right? But the last few months in Afghanistan and thinking about empire, I think maybe more humble when I read people who say to to put it simply have taken some joy in this moment saying like, well the americans got kicked out of Afghanistan. You know, if you're against empire, this is a good thing, this is a kind of victory of of anti colonial. </s><s>[INST] You can see from the perspective of Afghanistan that America is not some kind of place that has an ideal of freedom and all the kind of things that we american tell ourselves. But it's more America has the ideal of empire, that there's one place that has the truth and everybody else must follow this truth. And so from a perspective, Afghanistan, it could be a victory against this idea of centralized truth of empire. That's another way to tell this story. And then in that sense, it's a victory. And in that sense also, I mean, you push back against this somewhat this idea of Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires [/INST] and also this, that's it, you know, I mean, it's I mean, I'm a critic of empire. I mean, you know, colonialism is a a political phenomenon that stays with us and I think, you know, we need scholars to point the way in which is still works and still does harm. Um but it's part of being an empire that you can just get up and leave a place right, that you can free markets politics on one day and then because it fails to advance your agenda at one moment, you simply Walk away. I mean, you know, we can point to other moments, I mean 1947 on the subcontinent you know, the way that the british withdrew um played a significant role in mass violence. You know that the company partition, it wasn't all the actions of the british that you know, dictated that right. There were lots of actors who chose to pick up, you know, the knife to kill the neighbor and so on. I mean there's lots of agency in that moment as there is now in what's happening in Afghanistan. But I think the, the capriciousness, I mean the, the ability to act as if you're, you're your personal decisions about people's lives, you know, or something that can be made, you know in secret, um that can be made willy nilly. They really are beyond the accountability. You know, of, of those who are actually going to live with the consequences of shifting the cards in a deck in a way that decides who rules and who doesn't. </s>

<s>[INST] Well there's a complex thing there, it could be like marriage. A lot of people seem to like to complain about marriage but they secretly love it. So it could be the relationship you might have with with marty is like oh there he goes again, doing this stupid surveillance thing. But you grow to love the I mean bitching about the thing that kind of releases a kind of tension and there's I mean some people, a lot of people show love by sort of uh busting each other's chops you know like making fun of each other and then if I think I think people would really love it if marty talked back and like these are so many possible options for humor. There one you can lean in, you can be like yes I'm an agent of the C. I. A. Monitoring your every move, like mocking people that are concerned, you know what I'm saying? Like yes I I'm watching you because you're so important with your shopping patterns. I'm collecting all this data um or or just you know and you're kind of making fun of people I don't know. [/INST] But I think you hit on what exactly it is because when it comes to robots or artificial agents, I think people hate them more than they would some other machine or device or object. Um and it might and it might be that thing, it might be combined with love or like whatever it is, it's a more extreme response because they view these things as social agents and not objects and that was um </s><s>[INST] so Clifford [/INST] Nass was a big human computer interaction person. And he his theory about clip e was that because people viewed clip as a social agent when Cliff was annoying and would like bother them and interrupt them and like not remember what they told </s><s>[INST] him. [/INST] That's when people got upset because it wasn't fulfilling their social expectations. And so they complained about clipping more than they would have if it had been a different, like not </s><s>[INST] not a [/INST] you know, virtual character </s><s>[INST] so is complaining to you a sign that we're on the wrong path with a particular robot or is it possible like again like marriage like family that there still is a path towards that direction where we can find deep meaningful relationship. [/INST] I think we absolutely can find deep meaningful relationship with robots and well maybe, I mean I just would I would have designed marty a little differently. </s><s>[INST] Isn't there a charm to the clumsiness? The slowness there [/INST] is if you're not trying to get through with a shopping cart and screaming child. You know, there's I think, </s><s>[INST] I [/INST] think you could make it charming. I think there are lots of design tricks that they could have used. And one of the things they did, I think without thinking about it at all is they slapped two big googly eyes on marty and I wonder if that contributed to people feeling watched. Um because because it's looking at them and so like is there a way to design the robot to do the function that it's doing in a way that doesn't that people are actually attracted to rather than annoyed by and there are many ways to do that, but companies aren't thinking about it now they're realizing that they should have thought about </s><s>[INST] it. I wonder if there's a way to if it would help to make marty seem like an entity of its own versus um the arm of a large corporation. So there's some sense where this is just the camera that's monitoring people versus this is an entity that's a standalone entity. It has its own task and it has its own personality. The more personality you give it, the more it feels like it's not sharing data with anybody else. Like when we see other human beings are basic assumption is whatever I say to this human being, it's not like being immediately sent to the C. I. A. Yeah [/INST] what I say to you, no one's going to hear that, right? </s><s>[INST] Yeah that's [/INST] true. You </s><s>[INST] forget it. I mean you do forget it. I mean I don't know if that even with microphones here you forget that that's happening. But for some reason I think probably with marty um I think when it's done really crudely and crap early you start to realize oh this is like pr people trying to make a friendly version of a surveillance machine. But um I mean that reminds me of the slight clumsiness or significant clumsiness on the initial releases of the avatars for the metaverse. I don't know what what are you what are your actually thoughts about that? The the way uh the avatars the way like Mark Zuckerberg looks in that world. You know the metaverse, the virtual reality world where you can have like virtual meetings and stuff like that. Like how do we get that right? Do you have thoughts about that? Because that's the kind of, it's uh it feels like a similar problem to social robotics which is how you design a digital virtual world. That is compelling when you connect to others. They're in the same way that physical connection is [/INST] right? I haven't looked into, I mean I've seen people joking about it on twitter and like posting whatever. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, but I mean have you seen it? Because it it there's something you can't quite put into words that doesn't feel genuine. [/INST] Yeah, </s><s>[INST] about the way it looks. And so the question is, if you're an hour to meet virtually what should the avatars look like for us to have a similar kind of connection should be really simplified, Should it be a little bit more realistic? Should it be cartoonish? Should it be more um better capturing of expressions uh in interesting, complex ways versus like cartoonist oversimplified ways, [/INST] but having video games figured this out, I'm not a gamer, so I don't have any examples, but I feel like there's this whole world and video games where they've thought about all of this and depending on the game, they have different like avatars and a lot of the games are about connecting with others. I just, the thing that I don't know is and again, I haven't looked into this at all. Um I've been like shockingly not very interested in the metaverse, but they must have poured so much investment into this meta and like why? Why is it so why are people, why is it so bad? </s>

<s>[INST] well? Yeah, I lied. I'm a big believer in that actually. I'm a big believer in, in chaos and not giving, giving into your passion and sometimes doing things that are out of the ordinary there, like not trying to optimize health for certain periods of time in, uh, in lieu of your passions is a signal to yourself that you're throwing everything away. So I think what you're referring to is how to have good performance for prolonged periods of time. I think there's, there's moments in life, we need to throw all that away, all the plans away, all the structure away. So the, I don't just, I'm not sure I have an eloquent way describe exactly what I'm talking about, but it all depends on different people on people, people are different, but there's a danger of over optimization to where you don't just give in to the madness of the way your brain flows. I mean, to push back on my pushback is like, it's nice to have like where the, where the foundations of your brain are not messed with. So you have a fixed foundation where the diet is fixed, where the sleep is fixed and that all that is optimal and the chaos happens in the space of ideas as opposed to the space of biology, but you know, I'm not sure if there's a, uh, that requires real discipline and forming habits. There's some aspect to which some of the best days and weeks of my life have been, yeah, sleeping under a desk kind of thing. And I don't, I'm not too willing to let go of things that empirically worked for things that work in theory. And so I'm again, I'm absolutely with you on sleep also, I'm with you on sleep conceptually, but I'm also very humbled to understand that for different people, good sleep means different things. I'm very hesitant to trust science on sleep. I think you should also be a scholar of your body. Again, the experiment of end of one. I'm not so sure that a full night's sleep is great for me. There is something about that power nap that I just have not fully studied yet. But that map is something special that I'm not sure. I found the optimal thing. Um, so like there's a lot to be explored to what is exactly optimal amount of sleep, optimal kind of sleep combined who died and all those cousins. I mean that all maps to sort of data leads the truth. Exactly. All referring to, [/INST] here's a data point for your consideration, the progress in biology over the past. It's a decade has been stunning. Yes. And it now appears as if we will be able to replace Our Organs. zero extra transplantation. And so we probably have a path to replace and regenerate every organ of your body except for your brain. You can you can lose your hand and your arm and leg. Get an official heart, you can't operate your brain. And so when you make that trade off decision of whether you're going to sleep under the desk or not and go all out for a four day marathon, right? There's a there's a cost benefit tradeoff of what's going on, What's happening to your brain in that situation, we don't know the consequences of modern day life on our brain. We don't, it's the most valuable organ in our existence and we don't know what's going on. If we and how we're treating it today with stress and with sleep and with dietary. And to me then, if you say that you're trying to you're trying to optimize life for whatever things you're trying to do. The game is soon with the progress in anti asian and biology. The game is very soon going to become different than what it is right now with Oregon rejuvenation, organ replacement. And I I would conjecture that we will value the health status of our brain above all things. </s>

<s>[INST] So, in terms of the amount of information, what is entropy, this mystical word that's overused in math and physics but has a very specific meaning in this context, [/INST] sadly it has more than one very specific meeting. This is this is the reason why it is hard. Entropy means different things even to different physicists. But one way of thinking about it is a measure of how much we don't know about the state of a system. Right? So if I have a bottle of water molecules and I know that okay, there's a certain number of water molecules, I could weigh it right and figure out. I know the volume of it and I know the temperature and pressure and things like that. I certainly don't know the exact position and velocity of every water molecule. Right? So there's a certain amount of information. I know certain amount that I don't know that is that is part of the complete state of the system and that's what the entropy characterizes how much unknown information there is the difference between what I do know about the system and its full exact microscopic state. </s><s>[INST] So when we try to describe quantum mechanical system, is it infinite or finite but very [/INST] large. Yeah, we don't know. It depends on the system. You know, it's easy to mathematically write down a system that would have a potentially infinite entropy, an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. So let's let's let's go back a little bit. We said that the Hilbert space was the space in which quantum wave functions lived for different systems that will be different sizes. They could be infinite or finite. So that's the number of numbers, The number of pieces information you could potentially give me about the system. So the bigger Hilbert spaces, the bigger the entropy of that system could be depending on what I know about it. If I don't know anything about it, then has a huge entropy. Right? But only up to the size of its Hilbert space. So we don't know in in the real physical world whether or not, you know, this region of space that contains that water bottle has potentially infinite entropy or just a finite entropy? We have we have different arguments on different sides. </s><s>[INST] So if it's infinite. How do you think about infinity, is this something you can uh your cognitive abilities are able to process or is it just a mathematical tool? [/INST] It's somewhere between. Right? I mean we can say things about it, we can use mathematical tools to manipulate infinity very, very accurately, we can define what we mean. You No, for any number n there's a number bigger than it. So there's no biggest number. Right? So there's something called the total number of all numbers that's infinite. But it is hard to wrap your brain around that. And I think that gives people pause because we talk about infinity as if it's a number, but it has plenty of properties that real numbers don't have. You know, if you multiply infinity by two, you get infinity again, right? That's a little bit different than what we're used to. </s><s>[INST] Okay, but are you comfortable with the idea that in thinking of what the real world actually is, the infinity could be part of that world. Are you comfortable that the world in some dimension? And some [/INST] are comfortable with lots of things? I mean, you know, I I don't want my level of comfort to affect what I think about the world. You know, I'm pretty open minded about what the world could be at a fundamental level. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, but infinity is a is a tricky one. It's not almost a question of comfort. It's a question of uh is it an overreach of our intuition sort of it could be a convenient, almost like when you add a constant to an equation just because it will help. It just feels like it's useful to at least be able to imagine a concept. Not directly, but in some kind of way that this feels like it's a description of the real [/INST] world. Think of it this way, there's only three numbers that are simple, there's zero, there's one and there's infinity a number like 318 is just bizarre like that you need a lot of bits to give me what that number is, but zero and one infinity. Like once you have 300 things, you might as well have infinity things, right? Otherwise you have to say when to stop making the things right? So there's a sense in which infinity is a very natural number of things to exist </s><s>[INST] that was never comfortable with it because it's just such a it was too good to be true because in math it just helps make things work out when things get very, it's when things get very large. Close to infinity things seem to work out nicely. It's kind of like uh because of my, my deepest passion is probably psychology and I'm uncomfortable how in the average the beauty of the very, how much we vary is lost in that same kind of sense. Infinity seems like a convenient way to erase the details. [/INST] But the thing about infinity is it seems to pop up whether we like it or not right? Like you're trying to be a computer scientist. You ask yourself well, how long will it take this program to run? And you realize well for some of them, the answer is infinitely long. It's not because you tried to get there, you wrote a five line computer program. It doesn't halt. </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, there could be a lot of ways to go inwards to. Once you figure out some aspect of physics we haven't figured out yet. Maybe you can travel to different dimensions. I mean, travel in three dimensional space may not be the most fun kind of travel. There may be like just a huge amount of different ways to travel. It doesn't require a spaceship going slowly in three D. Space is space [/INST] time. It also feels in a one of them problems is that speed of light is alone and the university is vast and it seems that actually most likely if we want to travel very far then uh then we would instead of actually sending spaceships with humans that wait a lot we would send something similar to what yuri Miller is working on. These are like a huge sale which is at first power. There there is a shot of laser from an earth and it can propel it the quarter of speed of light and sale. It's a self contains a few grams of equipment. And that might be the way to actually transport matter through universe. But then when you think what would it mean for humans? It means that we would need to actually put their three D. Printer and you know three D. Printed human and other planet. I don't know play them Youtube or let's say or like a pretty three D. Print like huge human right away or maybe a womb or so. Um Yeah </s><s>[INST] with our current techniques of archaeology. If if if a civilization was born and died uh long long enough to go on earth we wouldn't be able to tell. And so that makes me really sad. And so I think about Earth in that same way how can we leave some remnants? If we do destroy ourselves, how can we leave remnants for aliens in the future, discover like here's some nice stuff we've done like Wikipedia on Youtube. Do we have it like in a satellite orbiting earth with the hard drive? Like how how do we say, how do we back up human civilization? Uh, the good parts or all of it is good parts so that uh, it can be preserved longer than our bodies can. That's it. It's kind of uh it's a difficult question. It also requires the difficult acceptance of the fact that we may die and if we die, we may die suddenly as a civilization. [/INST] So let's see, I think it kind of depends on the cataclysm we have observed in other parts of universe that birds of gamma rays, uh, these are high energy rays of light that actually can operatic your entire galaxy. So there might be actually nothing even to nothing to protect us from it. I'm also, and I'm looking actually at the past civilizations. So it's like aspects or so they disappear from the surface of the earth. And one can ask why is it the case? And the way I'm thinking about this, you know, that definitely they had some problem that they couldn't solve. And maybe there was a flat and all the sudden they couldn't drink. There was no potable water and they all died. And uh, I think that so far the best solution to such a problems is I guess technology. So I mean if they would know that you can just boil water and then drink it after, then that would save their civilization. And even now when we look actually at the current pandemic, it seems that the once again actually science comes to rescue and somehow science increases size of the action space and then I think that's a good thing. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, but nature has a vastly larger action space, [/INST] but still it might be a good thing for us to keep on increasing action space. </s><s>[INST] Okay. Looking at past civilizations, Yes, but looking at the destruction of human civilization, perhaps expanding the action space will add actions that are easily acted upon, easily executed and as a result destroy us. [/INST] So let's see, I was pondering why actually even we have negative impact on the globe because you know, if you ask every single individual, they would like to have clean air. They would like healthy planet. But somehow it actually is not the case that as a collective, we are not going in this direction. I think that there exists very powerful system to describe what we value. That's capitalism. It assigns actually monetary values to various activities at the moment. The problem in the current system is that there is something which we value. There is no cost assigned to it. So even though we value clean air or maybe we also uh value lack of destruction on the internet or so at the moment, these quantities, you know, companies, corporations can follow them for free. So in some sense I wish or like that I guess purpose of politics to align the incentive systems and we are kind of maybe even moving in this direction. The first issue is even to be able to measure the things that we value, then we can actually assign the monetary value to them. </s><s>[INST] Yeah and that's so it's getting the data and also probably through technology enabling people to vote and to move money around in a way that is aligned with their values. And that's very much a technology question. So like having one president and congress and voting that happens every four years or something like that. That's a very outdated idea. There could be some technological improvements that kind of idea. [/INST] So I'm thinking from time to time about these topics but it also feels to me that is, it's a little bit like it's hard for me to actually make correct predictions. What is the appropriate thing to do. I extremely trust some outman our ceo on these topics here. Okay, I'm more on the side of being I guess naive, heaping that the </s>

<s>[INST] because that maximizes attention and that's like an emergent Matlock type force [/INST] right? That </s><s>[INST] takes any anything any topic and cuts through it so they can split nicely into two groups. One that's, [/INST] well it's it's whatever. Yeah, it's all everyone is trying to do within the system is just maximize whatever gets them the most attention because they're just trying to make money so they can keep their thing going right? And the way the best emotion for getting attention because it's not just about attention on the internet, it's engagement, That's the key thing right? In order for something to go viral, you need people to actually engage with it. They need to like comment or retweet or whatever. Um and of all the emotions that uh you know, there's like seven classic shared emotions that studies have found that all humans, even from like un un previously uncontacted tribes have um some of those are negative, you know, like sadness, disgust, anger, etcetera, some positive happiness, um excitement and so on. The one that happens to be the most useful for the internet is anger because anger is, it's such an active emotion if you want people to engage if someone's scared and I'm not just like talking about my asset, there are studies that looked into this um whereas like if someone's like disgusted or fearful, they actually tend to then be like, I don't want to deal with this, so they're less likely to actually engage and share it and so on. They're just gonna be like where they're enraged by a thing. Well now they're like that triggers all the like the old tribalism emotions. Um and so that's how then things get sort of spread, you know, much more easily they out compete all the other memes in the ecosystem. Um and so this like the attention economy, the wheels that make it go around is rage. Um you know, the problem with raging against the machine is that the machine has learned to feed off rage because it is feeding off our age, that's the thing that's now keeping it going. So the more we get angry the worse it gets. Um </s><s>[INST] so the Malkin this attention in the war of attention is constantly maximizing rage. [/INST] What it is optimizing for is engagement and it happens to be the engagement um is propaganda. You know, it's I mean, it just sounds like every everything is is putting is more and more things being put through this like propagandist lens of winning whatever the war is in question, whether it's the culture war or the Ukraine war. Yeah, </s><s>[INST] well I think the silver lining of this, do you think it's possible that in the long arc of this process, you actually do arrive at greater wisdom and more progress. It just in the moment it feels like people are be tearing each other to shreds over ideas, but if you think about it, one of the magic things about democracy and so on is you have the blue versus red constantly fighting. It's almost like they're in discourse creating devil's advocate making devils out of each other and through that process discussing ideas, like almost really embodying different ideas just to yell at each other and through the yelling over the period of decades, maybe centuries figuring out a better system, like in the moment it feels fucked up, but in the long arc it actually productive, [/INST] I hope so, um that said, we are now in the era of just as we have weapons of mass destruction with nuclear weapons, you know, that can break the whole playing field. We now are developing weapons of informational mass destruction, information weapons, you know, WMDS that basically can be used for propaganda or just manipulating people. However they, you know, is needed, whether that's through dumb Tiktok videos or you know, there are significant resources being put in. Um, I don't mean to sound like, you know, to doom and gloom, but there are bad actors out there. That's the thing, there are plenty of good actors within the system who are just trying to stay afloat in the game, so effectively doing monarchy things. But then on top of that, we have actual bad actors who are intentionally trying to like manipulate the other side into doing things </s><s>[INST] and using because of the digital space, they're able to use um artificial actors meeting bots. [/INST] Exactly, botnets, you know, and this is a whole new situation that we've never had before. </s><s>[INST] It's exciting, you know, you know what I want, you know what I want to do that because there is, you know, people are talking about bots manipulating and um like malicious bots that are basically spreading propaganda. I want to create like a bot army for like that. Like fights that. Yeah, exactly. For love that fights though, that, I mean, [/INST] you know, there's there's, I mean, there's truth to fight fire with fire, it's like, but how you always have to be careful whenever you create again like the monarch is very tricky. </s><s>[INST] Hitler was trying to spread the love to [/INST] Yeah, so we thought but you know, I I agree with you that like that is a thing that should be considered, but there is again everyone the road to hell is paved with good intentions and this is, there's there's always unforeseen circumstance, you know, outcomes, externalities of you trying to adopt a thing even if you do it in the very best of faith, but </s><s>[INST] you can learn the lessons that [/INST] you can run some sims on it first. Absolutely, let's but </s>

<s>[INST] The following is a conversation between me and Michael malice. Michael is an author and our cast and simpleton and I'm proud to call him my friend. He makes me smile, he makes me think and he makes me wonder why I sound so sleepy all the time. And now enjoy this conversation with Michael malice in a typical loaded language that I'm increasingly certain I'll never quite able to get the hang of [/INST] for those of you listening to just the audio portion of this podcast may be confused by the introduction. So allow me to explain that was Michael malice doing an impression of me. Lex Friedman introducing Michael malice under lex Friedman podcast. I do not find this impression humorous, but as a sign of my friendship have issued him a rare one time warning the second time. Of course, if it were to occur will promptly proceed to a termination. I sent his family and his friends condolences. He will be missed as usual. I'll do a few minutes of as now I try to make these interesting despite the sound of my voice but I give you time stamps. So if you skip, please still check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It is the best way to support this podcast. I'm very picky about the sponsors we take on. So hopefully if you buy their stuff, you'll find value in it. Just as I have. This show is sponsored by gala games. A fascinating new sponsor. They have created a gaming ecosystem on a Blockchain where in game assets are N. F. T. S. You can keep trade in the game and outside the game on top of that. They're attracting big game designers and I think have a real chance to create totally new gaming experiences. If all the stuff I've done in all the games I've played the Rpgs Diablo 23 all the eldest girl series. If all of those items were on the Blockchain I think my experience would be way more immersive and persistent and perhaps I would still be playing those games. Anyway I started playing the town simulation game called Town Star. I created a town called Lexington and started building stuff. I love the game, it's super simple, super addictive, super fun. I really wish I had more time to play games. I really tried to hold myself to about two or three hours of video games a month or rather not try but actually do. And one of the ways I do that is by trying a new game every time from a reinforcement learning perspective, that's more exploration versus exploitation. Anyway check it out. A gallon game slash lex. That's Galaxy game slash lex. Maybe you'll even catch me on there. This episode is also sponsored by indeed hiring website. I've used them as part of many hiring efforts have done for the teams have led in the past. They have tools like indeed instant match giving you quality candidates whose resumes on indeed fit your job description immediately. I was recently going through this job hiring process for one of the positions that I really really need help with, which is video editor. But I did luckily find a few really really cool people and in general everybody had interacted with people I've spoken with and just people who applied, it's clear that there's a lot of incredible people out there that just uh want to connect and I'm fortunate to be on the receiving end of that kind of passion to do something cool together. Anyway, I'm also looking for other positions currently and I'm sure I'll be leveraging. Indeed, but also some of the other tooling I've built on top of that to help me manage the later stages of the hiring process. But I think if you're a company you can't go wrong with Indeed for getting you candidates really quickly. Good solid candidates that fit the job description right now. Get a free $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at Indeed dot com slash flex. Get it at indeed dot com slash lux offer valid through september 30th terms and conditions apply, join three million businesses that use indeed by going to Indeed dot com slash lex this episode is sponsored by better help spelled H E L. P. Help They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours. I mentioned this before, I'll mention it again, I used to want to be a psychiatrist when I was uh first came to this country when I was in high school when I was doing a lot of reading and thinking about what it means to be human. I thought psychiatry especially as it's exercise through talk therapy is away on the individual level to delve into the human mind and understand all the ways that it goes wrong, understand all the dark corners of the mind and by exploring those dark corners, you get to reveal something about human nature. Then I realized that psychiatry in the modern age is uh more about medication, less about talk therapy, which broke my heart a little bit. But then I also realized that instead of understanding the mind, I could also try to build it, which is the way I see artificial intelligence. But I'm still a big believer in talk therapy to help us understand ourselves and tools like better help make it super easy to find a license therapist. Better help is easy, private, affordable, available worldwide. Check them out at better help dot com slash lex. That's better help spelled H E L P dot com slash lex. This show is sponsored by a returning sponsor. One of my favorite master class, $180 a year gets you an all access pass to watch courses from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. The list of people when you go to their website and masterclass dot com slash lex will blow your mind. It's ridiculous. It includes chris Hatfield talking about space and what it's like to be an astronaut. Well right. The game designer Carlos Santana, one of my favorite musicians, Garry Kasparov, his chess player you may have heard of, he's also Russian, I don't know if you knew that Daniel Negreanu, the poker player, probably the most entertaining and my favorite poker player to watch Neil Gaiman martin Scorsese probably my favorite director Jane Goodall is another fascinating masterclass on there and the list just keeps going. The thing I would recommend is probably Picking one and sticking with it. I'm a big believer that from these experts, one sentence can change your life. So one of the things you do by listening to a master class is getting um a broad knowledge from the best person in the world at the same time. You're also mining for one powerful insight that can change everything. I've noticed that the best doers have those insights and sometimes they just kind of fall out. They're not even aware of the genius that's behind their doing and, and master classes like this can really reveal that anyway, you can watch on any device, sign up at masterclass dot com slash lex to get 15% off the annual membership that's masterclass dot com slash lex masterclass dot com slash lex. You should definitely consider signing up now because they are considering returning to being a regular sponsor of this podcast, this is the lex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with Michael malice. Hello </s><s>[INST] comrade. [/INST] So, animal farm by George Orwell is uh one of my favorite books. It's an allegory about at least I think about the Soviet Union and the Russian Revolution of 1917. So for people who haven't read it, it's uh animals overthrow the humans and then slowly become as bad or worse than the humans. So comrade if we lived on this farm in the book, Animal Farm, which animal would you most rather be? Would it be the pigs, the horses, the donkey Benjamin, the raven, moses, the humans, mr mrs jones, the dogs or the sheep. </s><s>[INST] Um I'm gonna go with the Milton answer, which is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, right? [/INST] It's better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. </s><s>[INST] So I would have to go with the pigs. So I guess I'd be a cop um [/INST] at the very top. So the leader of the main pig napoleon versus like the other. Yeah, </s><s>[INST] I would say it's not sure it's an allegory about the Russian revolution, but I think um Orwell's point was this is broader towards most totalitarian Dictatorships. I mean, it could very easily be reticent indictment of Mussolini or Hitler or many of these others, I'm a huge um, George Orwell fan. One of the things that I think people on the right need to appreciate is the courage of many of these in undisputedly left wing voices who were the strongest ones to take on uh totalitarian ism, totalitarian communism. And the three I could think of top of my head, who are all in my top 10 heroes of all time are Emma Goldman, Albert, camus, uh and or well being the third, you know, something that leftists like to throw in the face of people on the right, who constantly invoke Orwell, is that Orwell said, and I don't have the exact quote on top of my head, but something effective every word I have written is in should be taken as a defense of democratic socialism against totalitarian ism. So, uh people like Truman, you know, it was obviously very hardcore in many ways, anti communist. Uh, we like to parse things out, You're gonna laugh uh, into binary fashions that, you know, left, good, right, bad, all right, good left bed. But historically speaking, it was just not fall away into these camps as easily as people would like. Um and I think it is important for those of us, it takes a lot more courage to fight the right from the right or to fight the left from the left because in a sense, a lot of your countrymen or your fellow travelers are going to regard you as a traitor to the cause. So I I every chance I get, I will sing the praises of these three figures among others who not only even if they hadn't done what they had done, just live, just amazing lives that all of us can uh learn from and admire and regardless, somewhat a role model, So well, [/INST] what was the nature of their opposition to totalitarianism? Is that basically freedom? Well, the value of </s><s>[INST] freedom, let's go through the three of them. So, Emma Goldman, she was early anarchist figure, you know, we'll talk about her later, I'm sure she got deported from the United States with her partner in crime, alexander, Berkman, literal crime, he tried to assassinate uh frick who was Andrew Carnegie's main man in the Pittsburgh steel mill strike, um she got deported to the soviet union, and they're like, they're like, oh, you want socialism, because at the time the anarchists were regardless socialist, you know, go choke on it, and she's there and she was watching in great horror, what was going on? And she actually went to Lenin's office and she goes, this isn't what we're about, The revolution is about the individual and free speech and everyone working together to further society. And he told her that, you know, you know, free speech is a bourgeois contrivance and regardless you can't have these circumstances in the midst of a revolution, And when she left the Soviet Union, and you know, she went to Britain and at the time before the 1917, there was a lot of discussion among socialist circles about what would the revolution look like, right, would there be the bakun an anarchist model? Would there be the Marxist model? Obviously the bolsheviks ended up winning. But even then it wasn't obvious because there was the bolsheviks and dementia vixen what people, you know you and I know what those words mean, but bolsheviks were kind of funny because Bush means bigger and mansion means smaller. The MENSA vics had the numbers. It was sarcastic that they were called mancha vixen. The bolsheviks were called bolsheviks and Lenin destroyed all his foes in a very merciless why? Obviously beforehand, you know, there was the idea like all these cockamamie ideas, we have to work together, you know, we don't know what's going to look like for the cause. Then as soon as he sees power, he's like, yeah, yeah, we're not doing that kind of pluralism anymore. This is going to be the right approach. So she left the soviet union as did Berkman, she wrote a book that they titled My Disillusioned with Russia. And I remember this one anecdote which I'm going to discuss in the forthcoming book where she goes to Britain and the british were very red at the time. They really had something called the Fabian society, which was the predecessor to the british labor party, which were like, all right, we're going to get rid of liberalism and have a socialist kind of nation and she gave talks and there was this one time where she gave a talk and she started and there was a standing ovation by the time she was done, you could hear a pin drop because she dared to look at these people in the face something they've been fighting for all their lives and saying, you know, we've been to the future and it works. And she's like, guys, this is worse than the czar. Uh you know, people are under house arrest, you're not allowed to have, you know, newspapers are being shut down if they have heretical views so on and so forth. And you know, she was just even more of a pariah than she had been previously. So she is, you know, deserves huge accolades in that regard. I brought her up and we were talking about with our conversation with Iran or well, I think you don't need me to explain what he has done and continues to do to use fiction to demonstrate the horrors of a totalitarian state. And camus who might be my all time, you know, great uh, lighthouse, so to speak, in terms of being a man of conscious, you know, he joined the Communist Party and for a lot of people in the States, you hear all you joined the Communist Party. So I need to hear it all, you need to he was a Communist all you need to know, he joined the Communist Party because they were the main ones fighting the fascist in France and other locations and he took Nazism, as did many others, of course, very, very, very seriously. He wasn't some committed communist, but this was just his mechanism to take on, you know, be part of the underground and vichy France and so on and so forth. So he had the quote which is ascribed to him, which is kind of a misquote Howard Zinn is the one who actually said it, that it is a job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. And he very much felt if you read his uh speech when he won the Nobel Prize, I forget in the 50s where he goes, it's basically the job of writers to keep civilization from destroying himself. I don't think I'm ever going to be a man on the level of Camus and what he's accomplished. But I think that vision of it is the job of writers to be the conscience. And to point out, uh, you know, this is the leftism at its best when, you know, giving voice to the voiceless when you have the machine of the state crushing and marginalizing people and they might not be educated literate or have any power at all. He's the guy who's like you are ruining humans, these humans matter. And I'm not going to let you look the other way and act like you don't know what you're doing. [/INST] So in this time whether we look at the time of fascism or we look at the fictional animal farm, what's the heroic action then. So, uh, camus joined the Communist Party, there's a bunch of different heroic actions, somewhat heroic than others, not just for the, you know, hero is the wrong word in terms of like effectiveness. What's the effective action I guess is what I want to ask as a writer, as a thinker that somebody with the mind, What's the heroic action? </s><s>[INST] That's a tricky question because a lot of times in the West heroism is regardless intertwined with martyrdom, right? So it's kind of this idea of like, you have to speak to, you know, can we always talked about justice, let justice be done though? The heavens fall. This is a common, um, kind of motto among people with conscience and that you have to do the right thing, even the consequences might not be what you like. And I think that is a good loose definition of heroism. So if you meet, I'll give you one example of heroism. This was on twitter and I really feel bad that I don't remember the guy's name. Uh, this was the line to Auschwitz, I believe it was. And you know, there's the Nazi guards keeping everyone along And uh, if you were a certain, I think if you were under 12, they killed you or some, there was some age limit where some kids were killed or something. We're not, there was some circumstances and he asked the mom how old this kid was. And she's like, he's 14 and she's like, no, he's 12. And she's like, no, he's nice, 14. She goes, he's 12. And she realized what this Nazi was telling her, even in that circumstance, and it ended up saving the kid's life. So, I think heroism in this context is defiance and standing true to values of liberalism, humanism and venerating the sanctity of human life. I think that, uh, and I think it's also important to pick your battles. I don't think if, you know, he got that Nazi over there, gotten a bullhorn and said, hey, this is the rules, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's not gonna help anyone do anything. So, I do think, you know, people, a lot of times attack me for my anarchist views, it's like, oh, you know, would you call the police, would you use the roads, would you pay your income taxes? Uh, you know, I got an argument with tim pool because there was that couple, I think it was that Missouri or Illinois when they had their guns and they were being arrested and they basically took a plea deal and he said, you should have thought I go, it's a lot easier to say you should fight, but we don't know what circumstance, someone is under and what these totalitarian regimes did very, very well, as you know, is if you were a target and they can't get through to you, that's fine. You have a family. So you can sit there lex and gird your jaw and you can stand up to all the torture. Cool, what are we gonna do about your wife? What about your mom? One thing Stalin did he made it a law That kid's up to 14 and up could get the death penalty for certain crimes. So after that, the rule was from the NK VD. If you were interrogating someone, they would have death warrants for the kids child on the desk visible. So I'm interrogating you asking you to commit to, I'm sorry to admit to some crime that you're not committed and those piece of paper, it's, it's, you know, Svetlana, she's got a death warrant, you're gonna admit to any crime you want. So this is something americans, this is even the case right now in North Korea. Um, which I know you had young me park on something. I talked about a lot. Let's talk about instead of the hypothetical, but this is happening right now on earth. You can look at the map on google. The great leader kim Il Sung the founder of North Korea said class enemies must be exterminated three generations. So North, when people talk about individualism versus collectivism rick Santorum former senator says, the family is the basic unit of society unit, North Korea takes that seriously. The family is punished as a unit. So if someone does something wrong, three generations have to pay the price and you often don't know who it is that got you all in trouble. There's not a trial. This to western minds is something almost incomprehensible. [/INST] It's a lot easier to be brave when it's just your skin. There's something when it's when it's yeah, when it's your child, your your loved ones, every man becomes a coward. </s><s>[INST] But also what bravery is there for me to write an essay for The Guardian to say, I don't vote, there's no consequences to me. There's no possibility of consequences to me. This is a wonderful thing about living, excuse me in a free country. Uh it would take a lot of courage to be in the soviet union and say I'm not going to vote. And what would that courage accomplish? Very little. So, I think heroism in the sense of kind of the suicidal stuff and taking a stance with no consequences is a bit overrated. [/INST] There is some aspect, like the way I think about heroism is something that you said about the Nazi soldier, which is quietly privately in your own life, lived the virtues that you want the rest of the world to live by. </s><s>[INST] Yes, [/INST] so like without writing about it is um it's not as heroic as living it quietly. </s><s>[INST] I'll give you a great example of this. I sometimes give talks on networking and I tell the kids, if you know someone's in town and it's their birthday with nothing to do, take them out and I say I do this for selfish reasons and everyone laughs and I go think about it this way. The guy who takes people out for their birthday is awesome. That could be you like you have that capacity to be that person and you're making that day feel special. They're gonna remember for a long time, what's the cost dinner? 30 bucks, 25 bucks. So there, it's very disturbing to me how often people have opportunities to slightly move the needle and make things a bit better at almost no cost and they just literally don't think in those terms. And one of the things camus talked about, you know, he's often described as a existentialist, which he did not like that term. He regards himself as an absurdist is the idea that we're basically blank canvases and this isn't something that is dangerous. This is an enormous opportunity and you have the ability to become the kind of man or woman that you admire and want to be, you don't have to be, you know, I don't know, George Washington or one of these great heroes of all time, but everyone out there has the capacity capacity, excuse me to be a hero to their kids or to be a hero to. Maybe some there's there's nursing homes and there's old people who are lonely, I think that you've taken a dog that's on its last legs. Uh these are little things terry shepherd, does that a lot of regarded as a hero. Um These are not terry shepherd, I'm blanking his name. These are things that people do um that aren't heroic in the sense of superman, but that I find admirable extremely, and I think are very underrated because these people aren't championed. [/INST] Is this some kind of weird, passive aggressive and direct way for you to tell me that I should take you out for your birthday monday? Is that why you gave that whole </s><s>[INST] speech? That's that, wasn't it [/INST] at all? That was a joke, Michael? No, it was </s><s>[INST] a failed joke. [/INST] Nevertheless, there's no punchline without failure. We would not have triumph. Can we stick on the camus absurdism versus existentialism? Sure. What do you think is the difference? Uh and your ideas about it? Uh Anarchism to it seems like those are somehow intricately connected because uh existentialism is connected to freedom, and freedom is connected to anarchism. </s><s>[INST] Sure, But I mean, Sartre was a defender of the soviet union. Uh he said explicitly about things like gulags, like even if it's true, we shouldn't talk about it. Um So he it's what people don't appreciate is how human beings can have contradictory ideas in their minds at the same time, so one would think, okay, someone's a democrat, they think abc therefore you think d f people have all sorts of contradictions and it's not at all clear and they'll they'll have a clean conscience, because the human mind is very sophisticated, um and is capable of doing this. So Sartre, you know, was you would think he's this radical individualist, you know, this sense of ultimate freedom, but he's defending the soviet union. Come on, the other hand, would probably be was very much like a social democrat. He didn't really talk about what politics should be, so much as it shouldn't be. His essay reflections on the Guillotine is one of the great masterpieces of all time, an attack on the death penalty, not in terms of no one's evil or it's wrong to kill murderers, but in terms of what does it do for a society, if you have someone who's set takes a person and locks them in a room and says, you know, in two years, I'm going to murder you and you lock them for that. This is not someone would regard as moral, we regard this as someone who's a complete monster, but that's what the state does, you know, with the death penalty, and he challenges us to think, is this the kind of people we want to be do. And again, he's saying, I'm not saying killing a murder is wrong, I'm not saying evil is wrong. His entire career was dedicated to fighting the concept of evil, but are we the kind of people who want to be doing these things that in any other context we regard as torture or depraved. So I'm much more of a common person than [/INST] he was probably against war in that same way. So I don't have to uh admit, I don't know much about the political side of comma </s><s>[INST] well, and I think his political sides that interesting or relevant what I find, so interrupt you. I what I find fascinating about camus and when I think about on a daily base from him is his insistence that you have to live a life based on conscience, that you have to be accountable to yourself. When you put your pill, you had on the pill at the end of day and ask yourself, did I live a righteous life with integrity? True to my values. Did I uh not needlessly cause harm to innocent people. Um you know, that kind of mindset, did I if someone is weak, am I used that as an opportunity to exploit them or to harm them or do I feel a bit of sympathy or empathy for this person? Because maybe they don't have circumstances that were, you know, as as um uh beneficial as other people had? [/INST] Well, how does that fit absurdism? Where everything is absurd? Nothing has meaning uh you know, the really borders on nihilism. </s><s>[INST] So, he his he regards his his philosophy explicitly said is a response to nihilism and a attack on nihilism. He, you know, he regards cynicism as like the worst value people can have. And I agree with him 100% a lot of times people call me cynical online and I pushed back, very very hard because to be a, you know, I had this quote and then you right where I said I'd rather be naive than a cynic because the cynic is a hopeless man who projects his hopelessness to the world at large uh camus. This is the metaphor I use and I find it very inspirational. I thought it was in his work but I guess I thought if I described it to him, there's two types of people and imagine you go to a mountainside and you see a blank canvas on an easel standing in front this mountainside one people be like why is this blank canvas here? You know what it was? What was going on here and just be confused. Whereas the other type of person will be like this, a blank canvas here in this beautiful countryside. What a great opportunity. I can paint this river. I could paint that bird. I can paint my friends or myself in the background, infinite choices. And this is a gift that I have been given. And I think that also ties very heavily into what I was. I went to yeshiva as a kid which is your school, What we were taught incessantly how to look at life Is this beautiful gift that God has given you and that God wants you to be happy, he wants you to live to the fullest in a moral way. I remember the first time I went into a church and they were asking questions about the jewish concept, the afterlife. They weren't familiar with jewish thought, and it took me a second cause I don't really have answers, and then I remembered what we were taught, which is, let's suppose, you're at this banquet, the best chef on earth and the tables so heavy because you've got steaks and you've got chicken and you've got sushi and the winds flowing and you've got your uh dr pepper and mr and mr Pibb and the store brand, everything you want, and you're looking around at this amazing bounty, right? And then you turn to this best chef on earth and you're like, oh, so what's for dessert? I mean, the offensiveness of that is just so, you know, insane. Like you have this, eat the meal, like I promise you if I can deliver this meal, the dessert's gonna be okay. So this focus on the afterlife when we've been given this amazing gift, uh you know, on this Earth is a very kind of different mindset from both the jewish tradition as I've been taught and the camus mindset obviously camus was an Atheist didn't believe in an afterlife, but this concept that life is meaningless, but that means you have that opportunity to find value to seek for truth to seek for happiness and camus has this quote, it's ascribed to him, it's like a meme I've never found the source. So maybe he doesn't really say it, but he says maybe it's not about happy endings, Maybe it's about the journey. And I think when you have that mindset and as you and I think you and I both found this because neither of us when we were kids thought we'd be doing this right, But now that we are really fortunate, [/INST] definitely this. Yeah, definitely that </s><s>[INST] but now that we're fortunate to do this and that we're blessed enough, that there's people who find this value and interest and we could pay the rent doing this. There's not a day that goes by where I don't think you and I think this is pretty absurd, but it's also pretty wonderful. And as a consequence of us thriving, it also shows other people that happiness is possible on this earth. And I think cynicism is the lie. It's not just the world do, it's a lie that happiness is not possible in this earth, or it's only happy possible if you sell your soul and you're like a bad person, you screw other people over. I reject that in every aspect. You know, as you said, my birthday is coming up. I've been feeling um just a lot of really great things have been happening very, very recently. So it affects me very heavily emotionally, especially when I see the response it gives to uh like the kids, right? So it's one thing to say, this is what I'm for, but when you can provide proof of concept that what you've been advocating does result in positive responses. I got a message from this kid who had tried to kill himself a year ago, okay. And then he was like, look, I found your work, I found some other stuff and now I realize I'm going to make something of myself. I was born in a meth house, You know, whatever, 1920 years old, I should be in the garbage, but I'm gonna try to be a stand up because I have opportunity on this earth, even if he fails as a stand up, you know, he's still such whatever he does washing dishes, there's no shame in that he is it so bad to have a crappy job and a girlfriend who you don't really like. But as compared to the alternative of like, I'm gonna kill myself, this is heaven. [/INST] Well, I think there's beauty to be discovered in all of it and all of those experiences. So, but at the same time, so I often think about, I just recently reread the idiot by dostoevsky. I often feel like the idiot, that's why when I say I'm an idiot, I often think about Prince Michigan, that kind of idiot, which the world sees you as naive. I don't think he's naive, I don't think I'm naive, but I tend to see the good in people and the good in every moment and the world often is cynical and in fact, especially in what we do often the intellectual is supposed to be cynical. </s><s>[INST] This is very much an urban, elite educated mindset where if you write a book about someone who's let's suppose, a drug addict or a prostitute that has heft and that's valid. But if you're writing a book about like a love story, you know, two people love and it's there in roller coasters or caress cells that's less legitimate. I hate that. I hate that. I hate that so much because the message it gives to people is you have to choose between thriving and happiness and silliness and seriousness and depravity. And I'm not saying a drug addict, a prostitute to pray, but they're basically their worldviews. If it's unless it's dark and twisted, it doesn't really count as art and I despise that mindset that subtext. [/INST] So the internet and people around me often will call me naive because I think the </s><s>[INST] word they one is innocent. Don't you think it's [/INST] not that innocent? </s><s>[INST] No, but innocent and that you you genuinely in your heart, I know you're fairly well at this point, believe that goodness is possible and that people can if not be good at least be better than they were yesterday. So [/INST] even the word naive or the word innocent presumes that there's not wisdom in that presumes that somehow that's uh oh isn't that beautiful to live that life of a child who sees the world with these bright eyes and is hopeful about the future, but just wait until they grow up and realize that reality is much harsher than they think. But a child might be wiser than all of the adults in the room. </s><s>[INST] And don't you don't you want to be if the world is like that, don't you want to be the guy who takes it on and changes it for the better? Right? So it's like saying, well, you know, cancer is everywhere, It's inevitable. Well, don't you want to be the one who says not anymore, I'm here and I'm going to make that change and I can see it being better than it is now. So, I think you and I have the same analysis of your worldview and I don't think that there is a good word for it. So I guess it's this idea of you know, inherent benevolence might be, you know, maybe wordy, but I think that's more accurate because you know, you and I did not have such easy lives growing up. To put it mildly. Uh you constantly talk about um just horrific aspects of life. So to claim that you kind of don't know that they exist or you sleep on the rug is completely not accurate to your work and your your mindset, [/INST] can we talk about World War two and the soviet Union. Sure. So on Sunday June 22, 1941 Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, which was the surprise invasion of the soviet Union. If I could read to you a few lyrics from a song that for some reason is stuck throughout my childhood. It was a famous song during that time. What is that over a union? Or even if you just give bombardier now may be very strong and she lives by now. Bye nana, july Snoras vita, abortion narrow do beach spider hereditary, aspiring Magda staticky of Palm Beach. The song talks about Kiev like that moment As part of that operation that Kiev was first bombed and it was announced on June 22. The song says at exactly 4:00 that the war has begun. For some reason, this song haunts me because the exactness of that time and this realization that at any moment you can have this Thing happened to you in your own personal life, maybe we'll have something like 9-11 happened where everything changes and it's just like haunting because it makes me think that at any moment something like that could happen that changes everything. And I just think about like normal life going on in Kiev at the time and then all of a sudden the bombs are dropping and they announced that the war has begun and you thought you were going to stay out of the </s><s>[INST] war. Um okay, wow. Um this is something that is very intensely emotional for me because you and I are both Russian jewish. So to know that my grandparents and my great grandma [/INST] were told </s><s>[INST] um that the nazis are coming and this wasn't a dress rehearsal And that if they get here, which they do, they did live off is very western Ukraine, that 100% you and all your relatives are going to be murdered and uh there's a monument now in level where I'm from about this, but I don't think either of us can imagine what it's like to know to think that we're about mhm You know, minutes or whatever hours or there's just there's just the Russian army standing between us and everyone, everyone we are related to are going to be murdered for no reason and um you know like what's the closure here? Right? Like they evacuate a lot of people and but they didn't evacuate enough and to know that there is this force Coming 200% murder you. This isn't some kind of you know uh the tv news being hyperbolic, they're coming to kill you and they if they get you, they will kill you and you have to, you know, we all think about war like oh you know, we hope America wins in Iraq. Right, right, But if America got their asking kind of in Vietnam, it's not really gonna affect America in the sense that you're going to have the body bags and all the kids being killed and that's something that I'm not super in the rug. But no one in America thought the Vietnamese are going to come here and kill them, right? They were secure in their person. So to have that sense of, we really need to win Because if we don't win, we are 100% if we, they, the Russian army doesn't win, we are 100% all going to be slaughtered. And often not just a bullet to the head in sadistic ways is something that um, to know that people who share my blood uh, saw and went through. It's very hard for me to kind of uh, wrap my [/INST] head around and there's no possibility to delude yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean they would uh, as the song also talks about, but that they would burn the factories. So it's basically saying we're in the war now. This is </s><s>[INST] like, this is your life. Yeah, This is our life. You know how yesterday you're worried about like, oh, I misplaced my pen, Where is it? Like, it's like, yeah, this was paradise. [/INST] Most of us are going to our life now is that most of us are going to die. And if we want to prevent all of us from dying, we uh, we have to fight </s><s>[INST] and we also can't sit down in some kind of weird like desert island or you know, playing crash situation and be like, let's decide between us who's gonna be the first to die, maybe the titanic, the titanic, right? They sat down and they're like women and Children in the lifeboats. You know, they have this rational agreement. You don't have those choices in a war. So, um, it's, it's something that I uh, it's just very chilling and it's something I don't really have, um, the emotional space to understand or grapple with, uh, you know, obviously I've been to North Korea. You can see it and so and so forth. Uh, you and I can't, or anyone listening to this except for maybe on me and people like that. You can't imagine what that's like to live it. We can't, we can't imagine what it's like to live in those situations where it's not like before Hitler came, everyone's, you know, dancing around and having a great time. I mean, imagine how what that life is like where your preference to Hitler is starving and waiting on line for hours for bread and to have the secret police and your friends attorney you in and your phones were all tapped and your prisoner. But to you, this is infinitely better than the alternative. Like these are the choices that our family had to deal with. It's something that no matter how much you, it's like a, let me put in terms of people understand, you know what I mean? It's like your first bad break up, right? Like that's a much simpler thing to wrap your head around because it's like if you've never had it, you can't really But when you feel it it's just so intense. But you can't tell someone what's like we could sit down for days and hours and have people tell us. But until it's the totality totality of your environment and your life and your mindset. I remember my grandma. Uh huh She would talk about it like Mhm When you're when you're that hungry, huh? All you're thinking about is bread. Yeah. Because your brain won't like, you know, human beings were evolved, we have instincts, whatever. And the mind is telling you food, food, food, food, food, food and that there's kids thinking this and that there's they're not going to get the food uh and you imagine being a parent and you're watching [/INST] your kids without food and knowing they're not going to get the food </s><s>[INST] And uh the fact that this happened in North Korea in the 90s. Yeah, I met a refugee and uh he had to watch his dad starve to death and uh thank you. Um and we have no concept of uh what it's like, I mean, we kind of, you know, it's just like last night here in Austin all the places were closed and I couldn't get my protein powder and this is the extent of my suffering when it comes to food, You know, or if I couldn't there was a restaurant that I went to in Brooklyn where for some cock to reason they weren't serving sashimi, they only had sushi. So I had to have the rice and the carbs To live a life where that is the extent of your food problems as opposed to the choices. Either Hitler killing you or being hungry. 24 7. You know, my grandma told the story of how they had a close call. It was her and her brother and her mom, my great grandma who passed and I think there was like either helicopter overhead or something. And my great grandma jumped on top of my grandma's brother and not my grandma. So she basically did a Sophie's choice, my grandma's name is Sophia and chose the brother. And this is something that she felt, you know all her life that her mom had chosen her brother over her. But these little things that happen, these little kind of a decisions we have to make in war. There's a book I read called uh five chimneys. I think this woman who was an Auschwitz survivor and what she talked about what people don't appreciate. It's not necessarily the slaughter and the torture. It's that there's no rhyme or reason to it. Like she talked about how they had a camp just for people from uh Czechoslovakia and they were treated better than the jews. And then one day they just killed them all right and she's like, I still don't understand why they're giving them food and treat them well. And then the next day they're all killed and we will never get answers. You know, and she's and things like she talks about how they decided to kill all the kids and they didn't really either. For some reason they didn't have the courage to or they wanted to be cruel. So instead of shooting them, they just kept walking in the snow until they all died. So it's things like this, that the fact that you and I dodge these bullets and that we can be here and uh, be doing this and you know, running our mouths for a living. I think about it all the time. And uh, it's just very um, uh, disturbing to know. And I know you know this as well, that there's lots of places on earth where if people had a choice, they would kill us on sight and be proud of themselves for it. [/INST] Yeah, they're I don't know what to make of the contrast that you you were talking about the fact that you've been truly happy the last few weeks and months. There's been a lot of moments of happiness and joy and that joy is built on a history of human suffering like in your roots in your blood is a lot of people that were tortured that suffered so that you could have this joy. You have both the you have the responsibility to truly be grateful for that joy. </s><s>[INST] But it also shows that there's the happy ending, that it does end on a good note that it does get infinitely infinitely better. Um and that I think there's a, I don't like you said there were responsibility, but there is um an opportunity for those of us who did dodge that bullet to give testimony to these people and more importantly to give testimony to the people who are going through this now. So you know, one of the reasons I, you know, talk about north Korea so much why I wrote Dear Reader is because it's very easy and this is human nature. I'm not condemning people. I don't think that's just how people are wired when you see an asian country with Asian people and things are you know, bad over there. You know, I think in the west it's like oh you know Asia, they're all crazy, they're they're wacky. They, you know, they eat dogs or so and so forth some weird stereotype and they think of them as kind of Martians. So it's important for people who aren't of that kind of ancestry to kind of speak on behalf of these people because it's very different how just people just natural react when you have a westerner talking about this instead of becoming their, you know them over there, it becomes, you know, this could have been uh us very easily. I have a friend Peter, they had ski great dude. And I was showing him photos when I was in Pyongyang and he goes, this looks like a Russian city with asian people, it was completely disturbed him. So you know that was one of the reasons I did go to north Korea because that was as close as I would get to see what your family went through to see what my family went through and they're still living under this regime. And one of the things I fought very hard to do with your reader, which I was successful and amazingly and it just, I said like I could die now like I feel like if you make it just moves need a little bit then you kind of uh pay your due for your time here on this earth to have it changed from being a laughing stock, you know, and I think team America did a good job, they made kim jong il into a clown and they made a joke of it, but you're going from nothing to joke. So at least now people are aware of it that it exists, right? And then I and many others took it from a joke to like guys, this is really, really, really bad and none of us can even appreciate how bad it is. And I think now there is an understanding other than a few people who are just looking at through a trump lens and wanting trump to fail because trump's and asshole, that's fine to be like these poor people. And it's really unfortunate because there's a segment of Western culture who thinks that correctly, often when you're complaining about or discussing the plight of another country, that's just your prelude to war and an excuse to invade. Like the kurds in Syria. You know, we're talking about if we're not in Syria tomorrow, it's gonna be another genocide, blah blah. I'm not saying let's invade North Korea and things like that. All I'm saying is, you know, thank God that this isn't your life. I bring this up all the time. The woman who was my guide when I was there, I'm aware of what she's up to now. She's still, she's extremely rich by North korean um standards, but she'll never be in a position to buy medicine. She'll never be in a position to go on a vacation, uh, things that you and I just, you know, whatever, she, she can't go on the internet. Uh, she can't get encyclopedia, uh she can't better herself as a person other than through what the state allows and meaning better yourself as a person in service to the state. So I mean there's it's also frustrating because there's only so much that I can do as an individual. [/INST] What's your takeaway about human nature, from looking at north Korea and looking at how the rest of the world is looking at north Korea. </s><s>[INST] I I always, this is a great question. I think about it fairly often and I always say human beings are animals, right? When you say some as an animal, it's like a slur. Like he's like a beast. Animals are capable of enormous kindness, empathy sympathy. You know, they look out for one another room, one another. There's a thing with, with apes where they groom each other for parasites and even if there are no parasites, they pretend this parasites just to have that kind of bonding. You see infinite uh photos online of like cats raising puppies because the puppy's mom died. Things like this, that's part of being an animal. Part of being an animal is also just the most uh monstrous cruelty, killer whales. You know, there's this big pc move did not call them killer whales and just call them orcas, they will murder blue whale pups cabs, excuse me and play with them and not even eat them. So they just murder for the sake of fun. So there's and and cats, you know, kill birds all the time, things like this. So it runs the whole gamut. Um, and I think it's, I'm, you know, when you're on and I run your show, I don't think Lord of flies is accurate. I don't think Hobbes is how reality works when you're in that kind of state. Um but I think uh we've seen countless examples of human beings, especially when human beings have power over someone who's powerless of allowing themselves to engage in not just harm but cruelty. And that is something as Soviets you and I are very painfully aware of that. It's not just about the oppression which is bad enough as it is. It's that mediocre person with that little bit of power and now they're standing between you and your daughter having medicine and they love it to make you dance to be like, oh you need me to get this medicine make you go through hoops. Because now they feel like for the first time in their life they're in a position of strength and power. I think that is in many ways the more common nature of evil, what Hannah Aaron talks about the banality of evil than someone who's like an ss guard your shooting someone in the head like that. I think we could all wrap our heads around to some extent like okay, I'm a military, it's not easy. I have to execute people pulling a trigger, You could kind of have this mental disconnect between the finger and the victim, but like that little day to day stuff like are you doing the right thing on a day to day basis that I think is far more common and far more disturbing aspect in certain senses of the human psyche. [/INST] Yeah, there's something um especially disturbing about a weak man given power and just abusing that power. There's something about not just weak but like mediocre at everything it does or less than </s><s>[INST] mediocre if you a great example of this, which I'm also talking about the next book is Ceaucescu who was the dictator of Romania. So you know the cold War is still somewhat poorly understood in popular culture, but the different countries in the second world, the soviet bloc, some are more liberal than others, some were more sane than others. And Ceausescu at first was one of the more western friendly, more the free ones. Then he met the great leader kim il sung from north Korea and he had the idea to impose a personality cult on Romania and it's the kind of things like forcing people to breed because he wanted to make people taller. He I think he made like the biggest building in all of europe the people's palace, but it was just for him bothers no electricity, you know elsewhere. But you look at this guy, you know Stalin's a badass, right? He was a bank robber. If you look at photos him as a kid, he was a hunk. Lenin was clearly intellectual, these were not, these were powerful trotsky, these were powerful men with huge egos, huge force of personality. But you look at this Ceaucescu guy and you could like for example on my driver's license instead of my address. I'm like in my real address being like 123 4/5 Avenue by mistake, it says 123 4/5 street, right? So you can imagine him being in the post office and me giving him my idea to get my package and him being baffled because this says street that says avenue instead of understand and this the look on his face, this dullard that you can see how you know how sometimes I'm gonna connect curse. [/INST] Yeah. </s><s>[INST] So if you know, like if you're in the airport and you see someone and you look at them an adult and you think, okay, this person was born sucked up, just like on site like something's wrong with them. How are they traveling alone? You look at Ceaucescu, you look at him, you're like something's not right with this guy, not in the sense of like evil, but the sense that he's a simple thing, right? And now he's in charge of this whole country and everyone is taught to regard him as one of the great geniuses of all time. And it's this, uh, the idea of this mediocre nobody, this guy would have in any other culture been accomplished nothing or, or, or or would have had an honest job where he's like, okay, he works at the mail service and he's bad at it. Okay, fine. He's not hurting anyone. And now as a result of this, he's responsible for mass death, secret police and incarceration. And uh, you know, one of the greatest things I've ever seen, which I'm sure many people see as well, if you go on youtube, it's his speech and it's the first time the crowd turns and his head kind of like because they start booing him, which was unheard of and you know, he was shot with his dog faced wife, not that long after. It was just a great moment. But it's things like this, I agree with you that that mediocre weak person is now in a position of power for somebody else and that sense of vindictiveness. Like I'm going to feel strong for once in my life, but it's going to be at your expense. That I think is, you know, human nature. It's most primal. [/INST] And every time I meet a person in this world, you're </s><s>[INST] the first person to get me to cry on a podcast that the robot gets [/INST] me to cry what the </s><s>[INST] fund is going on. [/INST] Every time I meet a weird person, somebody to me heroism is also taking a risk to rebel against mediocrity. Like in in the most simplest of ways like the license address, like taking a risk to break the little bit of rule that nobody will know about to take that little bit of a leap of like that little protest against the bureaucracy </s><s>[INST] like that Nazi government where he just spoke out. He's like, hey lady, that's a big one that I [/INST] mean like literally at the line at Starbucks or something like, like even in the tiniest of ways when I see people just like, it's almost like that little like glimmer in their eye a wink. Like we're in this together. This, there's there's all this conformity all around us that's at a different time. Could have been nazi Germany, could have been uh Stalin and soviet union were in this together, we're going to rebel against that conformity by just </s><s>[INST] just taking the risk [/INST] that a little bit of risk against mediocrity. I don't know. And that and then once again, I see this in companies to when I see the mediocrity I see this, you know, I used to work at google, I see it in google when the companies grow that mediocrity is overwhelming the peter principle, right? The peter principle. Yeah. My hope is that all of us have the possibility for that glimmer, that um that risk taking the leap of faith or whatever the heck that is the leap out of the ordinary, out of the conformity, out of the mediocrity. So this is where </s><s>[INST] you and I disagree. I think most a lot of people are not capable of that [/INST] their customs and to it. I don't know if they're not capable. </s><s>[INST] I might, I understand your position. I'm disagreeing with it. I'm saying I do not think they're capable. I think a lot of people effectively don't have souls. They do not have a conscience in this sense where they're going to look at an issue, bring their critical thinking and say, all right, I am going to do the right thing, Although I'm taking a risk. [/INST] I think thinking is involved Or is it just taking that leap There there's something about that basic human spirit. Forget the thinking part. It's just saying like I'll take that risk taking that adventure. The same thing that got people to explore the seas. You know that the uh throughout human civilization explore land, explore the oceans, like that explorer exploration. Like we've done stuff this way all this time. I'm going to take a leap and that comes out of nowhere. But those people are the </s><s>[INST] heroes. But I don't think that's universal. Uh there was I'm going to use a very goche example there was a show called scare tactics which was basically a candid camera, but they would scare people like they have vampires, whatever hidden camera in people's reactions. And so a lot of But sometimes the prank didn't work out like they expected. So there was one where they were hiring the people who are the marks, you know the contestants, so to speak was hard to be a security guard. Okay. And you have to watch this this factory overnight and you get paid and what the setup was Some people were breaking out of the factory in the middle of the night like in rags and they were saying they were keeping us prisoner here like blah blah and just watch the personal reaction to this. And there was one security guard Where there he basically forced them back into the building. And they're like, they're working as 24/7. We're getting beaten. He's like, I'm here to do a job, get back in there and you watch this and it never even enters his head to be like something's wrong here. He was given his orders. He's following his orders. And to me that is not uncommon. And that person, although they look like you and I uh there's something essentially human missing with them. Now. Very quickly the reaction is, well, it's one step from there to nazism. I don't think it's something that I'm not saying this person should be killed. But I'm just saying to expect that every human being has the capacity to have that defiance, especially the cost their own life. That I think is not realistic. Uh, and I but at the same time, I feel like an octopus on the eighth hand, it is those few of us or if you want to include me in this who do make these tiny little protests, who look the other way when someone is hungry who's stealing food from the supermarket, right? It's like, all right. Like I'm gonna pretend I didn't see anything that those little elements of heroism are what move humanity forward and demonstrate the validity of the human experience. Whereas everyone else is kind of like scenery. [/INST] I think almost everybody in the world can derive deep meaning and pleasure from having done those courageous acts. And I also think they have the capacity to do them to discover that meaning and happiness. So </s><s>[INST] you're the cynic then why aren't they doing it? [/INST] They haven't gotten a chance to, like, I've never tried LSD or DMT e, you haven't gotten a chance to try this amazing journey, which is taking the risk. </s><s>[INST] That's not because, as you just said two minutes ago, everyone has that chance every day to do the right thing and [/INST] we have the chance to do a lot of things and we don't realize there's a lot of stuff right in front of our knows that we don't realize right, because you have to kind of wake up to it sometimes. Uh you need the catalyst, there needs to be some kind of thing that happens that wakes you up, that the fact that most people don't take the small acts of rebellion doesn't mean they don't have the capacity to both do so and to derive a lot of meaning from it. Then it's a a discussion about how to create societies that get more and more people to be free actors and freethinkers. That's that's the question that that probably listen to a discussion of anarchism and so on, but I just think we are very young as a species. We're trying to figure out how to get ourselves to first be collaborative, but at the same time be free spirits and I think both of those are within human </s><s>[INST] nature, most of us, I think another big concern is that there's enormous disincentives and this is Michael malice speaking uh for human beings to be kind and for tenderness and I think especially when you're young, you know what I mean, When you're immature, a lot of times someone will reach out to you with kindness or vulnerability and you think it's funny to kind of dunk the head underwater in a pool or something like that. And when you get older you look uh you know, there's this one Example of this, this was this was in the 90's and there was a woman, she became a like uh like stripper or something like that or whatever was she had this amazing body, she was just gorgeous and the show was, she was talking about how, when she was in high school she was bullied a lot, and that there was this football player, he messed with her every single day and like that one day she even threw Pickles in her hair and her hair smelled like Pickles and I was laughing at her and this really screwed her up, I mean up to that show and they took her backstage and they brought out the football player and now he's a dad and a regular dude And he's like, do you know like, do you know why you're here? And he's like, no, and they're like, oh well you like in high school, like, I was kind of a jock bully, whatever and they brought her out and he didn't even remember her really? And she just started crying about the pickles or whatever. And that's something that affected her for like 20 years. And I've never seen a clear example of someone who want to kill themselves in this guy, like the guilt on his face and he's looking at her and he's desperate to be like, what can I do to take your pain away to make it better? Uh like I, he was just crippled by it because he knew there's nothing he could do. He knew he 100% did the wrong thing. He knew he did the wrong thing. Unthinkingly. Like you can imagine, you know, I got to screw over this lady to feed my family, you know that that's fine you, but it was at the time it meant nothing to him. So of course he didn't remember and he was just paralyzed by the sense of crippling guilt. One of the reasons I always tried to do the right thing is it because I'm inherently good person, which I do not think I am, I don't think anyone is inherently good, but because I will feel guilty about it for a very, very long time because if you do the wrong thing, this is a very commercial idea. If you do the wrong thing to a good person, that's really, really bad because what kind of person are you in the same way that everyone can be that guy who takes someone out for their birthday, everyone has that ability for someone who did the wrong thing to someone who is a normal person and do you want to be that guy as well? My friend uh bit steen, he's a uh big gold, excuse me, Bitcoin person, my biography ego and hubris is like $500 now on Ebay. It's like hard to find came out in 2000 and six and he had told me that you know, you can get it on torrent, it's downloadable and I'm like, oh I thought if you were my friend, you know you want to buy it at the time, it was not $500 I assure you. And it goes, I did buy it, I'm just telling you that you could also get it for free, this information that you might want to use and I felt, I'm like I snapped at this kid who was doing right by me and I felt it just stuck in my head, I'm like you're an ass. And then years later I apologize, he had no memory of this at all and I'm glad to be able to reiterate the apology again, but you know this is, you know, a lot of times I'm extremely aggressive on twitter and other venues, I always try to and maybe I fail and that's my moral failing, always do it as a counter attack. If you're gonna start going personal, if you're going to start being aggressive against an individual, I'm not going to necessarily hold back when I reciprocate. And it's something that is very common on social media, but I don't think it is normal just because a lot of this is we're talking about the quiet little rebellion just because everyone else around you thinks it's okay to just go up to people and attack them in the most personal ways and prompted because of their views. Really just take a step back and realize what you're engaging with now. If that's the fight they want, then you know, my soviet cruelty could come out and that's kind of why I don't drink because I do enjoy it, but at the same time be aware of what you're doing and, and again, this goes back to canoes, um sense that conscience really is what makes us human beings. That's the thing about saying, I don't think most people think in terms of conscience, they don't think they were taught this is that this is that creeping cynicism that oh, grow up when you're an adult, you have to make sacrifices, blah, blah, blah. And even if I buy that for a second, which I don't, but if I have to make sacrifices sometimes that doesn't mean it's okay for me to make a sacrifice of my values in this moment, if I have to maybe be at work and my boss is a jerk to me and calls me names have to be humiliated, but I gotta put food on the plate, that doesn't mean it's okay later if I'm at a party and I'm just extremely offensive to someone for no reason. [/INST] You know, my own flavor of a little bit of rebellion, </s><s>[INST] Sometimes I use the number two is uh [/INST] you know, you're very witty on twitter and you, my and twitter likes mockery and wit and uh on a counterattack is uh twitter laws that somebody who's skilled at it. My own flavor of a bit of rebellion is to say things very simply bordering on cliche with, with with authenticity and like genuinely meaning the words I say, but knowing that those words would be are easy to attack sure. And that sometimes those attacks can hurt because people would just mock me. </s><s>[INST] Sure, people don't like [/INST] earnestness because they've been taught to </s><s>[INST] be too cool for school. [/INST] Yeah, so like there's this pressure for me to be sound way more sophisticated, use bigger words uh sometimes throwing um a criticism of institutions or something like that. Like uh like almost as if I have a deep wisdom about the way the world is broken, but when you speak very simply about beautiful things in life, it's very easy to sound like you don't know what the hell you're talking about and I kind of, I stick by that, I don't know where that's gonna end up, but it's like the idiot from this task. It feels like that's right. Uh that's the right thing. Even if it hurts when I'm attacked </s><s>[INST] for it. I I do something similar sometimes, which is I'll have some innocuous comment about like bubble gum. I mean just it's not being political and a lot of times people, few people will respond to this paragraph of just invective about like blah blah blah and then this and you say this and you're a nest and and just really trying to get at me and what I in those situations are very specific circumstances. I will respond. And I mean it every single time I will say, I wish your parents have been kinder to you or your mom or your dad because if someone is some, even if I'm some idiot on twitter right, who just talk about bubble gum and this is your I'm not talking about politics where I can see how people get emotional covid my grandma died. Now you're talking about and you, I realize this isn't about me. Like I'm someone you've never met making some inane point about nothing and you're getting agitated about this. It's clearly something else that's going on here and someone taught you, someone had to teach you that this is how to respond to this kind of very kind of harsh way and a lot of times they'll, you know, they won't say anything or get deleted and I hope every single time there's no asterisk here that they take a second and they realized that the way that they were talked to growing up was not acceptable. That they don't have to carry this forward and that they don't have to be kind to me, I'm nobody them but take a second and ask if this is the kind of mindset you want to be your norm as opposed to a weapon you pull out of your pocket sometimes where it's warranted or even when it's not warranted. I think there's a lot of those people out there, you know, and we forget how, you know how um hard it is for a lot of people to grow up, how they're trained from their parents or the single parent. That the only way they're going to get attention is by acting out that when they do good things, it doesn't get comment. But if they do bad things, they got a smack upside their head that I think is far more common than we realize. And that's such a, it's not even, it's not hitting the kid that's gonna last, It's the pain is going to give 55 seconds. But when you're training this child, helpless child is something that's really, really [/INST] bad. I don't know if it's always can be mapped to that. I always wonder about them, like what their motivations are and I just kind of like whenever I think about them, I think only positively and I don't even think about the childhood thing. I think, I don't know, I kind of imagine that all of us can go through that stage where we enjoy the derision of others. We go through stages of </s><s>[INST] being, I enjoy the division of others, but it has to be, you know, Billy, I'd have that quote. I like I like it when people are mean to make us stop pretending to be nice, but like what's the worst thing something to say about you? You're not, what harm are you doing? Uh maybe your podcast is garbage and the people are the conversations suck and the people are losing, you [/INST] know, the main, the main thing I would say is I'm way more popular than I deserve to be. </s><s>[INST] What does deserve. Mean, [/INST] the reality is there's people out there that just enjoy hating on others and I don't um I don't fault them for it. Like I don't even think of them as haters. I think of them as just people that in this particular part of their life are enjoying this activity of uh of deriding others on the internet. I'm not sure what to do with that. I just don't want to I don't want to allow myself to think badly of them. I guess that's the thing </s><s>[INST] I'm the one saying don't think that they have them. I'm saying that I don't think they're inherently bad people. I think that they're thinking is screwed and that I'm still manning them. I'm saying, let's assume everything you're saying about lex is true. This is an opportunity for you to outdo lex like no, [/INST] but are you saying they should stop hating because I'm saying like maybe they shouldn't just keep, </s><s>[INST] I don't believe it should right? I'm an anarchist. But I'm saying it's like if this is your belief about lex, you know what it is? I made this comment in my book, then you right? When people make fun of Andy Warhol and they're like, oh my God, he painted soup can and now he became a millionaire. I could do this. Well why don't [/INST] you? So </s><s>[INST] basically if I go up to you with a check and I say I will give you a million dollars. You could see the check. You gotta paint a soup can, what am I waiting for. So clearly there's a disconnect and they're thinking between what they're perceiving and the reality? Because if it was as simple or as maybe not simple, but as as possible for them as they perceive it to be. Why are they leaving comments instead of outdoing you? How great would it be for them to have your bigger audience and drive you into the ground. I don't know how that would work because it's not the NBA but [/INST] you want to point out you do this to on twitter, You want to point out the hypocrisy, the fraudulence of others, right? </s><s>[INST] What are you? You're not claiming anything other than this is the following is a conversation between me and you magically whatever his name is, right? I got the voice down dude, I got it down. I've been walking [/INST] in my house doing my legs </s><s>[INST] impression I've been leaking motor oil everywhere. Yeah. [/INST] But uh I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to make of it because uh I think there's there's a more general statement to be made. Like I see twitter this way too. When I read a tweet I try to read it with like the best possible interpretation meaning like what is the wisdom in this tweet? As opposed to what I think a large number of people, not a large but some fraction try to see what is the worst possible interpretation of this tweet and they want to they want to destroy you for that worst interpretation like they want to um there's people I'm already aware of this with me and certainly with a lot of people there waiting for me to fail. They want me to be like this guy talks about love all the time. They want me to be some dark like uh </s><s>[INST] pain. Yeah, they want you to be in pain because they don't, I'll tell you exactly why because this is why I'm so for being white killed and being for hope because if you are black pilled meaning if you think it's pointless, we're all done. If you're just wasting your breath, if you have any counter examples to this thesis, if there's even a little bit of hope, your entire hypothesis falls through, right? So if it's it's kind of how like you have all these stories of people who are like painting swastikas who aren't nazis, but just to show that, oh there's all this nazism. So I'm going to, you know, kind of forced the conclusion. So for them when they see you thriving, you are as a mediocre person with a crappy show. But you're demonstrating that people can succeed, This bothers them so you are [/INST] can succeed. That bothers them. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, because that's why haven't they? So now you're a counter to their world view and that is going to cause anxiety when you have data that contradicts other data in your your world view, this is your mindset. This is a big issue for [/INST] them. So anyone listening to this, they're annoyed by the look of my face, remember that you could probably do way better than me and you should. </s><s>[INST] But also what would you failing look like? Like let's suppose this podcast went from whatever views you had 2 100 views, an episode that's still success, You are talking to people, you like having conversations about important issues, you're having a good time, they're giving the time, how is that a failure? If I have dinner with a friend of mine, there's zero viewers and we enjoy that time. That is the height of human success when you are share happiness. Happiness. Joy. Joy over [/INST] love. So what's the difference between Joy and love? Michael malice? </s><s>[INST] I think joy is easier to attain its more common. You could share it with [/INST] everyone. Give me an example of joy, like, what was the moment of Joyful you recently, </s><s>[INST] I could give you a great example of joy and this is part in the absurdist mindset. Okay, I love having a bad meal at a restaurant and I'll give you can see why you go with your friend. It takes you 45 minutes to get seated. Okay, I'm starving waiter is not paying attention to you, They bring your water, it's got a hair in it, they get the food wrong, that comes out again, It's right, but it's cold at a certain point, you're like, okay, I'm hungry, I'm living an anecdote. This is something that you if you were at dinner, we could talk about this for years because how great is it that the worst thing that's happening to me is I got to wait an hour for this meal that's going to be cooked wrong, right? That to me is Joy is holding on to that idea that happiness and thriving or possible, even when in the moment it's everything is going the wrong way [/INST] doesn't every moment have the capacity to fill you with joy them. </s><s>[INST] So it's both [/INST] shitty moments and the good moments. But that's see that's the way I usually talk about love is like, I love life and because life can generate every everything, the pain, the loss, but also just like simple or complicated bliss all of that. I just love all of that and that because it fills me with with a kind of, I guess joy but joy has a connotation that is supposed to be somehow positive. Like you're supposed to be smiling. Uh to me man, search for meeting with victor frankel. You know, just it's your urine, the holocaust. You're in a concentration camp just having a little bit of food that you didn't expect you will have or even just thinking about food </s><s>[INST] or what about there's a kid there you tell me a funny story, you crack them up. Yeah. Like you take away this child's pain for like five minutes. That is the height of joy. [/INST] Yeah. So to me, like all of like life is like infinitely full of possibility for joy. And that's what I mean by love because oftentimes like romantic love is what people think about when they think love. But to me it's all like part of the same thing and it's almost like love, Romantic love or love with a friend friendship is like you both notice each other. It's like dogs, they look at each other and then they look at the thing, they're interested in. You both noticed each other and that moment of joy, you share that moment of joy together. </s><s>[INST] Like the restaurant. Restaurant. [/INST] Yeah. If you're both almost without conspiring, notice the absurdity of how shitty this meal is and like that again, that little glimmer of realization, that's that's what makes life beautiful. You mentioned uh your grandmother in love. Aww, you were thinking of returning there. The plans got a little bit delayed. But what are you hoping from that trip of going back to Russia, going back to Ukraine? What do you hope to get out of it? But what do you think you will feel? </s><s>[INST] Uh a lot of things. First of all, I'm going with my buddy chris Williamson, He hosts the Modern wisdom podcast. He is one of my closest friends we've never met. [/INST] Oh really? We've never met. </s><s>[INST] He's in Britain. He's trying, he's trying to get his ass over here to Austin. He's filling out his forms. Should [/INST] know, he's too good looking crime. We call him, </s><s>[INST] I call him Apollo and I'm lucky. So right away you have a buddy comedy because we're going to film it, right? You have these two guys who on paper you're very dissimilar, but we're very, very close. [/INST] Which way are you similar? </s><s>[INST] Uh I think we're both very intense, people, very strong emotionally. Um We're both very ambitious in the sense that not in terms of career, but like we want to grab life by the short hairs kind of thing. Um We're just both like good experiences uh [/INST] when he bench more than your oh yeah </s><s>[INST] he's of course, I mean the guy's jacked, he's [/INST] just because you know he's so good luck. He could be one of those guys who's mostly biceps and </s><s>[INST] no no no no he's if you look at go to his instagram chris will X is handle, it's like head, its head to toe, it's just sculpted. [/INST] He's perfect in every way. That's great. He </s><s>[INST] he has [/INST] lost. Does he have because I need </s><s>[INST] that taste of friends. His accent is all crazy. Uh He pronounces it, he's an underwear model now I spell it M. U. D. L. So Just us two British and American and just two different dudes. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Although to be fair as you know, I'm an underwear model now as well. So yeah we're gonna talk about in a second maybe. But yeah she thought it right [/INST] com this episode and this episode is brought to you by sheets, underwear. We're going to get some pictures eventually. I </s><s>[INST] think we might. Yeah. Yes I have my phone, we're gonna, we'll have and we can make a ship and you can slice it in right here. So to be able to go with someone who is a very close, I mean we meet him talk like every day right? So to someone who generally cares about you who who's he's very very grounded, right? So like a lot of times I'll have like some concern and he's really good and if you listen to show at slicing through the noise and being like, hold on a second, I can't do the accent yet. Have you considered a B and C? Because you know, whenever I had the situation, this is what I did. So he's really good with that. Um, so to have a first of all, just like two buddies on a trip is a really a lot of fun second of all, I know that if it's going to be very intense, so for you, you left Russia much later than I did. How old are your 13? Right? So you remember it, I'm sure very, very well. I left when I was 1.5 to, I remember it all to go to the streets where you know, my family had to go through this stuff to see the, you know, they came to live up, They slaughtered all the jews. I mean to have that little memorial there that's there now and to just look around and no, yesterday best basically they came here. They rounded everyone up and also from the other side, you have the stalinist coming in and starting all the people. It's just to know that so much horror and death. There's this quote I saw once about a woman who went to Auschwitz and she just made the comment like grass grows here because we think, you know that when it comes to the nature of evil, that you're going to go there, there's going to be the pits of hell or whatever, there's birds, you know, there's, you know, robins hopping around looking for the worms or whatever, they think it's perfectly nice and you, you you stand there to understand that so much suffering happened here or there is going to be very jarring. I know that it's going to be an issue because I speak Russian and not Ukrainian and to speak Russian to Ukrainians is like a big deal. So that's gonna be a concern. I'm also worried about going to Russia because every Russian has this idea that even though they just met you, they feel they feel that they're in a position to tell you what you're doing wrong with your life when you should be doing, give their cab driver, I have no tolerance for unsolicited advice and based at all that's gonna be horrible, they're going to be telling me and you speak Russian better because they're going to do one chick, I'm not hearing it, I'm not interested in hearing it so that I think, and also, you know, given my upcoming book the white pill and covering what happened back in the day under stalinism and later to see this was the la blanca, this was the basement where they would, you know, you know, this is something that people might not realize there's a superb film, the death of Stalin, which is kind of, that's what I do with north Korea, you know, puts a humorous spin on it. And then when you take a step back and you realize what they're actually saying, it's just like it's very, very disturbing how when Stalin was dying, he had a stroke, he's laying there in a pile of his own past, he's unconscious, he'd be right before he died. He thought the doctors were all plotting against him. So they were being tortured to confess that they were trying to murder him. They had to get the doctors out of the torture chambers to attend to him and they did it. So this kind of thing to like go there like red square and see this is where it happened to see Lenin's body. Like this is the guy who Emma Goldman yelled at. It's gonna be really um because I've worked so much in this space jarring and intense and emotional and as intense it is for me sitting here talking to you about it to see it and to see the faces and to see cyrillic everywhere. You know, other than Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Um it's gonna, I'm sure it's going to do a huge number on me because uh as Western and as the 2.2 Canyons, as the Russians will say, I am, this is still where I came from. So no matter to see it face to face. I don't know how I'm gonna react, but I don't think it's going to be like, man, [/INST] you've assembled a number of essays from anarchist thinkers in a new book called the anarchist's Handbook, you mentioned Emma Goldman. What interesting things do these thinkers agree on at? What do they disagree on? </s><s>[INST] The anarchist's handbook dot com is the website it covers from the 17 nineties too. I think my essay is the last one from 2014, which a friend of mine who's uh kind of a mediocre scientist is going to be reading for the audio book. Um, [/INST] also podcast </s><s>[INST] podcast I never had, but it's not a podcast anyone heard of. It's like tom woods, but even worse. So what they all agreed on was the illegitimacy of government and also the malevolence of state actors and the consequences of governments. So they range in terms that most people would easily regard as either left or right wing. Um, but it it tackles the nature of government and also creates positive non state alternatives from really many different angles. The slogan I have is the black flag, which is the traditional flag of anarchism. The black flag comes in many colors. So they were really all over the map in terms of what they're for. But their disagreement is about the nature of state and the nature of power. Um, and it's very edifying because this is an ideology that's been in many ways swept under the rug. No one takes this seriously grow up, um, that I can allow people to sit down and read these essays and see for themselves just how beautiful this tapestry over the decades and centuries has been woven about people who genuinely believed in freedom as the most important and how to maximize that uh, for society. [/INST] So maybe it's useful to talk about a few contrasting thinkers in there. So one is uh, leo Tolstoy Oh yeah, who I think not many people know is, uh, an anarchist, a christian christian anarchist. So he came to despise government for his deceit and its violence, but to him, the christian principles of Nonviolence, I think are important. </s><s>[INST] Oh yeah, this kind of pacifist kind of mindset of, uh, you know, it's better to someone to punch you than to punch them [/INST] back. So he's in that way, at least I read he influenced them. Okay, and Gandhi, what do you think about this flavor color of the anarchist flag of Nonviolence? Nonviolent opposition. </s><s>[INST] I will put the caveat that it bothers me when people bring up MLK because he's become so corporate and everyone just brings him up without knowing about him. One of the things that martin Luther king did so very well was that he forced people to face the consequences of what they were putting forward. You want to be racist. You want to be for Jim Crow, you wanna for segregation. Okay, It's easy for you to definitely living room now turn on your news and you see men and women in suits being attacked by dogs, being attacked by fire hoses and beaten by cops just so they could sit on the front of us. And now for a lot of people who were still racist, who were still had animus toward black people are watching this and it's gonna be a lot harder to be like, I'm okay with this, I'm okay with human beings, even ones I regard as somehow bad or inferior to be beaten and attacked by trained dogs and they're not doing anything in response that strikes to, I think a very basic nature of, especially american, like, okay, whatever your for I'm not for people getting beaten and attacked when they're not really doing anything. So I think pacifism is something that's very easy to make fun of, but people don't underestimate how powerful it is for someone to say you can do what you want to me, I'm not gonna fight you back. I just want to live peacefully and have the same rights as you and to say screw you, you should get beaten. That's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. So I think he was really in Gandhi of course as well, were excellent in that regard. There's a little bit of Machiavellian ism to it, You know, they've both been beatified regardless. Saints, but their strategy worked very, very well for their purposes. So I think uh just all of us when you see someone, you know in this kind of christian, I know you're on obviously it's nothing very highly Christianity, but he's someone who's willing to, you know, take a punch and to say you could do whatever you want to me, I'm not going to hurt somebody else instinctively and maybe this is kind of a hack. Most people want to side with that guy, step in between and be like okay let's take a step back because whatever led to this is not tenable, we need to go back to the drawing board if the consequence is people are having these as a result of my decisions and actions. So I think that aspect of anarchism uh is very very in certain context, healthy and much smarter and more sophisticated than people give it credit for. And let's also point out that Tolstoy wrote war and peace and he wrote anna Karenina. So this was not some naive or innocent, whatever word you want to use, he knew the nature of evil, he knew how bad things get. So he wasn't saying at all that human beings are inherently nice and kind he was saying it's much more effective to not fight back and to force them to face that I'll give you another example I was talking to, I was on the show of trigonometry and I was talking to the host and one of them talked about how someone he knew had been uh in the gulag or his mom was born the gulag grandma and after Stalin died and the soviet liberalized and lots of people in the Gulags were freed by Khrushchev and and so on and so forth. He, I didn't know this many of the or some, let's say some of the guards of the Gulags killed themselves because they had genuinely believed that everyone in these camps was there for a reason. And when they found out that these people were completely innocent, didn't even have trials and that they were the ones forced them to work themselves to death and starve, they couldn't deal with that guilt. So when you are a pacifist or non uh non retaliatory and you're forcing someone who's using force like look what you're doing, look what you've become for some people, some people don't care, you know, like the guy in scare tactics, like I mentioned earlier, where for a lot of others, they're gonna be like, okay, is this who I wanted to grow up to be, They will have that little flame of conscious that you and I talked about earlier, there will be like how did I get to the point where there's this lady who wants to ride the bus and she's you know, lovely dressed put together and I have a sending a dog on her, what kind of person am I for some of those people, they're gonna be like, okay, I can't be a part of this? I don't even understand the politics, I still am racist, but I'm not going to take part in this atrocity. [/INST] Well, that was for him from the individual perspective, perhaps he calls that christian, but listening to that voice of conscience, like whatever that is in you. So for Tolstoy, it seems like anarchism from the individual perspective, is uh, silencing the rest of the world and listening to the the for him, probably God given voice of conscience. And so that that's what it means to live. Embody anarchism </s><s>[INST] and somebody Christianity, I would think you would say, [/INST] but he would see those </s><s>[INST] as basically [/INST] correct. Uh, yeah, so in terms of forms of government, the christian government is one that's no government. Uh, what do you think about that as advice for an individual turn the other cheek, do you think? I tend to believe that that's a really good way to live? </s><s>[INST] I think it's very underrated and this is me talking, I think a lot of times when someone, let's suppose you having an argument and but you have to, you have to pick your battles, right? Suppose you having a heated argument, if someone says something very cruel to you, we have attempted to double down and hit back twice as hard. But if it's someone who had all cares about you, but they're just in the moment and you just stop and you just say, did you hear what I just said to me for some cases, that person will take a step back and be like, just like me when I snapped at Michael at bits 10 years ago and be like, wow, okay, this this is bad, this is bad, I'm sorry. And they kind of, you know, it's kind of like, they have to get to 10 before they control delete to use your [/INST] language. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, for [/INST] overflow, I appreciate that. </s><s>[INST] But for some, they're gonna, they're gonna just twist the knife. But I think this is a very useful technique, and also, you can also sleep well at night because you could be like, as much as this person tried to hurt me, I still didn't reciprocate. And yeah, I took that punch and it sucks, but at least I never said anything that I could feel guilty about. [/INST] Exactly. Do you think that's ultimately a good way to implement anarchy in your personal life? </s><s>[INST] Uh, anarchy implementing anarchy in your personal life just means uh, respecting people's boundaries. It means, um, uh, not forcing people to do things that otherwise wouldn't want to do. [/INST] I think you then have to take a case by case, like there's so many human interactions that are required for life and there's tension and all those kinds of things, it's not always </s><s>[INST] being [/INST] so naive, No, I </s><s>[INST] put the hat on that's on the other hand [/INST] now, I had to take off the head because it's like photo with the ring. I was starting to feel like powerful. I wanted to give you orders. And I don't know, I just, I think there's ways of dealing with the tensions that are natural to human interactions that can't be simply, you know, uh, it's not as simple as saying you want to respect the freedom of others and uh, the boundaries of others. It's like you both have to agree on stuff and work something out. And the mechanisms of that agreement, the game theory. That agreement requires different hacks and strategies. And the question is for an anarchist collective that's well functioning, What kind of hacks? Uh, what kind of ways of behavior are more likely to be productive and not? You know, that that's almost like the question, do you want to turn the other cheek or do you want to stand your ground really firmly when somebody is an asshole to you, you walk away or when somebody is an asshole to you, you turn the other cheek and give them a chance to rise to the best version of themselves and then find a common ground kind of thing. It's an open question of how to form those collectives when there's people with difficult childhoods and all that kind of stuff. </s><s>[INST] But it also comes down to what is your relationship with this person? Is this out of character If you and I got into a disagreement all of a sudden you started getting very personal first, I'd be very hurt, but then I'd be like, this is out of character for lex, I'm sure I could be like, well let's take a pause here, like you're getting heated, I'm trying to work this out what's going on here and you get a kind of a meta conversation. But again, you and I have a relationship of mutual respect. So as opposed to if it was a stranger, you know who's just wants a piece of you, it's just like, I don't know you are coming at me not correct. I don't have to reciprocate in kind, I'm not going to shoot you, but I'm not going to pretend that you deserve respect when you're treating me with such contempt. Um I do differ especially with people I know because it's just this is smart long term game theory as well as the right thing to do. I do try to give him the benefit of doubt at first, right? Because if you're gonna go Aggro you can't go back, but you could always go from like let me hear them out and then then I could go aggro. So there's a big asymmetry there. [/INST] Yeah, and that's I mean, I don't think anyone has. The answer to this question is is that the right strategy to me game theoretically it seems the right strategy is to uh </s><s>[INST] reciprocity is what game theory says is the right strategy. They did the prisoner's dilemma and they found it for tat is the one that's the most advantageous. [/INST] So that's for one that's perfectly rational actors. But when you have, I mean there's noise that there's, I think benefit to just even if they keep being shitty to you, still being nice to them. </s><s>[INST] Well then the universe where girls are turned off, some people are like, if you're in a relationship and duchess girls, but like some people, when you're kind to them, they find you less attractive, right? Like that is kind of this weird, what am I supposed to do? Like you're only into me if I mean to you, I don't want to be mean, but then I'm getting punished for doing the right thing. That's another tricky one. And I mean this is nothing that necessarily do with anarchism so much as like, you know, human beings are infinitely complex. We don't often know the back story like for example, just yesterday J who's here is one of my closest friends, I had dinner with a bunch of people. I couldn't bring a plus four, so I didn't, he wasn't invited, he didn't know the circumstances, he just thought we were having dinner without him. He was hurt once I spelled it out, he completely understood and I felt horrible because for me to have any of my friends feel left out is just a very, very cruel thing. Um, and I was I felt bad, and I'm glad to apologize again publicly, that that's the end up being the circumstances. But yeah, it's a lot of times were also in Plato's cave, when you're dealing with somebody else, you have very, very limited information about the background of circumstances. And that's why I will always if it's someone I even have a little bit of a relationship with try to give them the benefit of the doubt, because I found especially this comes from being a co author when you call out their books and you're walking in other people's shoes, you don't know what a lot of the information. So it's it's a lot of times it's just a misunderstanding. [/INST] But isn't that a fundamentally anarchist question of uh, how we figure out this puzzle of human complexities in order to form voluntary collectives? Like, we have to figure that out how to make people feel good, how to make people </s><s>[INST] I agree, that's [/INST] fair, and and that </s><s>[INST] I think not only anarchists have to think about this is my point, of course, [/INST] well, </s><s>[INST] but we have to think about it more than others do, [/INST] right. I feel like I should try to argue against anarchism at some point, out of love, out of love and because people enjoy, people enjoy seeing me. Um what is it when, like, Ben Shapiro argues against, like, a 20 year old feminist destroys this is this is this video of michael malice destroys a Marxist Russian communist pig. So, anarchism as opposed to hierarchies? </s><s>[INST] Well, that's left anarchism. Anarcho communism, [/INST] Yeah, the state. </s><s>[INST] But there are many hierarchies that are not the state. We have a hierarchy here. This is your show on differential to you, [/INST] but they're okay, rigid hierarchies, forced hierarchies is the first time he's forced hierarchies. Okay, So do you think it's possible that humans, when left on their own court, they they form hierarchies naturally, Yes, inevitably, </s><s>[INST] inevitably. Which is why I disagree with the left anarchists. I think it's not a coherent thing to argue for, uh, non hierarchal relationships. Even in theory, it doesn't make sense to me. And I I know the old school anarchists will call me stupid or uninformed, but I've never been able to even wrap my head around this claim that you can have relationships without hierarchy, [/INST] right? So, I guess there's a certain sense in which we're living in an anarchism now. And I don't mean just like, because the nations, as you've said, are in anarchism relative to each other, but is in the United States just a collective that was formed in anarchy. And this is just the collective that we're operating under this hierarchy that is naturally formed. </s><s>[INST] Wasn't the United States that naturally formed. It was formed by force and and by fiat, but to your point, um, I stress this throughout the book, uh, I always say this, anarchism is not a location, it's a relationship. So yeah, you and I do have a hierarchy and that this is your show, but nine, but neither of us really has an authority over the other. Like, I'm here voluntarily, You can kick me out if you want, I can leave it and you want, neither of us has the power to force the other to be in this relationship. We've chosen my lawyer. Uh, you know, I defer to his judgment, he's not forcing me to do it. He gives me his advice and I could take it or leave it saying with a doctor. So there is a clearly like who's in charge and who's not in charge, but they're not in a position to impose their will on everybody else. And you could variously see john is Stephanie's lawyer and Stephanie's john's doctor. And in each of those contexts, one has this position of ostensible authority over the other. So, anarchism is in fact not some utopian crazy thing. It is the norm of human relationships where you meet people, you're not necessarily equal, someone's gonna be taller, someone stronger, someone stronger, smarter, wealthier with others, but you're not at all thinking I am here and I could tell you what to do and you are legally or morally obligated to follow my wishes. That that [/INST] is the basis of </s><s>[INST] anarchism? So in what [/INST] way is the United States imposing by force something on you. Do you think, </s><s>[INST] uh, if you leave your house, you will go to jail for my money being taken from you by taxation, [/INST] But don't you have the freedom to not operate under that? </s><s>[INST] No, but that's like, Yeah, like technically if someone comes up to you and mugs you and says your money or your life, you are making a choice. But what the anarchist argument is there not a position to force you to make that choice? That is not morally binding, even though they [/INST] have practically the </s><s>[INST] power to force you into that [/INST] dilemma, But you have the freedom to live on the United States or not. So even </s><s>[INST] I Yeah, the argument is, if you don't like it, leave right, not [/INST] necessarily leave, like geographically, but there's there's ways to live outside the force of the United States? There's ways, it's just very difficult to operate that way, but </s><s>[INST] that's like saying you can outrun the mugger, which is true, but the issue is, does that mugger have the right to tell you at gunpoint, you either give me your money or I'm gonna shoot you or secret plan C you get to run away, is that person a moral actor? And the anarchist answer is never, And the difference, just one more thing, the anarchist view is the difference between that mugger and the government is only an air of legitimacy, literally, they're morally identical. [/INST] So is it possible that every hierarchy that gets big enough and successful enough, such that it can monopolize a bunch of services it provides, isn't it? Always going to be a moral, in your sense, the way the United States government is immoral? </s><s>[INST] Well, I I don't want to say, just like the United States government is immoral because that implies the United States government is uniquely or especially immoral government. I just want to clarify that because I know you didn't mean that. I don't want that to be an implication. Um, [/INST] can you repeat the question? So like won't every </s><s>[INST] Okay, so that's right. This is so that's progressive economics. So the argument is in any market at a certain point, things tend to centralize and then that organization de facto can dictate. Price can dictate so on and so forth. That is completely a historical. If you look at any market, the trend is always towards decentralization, the music industry. Right? When we were kids, there are four or five record labels. They were the ones who made all the songs that you're going to see in the billboard top 100. With a few exceptions. Now, anyone can go to director market. If you look at tv stations, right? It went from cBS. NBC. Abc, then you've got Fox, then you had cable, which is 100. Now you have satellite which have thousands around the world and you have Youtube, which is literally infinite. So as technology improves and as wealth increases, which is a function of free enterprise, you are going to always have more and more choice even within a monopoly coca cola. Right? Uh, this is an example I used, I think and then you, right, when we were kids, every terrible comedian would be like, oh now they've got diet, caffeine, free coke. What's next? It's like, Yeah, that's good. You want to have, what was his name? Uh, came in the guy who invented the segue. If you go it, Dean Kamen, if you go into some um, restaurants right now, you will have those machines. You have like 80 kinds of cokes and then you can have whatever flavor you want to add to a great cherry, lemon lime and so on and so forth. So in any field you're going to have more and more competition. You're going to have less competition and less choices when the state gets involved because the state wants control. The state wants one big neck with one leash around it and that way you could just pull that dog in one direction another. And you saw this last year with the lockdowns, carol Roth wrote this amazing book called the war in small business and she talked about, we have seen for the first time in history a massive wealth transfer from small and medium business towards organizations like target and amazon who made trillions of dollars last year. Whereas mom and pop, which to me at least is like the acme of american achievement you come to America, you have a fruit stand a laundromat, you make socks, whatever it is, you're that unique artisan, creating something special. They're the ones who didn't last, whereas Target and amazon did. So when you have the state involvement, it will always be in favor of Jeff Bezos. And for the simple reason that it's going to be a lot easier for Jeff Bezos to get nancy. Pelosi and mitch McConnell on the phone than it is for me making socks and etc. [/INST] But your sense is that there will be less and less over time, Jeff Bezos is like, whatever the industry will look at, there's be less, there's a trend towards decentralization across all industries. </s><s>[INST] And when I say decentralization, I just mean choice. Right? So if you look at it again, networks, You're gonna, if you were in the 80s and you had a network just for LGBT issues. First of all, it's going to be complete heretical. That's not gonna happen. And there's not gonna be enough necessarily. People identifies that to have an audience, then there was something called logo, they have that and there's lots of other shows like that in this way. So more specifically look at websites. Yeah, I'm positive that you and I, if we wanted to look up uh, breeding guinea pigs would find thousands of websites about different breeds and all this other stuff 20 years ago, 30 years ago, like you're gonna have to books and they're not going to be dynamic as these new uh, breeds were developed. [/INST] So at the same time it does following on your argument, it does seem easier to move and immigrate from, from state to state within the United States and to other countries. Do you think that's a form of freedom that embodies anarchism where you can resist the uh, the force of state by choosing where you live to some </s><s>[INST] extent. But the line of people, some of these boomers, we got me on twitter if I'm going up to the police or something and be like if you don't like America, get out of here and I tell them freedom means I do what I want, not what you want. Freedom means I don't have to move, you don't have to move. Free speech is a good example. It doesn't mean I have to be on twitter right, twitter has the right to ban me. But what I'm saying is I'm saying something and you don't like it too bad. You're the one who has to accommodate me because I have a right to do what I want with my person as long as I'm being peaceful. [/INST] So I guess I'm trying to get to the difference between the state and what you would naturally want an anarchy, which is like a security company. Sure, all of those things, they will as they become successful, start looking more and more like the state because you get to elect, you give them money. They have leaders like what's the difference between a government and a very successful service provider in, in anarchism, </s><s>[INST] This gets a little confused in America's big companies necessarily in hand in hand with the government ended up in bed with them. The answer to this question is a long complicated one. And thankfully it's all in the anarchist's handbook. There's an essay by Murray rothbard who Dave smith. This is the essay that convert Dave smith. So maybe it's not as good as it could have been otherwise called. Anatomy of the State. And Murray rothbard points out that state is the only agency in a country which gets its goods through force. The state is the only agency that is not a producer, but inherently a parasite because it does not get its money voluntarily, but through taxation and by imposing its values on a country that is what makes a state uniquely different from, let's suppose an amazon or Barnes and noble or a target, Jeff Bezos does not have the authority or the more legitimacy to get an army and go into somebody's house. Whereas, uh, Andrew cuomo or Rhonda Santis Donald trump and Barack Obama certainly do. [/INST] But is it possible that to reframe Jeff Bezos does, if he, if he hires a security force, right? Also, is it possible to reframe taxation as a form of payment like it? Uh, if it was done much better if you could pay this collective that we call government in ways where you could pay for things that you care for so much your money would be much more directly contributing to the things you care for. Whether if you care for a service like health care, you'll be able to buy essential insurance from the government. </s><s>[INST] Why am I buying insurance from? The government is supposed to insurance or insurance company. What do you perceive the difference between attacks in a price? Do you see the difference? [/INST] Yes, I know on the surface level. I'm trying to get deeply to say there's a lot of similarities. But </s><s>[INST] what I'm saying is there's one essential difference which is taxes are imposed on you and you have no choice as here's an example my, my book ego and hubris, my biography, It goes for $500 on ebay. Someone paid for it. Some crazy person. People are showing me that it's on Amazon for $3,000, something like that. You could put a million for it. You could charge whatever price you want. The question is, is someone paying that 3000 for it. Is someone paying that million for it. And if it's actually the buyer who establishes the price because the seller can put any price tag, he wants $80 trillion. But unless someone's paying that amount and clearing the market. Uh, that price has literally no real meaning right? It's not an indicator of value or worth the market price, taxation, on the other hand, is by fiat, I can decide. It's fair that Eulex have to pay 40% and joe has to pay 45% joe and lex are in no position to be like, this price is too high. That not only is that money, uh, set just completely out of their hands, It's for people who are employees, it's taken out of their paychecks before they even see it. So they don't have the choice to be like, you know what? I agree that the government has the right to pay taxation. Here's my check for 40%. It's going on. It's completely different paradigm [/INST] than you are when you're this is the government provides a lot of services in the current system. But </s><s>[INST] there's no service the government provides that cannot be that would not be provided better more efficiently and with more choices in the market. [/INST] Well, that's the hypothesis that very likely. Well, that's not very easily. I </s><s>[INST] love it when you get flustered. This this this is this is people like it's so cute. The robot may [/INST] be put on the head. Uh, </s><s>[INST] nobody has a fire. The smoke coming out of his ears. What is price? [/INST] I Okay, so we'll tax love, You know, like people like, I think of the government as a kind of subscription service. </s><s>[INST] No, that's the anarchist view, the anarchist view of a private security would be a subscription service. So that's exactly correct. But everyone [/INST] hates when you sign up to a gym and then you realize in the contract, it's very difficult to cancel that membership and then they upped the price. I mean, that's, there's a lot of unpleasant things with the subscription service that then you can elect to go to another subscription service. Your </s><s>[INST] or you could go and yelp and complain. And if there's enough people do that, the gym will be receptive. Look at the power of yelp or so the power of the vote. [/INST] Well, this, we can talk about that too. So you're saying, yelp is more effective than voting. Yes. The thing is, I agree with you, but you go take a further step. You say that yelp is ethical and moral and voting is immoral or like not voting, but government is more so like, it's not only is one more efficient than the other you're saying like, because I would say government sucks at doing what it does and it's gotten a lot better at it. And I believe it can get, keep getting better, uh, as it gets smaller and leverages companies more and more, but you're saying no, no, no. Government is fundamentally as an idea gets in the way of companies that should be doing those things anyway. I just think that companies, when you take away government will start looking like government. Uh, </s><s>[INST] just because something looks like something, it's not me. It's the same if someone puts out a Yamaka and to fill in and they go to shul they're not jewish, [/INST] right? The basic objection of the government because you can leave like that. I I apologize that this is like stupid twitter cliche statement. But your opposition to this idea of leaving the United States is that it's just, it's a lot of effort. It's too </s><s>[INST] much friction. The the option in the opposition is in the introduction to the book. I say anarchism can be summed up in one sentence. You do not speak for me. Everything else is application. So the claim that somebody I've never met or who I voted against, let's say I hate donald trump. I despise him. You know, I want Hillary clinton to be president too bad trump's our president. That's not what I want. The idea that this person can come on me and make any claims onto one second of my time. As opposed to try to persuade me that is something that I an anarchist regard as inherently uh, evil and nonsensical. But to [/INST] operate large organizations like you see this with Cryptocurrency, there's governance, you have to make difficult decisions. There's a block size wars for Bitcoin. So you will, there is a voting mechanism often with membership when your subscription service. But </s><s>[INST] see the thing is you're using these words and you're switching definitions because like if I go to a store, I can technically say I'm voting for Tropicana orange juice as opposed to another one, but to kind of say, oh well you're making a choice. Therefore every choice is a vote. I I don't, I think that that's something that the Venn diagram is. [/INST] No, I literally mean vote in this case, not money. There's some decisions like should Bitcoin have increases block sized, there's a bunch of different uh they're called soft forks are hard forks. </s><s>[INST] I'm not saying you should never vote like stockholders have to vote right? But there's no pretense here. Let's look at this. If you want to build robots, right? You would sit down with the company. You guys would be like, we should do this kind of robot. You just kind of robot. The stockholders would have a vote for the board in proportion to their investment firm. Me who knows nothing about robots. I am. The idea that I'm in a position to walk in and be like, this is what you should do is crazy and bizarre and wrong because I'm not in a form position. So what democracy does is it forces people who run businesses well to run businesses poorly by people who don't know how to run businesses at all. That's the, that's one of the many concerns. [/INST] But you're saying that's the fundamental property of the state. I have a sense that the state could become as effective as what we think of as companies. I mean </s><s>[INST] this is why they can't because the state does not have access to data the way that firms do and this is one of Ludwig von Mieses, great points what he called the calculation problem if I'm looking at comic books, right? And I have detective comics. If Detective comics 26 is 1000 and Detective comics, 28 is 1000 and Detective comics, 27 is 50,000, that is telling me that even if I don't know anything about comics, That detective comics 27 is either very, very scarce for some reason or very, very desirable. It's the first appearance of Batman, whatever, but you don't need to know that to just look at this data and be like, Okay, this is the market. Tell me something. If prices are set by the government, which the government is a monopoly, I have no way of picking those winners or losers. I don't have that data of supply and demand of an entire nation or a world of people making individual decisions and having price be dynamic and informing me as the organization where I should allocate my resources. [/INST] So the price is a really strong signal. Yes. That allows you to uh to operate a voluntary collective or people get what they want </s><s>[INST] And what it tells me what to produce, but not to produce. And it also is great because if I see this podcasting industry which didn't exist five years ago and now these people are making bank, that tells me as someone who is an investor, okay, they're making 50% whatever 10% profit on their capital in the Plant industry, it's two If I'm going to further my capital into this 10% and that's gonna lower the profit rate as that builds up. And that is how markets are regulated militarily. [/INST] But the word government, I just think it's possible to have collectives, that of human beings that represent others based on their voluntary </s><s>[INST] Yes, of course. You have private governance, private governance. Any company you can have a ceo you're gonna have a board directors. [/INST] But then you just, it starts to look very similar to me, a successful private governance mechanism at a scale of the United States starts looking a whole lot like the current Government of the United States. What's </s><s>[INST] what's have even amazon? I don't think it's anything close to the satellite size wise or budget wise or power wise. [/INST] No. So you're saying you just, it's not even state, it's almost like anything at that size. You want to keep things smaller </s><s>[INST] and I dont their markets are not going to Uh combine to that level of the state because no, Jeff Bezos will never in position to tell everyone in America I'm going to take 40% of your money before you even see [/INST] it. That to me is actually unclear. We don't know that to be true. What that google or amazon can't grow to the size. If you take away the U. S. Government. I'm not sure sure that amazon can't go out to the sides. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so worst case scenario is we're back where we started, right? Yeah. [/INST] Uh that's not worst case scenario. But </s><s>[INST] the concern is that google is going to be the federal government. [/INST] That's not the concern saying like this is what it looks like when google is the federal government. It's not it's like to me, the the U. S. Government is our best attempts so far to have large scale representation of people's interest. It really sucks, but it's our best attempts so far. And the question is how to improve it. Like if you take away all, if you take away the U. S. Government, I'm trying to see how do we improve on that. Love that scale of representation of people's, </s><s>[INST] Let me give you one example. That's that people can wrap their heads around very easily. I'm against government police monopoly. I'm for private security, right? You don't have to be an anarchist to understand this. Can everyone agree? Or at least as a hypothesis, everyone can wrap their heads around here is a big concern. 911 right there. I've heard this. 911 call. It's very chilling. There's a kid in a closet, His family's being murdered outside, right? He has to call 91. He's whispering. It's it's horrifying to hear. There's no reason why the number I call for my family is being murdered is the same number. I call for the fire department is same number. I call for an ambulance. What if instead it operated like Uber you have buttons on your phone. If there's a real emergency like someone's gun flyers, someone being killed, you press this and it sends instead of the one police district, whatever company is nearby, you have a bunch of them and they're the ones who are going to come to your house to save you. People can wrap their heads around that very easily. That is one very clear way to go from having a government security monopoly towards having a more free enterprise system. So when you apply that to pretty much anything, it doesn't become that complicated of alternative. [/INST] So, but I would you're going to criticize this, but I believe the government is like the parenting thing we talked about earlier. I think it creates a safe space for government for </s><s>[INST] for safe spaces. So I'm not going to laugh you about that. I want people to be safe, [/INST] but for a safe space for entrepreneurship. So I believe that good government home, give me give me a second. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think government gives uh, opportunity for companies to out compete it. </s><s>[INST] Yes. So PS. Fedex 100% not in [/INST] question. So I believe you need to have private school government to give a chance for ups Fedex for SpaceX. What was the next in their uh to pop up And then government will naturally back off from that place. So like but you need the innovators step in and build the thing. Okay you can't just when </s><s>[INST] has government ever backed off though? That never [/INST] happens back from from from from Fedex and ups from SpaceX from amazon. </s><s>[INST] Hold on. The U. S. Postal service still competes with Fedex and ups. So here's the other thing [/INST] not nearly not well </s><s>[INST] but they still exist and the point is they're dying but UPS and Fedex are taxed. So not only they're paying for their own company, they're paying for this competitor. This is the essential difference. Imagine if you didn't have UPS excuse me? The federal government no post office. So you had Fedex DHL U. S. Post service and many others. How about in this scenario UPS has the capacity to take 20% of Fedex DHL and couriers money and putting their own pocket and they never have to do anything. Return. This is going to be an enormous advantage of UPS And then when you add the addition that UPS is not necessarily going to be more efficient. The other is this is gonna be a huge distortion in the market. Can you imagine if your podcast you just automatically got 20% of views of everybody else. I mean would there be any incentive for you to be great or you could just sit on your laurels and do whatever you want, even more than now, [/INST] it's hard to imagine more than now </s><s>[INST] as your robot and lack imagination, [/INST] I think they're just has to be uh, of course you can do it completely without government, but </s><s>[INST] government here, okay, show's over. [/INST] Show's are </s><s>[INST] to do with that government. The question, [/INST] the question, the question is, uh, like that safety net that's needed for entrepreneurship, that's needed for uh, I'm sorry to say, but I have a sense that there needs to be a bit of a safety net for freedom. </s><s>[INST] I'm much more comfortable with saying you need a safety net for freedom than you need one for entrepreneurs. The beauty of markets is with your startup. If you have a startup and it completely fails. The only person who screwed as you and your investors, if I'm a government and I make a start up, the entire society fails like the Iraq war, right? If I have this cockamamie plan, I don't everyone else doesn't have a choice. They both funding it and sometimes you get drafted or forced into it. Right? The safety net. The antlers getting back to the early anarchists. One of the things that I admire about them, the Anarcho communists, The old school left anarchists is people don't remember what context they were in. They were in context without a welfare state. They're immigrating a huge numbers from Eastern europe people are you go the tenement museum in new york, people like 12 to a room, kids are working factories or if there were working factories or they have to starve, it's not that their parents didn't love them, is that the parents didn't have birth control, which is a felony. And they also were in a position to put food on the table for their kids because they're uneducated and the jobs are paying nothing. So you can understand why Emma Goldman, alexander, Berkman predawn. Uh, and and all these other figures were like, this is untenable. We see Carnegie with 80,000 mansions. Whereas this lady whose husband died at age 30 who's never been to high school or even junior high school has 10 kids, how is she going to put food on the table? It's not gonna happen. You can understand why they would be like, all right, we need to seize this money and distribute around the people. That makes a lot of sense in a contemporary context where food is much cheaper, where shelter to some extent is more available when medical care people were so um oblivious to how bad things were that we see things are bad now. So we assume that they were better than some context, they were much much worse there in many contexts. So if you're going to make an argument for government for me, the strongest argument is like food stamps or like a free lunches for Children because I agree that would be very inefficient and it's going to probably make them obese because you're going to have, uh, Nabisco lobbying to make sure that if you're going to have this uh, protein you want, you're not gonna give the kids an oreo, aren't you? These kids are poor, you want them to have some pleasure and that's gonna have deleterious effects. But if the choice is an inefficient government program and mass starvation, that is one where as an anarchist, I I could easily see making the argument for that one even though I think very clearly private charity would be more efficient and distributed more effectively. But I at that point, I don't really care about efficiency. If you're throwing out food to make sure these kids get fed, I don't care. [/INST] So would, uh, engagement in military conflict be one of the biggest negative things about the state to you? </s><s>[INST] Yeah, of course. War War war is the state at its worst. There [/INST] is particularly war </s><s>[INST] or make a defensive instead of aggressive. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't that be a huge step forward or instead of regarded were always, this is what drives me crazy. We're taught as kids in school that war is a last resort. And I agree with that. And yet when you look at the corporate press, war is always the first response and these people do not talk about what war means. They'll show examples during the bush years of soldiers coming home in caskets, which already is an unacceptable price in many cases for me. But they don't even pretend to care about the people overseas whose countries we've ransacked and lives you have ruined. And it's just like, well what are you gonna do? Not ransack those countries? So that war is, to me is the state at its [/INST] worst. C I think that there is value from small government that doesn't engage in wars. I do think that the kind of collectives that you imagine functioning well would look like the best version of government that I imagine. </s><s>[INST] So. Great [/INST] endorsement. Well, I see them as the same. I think a lot of it is just terminology. </s><s>[INST] I have no problem saying that I'm using word anarchism incorrectly and to go for [/INST] what you want to have. No problem with that or anything really because like I said, life is beautiful. But nevertheless you wrote the essay why I'm not not going to vote this time or ever think that I won't </s><s>[INST] vote this year or any [/INST] other year or any year. Uh And the basic, I hope </s><s>[INST] you do a better job reading it. Then you just read that title. I guess we'll take as many takes as necessary. [/INST] I'll read it in Russian then pay somebody to translate it. This </s><s>[INST] isn't even Russian Ally. Just make up words. Where'd you find this [/INST] guy? Uh </s><s>[INST] you get what you pay for exactly. [/INST] Uh This is anarchy. Uh That's what you wanted. Uh Like your basic summary is uh let me see if pressed. The simplest explanation I have for refusing to vote is this I don't vote for the same exact reasons that I don't take communion no matter how admirable he is or how much I agree with him. The pope isn't the Stuart over my soul. Nor is any president the leader of my life. This does not make me ignorant or evil any more than not being a christian makes me ignorant or evil. If I need representation, I will hire the most qualified person to do. So. Isn't voting our current best developed way of hiring the most qualified person to represent you on some things. No, </s><s>[INST] because because if I have a lawyer and the lawyer screws up, I can fire him. If I vote for someone, I don't get who I want. I get from who my neighbors want. So what that makes no sense. But representation means I want you to speak for me. Whereas voting is like I kind of want you but I'll take what I can get and I'm going to take what I can get regardless of what's the point. What [/INST] in governments. Again, that's what Bitcoin is you want to be represented in deciding what to do. But once </s><s>[INST] way Bitcoin isn't picking a person, they're not picking a president of [/INST] Bitcoin. They're picking </s><s>[INST] idea. Yeah. It's more like a referendum. And to me a referendum is much more represent is much more coherent and defensible than it is voting for representative because if I'm voting for joe biden, I'm saying this person speaks to me for abortion, taxation, environmental policy, immigration war, right? The odds that unless you're a complete NPC that this one person will speak for you for everything and we'll and we'll deliver what he promised as and has the power delivery promises not true. Whereas if Brexit, if I say I want Britain to be remained part of the european union to say yes or no question, that makes a lot more sense to me. But even that is not pure democracy because going back to the idea of the circulation of elites, which James Burnham talked about Peredo and Moscow and all them, you're still going to have someone telling you what you can and can't vote for and how these questions are framed. So contradiction to what the left anarchists said, some element of hierarchy is always going to be inevitable. [/INST] So listen, I agree with this aspect. Very much so that we should be voting for ideas and issues, not voting for leaders for for leaders to represent this across the full spectrum of issues. It seems to make no sense. </s><s>[INST] Okay, good. This is great. [/INST] But I do think there should be um leader like I do believe in voting for representatives to debate to be communicators of ideas </s><s>[INST] to us. But you here let me interrupt you. But you could you could you could have those two things for example. Wouldn't this be an improvement if they have that now you have a referendum, you want tax rate to be 30 or 40 whatever percent. You have the guy leading the campaign for 55 for 50 Then you have the lady leading the campaign for 45 or 40. They'll go out there, they can have debates. They can talk about the issue but you're still not voting for one of them. You're voting for the issue. That makes much more sense to me then I'm gonna vote for him and hope that he puts forward 50 and that depends on 99 other senators. [/INST] Exactly. And but but also I mean I do like the idea of voting for certain people to debate certain </s><s>[INST] ideas. I think that's a major [/INST] improvement. But the final vote should be based on the idea. So okay so we agree that would be nice to have. Plus no wars and then then you'll stop tweeting so aggressively </s><s>[INST] and to decriminalize things that don't hurt people. Drugs, crimes, drugs especially prostitution is a big one. If there's and this is me talking mr mr. All cops are criminals, there is no one or or maybe other than like abused Children who needs access to the police other than sex workers. They are the ones who are the most likely to really put themselves in danger situation so they need to be able to call security because that's why they have pimps because you're a woman dealing with some strange dudes who are a lot of the time gonna have rid kinks. You want to be able to be sure even if you don't approve of prostitution, think it's horrible that she's not going to be raped and murdered and have no consequences. And if you're going to say, oh well she's a prostitute, she can't be raped. Just think for a second if you're agreeing to sleep with somebody and then he starts choking and beating the crap out of you is saying it's now it's a dumb situation that is clearly beyond the pale of salt [/INST] and the same thing with drugs, heroin, cocaine. Do you crack? Do you uh the people that need help the most are the ones who are addicted to those drugs, but even the </s><s>[INST] punishment, let's suppose you think drug dealers should be in jail, right? It is very hard for me to say that someone who sells cocaine, it should be treated or in the same building as someone who rapes Children or is a murderer. These are not similar types of evil, even if you believe that that drug dealer is an evil person. [/INST] Yeah. Um </s><s>[INST] I mean there's an essay in there called by alexander Berkman who is Emma Goldman's partner crime on crime on prisons and crime and this is left has met its best for getting the person is forgotten and the fact that we have the world's largest prison population, the fact that so many people are just like, oh you commit a crime, just put him in jail, throw away the key at the very least if you want to be totally immoral about it's expensive. And second of all, the concept that all criminals should be locked in a room together in these kind of largely inhuman conditions and that's going to help people. I don't think that that's the ideal mechanism. [/INST] Yeah. I I tend to believe, I usually don't speak so negatively about politicians, but I do think that politicians have done more evil in the war on drugs then did the people that are supposed to be the criminals in </s><s>[INST] this picture. And I'll give you another example of how this is the anarchist critique of power hunter biden and I'm not gonna, I'm not making fun of him. Nothing shot to him. He had an article in the new yorker where he talks about when he was in L. A. He was buying crack and there was a misunderstanding or like he left the crack pipe in the Hertz car and then blah blah. There's an issue, he's admitting to a felony in writing to a reporter and I'm sure this was in the statute of limitations. There was no possibility he was going to have consequences. Kamala Harris who was a cop, talked about when she was in college, she was smoking weed and it's like I don't begrudge you guys smoking your crack or smoking your weed, but for other people who are poor or maybe just had the short end the stick, this is years of their life being destroyed at the very least, even arrest as a traumatic situation, if you have a weed or cocaine or crack your arrested, that's really going to screw up, it's going to do a number on you being locked up. So to have that double standard to me is completely unacceptable. And that has nothing to do with republican or democrat. That George W Bush was a cokehead back in the day. He talks about overcoming his addiction and I'm glad that he did more power to him, but just to have this kind of, you know, it's just really kind of disturbing to me and this is my anarchist brain, like how prevalent drug use is in college, there's that, I think it's a joke on South Park, like there's a time and a place to try drugs and that's called college where people experiment. But all those college kids which are going to become next generation's elite, don't really have that worry that if they get caught, then anything's going to happen to them, but that kid in the street who did not have that good upbringing, even if he's a piece of crap, like he's not going to have a different punishment. I I think that's just really at his base on american. [/INST] So in contrast to Tolstoy, uh let me ask you about Emma Goldman, you wrote that if anarchism believed in rulers, then Emma Goldman would be the undisputed queen. What uh ideas to find her flavor anarchism would you say </s><s>[INST] Emma was really an old school radical? She was a radical among radicals. I don't know what ideas I mean, what would ideas to find her was anarchism. Obviously, [/INST] there's the violence, I mean, she was more open to the idea of violent opposition versus somebody like </s><s>[INST] Tolstoy. Oh sure, for sure. So basically Emma and alexander Berkman, their mentor was someone named johann most. And johann most was a very early free speech, not very early, but he was a free speech concern because he published a pamphlet in europe, that was translating the States about how to build dynamite because his idea was all right, you have this oppressive government, this oppressive police force that used batons and bolts against us. The only way for us as the working class to level the playing field is through dynamite and here's how you build it. So the question is all right, is this something that could be allowed to be legal now that you're allowing the layman in his own house build bombs. So uh johann Most, basically they had a big parting of ways because when alexander Berkman tried to assassinate frick, johan said, no, no, no, this is not something I'm for. And in fact they thought with this assassination has failed assassination, this would be the thing that's fired off the revolution, because you had the strike, the Pinkerton's involve Pink ones getting killed, strikers are getting killed, You know, this is what Marx predicted, you know, they're going to light the spark and everything come falling down, he ends up going to jail for 13 years instead, alexander Berkman does. Uh and then Goldman and Berkman had a big issue because when Leon Czolgosz killed McKinley in 1901, it was really, it's kind of humorous in retrospect, he gets arrested and they're like, why did you kill the President? He goes, I was radicalized by Emma Goldman and she's like, Goddammit, she's on the run. She's like, I don't even know this guy. And she made the point about like, why is it worse than the president being killed in somebody else? We're all equal. And you would think if you're against capitalism against the ruling class, this would be your first target. But Berkman who went to jail who tried to assassinate someone, he had said McKinley, this is your villain, He's just a party hack, he's like a symptom of The Times, this is this is foolish and Goldman disagreed with him. She thought it wasn't necessarily um justified, but it may have done something that was defensible. So the three of them uh you know, had their differences on the use of violence and in fact, when she came back from Russia and was denouncing it in her book. My disillusionment Russia. My first decision Russia, the last chapter she goes, look, I'm not saying I'm against violence when there's the revolution columns we're gonna have to use for us. She goes, but it's not the force of the state against the working class, against the masses. This is exactly were opposed to, this is a complete obscenity to our principles. So that was interesting. The fact that she was her periodical, Mother Earth was a clearinghouse for many prominent, uh you know, ideas of the day that weren't anarchist, but we're certainly radical. So she was and also she was like, tiny, she's like 51. So to have this little woman who was so feisty um and talk back to Lennon. Talk back to Lenin. Uh would she took on Lenin Woodrow, Wilson J. Edgar Hoover was the one who reported her uh someone who just and the thing is, you have to be careful because I think just like war, it's very easy to glamorize violence and regarded as something admirable, heroic, like you're fighting for the cause. But if you take it out of the romanticism, you're like, you're killing someone who had kids, You are, you know, killing some with the family, you're making your if you're gonna shoot someone, they're probably gonna retaliate twice as hard violence sings its own song. And this is a very dangerous road, You're going down. So you really need to be careful about what you're what you're preaching here. Um, and you know, she kinda had this mixed feelings about it, but that is certainly not. Uh, Emma Goldman, her best Emma Goldman or her best was about the ultimate freedom of the individual, of caring about people who are desperately for who despised the corporate idea that we all had to be made cookie cutters, um, and be interchangeable, and I'll have to start work at the same time, and basically our entire life slave for corporations that have nothing to show for it while they get wealthy and you you have no opportunity for either productive work or creative work. So, uh, that I think the Valerie ization of kind of the lowest of the low is something I find very admirable. There's a quote of hers, which I think even for those of us who are, you know, for property rights is anarchist left anarchism at its best, but she goes, go and ask for work if they don't give you work, ask for bread, if they don't give you bread, take bread. So the idea that, like, if you're that poor and you're honestly trying to work and work isn't available and you steal food to keep alive, that you shouldn't feel guilty about it. I don't know that I would disagree with that. I think that there's something to be said at that point where it's just like, you know, if property rights come between that and mass starvation, it's going to be very hard for anyone to make the case for property rights. Now, my argument is when you have free enterprise food becomes so plentiful that now obesity is an issue, but at the time she did not have of course, have that data to access. [/INST] Is there somebody you left out from the book that you thought about leaving in like some interesting figures? </s><s>[INST] Yeah, there's a couple. So, um Chomsky would have been one, of course, because he's, you know, he's probably the biggest standard because one of the biggest anarchist thinkers in contemporary times. Um, I was on the fence about Herbert Spencer because he's not an anarchist. Chris. Williamson is reading the chapter for the book. He coined the term survival of the fittest, and chapter is called the Right to ignore the state from his book, social statics. It was deleted from later editions, well founded and reprinted it. Um, and uh Randolph bourne. He was an early progressive, he was the only one where one of the very few fighting against entering the Great War. And he had an essay called War Is the Health of the State, which is basically about how states love war, because it gives them an excuse to increase their power. And it's very hard to argue against increasing state power in a time of war. But since he was not himself an anarchist and there was plenty anti war and they're already I didn't include him, but those would be the ones. [/INST] Is there some people that you think, uh, the public would be surprised to learn that they are at least in part anarchist. Like I saw that Howard Zinn is supposed to be an anarchist. I mean, is there, um, like, just like Tolstoy's anarchist? Is there some people like that that you think in our modern life that would be surprised to learn? They're anarchists? I </s><s>[INST] Can't think of any off the top of my head. I mean, you could say Karl Hess, who was like Barry Goldwater speech writer from the 1964 campaign, but he's hardly a household name. Um, I mean, I think a lot of people would not ascribed to that term, but it certainly informed with this complete distrust of all authority Murray rothbard had an essay If I didn't include Anatomy of the State, I was going to include this one. It's much much shorter. And his question was, who are allies and who our enemies? And the point he makes is there's lots of people who would call themselves anarchists who are of little use, whereas someone who is still like a monarchist or for government, but genuinely hates the question Rothbart had is if there's a button and you can compress that you would end the state, Would you press it so fast? Your finger to get a blister? Those are allies, even if they're, uh, somewhat of a monarchist. So I think that is a kind of a better lens of looking at it. And I don't think anyone needs to really ascribe to anarchism as a whole ideology insofar as you're seeing right now, many people in certain fringe elements are just essentially or, or decreasing the fringe and increasing mainstream elements are realizing that this idea that whatever the state does is somehow morally binding or legitimate is something that at least bear strong questioning. [/INST] Sure. And I mean, I guess there's a lot of groups like the libertarians for example, have some element of that. Sure, for sure, harsh questioning of the ways of government </s><s>[INST] and also, I think what I love, I mean, if there's one issue where I would want people to have this kind of analysis, it is war and it is like, okay, are you really sure? Because this is 100% going to result in a lot of people being killed, a lot of people being traumatized, a lot of people who are never going to recover Children, innocent people. Are you really sure this is the right thing to do? And I think a lot of times, if the answer is, well, it's the profitable thing to do, and that is, I think, again, government and its absolute most venal and worst [/INST] you, Michael malice in many ways are a new yorker. </s><s>[INST] Oh, yes, I'll give you one example, I don't know where Austin is on the map? No idea. Not even [/INST] kidding. But does it even </s><s>[INST] matter? It doesn't matter. [/INST] But nevertheless, you've decided to move to Austin? Why do you think you're moving to Austin or why do you moving both to Austin and away from new </s><s>[INST] york? This was one of the both. I hate it when people talk like this, we're gonna do it Anyway. This was one of the hardest and easiest decisions of my life. It was hard because I've lived in new york since I was two other than college. It's the only home I've known. I know it intimately, I know all the cool spots. I love it with every fiber of my being or I did. Uh it was very much, you know, ingrained in my personality, my outlook about what cities can be and can be and should be and shouldn't be um deciding to move was not done. But when you see your crew, your chosen family, one by one, whittling away, it's not easy. Um they all left. Uh there's just a couple of us left in new york and I don't see any mechanism by which new york is going to improve. Things are getting much worse all the time. It's just completely outrageous here. I would have a have a huge crew. I didn't realize how much cheaper real estate is than in new york. This is another way. So new Yorkers are the most provincial people on earth who are completely oblivious to the rest of the country. So for a long time the argument was new york versus L. A. Right for certain types of people. And they would say L. A. Is cheaper in terms of rent. The new york, let's suppose the rent is 1700. But you have to get a car like this is kind of a wash. So I assumed Austin would be like 80% of New York prices and I'm looking at these houses and for like 700,000 you could get a house here that would cost like 3.5 million New York. So, and you can have a gun and it's just like I could have a yard and I could have a dog and I have a three bedroom and I could have, you know, aquariums and my weird plants. So to have all that. And it's just to have, I am very, very lucky that I have such a supportive crew and they're also very smart because they sat me down and they said whatever excuse you have not to move here, we are going to make sure that doesn't count. So my buddy matt said because I have a huge library, he goes, I will go to your house and I will pack every single book you own myself. So you can get that as an excuse the other way, I know how to drive near this. You cou um she's like we're going to take driving lessons together. There goes that excuse, how do I find an apartment there, like we'll go to with the realtor will take pictures for, you will report back, you could trust our judgment. And I'm like, that's what I would do. That. That sounds like fun shopping for houses that up to buy them. Then matt just yesterday had the idea goes, come here, rent a furnished apartment for a few months, you don't have the pressure of buying and it's just, it's gonna be an easy transition. The rent is not gonna be anything compared to new york. I'm like, these are all very valid things. You're here, lots of other people, [/INST] by the way, that's what this is, is uh made sure that's renting month to month, </s><s>[INST] this is rental, [/INST] this is rental. You didn't realize this. I thought you bought this. No, no, no to talk, </s><s>[INST] I thought you bought it. [/INST] No. Well, I really value freedom. </s><s>[INST] So who are you talking to? Have heard of this thing? Freedom. It's really great. [/INST] But not everybody in the implementation </s><s>[INST] of freedom is different for everybody, [/INST] of course, for me, I don't want to uh make a statement about others. I'll just speak for myself. I think when you buy a house that is not just a wise financial decision or all those kinds of reasons that people have investment, all those kinds of things. I think it's also a hit on your freedom because the positive way to frame that is you make it a home, you have a deep connection to it? But the negative way to frame it is you're now a little bit stuck there and you may stay there way longer than you should one much better opportunities for life come up. There's there's stages in life when you're not sure exactly what the future will hold, I would argue that's very often the case uh basically at every stage in life, and I just want to make sure I maximize the freedom to uh to embrace the most ambitious, the craziest, the wildest, most beautiful opportunities that come by. You've actually brought this up because I said, I really enjoyed the conversation with you and you're on like you talking to you and somebody else. I think you make a really significant effort, you've said this before, but it really is true, and it stands in contrast to other folks who are also good conversation. You really make an effort for that person, like to understand like, to meet the person for sure. And that's uh you made me, you made me realize it's kind of a uh it's an art form uh but it's also just it's a thing worth doing of putting in that effort and that leap of humanity to to like reach, but whether you're talking to Dave Rubin or Alex jones or joe or me just Yeah, those are different human beings and they're taking that leap? It's fascinating. I mean, do you have um how do you think about that? </s><s>[INST] I'm a huge introvert as you are, I think um I I feel very, very, very lucky that I get to get on the mic and run my mouth and for some people, some reason people like this, so I know what it's like to have a good convo, and I know what it's like to have a bad convo. So before I'll do a show, I will have like some things I would want to talk about then I'll think about how to say them in an engaging way. So I do my homework in that regard I'm also very good at, or I pride myself at taking people who are cerebral or intellectual and making them a little bit silly, but also making them feel safe to be silly because I'm not going to be making a buffoon of them that were having fun as opposed to disrespecting the person. I think we all saw that with your on who's very cerebral, very serious, but we were all cracking jokes um and he was having a good time and he knew even if I'm making fun of him to his face, it is coming from a place of kindness and he's in on the joke and we're all having fun. That is something I try to do as much as possible. I had an episode of my show a couple of weeks ago and someone who's been a friend of mine for a long time and someone I admire a lot Elizabeth Spiers, she was the founding member of Garc, founding editor of Gawker, you know, she's she's worked for the Observer for Jared Kushner, she's her resume second to none and she was on my show and she was talking, you know, her heart politics are pretty straightforward, like corporate journalist Blue pilled politics. And my audience was very upset that I wasn't pushing back or like whatever. I'm like my job, if someone is coming to a place where like the audiences at least give me somewhat hostile is not to make her have negative consequences for doing something that she didn't need to do. My job is to make sure that the experience is a positive one for her as the host. So when I'm the guest, I always feel that my job is to make the host look good and make the host not feel like it's work and the audience really likes that because instead of it being an interview or intense, it is a conversation, none of us know what's going to happen. And so this is something I think about a fair amount and I try to apply and insofar as you successfully. I'm delighted and there's times when it's not successful and that's a shame, but all we could do is do our best. [/INST] Yeah, I really enjoyed that conversation with her, I was surprised by uh the dislikes and all that kind of stuff. </s><s>[INST] Well, one of the things I always talk about is I don't I don't care what my friends politics are, I care about. If someone's, if I'm having a bad day, can I call them up and ask for advice? And Elizabeth has been there for me in the past and then when I do it on a camera in front of mix people freaking out, I'm like I'm practicing what I preach my relationships are more important than someone's political views and it's not hypocrisy at all to demonstrate that and not not to push [/INST] back and those great humor there, you're both a bit of trolls </s><s>[INST] in very different ways, [/INST] but nevertheless that connection, the humor and the mutual respect and love those all there. Yeah, she was fascinating. Um you've talked to Alex jones a couple of days ago, you've talked to him many times before, but you've had them on your podcast this week. Yeah, this week I was kind of surprised that um he mentioned that human animal hybrids was like the number, the main conspiracy that people should look into, to open their eyes to the, you know, all this to the globalists, all the conspiracies that are out there was that surprising to you. </s><s>[INST] Um No, because I came in there with questions and I was very focused on corralling him and having it be like kind of a coherent intellectual conversation. [/INST] It was a really, really good, it was only an hour, but it was a very good conversation. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, thank you. I uh, the response was overwhelmingly positive and I'm like, all right, I'm in a unique position because Alex, I met Alex, that's not sure, but I was on Alex with Alex on tim pool a couple of times. It was mayhem, it was anarchy and I'm like, all right, let me get. But the thing is that people enjoyed is I was the one who was basically able to translate Alexi's, he's obviously very performative and a lot of times Alex will say things that are not really uh particularly controversial, but he'll say them in such a way that it sounds crazier than it is. You know, I think joe's made this observation as well. So what I wanted to have him on, on my show is all right, let's go through all these conspiracies which have validity, which don't and I knew if I asked because he's got a lot of historical knowledge, even if you want to think of a lot of it's nonsensical, let's start out the wheat from the chaff, you know, because everyone has someone crazy in them. I have this expression, you take one red pill, not the whole bottle, you take the whole bottle, red pills, You assume literally everything in the media is a lie that that's just not a coherent position to have is the weather ally when they tell you that temperature is gonna be wrong tomorrow. So that was fun to watch him go through that and he felt bad because he felt incorrectly in my opinion, that he was needlessly aggressive and disrespectful towards me on tim, I didn't feel disrespected at all. It got heated, but I didn't take it personally. People have heated debates all the time. So I think he, he promised me he wouldn't interrupt, it would be deferential, but that because he promised to be on his best behavior that gave me an opportunity to address him seriously and not to bring the clown aspect out of him, which is easy to caricature him. My friend Ethan Suplee. Um I'm sure people know played basically character based on him in the hunt because eric Alex is kind of this cartoon archetypes, so it was really fun to get another side of him. Um and and and also it's just fun being on his show, just him being bombastic and just trying to be the calm voice of reason and for once the trickster was Apollo. Well, [/INST] I like this this thing he said before and that's what makes me the most interested in Alex is the uh the Nietzsche quote about the uh you know, gazing into the abyss, I think he said on your show that he has become the abyss or something like that. I think that makes them fascinating, that when you really take conspiracy theories seriously, the kind of effect it has on your mind. That to me is fascinating. </s><s>[INST] What can I say? One thing, the term conspiracy theory, If you ask any layman, it's like this you say, do you like puppies? I hate them. Do you like baby dogs? Oh, they're the best people, the human mind is capable of doing this. So if you ask people, do you think extremely powerful people often get together and manipulate data or rules in order to further power and control and maintain it? I think 90 plus percent of people be like, of course, then you say, oh, so you believe in conspiracy theories? Oh no, that's for crazy people. Those concepts are identical. Now, that term is used for people who are like, all right, uh you know, there's conspiracies and government to experiment on people like tuskegee, this is not in dispute. The CIA has, you know, unsealed things, operation mockingbird zone and so forth. And at the same time, conspiracy theory applies to people say 9 11 never happened. And those are holograms. Now, it's the same word for both. But these are not at all equal truth claims and they do not at all have equal evidence to them. But it's very useful for powerful people to have that term in the zeitgeist because then I don't have to explain or defend, its like only lunatics are going to look further on this. Do you really want to be a lunatic kid and that takes care of the [/INST] Issue? Unfortunately? The same problem applies with language applies to a lot of other 100 </s><s>[INST] percent that language Yeah, it's used not just to communicate with the office Cape. [/INST] Obviously that could be fixed by coming up with different words to uh, to label conspiracy theories that are much more likely to be </s><s>[INST] true power lead analysis is another basically conspiracy theory. [/INST] This is the black pill versus white pill question with the abyss. Do you think thinking about these things can destroy the mind can make you deeply cynical about the world? </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Because if you are thinking that you are not aware of or no one is aware of who's controlling things and that the level of their control, it gives you the sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. And my counter is the people in charge. One of the reasons I'm an anarchist are nowhere near as smart and crafty as you think they are. And certainly maybe the ones completing the shadow maybe are, but the ones who are in the public face most certainly are not as social media is demonstrating when you look at how senators and Harvard professors tweet these are not, you know, intellects that you're in all of To put it mildly. So I think that kind of takes the bloom off the Rose to a great extent. [/INST] You mentioned that you've been doing a lot of amazing things. Been truly joyful recently. What? Uh, I don't know if you have a bucket list, is there items on the bucket list you haven't done yet? Are you are you pretty much satisfied and happy and if you die today if I murder you you'd be </s><s>[INST] happy I could die [/INST] today. Is there an item on the bucket list you want to get done? </s><s>[INST] Um I don't Yeah uh Deep sea Submersible, That would be number one in a bucket list because that's where all the most interesting zoology is and to be um in a place where like virtually no human being has been and to see these gods mistakes in their natural environment. My friend calling that term God's mistakes. If you look at deep sea creatures you can imagine God making some animal being like oh God this is hideous, I'll just throw the bottom of the ocean and I was going to see this. Um So that would be my number one bucket list thing. I would say go to the White house as a guest would be a bucket list thing. Russia, go to Russia would be a bucket list thing. Um I want to go, these are secondary like go to Eritrea would be a bucket list thing. I've got a long list of books I need to write uh that's that's I don't know that's really a bucket list per se. Um uh There's not that much what I'm at a point in my life is once you cross up certain things you basically instead of driving the car, start surfing and just amazing that I talk to you about this medical thing before we started at a certain point and I'm sure this happens to you because your platform is a lot bigger than mine. All sorts of things start coming your way that you never would have thought of and you're like this is pretty darn cool so to be and that's happening at an escalating rate. Like I'm at a point now where I get stopped every day by people so that's gonna be a weird thing for me to get adjusted to. I ever like without exception, everyone who has ever stopped me on the street has been cool and it's been a pleasant experience. There was one exception, an event where someone was genuinely on the spectrum and they didn't understand like distance and you don't touch people and that that's as bad as it got. So that is something that's going to be weird for me to have to deal with um over the next couple of years. But you know, it's the price you pay and it's it's hardly a small price when people come up to you and say you've made my life better. But it's just weird when you go and like, like I was at the gym and then someone tweets like did I see you at the gym just now. It's kind of weird and I'm sure it's the same for you when you're walking around and you don't think about it, but people know who you are and you don't know who they are, that you're being watched. Even though it's not malevolent, it's still just you don't get prepared for that. [/INST] Michael. There were there will be two really big names that uh wanted to do this podcast, will do this podcast that I considered to do episode 200 with. But then I realized why the hell talk to somebody um famous when I could talk to somebody I love Yeah. That nobody knows or cares for. </s><s>[INST] You. Just hit a random number generator. [/INST] Just I listed all the Russians I know and who is the easiest to get </s><s>[INST] who's the most desperate? He's gotta shitty book out. You talk about that a minute. This garbage cut and paste that he did. Yeah. [/INST] Uh it turned out ok. I think slightly above average Michael, I love you. You're an incredible human being. It's an honor that you would talk to me and you'll be my friend. Thanks so much for doing this. Uh </s><s>[INST] the respect that I got when you asked me to be the guest for the anniversary episode was similar to the respect with my two friends, josh and Zoe they were going to get married at city Hall and they said, we want someone to witness that the rescue. So it's one thing when people tell you they like you and respect you, which I had growing up. It's something when they show it and this is something that I do not take lightly and I hope no one takes slightly. And if someone does right by you and shows you respect, going back to kind of, take it out for dinner, thank them. Buy them a candy bar by them a soda. Do something to show that you don't take it for granted. Because I think what you and I both want to do is increase human kindness as much as possible. And I'm gonna look at the camera, be kind to yourself because a lot of you deserve it. That's right. Don [/INST] Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael malice. And thank you to gala games. Indeed. Better help and master class check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from Jack Kerouac that perhaps begins to explain the nature of and the reasons for my friendship with Mr Michael malice. The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live mad to talk mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes, thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. </s>

<s>[INST] The following is a conversation with chris mason, professor of genomics, physiology and biophysics at Cornell. He and colleagues do [/INST] some of their research </s><s>[INST] out in space experiments on space missions [/INST] that seek to </s><s>[INST] discern the molecular [/INST] basis of changes in the </s><s>[INST] human body [/INST] during long term human </s><s>[INST] space travel On this topic, He also wrote an epic book titled, The Next 500 Years Engineering Life to Reach New World that [/INST] boldly looks </s><s>[INST] at what it takes to colonize space far beyond our planet and even journey out [/INST] towards livable </s><s>[INST] worlds beyond our solar system. And now a quick few second mention of the sponsor. Check them out in the description is the best way to support this podcast. We've got better help for mental health Graham early for writing magic spoon for serial blankets for books and a sleep for her naps choose wisely my friends and now onto the full ladder reads as always no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is sponsored by Better Help spelled H E L P. Help. That help helps you figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours. I recently had a conversation with carl Dyson Roth, brilliant psychiatrist. He at least in part reinvigorated. My curiosity may be passionate about psychiatry, about talk therapy, about exploring the human mind to conversation, especially when that human mind has fallen off the beaten path. one of the most moving things to me is when folks happen to run into me in the street, they will sometimes say that, you know me talking about love and just in general having an optimism about the future gave him strength. But I also hear about the struggle and I see the pain, even just a few seconds of interaction, I don't know, it makes me feel [/INST] like we're together </s><s>[INST] in this thing, you know? So if you're struggling, just know we're in this together, I'm with you brother and sister. Anyway, Better Help is easy, [/INST] private, affordable and </s><s>[INST] available worldwide. Check them out at Better Help dot com slash lex. That's better help dot com slash lex. This show is also brought to you by Graham early, a writing assistant tool, the check spelling, grammar, sentence structure and readability. Graham early premium, the version you pay for offers a bunch of extra features. My favorite is the clarity check, which helps detect rambling, overcomplicated chaos that many of us descend into in conversation in writing and otherwise again, let me bring up carl discuss Roth, who [/INST] references James Joyce </s><s>[INST] quite a bit in his book projections. This is like a long battery for carl who's awesome. [/INST] Ah He references </s><s>[INST] James Joyce, the author of ulysses, considered one of the great novels of the 20th century and Finnegans wake, which is complete rambling Chaos, which is the kind of thing that might be [/INST] good for </s><s>[INST] an epic novel that explores schizophrenia, but it might [/INST] not be good for </s><s>[INST] like, emails [/INST] and tweets </s><s>[INST] and all that kind of stuff. If you wanna not do that kind of thing, grammar we will help you. And it's available on any platform. Major sites and apps like Gmail and twitter and so on. It doesn't just do spellcheck, it helps you get your point across effectively. And you can do that with Gramley premium. You can get 20% off graham early premium by signing up at Gramley dot com slash lex. That's 20% off at Graham early dot com slash lex. This episode is brought to you by magic spoon. Low carb keto friendly cereal. It has zero g of sugar, 13 to 40 g of protein, only four net grams of carbs and 140 calories in each serving. I think I'm having way too much fun doing these athletes and they're like much less about whatever the product is, much more about me just talking. It's like um personal therapy by myself, but also with my friends back to magic spoon. You can build your own box and get a variety pack with available flavors, cocoa, fruity frosted peanut butter, blueberry and cinnamon. But I returned time and time and time again too. Coco the flavor of champions. It reminds me of childhood. It reminds me of happiness, but it just reminds me of that joy of morning cereal without the deeply unhealthy excessive amounts of sugar. Anyway, magic spoon have a 100% happiness guarantee you now we're back to happiness if you don't like it, they refund it, go to magic spoon dot com slash lex. Use code lex at checkout to save five bucks off your order. That's magic spoon dot com slash lex and use code lex. This show is brought to you by blinking My favorite app for learning new things, Blanca's takes the key ideas from thousands of nonfiction books and condenses them down to just 15 minutes you can read or listen to. I can recommend a ton of books, sapiens, meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Beginning of infinity by David Deutsch Snowden book and so on. They don't have the rise and fall of the 3rd Reich I don't believe I have to check again. But they have a lot of the most important, most impactful nonfiction books ever written. If you don't have the time to read all of them, which nobody does, you should definitely use blankets to catch up on the ones that um are not at the top of your stack to read. I use it both to summarize books I'll never read. But also to summarize books I've already read. To remind myself to the key insights you can go to blink is dot com slash flex to start your free seven day trial and get 25% off of a blink is premium membership as blankets dot com slash lex spelled B. L. I. N. K. I. S. D. blankets dot com slash lex. This episode is brought to you by eight sleep and it's pot pro mattress. It controls temperature with an app. It's packed with sensors. It can cool down to as low as 55 degrees on each side of the bed separately. There are very few things in life. My friends that are as pleasant as a good [/INST] power nap. </s><s>[INST] Sometimes I'll even drink a coffee before hand, which I don't know how that works. Andrew Huberman probably knows how that works, but it works. I'll drink a coffee and I'll just pass out. Sometimes I pass out on the floor and that also works. But if I want to really enjoy the power nap so it's not just about function, it's about happiness. And if I want to enjoy happiness, there's nothing better than Cool bed with a warm blanket for 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes. And then I wake up 100% refreshed. I do that because I'm in a eight sleep pod broke cover that you can add to your mattress I added to my mattress. You can go to a sleep dot com slash flex to check out the aforementioned pot pro cover and save $200 at checkout a sleep currently ships within the Usa Canada and the UK. That's eight sleep dot com slash lex. This is the lex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with chris mason. Mhm. You wrote a book [/INST] Called the next 500 years </s><s>[INST] engineering life to reach new worlds. [/INST] And you dedicated to quote </s><s>[INST] to all humans in any [/INST] extinction, aware </s><s>[INST] sentience. How [/INST] fundamental is awareness of </s><s>[INST] death and extinction [/INST] to the human condition? </s><s>[INST] I think [/INST] this is actually one of the </s><s>[INST] most human specific [/INST] traits and features </s><s>[INST] that we have. It's actually maybe one of the few things that we only [/INST] We have and no one else has. So </s><s>[INST] it sounds scary. Sounds like what [/INST] people often don't like to </s><s>[INST] think about their death except now and again or at funerals [/INST] or to recognize their </s><s>[INST] mortality. But if you do it at a species wide level, it's something that is actually an exemplary human specific trait that you're exhibiting. You think about something that is the loss of not just your life or your family or everyone you see, but everyone like you and that is I dedicated it because I think we might not be the last sentience to have this awareness. I'm actually hoping will just be the first. But [/INST] as far as we know, we're the </s><s>[INST] only and I think this is the part of the moral [/INST] thrust for the book is that </s><s>[INST] we're the only ones that have this awareness that gives us a duty that only we can exercise so far. So we definitely contemplate our own mortality at the individual level. It is true when you wrote it, [/INST] it was really </s><s>[INST] powerful to realize for me that we do contemplate our extinction. And that that [/INST] is a creative </s><s>[INST] force. So the, [/INST] at the individual level, contemplating </s><s>[INST] your own death [/INST] is a creative </s><s>[INST] force. Like I have a [/INST] deadline. But </s><s>[INST] the contemplating the extinction of the whole [/INST] species, I suppose </s><s>[INST] that stretches through human history. That's many of the sort of uh subtext of religious ideas is that like if we [/INST] screw this up, it's </s><s>[INST] going to be over forever and revelation and in [/INST] every religious text has some view of either </s><s>[INST] the birth or the [/INST] death of the world as they </s><s>[INST] know it. But it was very abstract. It [/INST] was </s><s>[INST] fiction almost in some cases, complete fiction of what you hope or think might happen. But it's [/INST] become much more quantified and much </s><s>[INST] more real, I think in the past [/INST] several 100 years. </s><s>[INST] And especially in the past few decades where we can see, [/INST] you know, a sense of </s><s>[INST] responsibility and a planetary scale. [/INST] So when we think about like </s><s>[INST] say, terraforming mars, that would just be the second planet we've engineered at a planetary scale, We're already doing it [/INST] for this one. Just not that </s><s>[INST] well. Well, yeah, that's right. So we're like a bunch [/INST] of ants, </s><s>[INST] um extinction, [/INST] aware </s><s>[INST] sanctions ants that [/INST] are busy </s><s>[INST] trying to terra form this planet to make it [/INST] habitable. </s><s>[INST] So we can flourish and then you say that [/INST] it's our duty </s><s>[INST] two expand beyond earth to expand to other planets to uh to find [/INST] a </s><s>[INST] good backup [/INST] offsite </s><s>[INST] backup solution. Why the word duty? It's an interesting word. Duty is something that usually puts [/INST] people to sleep. I'll say this how duty, you know its duty </s><s>[INST] is like a little bit like [/INST] death. People don't often like to </s><s>[INST] really think what I wake up in the morning and what is what is my duty [/INST] today? </s><s>[INST] Most people, there are some people who think [/INST] about everyday people </s><s>[INST] in active military service. [/INST] Wake up, it's a very </s><s>[INST] concrete sense of duty to country. Sometimes you can think about it though, in [/INST] terms of family, you feel a duty </s><s>[INST] towards your spouse, your kids, your parents, [/INST] you feel a real duty </s><s>[INST] to them because you want them [/INST] to flourish </s><s>[INST] and to be safe. So we we do [/INST] have this sense of duty, but you </s><s>[INST] don't, you know very much like death. You don't think about it [/INST] actively. Usually </s><s>[INST] it's something that just becomes embedded in your day to day existence. But I think [/INST] about duty because </s><s>[INST] this is people think about duties for themselves, but there has never [/INST] been a real </s><s>[INST] overarching duty that we all feel as as a [/INST] species for </s><s>[INST] each other and for generations that haven't yet been born. And I think I want people to have a sense of the [/INST] same love </s><s>[INST] and compassion and you know, fighting even to the tooth and nail with the way you protect your family the way you fight for the country for example, to feel the same way towards the rarity and preciousness [/INST] of life and feel </s><s>[INST] that sense of duty towards particularly extinction, [/INST] aware life which is just </s><s>[INST] us so far this ability that we I have [/INST] this awareness of not only </s><s>[INST] our our own frailty which [/INST] of course has </s><s>[INST] often talked about and climate change and people think about pandemics but other species that we sometimes caused extinction but very soon will be even de extinct, defying species like the wooly mammoth [/INST] colossal is a recent </s><s>[INST] startup that's doing that. I'm on their advisory report and it's It might happen in three or 4 [/INST] years. So it's interesting </s><s>[INST] point in history where we can [/INST] actually think about </s><s>[INST] preventing death at a species wide level and even resurrecting things that we have killed or that have gone away. Which brings its own series of questions [/INST] of justice </s><s>[INST] when you delete something from an ecosystem, adding something can be completely catastrophic. And so there are no real guidelines [/INST] yet on how to do that. But </s><s>[INST] the technology now exists which is pretty extraordinary. Yeah, I've just been working on backup and [/INST] restoring </s><s>[INST] databases quite a bit [/INST] recently </s><s>[INST] and you can do quite a lot of damage when you restore them properly. When we bring back the madness. [/INST] It </s><s>[INST] might be uh you have to be careful bringing that back like the best of science. The [/INST] best of engineering </s><s>[INST] is both dangerous and exciting and that's why you have to have the best people but also the most morally grounded people pushing us forward but on the point of duty, [/INST] there's a kind of </s><s>[INST] sense that there's something special to humanity, to human [/INST] beings </s><s>[INST] that we want to [/INST] preserve. And if </s><s>[INST] that that [/INST] little flame, </s><s>[INST] whatever that is dies, that [/INST] will be a real shame </s><s>[INST] for the [/INST] universe. What </s><s>[INST] is that? What is special about human beings? What is special about the human condition that we want to [/INST] preserve? </s><s>[INST] Why do we matter? There [/INST] are some people who think we </s><s>[INST] don't, there are some people say, well, humans [/INST] take it, take it </s><s>[INST] or leave it. They think they're misanthropes. So the book is on the one sense, a call to misanthropes to [/INST] hopefully shake </s><s>[INST] them out of their slumber. But that some people [/INST] just people that dislike humanity. </s><s>[INST] They're, they're just again, the world just they're called nihilists Donny. That's a shutout for big Lebowski defense. There like nothing matters and why does [/INST] anything? And they just apply it </s><s>[INST] more particularly to humans. [/INST] But there are </s><s>[INST] endless [/INST] reasons I </s><s>[INST] think to cherish and celebrate what humans have done at the same time. [/INST] Many things we've done awfully </s><s>[INST] and genocide and and you know, nuclear weapons testing on unsuspecting [/INST] citizens of </s><s>[INST] remote islands. And there are definitely things we've done [/INST] bad. But </s><s>[INST] the poetry, the music, the engineering feats, the getting to the moon and eventually already [/INST] rovers on mars these </s><s>[INST] extraordinary feats that humans have already accomplished, [/INST] interested really a </s><s>[INST] sense of beauty I think is something that is, [/INST] you </s><s>[INST] know, you can't [/INST] ask </s><s>[INST] ants or cockroaches about their favorite paintings or maybe [/INST] if you could, </s><s>[INST] it would be very different from ours. But in either case [/INST] there's a unique </s><s>[INST] perspective that that we carry. And I think so that that's something that [/INST] even just the old, the </s><s>[INST] age old question in [/INST] biology. Emma geneticist. This </s><s>[INST] comes up a lot of what makes humans unique. And so is it [/INST] bipedal Ism is that </s><s>[INST] our intelligence is a tool making? Is that language? All those things? I just listed other species have some degree of those those traits. So it's a question of degree not of type of trait that defines you know, humans a little bit. But I think [/INST] for the extinction awareness that </s><s>[INST] is a uniquely human trait that is to our knowledge, [/INST] no other species </s><s>[INST] or entity or ai or sentience that carries that awareness of the frailty of life of our own life, but [/INST] all life and </s><s>[INST] maybe it is that awareness of the frailty of life that allows us to be [/INST] so urgently creative, create beauty, </s><s>[INST] create innovation. It just seems like if you just measure humans are able to create some sort of subjectively beautiful things. And I [/INST] see signs </s><s>[INST] that way. I see engineering that way. And ants are less efficient at that. They [/INST] also create beautiful </s><s>[INST] things, [/INST] but less </s><s>[INST] aggressively, [/INST] less innovation, </s><s>[INST] less [/INST] building like standing on the shoulders of </s><s>[INST] giants, building on top of each other [/INST] over and over and over where </s><s>[INST] you're getting like these like uh hierarchical systems were greater and greater levels of abstraction than [/INST] you use ideas </s><s>[INST] to communicate those [/INST] ideas and you share those ideas and all of a sudden you have the </s><s>[INST] rockets going into [/INST] space which ants have been </s><s>[INST] building the same structures for [/INST] millions and millions </s><s>[INST] of years with no real change. And so that that is the key difference [/INST] here yet. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, that's right. We've [/INST] got an experiment going right now and maybe they'll </s><s>[INST] change but [/INST] well, yeah, </s><s>[INST] well we will bring up some extreme [/INST] organisms. Another </s><s>[INST] thing here [/INST] interested in, Okay, </s><s>[INST] one [/INST] interesting thing </s><s>[INST] that comes up [/INST] much later in your book </s><s>[INST] is [/INST] something I </s><s>[INST] also haven't thought of and it's quite inspiring, [/INST] which is </s><s>[INST] the heat death of the universe [/INST] is something worth </s><s>[INST] fighting [/INST] against. </s><s>[INST] Like that's also an engineering problem. [/INST] You know, you kinda the I mean you </s><s>[INST] seriously [/INST] Look at the next five </s><s>[INST] 100 years [/INST] and it's such a beautiful </s><s>[INST] thing. [/INST] You know, seriously, we'll talk about like the uncertainty involved with </s><s>[INST] that and all the [/INST] different trajectories, </s><s>[INST] but to [/INST] seriously look at that and then to seriously look at </s><s>[INST] like what happens when [/INST] the sun runs </s><s>[INST] out, [/INST] what happens when the uh </s><s>[INST] the universe comes to an end. [/INST] Like we have </s><s>[INST] an opportunity [/INST] and a kind of duty like you said, to </s><s>[INST] fight against that [/INST] and that was so inspiring to me </s><s>[INST] to think, wait, [/INST] maybe we'll actually that's a worthy </s><s>[INST] thing to think about how [/INST] we can prevent it </s><s>[INST] actually write [/INST] the come up </s><s>[INST] with the best known understanding [/INST] current of how things </s><s>[INST] end. You know, we have, we kind of are building an intuition and data and [/INST] models of the way the </s><s>[INST] universe is, [/INST] we started the way it's </s><s>[INST] going to end. So our best model of the end, let's start thinking about how that it could [/INST] be prevented, How that could be avoided, How that could be </s><s>[INST] channeled and misdirected and you can [/INST] uh, </s><s>[INST] pivoted somehow. [/INST] Um, </s><s>[INST] that's really [/INST] inspiring. That's really powerful. </s><s>[INST] I never really thought about it. I thought that, you know, [/INST] eventually all things </s><s>[INST] end and that was the kind [/INST] of </s><s>[INST] melancholic notion behind all of it. You know, none of this matters in a way. Just to me that's also inspiring to [/INST] enjoy the </s><s>[INST] moment to really [/INST] live in the moment. </s><s>[INST] You know that because that [/INST] is truly what beauty exists </s><s>[INST] is in the moment. [/INST] But there is a long </s><s>[INST] lasting [/INST] aspect of beauty </s><s>[INST] that is part of the engineering ethic, which is like, tell me what the problem [/INST] is and we're going to solve it. </s><s>[INST] So what do you think about that? [/INST] The long scale beyond five </s><s>[INST] 100 years [/INST] is the humans have a chance. </s><s>[INST] Absolutely. I think we have the [/INST] best chance of any </s><s>[INST] species and actually the best chance that humanity has ever had. [/INST] So I think a lot of </s><s>[INST] people fear that we could that we can [/INST] or we'll kill ourselves. Actually </s><s>[INST] my favorite question I I [/INST] asked asked at the end of every </s><s>[INST] interview for every potential graduate [/INST] student, medical student </s><s>[INST] and faculty, [/INST] whoever I'm interviewing for </s><s>[INST] whatever reason. The [/INST] last question is, well, how long do </s><s>[INST] you think that humans or [/INST] our evolutionary derivatives </s><s>[INST] will last? And the answers are shockingly [/INST] wide ranging. Some </s><s>[INST] people say, I think we've only got a [/INST] 100 years left </s><s>[INST] or some people say billions. Some people say as [/INST] long as the universe last. </s><s>[INST] But to the person [/INST] who once said as a </s><s>[INST] medical student [/INST] applicant who said, I think we've only got 100 years left. And I was like really, for all of </s><s>[INST] humanity, everything will be gone in a [/INST] 100 years. And he said Yes. And I said, Well, </s><s>[INST] sweet [/INST] jesus man, why go </s><s>[INST] to med school? What do you [/INST] why not go sell bananas </s><s>[INST] on the beach? And then he said, I really want to [/INST] make the last, you know, a few 100 years </s><s>[INST] count really matter. And I said, well that's actually kind [/INST] of sort of hopeful in a really dark way. But </s><s>[INST] I think [/INST] we've never been better situated </s><s>[INST] to actually last for the long term. We have, [/INST] even though we've </s><s>[INST] also never been at the greater risk of [/INST] being able to destroy ourselves ever since. Really the </s><s>[INST] first nuclear test when they Tony [/INST] orb is a great book </s><s>[INST] about this called the Precipice Where [/INST] the precipice for humanity is at one point we made technologies that we weren't sure </s><s>[INST] whether or not they would destroy the earth or the entire universe. [/INST] So the math was </s><s>[INST] incomplete and there's too much air. But they tested the bomb anyway. [/INST] But it's an extraordinary </s><s>[INST] place as a species. You think we now have something in our hands that may destroy the earth [/INST] and possibly exchange reaction that </s><s>[INST] destroys the universe. Let's try it anyway [/INST] as a, as a </s><s>[INST] stage that we're at as a species. [/INST] But with that power comes an </s><s>[INST] ability to get to other planets to survive [/INST] long term. </s><s>[INST] And when you think about the heat death, that just becomes that's [/INST] a an ad infinitum </s><s>[INST] question, if you keep thinking, well, [/INST] we survived, we go to the </s><s>[INST] next son and then you go to the next son. [/INST] Eventually the question would be </s><s>[INST] well, if you just keep doing that forever. At some point, the universe either continues to expand or [/INST] collapse back in on itself and the heat </s><s>[INST] death is more likely at this point where it just keeps expanding, expanding, everything is too far away. But even in that case, I think if we had a fundamental knowledge of physics and space time that you could try and restructure [/INST] it quite literally the shape of the </s><s>[INST] universe to prevent it, I think we [/INST] would, I think we would want </s><s>[INST] to survive. I think, you know, unless [/INST] we had done the math and we </s><s>[INST] think that there's a greater chance that the [/INST] next universe would </s><s>[INST] form and make more [/INST] life. Maybe we would. But even </s><s>[INST] then, I think [/INST] humans have always </s><s>[INST] wanted to survive and and [/INST] you could argue maybe should survive </s><s>[INST] because and are able to engineer systems that [/INST] help us survive </s><s>[INST] and always have. Yeah. So what is this though? Those are bomb Yeah, the hydrogen, Yeah, [/INST] there's there's </s><s>[INST] nothing more [/INST] terrifying and </s><s>[INST] somehow inspiring [/INST] than watching the mushroom cloud </s><s>[INST] of a nuclear explosion. It's like humans [/INST] are capable of this. </s><s>[INST] They are capable [/INST] of leveraging the power of nature </s><s>[INST] to completely [/INST] obliterate everything </s><s>[INST] and and to create [/INST] propulsion. I mean, most of the Voyager </s><s>[INST] spacecraft are nuclear powered because it's still in many ways the [/INST] most efficient way to get a </s><s>[INST] tiny amount of visible [/INST] material and make power out of it, </s><s>[INST] you know, So they're [/INST] still slowly drifting </s><s>[INST] there past the heliosphere. They're out now into Interstellar space and their nuclear [/INST] powered. So it's like any tool or technology. It's a it's a tool or a </s><s>[INST] weapon, depending on how you hold it. [/INST] Are we alone in the </s><s>[INST] universe, chris mason? What do you [/INST] think so, yeah. The presumption that you've just </s><s>[INST] mentioned is [/INST] let's just focus on our thing </s><s>[INST] for now for [/INST] now. Well, I think we, as far as we know </s><s>[INST] with another century in life [/INST] in the universe that we've found </s><s>[INST] yet. And and I think there's [/INST] probably bacterial life out </s><s>[INST] there just because we found it [/INST] everywhere. We've </s><s>[INST] looked on Earth. It [/INST] is </s><s>[INST] and there's, you know, hella filic organisms that can survive in extreme [/INST] salts. There are </s><s>[INST] sacrifices that in extreme [/INST] cold, there's you know, basically organisms can survive </s><s>[INST] in really almost any [/INST] possible environment. They </s><s>[INST] can adapt and find a way [/INST] to live. </s><s>[INST] But as far as we know, we're the only sentient ones. And I think [/INST] this is the famous the direct </s><s>[INST] equation or you know, [/INST] how many, where </s><s>[INST] is everyone? Is that [/INST] what Enrico fermi said is the why haven't we heard from </s><s>[INST] anyone? There are these other life forms? I actually think the [/INST] question is wrong </s><s>[INST] to phrase it that way because [/INST] the unit the earth has only been </s><s>[INST] Here for 4.5 [/INST] billion years. And we and you know, life maybe </s><s>[INST] only for a few billion of those years complex life only for several 100 [/INST] years, 100 million years of life we've </s><s>[INST] actually had, you know, and and humans [/INST] only in the past few million years since our last common ancestor. So </s><s>[INST] it's not that much time. [/INST] But if you think even further </s><s>[INST] back, the universe hasn't had that much time itself [/INST] to cool </s><s>[INST] and create atoms [/INST] and have them spread around the </s><s>[INST] the the universe. Right? [/INST] So the current estimates 13 </s><s>[INST] .8 billion years [/INST] of just the whole universe. But it </s><s>[INST] spent the 1st 5 or [/INST] six of those billion years really just like </s><s>[INST] cooling and making enough of the stars [/INST] to then make the atoms that would come from supernovas. So </s><s>[INST] I actually think we might be the [/INST] first or sit one of the very </s><s>[INST] few or one of the early life forms but the universe itself [/INST] hasn't had that much time </s><s>[INST] to make life in the [/INST] integral and a galactic and universal time </s><s>[INST] frame. You needed billions [/INST] of years for the elements to be created and then distributed. </s><s>[INST] And we're only really in [/INST] the like I think the last few </s><s>[INST] billion years where I think even [/INST] life could have been made. </s><s>[INST] So I think the question of wherever is [/INST] everyone is the wrong question. I think the question is </s><s>[INST] I think [/INST] we're the first ones at the party. Let's set up the liquor, let's set up the </s><s>[INST] food. We I just think we're the first [/INST] ones at the party of </s><s>[INST] life but more people are coming [/INST] one of the </s><s>[INST] early attendees to the party. Yeah maybe as far as we know the [/INST] first but maybe </s><s>[INST] with my local [/INST] pockets of the </s><s>[INST] universe. [/INST] Um because the parties then </s><s>[INST] expand and you it [/INST] overflows and then there's a </s><s>[INST] mosh pit and then [/INST] you know you bump into the other galaxy. </s><s>[INST] I think it's I think the [/INST] question should be, </s><s>[INST] we [/INST] know when else is </s><s>[INST] everyone getting here instead of where is everyone? I think I think we've [/INST] just started on the genesis of life </s><s>[INST] in the universe. Yes. So [/INST] not not worry have </s><s>[INST] they are not [/INST] more about when and </s><s>[INST] who [/INST] and how do we set up the party? </s><s>[INST] Right and then how do we help them? I think it's interesting [/INST] other moral question is do </s><s>[INST] we you know the a lot of [/INST] star trek episodes. You the prime directive is you do not </s><s>[INST] interfere with another [/INST] planet. If you could pass by </s><s>[INST] a planet. I think it's [/INST] time to also visit that. Because what if what if you go by </s><s>[INST] a planet and we think that with [/INST] as far as we can tell with enough </s><s>[INST] certainty that they would never [/INST] be able to leave their </s><s>[INST] planet and [/INST] then the sun eventually would </s><s>[INST] engulf that planet wherever that planet might be in some [/INST] solar system. </s><s>[INST] But if we had a way to help [/INST] them, their culture, </s><s>[INST] their science, their technology, everything about a different species [/INST] to </s><s>[INST] survive, would we not interfere, interfere? [/INST] I think that would actually </s><s>[INST] be wrong to say, well we can save [/INST] this this life here </s><s>[INST] and we decide not to. We decide [/INST] after </s><s>[INST] millions and billions of years past and we know [/INST] the sun will engulf that </s><s>[INST] planet, like what will happen with [/INST] our planet. And we don't interfere. </s><s>[INST] That's you know, watching a train hit someone on the tracks and not moving the train. [/INST] So </s><s>[INST] in terms of the effort of humans becoming a multi planetary species. Mhm. In terms [/INST] of priorities, how much would you </s><s>[INST] allocate to try to make contact with aliens and getting their help? And if we look at the next 500 beyond years and just [/INST] versus option number two. Really </s><s>[INST] just focusing on setting up the party on our own engineering [/INST] are on </s><s>[INST] our own. Um the [/INST] genome, the </s><s>[INST] biology of humanity. the ai [/INST] collaborating </s><s>[INST] with humans. Just that all the engineering [/INST] challenges and </s><s>[INST] opportunities that were um [/INST] we're exploring. I'm </s><s>[INST] focused in my lab of course a lot [/INST] on the engineering of genomes, </s><s>[INST] the monitoring of astronauts during long missions. You know, reaching out to other alien. We've been doing [/INST] reach out to aliens since the </s><s>[INST] first radio waves have been broadcast. We're doing some of it. But to do it really made it sound like your lab [/INST] is mostly focused on </s><s>[INST] biology, but you also reach out [/INST] occasionally aliens occasionally when they </s><s>[INST] visit they had they bring [/INST] their whiskey and I we </s><s>[INST] have a drink. But the uh [/INST] I think </s><s>[INST] we we can do, we've been broadcasting into space for, you know, at [/INST] this point almost a century getting close to </s><s>[INST] and [/INST] you know, so, but it's not </s><s>[INST] been structured. So I think [/INST] it's very cheap and easy to send out structured messages um, like what Carl Sagan wrote about </s><s>[INST] in contact during prime [/INST] numbers and sending those out </s><s>[INST] to indicate intelligence. Uh, so these things [/INST] we can do that I think are very cheap and very easy. So we should we should do some of that. </s><s>[INST] We can walk in [/INST] chew gum at the same time. This is one of the biggest critiques people </s><s>[INST] often say of space research and [/INST] even space flight in general is it's too expensive, shouldn't we solve </s><s>[INST] poverty, shouldn't [/INST] we cure diseases. And the answer is always </s><s>[INST] as it always has been, is [/INST] that you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You </s><s>[INST] can, you know passed the civil rights [/INST] act and go to the moon in the same </s><s>[INST] decade. You can improve. [/INST] Um, and and you get rid of structural </s><s>[INST] inequality while getting to the [/INST] moon and mars in this decade. So I think I think we can do both. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, they kind of help [/INST] each other. There's </s><s>[INST] sometimes criticism of [/INST] like ridiculous science like studying penguins </s><s>[INST] or something or studying the [/INST] patterns of birds or fish and so on. Some congressmen </s><s>[INST] stands up and says this is a waste of taxpayer [/INST] dollars and then, but someone for example CRISPR was pure </s><s>[INST] research for 20 [/INST] five years </s><s>[INST] now it's a household word and and students are editing genomes in [/INST] high school but it was just pure </s><s>[INST] research on weird bacteria living [/INST] actually in salt </s><s>[INST] hyper saline lakes [/INST] and rivers </s><s>[INST] for decades and, and then [/INST] eventually became a massive </s><s>[INST] therapeutic which is like the [/INST] curing of diseases in this past year. And there's stuff that you </s><s>[INST] discover as part of the [/INST] research that you didn't </s><s>[INST] anticipate that have [/INST] nothing to do with </s><s>[INST] the actual research [/INST] like oceanography </s><s>[INST] uh, [/INST] is </s><s>[INST] one of the interesting things about that [/INST] whole field is that it's a huge amount </s><s>[INST] of data in neuroscience to actually. So [/INST] you could discover computer science, </s><s>[INST] things [/INST] like machine learning </s><s>[INST] things or even data [/INST] storage manipulation, </s><s>[INST] distributed, [/INST] compute things </s><s>[INST] by having to forcing yourself [/INST] to get something done about on the </s><s>[INST] oceanography side. That's [/INST] how you invent the </s><s>[INST] internet and [/INST] and and all those kinds of things. So </s><s>[INST] to me, [/INST] aliens looking for </s><s>[INST] aliens out there [/INST] in the universe </s><s>[INST] is a [/INST] motivator that </s><s>[INST] just inspires, inspires [/INST] everybody, young people, old people, </s><s>[INST] scientists, artists, [/INST] um, engineers, entrepreneurs, everybody. </s><s>[INST] That somehow [/INST] the </s><s>[INST] that line between [/INST] fear and beauty </s><s>[INST] because [/INST] we're aliens are like </s><s>[INST] perfectly [/INST] merged basically because it's, we don't know. I mean for </s><s>[INST] you, let's start [/INST] talking about primitive alien life. Are you excited by it </s><s>[INST] or are you terrified? [/INST] I want to make a lotion out of it. I think it'd </s><s>[INST] be great if it's alien life assuming it's safe. But I'm very excited. [/INST] It doesn't have to be. You just said a half sentence presuming </s><s>[INST] it's safe. That's the fundamental [/INST] question. </s><s>[INST] So if you could [/INST] just presuming it's safe. So, </s><s>[INST] I think, you know, [/INST] we we have this, uh, this </s><s>[INST] beginning of [/INST] some planetary protection is </s><s>[INST] happening now is we're going to send [/INST] we're bringing rocks back from </s><s>[INST] Mars in 2033 of logos according to [/INST] plan. But </s><s>[INST] there's always a danger. [/INST] What if you bring this back and what if it's alive, what if it </s><s>[INST] will kill all of [/INST] humanity? Or Michael Crichton wrote a book, the Andromeda strain about this very </s><s>[INST] idea [/INST] and we </s><s>[INST] could, but it [/INST] hopefully won't. And the </s><s>[INST] only way you can, [/INST] you know, really engage that is the same way we do with any infectious agent here on earth. Right? If it's </s><s>[INST] a new pathogen a new [/INST] organism you do </s><s>[INST] it slowly carefully you often do it [/INST] with levels of containment. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] you know and it's gonna </s><s>[INST] be probably have to be where [/INST] some pioneers go and would be for example on mars there might be other organisms there that only get activated once </s><s>[INST] there's an ambient temperature [/INST] and more humidity. Then suddenly </s><s>[INST] the first settlers [/INST] on mars are encountering a strange new fungus or </s><s>[INST] something that's not [/INST] even like a fungus because it might be a different clade of life </s><s>[INST] different branch of life [/INST] and could be very dangerous or it could be very </s><s>[INST] inert. I mean most of life on earth [/INST] on earth is </s><s>[INST] not really [/INST] dangerous or </s><s>[INST] harmful. Let me go back down this [/INST] most of life on earth is neither </s><s>[INST] harmful nor beneficial [/INST] to you. It's just they're </s><s>[INST] making its own way in the [/INST] universe. Just trying to </s><s>[INST] survive. It's when you know it's inside of you and replicating [/INST] yourselves and destroying yourselves. Like a </s><s>[INST] virus like like like covid ducks, R. C. V. Two [/INST] that it becomes a big </s><s>[INST] problem of course but it's you know just [/INST] doesn't really have agency. </s><s>[INST] It's just trying to get by. [/INST] And so for example </s><s>[INST] most of bacteria on the [/INST] table </s><s>[INST] on your skin in the subway are pretty inert. They're just you know people hanging around for the ride and actually just because we're talking so much trash about viruses [/INST] most viruses </s><s>[INST] are don't bother humans [/INST] and their ages. Almost </s><s>[INST] all the vast majority of viruses or [/INST] phages. There's this this battle </s><s>[INST] in the biology that is really dorky is [/INST] that bacteria think that they're the most people people study </s><s>[INST] bacteria think the bacteria the most [/INST] important because there's </s><s>[INST] trillions and trillions of them, [/INST] they run a lot of our own biology </s><s>[INST] In our body that but then people who study pages they say well there's 10 times more pages in the [/INST] bacteria which can </s><s>[INST] attack the bacteria and destroy them [/INST] as well. So </s><s>[INST] people think that they around the [/INST] world </s><s>[INST] but we need them both. What do you think about [/INST] viruses? Alright. So </s><s>[INST] because you you said alien organisms wouldn't we encounter something like bacteria, something like viruses [/INST] as the first alien </s><s>[INST] life form. Are they first [/INST] of all are viruses </s><s>[INST] alive or not? [/INST] So by the book </s><s>[INST] definition, if you pick [/INST] up a biology textbook they'd </s><s>[INST] say technically no because they don't have the [/INST] ability to self </s><s>[INST] replicate independently. [/INST] But I would </s><s>[INST] think if you [/INST] restructure how you view what life is in terms of autonomously aggregating </s><s>[INST] and replicating of [/INST] information? Uh For example </s><s>[INST] ai at some point what if there's an ai [/INST] platform that we could consider </s><s>[INST] alive? Like at what point [/INST] would you allow it to </s><s>[INST] say it's alive And I think we have [/INST] the same definitional challenge </s><s>[INST] there is that if it can continually [/INST] propagate instructions for its own existence </s><s>[INST] then it is a [/INST] version of </s><s>[INST] living I think you know viruses don't get that category [/INST] because they can't do it on </s><s>[INST] their own. But they are a version [/INST] of life I'd say. But </s><s>[INST] probably not alive. Well they are expressing themselves [/INST] and doing </s><s>[INST] so on occasion quite powerfully in [/INST] human civilization. So um like you said, </s><s>[INST] at which point our ai systems allowed [/INST] to say </s><s>[INST] we're life, we we are allowed. Humans must allow them. [/INST] And the viruses didn't ask </s><s>[INST] for permission to express themselves to humans. They just kinda they just kinda did. [/INST] We didn't have to </s><s>[INST] allow them. Are [/INST] they overall though </s><s>[INST] exciting or terrifying to you as somebody who has [/INST] studied viruses. </s><s>[INST] Whenever given two options, there's always two more. You can do both or neither. So here I'll say they're both terrifying and exciting. I think to me more [/INST] exciting than terrifying. I think if I had </s><s>[INST] to make that sandwich and how many layers [/INST] are you know, meet versus cheese. There's a lot more cheese of excitement </s><s>[INST] and me meat [/INST] in the sandwich. I love both. So it's a hell of a delicious sandwich. </s><s>[INST] You quote [/INST] President Dwight </s><s>[INST] D Eisenhower in your book, quote, [/INST] Plans are useless </s><s>[INST] but planning [/INST] is essential </s><s>[INST] and you provide a thought experiment [/INST] called entropy goggles. </s><s>[INST] Can [/INST] you describe </s><s>[INST] this thought experiment happily? [/INST] I do this almost every day </s><s>[INST] somewhere when I'm sitting in a given room, I will [/INST] uh well could </s><s>[INST] comment about that quote [/INST] actually for all the Nasa, planning meetings for the twin study </s><s>[INST] and other missions. That was [/INST] often the quote that was put up </s><s>[INST] on the wall before we sit down for the day to plan the mission. It [/INST] was that quote which I was planning </s><s>[INST] center which I thought was hilarious [/INST] for official </s><s>[INST] Nasa meeting but it was because you need to have a plan but you have to know that plan might change. And so I think [/INST] that's just a quick context for that quarter </s><s>[INST] back craig Kendra who's [/INST] a leader </s><s>[INST] at Nasa headquarters. Now, [/INST] I would always put that </s><s>[INST] first slide up and I'm like, hmm this meeting either gonna go really well or really bad. I don't [/INST] know what's about to happen but </s><s>[INST] but it's an inspiring quote [/INST] because it's very true </s><s>[INST] in any case the [/INST] entropy goggles as a </s><s>[INST] thought experiment. I detail in my book which is [/INST] if you just sit in a </s><s>[INST] room, any room wherever you are and and imagine [/INST] what it will look like </s><s>[INST] In 10 years, 100 years, 500 years or even thousands of years. It is a wonderfully terrifying and exciting exercise. Again, it's definitely [/INST] both because he </s><s>[INST] realized the transience of everything that what you think of what might survive. Almost everything that you're looking at [/INST] will probably not be there in </s><s>[INST] hundreds of years. It will be very least degraded or might be changed, [/INST] altered completely different </s><s>[INST] moved. It is just and it's [/INST] that trait though, </s><s>[INST] of humans, they just sit there and project into the [/INST] future is </s><s>[INST] easily, you know, really seamlessly with whatever you're doing and previously is powerful because it shows that you know, what can change and what should change in some cases, but also that you know left [/INST] to you know, its own devices, </s><s>[INST] the universe would an entropy would come take over and really things would decay, [/INST] things would be destroyed. </s><s>[INST] But the only thing really preventing, I think some of the entropy [/INST] is is really </s><s>[INST] humans, these sort of sentient [/INST] creatures that are aware of extinction </s><s>[INST] like ourselves. It's really one of the only forces [/INST] in the universe that </s><s>[INST] is counteracting. The second law of thermodynamics says entropy is always increasing [/INST] technically. We're actually </s><s>[INST] still increasing it because we admit heat and we never have perfect [/INST] capture, evolve </s><s>[INST] energy, but we're the only things really actively and [/INST] consciously uh </s><s>[INST] you know, resisting it [/INST] really, you could say life </s><s>[INST] in general does this like ants [/INST] do this when they build their big homes, they're rearranging the universe </s><s>[INST] to make a nice place for themselves [/INST] and their, you know, </s><s>[INST] counteracting entropy. [/INST] But we could actually do it </s><s>[INST] in a way that would be at a large scale and for long [/INST] term. </s><s>[INST] So, but the entry [/INST] goggles is just a way to realize </s><s>[INST] how transient everything is [/INST] and just imagine </s><s>[INST] everything that will decay or change in the room around [/INST] you. So </s><s>[INST] anyone listening if they're listening on a train or they're driving in their [/INST] car wherever someone is </s><s>[INST] listening right now looking around everything can and will change and so you know that the but then at first [/INST] it's terrifying to see that </s><s>[INST] oh my gosh, everything will decay and go away. But then [/INST] I think it's actually </s><s>[INST] liberating. I think, wait, I can affect this change, I can prevent it [/INST] or I can affect it or I can improve </s><s>[INST] the change that may [/INST] occur all </s><s>[INST] all by itself, say naturally. [/INST] Um and so I </s><s>[INST] think it is, but is that awareness again of like [/INST] another frailty of life, </s><s>[INST] the ever [/INST] insistence in </s><s>[INST] increasing entropy that you can address them and actually say the same thing to first [/INST] year medical students. I teach them genetics. I </s><s>[INST] say I point [/INST] early in the course I say, here's all these </s><s>[INST] charts of how the human body decays over over time. It just and I call it [/INST] the inexorable </s><s>[INST] March towards [/INST] Molecular oblivion, which the </s><s>[INST] students often find that kind [/INST] of laugh at all because on all the </s><s>[INST] Charts there 22 years old, but older people do not laugh as much of the thought of molecular oblivion, but [/INST] we're all marching </s><s>[INST] towards it to a large degree. So [/INST] this is both </s><s>[INST] a great thought experiment for the environment around you. [/INST] So just looking at all the </s><s>[INST] objects around you that they will disappear, they will disappear with time. [/INST] But then it's also </s><s>[INST] the thing you [/INST] mentioned, which is how can </s><s>[INST] I affect any [/INST] of the world, </s><s>[INST] like you're [/INST] one little creature </s><s>[INST] and [/INST] it's like your life is kind of, </s><s>[INST] you get dropped into [/INST] this ocean and you </s><s>[INST] make a little splash [/INST] and how do </s><s>[INST] I make it to the splash last for [/INST] a little </s><s>[INST] bit longer [/INST] because it's ultimately, well, I suppose the wave will </s><s>[INST] continue indefinitely, but it would be [/INST] such a small </s><s>[INST] impact, it's almost undetectable. [/INST] And so how do I </s><s>[INST] have that impact at all? [/INST] They on so many levels? I get to </s><s>[INST] experience this [/INST] as a human. </s><s>[INST] Like [/INST] I recently </s><s>[INST] had had my [/INST] cold storage </s><s>[INST] hacked [/INST] to where </s><s>[INST] it was locked, essentially, it wasn't hacked [/INST] was locked. And so you get to lose </s><s>[INST] all your data. So for [/INST] example, if you lose all your data, if you lose all your </s><s>[INST] online presence, [/INST] your social </s><s>[INST] media, your [/INST] emails, </s><s>[INST] if you like, think of [/INST] all the things you could lose in a fire, there's been </s><s>[INST] a lot of fires in the United States [/INST] if you lose your home </s><s>[INST] and it makes you realize, wait a minute, This [/INST] is exactly a nice </s><s>[INST] simulation. [/INST] What will happen </s><s>[INST] anyway [/INST] eventually. Uh, and that eventually comes pretty quickly and so you, </s><s>[INST] it allows you to focus [/INST] on, you know, how can actually </s><s>[INST] affect so [/INST] what matters </s><s>[INST] what lasts [/INST] and what </s><s>[INST] brings me joy, I suppose [/INST] that the ultimate </s><s>[INST] answer is nothing [/INST] lasts. So you have to </s><s>[INST] focus on the things [/INST] in the moment </s><s>[INST] that bring you [/INST] joy and then have a </s><s>[INST] positive impact on [/INST] those around you </s><s>[INST] that focusing on [/INST] something that's long lasting </s><s>[INST] is perhaps, I don't [/INST] know, it's it's it's </s><s>[INST] complicated, right? Because [/INST] like, </s><s>[INST] well it used to be [/INST] foolhardy to say, I want to think legacy is often what people </s><s>[INST] think of as they approach the end of their life. What is my legacy? What have [/INST] I done even </s><s>[INST] younger in life? But it used to be really foolhardy [/INST] to say I could affect </s><s>[INST] something that would let people [/INST] build the building architecture. </s><s>[INST] I put my [/INST] name on this building </s><s>[INST] and there I have some sense of immortality. [/INST] But that's </s><s>[INST] a it's a fleeting [/INST] dream. It's not </s><s>[INST] you can't we're [/INST] reaching </s><s>[INST] mortality and if you could, [/INST] it would be resource, </s><s>[INST] you know, a [/INST] taxing on everyone else if </s><s>[INST] you really if you really [/INST] were. But I think it's it's </s><s>[INST] Okay. I mean the books for the next 500 but I presume [/INST] will be dead for the vast </s><s>[INST] majority of that time. [/INST] And I </s><s>[INST] but that is that is actually the liberating state of [/INST] mortality is you </s><s>[INST] know, that you don't have forever. So it means [/INST] what can you do that is the most impactful, but </s><s>[INST] you can build things that you said, I want to [/INST] pass this on to </s><s>[INST] the next generation. Again, the [/INST] most obvious thing we do with this is </s><s>[INST] just people have kids, but they [/INST] Don't think of this as a as an intergenerational responsibility, I think of as well. I was at the bar one </s><s>[INST] night and that this hot girl [/INST] and then things happen sometimes </s><s>[INST] it's more planned than that. But [/INST] the the there's no </s><s>[INST] overarching sense of weight. I could have something that three or four generations [/INST] from now that </s><s>[INST] someone will receive this gift that was planned for them long before they were born or [/INST] gestating. </s><s>[INST] And I think we have [/INST] that capacity </s><s>[INST] and that that that can be a version [/INST] of legacy, but </s><s>[INST] it's even okay [/INST] if if no one knows </s><s>[INST] exactly who started it. But that the benefit [/INST] was was wrought </s><s>[INST] by people, you know begin hundreds or even thousands of years after you [/INST] start got it started. So I think this </s><s>[INST] is [/INST] something that is </s><s>[INST] um [/INST] only </s><s>[INST] really people that are [/INST] economically secure can even begin </s><s>[INST] to do this where you can say, you know, think of Maslow's [/INST] hierarchy of needs, where you </s><s>[INST] need to satisfy your physical [/INST] needs, all your structural needs and </s><s>[INST] have shelter. And [/INST] so, you know, I'm sitting from a position </s><s>[INST] of great privilege to be able to [/INST] pontificate about what I </s><s>[INST] hope I could do for things [/INST] For people that come 200 years from now. But nonetheless more and more people </s><s>[INST] can do that [/INST] humanity has never been in a better state, </s><s>[INST] quantifiable to be able to start to think about these intergenerational responsibilities. [/INST] Yeah, that's an interesting </s><s>[INST] balance because like it [/INST] seems that </s><s>[INST] if you let the ego [/INST] flare up a little bit, </s><s>[INST] that's good for [/INST] productivity, like saying </s><s>[INST] I can somehow achieve [/INST] immortality of what I do is going to be pretty </s><s>[INST] good. But then [/INST] that's </s><s>[INST] actually being kind [/INST] of dishonest </s><s>[INST] with yourself because it [/INST] won't in the long arc of </s><s>[INST] history won't matter [/INST] right </s><s>[INST] in terms of your own [/INST] ego, but it </s><s>[INST] will have a [/INST] small piece to play </s><s>[INST] in a larger puzzle [/INST] and help people many generations from now. </s><s>[INST] And that they [/INST] said there are all these people who were looking after me before I was ever </s><s>[INST] born. I think it's because it's a [/INST] bit of just even </s><s>[INST] just know what if when [/INST] you go to a campsite, there's a </s><s>[INST] camping rule that you always leave the campsite [/INST] better than you found it. So </s><s>[INST] if [/INST] the fire pit was somewhat damaged and you </s><s>[INST] got there, you fix it. If there was [/INST] no, would you leave a few bits of logs for </s><s>[INST] the next person who comes [/INST] and this ethos is something that uh, </s><s>[INST] we just picked up from camping [/INST] and so I think if we did that as </s><s>[INST] people, the [/INST] world would be a better place and then the </s><s>[INST] world coming ahead would also be that said [/INST] with these entropy </s><s>[INST] glasses, how can [/INST] you see </s><s>[INST] Through the Fog? five [/INST] 100 years is a </s><s>[INST] Long time. First of all. Why 500 years? Most [/INST] people this is so </s><s>[INST] refreshing because most [/INST] colleagues </s><s>[INST] and friends, I talked to our don't have the [/INST] guts to </s><s>[INST] Think even like 10 years out. [/INST] They started doing wishy </s><s>[INST] washy kind of statements about, well you don't [/INST] know, but it's so </s><s>[INST] refreshing to say, all [/INST] right, I know there's </s><s>[INST] so many trajectories [/INST] that this world </s><s>[INST] can take, but I'm going to pick a few [/INST] and and </s><s>[INST] think through them. I think [/INST] what it's the, </s><s>[INST] well it's the quote [/INST] right plans are useless </s><s>[INST] but planning is essential. So [/INST] What why 500 years. So 500 </s><s>[INST] was a little bit of what I [/INST] felt like I could see clearly through </s><s>[INST] the entropy goggles. I [/INST] feel like I can't, I can't just a </s><s>[INST] contradiction in terms [/INST] can </s><s>[INST] see, I [/INST] mean for example, you said chris what's going to happen in a million years? Well, </s><s>[INST] I'll start to describe, you know what happens [/INST] to the, you know, the moon will be farther away because it moves several inches away every </s><s>[INST] year. And so then eventually you can't [/INST] have a full lunar </s><s>[INST] eclipse. After a while I think [/INST] about structures of continental </s><s>[INST] change and things will move. I could talk to describe something, but it starts [/INST] to become so vague. </s><s>[INST] It's just not a [/INST] useful exercise. I think it's too </s><s>[INST] far out if it's too [/INST] soon. That's not that much different </s><s>[INST] from what people just do [/INST] with the news and say, I think this is what the economy might look like over the next year or two years, </s><s>[INST] economists are notoriously [/INST] not held accountable when they have really bad </s><s>[INST] predictions. You can make really [/INST] awful predictions and no one seems to care. You can just make another one next week. So too short </s><s>[INST] is I think [/INST] not necessarily </s><s>[INST] is helpful, but 500. I actually when I was first [/INST] working </s><s>[INST] on the book and thinking about the time, I thought, [/INST] well what do I do a </s><s>[INST] 1000 or two that I kept thinking about. The main idea [/INST] was if I were to pick </s><s>[INST] This up 500 years from now, what would it [/INST] look like? And I changed the number </s><s>[INST] if I pick up 1000 years from now [/INST] or 100? </s><s>[INST] And I kept [/INST] trying to think of </s><s>[INST] what are some [/INST] timeframes were really large scale changes have happened. And so </s><s>[INST] in some sense, you could [/INST] argue that humans been mostly </s><s>[INST] The same for about three or 4 [/INST] 1000 years and the best examples that you looked at some of the </s><s>[INST] homer's poems [/INST] or the greek </s><s>[INST] tragedies uh [/INST] and edit this, for </s><s>[INST] example, the [/INST] humans are really almost </s><s>[INST] identical. We're [/INST] still petty and people, </s><s>[INST] you know, have affairs [/INST] and people do things they shouldn't. And </s><s>[INST] people, it's [/INST] a, it's a saying that all those things, like, it's bad, </s><s>[INST] it's just me, you know, like you read [/INST] that, that's, it's astounding </s><s>[INST] and in some sense, soothing [/INST] That the Greek tragedies of 2300 years ago are </s><s>[INST] very relatable to [/INST] what happens in, like, in </s><s>[INST] every high school. Right? [/INST] So like, you know, people, that's why you read them in high school, like, oh, that's really a clear part of the human condition. So in </s><s>[INST] that sense, some things that are [/INST] really permanent, but </s><s>[INST] I want to think [/INST] of A few reasons I chose 500, </s><s>[INST] is that it's a timeframe [/INST] where I could foresee </s><s>[INST] clear [/INST] development of some </s><s>[INST] biotechnology that will get us to a new place [/INST] including missions to MArs </s><s>[INST] that are planned, that will be there and that we sort of have [/INST] settlements there on the </s><s>[INST] moon and Mars [/INST] and I could see also that by that </s><s>[INST] time I [/INST] think we would have enough </s><s>[INST] knowledge of biology and technology [/INST] and space medicine </s><s>[INST] to start to prepare for [/INST] an Interstellar </s><s>[INST] mission to actually send people on a craft [/INST] that would have what's </s><s>[INST] called a generation ship. [/INST] People live and die on the same </s><s>[INST] spacecraft on their way towards [/INST] a destination. But I think we need that much time to actually </s><s>[INST] perfect the technology and to learn enough [/INST] about physiology to be able to make it </s><s>[INST] for that distance. The [/INST] book is kind of focused on the human story, a specific </s><s>[INST] slice of the possible [/INST] futures. </s><s>[INST] There could be [/INST] sort of a i systems that could be other </s><s>[INST] technologies that kind of [/INST] build up the world, so much of the world </s><s>[INST] might be lived in virtual [/INST] reality. So you're not touching </s><s>[INST] any of that, You're sticking to [/INST] biology or not? </s><s>[INST] You're you're touching a [/INST] little bit, but for more </s><s>[INST] focused on what [/INST] the cells that </s><s>[INST] make up the human body, [/INST] how do they change? </s><s>[INST] How do we design [/INST] technologies to repair them? </s><s>[INST] And how do [/INST] we protect them? </s><s>[INST] And [/INST] as they travel </s><s>[INST] out into the cosmos? [/INST] Absolutely. </s><s>[INST] And it's something that is part [/INST] of the duty if your duty is to keep life </s><s>[INST] safe and you have to [/INST] consider all means to do </s><s>[INST] so and [/INST] and engineering life to save itself is definitely on that list. </s><s>[INST] And you know, I think we can imagine in that [/INST] Time frame 500 </s><s>[INST] years that we would you know there there there will be a [/INST] i that is continually advancing </s><s>[INST] and I actually say that [/INST] I'm matter </s><s>[INST] agnostic towards [/INST] cognition. So if your matter is carbon atoms and cells and tissues </s><s>[INST] and you have cognition bravo good for you if you're [/INST] if you're silicon based </s><s>[INST] and you're in chips and you're an ai that's [/INST] all virtual. </s><s>[INST] But we reached a state [/INST] of you know, well beyond </s><s>[INST] the touring test and really [/INST] clearly intelligent, congratulations to you too. So I feel like this sense of </s><s>[INST] duty is is [/INST] applicable regardless of what the </s><s>[INST] state of matter your cognition [/INST] is based in. So I would </s><s>[INST] imagine that [/INST] ai platforms </s><s>[INST] that are really [/INST] intelligent might also get a sense </s><s>[INST] of the studio or I hope [/INST] that what I wrote the book for them to that can carry that flame of whatever makes humans special. So, </s><s>[INST] but why nevertheless there's so [/INST] much of your </s><s>[INST] focus [/INST] on this human meat </s><s>[INST] vehicle. Do you think [/INST] is it is it is essential, it doesn't </s><s>[INST] have to be meat. No, it definitely does not. [/INST] It could be, I'm hoping </s><s>[INST] that the Ai platforms [/INST] that we've built or that </s><s>[INST] would become that [/INST] would start to build themselves would also carry the sense of duty because at that </s><s>[INST] point they would be life [/INST] and so whichever </s><s>[INST] means that [/INST] life whatever form life </s><s>[INST] takes it [/INST] should have this duty I </s><s>[INST] think. [/INST] Will it have </s><s>[INST] the lessons of genetics, [/INST] genomics, </s><s>[INST] DNA [/INST] and RNA and </s><s>[INST] proteins [/INST] and the squishy </s><s>[INST] stuff that makes [/INST] us human. Are those </s><s>[INST] lessons a temporary [/INST] thing that will discard </s><s>[INST] or it will die, lessons [/INST] will be carried forward. </s><s>[INST] I mean like if the [/INST] machine's completely </s><s>[INST] take over let's say and it's all not [/INST] necessarily completely take over but </s><s>[INST] either completely take [/INST] over or merge with </s><s>[INST] humans in some interesting way [/INST] where we as opposed to </s><s>[INST] figuring out how to repair cells and [/INST] protect cells. </s><s>[INST] We start having [/INST] some cyborg </s><s>[INST] cells. We could I think [/INST] we will there'll definitely be a blending and blending. It already </s><s>[INST] happened. This prosthetic limbs, there's cybernetic [/INST] limbs, </s><s>[INST] there's, you know, [/INST] neuralink, you </s><s>[INST] know, progress being [/INST] made to blend </s><s>[INST] biology and cybernetics [/INST] and machines for sure. </s><s>[INST] But I think [/INST] the in the long term, </s><s>[INST] you know, we'll see that they [/INST] are are </s><s>[INST] fairly [/INST] Biology be useful because it's it's a </s><s>[INST] it's a it's a [/INST] manufacturing system. All of life is a way to </s><s>[INST] create copies of [/INST] things or to replicate </s><s>[INST] information including storage [/INST] of information. Actually </s><s>[INST] hard drives are probably one of the worst [/INST] ways for long term </s><s>[INST] storage. DNA might end up being the best way to have, [/INST] you know millennia </s><s>[INST] or [/INST] even longest scale </s><s>[INST] storage where you want something that has [/INST] redundancy that's built </s><s>[INST] in and it can store and can be [/INST] put it really cold temperatures and survive you in </s><s>[INST] cosmic rays? So I think it [/INST] DNA might be the </s><s>[INST] best hard drive of the future potentially. [/INST] This is really interesting. Okay what is D. N. A. </s><s>[INST] What is R. N. A. [/INST] And what are genes? </s><s>[INST] Yes we should [/INST] because most I presume the audience knows it. But </s><s>[INST] something might just be the first time listeners [/INST] coming. There's a person right </s><s>[INST] now [/INST] in brazil smoking a joint sitting on the </s><s>[INST] beach and [/INST] just wants to learn about D. N. A. So please, can </s><s>[INST] you explain [/INST] it to DNA? </s><s>[INST] The [/INST] deoxyribonucleic acid is the </s><s>[INST] recipe for [/INST] life. It is what carries the </s><s>[INST] instructions [/INST] in almost all of </s><s>[INST] yourselves. You have a [/INST] copy of your genome. It's </s><s>[INST] actually the reason I became a [/INST] geneticist is because the </s><s>[INST] day I learned. So as an embryo [/INST] we started just a single cell. </s><s>[INST] But all the instructions there to make every [/INST] single type of cell in your </s><s>[INST] body. I [/INST] was and still </s><s>[INST] am [/INST] endlessly fascinated by </s><s>[INST] that. That is extraordinary. [/INST] That is </s><s>[INST] to me the most beautiful thing in the entire [/INST] universe. That is </s><s>[INST] completely from [/INST] one single embryo. Everything is there to make the </s><s>[INST] entire body which [/INST] aspect of that is the most beautiful. So is it </s><s>[INST] that there [/INST] is this information within DNA that's stored efficiently. </s><s>[INST] And it also [/INST] stores information on how to build, </s><s>[INST] not just what to build [/INST] and so from all of </s><s>[INST] that is [/INST] what's what's the </s><s>[INST] sexiest, What's the most beautiful [/INST] aspect? Is it </s><s>[INST] the entire machinery [/INST] or is it just the information is there? </s><s>[INST] It's the fact that the [/INST] machinery is the information like </s><s>[INST] that. They basically [/INST] it becomes its own manufacturer. </s><s>[INST] Is [/INST] is what is extraordinary. Imagine </s><s>[INST] if you if you took [/INST] A 12 x four and you threw it on the ground and you said I'll be back in a day and then the whole house was made when you came </s><s>[INST] back. I mean, we [/INST] would all lose our minds. A </s><s>[INST] lot of people would poop their pants. [/INST] People have to wear adult diapers. It would be a big </s><s>[INST] scene if that [/INST] happened. Um </s><s>[INST] and then we're not, we're actually getting [/INST] close to people having autonomous house building. It's not quite there yet. </s><s>[INST] But there are people trying to [/INST] make robots </s><s>[INST] that will build entire [/INST] houses. But you need much more than the </s><s>[INST] block of wood. [/INST] Right. Right. That's that's the extraordinary </s><s>[INST] Thing. Is that just for 11 piece of wood there [/INST] and say I'll just leave it </s><s>[INST] there for a few days and I'll come back. That's basically what embryos do. Okay, It [/INST] Takes nine months a little bit </s><s>[INST] longer. But still, that is nothing short [/INST] of </s><s>[INST] magic. Right? So I think that's what [/INST] I I love about, you know, the fact </s><s>[INST] that DNA carries that information. Now the [/INST] information is static. So </s><s>[INST] to actually read that information and to [/INST] actually put into motion </s><s>[INST] is where RNA comes in. So this [/INST] ribonucleic </s><s>[INST] acid. So it just has [/INST] one other oxygen </s><s>[INST] added to it [/INST] versus DNA. But it's the transcribed </s><s>[INST] version it's like if you look at [/INST] a book and you say you </s><s>[INST] have in your hands but then you start to read it aloud it becomes the active form [/INST] of the recipe </s><s>[INST] for life is the RNA. And the [/INST] RNA is also then </s><s>[INST] get translated [/INST] to become proteins that </s><s>[INST] become active forms [/INST] like enzymes you think of like your </s><s>[INST] hair or think of [/INST] other ways you digest </s><s>[INST] food. There's always active [/INST] proteins going </s><s>[INST] around that are copying your DNA. Making [/INST] R. N. A. Making </s><s>[INST] sure your DNA is safe. [/INST] That's all these built in systems </s><s>[INST] to keep your [/INST] cells in check </s><s>[INST] and working. And these are often in protein [/INST] form. </s><s>[INST] And so jeans are the really these constructs [/INST] basically. What are the instruction sets? Like how many </s><s>[INST] versions of instructions do you have in [/INST] your genome? So the genome is the collection of all the </s><s>[INST] DNA of a person for humans. [/INST] About three billion </s><s>[INST] letters of genetic [/INST] Code. So just three billion </s><s>[INST] A. C. S. G. S. And T. [/INST] S. These nucleotides </s><s>[INST] that are the recipe for life. And that's it. That [/INST] is the entire instruction set to go from </s><s>[INST] That one embryo up to a full [/INST] human which is pretty </s><s>[INST] efficient to say it's that's [/INST] actually not that that much information. And in </s><s>[INST] that three billion letters are snippets of the [/INST] genes which are independently </s><s>[INST] regulated autonomous [/INST] instruction sets If </s><s>[INST] you will these really active [/INST] forms of </s><s>[INST] of the the instructions from your DNA to say make a [/INST] protein, make this RNA </s><s>[INST] or turn on [/INST] off some other part of a cell. All those instructions </s><s>[INST] are there [/INST] in our DNA </s><s>[INST] And there's about 60,000 [/INST] of these genes </s><s>[INST] that are in our genome. So how [/INST] do those all lead up to you </s><s>[INST] having a personality, [/INST] good </s><s>[INST] memory and bad memory. Some of the [/INST] functional characteristics </s><s>[INST] that we at the human level [/INST] are able to interpret the </s><s>[INST] way your face [/INST] looks, the way you smile. Um </s><s>[INST] you're [/INST] good at </s><s>[INST] running or jumping, [/INST] whether you're good at math and all those kinds of </s><s>[INST] things. There's an age [/INST] old debate of nature versus nurture. So like most things, if given two options, you can of course have both. So almost </s><s>[INST] every trait that [/INST] we know of inhumanity has mixtures </s><s>[INST] of nurture and [/INST] nature. Some of them are </s><s>[INST] purely nurture. [/INST] So there's most people probably twin </s><s>[INST] studies, but twin studies are one of the best ways to gauge how [/INST] much is something nurture versus nature, how much </s><s>[INST] of it is really ingrained, [/INST] it has probably less </s><s>[INST] ability to change for [/INST] so much can you really train. So </s><s>[INST] height for example [/INST] is one of the most obvious </s><s>[INST] inheritable traits, [/INST] But it doesn't have one gene, it probably has at least 50 or 60 genes that contribute to height. So it's not like a gene </s><s>[INST] for height. Uh [/INST] some people think of like the gene for cystic </s><s>[INST] fibrosis. Now that's in that [/INST] case. That's true. There is one gene that if you have mutations you get cystic fibrosis is a disease. </s><s>[INST] But for other [/INST] other traits that are much </s><s>[INST] more complicated, they can [/INST] have dozens or even hundreds of genes that influence </s><s>[INST] your risk and what appears. [/INST] But from twin studies </s><s>[INST] you take mona's [/INST] psychotic twins, twins that are identical </s><s>[INST] and you can clearly tell [/INST] they looked at the same facial structure, </s><s>[INST] similar intonation, [/INST] similar even likes. </s><s>[INST] And you compare them [/INST] to dies I got </s><s>[INST] twins. Or when you have a [/INST] fraternal twins you can have a male and female for example in the same uterus and those are you know dies psychotic twins or two zygotes. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] In that case therefore they share 50% of their DNA. But </s><s>[INST] they shared the same womb [/INST] and that. And then we can </s><s>[INST] look at is that, you know, [/INST] what's the difference between identical twins versus </s><s>[INST] fraternal twins. [/INST] And and to calculate that difference for any </s><s>[INST] trait. And that gives you an estimate [/INST] of the heritability or what's called H. Squared. </s><s>[INST] So that's what we've been doing for [/INST] almost every trade </s><s>[INST] in humanity for the past [/INST] 100 years have been trying to measure this </s><s>[INST] and religion [/INST] Is one that's a negative control. </s><s>[INST] So if you separate people [/INST] and see what religion they </s><s>[INST] become. There's no [/INST] gene for religion or what religion you choose. So that often is </s><s>[INST] there a correlation. There is [/INST] zero because it should be. It's a </s><s>[INST] nurturer trait to what religion you end up taking [/INST] is not encoded in your </s><s>[INST] DNA religion, meaning [/INST] islam, </s><s>[INST] Judaism, Christianity, but there could be aspects of religions that [/INST] there is a good, good </s><s>[INST] question. There is [/INST] religiosity as a </s><s>[INST] trade has been studying twins and that has a [/INST] heritable component to some </s><s>[INST] degree. So, [/INST] and things like </s><s>[INST] boredom, susceptibility is a trade. One of my favorite papers just looked at, how [/INST] likely is it that people </s><s>[INST] get bored and they looked at identical [/INST] twins and fraternal twins. And </s><s>[INST] there's the heritability of about [/INST] 30%. So it's not, it's mostly </s><s>[INST] not inheritable, its [/INST] mostly environmental, but </s><s>[INST] that means to some degree [/INST] whether or not you're bored, you can say, well </s><s>[INST] it's a little bit of my [/INST] jeans, you could be a little </s><s>[INST] bit, not a lot, [/INST] but you know, most </s><s>[INST] have some degree [/INST] and they're probably </s><s>[INST] overlapping with other traits like your boredom. Susceptibility [/INST] versus risk </s><s>[INST] seeking behavior are [/INST] interrelated. So how likely </s><s>[INST] are you to [/INST] say, I want to go, you know, cliff jumping or I wanna go, I </s><s>[INST] wanna do freebasing [/INST] or I wanna do some </s><s>[INST] Alice, it's risky behavior. [/INST] So speaking of twin studies scott </s><s>[INST] kelly spent 300 [/INST] and 40 consecutive </s><s>[INST] days out in space. [/INST] You analyze this </s><s>[INST] molecular data, DNA RNA proteins, small [/INST] molecules. What did you </s><s>[INST] learn about the effects [/INST] of space on the </s><s>[INST] human body from scott We learned that spaces is rough [/INST] on the human body, </s><s>[INST] but that the human [/INST] body is </s><s>[INST] amazingly and monstrously [/INST] responsive to adapt to that. That challenges that can </s><s>[INST] rise to the occasion. So we can see there [/INST] scott had as almost </s><s>[INST] all astronauts do a bit of puffiness and spikes [/INST] in his bloodstream of these are called </s><s>[INST] cytokines. And these [/INST] inflammation markers of the body is </s><s>[INST] clearly saying to itself, holy [/INST] crap, I'm in space. </s><s>[INST] And leaders of fluid moved to the upper torso and they get puffy face, what's called the in the astronaut face. That is very [/INST] common, but it goes away after a few </s><s>[INST] days and [/INST] some astronauts maintain </s><s>[INST] high levels of stress for [/INST] their whole mission is measured by </s><s>[INST] cortisol or some of these other inflammation [/INST] markers, </s><s>[INST] whereas Scott actually had a [/INST] little spike. But then he was cool </s><s>[INST] as a cucumber for most of the mission, [/INST] but he had </s><s>[INST] spent at that time, that was [/INST] the longest ever mission </s><s>[INST] for a US astronaut. [/INST] A few cosmonauts have gone a little bit </s><s>[INST] longer, but there's never [/INST] been a deep molecular </s><s>[INST] analysis of what happens the body after about a year in space. So it was the first [/INST] study of this kind </s><s>[INST] and what we found is when he got back, you know, we saw the same markers [/INST] of stress </s><s>[INST] on the body and changes spiked up [/INST] to levels we've never seen for any other </s><s>[INST] astronaut before. So it seemed like going to space for a year. It wasn't so hard [/INST] as much as returning to </s><s>[INST] gravity after a year, it was much harder on the body. [/INST] He </s><s>[INST] notoriously had broke out in a rash all over his body [/INST] and really </s><s>[INST] even the weight of clothing on his skin was too heavy. It created [/INST] all this irritation because his body had not felt the weight of just a simple </s><s>[INST] T shirt. It was it wasn't really had zero weight of course. Right so in up in [/INST] space so </s><s>[INST] that led to all this inflammation, all these [/INST] changes. He had to you know, </s><s>[INST] it was much more comfortable just to walk around nude. In that case it was for medical [/INST] reasons. Some people do this, you know recreationally. </s><s>[INST] He was doing it for medical purposes. I do it for medical all the time. I mean people say prescription [/INST] doctor told me so he was </s><s>[INST] allergic to earth. [/INST] It's fascinating to </s><s>[INST] think about actually how quickly his [/INST] body adapt there. </s><s>[INST] So there was about [/INST] 3-4 days he </s><s>[INST] got back to normal [/INST] at least in terms of the inflammation. But </s><s>[INST] what's extraordinary is [/INST] that we </s><s>[INST] measured a lot of other [/INST] molecules </s><s>[INST] genes, structural changes [/INST] tissue looking his eyeballs look as vasculature. </s><s>[INST] It took [/INST] him even six </s><s>[INST] months after the mission, A lot of the genes that have become [/INST] activated in response to </s><s>[INST] spaceflight were still active. [/INST] So things like we could </s><s>[INST] see his body repairing D. [/INST] N. A. He was being irradiated by </s><s>[INST] a cosmic rays and by the [/INST] Radiation is the equivalent of giving like three or 4 chest x rays every </s><s>[INST] day just in space. And we could [/INST] see his body </s><s>[INST] working hard at the molecular level [/INST] to repair itself. </s><s>[INST] And even in his urine [/INST] we could see bits of what's called a toxic </s><s>[INST] iguanas in a form [/INST] of damage DNA that you could see coming out. </s><s>[INST] And we see it for other astronauts [/INST] as well. So it's very common. You can see </s><s>[INST] damage DNA. The [/INST] response of the body to repair </s><s>[INST] the D. N. A. But even though he'd been back on [/INST] Earth for six months, that was still </s><s>[INST] happening even [/INST] six months later. </s><s>[INST] How do how do you wait how do you explain that? So some of this [/INST] has to do with when </s><s>[INST] you have a gene get activated you might think oh it's like a light switch. [/INST] I look at my wall just flip a light on or off </s><s>[INST] and sometimes [/INST] turning a gene on or </s><s>[INST] off. Is that simple? Sometimes [/INST] you just flip it on because the gene </s><s>[INST] is already ready to [/INST] go. Other cases that you have to </s><s>[INST] reprogram even [/INST] the structure of how </s><s>[INST] your DNA is packaged. It's called an epigenetic [/INST] rearrangement. </s><s>[INST] In that case we [/INST] can see it is that a lot of these genes </s><s>[INST] have been in [/INST] his cells had changed the structure of how DNA </s><s>[INST] is packaged [/INST] and it remained open even months after the mission </s><s>[INST] now, after [/INST] About a year it was actually almost all back to normal 90 </s><s>[INST] 9% of all the genes were back to where they were [/INST] in preflight levels. So it means that </s><s>[INST] you eventually will adapt. But [/INST] there there's almost </s><s>[INST] a lag time. Kind of like jet lag for [/INST] the body. But jet lag </s><s>[INST] for yourselves to repair all the D. N. A. What was the most surprising [/INST] the thing </s><s>[INST] that you found in that [/INST] study? There are several surprises. One is just </s><s>[INST] that he [/INST] that the repair, as I just mentioned, the repair took so long. I </s><s>[INST] thought maybe a week or a few [/INST] days he'll be back to </s><s>[INST] normal. But to see this [/INST] molecular echo </s><s>[INST] in his cells of his time [/INST] and space still occurring was interesting. </s><s>[INST] This [/INST] telomeres was one was really surprising that the </s><s>[INST] caps on the ends of your [/INST] chromosomes which keep all </s><s>[INST] your DNA packaged [/INST] and you could have your chromosomes from your </s><s>[INST] mother and half from your father and then you [/INST] go on and make all your cells </s><s>[INST] normally. The shrink as you [/INST] get older and telomere length is just an overall sign of </s><s>[INST] aging getting shorter. His telomeres [/INST] got longer in </s><s>[INST] space and it was [/INST] really surprising because we thought the </s><s>[INST] opposite would happen. So he that [/INST] was genetically one surprised and </s><s>[INST] also some of the mutations we [/INST] found in his blood. He had less mutations. And as if his body was </s><s>[INST] almost being [/INST] like a low dose of radiation was sort of cleansing his </s><s>[INST] body and maybe the cells that were [/INST] about to die as one of our main </s><s>[INST] theories on what's happening And [/INST] of course you can't really </s><s>[INST] you have theories, but you can't because the [/INST] number of </s><s>[INST] subjects in the study is [/INST] small, but it's </s><s>[INST] The it's notoriously one [/INST] of the lowest powered studies in human history. Yes. But but but </s><s>[INST] but you know what you lack in subjects [/INST] you can make up for in the number of sampling </s><s>[INST] time. So we did [/INST] Basically 260 </s><s>[INST] samples collected over the [/INST] Course of three years. So </s><s>[INST] we really almost [/INST] every few weeks had a full work up including </s><s>[INST] in space. So that was the way we tried [/INST] to make up for it. But but we've tried another model organisms in mice. We've seen this we've looked </s><s>[INST] at in 59 other [/INST] astronauts and in every astronaut that we've looked at their telomeres </s><s>[INST] get longer in space. [/INST] Does that indicate </s><s>[INST] anything about lifespan, [/INST] all those kinds of things or? No. </s><s>[INST] You can't make any [/INST] of those kinds of jumps. I want to make that jump yet. But it does </s><s>[INST] indicate that there [/INST] is a version </s><s>[INST] of [/INST] cleansing if you will, that's happening in space. A mixture of we see this actually clinically at our hospital. You can do a low dose of radiation </s><s>[INST] with some [/INST] targeted therapies to </s><s>[INST] kind of activate your [/INST] immune cells. Is even even tried clinically. So this idea </s><s>[INST] of just a little bit of [/INST] stress on the body or what's called, </s><s>[INST] or missus. My [/INST] prime you into active of cleansing cleansing things </s><s>[INST] that were about to die. And that [/INST] includes stress </s><s>[INST] uh caused by space [/INST] apparently. </s><s>[INST] So how [/INST] do </s><s>[INST] we adapt the human [/INST] body to stress of this kind </s><s>[INST] for periods [/INST] of multiple years. </s><s>[INST] What [/INST] what lessons do you draw from that study and other </s><s>[INST] experiments in space [/INST] that </s><s>[INST] give you an indication [/INST] of how we can survive for multiple </s><s>[INST] years? [/INST] I think we know that the radiation is one of the biggest </s><s>[INST] risk factors. And this has [/INST] been well described by </s><s>[INST] Nasa and many other [/INST] astronauts and </s><s>[INST] and researchers. And so there we [/INST] don't have to just </s><s>[INST] measure the radiation [/INST] or </s><s>[INST] just look at DNA being damaged. [/INST] We can actually actively </s><s>[INST] repair it. This happens naturally [/INST] in all of ourselves. There's a little enzymes, little protein. </s><s>[INST] Um And [/INST] really many machines that go around and scan DNA </s><s>[INST] for nix and breaks and repair it. [/INST] We could improve </s><s>[INST] them we could add more [/INST] of them or you can </s><s>[INST] even activate them before [/INST] you go into space. So we </s><s>[INST] have a one set of cells in [/INST] my lab where you activate them before we </s><s>[INST] irradiate them to actually prepare [/INST] them for the dose of radiation. </s><s>[INST] Now that [/INST] is what's called </s><s>[INST] epigenetic [/INST] CRISPR therapies where you can actually instead of adding or </s><s>[INST] taking away a gene or [/INST] modifying a cell you just changed kind of how it's packaged </s><s>[INST] like I was just describing that the D. N. [/INST] A. The </s><s>[INST] genes are still there we're just [/INST] changing how they get used and so you </s><s>[INST] can actually preemptively activate the DNA repair genes. [/INST] And we've done this for cells. We haven't done this </s><s>[INST] yet for astronauts but we've done [/INST] it for </s><s>[INST] cells. [/INST] And a similar idea to this is </s><s>[INST] being used to treat [/INST] sickle cell disease and </s><s>[INST] beta thalassemia as you actually you can [/INST] reactivate a gene that was dormant as </s><s>[INST] well as a therapy. [/INST] So should we </s><s>[INST] make human genes [/INST] resilient to </s><s>[INST] harsh conditions or should we get good at [/INST] repairing them? </s><s>[INST] I want to I [/INST] want to get good at, </s><s>[INST] okay sorry to interrupt. I think every time I [/INST] ask this question you </s><s>[INST] have taught me that [/INST] there's always a third </s><s>[INST] option. Both I will say I [/INST] know uh you know </s><s>[INST] for for copy it's good [/INST] to just have one big statement. But but you want to do both. A good </s><s>[INST] or a third option. I [/INST] would want to you know do electromagnetic </s><s>[INST] shielding. I would want to do a [/INST] fourth option of </s><s>[INST] you know, maybe some other [/INST] kind of physical defenses outside of the human body. </s><s>[INST] We're taking the [/INST] same passion to keep </s><s>[INST] astronauts safe that's [/INST] outside them and just putting it in their cells </s><s>[INST] is what I propose. [/INST] And now it's a bit radical </s><s>[INST] today because [/INST] uh you know we're </s><s>[INST] just starting this in clinical [/INST] trials to treat you know </s><s>[INST] diseases on earth. So [/INST] it's not ready I think to do an astronaut. </s><s>[INST] But in the book I proposed by about [/INST] The year 2040. That's when we reach this next phase where I think we'll have known enough about the clinical </s><s>[INST] response will have the technology ironed out. That's about when it's time I [/INST] think to try it. So what are the some interesting early milestones? </s><s>[INST] She said [/INST] 20 </s><s>[INST] 40 What do we have to [/INST] look forward to in the </s><s>[INST] next 10, 20 [/INST] years? According to your book, </s><s>[INST] According your thoughts, [/INST] a lot of really exciting developments where </s><s>[INST] if you [/INST] really want to activate genes like I was </s><s>[INST] just describing or or [/INST] a repair </s><s>[INST] specific disease [/INST] gene, you can actually </s><s>[INST] crisper it out, modify it. This [/INST] has been already published and well documented. But as alluding </s><s>[INST] to [/INST] more and more, we'll see people that you would just </s><s>[INST] want to temporarily change [/INST] your genes functions and change their activity. So the best </s><s>[INST] example this is for beta thalassemia, we all have hemoglobin in our blood that carries oxygen [/INST] around. And when you're an adult </s><s>[INST] it's a different version, it's a different gene. You have one [/INST] gene when you're a fetus called </s><s>[INST] fetal fetal hemoglobin. [/INST] When you're adult, you have a </s><s>[INST] different gene. But they both [/INST] are making a protein that carries oxygen. When </s><s>[INST] you after you're born, the fetal [/INST] hemoglobin gene gets just turned </s><s>[INST] off just [/INST] goes away and </s><s>[INST] you replace it with adult hemoglobin. [/INST] But if you're a gene for hemoglobin, as </s><s>[INST] bad as an adult, that's one of the therapies. [/INST] Well, let's turn back </s><s>[INST] on the gene that [/INST] you had when you were a fetus </s><s>[INST] and it's actually already lead to cures for sickle cell and beta [/INST] thalassemia in this past </s><s>[INST] year. So [/INST] it's an extraordinary idea of like, </s><s>[INST] well, you already [/INST] have some of the </s><s>[INST] genetic solutions in your body. Why don't we just reactivate them and see if you can live and indeed you can. So I think we'll see more of that, [/INST] that's for severe disease. </s><s>[INST] But eventually you can see it for more. [/INST] Uh I think </s><s>[INST] work related purposes. Like if you're working in a in a dangerous mind [/INST] or radio high radiation environment, </s><s>[INST] you could you could basically start to prime it for, you know, work safety, basically, we need to [/INST] genetically protect you </s><s>[INST] Now. It would have to be shown that that [/INST] genetic option is safe, </s><s>[INST] reliable. [/INST] Um, you know, that it's </s><s>[INST] better that, but at least [/INST] as good if not better </s><s>[INST] than other shielding methods. [/INST] But I think we'll start to see that </s><s>[INST] More in the next 10, 20 years. And eventually, [/INST] as I describe in the book, you can get </s><s>[INST] to recreational genetics, you can say, well, I want to turn [/INST] some jeans on just for </s><s>[INST] this weekend because I'm [/INST] going to a high altitude. </s><s>[INST] So I'd like to prepare for that. [/INST] And so instead of having to take </s><s>[INST] weeks and weeks for acclamation, [/INST] you could just do some </s><s>[INST] quick epigenetic therapies and have a good time in the mountains and then come back and turn it back off. So this is stuff to do on earth across thousands of [/INST] humans and then </s><s>[INST] you start getting good data about what the effects on the human body are. How do we make humans survive across the entire lifetime for let's [/INST] say, several decades in </s><s>[INST] space. If [/INST] it's just in space, it will be hard because you'll you'll </s><s>[INST] need basically some gravity at [/INST] some point. I think you need </s><s>[INST] orbital platforms [/INST] that give you at least some partial </s><s>[INST] gravity if not one G [/INST] if you're on mars, it's </s><s>[INST] actually, [/INST] You know, even though the gravity is 30 </s><s>[INST] 8% of Earth's just having that gravity would be [/INST] enough. And if you could get </s><s>[INST] under the surface into [/INST] some of the lava tubes </s><s>[INST] where you have some [/INST] protection above you </s><s>[INST] from the radiation, I [/INST] think that would </s><s>[INST] be, you probably could survive [/INST] quite well there. So, I think it's just in space part that's hard. You need some </s><s>[INST] gravity. [/INST] You need some additional </s><s>[INST] protection from the [/INST] radiation. Can you linger on </s><s>[INST] the lava tubes [/INST] on mars? What are the lava </s><s>[INST] tubes on mars? Yes, [/INST] So they </s><s>[INST] are like, what they [/INST] sound like? They were large </s><s>[INST] Masses of Lava at one [/INST] on the planet, </s><s>[INST] pushing really [/INST] quickly through the </s><s>[INST] environment and they created these, [/INST] these basically </s><s>[INST] these small caverns [/INST] which you could go in theory and build a small </s><s>[INST] habitat and then puff it up, kind of like a blowing up a balloon and, and have a [/INST] protective habitat basically </s><s>[INST] is a little bit underground. So one of the [/INST] next helicopter missions being </s><s>[INST] planned at the jet propulsion lab is to see if you can get a helicopter to go into the lava tube and [/INST] which is just like as it </s><s>[INST] sounds kind of like take out a big worm [/INST] that has burrowed into </s><s>[INST] the landscape and leave [/INST] out the hollow column that's </s><s>[INST] left. And that's what your tubes [/INST] look like. So one of the future helicopters, </s><s>[INST] I might even go explore. [/INST] one of them is a mission being planned </s><s>[INST] right now. So [/INST] they're accessible without significant amount of drilling. Yeah, that's the other advantage </s><s>[INST] you can get to them because [/INST] some of them are exposed. You could do a little bit of drilling and then see essentially this entire cavern. Text you a little bit from the radiation </s><s>[INST] because you have some soil above [/INST] you, basically, Which would be </s><s>[INST] a regolith, which would be nice. [/INST] What about source of food? Uh what's a good? So that's </s><s>[INST] part of biology. How you [/INST] power this whole thing. What about source of food? </s><s>[INST] Across decades? [/INST] In space we have space plants </s><s>[INST] have been grown in flight [/INST] and you can get some nutrients, but right now it is </s><s>[INST] very reliant [/INST] on all the up mass being sent up </s><s>[INST] all the, you know, freeze [/INST] dried fruit. I think it's rehydrated, </s><s>[INST] which doesn't taste awful, but [/INST] is not uh it's not self reliant. Right? So, I think those would have to be small bioreactors that have </s><s>[INST] to be a lot of work [/INST] on fermentation. A lot of work on, you know, essentially pro to trophic </s><s>[INST] organisms. The organisms that can make all [/INST] of the 20 Amino acids that you would need to </s><s>[INST] eat. I [/INST] describe a little bit in the book. What if we did a pro to trophic </s><s>[INST] human where you could have like right now [/INST] we need to we need to get some of our amino acids because we can't make them all, which I think is kind of </s><s>[INST] sad. So [/INST] what if we could make all of our own amino </s><s>[INST] acids are all of our own [/INST] vitamins? And </s><s>[INST] also, you know, I think that's [/INST] one case where another adaptation could be to activate the vitamin C. Gene. Right, right, right now you'd have to have limes or some other source of vitamin C in space. But we actually carry the gene inside of our genome to make vitamin C. Look at dogs and cats for example, they have these kind of wet noses, you </s><s>[INST] don't see them going out and getting [/INST] margaritas. The yellow dogs can't drink beer and get </s><s>[INST] drunk. They [/INST] don't need vitamin C. They have no </s><s>[INST] risk of scurvy [/INST] because they can make the vitamin C all by themselves. </s><s>[INST] So can other wet nosed [/INST] primates called strips Renee's. But we are drying those primates and we we lost this ability sometimes </s><s>[INST] 10 or 20 [/INST] million years ago. We no longer make our own vitamin C. But the gene for it is called </s><s>[INST] yellow. It's still [/INST] in our DNA. It's what's called </s><s>[INST] a pseudo gene, it's just [/INST] broken down, it's </s><s>[INST] like having a like [/INST] in our genome we have these functional </s><s>[INST] genes like nice. BMW. [/INST] A nice car that works well. But we also </s><s>[INST] have this like wrecking [/INST] this like junkyard of cold cars, old jeans, old functions in our D. N. A. That </s><s>[INST] we could bring back [/INST] and so vitamin C. Is one of them that would be very </s><s>[INST] easy to do. [/INST] So then you could activate the gene, repair it, basically repair it so we can </s><s>[INST] make our own vitamin C. Now [/INST] we have to do it again carefully. </s><s>[INST] Because what if what if we [/INST] lost vitamin C. The production of vitamin C. As a species? </s><s>[INST] What if it was a good reason that we [/INST] lost it? Maybe it was helping </s><s>[INST] in some [/INST] other way that we can't </s><s>[INST] see now. But [/INST] you'd start slowly do it in cells then </s><s>[INST] do it. You know, potentially in [/INST] animal models and primary other primates. </s><s>[INST] And then tried in humans. But that's something else [/INST] I'd like to see. So we </s><s>[INST] wouldn't have to make as much food in [/INST] orbit. You could actually start to make as much of your own food in your own cells. So the input to the system in terms of energy could be much more restricted. Doesn't </s><s>[INST] have to have the diversity [/INST] we currently need as humans but I don't want to be a robot. Humans love </s><s>[INST] as I do texture. [/INST] I realized that made me sound </s><s>[INST] like I wasn't human but [/INST] humans love </s><s>[INST] food and flavors and textures [/INST] and smells all all the all of that is actually attenuated in </s><s>[INST] flight. So it's you [/INST] wanna do not forget our humanity. And so this this you know, </s><s>[INST] love of of [/INST] all the benefits and wonder </s><s>[INST] of food and [/INST] cooking and smells well. Speak for yourself </s><s>[INST] because for [/INST] me I eat the same thing every single day and I um I </s><s>[INST] find beauty in everything [/INST] and some </s><s>[INST] beauty is more easily [/INST] accessible </s><s>[INST] outside of earth. [/INST] And food is not one of </s><s>[INST] those things. I think. What [/INST] about insects that people bring that up basically food that has sex with itself and multiplies. So </s><s>[INST] cockroaches [/INST] and so on. Their source of a lot of </s><s>[INST] um the [/INST] protein and a </s><s>[INST] lot of the amino acids [/INST] and bedbugs. There's a guy at the American Museum of Natural History in new york. He loves </s><s>[INST] bedbugs, lou sorkin [/INST] and and </s><s>[INST] he has a monthly meeting [/INST] Where he talks about how which insects would be the best for eating. And 1 1 month </s><s>[INST] he gave a whole talk about bedbugs that they're [/INST] pretty gross. But in terms of the </s><s>[INST] value of [/INST] what you can get for protein, they're really good. So </s><s>[INST] they're they're [/INST] a good candidate. I think you'd have if you could deep fry </s><s>[INST] them, if you deep [/INST] fry anything you can pretty much eat it. So maybe you need a friar up in space. But </s><s>[INST] they're a candidate. [/INST] Alright, what </s><s>[INST] technical question, [/INST] what are the major challenges </s><s>[INST] of sex and space, [/INST] asking for a friend </s><s>[INST] for reproduction purposes. [/INST] So, like when we're looking about survival </s><s>[INST] of the human species across [/INST] generations, do we need gravity </s><s>[INST] essentially [/INST] for sex in space? We know that gestation </s><s>[INST] can happen in space, where the babies [/INST] can develop at least in mice, we know that </s><s>[INST] it's possible for [/INST] worms to replicate and fly. So it's possible for other </s><s>[INST] invertebrates to [/INST] show they can make babies in space. But for humans, Nasa's </s><s>[INST] official stance on this is that there's never been [/INST] sex in space officially. I I think, </s><s>[INST] you [/INST] know, if we all </s><s>[INST] wonder about [/INST] that, that I think </s><s>[INST] humans [/INST] are very predictable in that regard. Again, going back to the greek tragedies, I think that there's probably someone did something close to it at some point. And so </s><s>[INST] I think we we know [/INST] that sperm can be sent into space and brought back and be used for fertilization </s><s>[INST] for in vitro fertilization for [/INST] humans. But sex itself in space, you </s><s>[INST] know, would be I think when we [/INST] start to get bigger structures that have a bit more privacy, I think, I think there'll be a lot of it and </s><s>[INST] you have to be, you know, this [/INST] this is a big question of who goes up into space, </s><s>[INST] it's now becoming more of a [/INST] regular end </s><s>[INST] quote, people [/INST] who have prosthetic </s><s>[INST] limbs or cancer survivors like Hayley [/INST] Arsenault who just went up on the inspiration for </s><s>[INST] mission. So she's been [/INST] a great researcher and helping </s><s>[INST] with a lot of the science from that [/INST] mission, we are doing the same analysis on them has been doing for the twin </s><s>[INST] study and for other [/INST] astronauts were doing basically all the same </s><s>[INST] molecular profile before, during and after spaceflight. So there [/INST] we now know that </s><s>[INST] other people can go into space [/INST] and there's more and more regular joes and Janes go up. </s><s>[INST] I think we'll see a [/INST] lot more of it. But so far we have no data, </s><s>[INST] we have no [/INST] video of it. Either way, we have no real knowledge other than it would be, it would need a lot of velcro. I think it's my only real answer there. Well, I'm as a fan of </s><s>[INST] velcro and duct [/INST] tape. I think that's gonna </s><s>[INST] be. So, those [/INST] two are essential for anything. Any </s><s>[INST] kind of engineering [/INST] out anywhere honestly, in all </s><s>[INST] kinds of harsh conditions. [/INST] But </s><s>[INST] that [/INST] is I mean, </s><s>[INST] on the topic of sex [/INST] in general, just </s><s>[INST] social interaction with [/INST] humans. It's fascinating. </s><s>[INST] The current missions [/INST] are very focused on science </s><s>[INST] and very [/INST] technical engineering things. But there's still a human </s><s>[INST] element that [/INST] seeps in and the more we travel </s><s>[INST] out to space, the more the [/INST] humans, the natural human drama, </s><s>[INST] the love, [/INST] the hate that merges. It's all going to be right there. It's a greek tragedy just in space basically. I think it's going to be </s><s>[INST] a reality [/INST] show? </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] what about </s><s>[INST] the colonization of [/INST] other planets? If you look at </s><s>[INST] mars, when [/INST] you </s><s>[INST] first [/INST] of all, do you </s><s>[INST] think it's a worthy [/INST] effort? Looking at this particular </s><s>[INST] one planet [/INST] to put humans on MArs and to start </s><s>[INST] thinking about [/INST] colonizing MArs, </s><s>[INST] it's [/INST] one of the closest </s><s>[INST] options. It's not the best option though. By [/INST] far we we uh put in the book measures of earth similarity </s><s>[INST] index or something called the S. I. S. [/INST] How close is the </s><s>[INST] gravity, the temperature, [/INST] the solar </s><s>[INST] incidents on the [/INST] surface? How </s><s>[INST] close is it to Earth [/INST] is a calculation </s><s>[INST] many astronomers make when they [/INST] look for exoplanets </s><s>[INST] and MArs is [/INST] pretty far away </s><s>[INST] from uh [/INST] Anne S. I of about .7. I mean, earth is one. So the best you can get is </s><s>[INST] one, Earth is just like Earth. It gets a [/INST] Score of one, anything above, </s><s>[INST] you know, [/INST] some of the best exoplanets </s><s>[INST] that are in the habitable [/INST] zone where there's liquid water </s><s>[INST] that could be their start [/INST] to get above .8 or .9. But there, </s><s>[INST] most planets are very low, there point [/INST] 1.2 there either way too big and we </s><s>[INST] have crushing gravity or way [/INST] too small, too close to his </s><s>[INST] son. [/INST] But </s><s>[INST] mars is, even though it's [/INST] not that great on the ES. I scale, </s><s>[INST] it is still very [/INST] relatively close, you know, galactic lee </s><s>[INST] and and venus is just too hot and [/INST] right now. So I think venus would also be a great candidate, but it is, </s><s>[INST] it's [/INST] much easier to survive </s><s>[INST] in a place where it's very cold, [/INST] but you can be sealed and </s><s>[INST] survive where it's going on we [/INST] project have no technology </s><s>[INST] to survive anywhere except in the [/INST] clouds of venus. So </s><s>[INST] it's just currently [/INST] our best option but it's not the best option for sure. So over time </s><s>[INST] the E. S. I. Changes across [/INST] millennia and it does. </s><s>[INST] So the venus is going to get cooler and [/INST] cooler. Um </s><s>[INST] Okay but what are the big challenges to [/INST] you in </s><s>[INST] colonizing mars from a biology perspective from a human perspective from an engineering [/INST] perspective there are several big challenges to mars and even the first one is even just the word </s><s>[INST] colonize. So I think we there's [/INST] even a social challenge. Like a lot of </s><s>[INST] people um [/INST] Daniel would actually studies at M. I. </s><s>[INST] T. Is [/INST] we shouldn't even </s><s>[INST] use the word colonized but then [/INST] we probably shouldn't use the word settle either because their settlements that have some other baggage </s><s>[INST] to that word as well. And then maybe we just use the word [/INST] explorer. But at some point you didn't </s><s>[INST] say we're going there to survive there. [/INST] And so colonization still has the word most people use but </s><s>[INST] I try to [/INST] say go explore and </s><s>[INST] build or settle. But I [/INST] think the first challenges </s><s>[INST] is social. I think getting people to think that [/INST] this will not be </s><s>[INST] like the colonization efforts of the past. The hope [/INST] is that this will be a </s><s>[INST] very different version of [/INST] humanity exploring that's my hope, history </s><s>[INST] has, you could say [/INST] has proved me wrong every single time, Like every time </s><s>[INST] humans have gone somewhere, it's usually been a tale [/INST] of exploitation strife </s><s>[INST] and, and drama again and then [/INST] and and </s><s>[INST] often murder [/INST] genocide. Like it's actually </s><s>[INST] a pretty dark history [/INST] you think of of just all </s><s>[INST] the colonization efforts, [/INST] but I </s><s>[INST] think most of it was [/INST] done in a really dark </s><s>[INST] area of humanity where their [/INST] average life </s><s>[INST] expectancy was more [/INST] than half less than it was </s><s>[INST] today. It [/INST] was life was brutish and short, as many of those Hobbes famously said, </s><s>[INST] so it was, it was a [/INST] rough existence, right? So I think some </s><s>[INST] of the, the ugliness [/INST] of humanity and prior colonization times </s><s>[INST] was was a [/INST] consequence at the time. And at least </s><s>[INST] that's my hope. I think that now we would have it be much more, I think inclusive, much [/INST] more responsible, </s><s>[INST] much more, [/INST] much less, you know, evil </s><s>[INST] frankly. Like we go there and, and you [/INST] would need commercialization, You need </s><s>[INST] efforts to do mining for example, bring things back. But it has to be [/INST] some degree where </s><s>[INST] there are some areas that are viewed as as as commons or that [/INST] are untouchable, like places that are parks, </s><s>[INST] we do this today, [/INST] even if there's a lake, </s><s>[INST] for example, the first, you know, [/INST] several 100 ft of a lake are all for public </s><s>[INST] property and everything that you can own property, but it's not certain barriers. [/INST] So I think we have to make sure we do that so that it's not completely exploited. </s><s>[INST] But the, so that's on the [/INST] social, the human side, </s><s>[INST] the technological, [/INST] we've talked a little bit about where </s><s>[INST] you'd have to live. You want to be [/INST] underground engineering and </s><s>[INST] modifying even human cells [/INST] to make sure you survive. </s><s>[INST] Uh the soil [/INST] does have a lot of preclearance, which is a problem </s><s>[INST] for growing, but there's ways to [/INST] extract them. There's a fair </s><s>[INST] amount of water. There's actually a beautiful [/INST] image of all the </s><s>[INST] known water on mars that [/INST] Nasa posted about a year ago and there's </s><s>[INST] water everywhere. Not, not not lots of it everywhere, but [/INST] almost everywhere you look, there's </s><s>[INST] at least a little bit of water just a few feet [/INST] under the surface. And by </s><s>[INST] the captures a lot. [/INST] So I think we could get some water and we could also do, you know, self generating reactors, </s><s>[INST] machines that can make [/INST] food start to even make </s><s>[INST] beer. Well, if you go long enough down the path. But [/INST] the technical challenges are definitely the engineering and the manufacturing </s><s>[INST] are going to be hard [/INST] because you have to build the </s><s>[INST] buildings basically out of the soil [/INST] that's there. So you have to </s><s>[INST] really go [/INST] there and try and build with whatever you can. So that has to be perfected still. </s><s>[INST] But then once you're in [/INST] those, those buildings or structures, you need to create all the </s><s>[INST] biology that will feed the [/INST] populist feed them. So </s><s>[INST] which we don't have the technology for yet. We have [/INST] bits of it. But I think that's going to be the biggest challenges making MArs really truly independent. But that'll probably </s><s>[INST] take that, as I say in the book several [/INST] 100 years before. </s><s>[INST] I think we'd get there. [/INST] It's interesting because we're </s><s>[INST] also exploring [/INST] ways to motivate society </s><s>[INST] to take on this challenge. It's [/INST] the JFK thing. And then the Cold </s><s>[INST] War that [/INST] inspired the race to space. </s><s>[INST] And I think as a human [/INST] species were actually trying to figure out different </s><s>[INST] ideas for how to [/INST] motivate everybody to work on the same project together, </s><s>[INST] but [/INST] yet competed at the same time. Well </s><s>[INST] that's one idea [/INST] and that's worked well </s><s>[INST] in competition. And [/INST] it's not necessarily the only </s><s>[INST] Ideas, but it's the one [/INST] that worked well so far. </s><s>[INST] So maybe the only [/INST] way to truly build a colony </s><s>[INST] in [/INST] on MARS </s><s>[INST] or a [/INST] successful sort of human </s><s>[INST] civilization on MArs is to get like china to get like competitive [/INST] about it, I think. Well, and they are that they have announced they want to have </s><s>[INST] Boots on the Red Planet by 2033 which is 2-4 years earlier [/INST] than when Nasa's supposed to do it. So we'll </s><s>[INST] see if they [/INST] if they get their first, but I think it's a space </s><s>[INST] Race 2.0 but it's not [/INST] just the U. S. And Russia this time. It's china, it's India </s><s>[INST] it's the USa, it's [/INST] europe Usa, </s><s>[INST] Jack says the [/INST] japanese space agency and there's the U. S. And L. </s><s>[INST] It went from just a two person race [/INST] to, you know, the whole field that the, you know the </s><s>[INST] whole field of [/INST] runners if you will </s><s>[INST] on the track trying to get to [/INST] Mars 1st. And I think, </s><s>[INST] I mean think [/INST] this can be like anything is if </s><s>[INST] you start to have settlements [/INST] and construction projects in places to visit on mars, </s><s>[INST] I think that the true [/INST] mark of </s><s>[INST] of someplace being [/INST] actually settled is when you start to be able to pick your like, well I </s><s>[INST] want to go to this destination. [/INST] Not this one because they have </s><s>[INST] better martian [/INST] cocktails here, but this one is not as good. So then this idea of </s><s>[INST] innovating and competing [/INST] will continue to </s><s>[INST] drive. I think humans, [/INST] as it always </s><s>[INST] has. You write this [/INST] um </s><s>[INST] fascinating thing which is quote people living on MArs will have developed [/INST] entirely new cultures, </s><s>[INST] dialects, [/INST] products, and even new religions or variations of current religions. </s><s>[INST] For example, [/INST] a martian muslim, </s><s>[INST] we'll need to pray [/INST] upward toward the dusty sky. I love that </s><s>[INST] you've thought through [/INST] the geometry of this for example, martian muslim will need to pray upwards over the dusty sky since earth </s><s>[INST] and therefore mecca [/INST] will sometimes be </s><s>[INST] overhead [/INST] or when meccas below the Martians </s><s>[INST] feet, the [/INST] prayer direction to </s><s>[INST] Allah will stay downward towards the [/INST] 38% gravity floor. Perhaps a second? Mecca </s><s>[INST] will be built [/INST] on the new planet </s><s>[INST] end [/INST] quote. </s><s>[INST] That's [/INST] another interesting </s><s>[INST] question. [/INST] How will culture be different on MArs in the </s><s>[INST] early days and [/INST] beyond? </s><s>[INST] It will be [/INST] as we've seen </s><s>[INST] with all of [/INST] human history. I think even </s><s>[INST] just when people [/INST] migrate and they move, even the </s><s>[INST] dialects change. We're just [/INST] going to the south in the United States that y'all come on down </s><s>[INST] out here, you know, and just, and [/INST] that's not even that far away or even just people on Long </s><s>[INST] Island versus new york city and you know, it was a [/INST] big nasally accent. </s><s>[INST] Oh yeah. And the [/INST] people will just get, or even with Wisconsin, I'm from Wisconsin originally. Big nasal tone. Welcome </s><s>[INST] to Wisconsin and [/INST] Minnesota. I wonder who defines that </s><s>[INST] culture because [/INST] it's very likely </s><s>[INST] that the early humans on MArs [/INST] will be very technically </s><s>[INST] savvy. They have to be [/INST] for engineering challenges. Well, actually, </s><s>[INST] I don't know, it could [/INST] be the, this has to do with </s><s>[INST] your extreme microbiome. [/INST] Is like, is it going to be the </s><s>[INST] extreme [/INST] survivalists </s><s>[INST] or is it going to be the engineers and scientists or is it going to be both [/INST] Because my </s><s>[INST] experience of scientists [/INST] there, you know, </s><s>[INST] they like the comfort [/INST] of their </s><s>[INST] the lab. [/INST] They don't. </s><s>[INST] Well, no, there's something I keep contradicting myself that stuff. There's some badass scientists traveled to like Antarctica [/INST] and all that </s><s>[INST] kind of stuff. So it's [/INST] an evolutionary selection for </s><s>[INST] humans who can stare at [/INST] A screen for eight hours at a time </s><s>[INST] or pipette for [/INST] 12 hours at a time and not talk to anybody. </s><s>[INST] So it's not surprising when [/INST] our scientists are a little </s><s>[INST] bit awkward in social [/INST] situations, but we can we </s><s>[INST] can get that, we can train them out of that. We [/INST] can get them to engage other humans. Uh </s><s>[INST] not all of them, but [/INST] hopefully most of them. </s><s>[INST] Uh So I think, you know, I think the culture [/INST] will definitely be different. They'll </s><s>[INST] be different dialects, different [/INST] foods. There'll be different </s><s>[INST] values [/INST] that are very likely </s><s>[INST] will be a different religion. Kim [/INST] Stanley. Robinson wrote a lot about </s><s>[INST] this in his books. [/INST] There's a new martian religion </s><s>[INST] that was created. So, I think this idea [/INST] has been discussed </s><s>[INST] in science fiction, [/INST] it is almost unavoidable because </s><s>[INST] there's been, I [/INST] mean, just just think of all the religions that have happened on earth </s><s>[INST] with with [/INST] very little </s><s>[INST] I [/INST] think </s><s>[INST] uh [/INST] I mean there's just terrestrial drama, but suddenly you have a different planet </s><s>[INST] and you do not [/INST] need a deity </s><s>[INST] that would span multiple [/INST] planets. And I don't even know how you do that. But I think </s><s>[INST] someone will think of a way [/INST] and and make up </s><s>[INST] something. [/INST] Yeah, that's </s><s>[INST] uh [/INST] look for ways </s><s>[INST] to draw meaning. So [/INST] religion for a lot of people myths, common ideas or </s><s>[INST] source of meeting. And [/INST] when you're on another planet, </s><s>[INST] boy [/INST] does the sense </s><s>[INST] of [/INST] what is meaningful change because </s><s>[INST] you're [/INST] it's humbling. </s><s>[INST] The harshness [/INST] of the conditions is </s><s>[INST] humbling [/INST] the very practical </s><s>[INST] fact that Earth [/INST] from which you came is not so special </s><s>[INST] because you're clearly not [/INST] unearthed currently </s><s>[INST] and you're doing fine. [/INST] And he made it </s><s>[INST] at some point. I mean, it would be pretty [/INST] harsh, like, </s><s>[INST] like what Shackleton did [/INST] doing this exploration exploration of </s><s>[INST] Antarctica and going was [/INST] very dangerous mission, barely made </s><s>[INST] it. People died actually. He didn't believe in scurvy at the time. So he didn't take enough vitamin C. And some of these people died from the vitamin C. So if we had had [/INST] their genes active the pseudo gene, they'd be okay. </s><s>[INST] But there, I think the [/INST] early settlers will be, </s><s>[INST] it will be very different [/INST] crew. But once it's comfort </s><s>[INST] and once people are comfortable, they're I think they're gonna [/INST] I hope they will draw more </s><s>[INST] meaning because more planets [/INST] should be more meaning. </s><s>[INST] I feel like [/INST] it's like uh </s><s>[INST] more hands [/INST] is a better massage. I don't know if that's the best analogy here, </s><s>[INST] but I think Aristotle said that. Yeah, [/INST] I should mention that your book has </s><s>[INST] incredible quotes. It's great writing, but [/INST] also just incredible quotes at the </s><s>[INST] beginning of chapters that really thanks. It's basically my favorite [/INST] quotes. Like, well, I'm writing a book. </s><s>[INST] I'm gonna put my favorite quotes and [/INST] put </s><s>[INST] them all [/INST] down. What are your thoughts </s><s>[INST] about [/INST] the efforts of Elon musk and SpaceX </s><s>[INST] and pushing this commercial [/INST] spaceflight. </s><s>[INST] And I mean, other companies axiom. Space [/INST] as well. What </s><s>[INST] are your thoughts on [/INST] um, on their efforts? It's like a gold </s><s>[INST] rush. It's [/INST] A Space Race? 2.0 </s><s>[INST] there's a lot of terms for the new space race. [/INST] I think it's fabulous. I think it is. It's moving at a </s><s>[INST] pace that is [/INST] unprecedented. And also </s><s>[INST] there's a lot of those investments [/INST] in the commercial and private </s><s>[INST] sector pushing it forward. So Ellen [/INST] most notoriously doing a lot of it just himself as SpaceX. So we worked really closely </s><s>[INST] with the SpaceX ops teams [/INST] and medical team uh, </s><s>[INST] planning the inspiration for [/INST] mission and now some of </s><s>[INST] the Polaris missions which are happening [/INST] and Jared I Zigman has been a </s><s>[INST] fabulous colleague, collaborator pilot for the missions you were doing [/INST] when we're doing the same </s><s>[INST] deep profiling and molecular [/INST] characterization of these astronauts as we've done </s><s>[INST] for that scott kelly and other [/INST] astronauts from Nasa </s><s>[INST] and we're seeing so [/INST] far actually, there will be a lot of this presented later </s><s>[INST] this year. It seems [/INST] like it's </s><s>[INST] pretty safe. Again. There's [/INST] dangerous. We can see real stress </s><s>[INST] on the body, very obvious [/INST] changes. Some of the </s><s>[INST] same changes that scott [/INST] kelly experienced. But for </s><s>[INST] the most part they returned back to normal even for a [/INST] Short three Day Mission. </s><s>[INST] I remember chatting [/INST] with with Jared and we're presenting the data to them actually just a few weeks ago. Kind of a briefing to </s><s>[INST] the crew [/INST] because they went to 500 and </s><s>[INST] 90 km. They went basically several 100 kilometers higher [/INST] than the space station or the Hubble you normally wrestle more radiation to the </s><s>[INST] farther you get from earth. There's more [/INST] radiation. He was worried, </s><s>[INST] you know, did we get cooked? [/INST] It was kind of his question for me in the </s><s>[INST] briefing and it actually looks [/INST] like you can go </s><s>[INST] back into the microwave. You didn't get fully cooked. You can go a little bit farther. [/INST] So for the polaris mission, they're </s><s>[INST] going to go even farther. [/INST] Uh, </s><s>[INST] and then also open [/INST] the hatch and go on these new spacesuits. That space actually </s><s>[INST] designing. That'll be much [/INST] nimbler. Not as much of a giant, </s><s>[INST] you know, um, [/INST] dr octagon kind of spacesuit, </s><s>[INST] but really, um, that [/INST] looks like just a nice space and they're gonna go out into the </s><s>[INST] vacuum of space. [/INST] And so, you know, pushing all the </s><s>[INST] engineering for [/INST] these missions which are privately funded. So it's, </s><s>[INST] it's people who just say, [/INST] I want to go up in space and see if I can push the </s><s>[INST] limits has been fabulous. [/INST] But I think the most fabulous part </s><s>[INST] is is Jared in particular. [/INST] But others other </s><s>[INST] commercial spaceflight [/INST] drivers like john schoffner Peggy Whitson for the actual emissions are coming to us. Scientists, Researchers </s><s>[INST] saying, I don't just want to go up into space just to [/INST] hang out. How much science can I get done when I'm up there. What can I do? What experiments can I do? Give me, you know, blood tissue, urine, </s><s>[INST] semen, [/INST] tears. I'll give you any bio </s><s>[INST] fluid. Uh, [/INST] you know, and I always, I email him back and say, listen, every </s><s>[INST] one of your cells is [/INST] worthy of study. I said send me, you </s><s>[INST] know, So I have this really kind of creepy [/INST] geneticist email responses like I want all of yourselves, you know, But but it's true because there's so much, we don't know, I want to learn as much as we can about every every time they go up anyone. So we're doing it, you know, with Nasa astronauts. But it's been such an </s><s>[INST] influx of new [/INST] crews that are </s><s>[INST] willing to do [/INST] almost anything. Right? So, including we did skin biopsies for the inspiration </s><s>[INST] for crew before and after [/INST] spaceflight </s><s>[INST] and that's never been done before. [/INST] We've never seen the structure of the skin and how </s><s>[INST] it changes in response to microgravity [/INST] and also the microbes that change. </s><s>[INST] And so these beautiful images [/INST] of even the structure of skin changing and the inflammation that we've seen in like for scott </s><s>[INST] kelly for example, [/INST] we now have a molecule by </s><s>[INST] molecule map of what happens to skin [/INST] which has </s><s>[INST] never been done before. So, there what are [/INST] interesting surprises there. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] one of the things we can </s><s>[INST] see the part of what's [/INST] driving information, we can actually see </s><s>[INST] macrophages and [/INST] other dendritic cells, pieces like cells that are part of the immune system kind of creeping along towards the surface of the </s><s>[INST] skin, which is now we know it's actually [/INST] physically driving the immune system is these cells </s><s>[INST] going and creating this inflammation, [/INST] which is what leads to some of </s><s>[INST] the rashes. But we didn't [/INST] see as much in them as we saw. For example, some of the signatures of scott kelly. So we can see within the crew </s><s>[INST] who's getting more [/INST] of a rash or not or who didn't experience </s><s>[INST] any rash [/INST] and some people had changes in </s><s>[INST] vision. Some people had, [/INST] you know, other G. I. Problems even, you know, even looking at what happens to the gut </s><s>[INST] and looking at the microbiome in [/INST] the gut, other people didn't. So we were able </s><s>[INST] to see it start [/INST] to get a little bit predictive about their </s><s>[INST] medicine right now we're just diagnosing. [/INST] But it'd be good to say uh if you're going into space, </s><s>[INST] here's exactly what you [/INST] need for each bacteria </s><s>[INST] in your body. [/INST] Here's what you can really take to get rid of nausea or other ways </s><s>[INST] we can monitor to keep keep the [/INST] information down. What does it take to prepare for one of these missions? Because you mentioned, some of the </s><s>[INST] folks are not [/INST] necessarily lifelong astronauts, </s><s>[INST] you're talking about [/INST] more and more regular civilians. </s><s>[INST] What's [/INST] what does it take physiologically and psychologically </s><s>[INST] to prepare for these. They have to do a [/INST] lot of the same training that most astronauts do. So a lot of it's on hawthorne at SpaceX headquarters, which if you can </s><s>[INST] never get a chance to do a tour as [/INST] fabulous as you can see. Always john rockets being built and then we're drawing blood over there </s><s>[INST] right next to them. So it's a really [/INST] cool place. But </s><s>[INST] the, the training, they have [/INST] to go through a lot of the ops, a lot of the programming just in </s><s>[INST] case most of the systems are [/INST] automated on the Dragon </s><s>[INST] and other spacecraft, [/INST] but just in case, so I have to go through all </s><s>[INST] the majority of training [/INST] if you want to go to the </s><s>[INST] space station, as [/INST] the actual emissions are including john Schaffner, you have to do training for some of the Russian </s><s>[INST] modules. And if you don't do that training, then [/INST] you're not allowed to go to the Russian </s><s>[INST] part of the space station apparently. [/INST] So right now john schaffner for example, unless he completes this additional training all in Russian, </s><s>[INST] he's not allowed [/INST] to learn enough Russian to be, you know, just so </s><s>[INST] it's not just technical [/INST] enough enough </s><s>[INST] enough enough. [/INST] And uh, so it's a, and </s><s>[INST] if he doesn't learn, he can't [/INST] go to that part of the space station. So interesting things like that. But you'll be, you know, it's not that far like, oh, I can see </s><s>[INST] it right there, I can't float [/INST] over to that, that capsule, </s><s>[INST] but technically [/INST] he can't go. So, you know, </s><s>[INST] is there um, [/INST] chinese </s><s>[INST] components to this, the international space [/INST] station is their collaboration there, </s><s>[INST] sadly. No, they're building [/INST] their own space station. I'm glad they're building a space station actually, eventually there'll </s><s>[INST] Be probably four space [/INST] Stations in orbit by 20, some from the orbital reefs, some from Lockheed Martin </s><s>[INST] of course axiom is, [/INST] is far ahead </s><s>[INST] right now. They're probably gonna be done first. But the [/INST] extraordinary thing </s><s>[INST] is [/INST] uh, there's </s><s>[INST] unfortunately there's no [/INST] collaboration between the, you see that as a negative. That's not the positive </s><s>[INST] kind of competition. It's it's a good [/INST] question. So </s><s>[INST] maybe [/INST] for example when we get different Nasa grants, you apply for a </s><s>[INST] grant, you get to the [/INST] lab, it goes, you know, to </s><s>[INST] go through Cornell the grants [/INST] office. I have to sign as a scientist as the </s><s>[INST] P. I. On the on the mission. Say I promise [/INST] I will move no funds or resources or any </s><s>[INST] staff to anyone in china or work with anyone in china with [/INST] these dollars that you're giving to the </s><s>[INST] lab for this mission. [/INST] And so like every </s><s>[INST] other grand I get from the [/INST] Nasa D. O. D. Or </s><s>[INST] sorry, do you let me go back to [/INST] that every other grant </s><s>[INST] I get from say the NIH or [/INST] the NSF </s><s>[INST] even symptoms D. O. D. You don't have to promise that you won't talk to anybody in china [/INST] about it. But for Nasa alone is </s><s>[INST] congressional mandated [/INST] you have to promise and sign all the paperwork that I can't do </s><s>[INST] anything with anyone in china about this. [/INST] And what if </s><s>[INST] you have said about that is I want [/INST] to at least be able to chat </s><s>[INST] with him about it and know what [/INST] they're up to, but we can't, you know, </s><s>[INST] even go to a conference in China technically with [/INST] Nasa funds about, say, space medicine or </s><s>[INST] engineering a new rocket. [/INST] I can't </s><s>[INST] go, I could go with personal [/INST] funds, but I can't use those funds. </s><s>[INST] Like you should be able to go to a [/INST] conference and in a </s><s>[INST] friendly way, talk shit [/INST] scientists, </s><s>[INST] like we're doing like, like the way scientists do really well, which is [/INST] like a compliment, </s><s>[INST] but it's a backhanded compliment. Like, like [/INST] you're doing a really good </s><s>[INST] job here and [/INST] then you kind of implied that you're doing </s><s>[INST] much better job. That's [/INST] the core of </s><s>[INST] competition. You get jealous and [/INST] then everybody's trying to improve. But that </s><s>[INST] you're ultimately talking, [/INST] you're ultimately collaborating closely. You're competing </s><s>[INST] closely as opposed to in your own silos. Well, let me ask, [/INST] uh, </s><s>[INST] in terms of [/INST] preparing um, for spaceflight, you know, I I tweeted about this and I </s><s>[INST] I joked about it and [/INST] I I talked to you along </s><s>[INST] quite a lot these [/INST] days. What I tweeted </s><s>[INST] was [/INST] I'd like to do a podcast in </s><s>[INST] space one [/INST] day. And it was a silly </s><s>[INST] thing [/INST] because I was thinking for some reason in </s><s>[INST] My mind, I was thinking 10, 20 years [/INST] from now. And then I realized </s><s>[INST] like, wait, [/INST] why not? Like now </s><s>[INST] there's [/INST] no </s><s>[INST] just even seeing what actually [/INST] was doing what </s><s>[INST] inspiration for is doing. It's [/INST] like regular civilians. </s><s>[INST] Just start [/INST] going up. </s><s>[INST] So let me ask you this question? [/INST] When do you think </s><s>[INST] we saw Jeff Bezos [/INST] gone into orbit? </s><s>[INST] What do you think Ellen [/INST] goes up to space? </s><s>[INST] So his thinking about [/INST] this is it's partially responsible until it's safe because he has </s><s>[INST] such a [/INST] direct </s><s>[INST] engineering [/INST] roles in the running of multiple </s><s>[INST] companies. [/INST] So at which point </s><s>[INST] do you think, what's your [/INST] prediction for the year that Ellen will go </s><s>[INST] up? [/INST] I think you'd probably go up by </s><s>[INST] 20 [/INST] 26, I would </s><s>[INST] say, because [/INST] the number of missions planned, </s><s>[INST] there will be several missions [/INST] per year through </s><s>[INST] multiple space [/INST] agencies and companies that are really making low earth orbit very </s><s>[INST] routine. [/INST] I might go up. I think it might also, for example, the inspiration for </s><s>[INST] Mission just went up for three [/INST] days in flight, you know, and there was enough time to get up there and do some experiments, </s><s>[INST] enjoy the [/INST] view. And then he came back. The </s><s>[INST] actual emissions are a bit more [/INST] complicated, they're stocking up in the space station to shared </s><s>[INST] atmosphere. So you have to follow [/INST] all the I. S. S. Protocols. </s><s>[INST] What's what's [/INST] interesting about the dragon capsule and the inspiration </s><s>[INST] for and some of [/INST] these, what are called free flyer emissions, </s><s>[INST] you can just launch into space. You [/INST] basically have your own little mini </s><s>[INST] space station for a few [/INST] days. It's not that big, </s><s>[INST] right? But I think [/INST] that's what we'll probably see him do </s><s>[INST] first because they're fair, [/INST] they're, you know, we're going to see a </s><s>[INST] Lot more tests of those in the next 3-3 years. [/INST] But </s><s>[INST] they're already already been [/INST] demonstrated to be safe. And then you're not trying to go for 10 to 20 days </s><s>[INST] or months or years [/INST] at a time </s><s>[INST] interest up in space for a few days. But you're in proper space. It's an orbital [/INST] flight. It's not just a </s><s>[INST] sub orbital flight. Your um [/INST] you could do the podcast from </s><s>[INST] There and I think 2020 [/INST] six. I wonder how the </s><s>[INST] audio works. [/INST] See also can you comment on </s><s>[INST] 2026? [/INST] I'll start getting ready. </s><s>[INST] I'll [/INST] start pushing them on this. I'm quite quite serious. It's a fascinating kind of axiom to still has room. You could go on that mission if you want to. </s><s>[INST] So I'll ask you [/INST] about axiom um </s><s>[INST] what [/INST] how strict are these? </s><s>[INST] So this this [/INST] seems surreal </s><s>[INST] that civilians are traveling [/INST] up. So how many how much bureaucracies they're still in </s><s>[INST] your experience for the scientific. I [/INST] mean I know it's a difficult </s><s>[INST] question to ask a scientist [/INST] because you get to </s><s>[INST] you know you don't [/INST] want to complain too much </s><s>[INST] but [/INST] how much you know there's sometimes bureaucracy with N. S. </s><s>[INST] F. And D. O. D. And the [/INST] funding and all those kinds of </s><s>[INST] things um that kind of [/INST] prevent you from </s><s>[INST] being as free as you might sometimes [/INST] like to </s><s>[INST] do all kinds of wild experiments and crazy experiments. Now the [/INST] benefit of </s><s>[INST] that is that you don't do any wild and [/INST] crazy experiments that </s><s>[INST] hurt people. [/INST] And so it's very </s><s>[INST] important to put safety first, but it's like a dance, a [/INST] little too much </s><s>[INST] restrictions. The bureaucracy [/INST] can hamper the flourishing of science </s><s>[INST] a little too little of that. You can get some [/INST] crazy scientists to </s><s>[INST] start doing unethical experiments. [/INST] Okay. That said </s><s>[INST] Nasa. And just space [/INST] flight in general is </s><s>[INST] sort [/INST] of famously </s><s>[INST] very [/INST] very </s><s>[INST] risk averse. [/INST] So what's your sense </s><s>[INST] currently about like [/INST] even like doing a </s><s>[INST] podcast [/INST] podcast? </s><s>[INST] You know, unless it's like, [/INST] you know, I think with </s><s>[INST] mixed martial [/INST] arts is a pretty safe </s><s>[INST] activity unless you're [/INST] doing a the </s><s>[INST] octagon version of your [/INST] podcast should should mean just getting there and back is the only </s><s>[INST] real risky part, which [/INST] is still risky. </s><s>[INST] But I [/INST] think you're not asking to do open </s><s>[INST] heart surgery in space. [/INST] You're just saying what if I do a </s><s>[INST] podcast and I think well, [/INST] fun, you're trying to </s><s>[INST] ask to have fun and I [/INST] feel like fun sounds dangerous and any </s><s>[INST] kind of fun. That's what it's been extraordinary. Is that traditionally [/INST] Yes, I think </s><s>[INST] most of the space agencies [/INST] have been varied by </s><s>[INST] definition bureaucratic because they're coming from [/INST] the government </s><s>[INST] and but they [/INST] have been been that way for a really good reason is that </s><s>[INST] safety, [/INST] You know, in the early 60s we know almost </s><s>[INST] nothing about the body [/INST] in space except </s><s>[INST] for, you know, some of the work that pilots had done at really high [/INST] altitude. So we really didn't know what all to expect. So </s><s>[INST] it's good that there were decades of [/INST] resolute focus on just safety, </s><s>[INST] but now we know it's pretty [/INST] safe, we know this </s><s>[INST] physiological responses, we know what to [/INST] expect. We can also treat some of </s><s>[INST] it, but hopefully, hopefully soon we'll treat a lot more of it. But if you just want to [/INST] go up there, it's actually now </s><s>[INST] it's just a question of cost. [/INST] Like, imagine, </s><s>[INST] I think the [/INST] way you can view a lot of the commercial </s><s>[INST] spaceflight companies [/INST] is that if you </s><s>[INST] have the funds, you can [/INST] basically plan the mission. All the training will do is to </s><s>[INST] help you get prepared for [/INST] how you run some of the instrumentation, how </s><s>[INST] you can fly the rocket to a [/INST] limited degree and how to use some of the </s><s>[INST] equipment. But fundamentally [/INST] it's no longer a </s><s>[INST] question of, you know, [/INST] years and years of training and selection. This impossible odds task of becoming astronauts. </s><s>[INST] It's [/INST] frankly just a question of funds, </s><s>[INST] expensive plane [/INST] rides. So how much, how much </s><s>[INST] you mentioned [/INST] axiom, is it known how much the </s><s>[INST] it costs [/INST] for the plane ride? There is no official number and it depends on the </s><s>[INST] mission of course. So [/INST] they if you ask them </s><s>[INST] often, they'll [/INST] say, well, how serious are you? They really want, they don't want to give out random numbers to people, but the numbers because for example, we propose one </s><s>[INST] mission, we [/INST] want a new twin study where someone goes </s><s>[INST] Up and stays up there for five [/INST] 100 to 500 and </s><s>[INST] 50 days. But you'd basically [/INST] be up there for the longest time </s><s>[INST] ever. Similarly the [/INST] time it would take to get to mars and </s><s>[INST] back for the shortest [/INST] Possible duration, about five </s><s>[INST] 150 days. Because [/INST] If you went there and immediately turned around you could maybe make that mission. Otherwise it's a three </s><s>[INST] year mission. The and there were you know that [/INST] it's you're looking at the ranges of you know it's </s><s>[INST] 50 to a [/INST] $100 million dollars in that </s><s>[INST] ballpark range. But the reason it's so [/INST] variable is it depends what are you doing up there? If you're up there for example for </s><s>[INST] 2 2 years basically [/INST] We're doing almost almost two </s><s>[INST] years. [/INST] That's a long time just being one spot. Right? So could you be </s><s>[INST] doing some things where you're you can your [/INST] time is valuable. So you could do </s><s>[INST] experiments and people pay for those and that that the phrase the [/INST] cost or you could </s><s>[INST] build something or you [/INST] could do podcasts and maybe you know fundraise on the podcast. And so as </s><s>[INST] long as you, the [/INST] reason the cost is variable </s><s>[INST] because it depends. Well do you have all the money and [/INST] you say I want to go and just sit in </s><s>[INST] Space for two years [/INST] and do nothing. Well then you have to pay for all </s><s>[INST] that time that you're up there if you [/INST] want to do things and yeah I see the the </s><s>[INST] official X [/INST] One mission was 55 million for </s><s>[INST] a trip to the [/INST] ISS uh it could be worse wait. I Sergei just posted </s><s>[INST] A 35,000 [/INST] dollars price tag per </s><s>[INST] night per [/INST] person on the I. S. S. Is </s><s>[INST] that real? I don't know. That [/INST] sounds about right. That's why that's like a real hotel state. So to stay. </s><s>[INST] Oh [/INST] so interesting. </s><s>[INST] Um and [/INST] then I'm sure there's cost </s><s>[INST] with the docking and all those kinds of things. That's [/INST] from the perspective of </s><s>[INST] axiom in the private [/INST] company or SpaceX or whoever is quiver is paying the </s><s>[INST] cost. And uh in the short [/INST] term in the in </s><s>[INST] the long term [/INST] and you think about a lot of that cost is rocket fuel. </s><s>[INST] A lot of is the ride. [/INST] So I've been on calls where axioms like, hey, SpaceX give us to </s><s>[INST] make a little cheaper, we can [/INST] make it cheaper and it's the cost that that is the </s><s>[INST] rockets. So [/INST] SpaceX is giving axiom a </s><s>[INST] ride [/INST] in this case. What is </s><s>[INST] axiom space? Can you speak [/INST] to this? This </s><s>[INST] particular private company? What's [/INST] Their mission? What's their goal? And what what is the axiom one mission </s><s>[INST] that just went up? Yeah, it's [/INST] a, so </s><s>[INST] the axiom space [/INST] is a </s><s>[INST] private spaceflight company [/INST] that's building the </s><s>[INST] first [/INST] private space station. Actually I've seen the videos and footage and hardware being put together </s><s>[INST] so they're in the process [/INST] of constructing it. The hope is that </s><s>[INST] by 2020 for one of the first [/INST] modules will be up and connected to the I. S. S. </s><s>[INST] eventually be expanded. And then by 2028 the [/INST] planet will be completely </s><s>[INST] detached in [/INST] free floating. </s><s>[INST] And it will be [/INST] maybe a little bit sooner </s><s>[INST] depending on how fast it goes. [/INST] But they're building </s><s>[INST] the world's first [/INST] private space station. So if you want to have </s><s>[INST] a wedding up there, [/INST] you just have to multiply the number of guests times the number of nights and you could have a wedding </s><s>[INST] up there would be very expensive. But [/INST] if you want to do it you can do, it's </s><s>[INST] like it's it's you can have a [/INST] lab up there if you want to experiments, you can do experiments </s><s>[INST] and figure out the cost that you want to have [/INST] beer up there, you can make your own, bring your own </s><s>[INST] beer. And so this is the first [/INST] beer made in space. For some reason you want to do it, you can pay for </s><s>[INST] it. So it's opened up [/INST] this space where if you can find the funds </s><s>[INST] for it, you propose [/INST] it, you can probably just do it. </s><s>[INST] Okay, cool. [/INST] Uh So what is the Axiom one mission that just went up? </s><s>[INST] Can you tell me what happened? [/INST] Axiom one is </s><s>[INST] the first [/INST] private </s><s>[INST] company, but the first [/INST] commercial crew to go to the space station. So inspiration for was the first commercial private crew to just go into space. They went to space. </s><s>[INST] Actually, horrible admission [/INST] For just about three </s><s>[INST] days. But acting one [/INST] is the first, you know, again on the SpaceX rockets but </s><s>[INST] launched up dock to the space [/INST] station and they're </s><s>[INST] Up there for about 10 [/INST] days to do experiments to </s><s>[INST] work with staff. [/INST] Actually just take some pictures. </s><s>[INST] But it's a [/INST] mission actually doing a lot of experiments during </s><s>[INST] almost 80 different [/INST] experiments. So it's a lot of, it's very science heavy, which I love as a scientist, </s><s>[INST] but it's the [/INST] ability to show that you can fundraise and launch up a </s><s>[INST] crew that's all [/INST] privately funded and then go to the space station. It's for </s><s>[INST] people and for people [/INST] and the axiom to will also likely </s><s>[INST] before people, the two that have been announced, [/INST] their john </s><s>[INST] Schaffner and Peggy Whitson. [/INST] Peggy, Whitson is already prior </s><s>[INST] Nasa astronaut has [/INST] been at many times the many </s><s>[INST] experiments. She knows the space [/INST] station like our own house And uh we recently did </s><s>[INST] a training with Peggy and [/INST] john in my lab at Cornell to get </s><s>[INST] ready for some other genomics [/INST] experiments that will do on that mission. So they're doing the experiments to </s><s>[INST] what, [/INST] what does it take to design </s><s>[INST] an experiment [/INST] to </s><s>[INST] design experiment here on earth that [/INST] runs up there. </s><s>[INST] And then also to actually do the running of the experiment. What are the [/INST] constraints, what are the </s><s>[INST] opportunities? All that kind of stuff? [/INST] There are the biggest constraint is, </s><s>[INST] is what [/INST] what do you need for re agents or materials, </s><s>[INST] the liquids that you might [/INST] use for any experiment? What if it floats away, What if it gets in </s><s>[INST] someone's eye because things [/INST] always float away in space. There's notoriously panels in the space station where I don't wanna look behind because it got a little fungus </s><s>[INST] or food has gotten [/INST] stuck there and sometimes found months and months or years later. So things things float around. So the little things </s><s>[INST] just [/INST] and so if you have </s><s>[INST] anything you need to do [/INST] your experiment, that's a liquid or </s><s>[INST] a solid, whatever that is. Has to [/INST] go through toxicity testing them. And the big question is, if this thing, whatever you want to use gets </s><s>[INST] in someone's eye, [/INST] will they lose their vision or be really </s><s>[INST] injured? And if the answer is yes, it doesn't mean the answer. [/INST] You can't use. It just means if the answer </s><s>[INST] is yes, you have to then go through [/INST] multiple levels of containment. There's a glove box on the space </s><s>[INST] station where you [/INST] can actually do experiments that have triple layers of containment. So you can </s><s>[INST] still use some harsh [/INST] re agents but you have to do them in the glove box. </s><s>[INST] And so but you can propose [/INST] Almost anything that the biggest challenge is the weight. If it's a heavy, it's $10,000 per kilogram to get something up into space. So if you have a big heavy object </s><s>[INST] that there's some cost [/INST] you have to consider and that includes the, not just the materials but the the </s><s>[INST] the equipment used to [/INST] analyze the materials. One of the ones we worked on actually with kate Rubins was putting the first DNA sequences in space called the biomolecules sequence permission also with Aaron Burton and Sarah Castro Wallace. But </s><s>[INST] they're, the [/INST] interesting thing is we </s><s>[INST] had to prepare this tiny little [/INST] sequence or sequences of DNA. You can do it really quickly within really minutes. </s><s>[INST] And [/INST] what's extraordinary is that you have to do if you want to get a piece of machinery </s><s>[INST] up there, you have to do [/INST] destructive testing. So you have to destroy it and see what happens. And how does it destroyed to pieces? </s><s>[INST] Little pieces of glass break everywhere [/INST] if so that's a problem. So </s><s>[INST] you have to redesign [/INST] it and do fire testing. How does </s><s>[INST] it burn? How does [/INST] your device explode in a </s><s>[INST] fire or doesn't it? [/INST] You have to test that and then you do vibration testing. You have to basically, </s><s>[INST] if you want to fly one thing into [/INST] Space, you need to make four of them and destroy at least three </s><s>[INST] of them to know how they, how [/INST] they destroyed destructive destructive fire fire And </s><s>[INST] the vibration testing. [/INST] Um it's kind of like asking for a friend, how how do you, from a </s><s>[INST] scientific perspective do [/INST] destructive testing and how do you do fire testing? And how do you do vibration testing vibrations? Like just large shakers. So that's </s><s>[INST] uh that's actually mostly [/INST] to simulate launch. They have a lot of machinery at </s><s>[INST] Nasa and [/INST] SpaceX, did you just make sure what does </s><s>[INST] this thing completely fall apart if it [/INST] has a high vibrational essentially force attached to it. So it's just looking like a big shaker </s><s>[INST] fire [/INST] testing. </s><s>[INST] It's just to simulate [/INST] what would happen if there was a normal fire that something gets up to, you know, the fire temperatures several 100 degrees Celsius and </s><s>[INST] there's been a fire or are [/INST] we talking like you put in a </s><s>[INST] toaster and there's more like [/INST] heat or is it the flames the flames and heat, but it's, it's, it's not like a kiln or anything like that, but you don't want to know how does it </s><s>[INST] burn into killing? It's [/INST] more, is it flammable </s><s>[INST] is the first big question because [/INST] it just start on fire if it gets a little bit of flame on it, does it just light up like a </s><s>[INST] christmas tree. Youtube video [/INST] of this, you </s><s>[INST] know, did you film [/INST] any of this? Not not um, Aaron Burton might still have some of the videos uh we're in the middle of doing some testing for the </s><s>[INST] new sequence here called the mar [/INST] Quincy. So I will make videos of of that. I would, I would love to see </s><s>[INST] that for if anything from my private collection and [/INST] this is very exciting and the destructive </s><s>[INST] testing is just often, [/INST] it can be something as simple as a </s><s>[INST] hammer. It's really, how does it shatter [/INST] you wanna question is another glass components. And so it's like office </s><s>[INST] space [/INST] with </s><s>[INST] to the damn, it feels good to be [/INST] a gangster soundtrack. Yeah, that's a great scene. </s><s>[INST] That's [/INST] so that's so excited. That kind of that's the </s><s>[INST] best of engineering is like that kind [/INST] of testing. </s><s>[INST] What else [/INST] about designing experiments? Like what </s><s>[INST] Kind of stuff do you want to get in there? You said 80 [/INST] different experiments? So we're staying in the </s><s>[INST] realm of biology [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] genetics. Yeah. For now, [/INST] but we we also want to do some of the experiments have been discussed in the lab </s><s>[INST] have been somewhere [/INST] being planned as well. But I think the most controversial one that's come up in our </s><s>[INST] in our planning, it [/INST] gets back to sex in space is, you know, can human embryos </s><s>[INST] divide [/INST] and actually begin to develop in space? But then if we do that experiment, </s><s>[INST] that means you're taking [/INST] viable human embryos, </s><s>[INST] watching [/INST] them develop in space, then you can freeze them and bring them down and characterize them to </s><s>[INST] see. But to answer [/INST] that question, because we actually don't know can the human embryo actually develop well </s><s>[INST] in zero gravity, [/INST] we just don't know. </s><s>[INST] But to find that out, that [/INST] means we'd have to literally sacrifice </s><s>[INST] embryos. [/INST] Probably so and which itself has of course, uh </s><s>[INST] you know, a lot of complications, [/INST] ethical considerations, some people just wouldn't it's a nonstarter </s><s>[INST] for lots of people. [/INST] So but we do know that </s><s>[INST] the sperm [/INST] survives earlier said nobody cares about sperm apparently. </s><s>[INST] Now [/INST] we're doing several studies on autism risk for fathers and sperm and you know it's really easy to get sperm. I'll just tell you its </s><s>[INST] people say you're [/INST] helping us, what we're </s><s>[INST] asking for a friend. [/INST] Um </s><s>[INST] Okay cool. Are you [/INST] involved in action one </s><s>[INST] asking to experiments [/INST] like what what </s><s>[INST] does is [/INST] your lab directly </s><s>[INST] or indirectly involved with in terms of experiment [/INST] design. What are you excited </s><s>[INST] about different [/INST] experiments that </s><s>[INST] are happening out there? Some of them [/INST] were doing a lot of the direct training for the cruise is really saying how do you </s><s>[INST] how do you do a [/INST] modern genetics experiments for the </s><s>[INST] Axiom? One inspiration [/INST] for an axiom one. We're also collaborating with Trish which is the </s><s>[INST] translational research [/INST] arm for Nasa that's in </s><s>[INST] Houston. And there [/INST] it's a lot of sharing of samples and data </s><s>[INST] for all these missions [/INST] basically for all </s><s>[INST] the commercial spaceflight [/INST] missions there'll be a repository where you can look at the data from the astronauts. You can look at some of the genetic information, some of the molecular changes. So that's being built up with Trish which has been fabulous collaboration between Cornell </s><s>[INST] and Trish. [/INST] But the other thing we're doing is for </s><s>[INST] access to is training [/INST] them. How do you for example if you want to look at a </s><s>[INST] virus you can take a swab [/INST] of something extracted sequence it and say do I have omicron or do I have a different virus And we're </s><s>[INST] doing the exact same [/INST] work in flight? But we're having the astronauts do the extraction, the sequencing and the analysis </s><s>[INST] of all the [/INST] molecules. And so one of the common occurrences herpes is reactivated often into spaceflight </s><s>[INST] oral herpes. So [/INST] you can see that viral reactivation is one of the biggest kind of mysteries in </s><s>[INST] space flight, where [/INST] the immune system seems to be responding a </s><s>[INST] lot as active. The body's [/INST] really perturbed, but </s><s>[INST] viruses start shedding again [/INST] and it's really and this </s><s>[INST] happens clinically again. We see this for [/INST] like for example, hepatitis C or </s><s>[INST] hepatitis B. You [/INST] can get infected with it and it can stay </s><s>[INST] in your body for decades and [/INST] still kind of be hiding in the </s><s>[INST] body. And in this case we see it in [/INST] spaceflight. Herpes comes back. So we want to figure out is it </s><s>[INST] there first of all and then when [/INST] is it happening </s><s>[INST] and characterize it better? But have [/INST] the astronauts do it themselves </s><s>[INST] rather than collecting it and bring [/INST] it back to Earth and figuring out later, we could see in real </s><s>[INST] time how it's happening [/INST] and then also look at their blood. We'll see what what is changing in their blood in </s><s>[INST] real time with these these new [/INST] sequences. So I'm excited about the genomics and space if you will. So clearly somebody that </s><s>[INST] loves robots. [/INST] Um How many robots are up there in </s><s>[INST] space that helped with the experiments? [/INST] Like what? How </s><s>[INST] much technology [/INST] is there would you </s><s>[INST] say? Is it [/INST] is it really a manual </s><s>[INST] activity or is there a lot [/INST] of robots helping out </s><s>[INST] good questions so [/INST] far. It's almost all manual because the robots have to all undergo the destructive fire and vibrational </s><s>[INST] testing. So if you have a million [/INST] so excited. So if </s><s>[INST] you can get [/INST] that thing is a lot less than a million. But </s><s>[INST] we're definitely gonna [/INST] test it out for the </s><s>[INST] and I guess [/INST] in which order and they have </s><s>[INST] to just separate for each [/INST] one vibration fire uh note </s><s>[INST] note to self [/INST] do fire testing </s><s>[INST] for the legged robots [/INST] and the destructive testing. </s><s>[INST] That would be fascinating. [/INST] I wonder if </s><s>[INST] any of the focus on working with did that kind of testing on the materials like what breaks first with the robots question [/INST] And also the big question. So </s><s>[INST] what's interesting about this for axiom and [/INST] Phillies, commercial spaceflight areas. </s><s>[INST] If you can fund [/INST] it, you could fly it. Right? So if you have to say like I want to fly these series </s><s>[INST] of robots up [/INST] because I think they could help build something or they could help </s><s>[INST] measure or repair the spacecraft or [/INST] you have to come up with a good reason. Yeah. Well for Nasa you have to be good. But I think for private space </s><s>[INST] flight you could have the reason is [/INST] I'm curious and that could </s><s>[INST] just exactly like and [/INST] I've got a private fund or you've got your own money </s><s>[INST] and then you pay [/INST] uh per kilogram essentially. And I mean there are some things you </s><s>[INST] can't say I want to send [/INST] a nuclear bomb up there. I'm </s><s>[INST] curious. I don't think that would [/INST] fly, but there's probably rules in terms of free floating </s><s>[INST] robots, right? They probably [/INST] have to be attached. I have to like it's an orchestra that plays together </s><s>[INST] all the experiments that are [/INST] up there. There's probably it's not silos, it's not separate, separate kind of things. But you're saying </s><s>[INST] it's all mostly manual, [/INST] how much electronics is there in terms of data collection in terms of all that kind of stuff, a lot of electronics. So a lot of its tablets, there's laptops up there. There are, you know, the whole space station is running and tumbling on electronics. Actually. One of the biggest </s><s>[INST] complaints astronauts [/INST] have is is </s><s>[INST] sleeping up there. It's hard, not only because you're in zero gravity, [/INST] but there's a consistent loud </s><s>[INST] hum of the space station. [/INST] There's so many things active and humming </s><s>[INST] and moving [/INST] That are keeping this station alive. The co two scrubbers, all </s><s>[INST] the instrumentation, [/INST] it's it's loud. So I think it is a </s><s>[INST] very well powered lab basically [/INST] and in flight. But it but it uh </s><s>[INST] one of the future space stations [/INST] I think will be very different because </s><s>[INST] they're being built more for [/INST] pleasure than business or, you know, a little bit of both, but they're built </s><s>[INST] for, we want people [/INST] to, you know, at least when </s><s>[INST] you talk to accident, when you talk [/INST] to the other industry partners, they want to make it, you know, space more </s><s>[INST] fun and [/INST] engaging and open to new </s><s>[INST] ideas. So that's looking at [/INST] the fun stuff going on in </s><s>[INST] the next few years. But [/INST] if we zoom out once again, </s><s>[INST] how [/INST] and when do we get </s><s>[INST] outside of the solar [/INST] system? You mentioned this </s><s>[INST] before? Or maybe you can mention that other [/INST] hops we might take, </s><s>[INST] you know what, let's let's step back a little [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] where are some of the fun places we might visit [/INST] first, You know, a semipermanent way inside </s><s>[INST] the solar system that [/INST] you think are worth </s><s>[INST] visiting at the end of [/INST] 500 years. I'm hoping we make the big launch towards another solar </s><s>[INST] system really [/INST] driven by the fact that we </s><s>[INST] now actually have [/INST] exoplanets that we know we might be able to </s><s>[INST] get to and survive [/INST] on. Whereas 20 years ago we really had almost none, certainly none that we knew were </s><s>[INST] habitable and [/INST] exoplanets even just </s><s>[INST] just discovered it and start [/INST] to happen until 89 and really the early 90s for </s><s>[INST] The real validated one. [/INST] So, you know, I'm hoping over the next 500 years we go </s><s>[INST] from thousands of possible [/INST] habitable planets too. Hundreds of thousands or millions that, you know, especially with some of the recent telescopes launch will find them. But </s><s>[INST] but before we get [/INST] there, I have a whole section I really described about the magic of </s><s>[INST] titan because it has [/INST] all this methane which is a great hydrocarbon you can use to make fuel, you can use it. It's cold as all but jesus on titan. But if you can it's it's what so what's </s><s>[INST] a titan made up of? [/INST] What is titan? Everybody loves tighten. It is it's a favorite, I mean it's just kind of eerie green, huge moon moon. Um that's around Saturn. That is, </s><s>[INST] to our [/INST] knowledge, you know this large, it has like you know so cold. It has these methane lakes where the methane normally is. Aghast. But there would actually be so cold. It's like a lake of methane. You could go swimming in it potentially there might be some degree of rocks or maybe mountains there but they might also be made of like frozen methane. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] no one's ever actually no, no persons obviously been there but it is you know have enough satellite imagery and some data that you could actually </s><s>[INST] potentially survive [/INST] on titan. So I think that's the one place where I'm hoping that we would at least have a bit of an outpost. That might not be a luxurious retreat because it's really cold. Is there life on titan? You </s><s>[INST] think underneath the surface somewhere [/INST] maybe </s><s>[INST] we'll [/INST] actually with all </s><s>[INST] that carbon and all those [/INST] hydrocarbons. It is very possible that some microbial life could be </s><s>[INST] there and hanging [/INST] out waiting for us to to dip your toes into the methane and find it. But </s><s>[INST] we don't know [/INST] yet. But I think that's one place I'd like to see an outpost. I </s><s>[INST] would like to see other [/INST] outpost near jupiter, but jupiter has extremely high radiation actually. So even places like Io which are volcanically active and quite amazing, we probably couldn't survive that long that close to jupiter though it has because it brings such a giant planet, it emits back out a lot of radiation and it's collecting from outside of the part of the universe and it jumps back out. So if you get </s><s>[INST] too close to [/INST] jupiter, it </s><s>[INST] actually almost certainly [/INST] not be able to survive. And depending on which part of it. But that's one risk about jupiter. Um </s><s>[INST] but it'd be cool to [/INST] See the giant red spot up close, maybe have some spots there. Marsha Stop one </s><s>[INST] Then you get to pick titan [/INST] or Io. So ice </s><s>[INST] fire [/INST] and ice and the robert frost </s><s>[INST] poem comes to money [/INST] and the Europa </s><s>[INST] is that it would be [/INST] cool to and insulate us which is a big ocean. It might be there like an alien ocean that's under the It </s><s>[INST] might be even water [/INST] ice that's there. And water even </s><s>[INST] liquid water potentially there [/INST] under the surface. So that would be a great </s><s>[INST] candidate. The [/INST] asteroids of series would be good or eros or big enough you get a little bit </s><s>[INST] of gravity [/INST] that it would be interesting. You could have maybe a habitable place there and they just might be big enough that you could get there survive and even have a tiny bit of gravity, but not much. Why </s><s>[INST] do you like asteroids? You [/INST] know, you just, this we're just </s><s>[INST] listing vacations, [/INST] vacations. But basically, yes, I'd say that well. So </s><s>[INST] they probably a lot of rare earth [/INST] minerals that you could use for manufacturing, which is </s><s>[INST] why [/INST] part of the space economy that's being built up now is people really wanted to go and hollow out the asteroids and bring back all the, um, </s><s>[INST] you know, all the resources from [/INST] it. So </s><s>[INST] this legally [/INST] is very possible because even though, </s><s>[INST] um, the, the [/INST] Space Space Act prevents </s><s>[INST] people from [/INST] militarizing space or owning all of it if </s><s>[INST] you get the resources [/INST] out of an asteroid. But you don't actually say you own </s><s>[INST] it. That's still, that's [/INST] perfectly legal. </s><s>[INST] What's the Space [/INST] act? It's basically was 1967 was the </s><s>[INST] first [/INST] a large scale agreement between major international parties, </s><s>[INST] particularly [/INST] the US and Russia, But also many others to say that space should </s><s>[INST] be a place for [/INST] humanity's to not have militarize it to not weaponize its not militarize it also established the basic sharing principles between countries who are going into space and there </s><s>[INST] was a [/INST] plan to make an additional act in the </s><s>[INST] nineties. Um, [/INST] the lunar, lunar, </s><s>[INST] actually, I'm [/INST] blanking on the name of it. But the, uh, there hasn't been any significant legislation that has been universally accepted since the space act. </s><s>[INST] So, but the primary focus, [/INST] I was on the militarization. </s><s>[INST] That militarization, [/INST] which was in theory not allowed, which will, </s><s>[INST] which so far has [/INST] stayed true. </s><s>[INST] But, but there's [/INST] no, um, is </s><s>[INST] there any legal [/INST] framework for who owns space and space? Uh, like </s><s>[INST] different geographical [/INST] regions of space, both out in </s><s>[INST] space and [/INST] on </s><s>[INST] asteroids and [/INST] planets and moons. The currently you can't own, you're not supposed to be able to own. I mean, people have tried to sell bits of the moon for example, or sell names of </s><s>[INST] stars, which is pretty [/INST] harmless, but you're not supposed to be able to </s><s>[INST] own any part of the [/INST] moon or an asteroid for that matter. </s><s>[INST] But [/INST] you're allowed to mind resources </s><s>[INST] from it. So in theory, [/INST] you could go catch an asteroid, hollow out the whole thing, like you eat an orange and leave the </s><s>[INST] shell and [/INST] say, okay, I'm done. I never owned it, but I just extracted everything inside of it and now I'm done with it. And, and then </s><s>[INST] of course [/INST] you see there's going to </s><s>[INST] be some contentious battles, even [/INST] wars over those </s><s>[INST] resources. [/INST] Hopefully at a very small </s><s>[INST] scale. It's more like [/INST] conflict or like </s><s>[INST] human tension. [/INST] But oh boy, </s><s>[INST] it's like [/INST] war makes for human flourishing. </s><s>[INST] Like after the war [/INST] somehow, </s><s>[INST] sometimes there's just [/INST] this explosion </s><s>[INST] of conflict [/INST] and afterwards for a long while there's a flourishing and again, </s><s>[INST] conflict and flourishing and [/INST] hopefully over a stretch of millennia, </s><s>[INST] the rate of conflict and the destructiveness [/INST] of conflict decreases. It has, it has at least in the past 100 years. The number of wars, number of military actions, casualties have all decreased. I don't know if it's gonna stay that way for humanity going. </s><s>[INST] I think, [/INST] you know, the trajectory is there, I think the the warmongering is is less tolerated by the international community. The, you know, it's more scrutinized. It still happens like, you know, right now is an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. And you've spoken a lot about it and it's, you know, but it's, </s><s>[INST] you know, they're there [/INST] sometimes the small military </s><s>[INST] actions, but I think [/INST] the the, you know, and even </s><s>[INST] there there's a, you know, [/INST] uh large military </s><s>[INST] action across most of [/INST] the country, but not all of it extra. So it's, I think we see less over time of large scale multi country invasions. Like like we've seen in the past, I think maybe that won't happen ever again. But you might see country to country battles </s><s>[INST] happening, which has always happened, I [/INST] think. Um but hopefully less of that as well. And yet the destructiveness of </s><s>[INST] our weapons increases. So [/INST] it's a it's a it's a </s><s>[INST] complicated race [/INST] in both directions will become more peaceful </s><s>[INST] and more destructive at the [/INST] same time. It's fascinating </s><s>[INST] how do we get outside [/INST] the solar system? You are, you're </s><s>[INST] right, an epic [/INST] line. </s><s>[INST] I believe it's the title of one of the [/INST] sections launched </s><s>[INST] toward the Second [/INST] son. </s><s>[INST] Mhm. [/INST] That journey </s><s>[INST] of saying, [/INST] we're going to somehow the solar system </s><s>[INST] feels like home earth is [/INST] home, but the solar system is home. It's our sun. The sun is a source of, </s><s>[INST] of [/INST] life. </s><s>[INST] And [/INST] going towards the </s><s>[INST] second Son, [/INST] leaving this home behind. </s><s>[INST] That's that's [/INST] one hell of a </s><s>[INST] journey. So [/INST] what does </s><s>[INST] that journey look like [/INST] when, when does it happen and what's required to make it happen </s><s>[INST] to get to that [/INST] state? We have to actually </s><s>[INST] have, you know, [/INST] describe a number of options. Either we have to all have people survive and multiple generations live and die on the same spacecraft </s><s>[INST] towards another, another [/INST] star </s><s>[INST] propulsion technology. You [/INST] need to have that in place. I assume we don't have dramatic improvements. I described ways that </s><s>[INST] could happen like antimatter [/INST] drives or things that could make it possible to go faster. But since it's a book of nonfiction, I just make no big </s><s>[INST] leaps other [/INST] than what we know of today, that's possible. And if that's the case, you'd need probably 20 generations to live and die </s><s>[INST] On one spacecraft to [/INST] make it towards what is our known closest habitable exoplanet. Now, that sounds, you know, so you need to have the life support self reliance, self sustainability all in that one would be a large spacecraft. </s><s>[INST] You have to grow your own food. [/INST] Probably still have some areas with gravity. It would be complicated. But I think after 500 years we could actually </s><s>[INST] have the technology [/INST] and the means and the understanding of biology to enable that. And, and so with that as a backdrop, you </s><s>[INST] could have people hibernate [/INST] and talk about like maybe need to hibernate instead of just people </s><s>[INST] living their normal life. But I think [/INST] we don't, the hibernation technology </s><s>[INST] doesn't work that [/INST] well yet and I don't know if it might </s><s>[INST] pan out and maybe [/INST] In 200 years it gets really good. Then people can all just </s><s>[INST] sleeping pods. [/INST] Great. You know, So I I think this is the minimum viable product with everything </s><s>[INST] that we have today and [/INST] nothing else, Right? So if that's the case, </s><s>[INST] which of course I'm sure of more than [/INST] 500 years. But basically </s><s>[INST] what we know today [/INST] give people live and die on the spacecraft. And that sounds </s><s>[INST] almost like a prison sentence. You [/INST] say if you were born into a </s><s>[INST] spacecraft and [/INST] when you got old enough, they just said, we're, yes, you can tell, we're on a </s><s>[INST] spacecraft, we [/INST] you will live your whole life on this. Let's say something </s><s>[INST] the size of a building [/INST] and this </s><s>[INST] is everyone you'll ever know [/INST] and then you'll die. And then your </s><s>[INST] Children will also carry [/INST] on the mission, would those people feel </s><s>[INST] proud and excited to say, we are [/INST] the vanguard and </s><s>[INST] hope of humanity, [/INST] we're going towards a new son and maybe they'd love it. </s><s>[INST] Or would they, after 10 [/INST] generations, maybe they would rebel and say to </s><s>[INST] hell with this. I'm tired [/INST] of being this prison, this is a bad idea. We're turning around </s><s>[INST] or we're going somewhere [/INST] else or a mutiny happens and they </s><s>[INST] kill each other, right? So [/INST] we would have to really make sure that the mental health, they structure, the society is </s><s>[INST] built so they could sustain that [/INST] mission. That's a crazy mission. But it's not that much different from spaceship Earth. Right here we are stuck on one planet. </s><s>[INST] We don't have planetary [/INST] liberty. We can't go to another planet right now. We can't even really go to another moon that easily. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] we and we and I love Earth. There's lots of wonderful things here, but it's still </s><s>[INST] Just this one planet and [/INST] we're stuck on it. So everyone that, you know, and love and </s><s>[INST] live with here will be dead someday. [/INST] And that's all you'll ever know </s><s>[INST] too. So I [/INST] think it's a difference of </s><s>[INST] scale, not a difference of type [/INST] in terms of an </s><s>[INST] experience. It's still [/INST] a spaceship traveling out in space. Earth is still a spaceship traveling out of space. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] it is a kind of </s><s>[INST] prison. [/INST] It's always </s><s>[INST] everybody [/INST] lives in a prison. It well, let's say it's a limited planetary experience. We'll say it's like that like </s><s>[INST] prison sound so dark, [/INST] but just yeah, just like prison is a </s><s>[INST] is a is [/INST] a limited geographic </s><s>[INST] and [/INST] culinary experience, </s><s>[INST] but I don't want it to be [/INST] viewed that way. I want to think, wait, this is what an extraordinary gift. And we wouldn't probably launch one generation ship will </s><s>[INST] Probably launch 10 or 20 [/INST] of them to different the best candidates and hopefully </s><s>[INST] get there. And yeah, I mean the fact [/INST] is limitations and constraints make </s><s>[INST] life [/INST] fascinating because </s><s>[INST] the human mind somehow struggles [/INST] against those constraints and that's </s><s>[INST] how beauty is created. [/INST] So um there is kind of a threshold, </s><s>[INST] you know, being [/INST] Stuck in one room </s><s>[INST] is different than being [/INST] stuck in a building </s><s>[INST] uh and being stuck in a in the city being stuck in like I [/INST] wonder what the threshold </s><s>[INST] of [/INST] people like. </s><s>[INST] Um yeah, I I lived for a long time in the studio and then I upgraded [/INST] Gloriously to a one bedroom </s><s>[INST] apartment and the power to be able to [/INST] like close the </s><s>[INST] door. It was magnificent. It's [/INST] just like, </s><s>[INST] wow you [/INST] can speak </s><s>[INST] volumes. [/INST] It's like you </s><s>[INST] can escape. That feels like freedom. That's the definition [/INST] of freedom. </s><s>[INST] Having a door where you could close it [/INST] and now you're alone </s><s>[INST] with your thoughts [/INST] and then you can </s><s>[INST] open it and you [/INST] enter and now </s><s>[INST] there's other humans [/INST] as freedom. So the threshold of what freedom the experience of freedom is like </s><s>[INST] is really [/INST] fascinating. And like you said, there could </s><s>[INST] be technologies in terms of hibernation [/INST] VR alter reality virtuality </s><s>[INST] Because you know 30 years [/INST] ago that they sounded awful. I think I think you'd be stuck in a spacecraft. But now you can bring the totality of all of human history, culture. Every, every music, every bit of music, </s><s>[INST] song, [/INST] every movie, every book </s><s>[INST] Can all be in one [/INST] tablet basically. Right? So, and also you still get </s><s>[INST] up updates from netflix. [/INST] If you're on the way towards another star, you can still </s><s>[INST] get downloads. And so, [/INST] but eventually, maybe the crew would start to make their own shows and be like, well, I don't want the Earth shows I want to talk about, I'm gonna </s><s>[INST] make a drama on [/INST] the spacecraft, but I think it would have to be big enough. So it feels like at least the size of the </s><s>[INST] building. I think [/INST] people's intuitions about </s><s>[INST] quarantining have really [/INST] become very </s><s>[INST] immediate because [/INST] we've all had to experience it to some degree in the past two years </s><s>[INST] and we survived. [/INST] But definitely we've learned that you need a really good internet connection. You need, you know, some ability to go somewhere sometimes. And you know, that </s><s>[INST] might just be as simple as people [/INST] leading the spacecraft to go to something. That's another thing connected to it. Or just go out into the vacuum of space for an afternoon to experience it. Um, see </s><s>[INST] people need recognition. [/INST] People need games. People </s><s>[INST] need toys. People [/INST] love to play. </s><s>[INST] What [/INST] are chloral humans? </s><s>[INST] Chloral [/INST] humans is a </s><s>[INST] description of how you [/INST] can embed chloroplasts into human skin or these, the thing that makes plants green so they can absorb light from the sun and then get all their energy </s><s>[INST] that way, of course humans [/INST] Don't do this. But I describe in the book in the far future maybe three or 400 years </s><s>[INST] from now. If we [/INST] could work on the ways that </s><s>[INST] animals [/INST] and plants work </s><s>[INST] together, you can embed [/INST] chloroplasts in human skin and then if you're </s><s>[INST] hungry, [/INST] you go outside and you lay out your </s><s>[INST] skin and [/INST] then you absorb sunlight and then you go back in when you get full. </s><s>[INST] If you only wanted to lay outside [/INST] for just a one hour to get get your days fully, you </s><s>[INST] know, your days fully [/INST] value of energy, you need </s><s>[INST] About two tennis courts [/INST] worth of skin that you could lay out </s><s>[INST] and maybe your friends would [/INST] planet or something. But if they plan it in their shadows would block your son. So maybe you leave your skin out there and you could roll up your skin, go </s><s>[INST] back inside after about [/INST] one hour and that's how much skin you would need to </s><s>[INST] have exposed. With [/INST] some reasonable assumptions about the light capture and efficiency of the chloroplasts. </s><s>[INST] So it's just kind [/INST] of a fun concept in the book of green humans going around absorbing light from the sun. Something I've dreamed about since I was a kid is their </s><s>[INST] engineering [/INST] ways of like having that much </s><s>[INST] skin and being able to [/INST] laying it out efficiently. </s><s>[INST] Like is there, it sounds absurd, but you [/INST] could roll it up, it would be, </s><s>[INST] I mean, or you could just lay outside [/INST] longer. I wanted to think if you just need to have one hour and how much time would you need? But if you just went out there for </s><s>[INST] four hours you need something [/INST] that's smaller. But you know I think of you know sort of a half </s><s>[INST] a tennis courts so you could [/INST] make like wings could be like and you lay </s><s>[INST] them out there and but but also if [/INST] you that's if you need </s><s>[INST] all your energy [/INST] only from your skin. </s><s>[INST] So if you just get a little bit of [/INST] it and your energy of course you could just walk around with your skin as is and you still have to eat but not as much. And I </s><s>[INST] describe that because [/INST] we need other ways to think about making your own energy. If you're in a really </s><s>[INST] long mission that's far from [/INST] stars, you could turn on a lamp that would give you some of that. You know, </s><s>[INST] essentially exact [/INST] wavelength of light you need for your chloroplast and your skin. </s><s>[INST] But it's you know, that's something [/INST] I'm hoping would happen in 3-4 </s><s>[INST] 100 years. But it would [/INST] be hard because you're taking a </s><s>[INST] plant organelles [/INST] and putting it into animal </s><s>[INST] cells. Which [/INST] sounds weird but we have mitochondria inside of us. </s><s>[INST] But basically we ourselves [/INST] captured bacteria and now it walks around with us all the time. So </s><s>[INST] there's precedent for an evolution. [/INST] How much by the way speaking </s><s>[INST] of which [/INST] does evolution help us here? So </s><s>[INST] we talked a lot about [/INST] engineering, you know, building, </s><s>[INST] you [/INST] know, genetically modifying humans </s><s>[INST] to make them [/INST] more resilient </s><s>[INST] or having [/INST] mechanisms for repairing </s><s>[INST] parts of [/INST] humans. </s><s>[INST] Um What [/INST] about evolving humans or evolving organisms that live on </s><s>[INST] humans? Sort of the [/INST] thing you mentioned, </s><s>[INST] which you've already [/INST] learned is that humans are pretty adaptable. </s><s>[INST] And what does that [/INST] mean? You also um somewhere wrote that, you know, there's trillions of cells that </s><s>[INST] make up the human body and you know, those are [/INST] all organisms and there </s><s>[INST] are also very [/INST] adaptable. So </s><s>[INST] can we leverage the natural process [/INST] of evolution </s><s>[INST] of the [/INST] slaughter, the selection, </s><s>[INST] the mutation and the adaptation [/INST] that is all. And uh sorry </s><s>[INST] to throw slaughter into there. Just just acknowledging [/INST] that a lot of organisms </s><s>[INST] have to die in [/INST] evolution. </s><s>[INST] Uh can [/INST] we use that for long term </s><s>[INST] space [/INST] travel or </s><s>[INST] colonization occupation? [/INST] Is there a good word for this? Of </s><s>[INST] of planets [/INST] like terraform the planet, you know, to adjust the </s><s>[INST] human body to the planet? [/INST] Oh it's not really a term for that yet. I guess too </s><s>[INST] adapt [/INST] to uh the </s><s>[INST] new vacation spot. [/INST] Yeah, I called it </s><s>[INST] just directed [/INST] evolution in the book is that you you you guide the evolution towards what you want in this case. Sometimes you can engineer yourselves to make exactly what you want. But other times you put people on planets and </s><s>[INST] and see how they change. [/INST] Actually later in the book. I imagine if you have humans on multiple planets you could have this virtuous cycle or as people adapt and evolve here you'd sequence their DNA and see how they change and then send the information back to the other planet and then study them with more resources. So you'd be able to then </s><s>[INST] have a continual [/INST] exchange of what's evolving in which way and different planets. And then each planet would learn from the changes that they see at the other planet. </s><s>[INST] Does the evolution [/INST] happen at the scale of human or </s><s>[INST] do we need the individual like or [/INST] is it more efficient to do like bacteria </s><s>[INST] bacteria [/INST] cheaper and faster and easier. But we but we also have a lot of bacteria in us on us and all around us and even the bacteria in the space station are continually evolving. </s><s>[INST] So did you study that [/INST] by the way like non human cells? </s><s>[INST] Like what the microbiome [/INST] seems, yep. So we've seen that for the astronauts we can actually see </s><s>[INST] there. Their [/INST] immune system respond to the microbiome of the space station. So as soon as you get into that aluminum tube there's a whole </s><s>[INST] ecosystem that's already up there. [/INST] And we can actually see we saw this with scott kelly, </s><s>[INST] we've seen restaurants [/INST] you can see the T </s><s>[INST] cells in their body. They actually [/INST] responding to little peptides </s><s>[INST] a little the [/INST] molecules of the bacteria there there are the </s><s>[INST] immune system is [/INST] looking for a specific bacteria and then once it sees new ones it remembers it </s><s>[INST] and you can see [/INST] the body looking for </s><s>[INST] the microbes that are [/INST] only on the space station </s><s>[INST] that you don't see on [/INST] earth. And when scott came back he actually </s><s>[INST] had more of those microbes [/INST] embedded in his skin in his mouth and stool. They weren't there before. So we're like picked up new </s><s>[INST] Hitchhikers [/INST] in the space station and brought something </s><s>[INST] back down with them. So [/INST] there's like long term </s><s>[INST] ecosystems [/INST] 20 years. They've been there for 20 years. Yes </s><s>[INST] that's there's [/INST] some like chuck Norris </s><s>[INST] that bacteria up [/INST] there I'm sure </s><s>[INST] um [/INST] you you're part </s><s>[INST] of the Extreme microbiome [/INST] project. </s><s>[INST] What does that [/INST] involve? What kind of fun um fun organisms </s><s>[INST] have you [/INST] learned about? Have you </s><s>[INST] gotten to explore? We [/INST] have a really fun project X. M. P. The extreme microbiome. Which is as it sounds like we look for really odd places like heavy radiation environments, high salt high </s><s>[INST] or low temperature you [/INST] know. Strange area the space station for example. Lots of radiation and micro gravity places where organisms can </s><s>[INST] evolved for [/INST] interesting adaptations. And some of them have been organisms. We've seen like a candy pink lake in Australia called Lake Hillier </s><s>[INST] which was just published [/INST] a paper on this. Where </s><s>[INST] is the pink? [/INST] So it's actually done Ilya Salinas. And he's one of these organisms. There's a mixture of bacteria and some allergy there there that make it bright pink. So they actually make </s><s>[INST] carotenoids. These like [/INST] really sort of orangey </s><s>[INST] and kind of pink [/INST] molecules when you look at them in the light. So if you know if you get enough of the bacteria it becomes pink. So and it's not just pink, it's like bubblegum pink </s><s>[INST] the link. And so [/INST] We uh that's just an odd, it's a Halo file being said it grows in 30% salt and if you go below 10, salt, it doesn't even grow, it actually kills it. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, there [/INST] it is likelier. Is it toxic to humans or No. So when you walk in the Pink Lake actually it's so hyper tonic meaning it's so salty, you can feel it licensing and killing yourselves on your foot. So it actually hurts to walk because it's so salty. So yeah, so but it won't kill it'll it listen, you have to suffer for </s><s>[INST] art and that's great. [/INST] I mean so it is a beautiful </s><s>[INST] like you have [/INST] to get permits to go sample there. But we actually got an email </s><s>[INST] last week, there's pilots who [/INST] fly over this in Australia because they love the color. So he </s><s>[INST] emailed us one of the pilots and he said, hey [/INST] guys, I saw you publish his paper, </s><s>[INST] it's not as pink as it [/INST] used to be because he loves flying over and it was like a </s><s>[INST] little bit less pain because they had a [/INST] bunch of rain in the past few weeks. So </s><s>[INST] it was just a little bit diluted. So we [/INST] reassured him. It will get </s><s>[INST] more pink as they grow [/INST] again. </s><s>[INST] But basically yeah, it's a beautiful [/INST] pink lake And so that is gorgeous. It's almost like </s><s>[INST] it's like a dr Seuss [/INST] book or something. It's like it doesn't even </s><s>[INST] look hard to get to. Yes [/INST] there's no road if you have to basically fly land nearby and then paddle </s><s>[INST] in but so it's [/INST] not next to anything </s><s>[INST] so it's hard to get to but once you [/INST] get there um it's </s><s>[INST] beautiful if [/INST] anyone knows how to get there let </s><s>[INST] me know. I want to go there. Okay cool. [/INST] What are some other </s><s>[INST] extreme organisms [/INST] that you study? Other ones? There's some organisms we studied in the space station called Acinetobacter </s><s>[INST] pitti which is [/INST] a often found in human skin but we found hundreds of strains in the </s><s>[INST] space station that we've [/INST] brought down and curated and then sequenced. Uh and this is with the cafeteria Venkateshwara who's at jet propulsion laboratory working with him and they have evolved there Now. They no longer look like any earth based acinetobacter. They don't look like they've now basically a new species. So </s><s>[INST] actually we uh there's a there's [/INST] a different species of bacteria and fungi that have </s><s>[INST] now mutated [/INST] so much on the space station. There literally a new species. And so we have found some of those that have just there. They're evolving in his life is always evolving and you can see it also in the space of an entirely </s><s>[INST] new species [/INST] born in the space station. Yeah that's completely different. So we we found </s><s>[INST] one [/INST] species actually </s><s>[INST] um that we [/INST] named after a </s><s>[INST] donor to Cornell. Someone [/INST] who's donated funds to </s><s>[INST] the research. So [/INST] we named a different species of fungus </s><s>[INST] after him, nah [/INST] Ganesha Tolchinsky </s><s>[INST] because he's [/INST] eager. Tolchinsky. So as a thank </s><s>[INST] you for him donating to [/INST] Cornell. He said we've named this </s><s>[INST] fungus that we found on the space station for you. [/INST] Was he grateful or </s><s>[INST] did he stop [/INST] funding research? </s><s>[INST] Very [/INST] grateful. And then and </s><s>[INST] I told him I said if you have [/INST] like an ex girlfriend we could try and name like a you know a genital fungus after </s><s>[INST] her or something if you [/INST] want. And he said he said maybe. </s><s>[INST] But he [/INST] stopped answering emails after that. Okay. What about like in extreme </s><s>[INST] conditions [/INST] um in ice in heat? Is that </s><s>[INST] something of interest to you? [/INST] And the things that survive </s><s>[INST] and where most things [/INST] can't. Yes of keen interest. I think that will be </s><s>[INST] the roadmap [/INST] for some of the potential adaptations what we could think of for human </s><s>[INST] cells or certainly for [/INST] our human microbiome </s><s>[INST] like just all the [/INST] microorganisms in and on and around us. So we've seen you know even there's this one crater it's called um the Lake of Fire. It's in turkmenistan </s><s>[INST] where it's been on fire [/INST] because of oil that had been set on fire decades ago and it's still burning. So we collected some samples from </s><s>[INST] there and those were some pseudomonas [/INST] petito, some species we found there that can So there's stuff alive that it seems to be </s><s>[INST] surviving there [/INST] by this large pit of fire. Oh yeah, there is the desert. It's been just on fire for </s><s>[INST] decades apparently. [/INST] So </s><s>[INST] this is another, [/INST] it's just the </s><s>[INST] lake of fire. So that scientists had [/INST] set up a drilling rig here for extraction of natural </s><s>[INST] gas. Of course it will be in this part [/INST] of the world that you would get something </s><s>[INST] like this. But the rig collapsed and methane gas [/INST] is being released from the crater. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. So for those, just [/INST] listening, we're looking </s><s>[INST] at a at [/INST] a lake full of fire and there's something </s><s>[INST] alive there allegedly. [/INST] And pseudomonas are known to be some of the </s><s>[INST] most tough organize, they actually can [/INST] clean toxic </s><s>[INST] waste from, [/INST] you know, many years of </s><s>[INST] superfund sites where there's [/INST] so much waste </s><s>[INST] that's been deposited, you'll find [/INST] them there as well. Actually, there is one place in the iguanas </s><s>[INST] Canal, there's something [/INST] that's called in new york city in </s><s>[INST] Brooklyn. [/INST] And it is a complete </s><s>[INST] toxic waste dump [/INST] That was where a lot of waste in the 1700s was dumped. And so the </s><s>[INST] you know, the gateway to [/INST] hell um is what it's called. But the, so, </s><s>[INST] so [/INST] the the Kiwanis Canal is also a place that has been fun to sequence and and see pseudomonas pseudomonas </s><s>[INST] species that can survive [/INST] there basically pulling toxins from the environment. So it is if you create this toxic landscape and then </s><s>[INST] evolution comes in and says fine [/INST] I'll make things that can </s><s>[INST] survive here. And [/INST] when you look at the biochemistry </s><s>[INST] of those species, what [/INST] what they've created is their own salvation basically the selection has made them survivors. And suddenly you can use that to re </s><s>[INST] mediate other polluted [/INST] sites for example. </s><s>[INST] So that explains [/INST] twitter perfectly. The </s><s>[INST] toxicity created [/INST] adaptation </s><s>[INST] for [/INST] the for the </s><s>[INST] psychological microbiome. [/INST] That is social </s><s>[INST] media. [/INST] Okay. Uh </s><s>[INST] beautiful. [/INST] But you just </s><s>[INST] actually jump back to [/INST] the interstellar travel assuming the technology </s><s>[INST] of today. [/INST] Yes. </s><s>[INST] What are some [/INST] wild </s><s>[INST] innovations that might [/INST] happen in the space of physics </s><s>[INST] or biology by the [/INST] way. Where do you think is the most </s><s>[INST] exciting breakthroughs [/INST] for interstellar </s><s>[INST] travel that will [/INST] happen in the next 500 years? Is that physics? Is it biology </s><s>[INST] is a computer [/INST] science. So information </s><s>[INST] or DNA like some kind of um informational [/INST] type of thing. Is it </s><s>[INST] biological and [/INST] physiological, making the </s><s>[INST] body resilient [/INST] um live </s><s>[INST] longer and [/INST] resilient to the harsh </s><s>[INST] conditions of space? [/INST] Or is it the actual </s><s>[INST] vehicle of [/INST] transport </s><s>[INST] which would be applied [/INST] physics </s><s>[INST] as you can probably [/INST] guess I'll say all of the above </s><s>[INST] questions. [/INST] But but to to break those down though, I think the </s><s>[INST] Ai I hope in [/INST] the book later that we would have really good machine companions. That the Ai I really hope the </s><s>[INST] ai is that we build [/INST] like realistically we are the programmers are making them. I would </s><s>[INST] feel like a colossal [/INST] failure if we didn't make </s><s>[INST] a I that was embedded with a sense of [/INST] duty and </s><s>[INST] caretaking and friendship [/INST] and even even creativity. Like we have the opportunity where I've coded algorithms myself, like </s><s>[INST] we're building them. So it [/INST] would it's incumbent upon us to actually make them uh not assholes, </s><s>[INST] you know, I think frankly, so just [/INST] be uh technical air actually on that point, just </s><s>[INST] to linger on the Ai front, can [/INST] you steal me in the case that </s><s>[INST] hal 9000 [/INST] from space? Odyssey </s><s>[INST] was doing [/INST] the right thing. </s><s>[INST] So, you [/INST] know, so for people </s><s>[INST] Who haven't seen 2000 [/INST] one space, Odyssey held 9000 is very </s><s>[INST] kind of [/INST] um focused on the mission cares a lot about the mission and kind of wants to </s><s>[INST] hurt the astronauts [/INST] that try to get in the way of the mission. I think he was doing, it was </s><s>[INST] programmed to do [/INST] which was just to follow the mission, but didn't have a sense </s><s>[INST] of [/INST] anything. A broader </s><s>[INST] duty. [/INST] You could I mean, what's the broader duty </s><s>[INST] exactly [/INST] maintaining the </s><s>[INST] well being of astronauts? Yeah. [/INST] Or giving them another option. I think he viewed them as like completely expendable rather than </s><s>[INST] say [/INST] completely it's a </s><s>[INST] trade off. [/INST] So like </s><s>[INST] a doctor has to make [/INST] decisions like this to your, your </s><s>[INST] restricted on [/INST] the resources </s><s>[INST] you have to make life and death [/INST] Decisions. So maybe Hal nine </s><s>[INST] 1000 had a [/INST] long term vision of what is </s><s>[INST] good for [/INST] the civilization back at home. Maybe a deonte genic vision of what was the best duty for for the genetics you </s><s>[INST] could say. [/INST] It's it's a word I made up in the book is like what is your genetic duties like when you think of my your </s><s>[INST] D. N. A. [/INST] What are you supposed to do with it? Which is kind of the value of life. But if hal </s><s>[INST] was [/INST] um silicon based version of genetics, which is just his own maintenance of himself and self survival, you could argue he's doing the right thing for himself. But I think a human in that circumstance might have </s><s>[INST] tried to find a way [/INST] to even if the astronauts don't agree with the mission </s><s>[INST] to figure out somebody [/INST] get them on a different spacecraft to go </s><s>[INST] away or something. Where [/INST] versus just say, well, you're in the way of the mission. I'll just you have to </s><s>[INST] die. Is I think. [/INST] But accommodation </s><s>[INST] candidates, you've made to your point with [/INST] doctors. Like some sometimes you'd like to save </s><s>[INST] three people, but you can only [/INST] Save two and you have to at some point pick. </s><s>[INST] But I think [/INST] that since it's a false dichotomy, </s><s>[INST] I think how didn't [/INST] wasn't programmed to and didn't try </s><s>[INST] To find a 3rd solution. Perhaps [/INST] this like Stuart russell proposes this idea that ai systems should have </s><s>[INST] self doubt. There should [/INST] be always uncertain in their final decision and </s><s>[INST] that would help pal [/INST] sort of get out of the local, </s><s>[INST] local [/INST] optimum of the this is the mission, Like always be </s><s>[INST] a little bit like, [/INST] I'm not sure this is the right </s><s>[INST] thing, and then you're [/INST] forced to kind of contend with other humans with other entities on what is the right decision. Um So like the worst </s><s>[INST] stuff, but the worst thing [/INST] about decisions </s><s>[INST] from that [/INST] perspective </s><s>[INST] is [/INST] if you're extremely </s><s>[INST] confident [/INST] and you're stubborn </s><s>[INST] and immovable, [/INST] right, and then but its programming doubt is that sounds complicated. That sounds </s><s>[INST] like go wrong. [/INST] It's like </s><s>[INST] you can go wrong either way, [/INST] if you're too confident, you won't see the other options. If you have too much doubt you </s><s>[INST] won't move, you'll be [/INST] paralyzed by the options so you need some middle ground, which I </s><s>[INST] think is what most people [/INST] experience every day is we all love the </s><s>[INST] concept of being a [/INST] steadfast, </s><s>[INST] resolute leader, [/INST] making big decisions quickly and without question. </s><s>[INST] But at the same time we [/INST] know that people can be blinded to things they're missing if they're if </s><s>[INST] they're too headstrong. So, so how would you improve [/INST] hal 9000? I think I would include </s><s>[INST] other because how [/INST] is one </s><s>[INST] program much like we do for humans? [/INST] You get feedback from </s><s>[INST] other humans before you make a decision that affects [/INST] all of them? So I think how could have gotten feedback from </s><s>[INST] other Ai systems that [/INST] said, well, is this, are there other </s><s>[INST] options here and done it [/INST] probably very quickly, are you given, </s><s>[INST] you know, embedded programming system where the Ai [/INST] has a primary function, but at times of uncertainty queries a series of other </s><s>[INST] programmed AI is to ask for [/INST] a consensus almost like a </s><s>[INST] democracy of the AI. [/INST] But since it's all a program, you can bring it all together and say there's a primary, but it only activates the </s><s>[INST] Parliament if you will for a decision [/INST] when needed. I don't know how </s><s>[INST] you program dramatically different AI is all in [/INST] one system that </s><s>[INST] are different enough, but [/INST] conceptually it's possible, of </s><s>[INST] course, that can lead to, [/INST] you know, logjam and government and parliament doesn't do anything or Congress doesn't do anything. And so there's trade offs, </s><s>[INST] but that's [/INST] one idea I </s><s>[INST] I you know, I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I [/INST] can't do that. </s><s>[INST] That I'm really, I find really [/INST] compelling. The idea, I'd </s><s>[INST] love to set that up in [/INST] my own life at some point is um </s><s>[INST] so [/INST] you're stuck there </s><s>[INST] on a spaceship [/INST] with an AI system. </s><s>[INST] It's just the two [/INST] of you and you have to figure it </s><s>[INST] out. [/INST] I love that </s><s>[INST] challenge. I love [/INST] that almost a really </s><s>[INST] deep [/INST] human conflict </s><s>[INST] of through [/INST] conversation have to arrive </s><s>[INST] at something. You you [/INST] really try to understand what survival </s><s>[INST] is at stake. You have to [/INST] try to understand </s><s>[INST] the other being. Now you [/INST] think it's just a robot, </s><s>[INST] we keep saying like it's [/INST] just program too, but, you </s><s>[INST] know what, when you talk to another [/INST] human, it's just a bag of </s><s>[INST] meat and then and then [/INST] you disagree and you're </s><s>[INST] like, you know, everybody [/INST] starts using terms like how </s><s>[INST] dumb can you be? How ignorant can you be? [/INST] Come on, this is the </s><s>[INST] right way. What are you talking [/INST] about? This is you're what you're talking </s><s>[INST] about is insane. And when the stakes go [/INST] up, when when it's life and death, you have to convince another person first, you have to understand </s><s>[INST] another person. In this [/INST] case you have to </s><s>[INST] understand the other machine [/INST] without knowing how it was programmed. Because </s><s>[INST] as [/INST] a programmer even, I mean this is very much true for the for these leg of </s><s>[INST] robots, I really make [/INST] sure that everything is </s><s>[INST] that's programmed um [/INST] is sufficiently large and has a sufficient degree of </s><s>[INST] uncertainty. [/INST] Where I'm </s><s>[INST] constantly surprised, I don't [/INST] know how it works, I kind of know </s><s>[INST] how it works, but I'm surprised constantly and [/INST] there there's a human </s><s>[INST] component [/INST] of trying to figure </s><s>[INST] each other out and if [/INST] it's high </s><s>[INST] stakes [/INST] through </s><s>[INST] conversation, I mean to [/INST] me that's actually what </s><s>[INST] makes a great companion [/INST] out in space. It's like </s><s>[INST] you're both in charge of each [/INST] other's life and you both don't quite know </s><s>[INST] how [/INST] each other </s><s>[INST] works and [/INST] also you don't treat each other as a servant. So </s><s>[INST] I don't [/INST] know if hal </s><s>[INST] hal was treated [/INST] that way a little bit </s><s>[INST] where [/INST] you're like </s><s>[INST] yeah, like a servant [/INST] as opposed to a friend, a companion teammate, </s><s>[INST] you know? Um [/INST] because I think </s><s>[INST] the worst part [/INST] about treating an ai system or or </s><s>[INST] another human being [/INST] as a servant is what it </s><s>[INST] does to you. If [/INST] you treat them as a means to an end rather than an end in of itself, </s><s>[INST] then you've debased [/INST] them and and like less than the humanity and yourself at the </s><s>[INST] same time. Which [/INST] is which is I mean that's why </s><s>[INST] they talked about, kids [/INST] have to be polite to Alexa because </s><s>[INST] they find if they're, you [/INST] know, people </s><s>[INST] are if kids [/INST] are rude to ai systems, </s><s>[INST] they actually [/INST] that it's a bad sign, right? </s><s>[INST] It's it's a bad sign [/INST] and it develops the </s><s>[INST] wrong thing in terms of how [/INST] they treat other human beings. So that's a </s><s>[INST] I so [/INST] what about physics </s><s>[INST] can we do in terms [/INST] of can we travel close </s><s>[INST] to the speed of light? Can we travel [/INST] faster than the speed of light? We can I would love to fold space. We know wormholes are technically </s><s>[INST] possible, but [/INST] we have no way to do it. I'd love to see advancing wormhole technology. Antimatter drives anti matters </s><s>[INST] notoriously [/INST] missing from most of the universe. So what is antimatter </s><s>[INST] drive? [/INST] Anti matter would be well </s><s>[INST] used, purified bits [/INST] of antimatter basically. That was the opposite of matter. So if you can have an anti electron to the electron, you could have even a complete atoms that would be anti atoms and when you put them together there would be pure energy released in theory and that could drive the most powerful </s><s>[INST] possible [/INST] engine for space travel. But we you know, it's the only place you can make antimatter </s><s>[INST] is in large [/INST] particle accelerators and only very </s><s>[INST] briefly so [/INST] that it's hard. But if that could work, that would be extraordinary. Fusion </s><s>[INST] drives would be great just [/INST] getting nuclear fusion well controlled and that would actually give you a pretty good propulsion. So I </s><s>[INST] think that's the most likely thing we'll [/INST] see is fusion drives. Fusion technology is getting better and better every year. Or it's that old saying, fusion is always 10 years away every year. It's always 10 years away. But it's getting better. And then saying is something that is a century </s><s>[INST] old or less [/INST] than a century old </s><s>[INST] over [/INST] multiple centuries. That's saying </s><s>[INST] might [/INST] might actually because the future might </s><s>[INST] actually become a reality for [/INST] propulsion. So that would be I think very likely to see in the next few centuries And then and the biology was the other part or anything else physically. I mean physics, you can </s><s>[INST] imagine ways that [/INST] have electromagnetic shielding. So it could be, you could deflect all the </s><s>[INST] cosmic rays that are coming out your [/INST] spacecraft with a large almost like </s><s>[INST] force fields quite frankly. [/INST] Ah </s><s>[INST] that takes some development [/INST] to deal. But that would </s><s>[INST] be good to see. And uploading [/INST] human </s><s>[INST] memories [/INST] and consciousness </s><s>[INST] into digital form. This kind of [/INST] blends the machine in physics with the </s><s>[INST] biology developments. I [/INST] think </s><s>[INST] you know, there's a lot of great work being [/INST] done in longevity. Um I have one of my companies </s><s>[INST] itself works on longevity. It's [/INST] called longevity. And so I'm working on myself on ways to improve </s><s>[INST] how we monitor health and [/INST] wellness now and live longer live better. Many people are doing </s><s>[INST] this is what the whole purpose [/INST] of medicine is to a large degree. </s><s>[INST] But I [/INST] don't think we'll live </s><s>[INST] in the book. I propose [/INST] We might get to live 250 </s><s>[INST] years. I think that's [/INST] Reasonable. But say humans are gonna live to be 234, 500 years or some people, I meet people like this every week because </s><s>[INST] I think I'm [/INST] not going to die too, which I </s><s>[INST] always say, I hope you're right, [/INST] but I think you </s><s>[INST] should plan that you're not going [/INST] to be right. But I want people also, as we mentioned earlier that being immortal would really fundamentally change the </s><s>[INST] social contract and [/INST] how you plan and now you're allocated resources. Not necessarily bad, but </s><s>[INST] it would just be different. [/INST] But also just think we don't know yet of any way to </s><s>[INST] undo the ravages [/INST] to the human </s><s>[INST] body that occur over time. [/INST] We can repair some of it replace </s><s>[INST] some of it. But you [/INST] know, it's okay </s><s>[INST] to assume that you're [/INST] going to die. And I let's assume no, you're going to die because then you have a bit of liberty </s><s>[INST] about what you can do it quickly and do next [/INST] the but </s><s>[INST] but I think we will get better. I [/INST] think we could see people live </s><s>[INST] potentially 250 with some [/INST] of the tools and methods </s><s>[INST] and living longer but [/INST] upload, you know, living my, </s><s>[INST] living on [/INST] brain like </s><s>[INST] in the the principal singularity where we all have this rapture [/INST] like moment and we go up and uploaded to the cloud and live </s><s>[INST] forever. Um I don't know if it would still be the same [/INST] as what we consider the view of self in this </s><s>[INST] flesh form. [/INST] If we could really get a complete representation of a person's entire personality up into digital </s><s>[INST] form. [/INST] I mean that would be immortality </s><s>[INST] basically or [/INST] a loose </s><s>[INST] representation. I I go [/INST] to the thought experiment of </s><s>[INST] I like [/INST] thinking about clones like twins, twins or clones basically basically. </s><s>[INST] But [/INST] um the ability to </s><s>[INST] generate, I mean you're stuck [/INST] with those clones. </s><s>[INST] Like the [/INST] twins is a fixed number of clones. So that's a genetic clone. I mean a philosophical clone where you can keep generating them versions And then I, the reason </s><s>[INST] I really [/INST] like that construction. </s><s>[INST] Thinking about that. Like for me [/INST] personally is </s><s>[INST] it [/INST] nicely encapsulates how I feel about being human Because why do I matter if I'm how would I if I do another copy of me, how would I defend </s><s>[INST] why I matter [/INST] as a human being </s><s>[INST] And I don't think I [/INST] can because that clone </s><s>[INST] is just fine. [/INST] It's not even a perfect like a reasonable clone. </s><s>[INST] Like most people [/INST] I know, um that love me and who I love, they'll be just fine </s><s>[INST] with. [/INST] They'd be like and something. They'll be surprised like, okay, you're like </s><s>[INST] your [/INST] your move kind of weird, but like </s><s>[INST] overall, but otherwise [/INST] I'll take it </s><s>[INST] and if that's possible to do that kind [/INST] of copying No, I don't want to say perfectly because I think perfect lawn is very difficult. Engineering wise. I mean like a pretty crappy </s><s>[INST] copy [/INST] just like </s><s>[INST] where's [/INST] suits a lot. </s><s>[INST] Has a [/INST] weird way of talking. </s><s>[INST] I mean, I think there's a [/INST] lot of elements. They're like, uh, you know, in the in the digital </s><s>[INST] space, especially with the [/INST] metaverse, </s><s>[INST] um, you [/INST] can clone, </s><s>[INST] I think, [/INST] you know, in the next few decades you'll be able to clone </s><s>[INST] people's behavioral patterns pretty [/INST] well. </s><s>[INST] And visual [/INST] uh, is at least in </s><s>[INST] the in the virtual reality [/INST] in the digital representation if you </s><s>[INST] are. And then [/INST] you have to really contend it's like, why do I matter? </s><s>[INST] Is maybe [/INST] what matters? Isn't the </s><s>[INST] individual person? But what matters are the [/INST] ideas that that person plays </s><s>[INST] with. [/INST] Um, so it doesn't </s><s>[INST] Matter if there's 1000 [/INST] clones. What matters is that I'm </s><s>[INST] currently thinking about X. Or some kind of [/INST] problem that I'm trying to solve and those ideas and I'm sharing those </s><s>[INST] ideas. Maybe [/INST] ideas of the organisms and not the </s><s>[INST] the meat vehicles [/INST] of the organism, maybe </s><s>[INST] that's a [/INST] cultural shift where we won't </s><s>[INST] necessarily [/INST] treat anyone </s><s>[INST] body as fundamentally [/INST] um unique or important, but the </s><s>[INST] sort of [/INST] the ideas that those </s><s>[INST] bodies play [/INST] with, I mean </s><s>[INST] that sounds crazy. I know it's a it's [/INST] an abstract, abstract but very well. And Derek Parfitt wrote this great book called reasons and persons about </s><s>[INST] how you [/INST] really define an individual is not just </s><s>[INST] your own thoughts and your [/INST] own self reflection, but we're almost he argues more defined by how other people </s><s>[INST] have seen me. Like if you [/INST] walked out into the world </s><s>[INST] and say suddenly [/INST] nobody knew who you were recognized you you would be in in some regards dizzy straight if no one, </s><s>[INST] if everyone just [/INST] suddenly had massive amnesia and you just didn't, no one knew who you are and never remember no memory of anything you've ever done together, </s><s>[INST] you'd be very [/INST] alone. You'd be basically, you know, </s><s>[INST] starting from scratch [/INST] because you had just been born basically. So and </s><s>[INST] also he writes thought [/INST] experiments. Like what if half of your neurons </s><s>[INST] get replaced with half of [/INST] someone else or a quarter </s><s>[INST] or 60% at what [/INST] point do you stop being you and become </s><s>[INST] the other person? [/INST] And the argument he makes is it's </s><s>[INST] more than just what percentage of [/INST] your neurons are swapped out. It's also the relationships you have with so many people that partly define, you know, not completely, but there are a key component, how you view </s><s>[INST] yourself, how they view [/INST] what you are in the world. And you know, and he actually goes so far to say that there are probably more important than even </s><s>[INST] what's in your head. Like if you [/INST] swap out, you know </s><s>[INST] all of your thoughts, [/INST] but when you walk out into the world, everyone still treats to you and talk to the same way as the memory of what you are. That is like an entity that's defined you. Even if all of </s><s>[INST] your, you know, there's [/INST] there's even movies like trading spaces about this with Eddie Murphy or like the ideas of people who can swap bodies. </s><s>[INST] The reason those are [/INST] comedies because they're fish out of water comedies and but but they go to the point of what defines you is not </s><s>[INST] just you but also your viewed well [/INST] you as an entity exists in </s><s>[INST] the memories of other of other beings. And [/INST] so that yeah, the </s><s>[INST] the [/INST] entities </s><s>[INST] as they exist [/INST] in their form in </s><s>[INST] those memories perhaps are more [/INST] important to who you are and what's </s><s>[INST] in your head [/INST] and that clones then </s><s>[INST] are [/INST] how do they do they lesson? </s><s>[INST] Not really. They just distribute, [/INST] they just scale the </s><s>[INST] unis. They can be [/INST] experienced by other humans. Like if I could be doing five </s><s>[INST] podcasts right now at the same time [/INST] then theory, but I'd have to have some way to transmit the memory of which one I did, which would be hard </s><s>[INST] but not impossible if it's [/INST] all digital. You could aggregate and create more and more of the memories into one entity. Oh, I see. But I thought at the at the moment of cloning it's like cloning </s><s>[INST] a git repository, then you're [/INST] no longer is branched. You share you </s><s>[INST] share the version [/INST] View one of Chris that a lot of people have experienced like </s><s>[INST] your high school [/INST] friends, college friends, colleagues and so on. But now you moved on to your music career and that one of your clothes did and then </s><s>[INST] that that's fundamentally new experiences [/INST] that you you still um your </s><s>[INST] colleagues can still experience [/INST] The memories of the old risk but the new one </s><s>[INST] is [/INST] totally you're going to have new </s><s>[INST] communities experiencing [/INST] connecting to those and then you </s><s>[INST] can just propagate and the ones that [/INST] are don't get a lot of likes </s><s>[INST] on social media, we can we [/INST] can like quietly dispose of we want wanna maximizes the clones of </s><s>[INST] chris that can get a lot [/INST] of likes on facebook? Okay. </s><s>[INST] Uh [/INST] on just returning </s><s>[INST] briefly to the moment [/INST] the topic of ai are you working on ai stuff </s><s>[INST] too? A [/INST] lot of machine learning tools for genomics? Because I I was seeing this interspersed because you're such a biology. Uh I mean I suppose </s><s>[INST] computational biology person. [/INST] Uh but what about the </s><s>[INST] are you working on Azure prediction? [/INST] Yes. Yeah. Like so you've heard about the book, I guess. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] What [/INST] that's actually written with the philanthropist. I mentioned who we named the fungus after the space station. So that's coming out next year actually. What's the effort there? What's what's your interest in uh sort of the more narrow </s><s>[INST] ai tools of [/INST] prediction and </s><s>[INST] machine learning all [/INST] that kind of stuff I think called the age of predictions. So the next book that's coming is all the ways where machine learning tools predictive </s><s>[INST] algorithms have fundamentally [/INST] changed our lives. So some of them are obvious to me where for example when we sequence cancer patients DNA. And we have predictions of exactly which drug will work with that. That's actually a very simple algorithm but other ones involved predicting say the age of blood that's left at the scene of a crime which uses </s><s>[INST] computational [/INST] tools to look at each piece of D. N. A. And what it might </s><s>[INST] reveal for its epigenetic state and [/INST] then predicting essentially how old you are at any given moment. </s><s>[INST] And it's also [/INST] gets the longevity </s><s>[INST] because sometimes you can see if you're [/INST] getting if you're aging </s><s>[INST] faster or slower than you should be. So some [/INST] tools are in medicine or even forensics. But my </s><s>[INST] favorite part a lot of the book [/INST] is where does this show up in economics as well as in medicine. </s><s>[INST] So predictive [/INST] Tools. I mean I think the most notorious when people thought it was during the 2012 election in 2016 election. Especially </s><s>[INST] we're seeing [/INST] these really big differences of how facebook was </s><s>[INST] monitoring feeds. [/INST] And so prediction is not just better medicine or in finance and economics. People think about stock </s><s>[INST] traders and people doing predictive [/INST] algorithms, </s><s>[INST] but [/INST] how you what you view in your feet, how you what your vote is and what you </s><s>[INST] saw facebook did [/INST] experiments they call it </s><s>[INST] social contagion [/INST] experiments to see </s><s>[INST] can we [/INST] restructure what people see </s><s>[INST] and then how they respond [/INST] actually kind of be really predictive and manipulative frankly with what </s><s>[INST] happens. And then can that change how they vote? [/INST] And the answer seems to be yes for a good amount of the populist in 2016 in the us. So </s><s>[INST] I think we're seeing more [/INST] and more of these algorithms show up all over the place. And so the book is about </s><s>[INST] where they appear, [/INST] where they're good. For example, in medicine they're phenomenal. They have fundamentally changed </s><s>[INST] how we treat cancer [/INST] patients. But were there risky? Like if someone's trying to steal your vote or manipulate your </s><s>[INST] thoughts potentially negatively. [/INST] So in medicine you're </s><s>[INST] hopeful about prediction. [/INST] Yeah. Most of the Ai and medicine, the machine </s><s>[INST] learning tools for image [/INST] recognition. For example, for pathology </s><s>[INST] samples, [/INST] we normally think of someone takes a </s><s>[INST] bit of a bit of tissue [/INST] and then puts it onto a slide. Normally </s><s>[INST] there's pathologists [/INST] that have been training for years to look at a chunk of your tissue in Sochi. Is this cancer? What kind of cancer? What treatment should I </s><s>[INST] do? But [/INST] there's an old joke about pathologists. You </s><s>[INST] Can give 10 slides [/INST] To 10 different pathologists and get 11 different diagnoses, which is as awful as it sounds because you're </s><s>[INST] having someone squint at a stained [/INST] microscope slide. But instead, if you use </s><s>[INST] a lot of the Ai tools where you [/INST] can actually segment the image, high resolution </s><s>[INST] characterization with multiple probes, [/INST] it's what </s><s>[INST] A. I was built to do. [/INST] You have a large training dataset and </s><s>[INST] then you have test samples. Afterward, you can you [/INST] can do far better than almost every pathologist on the planet </s><s>[INST] and get a much more [/INST] accurate diagnostic. So that's </s><s>[INST] for breast cancer for [/INST] for prostate cancer, </s><s>[INST] for leukemia. We've seen the diagnostic [/INST] tools explode with </s><s>[INST] AI power. [/INST] Is it currently mostly </s><s>[INST] empowering doctors [/INST] or can replace </s><s>[INST] doctors, Watson when [/INST] notoriously was made by IBM </s><s>[INST] to try and replace doctors. Actually, [/INST] I was in the </s><s>[INST] room when we got a tour of [/INST] Watson for the first time with the dean of our medical school. </s><s>[INST] And [/INST] these programmers came out and said, </s><s>[INST] listen, here's this example of a patient and watch Watson diagnosed [/INST] the patient and </s><s>[INST] recommend the right treatment. [/INST] And then at one point in the conversation, remember there's a room </s><s>[INST] of uh you know, I'm [/INST] a PhD is like a </s><s>[INST] geneticist and programmers. [/INST] Some </s><s>[INST] MDS leaders [/INST] of the of the medical school, the dean is </s><s>[INST] there and he says, you can imagine someday this could replace doctors in a room [/INST] full of doctors, right? So it's a really poor </s><s>[INST] choice of words because [/INST] everyone's like no, you want to help the doctors. But but but I think the </s><s>[INST] view from the programmers is often [/INST] a bit naive that they could fundamentally replace doctors now. In some </s><s>[INST] cases they can for the pathology [/INST] description, as I just </s><s>[INST] mentioned, I think the ai tools already [/INST] do a better job and we've only really been doing this for about five years. Right? So imagine </s><s>[INST] another five years of [/INST] optimization and data they're </s><s>[INST] gonna take over. Right? So, and they should [/INST] because it's staring and </s><s>[INST] squinting at screens for [/INST] hours. Sunday is not the best </s><s>[INST] use of human ingenuity. So I think uh some cases will take over other cases. They'll [/INST] augment, they'll help. Yeah. That </s><s>[INST] human ingenuity actually, especially [/INST] for ai people sometimes difficult to characterize have this debate all the time </s><s>[INST] about autonomous driving there. It's a lot more [/INST] difficult than </s><s>[INST] people realize [/INST] you're an expert. Are you focused on that for your research? I'm an expert in nothing except in </s><s>[INST] not being an expert I [/INST] think </s><s>[INST] um [/INST] or asking </s><s>[INST] stupid questions where [/INST] the answer is both. </s><s>[INST] Okay. [/INST] Um but there is some ingenuity </s><s>[INST] that's hard to kind of [/INST] encapsulate that </s><s>[INST] is human for dr the decision [/INST] Making is the Hal nine </s><s>[INST] 1000 you can [/INST] have a perfect system that has able </s><s>[INST] to know the optimal [/INST] answer, but there's some human element that's missing and sometimes </s><s>[INST] the suboptimal [/INST] answer in the long term is the right </s><s>[INST] one. [/INST] It's the self doubt that </s><s>[INST] is essential for human [/INST] progress, that's weird. I'm not I'm not </s><s>[INST] sure what that is. [/INST] If I can let </s><s>[INST] me ask you to be [/INST] the wise old </s><s>[INST] sage and give [/INST] advice to young people </s><s>[INST] today [/INST] in high school, </s><s>[INST] in college [/INST] about how to </s><s>[INST] have a [/INST] career they </s><s>[INST] can be proud of or maybe [/INST] a life they can be </s><s>[INST] proud of on [/INST] this planet </s><s>[INST] or or [/INST] others. Yeah, I think for the pad ones out there and young one younglings looking up at the stars, </s><s>[INST] you have to know [/INST] that this day that you're alive is quantifiable, </s><s>[INST] the best day that's ever happened [/INST] and that tomorrow will be even better than this </s><s>[INST] day in terms of the [/INST] capacity for discovery, the amount of data that exists, </s><s>[INST] I think [/INST] it's not my opinion. That's just an empirical fact of the state of genetics, research knowledge, accretion of humanities acumen for many disciplines. So with that ability </s><s>[INST] to do so many things, [/INST] it can be sometimes </s><s>[INST] just terrifying. Well, what do [/INST] I pick up? I could do everything. And this is the most </s><s>[INST] possibility ever in human history. [/INST] How do you pick one thing to do? And </s><s>[INST] that's just the thing. What do you find yourself [/INST] daydreaming about? What's the thing that you uh </s><s>[INST] what [/INST] keeps you up at night And if you don't have anything that keeps </s><s>[INST] you up at night. Sometimes [/INST] you go find something that keeps you up at night </s><s>[INST] because that that is kind of this. [/INST] Sometimes I feel like if I </s><s>[INST] get woken up by the [/INST] someone on the </s><s>[INST] inside of my skull who's knocking trying [/INST] to get out and kind of that almost </s><s>[INST] haunting feeling of I [/INST] need to wake up. There's things that </s><s>[INST] have to be done. There are questions [/INST] I don't know the answer </s><s>[INST] to. And there's a lot of times as simple [/INST] as how do we engineer cells to survive </s><s>[INST] more radiation? But what I read [/INST] a paper and then it came back to me a week later </s><s>[INST] as well. But we could use some of these tools or these jeans [/INST] are these methods really </s><s>[INST] being [/INST] pleasantly haunted by </s><s>[INST] something is a [/INST] wonderful place to be </s><s>[INST] and find that thing that [/INST] that bothers you </s><s>[INST] because it will be good [/INST] days and bad days, but you </s><s>[INST] want to have even on the worst possible days working on the thing that you love the [/INST] most and then all the </s><s>[INST] usual, you know, normal phrases [/INST] apply. Like </s><s>[INST] then you never work a [/INST] day in your life if you have a </s><s>[INST] job, you love the usual phrases, [/INST] but but it's true and it's actually </s><s>[INST] really hard to find. I think a [/INST] lot of times you'll </s><s>[INST] have to do work for random jobs [/INST] That maybe you don't like for five or even 10 years, right? We might have to go to school </s><s>[INST] for 10 to 15 [/INST] to 20 years to finally get to the red </s><s>[INST] spot where you have the [/INST] knowledge, the experience </s><s>[INST] and even frankly just reputation [/INST] that people trust you, you've done enough </s><s>[INST] good work and only [/INST] then can you really </s><s>[INST] do the thing you love [/INST] most, But so you have to be a little bit patient, it will be a little bit patient and in patient at the same time you have to do </s><s>[INST] both. And the [/INST] interesting thing is </s><s>[INST] when you're trying to find that, [/INST] that thing </s><s>[INST] that, [/INST] that </s><s>[INST] excites you, you have to, especially in this modern [/INST] world, I think silence the distractions </s><s>[INST] because [/INST] once you find </s><s>[INST] that thing you [/INST] hear that </s><s>[INST] little voice in your head, there's still [/INST] instagram and </s><s>[INST] Tiktok and video [/INST] games and other </s><s>[INST] exciting sort of [/INST] dope immune rushes that can pull you away and </s><s>[INST] make it seem like they're the same thing. [/INST] But they're not </s><s>[INST] really, there's [/INST] some little flame there </s><s>[INST] that, [/INST] um, </s><s>[INST] that's longer [/INST] lasting and </s><s>[INST] I think [/INST] you have to silence everything </s><s>[INST] else to let [/INST] that sort of </s><s>[INST] flame become a [/INST] fire. Um, so it's, it's interesting because so much </s><s>[INST] of the internet [/INST] is designed to uh, convert </s><s>[INST] that [/INST] natural predisposition that </s><s>[INST] humans have to get excited about [/INST] stuff, convert that into like </s><s>[INST] attention and money [/INST] and ads and so </s><s>[INST] on. But like we have to be conscious of that. I think [/INST] a lot of that is full of fun and it's awesome. </s><s>[INST] I think Tiktok [/INST] and instagram that's full of fun. </s><s>[INST] But [/INST] creativity leads to people making </s><s>[INST] amazing [/INST] videos or even doing people, my daughter loves Tiktok and you know, people who do makeup art on </s><s>[INST] Tiktok of things that are [/INST] mind blowing. You think they </s><s>[INST] made that video just to put it on Tiktok and practice [/INST] their art and share it with the world's </s><s>[INST] fabulous. But, but [/INST] then if my daughter watches </s><s>[INST] Tiktok for like three hours [/INST] straight, I'm like, what are you </s><s>[INST] doing exactly? And she's [/INST] like, well, you know, so, so </s><s>[INST] it's art because, but I mean when [/INST] I was a kid, I mean I played Nintendo Sometimes we play for like 10 hours a day, even in grad </s><s>[INST] school and sometimes play like counter strike or half [/INST] life Like 12 hours straight </s><s>[INST] and I'm like, what was I? So at [/INST] one point I built a new computer, I just didn't install some of the games I </s><s>[INST] had before. I was like, I'm just going to [/INST] not install them because otherwise I'll </s><s>[INST] play them for too long. Yeah, [/INST] I would love to </s><s>[INST] getting props from the team. I would [/INST] love to </s><s>[INST] lay out [/INST] all the things I've ever done in </s><s>[INST] my life to myself [/INST] because I think I would be less judgmental of </s><s>[INST] others and less understanding more patient [/INST] because the amount of hours I </s><s>[INST] spent playing like Diablo and like video, like is [/INST] insane. I'm sure it adds </s><s>[INST] up to like weeks, maybe months of my [/INST] life that it was just, </s><s>[INST] you know, but I feel like I was probably, I tell [/INST] myself at least I was problem solving </s><s>[INST] it could say hand eye coordination. That's an old, I don't [/INST] know if that really is even remotely true but </s><s>[INST] uh some of the games like [/INST] Final Fantasy things or things. We actually had to solve problems and think and there </s><s>[INST] were some degree of strategy but [/INST] they were actually just expanding the </s><s>[INST] diversity of human character that makes [/INST] up you. It's like </s><s>[INST] you can't just [/INST] focus on that, you can't but </s><s>[INST] perhaps it's more [/INST] beneficial to </s><s>[INST] focus, [/INST] to not focus on a singular thing </s><s>[INST] for many, many years at the time. [/INST] That could be one of the downsides of P. F. P. </s><s>[INST] H. D. If you're not [/INST] careful is that you become too singularly </s><s>[INST] focused not just on the [/INST] problem but on that particular </s><s>[INST] community and you don't do wild stuff, you [/INST] don't do </s><s>[INST] interdisciplinary stuff, [/INST] you don't go out </s><s>[INST] painting or getting drunk or dancing [/INST] whatever the variety, whatever injects variety to to the to the years of difficult </s><s>[INST] reading research paper after research paper, that [/INST] whole process. Um you have to be very careful to add variety into it. And maybe that involves playing a little bit </s><s>[INST] of counter [/INST] striker. Diablo whatever floats your </s><s>[INST] boat or dancing [/INST] about new york city is a great place for this. There's there's </s><s>[INST] sunrise rooftop [/INST] dancing at a party that does this and </s><s>[INST] that's the thing, it's [/INST] the thing. So you go there uh as some people from my lab that go, I've only been once, but </s><s>[INST] like at [/INST] sunrise and you see the sun rise over the city and this huge house music and you play and you dance like crazy and then you go to work, you know, you go to lab, you go to wherever you're going. But you can, it's good </s><s>[INST] to squeeze in some weird crazy [/INST] sun, sunrise, rooftop dancing or things </s><s>[INST] like that when you can, if [/INST] we can, if we </s><s>[INST] may to, [/INST] uh, to some difficult dark </s><s>[INST] places, [/INST] I'll bring a flashlight, </s><s>[INST] maybe [/INST] something. Um, </s><s>[INST] find [/INST] something that can warm your soul or </s><s>[INST] inspires others [/INST] is their dark </s><s>[INST] periods, dark times [/INST] in your life </s><s>[INST] that you had to [/INST] overcome. Yeah. Like many people, uh, had friends. I've lost a friend when I was younger who committed suicide and that was actually, um, I remember being </s><s>[INST] so struck of, I couldn't [/INST] understand it. I didn't understand mental illness </s><s>[INST] at the time. I was very young. [/INST] I was only 11 at the time </s><s>[INST] and I really was confused [/INST] more than anything else about how, how could </s><s>[INST] someone take their life. And [/INST] actually once I got over sort of the grief of it all, I really, it's cemented in my head </s><s>[INST] that I [/INST] would, you know, never commit </s><s>[INST] suicide. I could tell this to my wife, You know, it's like if it looks like I [/INST] hung myself, go find </s><s>[INST] my killer because I would never do it. [/INST] It's got to be </s><s>[INST] staged And you know, but at [/INST] the same time I began </s><s>[INST] to appreciate, there are times [/INST] where the suffering is so </s><s>[INST] great and diseases can [/INST] be so awful that um sometimes you know euthanasia </s><s>[INST] is [/INST] as an actual exit but </s><s>[INST] I just have friends I've lost along the way or or um but [/INST] but that's not too different. Everyone has people they've lost </s><s>[INST] along the way. But actually um was never never too dark of [/INST] a childhood or a dark place. I mean </s><s>[INST] the the hardest things have been really [/INST] weird relationship </s><s>[INST] breakup where I felt [/INST] like you know </s><s>[INST] love falling in [/INST] love and then losing </s><s>[INST] that person just breaking [/INST] up, not like </s><s>[INST] they died but where you felt like you know, you just could [/INST] barely move like you literally </s><s>[INST] felt like your heart was moved in your body to a different [/INST] location and that sort of scraping </s><s>[INST] sense of existence. But [/INST] but also at the same time </s><s>[INST] that's been where I've [/INST] in some ways been the most alive where I lost </s><s>[INST] the, what I thought at the time was the love of my [/INST] life. </s><s>[INST] And but then [/INST] I was able to actually, I think carve </s><s>[INST] a deeper trench [/INST] into my heart which then could be filled more with joy I would, I would </s><s>[INST] say is what Pablo [/INST] neruda wrote about </s><s>[INST] this and Khalil Gibran, is that [/INST] the deepest, deepest </s><s>[INST] sorrows I think later have translated [/INST] In my life as two places that </s><s>[INST] can be filled [/INST] with greater amounts of </s><s>[INST] joy. I love [/INST] thinking of sorrows as the digging </s><s>[INST] of a ditch that can then be [/INST] filled with more good stuff eventually. Not at the time, but for a while it's a giant empty cavern full of like blood and </s><s>[INST] tears and pain but then [/INST] it comes </s><s>[INST] later. [/INST] Uh there is an element </s><s>[INST] to life where this too shall pass. [/INST] So any moment um </s><s>[INST] of sorrow [/INST] or joy it's going </s><s>[INST] to be over and like [/INST] ah treasure it no matter what I mean. I do </s><s>[INST] definitely think [/INST] about losing love. </s><s>[INST] It's like a [/INST] celebration of love </s><s>[INST] in [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] and even like any like any [/INST] living I think is better. That's why I just adamantly, I don't think I'd ever really commit suicide because </s><s>[INST] anything I take is [/INST] better than nothing and like said the worst case scenario so there's no heaven, there's </s><s>[INST] no hell that's just [/INST] it like you just die and that's really just it then </s><s>[INST] anything that you have in [/INST] living is </s><s>[INST] by definition infinitely [/INST] better than the zero because it's at </s><s>[INST] least it's something [/INST] and so I appreciate </s><s>[INST] said I havent enjoy sadness which sounds like an [/INST] oxymoron but I sometimes even long </s><s>[INST] for a good sadness like a [/INST] like a rainy </s><s>[INST] day and I'm staring out [/INST] a window squinting </s><s>[INST] and like drinking some [/INST] underpriced whiskey and </s><s>[INST] then you know and [/INST] and just </s><s>[INST] moping and like what [/INST] are you doing? Like I'm just moping </s><s>[INST] today and I just, but I want [/INST] at least one day where I do that </s><s>[INST] or something. I actually had a [/INST] conversation offline </s><s>[INST] with rick Rubin. [/INST] He's a music producer about this. He, he told </s><s>[INST] me um [/INST] he </s><s>[INST] has a way of speaking, that's [/INST] all like sage </s><s>[INST] like and [/INST] he says be </s><s>[INST] careful [/INST] that you spend </s><s>[INST] some time [/INST] appreciating </s><s>[INST] that sadness but don't become [/INST] addicted </s><s>[INST] that, that there's a line you can cross and then you [/INST] actually push away </s><s>[INST] the joy because [/INST] you feel like this because the sadness can be all encompassing and </s><s>[INST] therefore even more [/INST] real than what might seem like fleeting happiness. </s><s>[INST] Yes. So [/INST] yeah, </s><s>[INST] right? You can, uh, sadness [/INST] if, if </s><s>[INST] you let, it can be a [/INST] thing that stays with you longer </s><s>[INST] and stickier, [/INST] but </s><s>[INST] you, but just [/INST] witnessing suicide made you appreciate </s><s>[INST] life more. [/INST] Yeah, I mean just </s><s>[INST] an appreciation [/INST] of death is actually an appreciation of life at the same time. </s><s>[INST] Are [/INST] you afraid of your </s><s>[INST] death? You think about [/INST] it? But </s><s>[INST] I think it's, it's like being [/INST] afraid of the sunrise. It's, it's </s><s>[INST] doesn't [/INST] make sense. So you're, </s><s>[INST] you're part of this [/INST] like fabric that is humanity </s><s>[INST] and then you just think generationally, [/INST] I think I want to do as </s><s>[INST] much as I [/INST] can. Like I'll, I feel like I would die. </s><s>[INST] I feel like I've [/INST] lived a full life already. </s><s>[INST] I actually believe that since age [/INST] 17 onward. I feel like even then, I mean </s><s>[INST] then the bar was low, I feel [/INST] like, well I have had at least sex once I had had good </s><s>[INST] friends. What else is [/INST] that diets right at </s><s>[INST] that age. But then [/INST] I had also uh </s><s>[INST] really read [/INST] a lot of philosophy had traveled a bit, felt like I had started at least see the world and had lived somewhat of life. But that from then on, I </s><s>[INST] felt like, [/INST] uh, that I wouldn't feel like I was </s><s>[INST] cheated if I had [/INST] died from that day forward that I had gotten at least enough of life to feel like that I </s><s>[INST] wouldn't, I would be [/INST] not okay with dying. But that I feel </s><s>[INST] like I, [/INST] I knew I was going to </s><s>[INST] die, I wasn't afraid I was going to die. [/INST] And it actually was very </s><s>[INST] liberating [/INST] and it's only gotten better since then. So I think, you know, some of that might may or may not have been drug related euphoria, but nonetheless the </s><s>[INST] joy stuck and I think [/INST] it was, it's </s><s>[INST] just gotten more true ever since. [/INST] Is that the, the default state is one of very rich appreciation because it's uh, it's so fleeting and so </s><s>[INST] any, [/INST] I know I would, I </s><s>[INST] knew I would die happy I guess even [/INST] At age 17. But now my, my metrics have changed a little bit. It's not, I've </s><s>[INST] had sex more than one time now. So [/INST] that's really big. </s><s>[INST] Very, very [/INST] exciting at </s><s>[INST] least four times. [/INST] But the multiple. </s><s>[INST] Um, and, [/INST] and professionally accomplished </s><s>[INST] things. Like actually actually [/INST] do some of the genetic dreams I had when </s><s>[INST] I was 16 or 17. I'm not [/INST] actually making them in my lab. </s><s>[INST] I actually like to say my, [/INST] my scientific goals and </s><s>[INST] statements have really been [/INST] The same since I've been 17. </s><s>[INST] It's just [/INST] now everyone takes me </s><s>[INST] seriously because I'm a professor [/INST] and actually I have done that </s><s>[INST] mentoring [/INST] people, you're the next generation and </s><s>[INST] patients [/INST] and helping patients live longer and seeing the hope in their </s><s>[INST] eyes when they went [/INST] from, even my own </s><s>[INST] grandfather went from a two month [/INST] diagnosis, diagnosis of, of living from metastatic cancer </s><s>[INST] to living for [/INST] More than two years. </s><s>[INST] Eventually [/INST] succumbed to it. But knowing can use the </s><s>[INST] tools of predictive medicine to [/INST] save people. Um, you know, </s><s>[INST] and so, and so now, you know, looking [/INST] at ahead, </s><s>[INST] I feel [/INST] like it's, </s><s>[INST] I would die very happy if I saw [/INST] boots on the red planet </s><s>[INST] and people there. [/INST] And the other advice to the younglings </s><s>[INST] I'd say is the [/INST] first time I proposed the twin </s><s>[INST] study to Nasa. They [/INST] said no. Uh several </s><s>[INST] times that no, we don't, we don't have a plan [/INST] for a mission like that. It's not gonna happen. So, uh, don't, </s><s>[INST] you know, just [/INST] perseverance. And you were, I didn't know, I I knew you were part of </s><s>[INST] leading the Nasa twin [/INST] study, but you were </s><s>[INST] also part of the failure [/INST] to do so early early. So the first actually, </s><s>[INST] because when you started lab in [/INST] academia, they say here's a pile of money, right, grants and bring in more money and train people and </s><s>[INST] start a lab. But so I actually wrote [/INST] Nasa and said, I don't, I'm </s><s>[INST] not requesting any funds. [/INST] I have funds. They just gave me a bunch of money. I </s><s>[INST] would like to do a [/INST] deep genetic profile </s><s>[INST] of astronauts before and after [/INST] spaceflight and do it ideally </s><s>[INST] if we have some twins [/INST] or do genetics and epigenetic and microbiome. </s><s>[INST] But john Charles [/INST] was the director of human </s><s>[INST] research programs that no, we don't have, we [/INST] don't have to have those samples </s><s>[INST] banks that you would want [/INST] to for those that are old samples and we don't have any plans for missions like that right now. So we can't do it. And that was the first time. I, you know, it's like, it's like saying to someone that listen, I'll buy a house for you. I just have this mild by and like, uh, no, no thanks because I felt like I was offering a really unique research </s><s>[INST] opportunity, but [/INST] then that, you know, failure of saying that </s><s>[INST] we're not ready yet, it's not [/INST] time. But then </s><s>[INST] once they have the solicitation, [/INST] then he reached out and said, oh actually I think we've got something along the lines of what you were thinking a few years ago. So sometimes when something's get rejected or someone says no. So, okay, maybe it's just too early but don't, don't </s><s>[INST] give up, I think and say, [/INST] um, you know, </s><s>[INST] so to me when someone [/INST] says no, not right now, I'll be like, okay, I'll just I'll come back in a year. You know, it just </s><s>[INST] means no for now then. [/INST] So if </s><s>[INST] I think it's sometimes [/INST] no means you have a crappy idea </s><s>[INST] That is true. Can I do have [/INST] crappy ideas and so does </s><s>[INST] everybody. But [/INST] if I really believe in it, I just say, okay, </s><s>[INST] I'll be back. [/INST] Yeah, this </s><s>[INST] too shall pass the [/INST] no. Um, do you </s><s>[INST] hope to go out to [/INST] I. S. S out to deep </s><s>[INST] space one day. [/INST] I would love to go. I want to be a little bit older so that if I die, it's not as traumatic for my daughter and family. </s><s>[INST] But [/INST] yeah, I feel like if I'm a little bit older definitely I would even potentially do a one way </s><s>[INST] trip to Mars was later [/INST] in life. So would you like </s><s>[INST] to do you think you will [/INST] step foot on MArs? </s><s>[INST] I would love to [/INST] and I think I might, I think </s><s>[INST] it may be [/INST] that one way trip. If they, because I think they'll need settlers </s><s>[INST] who would want [/INST] to go and stay there and build and be there for the long term knowing it's high risk knowing it's and your resume fits? So you will </s><s>[INST] have a lot of cool stuff to do [/INST] there at least </s><s>[INST] on the surface you'll be [/INST] able to sell yourself well. Um, resilience, experience motivation. </s><s>[INST] Would that make you sad [/INST] to die on Mars </s><s>[INST] looking back at [/INST] the planet you were born </s><s>[INST] on? No, [/INST] I think it would be </s><s>[INST] actually in [/INST] some ways. It may be the best way to die knowing that you're in the </s><s>[INST] first wave of [/INST] people expanding the region of the </s><s>[INST] stars. [/INST] It would be an honor. </s><s>[INST] Why do you think we're here? What's the meaning of life [/INST] to serve as the guardians of life itself? That is a </s><s>[INST] the [/INST] the duty for our species is is to recognize and really manifest </s><s>[INST] this unique [/INST] responsibility that we have and only </s><s>[INST] we have so far. [/INST] So I </s><s>[INST] think yeah, it's [/INST] me the the meaning of life is for life </s><s>[INST] to its [/INST] simplest form is to </s><s>[INST] be able to survive. But to [/INST] to </s><s>[INST] leverage the [/INST] frailty of life into its ability </s><s>[INST] to protect itself. And [/INST] quite literally the guardians of the galaxy is basically what we are we're regarding regarding ourselves and also life. I mean </s><s>[INST] life is just so precious as [/INST] far as we know, it is </s><s>[INST] completely rare in the universe [/INST] and I do think a lot. Well what if it what </s><s>[INST] if this is the only universe that's ever come in and [/INST] it won't come back again </s><s>[INST] and like this [/INST] is it. And if that's true, we have two services, </s><s>[INST] shepherds leverage [/INST] the frailty </s><s>[INST] of life [/INST] to protect it. And this is </s><s>[INST] all life. So we [/INST] could get the opportunity </s><s>[INST] we humans get the opportunity to be smart enough to be clever enough to be motivated enough to actually protect the other life that's on this including II including life [/INST] that's to come that might be very different from what we imagine </s><s>[INST] today and that would make you sad if [/INST] were replaced by </s><s>[INST] the kind and the kind or smarter [/INST] A I know, </s><s>[INST] I think about that in the book, a [/INST] bit of that. I think I </s><s>[INST] I would be okay with it if they carry some echo [/INST] of that duty and </s><s>[INST] they bring that with them. [/INST] It would be really </s><s>[INST] sad if they're like to hell with everyone, [/INST] we're gonna destroy everything we come across and </s><s>[INST] become like nanobots [/INST] that make everything gray goo that seems. But that would still be a version of life. Just not one that is as I think is </s><s>[INST] pretty but technically would be [/INST] alive. So I, you know, </s><s>[INST] philosophically, [/INST] could I object? It's borderline. Yeah, </s><s>[INST] but romantically [/INST] no romantic, they </s><s>[INST] need to carry the [/INST] duty. </s><s>[INST] Yes, yes, there's [/INST] a bit of a romance to the philosophy, </s><s>[INST] it's in there [/INST] and you also </s><s>[INST] uh and the book [/INST] with a universe that </s><s>[INST] creates new [/INST] universes. </s><s>[INST] Ah [/INST] so if this isn't the only </s><s>[INST] universe, do you think [/INST] that's in our future </s><s>[INST] that we might [/INST] launch new </s><s>[INST] universe, new offspring universes? It's very possible [/INST] multiverses a </s><s>[INST] controversial field because it's very [/INST] much hypothetical, but </s><s>[INST] with [/INST] this universe has been </s><s>[INST] created, the one we're in now and so [/INST] it's happened before. </s><s>[INST] It certainly could happen again. Some of them might be happening in [/INST] parallel I think, you know, if you look out billions of years trillions of years in the future of technological development. </s><s>[INST] Certainly possible. [/INST] We could, it's good to have a little baby universes, </s><s>[INST] grow [/INST] them like cabbage, get them out, </s><s>[INST] saute them and [/INST] make them have flavor. Ah yeah, </s><s>[INST] creates something delicious. [/INST] Well it sounds difficult, </s><s>[INST] but it's our human [/INST] duty to </s><s>[INST] try. As [/INST] you said chris, this is an incredible </s><s>[INST] conversation, You're [/INST] an incredible person, a scientist </s><s>[INST] explorer, [/INST] I can't wait to </s><s>[INST] see what you do in this world and I [/INST] um I hope to be there with you on mars. I would like to also um breathe my last </s><s>[INST] breath on that [/INST] sexy red planet. That's our neighbor podcast from mars at least space, I think space should be coming. Face is </s><s>[INST] pretty good. Space is pretty [/INST] good, but mars </s><s>[INST] next chris, thanks so much for talking to you. Thanks [/INST] for having me. It's really an honor and a pleasure to be here. Thanks thanks for listening to this </s><s>[INST] conversation with chris mason. To support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you some words from Stanislaw Lem [/INST] and Solaris. </s><s>[INST] Man has gone out [/INST] to explore other </s><s>[INST] worlds and other civilizations [/INST] without having </s><s>[INST] explored his own labyrinth of dark [/INST] passages and </s><s>[INST] secret chambers and without finding what [/INST] lies behind </s><s>[INST] doorways that he himself has [/INST] sealed. </s><s>[INST] Thank you for listening and hope to see you next [/INST] time </s>

<s>[INST] my phone everywhere, yeah that's kind of it. [/INST] So how can you find happiness and stillness? I feel like if we're just like aware of it we're trying our best like whenever we like, we're supposed to do this one thing. So let's say that we want to go to New York and I'm like we should just like, go out and do this one specific thing, we try to find something that he enjoys doing. Now that we're in Texas, we can go shooting or do something fun that he enjoys, then we can do it. And then I think just for me also to be aware that when he spends lots of time on crazy people, it's not because he loves them or really wants to be with them, it's just because he likes having his life destroyed. Like you said, which I don't really do, this is a completely different thing. So for me to understand more how he's thinking Because it's so different from mine and for him to understand how I'm thinking about things and like what I prioritize in my life I think that's like how we navigate but I think it's good </s><s>[INST] I think the differences can be good like when we're finding a way. Yeah. Well, I think you're you're relatable [/INST] Like I always tell people that like if you're dating me for like more than a few years Like you get like a war zone that you've survived </s><s>[INST] Absolutely a war zone that you've survived [/INST] You're like a veteran you get a medals and stuff and it's always like I think there's probably been like six different I don't think she says it anymore, but they're like six different times in our relationship where she's like is it always like this? This is actually yeah, like every next year Like every next year is like the beginning of a like you were lying about that. Well You're like nice. Just like right now. I'm having a huge argument online about seeing the n-word in private It's just gonna be like this and I'm gonna be streaming 24 hours a day And I'm like, we're like, what are you gonna go to bed? It's been a week Playing League come into into this a little bit clean a little bit clean. I'm clean of league like six months right now </s><s>[INST] Yeah, what do you hate about legally? I never get humans well, speaking of which I my participation in League involved on the robot side good cuz there's that's an improvement because Both the Starcraft 2 and and legal legends because open AI and deep mind [/INST] Both participating creating boss in those I was a professional circuit of two players So I remember when the AI started to play it's interesting the types of restrictions that you'd have to put on like a gaming robot </s><s>[INST] To make it like functional and not totally unfair to the other side. Yeah, yeah to make a human like yeah Was that interesting to you to see AI be able to play those video games? [/INST] I think in some ways people think things are more complicated than they actually are and I think video games is one of those things We're really oh my god. There's like a million possibilities at every second and who knows and it's like No, there's like three or four things going at any point in time And I'm willing to bet that like an AI could probably solve some of these games like pretty easily Especially if there are no constraints on how they can learn. Yeah Can I talk to you about relationships? Yeah, we already have so yeah </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I know but more generally speaking we didn't get a chance to talk about the red pill community Oh sure. Well, first of all, what is the red pill community the manosphere in general? I'd love to get both of your opinions on this. Sure. We didn't get a chance to talk. Mm-hmm I know. I know you're probably not as [/INST] opinionated Like as you like as much as you but I do have opinions you do Okay, you should I don't like speak out too much on it because I feel like there's like a language barrier I don't know. I don't really do politics because this is my second language. Yeah, that's right </s><s>[INST] You have to know this a little bit like you know, how do you like you do? Okay I don't because this is my second language. Yeah, that's right You have to know this a little bit like you know how to use have to use derogatory terms every other sentence So they understand you right [/INST] Good like you need to be able to like speak really well for people to take you seriously I think and like that's a thing like if I if I don't have like the words and I don't know that like I can't Pronounce things correctly. Yeah, I'm gonna say searching for words look stupid. It's actually that's how people do it </s><s>[INST] Yeah, tell me about it. I have a podcast that people listen to and I mumble and they yeah Podcasts that people wait is here. What's your first language a Russian? Okay, but I speak both languages horribly. I'm just not I'm not like there's definitely a big disconnect between my brain and my mouth module Like I'm not able to generate the thoughts efficiently like the things you're able to do like that Like speak like that. I'm not It's very very tough. Plus there's a huge amount of anxiety and social interaction that I have which makes speaking even harder Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I understand. I'm gotcha Yeah, the the gotcha is both a symbol of compassion and derision at once [/INST] Gotcha, you know, I understand you say it. I'm gonna sit there and stare at you and confirm No, you can say like yeah get it like yeah, I get it yeah No, it's so it's so sure it's like got you say say it's longer sentence but that means the same thing yeah I understand you That's good that's like not chills. You know you get chills like yeah, I understand me yeah, it feels good </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, this is one of the troubling things about measuring well beings, we're okay at measuring death and suicide. We're not so good at measuring suffering. It's like people talk about um, maybe even holiday holiday more in the under Stalin or the concentration camps with Hitler. We talk about deaths, but we don't talk about the suffering over periods of years by people living in fear by people starving, psychological trauma that lasts a lifetime, all of those things. [/INST] I mean, and just to get back to that, that point, we closed schools, especially in Blue States, we closed schools. Now, richard parents could send their kids to private schools, many of which stayed open. Even in the Blue States, they could get pods, they could get tutors, but that's not true for for poor and middle class parents. And as a result, what we did is we took away life opportunities for kids. We tried to teach five year olds to read via Zoom in Kindergarten, right? Uh and the consequence actually, you think, okay, we can just make it up. But it's really difficult to make that up. Um there's a literature in health economics that shows that even, uh, you know, relatively small disruptions in schooling can have lifelong consequences, negative consequences for kids, right? So they end up growing up poorer, they lead shorter lives and less healthy lives as a consequence. And that's and that's what the literature now shows is likely to happen with the interruptions of schooling that we had in the United States and many european countries actually managed to avoid this. There were in the early days of the epidemic, great indications that Children first, we're not very severe severely at risk from covid itself, nor are they super spreaders. Schools were not the source of community spread. Community spread, spread the disease to school is not the other way around. Um And if we can talk about the scientific basis that if you'd like, but that was pretty well known even in october um and that we we we closed hospitals in order to keep them open, like available to to covid patients. But as a result, women skipped breast cancer screening as a result, they have are showing up with late stage breast cancer that should have been picked up last year. Men and women skipped colon cancer screening again with later stage disease. That should have been picked up last year with earlier stage for patients with diabetes. It's very important to have regular screening for blood sugar levels. Um and and and sort of counseling for lifestyle improvement. And we skip that. People stayed home with heart attacks and died at home with heart attacks. So you have this like sort of wide range of medical and psychological harms that were being utterly ignored as a result of the lockdowns. </s><s>[INST] Plus there's the economic pain. So like you said, the whatever is a good term for the non laptop class, people would lose their jobs. Yes, there might be in the in the Western world support for them financially. But the the big loss there that is perhaps correlated with the depression and suicide is uh loss of meaning, loss of hope for the future, loss of kind of a sense of stability, all the pride you have and being able to um make money that allows you to pave your own way in the world. And yes, just having less money than you're used to. So your family, your kids are suffering all those kinds of things. And [/INST] There's a there's like again the economics literature on this on deaths of despair. It was called 2009. There was the Great Recession. It led to an enormous uptake in overdose from drugs, uh suicidality depression as a result of the job losses that happened during the great recession. Well, that's happening again, like an enormous increase in drug overdoses. That's not that's not an accident, that's a lockdown harm. Right. Same. Same thing with with the the job losses. The job losses by the way are like, it's so interesting because the um the states that stayed open have had much much lower unemployment than the states that stayed closed The labor force participation rates declined by 3%. It's women that separated because they they stayed home with their kids. Um we've reversed a generation of women uh, when in improving women's participation in the labor force. </s><s>[INST] Do you think? Um it has to do with the institutions that we mentioned that there was so much priority given or so much power given to maybe NIH versus um other civilian leaders? Or do people just not care about the economic pain the leaders? I mean, because to me it was obvious. I mean probably is just studying history whenever I listen to people on twitter on mainstream news or just anything I realized that's the very kind of top the people that have a voice represent a tiny selection of people. And so whenever there's hard times, I always kind of think about the quiet, the voiceless, the quiet suffering of the tens of millions of the hundreds of millions um due to political leaders not just give a damn. [/INST] I mean, I think it was actually a very odd ethical thing at the beginning of the pandemic, where if you brought up economic harms at all, you were seen as callous, right? So, I I had a reporter call me up almost the very beginning of the epidemic asking me about about about uh uh like a very particular phenomenon. So like he he was anticipating a rise in child abuse because Children are gonna be staying at home, child abuse is generally picked up at school. And that actually happened. Like so like the child reported child abuse dropped, but actual child abuse increased. Um because normally pick up the child abuse at school and that you have, you have an intervention. Right? So yeah, I sort of started talking about like, well there's gonna be some economic harms and they're gonna have health consequences, but the economic harms matter, but the but he canceled me and I think he was he was he had my best interest at heart. Like if if you were to put that in the story, I would be essentially be canceled Because the what the what the the narrative that that arose in March of 2020 is if you if you care about money, at all. you're evil and craft, you must only care about lives. The problem with that narrative is that that money, what we're talking about is is actually lives of poor people, right? When you throw 100 million people around the world into into poverty, you're going to see enormous harm to their health, enormous increases in their in their immortality. It's not immoral to think about that and worry about that in the context of this pandemic response, our mind focused so much on Covid that it forgot that there are so many other public health priorities as well that need our attention desperately. </s>

<s>[INST] Today my heart goes out to the people of Ukraine. My grandfather spilled his blood on this land, held the line as a machine gunner against the Nazi invasion, surviving impossible odds. I am nothing without him. His blood runs in my blood. My words are useless here. I send my love. That's all I have. I hope to travel to Russia and Ukraine soon I will speak to citizens and leaders including Vladimir Putin. As I've said in the past, I don't care about access fame, money or power and I'm afraid of nothing but I am who I am and my goal in conversation is to understand the human being before me, no matter who they are, no matter their position. And I do believe the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. So this is it. [/INST] This </s><s>[INST] is our world. It is full of hate, violence and destruction, but it is also full of [/INST] love, </s><s>[INST] beauty and the insatiable desire to help each other. The people who run the social networks that show this world that show us to ourselves have the greatest of responsibilities [/INST] in </s><s>[INST] a time of war. Pandemic atrocity. We turn to social networks to share real human insights and experiences to organize protests and celebrations, to learn and to challenge our understanding of the world of our history and of our future and above all to be reminded of our common humanity. When the social networks fail, they have the power to cause immense suffering and when they succeed they have the power to lessen that suffering. This is hard, it's a responsibility. Perhaps almost unlike any other in history, this podcast conversation attempts to understand the man and the company who take this responsibility on where they fail when they hope to succeed Mark Zuckerberg's feet are often held to the fire as they should be. And this actually gives me hope, the power of innovation and engineering coupled with the freedom of speech in the form of its highest ideal I believe can solve any problem in the world, but that's just it. Both are necessary. The engineer and the critic, I believe that criticism is essential but cynicism is not and I worry that in our public discourse, cynicism to easily masquerades as wisdom as truth becomes viral and takes over and worse suffocates the dreams of young minds who want to build solutions to the problems of the world. We need to inspire those young minds at least for me. They give me hope and one small way I'm trying to contribute is to have honest conversations like these that don't just ride the viral wave of cynicism but seek to understand the failures and successes of the past the problems before us and the possible solutions in this very complicated world of ours. I'm sure I will fail often and I count on the critic to point it out when I do. But I asked for one thing and that is to fuel the fire of optimism, especially in those who dream to build solutions because without that we don't have a chance on this too fragile tiny planet of ours. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor check them out in the description is the best way to support this podcast. First is paper space, a platform. I used to train and deploy machine learning models. 2nd is coin base a platform. I used to buy Cryptocurrency third is inside tracker a service. I used to track my biological data. Fourth is express VPN, the VPN I've been using for many years and fifth is blinking the app I used to read summaries of books so the choice is machine learning, Cryptocurrency, health, privacy or knowledge. She was wise than my friends and now onto the full ad reads as always no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors, I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will [/INST] too. </s><s>[INST] This show is brought to you by paper space gradient, which is a platform that lets you build, train and deploy machine learning models of any size and complexity. I love how powerful and intuitive it is. I should mention that fast dot ai of course I highly recommend a machine learning uses it. It's run by jeremy Howard who is pretty much as legit of an educator and technologist, programmer, developer, just intellect. In the space of machine learning as it gets. You can host notebooks on there, you can swap out the compute instance any time starting a small scale gpu instance or even CPU and swap out once your computer needs increase. [/INST] I'm excited </s><s>[INST] by what they're calling. Workflows which provides a way to automate ml pipelines on top of gradient [/INST] computer infrastructure. </s><s>[INST] It makes it really easy with simple configuration files. Yeah, mo files to give gradient to try visit gradient dot run slash lex and use the sign up link there. You'll get 15 bucks and free credit which you can use to power your next machine learning application. That's gradient dot run slash lex. This show is also brought to you by coin base which is a trusted and easy to use platform to buy, sell and spend. Cryptocurrency. I use it and I love it. You can buy Bitcoin ethereum Cardona coin I can keep going all of the most popular digital currencies. In fact, I think all of the currencies for the people who have been interviewed on this podcast and even the ones that are coming up on this podcast. So it's a great way to uh try Cryptocurrency and to learn about Cryptocurrency. It's a great way to track the prices of things. It's just the interface is so intuitive. I love it. They also have the coin based wallet [/INST] which </s><s>[INST] I just recently set [/INST] up. It's as good </s>

<s>[INST] but yeah, I understand your point. Yeah, well, as the flood of data about each individual increases censorship, it becomes much more difficult to actually have an archive of stuff. But yes, for important people like a president of the United States, yes. Let me on that topic ask you about Trump. You were considered for position as FDA commissioner in the Trump administration. And I think in terms of the network state, in terms of the digital world, one of the seminal acts in the history of that was the banning of Trump from Twitter. [/INST] He make the case for it and against it. Sure, so first let me talk about the FDA thing. So I was considered for a senior role at FDA, but I do believe that, and this is the whole topic, we can talk about the FDA. I do believe that just as it was easier to create Bitcoin than to form the Fed, reforming the Fed basically still hasn't happened, right. So just as it was easier to create Bitcoin than to reform the Fed, it will literally be easier to start a new country than to reform the FDA. It may take 10 or 20 years. I mean, think about Bitcoin, it's only 13 years old, it may take 10 or 20 years to start a new network state with a different biomedical policy. But that is how we get out from perhaps the single worst thing in the world, which is harmonization, regulatory harmonization. Can you describe regulatory harmonization? Regulatory harmonization is the mechanism by which US regulators impose their regulations on the entire world. So basically you have a monopoly by US regulators. This is not just the FDA, it is SEC and FAA and so on and so forth. And for the same reason that a small company will use Facebook login that will outsource their login to Facebook, a small country will outsource their regulation to the USA, okay, with all the attendant issues. Because, I mean, you know the names of some politicians. Can you name a single regulator at the FDA? No, right? Yet they will brag on their website that they regulate, I forget the exact numbers, I think it's like 25 cents out of every dollar, something along those lines, okay? It's like double digits, okay? That's a pretty big deal. And the thing about this is, you know, people will talk about, quote, our democracy and so on. But many of the positions in, quote, our democracy are actually not subject to democratic accountability. You have tenured professors and you have tax exempt colleges, you have the Salzburgers, the New York Times, who have dual class stock, you have, you know, a bunch of positions that are out of the reach of the electorate. And that includes regulators who have career tenure after just a few years of not necessarily even continuous service. So they're not accountable to the electorate. They're not named by the press. And they also aren't accountable to the market because you've got essentially uniform global regulations. Now, the thing about this is, it's not just a government thing. It's a regulatory capture thing. Big pharma companies like this as well. Why? Because they can just get their approval in the US and then they can export to the rest of the world, right? I understand where that comes from as a corporate executive. It's such a pain to get access in one place. So there's a team up though between the giant company and the giant government to box out all the small startups in all the small countries and lots of small innovation, right? There are cracks in this now, right? The FDA did not acquit itself well during the pandemic. For example, it denied, I mean, there's so many issues, but one of the things that even actually New York Times reported, the reason that people thought there were no COVID cases in the US early in the pandemic was because the FDA was denying people the ability to run COVID tests and the emergency use authorization was, emergency should mean like right now, right? But it was not, it was just taking forever. And so some labs did civil disobedience and they just disobeyed the FDA and just went and tested academic labs with threat of federal penalties because that's what they are. They're like the police, okay? And so they were sort of retroactively granted immunity because N.Y.T. went and ran a positive story on them. So N.Y.T.'s authority is usually greater than that of FDA. If they come into a conflict, N.Y.T. runs stories and FDA kind of gets spanked, right? And it's not, probably neither party would normally think of themselves that way. But if you look at it, when N.Y.T. goes and runs stories on a company, it names all the executives and they get all hit. When it runs stories on a regulator, it just treats the regulator usually as if it was just some abstract entity. It's Zuckerberg's Facebook, but you can't name the people who, the career bureaucrats at FDA. Interesting, right? It's very interesting. It's a very important point. That person who's named and their face is known, just as an example, you know Zuckerberg's face and name. Most people don't know Arthur G. Salzberger. They couldn't recognize him, right? Yet he's a guy who's inherited the New York Times Company from his father's father. That is unaccountable power. It's not that they get great coverage so that they get no coverage. You don't even think about them, right? And so it's </s>

<s>[INST] We're very different along the same lines. You've explored some really deep scientific ideas in this new series and I mean it's just in general, you're unafraid to, to uh to ground yourself in some of the most amazing scientific ideas of our time. What what are the things you've learned our ideas to find beautiful, mysterious about quantum mechanics, Multiverse string theory, quantum computing that you've learned? [/INST] Well, I would have to say every single thing I've learned is beautiful. And one of the motivators for me is that I think that people tend not to see scientific thinking as being essentially poetic and lyrical, but I think that is literally exactly what it is. And I think the idea of entanglement or the idea of super positions or the fact that you could even demonstrate a superposition or have a machine that relies on the existence of super positions in order to function to me is is almost indescribably beautiful. It it uh it fills me with all, it fills me with all. And also it's not it's not just a sort of grand, massive or of but it's also delicate. It's very, very delicate and subtle and uh good. It has these beautiful sort of nuances in it and also these completely paradigm changing thoughts and truth. So so it's it's as good as it gets as far as I can tell. So so so broadly everything that doesn't mean I believe everything I read quantum physics because because obviously a lot of the interpretations are completely in conflict with each other and who knows whether string theory will turn out to be a good description or not. But um but the beauty in it, it seems undeniable and and I do wish people more readily understood how beautiful and poetic science is. </s><s>[INST] I would say science is [/INST] poetry </s><s>[INST] in terms of quantum computing being used to simulate things or just in general, the idea of simulating simulating small parts of our world, which actually current physicists are really excited about simulating small quantum mechanical systems on quantum computers but scaling that up to something bigger, like simulating life forms. How do you think? What are the possible trajectories of that going wrong or going right? If you if you enroll that into the future? [/INST] Well, if a bit like Eva and her robotics you park the sheer complexity of what you're trying to do. Um the the issues are I think I think it will have a profound if you were able to have a machine that was able to project forwards and backwards accurately, it would in an empirical way show it would demonstrate that you don't have free will. So the first thing that would happen is people would have to really take on a very, very different idea of what they were. The thing that they truly truly believe they are, they are not. And so that that I suspect would be very, very disturbing to a lot of people. </s><s>[INST] Do you think that has a positive or negative effect on society? The realization that you are not, you cannot control your actions essentially, I guess is the way that could be interpreted. [/INST] Yeah. Although in some ways we instinctively understand that already because in the example I gave you of the kid in the stabbing, we would all understand that that kid was not really fully in control of their actions. So it's not an idea that's entirely alien to us. But </s><s>[INST] I don't know, we understand that. I think there's a bunch of people who see the world that way, but not everybody. [/INST] Yes, true. But what this machine would do is is prove it beyond any doubt because someone would say, well I don't believe that's true. And then you you predict, well in 10 seconds you're going to do this and they say no, no I'm not. And then they do it and then determinism would have played its part, but or something like that. But actually the exact terms of that thought experiment probably wouldn't play out, but but still, broadly speaking, you could predict something happening in another room sort of unseen, I suppose that four knowledge would not allow you to effect. So what effect would that have? I think people would find it very disturbing, but then after they had got over their sense of being disturbed um uh which by the way, I don't even think you need a machine to to take this idea on board, but after they've got over that they'd still understand that even though I have no free will and my actions are in effect already determined. Um I still feel things I I still care about stuff. I remember my daughter saying to me um uh she got hold of the idea that my view of the universe made it meaningless. And she said, well then it's meaningless. And I said, well, I I can prove it's not meaningless because you mean something to me and I mean something to you. So it's not completely meaningless because there is a bit of meaning contained within this space. And so with a lack of free will space, you could think, well, this robs me of everything I am. And then you'd say, well, no, it doesn't because you still like eating cheeseburgers and you still like going to see the movies. And so, so how big a difference does it really make? Um but I think, I think initially people would find it very disturbing. I think I think that what would come if you could really unlock with a determinism machine, Everything, there'd be this wonderful wisdom that would come from it and I'd rather have that than not. </s>

<s>[INST] So not fully, not fully listening to the conscious mind at any one moment as the ultimate truth, but allowing you to go up and down as it does. It's kind of being observing it. [/INST] Yes, I assume that whatever my conscious mind delivers up to my awareness is wrong on upon landing, and I just need to figure out where it's wrong, how it's wrong, how wrong it is, and then try to correct for it as best I can. But I assume that on impact, it's mistaken in some critical ways. </s><s>[INST] Is there something you can say by way of advice when the mind is depressive, when the conscious mind serves up something that uh you know, the dark thoughts, how you deal with that by calling your own life, you've overcome that, and others who are experiencing that you can overcome it. [/INST] Two things one that those depressive states are biochemical states, it's not you. And the suggestions that these things that the state delivers to you about suggestion of the hopelessness of lives or or the meaninglessness of it, or that you should hit the eject button. That's a false reality. Yeah. And that it's when I I completely understand the rational decision to commit suicide there, it is not lost on me at all, that that is and that is an international situation. But the key is when you're in that situation of those thoughts are landing to be able to say, thank you, you're not real. I know you're not real. And so I'm in a situation where, for whatever reason, I'm having this this uh neurochemical state, but that state can be altered. And so it again, it goes back to the realities of the difficulties of being human. And like when I was trying to solve my depression, I tried literally, if you name it, I tried it systematically and nothing would fix it. And so this is what gives me hope with brainer faces. For example. Like could I have numbers on my brain, Can I see what's going on? Because I go to the doctor, it's like how do you feel? I don't know, terrible. Like on a scale of 1 to 10 to have that you want to commit suicide 10? Like, </s><s>[INST] okay, at [/INST] this moment here, here's his bottle how much I take. I don't know, like just </s><s>[INST] yeah, it's very, very crude. And this data opens up the the yeah, it opens up the possibility of really helping in those dark moments to first understand the ways of the ups and downs the most document was on the complete flip side of that. Yeah, I am very conscious in my own brain and deeply, deeply grateful that what they're it's it's almost like a chemistry thing, a biochemistry thing that I go many times throughout the day. I'll look at like this cup and I'll be overcome with joy how amazing it is to be alive. Like I actually think I'm my biochemistry is such that it's not as common. Like I've talked to people and I don't think that's that common. Like it's a it's not a rational thing at all. It's like I feel like I'm on drugs and I'll just be like whoa a lot of people talk about like the meditative experience will allow you to sort of, you know, look at some basic things like the movement of your hand as deeply joyful because it's like that's life. But I get that from just looking at a cup, like I'm waiting for the coffee to brew and I'll just be like fuck life is awesome and I'll sometimes tweet that, but then I'll regret it later. Like goddammit, you're so ridiculous. But yeah, so but that is purely chemistry, like there's no rational, it doesn't fit with the rest of my life. I have all this ship, I'm always late to stuff, I'm always like there's all stuff, you know, I'm super self critical, like really self critical about everything I do almost. To the point I almost hate everything I do. But there's this engine of joy for life outside of all that and that has to be chemistry and the flip side of that is what depression probably is is the opposite of that feeling of like because I I bet you that feeling of the cup being amazing, it would save anybody in a state of depression like that that would be like fresh, you're in a desert and it's a, it's a drink of water Ah shit man, the brain is a, it would be nice to understand where that's coming from, to be able to, to understand how you hit those lows and those highs that have nothing to do with the actual reality. It has to do with some very specific aspects of how you maybe see the world. Maybe it could be just like basic habits you engage in and then how to walk along the line to find those experiences of joy. [/INST] And this goes back to the discussion we're having of human cognition is in volume the largest input of raw material into society. Yeah, and it's not quantified, we have no bearings on it. And so we just, you wonder we both articulated some of the challenges we have in our own mind and it's likely that others would say I have something similar and you wonder when you look at society, what how does that contribute to all the other compounded problems that we're experiencing? How does that blind us to the opportunities we could be looking at. And so it really it has this potential distortion effect on reality that just makes everything worse. And I hope if we can put some, if we can assign some numbers to these things just to get our bearings. So we're aware of what's going on, if we could find greater stabilization in how we conduct our lives and how we build society. It might be the thing that enables us to scaffold because we've really again we've done a human have done a fantastic job systematically scaffolding technology and science institutions. It's human these are our own selves which we have not been able to scaffold. It's it's we are the we are the one part of this intelligence infrastructure that remains unchanged. </s>

<s>[INST] what was the thinking behind that just just, [/INST] he was, he was just garrulous, he was, he was much more outgoing than I am actually, he was, he was very warm with people like for me, Yeah, I would say that with Andrew, I knew Andrew for Sam when I was 16, he passed away when I would have been 28, so I knew Andrew for 10, 12 years and people who met Andrew for about 10 minutes new Andrew 99% as well as I knew Andrew because he was just all out front like everything was out here and he was, he loved talking to people, he loved engaging with people and so this made him a lot of fun and unpredictable and fun to watch and all that and then I think twitter got to him, I think by, by you know twitter is one of the lessons I learned from Andrew was the counter lesson which is twitter, twitter can poison your twitter can really wreck you. If you spend all day on twitter reading the comments and getting angry at people who are talking about you it becomes a very difficult life and I think that you know in the last year of his life Andrew got very caught up in that because of a series of sort of circumstances it </s><s>[INST] can actually affect your mind, it can actually make you resentful all that kind of stuff. [/INST] I I tend to agree with that so but but the lesson that I learned from Andrew is engage with everybody, take joy in sort of the mission that you're given and you can't always fulfill that you know sometimes it's really rough and difficult, I'm not gonna pretend that it's all fun and rainbows all the time because I didn't uh and some of the stuff that I have to cover, I don't like and some things I have to say, I don't particularly like you know like that's that that happens but it's but that's what I learned from Andrew as far as sort of other mentors I had some had some teachers when I was a kid who uh you know said things that stuck with me, I had 1/4 grade teacher named Mr Nettie who said don't let potential be written on your tombstone Which was which is a pretty it's a great line, particularly 1/4 grader but it was that that you know this guy had an 11th grade English teacher named Anthony Miller who was terrific. Really good writer. He studied with James Joyce at Trinity College in Dublin and so he and I really got along and he he helped my writing a lot. </s><s>[INST] Did you ever have doubt in yourself? I mean especially as you've gotten into the public eye with all the attacks, did you ever doubt your ability to stay strong to be able to be a voice of the ideas that you represent [/INST] you? Definitely. I don't doubt my ability to say what I want to say. I doubt my ability to handle the emotional blowback of saying it, meaning that that's that's difficult. I mean again in to take just one example in 2016 the A. T. L. Measured that I was the number one target of anti Semitism on planet Earth. You know that's that's not fun, it's unpleasant. And when you take critiques not from anti Semites, when you take critiques from people generally, we talked about at the beginning how you surround yourself with with people who are going to give you good feedback. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Sometimes people are giving you feedback. You don't know whether it's well motivated or poorly motivated and if you are trying to be a decent person you can't cut off the mechanism of feedback and so what that means is sometimes you, you take to heart the wrong thing or you take it to heart too much. Uh you're not light enough that you take it very, very seriously, you lose sleep over it. I mean, I can't tell you the number of nights where I've just not slept because of some critique. Somebody made me and I thought to myself, maybe that's right, maybe that and sometimes it is right and you know, that's that's </s><s>[INST] some of that is good just doing that criticism, but some of that can destroy you. You have a short castle. Rogan has talked about taking a lot of mushrooms since you're not since you're not into the mushroom thing. Um what's your escape from that? Like when you get low, when you can't sleep, [/INST] usually writing is a big one for me. So I, writing for me is cathartic, I love writing that, that is a that is a huge one, spending time with my family. Again, I talk, I usually have a close circle of friends who I will talk with in order to sort of bounce ideas off of them and then once I've kind of talked it through, I tend to feel a little bit better exercise is also a big one. I mean if I, if I go a few days without exercise, I tend to get pretty grumpy pretty quickly. I mean, I gotta keep the six pack going somehow, </s><s>[INST] man there you and Rogan agree. Uh well we haven't, aside from twitter mentioned love, what's the role of love in the human condition. Ben Shapiro [/INST] man, don't get asked for for love too much. In fact, I was, I was </s><s>[INST] you don't get that question in college? [/INST] No, I typically don't actually. In fact we were at an event uh recently as the Daily Wire event and in the middle of this event is a meet and greet with some of the audience and in the middle of the event, this guy walks by with this girl they're talking and they're talking to me and their time kind of runs securities moving them. He says, no, no, no wait hold on a minute and he gets down on one knee and proposes the girl in front of me and I said to him, this is the weirdest proposal in human history, what what what is happening right now, Like I was your choice of Cupid here, like so well you know, we we actually like got together because we listen to your show and I so I can perform it like a jewish marriage right now, we're gonna be like a glass, we're gonna need some wine, it's gonna get weird real fast. But yeah, so so love doctor, I'm typically not ask too much about the role. The role of love um is important in binding together human beings who ought to be bound together and the role of respect is even more important in binding together broader groups of people. I think one of the mistakes that we make in politics is trying to substitute love for respect, respect for love. And I think that's a big mistake. So I do not bear tremendous love in the same sense that I do for my family for random strangers. I don't I love my family, I love my kids. Anybody who tells you they love your kid as much as you love, your kid is lying to you. It's not true. I love my community more than I love other communities. I love my state more than I love other states. I love my country more than I love other countries, right? Like that's that's all normal and that's all good. The problem of empathy can be when that becomes so tight knit that you're not outward looking, that you don't actually have respect for other people. So in the local level, you need love in order to protect you and shield you and give you the strength to go forward and then beyond that, you need a lot of respect for people who are not in the circle of love. And I think trying to extend love to people who either we're not gonna love you back or are are gonna slap in the face for it or who you're just not that close to. It's either it runs the risk of being air sats and fake or it or it can actually be counterproductive in some senses. </s>

<s>[INST] Travis stevens actually said something that changed the way c training. He said it as a side comment, but he said that at the end of the training at the end of a good training session, your mind should be exhausted not your body. And um I've for most of my life saw good training sessions where my body was exhausted. [/INST] Yes, I believe that's the case with most people. Yeah, you should come out of the training session with your mind buzzing with ideas like possibilities for tomorrow. And by the way, on that note I would go further and say that the training session doesn't finish when your body stops moving, it finishes when your mind stops moving and your mind shouldn't stop moving after that session, there should be analysis. What did I do? Well, what did I do badly, how could I do better with the things that I did? Well </s><s>[INST] can I ask you about something that I truly enjoy and I think is really powerful but most people don't seem to believe in that. But it's drilling. I don't know, maybe people are different, but I love the idea Maybe even outside of digits of doing the same thing over and over. It's like Jiro dreams of sushi, I love doing the thing Uh that nobody wants to do in doing it 10 times 100 times 1000 times more than what nobody wants to do. Um so I'm a huge fan of drilling, obviously I'm not a professional athlete, but I feel like if I actually gave myself, If I wanted to be really good at Jiu Jitsu, like reached the level of being in the top 25 when I was much younger, like really strive uh I think I could achieve it by drilling. That's, I had this belief untested. Can you challenge this idea or, or agree? [/INST] First off, fascinating. However, we're going to have to disagree. No, no, we're just going to have to start to understand. What are we talking about when we talk about drilling? It's a very vague term, Okay, if you're um at this moment, many of your listeners are probably seeing having the same thought process, which is a drilling. Yeah, I know what that is. We go into the gym and we pick a move and we practice it for a certain number of repetitions and if I do that, I'm going to get better at the technique. Okay, um they're wrong, we've got to have a much more in depth understanding of what the hell we're talking about when we talk about drilling, ultimately any movement in the gym, it doesn't improve the skills you already have or build new skills is a waste of time, A waste of resources. Everything you do should be done with the aim and the understanding that this is going to make me better at the sport. I practice if it's not, shouldn't be there. The majority of what passes for drilling and most training halls will not make you better. Including some of the most cherished forms of drilling, which is repetition for numbers. The moment you say to someone, I want you to do this 100 times. What are they really thinking about volume? They're saying, Okay, I'm at repetition, 78 I'm at 80, 20 more to go or they're talking their primary thought process is on numbers. That's not the point of drilling. The point is skill acquisition when people drill, don't get them focused on numbers, get them focused on mechanics, that's what they have to worry about. I never have my students drill for the numbers ever. This one </s><s>[INST] crew, get the funk outta [/INST] Here, are you kidding me? You're gonna get better with that. Okay, get them working on the sense of gaining knowledge. That's my job. I have to give them knowledge. I have to explain to them what they're trying to do. That starts them on the right track. But knowledge is one thing, skill is another. If judas was just about knowledge then All the 60 and seven year old red balance would be the world champions. They're not Judicial isn't won by knowledge. Its one by Skill. Knowledge is the first step in building skill. So my job as a coach is to transmit knowledge, then I have to create training programs with a path from knowledge to polished skill is carried out. That's the interface between me and my students. And so I give them drills where the whole emphasis is upon getting a sense where they understand what are the problems they're trying to solve and working towards practical solutions. They never work with numbers. They work with mechanics and feel. Then you have to bring in the idea of progression. When you drill, there's zero resistance. When you fight in competition, there's 100% resistance. You can't go from 0 to 100. There has to be progress over time Where I have them work and drills with slightly increasing increments of resistance. And just as we talked about earlier with the weightlifter who doesn't start with £500 but who begins with the bar And then over time builds the skills that one day out there in the future he will live £500. So to that Judy Tommy that you're working on today is feeble and pathetic. But five years from now you'll win a world championship with it. Mm you can't have this naive idea of drilling is something you just come out. Mm hmm randomly pick a move and you work for numbers until you're satisfied a certain set of numbers that your coach threw at you and then you think you're going to get better. There's even dangerous with drilling, There is no performance increase that comes once you get to a certain level and you just keep doing the same damn thing, let's say for example, You come out and you hit 100 repetitions of the armed guard duty guitar me from guard position. And you're all proud of yourself because you hit 100 repetitions and your body's tired and you're telling yourself, man, I got a good workout and you come in tomorrow, you do exactly the same thing. You come in the day after that and a week goes by and you've done the same thing. Then a year later you do the same thing. Ask yourself, has your Duty Guitar me really gotten better? No, you've performed literally thousands and thousands of repetitions. You've spent an enormous amount of training time and energy that could have gone in different directions on something which didn't make you any better drills have diminishing returns. Once you get to a certain skill level, If you just keep hammering on the same thing in the same fashion for the same amount of time, you stop getting better. </s>

<s>[INST] so I speak Russian fluently and that's certainly a language that leads you down. Certain thoughts are, well, yeah, I mean, there's a, there's a history of the two world wars, of the, of millions of people starving to death and years of death throughout his history of suffering of injustice. Like this promise sold to the people and then the carpet or whatever swept from under them. It's like broken promises and all of that pain and melancholy is in the language, the sad songs, the the sad, hopeful songs, the over romanticized. Like I love you, I hate you the sort of the swings between the, all the various uh, spectrums of emotion. So that's all within the language, the way it's twisted poach. There's a there's a there's a strong culture of rhyming poetry. So like the bard's like the sink, there's a musicality to the language to [/INST] dostoevsky write in Russian. So like </s><s>[INST] dostoevsky, Tolstoy all the uh all the [/INST] ones that I know about which are translated, curious other translations. </s><s>[INST] So Dostoyevsky did not use the musicality of the language too much. So they actually translates pretty well because it's so philosophically dense that the story does a lot of the work, but there's a bunch of things that are untranslatable. Certainly the poetry is not translatable. I actually have a few conversations coming up offline and on this podcast with people who've translated dostoyevsky and that's for people who worked, who work in this field. I know how difficult that is. Sometimes you can spend, you know, months thinking about a single sentence in the context, like because there's just a magic captured by that sentence. And how do you translate just in the right way? Because those words can be uh, can be really powerful. There's a famous line, Beauty will save the world from dostoevsky. You know, there's so many ways to translate that and you're right. The language gives you the tools would wish to tell the story. But it also leads your mind down certain trajectories and paths to wear over time as you think in that language you become a different human being. Yeah. [/INST] Yes, that's a fascinating reality, I think. I know people have explored that, but it's yes, we rediscovered </s><s>[INST] what we don't. We live in our own like little pockets. Like this is the sad thing is I feel like unfortunately given time and given getting older, I'll never know uh, china the chinese world because I don't truly know the language saying with japanese, I don't truly know japanese and Portuguese in brazil, that whole south american continent. Like yeah, I'll go to brazil and Argentina, but will I truly understand the people if I don't understand the language. And it's sad because um, I wonder how much how many geniuses were missing because uh because so much of the scientific world, so much of the technical world is in english and so much of it might be lost because they're just, we don't have the common language. [/INST] I completely agree. I'm very much in that vein of there's a lot of genius out there that we miss and it's sort of sort of fortunate when it when it bubbles up into something that that we can understand our process. There's a lot we miss. So, so I tend to lean towards really loving democratization or things that empower people or, you know, a very resistant to sort of authoritarian structures fundamentally for that reason. It well, several reasons, but it just hurts us. We're worse off. </s><s>[INST] So speaking of languages that empower you, so python was the first language for me that uh that I could I really enjoyed thinking in as you said [/INST] something. You shared my experience do. </s><s>[INST] So when did you first do you remember when you first kind of connected with python? Maybe even fell in love with python? [/INST] It's a good question. It was a process. It took about a year. I first encountered Python in 1997. I was a graduate student studying biomedical engineering at the Mayo clinic. And I had previously had been involved in um taking information from satellites. It was electric Nigerian student used to taking information and trying to get something out of it, doing some data processing information out of it. And I've done that in matt lab, I've done that in Pearl. I've done that in, you know, scripting of on a VMS, there's actually a Vax VMS system and they had their own little scripting tools around four chan done a lot of that. And then as a graduate student I was looking for something and encounter python. And because python had an array had two things that made me not filtered away because I was filtering a bunch of stuff is Yorick, I looked at Yorick, I looked at a few other languages, they're out there at the time in 1997. But it had a raise. There's a library called numeric that had just been written in 95. Like not very not not too much earlier by an M. I. T. Le jim Hougan in uh, you know, when I went back and read the, the mailing list to see the history of how it grew. And there was a very interesting fascinating to do that actually, to see how this emergent cooperation. Unstructured cooperation happens in the open source world that led to a lot of this collective program, which is something maybe we won't get into a little later. But what that looks like, </s><s>[INST] what gap did numeric fill [/INST] fill the gap of having an array object instead. There was no, there was no, there was a one dimensional bite concept. But there is no uh, n dimensional 234 dimensional tensor, they call it. Now, I'm still in the category, that sensor is another thing and it's just an India right? We should call it. But I kind of lost that battle and </s>

<s>[INST] The hope for me is that there's some simple explanations for all of it. [/INST] Like should we have a drink? You're having fun? No, I'm trying to have fun </s><s>[INST] with you. You know, there's a bunch of fun [/INST] things very serious to </s><s>[INST] talk about here [/INST] anyway. That was how I got what I thought you wanted. Which is if you think about the fermions as the artists and the bosons as the brushes and the paint, What I told you is that's how we get the artists. </s><s>[INST] What are the open questions for you in this? What were the challenges? So you're not done? [/INST] Well, there's there's things that I would like to have in better order. So a lot of people will say, see the reason I hesitated on this is I just have a totally different view than the community. So, for example, I believe that general relativity Began in 1913 with Einstein and Grossmann. Now that was the first of like four major papers in this line of thinking to most physicists, General relativity happened when Einstein produced uh a divergence free um gradient, which turned out to be the gradient of the of the so called Hilbert or Einstein Hilbert action. And from my perspective, that wasn't true. This is that. It began when Einstein said, look, this is about um differential geometry and it's the final answer is going to look like a curvature tensor on one side and matter and energy on the other side. And that was enough. And then he published a wrong version of it where it was the Ricci tensor, not the Einstein tensor. Then he corrected the reach the Ricci tensor to make it into the Einstein tensor. Then he corrected that to add a cosmological constant. I can't stand that the community thinks in those terms. There's some things about which like that. There's a question about which contraction do I use? There's an Einstein contraction, there's a richie contraction. They both go between the same spaces. I'm not sure what I should do, I'm not sure which contraction I should choose. This is called a Shia operator for ship in a bottle and my stuff. </s><s>[INST] You have this big platform in many ways that inspires people's curiosity about physics, mathematics now, and I'm one of those people, great, but then you start using a lot of words that I don't understand. Yeah, and like I might know them, but I don't understand and what's unclear to me if I'm supposed to be listening to those words or if it's just if this is one of those technical things that's intended for a very small community, or if I'm supposed to actually take those words and start, you know, a multi year study, not, not a serious study, but the kind of study when you you're interested in learning about machine learning, for example, or any kind of discipline, that's where I'm a little bit confused. So, you you speak beautifully about ideas, you often reveal the beauty in mathematics, geometry and I'm unclear and what are the steps I should be taking. I'm curious how can I explore, how can I play with something, How can I play with these ideas and and enjoy the beauty of not necessarily understanding the depth of the theory that you're presenting, but start to share in the beauty as opposed to sharing and enjoying the beauty of just the way the passion with which you speak, which is in itself fun uh to listen to, but also starting to be able to understand some aspects of this theory that I can enjoy it to uh and start to build an intuition what the heck we're even talking about because you're basically saying we need to throw a lot of our ideas of, of views of the universe out and I'm trying to find accessible reason. Okay, not in this conversation, [/INST] no, I appreciate that. So, one of the things that I've done is I've picked on one paragraph from Edward wit and I said this is the paragraph, if I could only take one paragraph with me, this is the one I'd take and it's almost all in prose, not an equation. And he says, look this is this is our knowledge of the universe at its deepest level. And he was writing this during the 1980s and he has three separate points that constitute our deepest knowledge. And those three points refer to equations, one to the Einstein field equation, one to the dirac equation and one to the yang mills Maxwell equations. Now, one thing I would do is take a look at that paragraph and say, okay, what do these three lines mean? Like it's a finite amount of verbiage, you can write down every word that you don't know, you can say, What do I think done now young man. Yes, there's a beautiful wall in stony brook new york built by someone who I know you will interview named Jim Symons and Jim Symons, he's not the artist, but he's the guy who funded it, World's Greatest hedge fund manager. And on that wall contained the three equations that Whitten refers to in that paragraph. And so that is the transmission from the paragraph or graph to the wall. Now that wall needs an owner's manual, which Roger Penrose has written called The Road to Reality. Let's call that the tome. So this is the subject of the so called graph wall tome project that is going on in our discord server and our general group around the portal community, which is how do you take something that purports in one paragraph to say what the deepest understanding man has of the universe in which he lives? Yeah, it's memorialized on a wall which nobody knows about. Which is an incredibly gorgeous piece of art. And that was written up in a book which has been written for no man. Right? Maybe, maybe it's for a woman, I don't know. But no, no one should be able to read this book because either you're a professional and you know, a lot of this book, in which case it's kind of a refreshers to see how roger thinks about these things or you don't even know that this book is a self contained invitation to understanding our deepest nature. So I would say find yourself in the graph wall tome transmission sequence and join the graph wall tone project if that's of interest. </s>

<s>[INST] Can I actually backtrack, listen I love love, OK. And, and there's a story uh that you fell in love with a stripper. I mean you have to tell the story. So how did you fall in love um with somebody, not, there's anything wrong with that profession, but it's, it's, it's romantic. It's like the true romance by the way. Great movie. [/INST] It's truly a great film. </s><s>[INST] Even even brad pitt who makes a brief appearance is genius. This is so much good acting there. Anyway. Uh, so tell me that love story. All right. So, you [/INST] know that, uh, like I said, I get from my dad, I get that fear of being abandoned. You know, I lied to my wife for nine years until she leaves. And um, I was in charleston south Carolina. And what happened was, I noticed that Susan, she was not coming to bed. Like, you know, she used to, she would stay up all night long and sometimes she'd go and be gone a few hours and everything else. And I'm like, well something's going on. And I passed by her computer and she would minimize the screens and I'm like, well, I got to figure out what the hell is going on. So put a key logger on her system </s><s>[INST] as any uh, anybody should in a relationship. [/INST] Absolutely, because you trust them, You know, why not? You </s><s>[INST] should be tracking all their movements, all their [/INST] Exactly. Exactly. Like I said, I was the control freak too. So I found out she'd been cheating on me and she was bad reason I justified, So I found out she was cheating on her, she was asleep when I found it out and I sat there looking at and I was like, well, shit. So I got up, walked in the bedroom, opened up the wardrobe, got a suitcase out, started putting her clothes in it. And she wakes up, she's like, where are you going? I'm like, I'm not. You are. Well, my, my bravado disappeared pretty quickly. I it took about a week of both of us crying and arguing and everything else. And she she finally left around. I went through this depression. I went, I was in charleston south south Carolina. I would just walk around the house, kind of stumbling in a daze. I realized I was getting suicidal and was smart enough to do something about it and picked up the phone book and that's where there's always this sense of humor. So I picked up the phone book. I'm going through the yellow pages. I'm like, psychologist, criminal psychologist, because I need </s><s>[INST] that [/INST] called this psychologist crying to her. I'm crying on the phone, told her everything. I'm just criminal. This is what's happened. She's like, come in now. So I go in, spill my guts. And uh, I saw her for about four months and I joke about it. It's true. She, she was trying to get me to stop breaking the law and to go into real estate. And I remember telling her, is there a difference. She was like, yes, there's a difference. So sorry for about four months. I was I was 34. I didn't start drinking until I was 34. I had never done drugs or anything else like that because my mom was an addict as well. So I was this guy, I always wanted to be in control, didn't want to, you know, lose control of myself. And uh I had never been to a strip club. So one night I was getting lonely. So I walked into the strip club actually, I was researching this strip club and it was joe's roundup in charleston south Carolina, joe's roundup little bitty hole in the wall stuff. I was Yeah, real classy. So, I walked in and I'm literally that guy man that fell in love with the first, the first stripper that he sees, She walks by. I'm like that one. </s><s>[INST] So [/INST] I didn't know I didn't know the strip club game again. Criminal, naive as hell. So, belly up at the bar order of the beer. I'm sitting there drinking it. She comes over to me And we started talking and she's like, would you like to get a bottle of champagne? And I was like, does does that mean going back or what? She's like, well, yeah, you need to do the bottle of going back. And I was like, sure, let's buy a bottle of champagne, $400 bottle of Korbel. So, I'm like, all right. And again, that bravado disappears pretty quickly, I can get back there and we talk for two hours and you know, nowadays, I don't understand that Most men who go to strip clubs, the strippers are their therapist most of the time. Alright. So I'm sitting there talking. We're talking. Of course she's, she's sizing me up. She's looking at the watch, she's like, what kind of car you drive? You know, everything else. And I'm like telling her I'm talking. And so at the end of the night, I'm like, it's really nice to me and she's like, it's so nice meeting you too. So I leave </s><s>[INST] you guys just [/INST] talked and talked </s><s>[INST] and there's no dance feeling of love and all that. [/INST] Yeah. So just talk. Just got along pretty good on my, I like her. I like her. So come back in a week later. I walk in and call her over and I was like, look, I said, I'm not, I said that was my first time at a strip club. I said, I don't know. I like you. I'd like to know you more. Would you like to go out to dinner? And she was like, yeah, I was like, where would you like to go? So she says Rudy john. And I was like, I don't know what it is. That's where we'll go. So I go back And I was had a theater buddy at that point in time because I was trying to get my life trying to get my life together. Uh J C was his name and I was like, I got a date. He's like, he got a date. I was like, yeah man, I got a date and he's like, okay, where are you going? I was like Rudy Giuliani and he's like, take your wallet. I'm like, yeah, he's like, take your wallet. It's like, all right. So we start doing the lunch and the dinner thing and I get to where I really like her. She's, I was 34, she was 23 and got along really well. Listen, had common interest in music and arts and stuff like that. She had, I mean a stereotypical, she was, she had graduated college with a degree in religious studies. </s>

<s>[INST] I would disagree with this certainly in that statement. Okay. Okay. [/INST] I think it's very possible in order to have intelligence, you have to have consciousness. Okay. Well, I mean, to a certain degree, chat GPT-3 has a level of intelligence already. It's not a general intelligence, but it displays properties of intelligence with no consciousness, so- Again, I would disagree. Okay. Okay. Well- I guess- </s><s>[INST] I don't know. I guess you said- it's very nice, you said it displays properties of intelligence. In the same way it displays properties of intelligence, I would say it's starting to display properties of consciousness, it certainly could fool you that it's conscious. [/INST] Correct. Yes. This, I guess, attuned test problem. If it's displaying all those properties, if it quacks like a parent, looks like a parent- It cracks like a duck because things like- isn't it basically a duck at that point? Yeah, I can see that argument. I tried to think about it from the observer's point of view as an astronomer. What am I looking for? Whether that intelligence is conscious or not has little bearing, I think, as to what I should be looking for when I'm trying to detect evidence of them. It would maybe affect their behavior in ways that I can't predict. But that's, again, getting into the game of what I would call xenopsychology, of trying to make projections about the motivations of an alien species is incredibly difficult. And similarly, for any kind of artificial intelligence, it's unfathomable what its intentions may be. I mean, I would sort of question whether it would even be interested in traveling between the stars at all. If its primary goal is computation, computation for the sake of computation, then it's probably going to have a different way of, you know, it's going to be engineering its solar system and the nearby material around it for a different goal if it's just simply trying to increase computer substrate across the universe. And that, of course, if that is its principal intention to just essentially convert dumb matter into smart matter as it goes, then I think that would come into conflict with our observations of the universe, right? Because the Earth shouldn't be here if that were true. The Earth should have been transformed into computer substrate by this point. There has been plenty of time in the history of the galaxy for that to have happened. So I'm skeptical that we can... I'm skeptical in the part that that's a behavior that AI or any civilization really engages in, but I also find it difficult to find a way out of it, to explain why that would never happen in the entire history of the galaxy amongst potentially, if life is common, millions, maybe even billions of instant instantiations of AI could have occurred across the galaxy. And so that seems to be a knock against the idea that there is life else or intelligent life else in the galaxy. The fact that that hasn't occurred in our history is maybe the only solid data point we really have about the activities of other civilizations. </s><s>[INST] Of course, the scary one could be that we just at this stage, intelligent alien civilization just started destroying themselves. It becomes too powerful. Everything's just too many weapons, too many nuclear weapons, too many nuclear weapons style systems that just from mistake to aggression to like the probability of self-destruction is too high relative to the [/INST] challenge of avoiding the technological challenges of avoiding self-destruction. </s><s>[INST] You mean that the AI destroys itself or we destroy ourselves prior to the advent of AI? As we get smarter and smarter AI, either AI destroys us or other, there could be just a million like AI is correlated, the development of AI is correlated with all this other technological innovation, genetic engineering, all kinds of engineering at the nanoscale, mass manufacture of things that could destroy us or cracking physics enough to have very powerful weapons, nuclear weapons, all of it. Just too much physics enables way too many things that can destroy us before it enables the propulsion systems that allow us to fly far enough away before we destroy [/INST] ourselves. So maybe that's what happens to the other alien civilization. Is that your resolution? Because I mean, I think us in the technical signature community, in the astronomy community aren't thinking about this problem seriously enough, in my opinion. We should be thinking about what AI is doing to our society and the implications of what we're looking for. I think part of this thinking has to involve people like yourself who are more intimate with the machine learning and artificial intelligence world. How do you reconcile in your mind, you said earlier that you think you can't imagine a galaxy where life and intelligence is not all over the place? And if artificial intelligence is a natural progression for civilizations, how do you reconcile that with the absence of any information around us? So any clues or hints of artificial behavior, artificially engineered stars, or colonization, computer substrate, transform planets, anything like that? </s>

<s>[INST] Oh, let me see if I can find it. Do you recommend the book? [/INST] It's a good book, yeah. Or it's now a little bit outdated, okay? Because it's like, you know, almost 10 years old. Still, as a history of the FDA, it is well worth reading. And by the way, the reason I say it, like the FDA is so insanely important. It's so much more important than many other things that people talk about, but they don't talk about it, right? I just want to read his little blurb for it, right? This is 2010. The US Food and Drug Administration is the most powerful regulatory agency in the world. How did the FDA become so influential and how does it wield its extraordinary power? Reputation power traces the history of FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals, revealing how the agency's organizational reputation has been the primary source of its power is also one of its ultimate constraints. Carpenter describes how the FDA cultivated reputation for competence and vigilance throughout the last century and how this organizational image has enabled agency to regulate while resisting efforts to curb its own authority. First of all, just that description alone, you're like, wait a second, he is describing this as an active player. It's not like a DMV kind of thing which has passed through. It's talking about cultivating a reputation, it's power resisting efforts to curb its own authority, right? The thing is now you're kind of through the looking glass. You're like, wait a second. This is kind of language I don't usually hear for regulatory agencies. The thing is, the kind of person who becomes the CEO of a giant company, what do they want to do? They want to expand that company. They want to make more profit. Similarly, the kind of person who comes to run a regulatory agency or one of the subunits, that person wants to expand its ambit, okay? </s><s>[INST] Is that always obvious? And sorry to interrupt, but for the CO of the company, I know the philosophical ideal of capitalism is you want to make the thing more profitable, but we're also human beings, do you think there's some fundamental aspect to which we want to do a lot of good in the world. Sure. [/INST] The fiduciary duty will push people to get the ambitious, you know, the profit maximizing expansion is CEO is selected for, right. Basically, they believe crucially, they're not just this important. They're not just, I mean, some of them are grand theft auto, make as much money as possible, but they believe in the mission. Okay, they've come to believe in the mission. And as person who's selected Chkey actually had this good thing which is like, I believe that you believe what you believe, but if you didn't believe what you believe you </s><s>[INST] You wouldn't be sitting here. Right. So they select for the kind of people that are able to make a lot of money. And in that process, those people are able to have a constructive narrative that they're doing good, even though what they were selected for is the fact that they can make a lot of [/INST] money. Yeah. And they may actually be doing good. But the thing is, with CEOs, we have a zillion images in television and media movies of the evil corporation and the greedy CEO. We have some concept of what CEO failure modes are like. Okay. When have you ever seen an evil regulator? Can you name a fictional portrayal of an evil regulator? Can you name an evil CEO? </s><s>[INST] Yeah. A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. But that's so interesting. I'm trying to, I'm searching for a deeper lesson here. You're right. You're right. I mean, there is, there is portrayals, especially in sort of authoritarian regimes or the Soviet Union where there's bureaucracy, you know, Chernobyl, you can kind of see within that there's the story of the regulator, but yeah, it's not as plentiful and it also doesn't have, often doesn't have a face to it. Yes. It's almost like bureaucracy is this amorphous thing that results any one individual you see they're just obeying somebody else. There's not a face to it of evil. The evil is the entire machine. [/INST] Yes. That's right. That's what I call the school of fish strategy, by the way. It's something where you are an individual and you can be signaled out, but there's more accountability for one person's bad tweets than all the wars in the Middle East, right? Because it's a school of fish, right? So if the establishment is wrong, if the bureaucracy is wrong, they're all wrong at the same time. Who could have known? Whereas if you deviate, then you are a deviation who can be hammered down, okay? Now the school of fish strategy is unfortunately very successful because, you know, truth is whatever if you just always ride with the school of fish and turn with the intern and so on, unless there's a bigger school of fish that comes in, you basically can never be proven wrong, right? And this is actually, you know, of course, someone who believes in truth and believes in innovation and so on, just physiologically can't ride with the school of fish. You just have to say what is true or do what is true, right? Still, you've described correctly how it's faceless, right? So I will give two examples of fictional portrayals of evil regulators. </s><s>[INST] One is actually the original Ghostbusters, okay? [/INST] Did not expect that one, but yes. Yes. And the other day is actually the villain in that where they flip a switch that lets out all the ghosts in the city. And essentially the guy is coming in with a head of steam as this evil regulator that just totally arrogant, doesn't actually understand the private sector or the consequences of their actions and they force the, and crucially they bring a cop with them with a gun. So it shows that a regulator is not simply, you know, some piece of paper, but it is the police, right? And that cop with the gun forces the Ghostbusters to like release the conveyor and the whole thing spreads. A second example is Dallas Buyers Club, which is more recent. And that actually shows the FDA blocking a guy who, with a life-threatening illness, you know, with AIDS from getting the drugs to treat his condition and from getting it to other people, right? Those are just two portrayals, but in general, what you find is when you talk about FDA with people, one thing I'll often hear from folks is like, why would they do that? Right? They have no mental model of this. They kind of think of it as why would the, why would this thing, which they think of as sort of the DMV, they don't think of the DMV as like this active thing. Okay. Why would the FDA do that? Well, it is because it's filled with some ambitious people that want to keep increasing the power of the agency, just like the CEO wants to increase the profit of the company. Right? I use that word ambit, right? Why ambit? Because these folks are, we know the term greedy, right? These folks are power hungry. They want to have the maximum scope. And sometimes regulatory agencies collide with each other, right? Even though FDA is under HHS, sometimes it collides with HHS and they've got regulations that conflict. You know, for example, HHS says everybody's supposed to be able to have access to their own medical record. FDA didn't want people to have access to their own personal genomes. That conflicts. Okay. And both of those are kind of anti-corporate statutes that were put out with HHS as thing being targeted at the hospitals and FDA being targeted at the personal genomics companies, but those conflicted, right? It's a little bit like CFTC and SEC have a door jam over who will regulate cryptocurrency, right? Sometimes regulators fight each other, but they fight each other. They fight companies. They are active players. This reputation and power book, the reason I mention it is, I want to see if I can find this quote. </s>

<s>[INST] price of a market basket of a consumer products defined by a government agency. So they have like traditional things that a regular consumer would be buying. The government selects like a toilet paper, food, toaster, refrigerator, electronics, all that kind of stuff. And it's like a representative basket of goods that lead to a content existence [/INST] on this earth for a regular consumer. They define a synthetic metric, right? I mean, I'm gonna say you should have a 1,000 square foot apartment and you should have a used car and you should eat three hamburgers a week. Now 10 years go by and the apartment costs more. I could adjust the market basket via, they call them hedonic adjustments. I could decide that it used to be in 1970 to 1,000 square feet, but in the year 2020, you only need 700 square feet because we've many miniaturized televisions and we've got more efficient electric appliances and because things have collapsed into the iPhone, you just don't need as much space. So now I, you know, it may be that the apartment costs 50% more, but after hedonic adjustment, there is no inflation because I just downgraded the expectation </s><s>[INST] of what a normal person should have. So the synthetic nature of the metric [/INST] allows for manipulation by people in power? Pretty much. I guess my criticism of economists is rather than embracing inflation based upon its fundamental idea, which is the rate at which the price of things go up, right, they've been captured by mainstream conventional thinking to immediately equate inflation to the government issued CPI or government issued PCE or government issued PPI measure, which was never the rate at which things go up. It's simply the rate at which a synthetic basket of products and services the government wishes to track go up. Now, the problem with that is two big things. One thing is the government gets to create the market basket and so they keep changing what's in the basket over time. So, I mean, if I said three years ago, you should go see 10 concerts a year and the concert tickets now cost $200 each. Now it's $2,000 a year to go see concerts. Now I'm in charge of calculating inflation. So I redefined your entertainment quota for the year to be eight Netflix streaming concerts and now they don't cost $2,000, they cost nothing and there is no inflation, but you don't get your concerts, right? So the problem starts with continually changing the definition of the market basket. But in my opinion, that's not the biggest problem. The more egregious problem is the fundamental idea that assets aren't products or services. </s><s>[INST] Assets can't be inflated. [/INST] What's an asset? A house, a share of Apple stock, a bond, a Bitcoin is an asset or a Picasso painting. </s><s>[INST] So- Not a consumable good, [/INST] not an Apple that you can eat, not a- Right, if I throw away an asset, then I'm not on the hook to track the inflation rate for it. So what happens if I change the policy such that, let's take the classic example, a million dollar bond at a 5% interest rate gives you $50,000 a year in risk-free income. You might retire on $50,000 a year in a low cost jurisdiction. So the cost of social security or early retirement is $1 million when the interest rate is 5%. During the crisis of March of 2020, the interest rate went on a 10 year bond, went to 50 basis points. So now the cost of that bond is $10 million. The cost of social security went from a million dollars to $10 million. So if you wanted to work your entire life, save money, and then retire risk-free and live happily ever after on a $50,000 salary, live in on a beach in Mexico, wherever you want it to go, you had hyperinflation, the cost of your aspiration increased by a factor of 10 over the course of some amount of time. In fact, in that case, that was like over the course of about 12 years. As the inflation rate ground down, the asset traded up, but the conventional view is, oh, that's not a problem because it's good that assets, it's good that the bond is highly priced because we own the bond. Or what's the problem with the inflation rate in housing being 19%? It's an awful problem for a 22 year old that's starting their first job, that's saving money to buy a house, but it would be characterized as a benefit to society by a conventional economist who would say, well, housing asset values are higher because of interest rate fluctuation, and now the economy's got more wealth. </s><s>[INST] And so that's viewed as a benefit. So what's being missed here, like the suffering of the average person or the struggle, the suffering, the pain of the average person, like metrics that captured that within the economic system. [/INST] Is it when you're talking about the focus here? Is it when you're talking about the focus? One way to say it is, a conventional view of inflation as CPI understates the human misery that's inflicted upon the working class and on mainstream companies by the political class. And so it's a massive shift of wealth from the working class to the property class. It's a massive shift of power from the free market to the centrally governed or the controlled market. It's a massive shift of power from the people to the government. And maybe one more illustrative point here, Lexus, is what do you think the inflation rate's been </s><s>[INST] for the past 100 years? [/INST] Oh, you're talking about the scalar again? If you took a survey of everybody on the street and you asked them what do they think inflation was, what is it? You remember when Jerome Powell said our target's 2%, but we're not there. If you go around the corner, I have posted the deed to this house sold in 1930. Okay, and the number on that deed is $100,000, 1930. And if you go on Zillow and you get the Z estimate. Is it higher than that? No, no. 30 million, $500,000. Yeah. So that's 92 years, 1930 or 2022. And in 92 years, we've had 305x increase in price of the house. Now, if you actually back calculate, you come to a conclusion that the inflation rate was approximately 6.5% a year, every year, every, for 92 years. Okay, and there's nobody, nobody in government, no conventional economist that would ever admit to an inflation rate of 7% a year in the US dollar over the last century. Now, if you dig deeper, I mean, one guy that's done a great job working on this is Seifedin Amos who wrote the book, The Bitcoin Standard. And he notes that on average, it looks like the inflation rate and the money supply is about 7% a year, all the way up to the year 2020. If you look at the S&P index, which is a market basket of scarce desirable stocks, it returned about 10%. If you talk to 10% a year for a hundred years, the money supply is expanding at 7% a hundred years. If you actually talk to economists or you look at the economy and you ask the question, how fast does the economy grow in its entirety year over year? Generally about two to 3%. Like the sum total impact of all this technology and human ingenuity might get you a 2.5, 3% improvement a year. As measured by GDP, is that, are you okay with that? I'm not sure, I'm not sure I'd go that far yet, but I would just say that if you had the human race doing stuff, and if you ask the question, how much more efficiently will we do the stuff next year than this year? Or what's the value of all of our innovations and inventions and investments in the past 12 months? You'd be hard pressed to say we get 2% better. Typical investor thinks they're 10% better every year. So if you look at what's going on, really when you're holding a million dollars of stocks and you're getting a 10% gain a year, you really get a 7% expansion of the money supply. You're getting a 2% or 3% gain under best circumstances. And another way to say that is, if the money supply stopped expanding at 7% a year, the S&P yield might be 3% and not 10%. It probably should be. Now that gets you to start to ask a bunch of other fundamental questions like, if I borrow a billion dollars and pay 3% interest and the money supply expands at 7% to 10% a year, and I ended up making a 10% return on a billion dollar investment paying 3% interest, is that fair? And who suffered so that I could do that? Because in an environment where you're just inflating the money supply and you're holding the assets constant, it stands the reason that the price of all the assets is going to appreciate somewhat proportional to the money supply. And the difference in asset appreciations is gonna be a function of the scarce desirable quality of the assets and to what extent can I make more of them and to what extent are they truly limited in supply? </s>

<s>[INST] the catastrophe? Yeah, what's the nature of the catastrophe? Everyone? What [/INST] is it going to be? </s><s>[INST] Wars. Because resource constraint is going to be Hunger is going to be, uh, like mass migration of different kinds, at least to some kind of conflict and an immigration. And maybe it won't be that big of a deal, and a total other catastrophic event will completely challenge the entirety of the human. So that's my point. [/INST] That's my point. That's my </s><s>[INST] point. Uh, [/INST] you know, we really don't know. I mean, there's a lot we do know. I mean, the warming business and all this kind of stuff, you know, scientifically there. But how? It's going to play out And and everybody's saying, you know, different things, and and then you get somewhere in 50 years or 60 years, which I won't see and people say, uh Huh, I told you it was going to be X or it was gonna be wire as it was gonna be easy. So I just don't think in history you can, uh, well, you can't predict. You simply cannot predict what's going to happen. </s><s>[INST] It's kind of when you just look at Hitler in the 30s for me. Oftentimes when I kinda read different accounts. It is so often certainly in the press. But in general, me just reading about Hitler, I get the sense like this is a clown. There's no way this person will gain power. [/INST] Hitler, </s><s>[INST] Hitler, Hitler. No, no, no. With Stalin, you don't get a sense. He's a clown. He's a really good executive. You think you don't think lead to mass murder. But you think he's going to build a giant bureaucracy, at least with Hitler. It's like, Yeah, like a failed artist who keeps screaming about stuff. There's no way he's gonna I mean, you certainly don't think about the atrocities, but there's no way he's going to gain power, especially against common. I mean, there's so many other competing forces that could have easily beat him. So but then you realize, like, you know, event after event where this clown keeps dancing and all of a sudden he gains more and more power and just certain moments in time he makes, um, strategic decisions in terms of, uh, cooperating or gaining power over the military, all those kinds of things that eventually give him the power. I mean this this clown is one of the most impactful in the negative sense human human beings in history [/INST] And even the Jews who are there and are being screamed at and discriminated against and whose you know, their series of measures taken against them incrementally during the course of the 1930s. Very few who leave. Yeah, I mean, some pick up and go and say I'm getting the hell out of here, you know, And, uh, you know, some scientists, you know, try to leave, to go to the United States and stuff, but, um, go to Israel and Palestine at the time, but or to Britain and France. But in general, you know, even even the Jews who should have been very sensitive to what was going on, you know, didn't really understand the extent of the danger. And it's really hard for people to do that, you know, it's it's almost impossible. In fact, I think </s><s>[INST] so. Most of the time, in that exact situation, nothing would have happened. Or there will be some drama and so on. It would be there's some bureaucrat. And but every once in a while in human history, there's a kind of turn. Maybe, um, something catalyze is something else and just it accelerates, accelerates, escalates, escalates and then war breaks out are totally, you know, revolutions [/INST] break out. </s><s>[INST] Can we go to the big question of genocide? What is genocide? What are the defining characteristics of genocide? [/INST] Dealing with genocide is a difficult thing. When it comes to the definition, There is a definition of the December 1948 U. N. Convention on the Prevention and punishment of genocide is considered the sort of major document of definition and the definitional sense of genocide. And it emphasizes, you know, the intentional a destruction, you know, of, uh, an ethnic, national, racial or religious group. Those are the four groups again, uh, Kama as such. And what that means, basically, is destroying the group. As a group. There's a kind of beauty in human diversity and different groups of people. You know, Estonians, you know, a tribe of Native Americans, South African tribes, you know, the Rohingya in Myanmar. There's a kind of beauty Humanity recognizes in the distinctiveness of those groups. Uh, you know, this was a notion that emerges really with romanticism after the French revolution in the beginning of the 19th century, with herder mostly. And this beauty of these groups then, um you know, is what is under attack in genocide. Um, and it's with intent. You know, the idea is that the it's intentional destruction. So this is a kind of, uh, you know, analogy to first degree, second degree and third degree murder, Right? First degree murder, You know, you're out to kill this person and you plan it and you go out and you do it right. That's intent, right? Manslaughter is not intent. You end up doing the same thing, but it's different. So, um, you know the major person behind the definitions? A man named Raphael Lemkin? I don't know if you heard his name or not that he was a Polish Jewish jurist who came, you know, from Poland, came to the United States during the war and had been a kind of crusader for recognizing genocide. It's a word that he created, by the way, And he coined the term in 1943 and then published in 1944 for the first time. Geno meeting people inside, meaning killing right. And so Lampkin then had this term, and he pushed hard to have it recognized, and it was in the U. N. Convention. So that's the rough definition. The problem with it is the definition of the problems with the definition or several. Uh, you know, one of them is, um, is it just these four groups, you know, racial, religious, ethnic or national? This comes right out of the war, and what's in people's minds in 1948 are Jews, Poles, Russians, Yugoslavs, sometimes who were killed by the Nazis. That's what's in their mind. But there are other groups, too. If you think about it, you know who are killed, social groups or political groups. And and that was not allowed in the convention, meaning for a lot of different reasons. The Soviets were primary among them. They didn't want other kinds of groups. Let's say cool locks, for example, uh, to be considered, that's a social group, or peasants, which is a social group. So or political group. I mean, let's take a group. Uh, you know, Communists killed groups of people, but non Communists also killed groups of people in Indonesia in 1965 66. They killed, you know, know, exactly. But roughly 600,000 Indonesian communists well, is that genocide or not? You know, And my point of view it is genocide, although it's Indonesians killing Indonesians, and we have the same problem with the Cambodian genocide when we talk about a Cambodian genocide. But most of the people killed in the Cambodian genocide, where other Cambodians, they give it the name, they're ready to recognize this genocide because they also killed some other people's meaning. The Vietnamese ham people who are, you know, Muslim, Muslim, smaller Muslim people in the area and a few others. So the question then becomes, well, does it have to be a different nationality or ethnic group or religious group for it to be genocide? And my answer is no. You need to expand the definition. It's a little bit like with our constitution, we got a constitution. Maybe we don't live in the end of the 18th century, right? We live in the 21st century, and so you have to update the constitution over the centuries. And similarly, the Genocide Convention needs updating, too. So that's how I work with the definition. </s>

<s>[INST] now. This might reveal something about me and [/INST] uh </s><s>[INST] speaking of childhood trauma, but but but I feel like there's a lot of, a lot of the meaningful experience of a role playing game is not just the development of the character throughout the game, but the initial character creation, like you said, is there something to that process that you found to be powerful? Like the design of that process? Because you think so much about that beginning, what how much should be controlled? How much should be defined the interface itself, the visual appearance of the character too, because I feel like that you're loading in, you start to load in the world that you're about to enter by creating that character. Right? [/INST] Yeah. We think about it a lot, it's a really, really good uh comment and question and it's more than it has to set the whole stage, has, like, pique your interest for the world you're gonna enter and we've done it so many different ways in terms of when you actually go to make your character, when you're making the choice and one of the things over time that we've wanted to avoid is people starting over. So there's a lot of intentionality around the types of choices you have that can be undone or not undone. Because what you what game players want is I'll play it and then I'll make a new character. But sometimes they do that because they realized they made the wrong type of character and as a designer you don't want that to happen. So some people get this common elders, girls like, oh you simplified it. No, no, no, no, we move those choices into the gameplay so that you don't, you know, make this character in the beginning and then eight hours later realize you make a horrible mistake. And so okay I'm gonna start out like that to me is a really, really bad experience. So </s><s>[INST] also like life itself, but [/INST] like life is okay. So you can then </s><s>[INST] right? [/INST] I wish I wish I had learned archery. Well I'm gonna start tomorrow. Um so you can do that like the Skyrim character system. Uh it was really designed around that all you pick is like what's your race and that gives you some things but there's nothing you can't get then on your own. Mostly that sounds weird, but you mostly want that beginning character generation to be visual, which you then can also change in the game and some starting skills that get you off to the type of play that you want. But if you discover you don't like that type of play as you play you can move your character along so we have moved away post you know Oblivion to a classless meaning. You don't have a strict character class where your major thief whatever um in our games and </s><s>[INST] That's that's continuing for the, do you are you like thinking of elder scrolls 6? You're already thinking about that kind of stuff? Do you think of early on the the like you said the first few experiences in the game, you already thinking through them? [/INST] Yeah. Yeah we we know what the first few hours are like we we know what the character system is basically like and </s><s>[INST] so totally what's the difference to you between Oblivion? Skyrim, Oblivion, Skyrim and uh Elder School six like good to me man stuff blends together but Oblivion that's when you can make spells and stuff. [/INST] You could you could do it more wind as well. Oblivion has some more guardrails on it. More wins where you can really go and Niagara fall. And I don't remember if you make spells in arena. I think you can, someone will correct me. You definitely can in Niagara Falls gets crazy more wind. Um You can somewhat and then we start we start putting guardrails on because people started breaking the game in certain ways </s><s>[INST] to break the game like you always wanted. Well [/INST] there's like one people love in more win where you can make these recall stones and uh you could teleport to different areas but you really need in that game. It breaks so many quests. </s><s>[INST] And [/INST] so as we any any quests we were then we would do this this exercise of designing a quest and then someone say, and then I recall away, okay, the quest is broken. </s><s>[INST] So and [/INST] then one day someone says, can we just get rid of that spell effect? Everyone's like yes please. And so it allowed us to make better content. </s><s>[INST] So uh the tangent upon a tangent upon a tangent, how do you create a compelling quest? Because there's all kinds of personalities of humans that play these games right? Because I like the grind. [/INST] Well there's look there's there's multiple flavors of a compelling quest. Uh you know, some of them have very good up front storytelling, you just like the story and the NPC that's giving you this task and uh you'll go through a more handcrafted experience that the designers have done a really, really good job on the space. It has some some twist or surprise in the middle and then the ending has some, you know, multiple options that the player feels like they had, they got to do something. They made an interesting choice, but the best ones for me are actually were all of that was far more open ended the, how I am going to accomplish this task is completely up to me and I'm going to find some ingenious solution a silly but this was like this sounds very basic, it's gonna sound quite cliche and silly like go find me five data cards or whatever. Like find me X. Of something that's hard to get. It's a very simple, so you can have a simple story set up for that and we're not telling the player where to get those and I think now where could I get those? And I actually find those to be just as rewarding as the really handcrafted, well done a little bit more linear with an interesting choice at the end if those objects are in the world in some, you know, believable way that there's usually some challenge at getting getting them. </s>

<s>[INST] When you were optimizing for trying to set the world record in the 100 miler. Were you doing like analysis of maybe like what, what were the variables you were looking at? Is it more in the realm of the actual race day, the track, what it looks like versus like the variables of the training leading up to the, to the race [/INST] has evolved a bit like, I think that as I learned more about just like what is required to kind of really do that stuff so there's some variables you can control for you know I try to control for as many as I can. The big one that kind of stands out that you can't necessarily control for is it's pretty rare where you get an event where they're just doing 100 miles on a track. It's usually like uh like an event of like a series of different events where there might be like Some people out there doing 50K. Some people out there doing 20 for something like the vent I did that there's six day folks out there, they're trying to see if I can get in six days. So you have like this much wider range of pacing just due to like the distance. So you know, track protocol is always like you pass on the outside so if you're running one of the faster paces of the day um which when you're going up to six days you're gonna and you're doing 100 miles you're probably going to be running faster than most people out there. Then you know you just end up running more because you end up running in lane two around the turns and sometimes line three around the </s><s>[INST] turns down to those little details that have a big impact. [/INST] So I had to build that into my pacing strategy. I also have to build into the pacing strategy like relative non moving time. Uh You know I did erase just recently was the U. S. Track and field 100 mile road championships. And I did not stop once. Other than like I guess I technically stopped like in the aid station for like a few seconds to like grab bottles and get myself because it was like 94 degrees that day. But I didn't like stop at all during that race from like What I would say is like a long period of time where we're getting up to like a minute. But that's pretty rare even on the track. Like when I ran 11 hours and 19 minutes, I think I stopped three times for maybe a total of like I believe I have to look back for sure. I think it's like 3 to 4 minutes or something like that. So you gotta you gotta figure that into your pacing strategy, especially if you're chasing a specific time because you know if I'm pacing for you know at the time the world record was 11 28. Um So if I'm pacing for say 1127 30 or something like that and I don't account for that three minutes of stoppage, then I might run the exact place I had planned on, but then I'm a minute off of the world record. So </s><s>[INST] 11 28 we're talking about 11 hours, we're talking about 100 miles. Can you mention what the world record was? What what kind of world record you said. Can you tell your own story here of? Uh, what you were able to accomplish [/INST] that world record that I broke actually just recently got re broke by a guy um, over in Lithuania, uh Alexa sorkin um, phenomenal race. I mean, he's won the 24 hour world championships, he's won the spark triathlon, which is another big historic ultramarathon race, 153 miles. So it's getting a little more lengthy than Some of the stuff that I have traditionally done. Um, he ran 11, 14, I believe was 56 or 57. </s><s>[INST] Um, so his pace was 645 per [/INST] mile. Mine was 6 47.5 in terms of just like the pacing strategy, it's just really cool because for me, the motivation with chasing the world record was, it was multifaceted. I think there was as I kind of moved through, I mean, it took me almost six years from the day I decided I want to chase that time to the day I actually did it and through that 5 to 6 years, I think I merged from just like my number one goal was to try to break the world record to my number one goal is how fast can I run this thing and then ultimately, um, what needs to be done for a human to break 11 hours and 100 miles because I think that's gonna, I think that's going to happen soon. I think it's going to happen in the next few years. </s><s>[INST] Would that be [/INST] um sub 11 would be, I think like, I think like 6 35 right? About per mile, you're moving quick, but not so quick, that like your you're, you know, void of being able to think about everything as it's </s><s>[INST] happening. So what's the pace in terms of, if you look for each of the one mile segments for the 100 miles, is it pretty steady six, like in order to break 11 hours, would it be pretty steady? 6 35 Does it go up and down? Do you speed up at the very end? Like what's what's the pacing if you were to maybe how much variability is there in the pacing for an optimal performance here? [/INST] Yeah. So if you're talking about someone, let's say that there's someone, well, let's just take me, for example, let's say that we could just, like, We had this infinite knowledge and we knew for a fact, a perfect performance for me would produce a 1059, but I'm not going to second faster and I need to do everything right in order to run a 1059, uh I would definitely want to either have a slight negative or slight positive split. So when um and I think there's I think there's uh there's a range in there where like, being a little bit faster, the first half of the second half isn't gonna necessarily change your outcome or being a little bit slower the first half in a little bit faster. The second half isn't going to drastically change your outcome. </s>

<s>[INST] when you have kids, are you creating new portals that are completely distinct from the portals that you've created with other consciousness? Like, can you, can you elaborate on that to which degree is are the consciousness of your kids part of you? [/INST] Well, so every person that I see, that symbol that I see, the body that I see is is a portal potentially for me to interact with with the consciousness and and each consciousness has a unique character and we call it personality and so forth. So, with each new kid that's born, we come in contact with a personality that we've never seen before. And and a version of consciousness that we've never seen before at a deeper level. As I said, the theory says, there's one agent. So this is a different projection Of that one agent. But but so that's what I mean by a portal is within my own interface, My own projection. Can I see other projections of that one consciousness. So, can I get portals in in that sense? And I Mhm. So I think I think we will get a theory of that, that we will get a theory of of portals and then we can ask how the psychedelics are acting, Are they actually creating new portals or not? If they're not, we should nevertheless then understand how we could create a new portal. Right? Maybe we have to just study what happens when we make, when we have kids. We know that that technology creates new portals, so we have to reverse engineer that and then say, okay, could we somehow create new portals? De novo </s><s>[INST] was something like uh like brain computer interfaces, for example, [/INST] maybe just a chemical or something probably more complicated than a chemical. That's why I think that the psychedelics, psychedelics may because they might be affecting this portal in certain ways that it turns it around and opens up. In other words, it maybe once we understand what this thing is, a portal, your body is a portal to understand all of its complexities. Maybe we'll realize that that portal can be shifted and to different parts of the deeper consciousness and give new windows on it. And so in that way, maybe, yes, psychedelics could open up new portals in the sense that they're taking something that's already a complex portal and just tweaking it a bit </s><s>[INST] well. But creating is a very powerful difference between morphing, tweaking [/INST] versus creating, agree, </s><s>[INST] but maybe it gives you intuition to at least the full space of the kinds of things that this particular system is capable of? I mean, I mean the idea your idea that consciousness creates brains. I mean, that breaks my brain [/INST] because because, </s><s>[INST] uh, you know, I'm, I guess I'm still a physical ist in that sense, because that you could, it's just much easier to intuit the world. Um, it's very, it's practical to think there's a neural network and what are the different ways fascinating uh, capabilities can emerge from this neural network? Uh, [/INST] it's easier. </s><s>[INST] And so you start [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] then present to yourself the problem of, okay, well, how does consciousness arise? How does intelligence [/INST] arise? </s><s>[INST] How does emotion arise? How does memory arise in the how do we filter within the system? All the incoming sensory information? We're able to allocate attention in different interesting ways. How do all those mechanisms arise? To say that there's other fundamental things we don't understand outside of space time that are actually core to how this whole thing works is, uh, is a bit paralyzing because [/INST] it's </s><s>[INST] Like, Oh, we're not, we're not 10% done. We're like 0.001% done. It's the it's the immediate feeling. Certainly [/INST] understand that my attitude about it is if you look at the young physicists who are searching for these structures beyond space time, like application and so forth. They're having a ball space time. That's what the old folks did. That's what, that's what are the, the older generation did. We're doing something that really is fun and new and, and they're having a blast and they're finding all all these new structures. So, so I think that we're going to um succeed in getting a new deeper theory. I can just say what I'm hoping with the theory that I'm working on, I'm hoping to show that I could have this timeless dynamics of consciousness, no entropic time. I take a projection and I show how this timeless dynamics looks like the Big Bang and the entire evolution of spacetime. In other words, I see how my whole spacetime interface, so </s><s>[INST] not just the the projection doesn't just look like space time. You can explain the [/INST] whole the </s><s>[INST] whole from the origin of the universe. [/INST] That's that's what we have to do. And that's what the physicists understand when they go beyond space time to the amplitude heater. In the cosmological politics, they ultimately know that they have to get back the Big Bang story and the whole evolution, that whole story where there were no living things, there was just a point and then the explosion and then just particles at high energy and then eventually the cooling down and the differentiation and finally matter condenses and then life and then consciousness, that whole story has to come out of something that's deeper and without time and that's what what we're up to, that we want to to get that. So the whole story that we've been telling ourselves about Big Bang and how brains evolved in consciousness will come out of a much deeper theory. And and for, you know, for someone like me, um it's a lot of men, but for the younger generation, this is like, oh wow! Of all the low cherries aren't picked. This is really good stuff. This is really new fundamental stuff that we can do so that I can't wait to read the papers of the of the younger generation. And I want to I want to see them </s>

<s>[INST] while saying a bunch of crazy offensive things on the internet, they still [/INST] like, basically, you know, gives the middle finger to the sec, like on twitter and like, I don't know, I'm like, well there's a founder and like people kind of like him. So </s><s>[INST] I do think that the, so like the founder and slash ceo of a company that's a social network company is like an extra level of difficulty if life is a video game, you just chose the heart [/INST] of it again. </s><s>[INST] So I mean that's why it's interesting to ask you because you're the founder and Ceo of a social [/INST] network, right? Exactly. </s><s>[INST] Exactly. So, but but you're one of the rare examples. Even Jack Dorsey is this light not to the degree, but it just seems harder when you're running a social media company. [/INST] It's interesting. I never thought of Jack is just like, I think generally he's well respected. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I think so. I think you're right, but like he's but he's not loved. [/INST] Yeah, </s><s>[INST] and I feel like you mean to me twitter is an incredible thing [/INST] again, can I just come back to this point, which seems over simplistic, but like I really do think how a product makes someone feel, they describe that feeling is the founder. Uh, so so make people feel good. So think about it. Like let's just go with this thesis for sure. Like it though, amazon is pretty utilitarian, right, delivers brown boxes to your front door, sure you can have Alexa and you can have all these things, right? But in general it delivers stuff quickly to you at a reasonable price, right? I think Jeff Bezos is wonderfully wealthy, thoughtful, smart guy, right? But like people kind of feel that way about them. They're like, wow, this is really big, were impressed that this is really big and but he's doing the same space stuff Ellen is doing, but they don't necessarily describe the same sense of wonder, right? Um, now let's take you on and again, this is pet theory. I don't have much proof other than my own intuition. Um he is literally about living the future mars, it's about wonder. It's about going back to that feeling as a kid when you looked up to the stars and asked is there life out there, people get behind that because it's a sense of hope and excitement and innovation and like you can say whatever you want, but we describe that emotion to that person. Now let's say you're on a social network and people make you kind of angry because they disagree with you or they say something ridiculous or they're living a foam a type life were like, wow, I wish I was doing that thing. I think instagram if I were to think back by and large when I was there was not about fomo was not about this influencer economy, although it certainly became that way closer to the end, it was about the sense of wonder and happiness and beautiful things in the world and I don't know, I mean like I don't want to have a blind spot but I don't think anyone had a strong opinion </s><s>[INST] about for the longest time the way people explain to me. I mean if you want to go for toxicity, you go to facebook or twitter, if you want to go to make feel good about life, you go to instagram to enjoy celebrate life that was [/INST] my experience been talking to people is they gave me the benefit of the doubt because of that. But if your experience of the product is kind of makes you angry. It's where you argue. I mean a big part of Jack might be that he wasn't actually this year for a very long time and only became recently, so I'm not sure how much of the connection got made. Um, but in general, I mean if you hate, you know, I'm just thinking about other companies that are in tech companies, if you hate like what a company is doing or or it makes you not feel happy. I don't know, like people are really angry about Comcast or whatever or even called Comcast anymore, it's like Xfinity or something, right? They had to rebrand, they became right. Um, </s><s>[INST] it's like, but [/INST] my point is, if it </s>

<s>[INST] you can learn a lot in just a few words right from a human being. [/INST] Well, that's true. But I think that the bigger issue was I saw something that I don't hear much remarked upon, which is Jeffrey Epstein is all there that there is in other words, there's the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health Howard Hughes, there's all this stuff that kind of has the same feel to it a little bit of variation and difference, department of energy. If you fall outside of that, there's just Jeffrey Epstein, that's what you're told. Yes, that's not quite true. There's Kavli maybe jim Symons is now in the game, Peter thiel has done some stuff. You had your E milner and Mark Zuckerberg try. So there is other money running around Templeton, but very strongly. There was a belief that if you're doing something really innovative and the system can't fund it because it's, we become pussy's Jeffrey Epstein is your guy because </s><s>[INST] because it's fun, you're supposed to go through, [/INST] That's right. And the idea is that you get called to the Great Man's house and you know, sort of lubricious version of ralph Lauren, you know, takes you in and asks you bizarre questions and maybe he has an island, maybe he has a plane and you know, when you're starved, uh you know, somebody showing you a feast or when you're dehydrated in a death's door and somebody says, oh, you know, I have a well, um you know, that's what it is. And so the thought is, wow, can you, can somebody get some effing money into the science system so that we don't have super creeps trying to learn all of our secrets ahead of time. WTf what is your problem with transparency and Taxpayer dollars, just all of you, you wouldn't have a country, you'd be speaking german, </s><s>[INST] so essentially you believe that human beings would not be able to when the money is lacking in the system like a research produce [/INST] public goods, you and I are meant to produce public goods. Now, I sell athletic greens and I saw kerrigan and I sell unagi scooters and chili pad are going to be honest. I love these products but I didn't get into this game for the purpose of selling. I'm trying to figure out how do you have an F you lifestyle? But you know something like, I don't know why you built this channel. It's kind of a mystery. I </s><s>[INST] don't know why I'll [/INST] tell you why I built my channel. It's gonna be a lot harder to roll me this time in an alley. Yeah, I got rolled multiple times and my point is I didn't want to become a celebrity. I didn't want to become well known, but it's a lot harder to roll somebody who's getting, you know, I think I'm, I don't know if this is mistaken, but I think I'm the math PhD with the largest number of followers on twitter and there was nothing you could do before. </s><s>[INST] I mean, again, to put a little responsibility and you know, you've created something really special for the distribution of your own ideas. I mean, but because it's not necessarily currently scalable, you also perhaps you and I have the responsibility of giving other people also a chance to spread their ideas. I mean joe Rogan did this very effectively for a bunch of people. That [/INST] that's why they're angry at him because he's a gatekeeper and he let all sorts of people through that gate from roger from roger penrose to Alex jones </s><s>[INST] to Jordan Peterson to I mean even well, first of all to you, [/INST] Abby martin </s><s>[INST] to abby martin [/INST] to Bari weiss. Yeah, </s><s>[INST] that's the problem. Well, but you you have not successfully built up a thing that allows that to carry that. [/INST] We are all vulnerable to reputational attack. Because what happens, you see the problem Lexus is that you are now an institution at some level, you walk around with all this equipment in a duffel bag. Uh huh. The last the last suit you'll ever need and um you have the reach of something like CNN to people who matter. Okay, so now the question is how do we control something? It doesn't have a board doesn't have shareholders, doesn't have to make sec filings FCC. So the best answer they have is, well, we just have to destroy reputations. All it takes is for us to take something that gets said or done or alleged. Mhm. And I think it's incredibly important. One of the things people don't understand is that I'm I'm going to fight general reputational attacks not because some people don't deserve to have their reputations drunk dragged through the mud but because it's too powerful of a tool to hand it to CNN MSNBC Princeton Harvard the state department. </s><s>[INST] But some of it is also jpmorgan Muhammad, ali style being good enough at uh doing everything you need to do without giving enough meat for the reputational attacks. Not being afraid, but not giving enough meat? I don't [/INST] see why the people who have good ideas have to lead lives that are that clean. If you can do it can </s><s>[INST] be messy. Yeah, you should be able to be messy that otherwise we're suppressing too many people. Too many two billion minds. Can you believe [/INST] Elon musk smoked the blood? </s><s>[INST] I still people told me this. Okay, okay. I have discussions about Ellen and people uh the Avi Loeb, the Harvard scientist who's talking about a more and more that it might be alien technology. He told me his this outside the box thinker. Yeah. When speaking to me about Ellen said called him the guy who smoked, he smokes weed the blunt in a dismissive way. Like this guy is crazy because he smoked some weed. [/INST] I would look at it. </s>

<s>[INST] that's actually an interesting skill. I do audio books quite a bit, like it's a skill to maintain, at least for me, probably the kind of books I read, which is often like history or like there's a lot of content and if you miss parts of it, you, you miss out on stuff and so it's a skill to maintain focus [/INST] at least the 12th back button is very valuable. So I just I just, if I get lost sometimes that the book is so good that I'm thinking about what the person just said and I just get the skill for me is just remembering to pause and if I don't no problem, just back back back back through quick backs. So that course is not that efficient. That's but it's I do the same thing when I'm reading, I read a whole paragraph and realized I was tuning out. Yeah. You know, </s><s>[INST] you know, I haven't actually even considered to try that. I've been so hard on myself maintaining focus because you do get lost and thought maybe I should try [/INST] that. And when you get lost in thought, by the way, you're processing the book that's not wasted time. That that's your brain really categorizing and cataloging what you just read and like, </s><s>[INST] well there's several kinds of thoughts, right? There's thoughts related to the book and there's a thought that it could take you elsewhere. [/INST] Well, I find that if I am continually thinking about something else, I just say I'm not, i it's not just positive, especially in the shower or something when like that's sometimes when really great thoughts come up, I'm having all these thoughts about other stuff. I'm saying clearly my mind wants to work on something else. I'll just pause it. I'm thinking about something that's right. Exactly. Exactly. And also you can, things like your, you have to head out to the store. Like I'm gonna read 20 pages on that trip, just walking back and forth going to the airport. I mean flights you know the Uber and then you're walking to the walking through the airport security line. I'm reading the whole time like um I know this is not groundbreaking, people know what audiobooks are but I think that more people should probably get into them than because I know a lot of people that have this stubborn kind of things that I don't like. I like to have the paper book and sure but like pretty fun to be able to read. I </s><s>[INST] I still to this day I listen to a huge number of audio books and podcasts but I still the most impactful experiences for me you're still reading and I read very very slow and it's very frustrating when like you go to these websites like that estimate how long the book takes on average that they do like a page a [/INST] minute when I read like Best to a page every two minutes at </s><s>[INST] best. Best when you're like really like actually not [/INST] positive just my A. D. D. It's like I I just it's hard to keep focusing and I also like to really absorb so on the other side of things when I finish a book 10 years later I'll be able to you know that scene when this happens and another friend of mine would be like what I don't remember any like details and like oh I can tell you like the entire so I absorbed the ship out of it. But I don't think it's worth it to like have read so less, much less in my </s><s>[INST] life. I actually, so in terms of going to the airport, you know, in these like filler moments of life, I do a lot of, it's an app called Anke I don't know if you know about it. It's uh space repetition app. So there's all of these facts I have. When I read, I write it down if I want to remember it and it's this, it, you review it and the one, the things you remember, it takes longer and longer to bring back up. It's like flashcards but a digital app, it's called. And I recommend it to a lot of people. There's a huge community of people that are just like obsessed with it. A [/INST] N K E </s><s>[INST] A N K I. So this is extremely well known app and idea like among students who are like medical students, like people that really have to study like this is not like fun stuff. They really have to memorize a lot of things. You have to remember them well, they have to be able to integrate them with a bunch of ideas. So, and I find it to be really useful for um like when you read history, if you think this particular factory, they probably extremely so for you because you're um, that, that would be interesting actually thought because you're doing, you talked about like opening up a trillion tabs and reading things. You know, you probably want to remember some facts you right along the way, like you might remember, okay, this thing I can't directly put into the writing, but it's a cool little factoid. I wanna [/INST] go all the time </s><s>[INST] store that in. Yeah. And that's what I go, Anke drop it in [/INST] and you can just drop </s><s>[INST] it in. Yeah. And [/INST] you drop in a line of a podcast or like a video. </s><s>[INST] Well, no, I guess so. Yes. So Anke, there's a bunch of, it's called space repetition. There's a bunch of apps that are much nicer. And Anke, Anke is the uh, the ghetto like craigslist version. But it has a giant community because people are like, we don't want features. We want a text box. Like it's very basic, very stripped down. So you can drop in stuff you can [/INST] drop, that sounds really, I can't believe I have not come across this. You actually, </s>

<s>[INST] Probably quite a lot. Your very poodle could also be communicating across multiple dimensions with other beings and you're too unintelligent to understand the kind of communication mechanism they're [/INST] going through. There have been various TV shows and science fiction novels, positing cats, dolphins, mice and whatnot are actually super intelligences here to observe that. I would guess, as one of the other quantum physics founders said, those theories are not crazy enough to be true. </s><s>[INST] The reality is probably crazier than that, the reality is probably crazier than that. We put, so on the human side with Philip K. Dick and in general, where do you fall on this idea that love and just the basic spirit of human nature persists throughout these multiple realities? Are you on the side, like the thing that inspires you about artificial intelligence, is it the human side of somehow persisting through all of the different systems we engineer? Or does AI inspire you to create something that's greater than human, that's beyond human, [/INST] that's almost non-human? I would say my motivation to create AGI comes from both of those directions actually. So when I first became passionate about AGI when I was, it would have been two or three years old after watching robots on Star Trek, I mean then it was really a combination of intellectual curiosity, like can a machine really think, how would you do that? And yeah, just ambition to create something much better than all the clearly limited and fundamentally defective humans I saw around me. Then as I got older and got more enmeshed in the human world and got married, had children, and my parents began to age, I started to realize, well, not only will AGI let you go far beyond the limitations of the human, but it could also like stop us from dying and suffering and feeling pain and tormenting ourselves mentally, so you can see AGI has amazing capability to do good for humans, as humans, alongside with its capability to go far, far beyond the human level. So I mean both aspects are there, which makes it even more exciting and important. </s><s>[INST] So you mentioned Dostoyevsky Nietzsche, where did you pick up from those guys? [/INST] That would probably go beyond the scope of a brief interview certainly. Both of those are amazing thinkers who one will necessarily have a complex relationship with, right? I mean Dostoyevsky on the minus side, he's kind of a religious fanatic, and he sort of helped squash the Russian nihilist movement, which was very interesting, because what nihilism meant originally in that period of the mid-late 1800s in Russia was not taking anything fully a hundred percent for grand. It was really more like what we'd call Bayesianism now, where you don't want to adopt anything as a dogmatic certitude and always leave your mind open, and how Dostoyevsky parodied nihilism was a bit different, right? He parodied people who believe absolutely nothing, so they must assign an equal probability weight to every proposition, which doesn't really work. So on the one hand, I didn't really agree with Dostoyevsky on his sort of religious point of view. On the other hand, if you look at his understanding of human nature and sort of the human mind and heart and soul, it's really unparalleled. He had an amazing view of how human beings construct a world for themselves based on their own understanding and their own mental predisposition. I think if you look in the Brothers Karamazov in particular, the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin wrote about this as a polyphonic mode of fiction, which means it's not third person, but it's not first person from any one person, really. There are many different characters in the novel, and each of them is sort of telling part of the story from their own point of view. So the reality of the whole story is an intersection, like, synergetically of the many different characters' worldviews, and that really, it's a beautiful metaphor and even a reflection I think of how all of us socially create our reality. Each of us sees the world in a certain way. Each of us, in a sense, is making the world as we see it based on our own minds and understanding, but it's polyphony, like in music where multiple instruments are coming together to create the sound. The ultimate reality that's created comes out of each of our subjective understandings intersecting with each other. That was one of the many beautiful things in Dostoyevsky. </s><s>[INST] So maybe a little bit to mention, you have a connection to Russia and the Soviet culture. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what the nature of the connection is, but at least the spirit [/INST] of your thinking is in there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, my ancestry is three quarters Eastern European Jewish, so I mean, three of my great grandparents emigrated to New York from Lithuania and sort of border regions of Poland, which were in and out of Poland around the time of World War I, and they were socialists and communists as well as Jews, mostly Menshevik, not Bolshevik, and they sort of, they fled at just the right time to the US for their own personal reasons. And then almost all or maybe all of my extended family that remained in Eastern Europe was killed either by Hitler's or Stalin's minions at some point. So the branch of the family then emigrated to the US was pretty much the only one. </s><s>[INST] So how much of the spirit of the people is in your blood still? When you look in the mirror, do you see, what do you see? [/INST] I see a bag of meat that I want to transcend by uploading into some sort of superior reality. But very, I mean, yeah, very clearly, I mean, I'm not religious in a traditional sense, but clearly the Eastern European Jewish tradition was what I was raised in. I mean, there was my grandfather, Leo Zwell, was a physical chemist to work with Linus Pauling and a bunch of the other early greats in quantum mechanics. I mean, he was into x-ray diffraction, he was on the material science side, experimentalist rather than a theorist. His sister was also a physicist and my father's father, Victor Gertzel, was a PhD in psychology who had the unenviable job of giving psychotherapy to the Japanese in internment camps in the US in World War II, like to counsel them why they shouldn't kill themselves, even though they had all their stuff taken away and been imprisoned for no good reason. So I mean, yeah, there's a lot of Eastern European Jewish tradition in my background. One of my great uncles was, I guess, conductor of San Francisco orchestra. So there was a lot of Mickey Salk and a bunch of music, music, and there also, and clearly this culture was all about learning and understanding the world and also not quite taking yourself too seriously while you do it, right? There's a lot of Yiddish humor in there. So I do appreciate that culture, although the whole idea that like the Jews are the </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah. And in the case of machine learning is uh, adversarial machine learning. So all the kinds of attacks like security, almost threats. And there's a social engineering with machine learning algorithms and [/INST] there's face recognition and Big Brother is watching you and there is the killer drones that can potentially go and targeted execution of people in a different country. I don't, you know, want them argue that bombs are not necessarily that much better, but but you know, people want to kill someone, they'll find a way to do it. </s><s>[INST] So if you if in general, if you look at trends in the data, there's less wars, There's just violence, There's more human rights. So we've been doing overall quite good as a human species. Are you [/INST] optimistic? </s><s>[INST] Are you optimistic? Uh, maybe another way to ask is do you think most people are good and fundamentally we tend towards a better world, which is underlying the question will machine learning, What gene editing ultimately land us somewhere good. Are you optimistic? Uh huh. [/INST] I think by and large? I'm optimistic. I think that most people mean well that doesn't mean that most people are, you know, altruistic do gooders. But I think most people mean well, but I think it's also really important for us as a society to create social norms were doing good and being perceived well by our peers is are positively correlated. I mean, it's very easy to create dysfunctional societies. There certainly multiple psychological experiments as well as sadly real world events where people have devolved to a world where being perceived well by your peers is correlated with really atrocious um often genocidal behaviors. So we really want to make sure that we maintain a set of social norms where people know that to be a successful member of society, you want to be doing good. And one of the things that I sometimes worry about is that some societies don't seem to necessarily be moving in the forward direction in that regard. Where it's not necessarily the case that doing um that being a good person is what makes you be perceived well by your peers. And I think that's a really important thing for us as a society to remember, it's very easy to degenerate back into a universe where it's okay to do really bad stuff and still have your peers think you're amazing. </s><s>[INST] It's fun to ask a world class, computer scientist and engineer? A ridiculously philosophical question like, what is the meaning of life? Let me ask, what gives your life meaning? What are, what is the source of fulfillment? Happiness? Joy, purpose. [/INST] When we were starting coursera in the fall of 2011, that was right around the time that steve jobs passed away. And so the media was full of various famous quotes he uttered in one of them that really stuck with me because it resonated with stuff that I've been feeling for even years before that is that our goal in life should be to make a dent in the universe. So I think that to me, what gives my life meaning is that I would hope that when I I'm lying there on my death bed and looking at what I've done in my life that I can point to ways in which I have left the world a better place than it was when I entered it. This is something I tell my kids all the time, because I also think that the burden of that is much greater for those of us who were born to privilege. And in some ways I was, I mean it wasn't born super wealthy or anything like that, but I grew up in an educated family with parents who loved me and took care of me and I had a chance at a great education and so and I've always had enough to eat. So I was in many ways born to privilege more than the vast majority of humanity and my kids I think are even more so born to privilege than I was fortunate enough to be. And I think it's really important that especially for those of us who have that opportunity that we use our lives to make the world a better place. </s><s>[INST] I don't think there's a better way to end it. That news uh honor to talk to you. Thank you so much for talking about. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Daphne koller and thank you to our presenting sponsor cash app. Please consider supporting the podcast by downloading cash app and using code lex podcast, enjoyed this podcast. Subscribe on Youtube. Review five stars on apple podcast, Support on Patreon. Simply connect with me on twitter, a lex Friedman and now let me leave you with some words from Hippocrates, a physician from ancient Greece who is considered to be the father of medicine, wherever the art of medicine is loved. There's also love of humanity. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] and of course hearing from people who are vaccine hesitant, I hear exactly the kids statement, but they're saying they don't want the long vaccine, the long term effects of the vaccine to affect the kids. That's the of the co of this new vaccine, [/INST] which I would say is as as I said before, you can't say never. But we do know that long covid exists. We don't know for how long because we only looked out six or eight months. We know that exists and the frequency is increasing. It certainly exists in young kids and we have no idea about long vaccine effects. So I think they have to make their decision based on that. </s><s>[INST] But yeah, [/INST] but your question is why don't we just open up society. So here we have these vaccines if you want to protect yourself. I think it's mainly the school that's driving the whole narrative. That's my opinion </s><s>[INST] in which direction not to open up or [/INST] no to open up but try and get, you know, their efforts at the federal level to get people vaccinated. Right? </s><s>[INST] How high are the risk for kids? I mean, my understanding was yes it's non zero but it's very low [/INST] For. But what is the numbers now? 70,000 hospitalizations so far and kids as of last week. So yes it's low but uh polio was low, polio was 20 30,000 kids a year paralyzed. And well, many people have actually argued that that vaccine wasn't necessary. You know? Yeah that wasn't a substantial enough </s><s>[INST] but paralyzes different than hospital. So what was hospitalized? Mean? What? That's the long covid question. I mean this is the open question. What is long covid in kids? What is that? Well, [/INST] a lot of the same issues cognitive issues, motor issues, respiratory G. I. Dysfunction. How long we don't know. I mean, it could end in a year as you know, there are other post acute infectious sequentially that we know about, you know, chronic fatigue. M. E. C. F. S. Is thought to be a post infectious sequel which has gone for many decades now and many millions of people. This could be another another one of those. So I'm just saying it might be worth erring on the side of not letting the kids get infected. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Well I'm trying to keep an open mind here and I appreciate you doing you're doing the same. Of course I lean on definitely not requiring people to get vaccinated but I do think getting vaccinated is just um the wiser choice, looking at all the different trajectories before us getting vaccinated as um it seems like from the data, it seems like the obvious choice, frankly. But I'm also trying to keep an open mind because some things in the past that seemed obvious would turn out to be completely wrong. So I'm trying to keep an open mind here. So for example, one of the things I'd love to get your thoughts on this is an antiviral ideas. So ideas outside of the vaccine. So I ever met in something that bret weinstein, a few others have been talking about. There's been a few studies. Some of them have been shown not to be very good studies but nevertheless there seems to be some promise and I wanted to talk to Brett about this particular topic for two reasons. One I was really bothered by censorship of this. That's a whole another topic. I just I'm bothered by sensor. There's a gray area of course. Um but it just feels like that should not have been censored from Youtube. Like discussions of Ivermectin. We can we can set that aside. The the other thing I was bothered by the lack of open mindedness mindedness and exploring things like Ivermectin in the early days, especially when at least I thought the vaccine would take a long time. I mean it's not just I ever met in its uh really seriously at a large scale rigorously exploring the effectiveness of masks and the big one for me is testing like the fact that that wasn't explored aggressively To lead to mass manufacturing like May 2020 is as absurd. Anyway. Uh so I was bothered by the solutions not being explored and not by now having really good I ever met in studies. [/INST] So can I talk about I ever </s><s>[INST] met? Yeah, I would love that. [/INST] So full disclosure. My wife worked on either method that Merck for 20 years. Okay, so they just want people to know but I didn't uh don't talk to her all the time about it in any way. She hasn't been in America for a long time as you know I've ever met in is a very safe drug used to treat certain parasitic infections. Right? And it is approved. It's amazing you can take one dose a year and be protected against river blindness in africa in certain parts of africa, it's remarkably effective. And so uh it's quite a safe drug at the doses that are that are approved now uh early last year a study was done I believe in Australia which showed in cells in the lab if you infect with SARS cov two of them and put Ivermectin and it would inhibit the virus production substantially, it was quite clear right. But the concentrations they were using were rather high and could not be achieved by the approved dose ng. So you would need to do a dozing study to make sure it's safe. And the reason is that I have a mechanism binds to receptors in your brain and it can have high doses. A lot of some people take high doses inappropriately and they have neurological consequences. So If you needed 10 times more I've ever met and you have to make sure it would be safe and people, </s><s>[INST] this is a question of safety [/INST] to so my I think it has always been the case that it should have been properly studied. But it wasn't, there are lots of trials here and there are lots of improperly controlled trials where someone would just treat some patients and say, hey they all did fine but have no control arm. And there were some controlled trials but they were very small. So right now Uh 4000 person trial is enrolled enrolling to test and it randomly controlled trial setting, whether it works or not, there's still plenty of cases that you can do that. So you can ask whether whether there any side effects. I think that's completely fine and if it says it works, then we should use it in the meantime. I always tell people if you want to use Ivermectin, you can do it off label. It's FDA approved. And if your physician says I'm gonna give you this off label, I don't have any objection, but I don't know if it's gonna work now. A friend of ours last week in New Jersey got Covid, he went to his local hospital and their regimen was remdesivir dexamethasone. I've Romek then it's written, that's what they do for every covid patient. They just give it to them automatically. And um, so he's he recovered. So, who's to say it was or were not? Was not Ivermectin. Right. So I don't have any strong ideological opposition. I just think it should be tested for what you want to use it for. And that's being done. And I think that's fine. </s>

<s>[INST] So, you think the 21st century will be remembered for the big leaps and biology in understanding and alleviation of biology. [/INST] If you look at the path between discovery and therapeutics, it's been on the order of 50 years, it's been shortened to 40, 30, 20 and now it's on the order of 10 years. But the huge number of technologies that are going on right now for discovering will result undoubtedly in the most dramatic manipulation of human biology that we've ever seen in the history of humanity in the next few years. Do </s><s>[INST] you think we might be able to cure some of the diseases we started this conversation with. [/INST] Absolutely, Absolutely. It's it's only a matter of time, basically the complexity is enormous and I don't want to underestimate the complexity, but the number of insights is unprecedented and the ability to manipulate is unprecedented and the ability to deliver these small molecules and other nontraditional medicine perturbations, there's a lot of sort of new, there's a new generation of perturbations that you can use at the DNA level, at the RNA level, at the micro RNA level. Uh the genomic level, there's there's a battery of new generations of perturbations if you couple that with cell type identifiers that can basically sense when you are in the right cell based on the specific combination and then turn on that intervention for that cell. You can now think of combinatorial interventions where you can basically sort of feed a synthetic biology construct to someone that will basically do different things in different cells. So basically for cancer, this is one of the therapeutics that are collaborator Ron wise is using to basically start engineering the circuits that will use micro sensors of the environment to know if you're in a tumor cell or if in an immune cell or if you're stromal cells and so forth. And basically turn on particular interventions there. You can sort of create constructs that are tuned to only deliver cells or only the heart cells or only the brain cells and then have these new generations of therapeutics coupled with this immense amount of knowledge on the which targets to choose and what biological processes to measure and how to intervene. My view is that disease is going to be fundamentally altered and alleviated as we go forward. </s><s>[INST] Next time we talk, we'll talk about the philosophical implications that the effect of life. But let's stick to biology for just a little longer. We did pretty good today. We stuck to the science. What what are you excited in terms of uh the future of this of this field. The technologies in your own group in your mind, you're leading the world at M. I. T. And the science and engineering of this work. So what are you excited about [/INST] here? I could not be more excited. We are one of many, many teams who are working on this in my team. The most exciting parts are you know, many folds. So basically we have now assembled this battery of technologies. We've assembled these massive massive data sets and now we're really sort of in the stage of our our team's path of generating disease insights. So we are simultaneously working on a paper on schizophrenia right now that is basically using the single cell profiling technologies using this editing and manipulation technologies to basically show how the master regulators underlying changes in the brain that are found in in schizophrenia are in fact affecting excitatory neurons and inhibitory neurons in pathways that are active both in synaptic pruning but also in early development. We've basically found a set of four regulators that are connecting these two processes that were previously separate in schizophrenia in sort of having a more unified view across those two, those two sides. The second one is in the in the area of metabolism. We basically now have a beautiful collaboration with a good year lab that's basically looking at um Multi tissue perturbations in six or 7 different tissues across the body in the context of exercise and in the context of nutritional interventions using both mouse and human, where we can basically see what are the cell to cell communications that are that are changing across them. And what we're finding is this immense role of both immune cells as well as a deposit stem cells in sort of reshaping that circuitry of all of these different tissues and that's sort of painting to a new path for therapeutical intervention there in Alzheimer's it's this huge focus on microglia and now we're discovering different classes of micro glial cells that are basically either synaptic or um immune and these are playing vastly different roles in Alzheimer's versus in schizophrenia. And what we're finding is this immense complexity as you go further and further down of how in fact there's 10 different types of microglia, each with their own sort of expression programs. We used to think of them as, oh yeah, they're microglia. But in fact now we're realizing just even in that sort of least abundant of cell types, there's this incredible diversity there. The differences between brain regions is another sort of major, major insight. Again, one would think that oh, astrocytes. Astrocytes no matter where they are. But no, there's incredible region specific differences in the expression patterns of all of the major brain cell types across different brain regions. So basically there's the neo cortical regions that are sort of the recent innovation that makes us so different from all other species. There's a sort of, you know, reptilian brain sort of regions that are sort of much more uh you know, very extremely distinct. There's the cerebellum, there's um each of those basically is associated in a different way with disease. And what we're doing now is looking into pseudo temporal models for how disease progresses across different regions of the brain. If you look at Alzheimer's, it basically starts in this small region called the entire renal cortex and then it spreads through the brain and you know through the hippocampus and you know, the ultimately affecting the neocortex And with every brain region that it hits, it basically has a different impact on the uh cognitive and you know, memory aspects, orientation, short term memory, long term memory etcetera, which is you know, dramatically affecting the cognitive path that the individuals go through. So what we're doing now is uh creating this computational models for ordering the cells and the regions and the individuals according to their ability to predict Alzheimer's disease. So we can have a cell level predictor of pathology that allows us to now create a temporal time course that tells us when every gene turns on along this Pathology progression and then trace that across regions and pathological measures that are region specific but also cognitive measures and so and so forth. So that allows us to now for the first time. Look at can we actually do early intervention for Alzheimer's where we know that the disease starts manifesting for 10 years before you actually have your first cognitive loss. Okay. Can we start seeing that path to build new diagnostics, new prognostic new biomarkers for this sort of early intervention in alzheimer's. The other aspect that we're looking at is moses is um we talked about the common variants and the rare variants but in addition to those rare variants as your initial cell that that forms the zygote, divides and divides and divides with every cell division. There are additional mutations that are happening. So what you end up with is your brain being a mistake of multiple different types of genetic underpinnings some cells contain imitation that other cells don't have. So every human has the common variants that all of us carry to some degree, the rare variants that your immediate tree of the human species carries. And then there's the somatic variants which is the tree that happened after the zygote that sort of forms your own body. So these somatic alterations is something that has been previously inaccessible to study in human postmortem samples. But right now with the advent of single cell RNA sequencing in this particular case. We're using the well based sequencing which is much more expensive. It gives you a lot richer information about each of those transcripts. So we're using now that richard information to infer mutations that have happened in each of the thousands of genes that are active in these cells and then understand how the genome relates to the function. This genotype genotype relationship that we usually build in G was between genome wide association studies between genetic variation and disease. We're now building that at the cell level where for every cell we can relate the unique specific genome of that cell with the expression patterns of that cell and the predicted function. Using these predictive models that I mentioned before on this regulation for cognition for pathology in Alzheimer's at the cell level. And what we're finding is that the genes that are altered and the genetic regions that are altered in common variants versus rare variants versus somatic variants are actually very different from each other. The somatic variants are pointing to neuron all energetic and or legal genocide functions that are not visible in the genetic regions that you find for the common variants probably because they have too strong of an effect that evolution is just not tolerating them on the common side of the little frequency spectrum. </s>

<s>[INST] it's so cool. So there's these like big variables that you're aware of and you're trying to optimize over the space of variables. You get to start to play with that when you're looking for performance, [/INST] it's almost like moving from checkers to chess, you have like or maybe even like connect for us or something like that, where it goes from just kind of like, well one ft in front of the other and when I get to the next stage station, I'll just eat whatever, looks good, drink whatever, you know, quenches my thirst and then move on to the next one to like, well, which one of these food products is actually going to make me move a little faster the next aid station or you know, which one of these pacing strategies is going to get me to the finish line faster than the other one and that sort of stuff. So uh, it gets more complicated, more interesting. And uh in my opinion anyway, also there, I mean there's a breaking point with that too because like I said, there's an endless number of variables you could account for and there's a distance gets longer, that list gets longer too. So you find yourself in this position where where you have to at some point say, okay, I've accounted for everything I can reasonably account for. Now. I need to be in a mental space where when something happens that I wasn't able to account for. I'm able to respond to it with the right decision and keep going and not dwell on it. Because that's another thing, I mean, you're running slow enough when you're doing 100 miles where if you make a mistake, you can sit there and just fixate on that mistake and say, why did I do that? That cost me 10 minutes, blah, blah blah. When in reality, what you need to do is that happened everyone else and you're gonna have a situation like that at some point, mine happened. Now I need to figure out how I can move forward at the fastest sustainable pace and not think about what happened back there. And that's where I think it gets really interesting. </s><s>[INST] What would you say it takes to set a world record in the 100 miler? [/INST] First of all, I think you probably have to focus on that specific event. Um, I mean there's the interesting about ultra running where maybe deviates a bit from just other endurance sports is, there's such a wide range. I mean, we talked about a little bit, when I talked with the SAn, Diego 100 versus kind of flat rentable stuff. So </s><s>[INST] can you maybe paint a picture of what are, there's a huge range of different kinds of ultra marathon events? What are like the big ones in your mind? So marathon would go the distance for a marathon. There's a 50 K, what are different kind of, there's 100 mile that in your mind, like kind of these islands where people gather off. [/INST] Yeah, so there's a few that really stand out, I would say the three biggest ultramarathons right now, even from a historic, maybe not necessarily historical standpoint, but Uh, in modern day, ultra running is going to be the Western States 100. That's the biggest, most competitive 100 miler. It's on the trail side of things in the United States. Then there's ultra trail mont blanc, which is probably the most competitive 100 miler on the planet right now in previous years. It's been debatable as weather. Western States are ultra trail mont blanc's more competitive. I think in the most recent few years, you're just seeing a lot more like Of the bulk of international talent on the trail side of the sport heading over that way and then you have the road running side of things where the comrades marathon, which is technically 56 miles, but they called the comrades marathon, uh, is going to generally be the most competitive ultra marathon. The weird thing is the distance thing, right? Because most people think of endurance sports, they're thinking about precise distances like, five km, 10 km all that stuff. And then then you get into the ultra running world and it's like sometimes it's the event, so like the Western </s><s>[INST] itself is much more important than the distance. [/INST] Yeah, so the Western States, 100 is actually 100.2 miles, which isn't that big of a deviation when you think about it, especially when you figure like tangents, they're going to probably account for more than 0.2 miles on 100 mile race. But the ultra trail mont blanc, you know, that's listed as 100 miles, but it's actually think like 104 105 miles. So, You know, it's more, there's different cultures too. So the United States is definitely more motivated, I think to try to get as close to the exact distance. You're gonna hear maybe a little more grumbling. If someone says I signed up for this 100 mile and it turned out to be 103 miles versus like over in europe, they don't really care too much about the distance. They're more interested in, like a specific route or a loop </s><s>[INST] is consistency important in terms of the exact length of the, of the roots. So like you can compare performances from previous years or are they a little bit more flexible? Like they redefine the trail from year to year? [/INST] Yeah, I mean, it's definitely hard to compare. I mean, there's the events that, um, take, for example, um, I would say the best ultra marathoner in the world today on the men's side is Jim Walmsley. The reason I think Jim Williams is the best, is because he is the most versatile and not only the most versatile, but he's arguably the best at almost everything up to 100 miles. So there's a race called the Angeles crest 100 miler. The trail has drastically changed from when they originally had that event and it's a different time of year, so much much warmer on that course and jim is not the kind of guy who would, uh, sit back and say like I can't chase that record, but I think Angela crest when he looks at the segments and the pacing for that one, he's like that one is maybe not even the same event anymore. So you have that, you have some that are a little more controlled and a little more kind of like preserved I guess you would say, but I think it gets really rare on the trail side. I mean comrades is going to be very comparable from one year to the next because that's a road race and that's where you get, you maybe get like a split in the sport from people who really want that kind of like, I want to compare myself to someone who ran this course in 1970 versus like someone just says, I want to be competitive today and you know, maybe the weather is going to be 30 degrees different from one year to the next on this course. But if I beat everyone on this day, then I'm the champion of that big named race, like Ultra trail mont blanc or western states 100 my legacy will be cemented because I won that big race and it doesn't matter when or how the course was or what the time even was to some degree </s>

<s>[INST] How much is, you know, people talk about that with poker, for example, how much is the value of this? You know? So like some people argue that poker is more about the betting, you know, just the money. It's just how much you bet and so on. So that would be more like the analogy there with with fighting would be just strictly the physical movement of your body. And then a lot of people argue that there's a lot here in the way you look in the little movements in the face. So do you think there's do you think you're communicating with your opponent when you look at them? [/INST] There's no way to know for sure. 100%. And I'm by no, no mean psychic, nothing like that. And I don't believe in that at all. The only thing is I know to look into the eyes from my opponent when he's afraid and when he gives up on me, I've been accused very often in my career to not take enough risk to not finish my opponent. But the reason why I didn't finish my opponent is because I saw in his eyes that he gave up, you gave me the fight and I'm winning the fight. So it's not up to me, it's not to me to make it to try to sacrifice myself trying to finish him. Perhaps if I do that, I will open up for him to to capitalize on my mistake. It's up to him to make a risk. So people sometimes they don't understand that this is the art of fighting my friend. You know, like if I'm winning the fight, like in hockey and ice hockey, if you're winning the game and it's the third period, it's at the end of the third period, you're not going to take out your gold and they're trying to score another goal because winning 5, 2, 3 or 5-4 is the same thing, Same thing in M. M. A. We make a living out of this. And sometimes, you know, as sad, as bad as it can be, you want to save yourself for another day, you know, you want to minimize the damage. But if he knows he's losing the fight, it's up to him to take the risk, It's not up to me. So I'm a I'm a good counter fighter. I use a lot of my attack or counter strike or reactive technol proactive technology, that's my specialty. So I'm not gonna I have no desire to sacrifice myself trying to trying to finish my opponent if he wants to if if if perhaps I might give him the opportunity to capitalize on me. It's not it's not smart to do that. And very often when I fight someone, I can read him, I see the fear in his eyes. Now I'm like, I got, you know, he's very desperate. That doesn't mean I have to put my guard down because he's gonna, he's gonna be desperate. But I know I'm beating you and I know I'm beating you. I'm just gonna do what I need. You know, if I have a chance, of course I'll knock him out. But I'm not gonna try to sacrifice myself to knock you out. And if you do that, maybe one day you'll make a mistake and you'll get dropped and you'll you'll, you'll tell us what I shoot. I just got brain damage. Maybe I'm never going to come back the same. Maybe, you know, I, I ruined my career or you know, it's a very serious game that we're playing. It's very dangerous </s><s>[INST] in the face of that risk. I mean, Mike Tyson talked about, you know, when the opponent looks away, he knows he's got him right that uh, that he's broken for a person like me who has trouble making eye contact with people. There's, there's truth to that. I mean, there's truth to that, that there's, there's an animal nature to us looking away. I mean, you could see that the way the body language, the way the eyes move between two animals going at it uh in the wild one, like two lines fight or to whatever fight. There's a certain beta move when you've been defeated. [/INST] Yes. Or one thing when I know that, that when it happened, one of the signs is when I just like mega faint and the guy flinch like crazy. That's mean, is really scared of me. It's a little bit like you're, you're, you're, you're doing this, that guy flinch a little bit or you're doing this is splendid. Like that's mean you hurt him and he doesn't want to get hurt again. So he's really trying to run away and not, not winning the fight anymore, but not losing sort sort of surviving the five round. And it's hard to, to finish a guy who does, doesn't want to fight a guy who's not fighting anymore to win in this, fighting to not lose. And the proof of that if you don't believe me, just look the reign of all the greatest champion and UFC, I don't care who they are, john jones or uh, like you could clearly see that in the beginning of their ring, they could, you know, finish a lot of their opening the same as me in the beginning. I was finishing a lot of, but there's a time that the entire UFC roster is studying you and they found ways to perhaps not beating you, but they found a way to navigate through the fight in a way that they minimize the damage, You know what I mean? So it's a big difference between fighting to win and fighting to not lose, </s>

<s>[INST] in a different light. The values of humility and the values of love, [/INST] love broadly, but love for family. And look how everyone around Khabib talks about him, right? No one ever says he's a jerk, no one ever says he's mistreated them. They've all got stories, right? And that's what a beautiful Muslim does, a beautiful human being. You treat the people in such a way that all these stories come out later of how good you were to everyone that came into contact with you. And Khabib was that person. He is that person. He does a great job of treating people with a lot of respect. Obviously, no one is perfect, right? I mean, imperfections are for everybody, but I definitely think that he did a beautiful job representing his faith in those moments. Beyond punching people in the face, that's kind of a different subject. Smashing faces, not the smashing faces part, the prostration part and the humility. I tell you, man, he's not humble in the ring, right? </s><s>[INST] He would maul his opponents, right? I mean, as a practitioner, as a fan of the sport, of all the grappling sports for me, there's also a beauty to the art of grappling and the fighting sports, but yes. I think his, again, humility, his honor outside the cage is exemplary. And the money, the fame, the power hasn't changed the man. [/INST] No, no, not at all. And that's actually, I think, the most beautiful part. When I met him, I found him to be as humble as he is on screen, and that's always very endearing and all of the stories of the people that have been around him for a much longer time. Very humble man. I pray for him, honestly. I pray for Islam. I pray for that family, that God keeps them grounded and protected and together, and that they maintain that beautiful spirit. Because even if you just watch the lead up to the last fight with Islam, just the way they carry themselves, their day to day, they never relinquish their prayers. They never relinquish their family ties, the things that make them who they are to be better fighters. Because they don't see that they have to let go of those things. In fact, they attribute all of their worldly success to that faith. And so, beautiful examples. And I think that it's good for young Muslims to see themselves in that. And it's good for other people to see Islam </s><s>[INST] through that as well. When you mentioned the prophets, you often say peace and blessings be upon them. Yes. What does that phrase mean? Why do you say it? Is it to celebrate the people? Is it as a constant reminder that these are figures [/INST] that should be celebrated? Absolutely. So, it's part of our tradition that when we say the name of a prophet, at least the first time in the conversation, we say peace be upon him. And then afterwards, it's still praiseworthy to say peace be upon him. So, if you're reading an Islamic article and you see in parentheses, P-B-U-H, peace be onto him or peace be upon him. When I was in high school, I often tell this story, I wrote an article about Jesus peace be upon him in Islam and Christianity. And my teacher comes up to me and she says, you can't do that. And I said, what? And she like slams the paper on the desk. She says, you can't say Jesus. I said, no, no, P-B-U-H, peace be upon him. So, that's what it means and something that we reserve </s><s>[INST] for the prophets of God and we honor them with. [/INST] So, who is Muhammad? So, the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is the descendant of Abraham, peace be upon him through Ishmael. God promises Hagar and Ishmael that he will make of him a great nation. And so, there are prophets that are descended from Isaac and then from the brothers of Isaac comes the prophet Muhammad. And he is the final prophet of a long line of prophets. And we do not distinguish between the prophets in regards to their role. And so, Islam has a very accessible theology. It's something that resonates with a professor at an Ivy league university and a person who may be even illiterate, this idea of one God that sent many prophets and all of the prophets had a singular message, worship one God and respond to the messages of that one God through his messengers. So, Adam through Muhammad, you have many of the prophets that are mentioned in the Old Testament, Moses, peace be upon him being the most spoken about prophet in the Quran, and in fact Abraham, Jesus, peace be upon him, many of these prophets that are familiar to people, all of them are considered prophets and the Islam the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, being the last of them. He comes at a time where there was still a lot of confusion about what the world had just encountered in Christ and Jesus Christ peace be upon him. So you got to think about it this way that this is still, you know, he's born in the sixth century. There is still great debate about who Jesus was. The Council of Nicaea happens in the fourth century where you kind of have a standardizing of Western Christianity, but then you have Eastern Christians that are still maintaining very different theologies and very different conceptions of Christ. There is no Arabic Bible at the time. And he kind of brings together the message and the mission of all of those prophets, and it fits perfectly into a singular string of thought where you don't have to reject Jesus, peace be upon him, but Islam also is staunchly opposed to the idea of a Trinity, the idea of a begotten son of God, that all of the conceptions of the Messiah, and there were many claimants of the Messiah prior to Christ, peace be upon him. None of them included an idea of a Trinity or of him actually being a part of God himself, a begotten son of God, but rather a great and mighty prophet that would restore glory on earth. So he really captures theologically, or rather, we would say God captures through him theologically a coherence and a unifying message of all of the prophets that there's only one God, and that that God has sent messages and scriptures to ultimately guide people back towards him, and that all of the prophets are equal in the sight of God. There's no distinction between them, and that we are to live our lives in accordance with the message as best manifested by the messenger. And so the prophets are exemplary human beings, and this is where we sometimes maybe have a difference. Someone will say, well, Noah did this, and David did this. As Muslims, we don't hold many of the stories that have been attributed to these prophets to be true. We don't believe that the prophets are capable of major sins. We believe they're exemplary human beings, and that they give us a manifestation of the scriptures that they were sent with of how to live noble lives. And the most documented human being in history is the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We know everything about him, his family life, his day to day, the way he would greet you, the way he'd look at you, everything about his physical appearance. It's documented in immaculate detail, and Muslims have a standard that they then seek to live up to with how to treat your family, how to be in your community, how to be in your worship, how to be in your social interactions, how to carry yourself with your neighbors. It's a full, complete guidebook through his example, where we have the Quran, which is the word of God, and then you have the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, which is a living manifestation of that word that has been documented for us to live by until the end of time. </s>

<s>[INST] to do. How hard is it to uh to get past the bottleneck of the copper wire. [/INST] Um Yeah you need to you need to do a lot of parallel processing as you can imagine the same thing happens in the G. P. U. S. You know like the data is transferred in parallel somehow. It gets into some parallel processing I think that you know like um not really kind of diverted off into so many different dimensions but great. </s><s>[INST] So it's aggressive flight. How do we make [/INST] drones? See many </s><s>[INST] more frames a second in order to enable aggressive fight. That's a super interesting problem. That's [/INST] an interesting problem. So but think about it, you have you have Cpus, you clocked them at several gigahertz um We don't collect them faster largely because we run into some heating issues and things like that. But another thing is that three GHz clock light travels kind of like on the order of a few inches or an inch, that's the size of a chip. And so you pass a clock cycle and as the clock signal is going around in the chip you pass another one. And so trying to coordinate that the design of the complexity the chip becomes so hard. I mean we have hit the fundamental limits of the universe and so many things that we're designing. I don't know if people realize that it's great but we can't make transistors smaller because like quantum effects that electrons start to tunnel around. We can't clock it faster. One of the reasons why is because like the information doesn't travel faster in the universe and we're limited by that same thing with the laser scanner. But so then it becomes clear that um you know the way you organize the chip into a CPU or even a gpu. You now need to look at how to redesign that if you're going to stick with silicon you could go to other things too. I mean there's that too. But you really almost need to take those transistors put them in a different way so that the information travels on those transistors in a different way, in a much more way that is specific to the high speed cameras coming in. And so that's one of the things that we talk about quite a bit. </s><s>[INST] So drone racing kind of really makes that [/INST] embodies that </s><s>[INST] embodies that. It's [/INST] exciting. It's exciting for people, you know, students like it, it embodies all those problems but going back we're building code and code and other engine and that engine. I hope one day will be just like how impactful seatbelts were in in driving. I hope so or it could enable you know, next generation autonomous air taxis and things like that. I mean it sounds crazy but one day we may need to purchase them. These things if you really want to go from boston to new york in more than a half hours. You may want to fix wing aircraft? Most of these companies that are doing good flying cars, they're focusing on that, but then how do you landed on top of a building you may need to pull off like kind of fast maneuvers for a robot, like perch language going to go perch into, into a building if you want to do that, like you need these kinds of systems and so drone racing, um, you know, it's being able to go very faster than any human can comprehend. Take an aircraft, forget the quadcopter, you take your fixed wing while you're at it, You might as well put some like rocket engines in the back and you just light it, you go through the gate and a human looks at it and just said, what just </s><s>[INST] happened. Uh, [/INST] and they would say it's impossible for me to do that. And that's closing the same technology gap that would, you know, one day um, steer cars out of accidents. </s><s>[INST] So, but then let's get back to the practical, which is sort of just getting the thing to work in a race environment, which is kind of what the, it's another kind of exciting thing, which the DARPA challenge to the desert. Did, you know, theoretically, we had autonomous vehicles, but making them successfully finish the race. First of all, which nobody finished the first year and then the second year just to get, you know, to finish and go at a reasonable time is really difficult engineering, practically speaking challenge. So that, let me ask about the alpha pilot challenge is I guess a big prize potentially associated with bologna ask reminiscent of the DARPA Days predictions. You think anybody will [/INST] finish? Um well not not soon. Um I think that depends on how you set up the race course and so if the race courses, so of course I think people will kind of do it. But can you set up some course like literally sunk or you get to design it? Is the algorithm developer, Can you set up some course so that you can beat the best human? Um when is that going to happen? Like that's not very easy. Even just setting up some course, if you let the human that you're competing with set up the course, it becomes a lot is a lot harder. </s><s>[INST] Mm So how many in the space of all possible courses? Our would humans win And what machines were great [/INST] question. Let's get to that. I want to answer your other question which is like um the DARPA challenge days. Right. What was really hard? I think, I think we understand we understood what we wanted to build but still building things. That experimentation, that iterated learning. That takes up a lot of time actually. And so in my group, for example, in order for us to be able to develop fast, we build like VR environments will take an aircraft. We'll put it in a motion capture room. Big huge motion capture room and we'll fly it in real time will render other images and beam it back to the drone. That sounds kind of notionally simple, but it's actually hard because now you're trying to fit all that data through the air into the drone and so you need to do a few crazy things to make that happen. But once you do that then at least you can try things if you crash into something you didn't actually crash. So it's like the whole drone is in VR, we can do augmented reality and so on and so I think at some point testing becomes very important. One of the nice things about alpha pilot is that they built the drone and they build a lot of drones and it's okay to crash. In fact, I think maybe, you know, the viewers may kind of like to see things that's the most </s>

<s>[INST] we don't know in terms of manipulate. Like having a negative effect, [/INST] not even having aggressive sponsorships. We have very few. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. When you clip them all together [/INST] most of the sponsorship that we have. It is more on patient related organizations rather than we are very careful not to sponsor other things that can be perceived not even influence, but perceive that we may influence. So we are very, very careful on that. This is not the case with us. </s><s>[INST] So with the incredibly fast development of vaccine, because you tell me the story, from the engineering to the science to the human story of how you could do it so fast by November even had the ambition to do by October. It was in the initial days. [/INST] How do you eight days later </s><s>[INST] in that time, how do you show that the vaccine is safe and effective? Given that I think previous vaccines have taken years to do that. [/INST] The vaccines take years to do that and the time, but it takes. It is basically The vast majority of the time to conduct the final Phase three study. What is the confirmatory study? And you do that because the face to study cost a lot of money in our case because almost a billion so you don't want to go and risk a billion in blinded data normally, before you do a lot of experiments to make sure that the product that you're putting in the face three is the right one. Uh, we didn't have the time, so we risk all the money. So we went into we condense all the time towards this Phase three. But the Phase three study had to follow all the rules that any study follows. When you do this trial, </s><s>[INST] could you just briefly describe the basics of what is Phase 1? What is faced to what is [/INST] Faced? Let's say that there are so many faces when you try, first of all to find what is the right vaccine. We tried from 20 different vaccines. We nail down to four, and for those four, we selected eventually, too, and then eventually won. Once you have those selections, what is the dose we're going to use? And then we tried multiple different doses to see which one we think is the best. </s><s>[INST] What is trying entail in those early days, [/INST] you go first of all with smaller doses in humans and then after you have done a lot of experiments in animals so that you can feel that it is safe enough to go to humans and then go with very low dose, and then you gradually increase the dose, and then you monitor those humans to make sure that there are not any. Let's say react to Genesis to what you're giving them. At the same time, you try to measure what is doing in terms of in your responses. So you do that with multiple vaccines and you do that multiple doses. And you do that with multiple ages of people, young people, old people and eventually from the twin, the vaccines to multiple doses to multiple schedules. Is it after three weeks, the second dose? Or is it after four weeks or after six months? All of that will inform you. But I think this is the vaccine. This is the dose. This is the scheme that I believe. Well, give me the best results. And when you have that, then you go to do what we call the Phase three. This is a very big study. Thousands of people Where you use the vaccine that you think is the right one and a placebo, the placebo and the vaccine. They look identical. Nobody knows if he's injected a placebo vaccine. The physician that makes the injection, The doctor doesn't know if he's injecting placebo or vaccine. He knows a bar called Only the computer knows in order to go into this computer. There are keys, and there are at least two people that needs to put their keys so that someone can see the data. And there's those people. They have legal obligations never to do that right, so before a certain point. So all of that is blinded. The idea is that when you go into this study, you need to make sure that you are going with the right one. That's why it takes so many, so much time. But the study is the study. You need to have a significant number of people that will give the two and then you let them live their lives, and then you see how many of them will get the disease. And then you see if there are differences in percentage of infections for the vaccinated, compared to the non vaccinated. At the same time, you're monitoring all of them to see if there are differences in the safety profile. If those are they go to placebo, have the same would say Heart attacks with us that they didn't. They got the vaccine because heart attacks will happen if you have 50,000 people because it's part of life. These are the All these processes are very, very, very well established and since years what we did, the last one was exactly the same as we did always. We just didn't lose time. We didn't. We're not careful with money instead of recruiting 50,000 people over a year Because you had, let's say, 30 hospitals doing the recruitment. We went 150 hospitals doing the recruitment that cost a lot of money, but instead of recruit them in a year, we recruited them in 34 months. So I did this type of things by taking a return on investment, taking costs out of the equation, and we're able to achieve this result. But it's not the process, believe me, it is the heart of the people. People don't know what they can and what they cannot do, and if anything, they have a serious tendency to underestimate what they can do. And always when you ask them something that is seemingly impossible. They will think out of the box to be able to deliver. We discussed about the timing instead of eight years. We didn't ask them to do it in six. We asked them to do it in eight months. Uh huh. Our normal manufacturing Yearly production fights was 200 million doses of vaccines every year. That was we are doing in the last 10 years. We didn't ask them to make $300 million three billion doses for a new vaccine. The discovery phase of a new molecule like the treatment that we have another appeal against covid text for years. We didn't ask them to do it in three. We ask them to do it in four months, which is what they did. When you are setting this type of goals, they know immediately they cannot such thing within the box. And immediately. This is where the human ingenuity and the heart comes. And this is how they surprised all of us. </s>

<s>[INST] So just to summarize what are the signals from the machine learning perspective the user can provide. So you mentioned just clicking on the video, views the time watch maybe the relative time, watch the, uh, the clicking like and dislike on the video may be commenting on the video and those things, all of those things. And then the one I wasn't actually quite aware of even though I might have engaged in it is uh, a survey afterwards, which is a brilliant idea. Is there other signals? I mean that's already a really rich space of signals to learn from. Is there something else? [/INST] Well, you mentioned commenting also sharing the video. If you, if you think it's worthy to be shared with someone else, you </s><s>[INST] know, then Youtube or outside of Youtube as all either. [/INST] Let's see. You mentioned like, dislike </s><s>[INST] you like and dislike. How important is that? [/INST] Uh, it's very important, right? We want, it's predictive of satisfaction, but it's not, it's not perfectly predictive. Um, subscribe if you subscribe to the channel of the person who made the video, then that also is a piece of information and signals, um, satisfaction, although over the years we've learned that people have a wide range of attitudes about what it means to subscribe. We would ask some users who didn't subscribe very much why, but they watched a lot from a few channels would say, well why didn't you subscribe? And they would say, well, I I can't afford to pay for anything. You know, we tried to let them understand, like, actually doesn't cost anything, it's free, it just helps us know that you are very interested in this creator. Um but then we've asked other people who subscribe to many things and I don't really watch any of the videos from those channels, and we say, well, why did you subscribe to this if you weren't really interested in any more videos from that channel? And they might tell us, um why? Just, you know, I thought the person did a great job and I just want to kind of give him a high five. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. [/INST] And so </s><s>[INST] yeah, that's where I I said, I actually subscribe to channels where I just, this person is amazing. I like this person, but then uh I like this person, I really want to support them. Uh that's how I click subscribe, even though, I mean, never actually want to click on their videos when they're releasing it. I just love what they're doing and it's maybe outside of my interest area and so on, which is probably the wrong way to use the subscribe button, but I just want to say congrats, this is great work. Well, so you have to deal with all the space of people that see the subscriber and it's totally different. [/INST] That's right. And so, you know, we we can't just close our eyes and say sorry, you're using it wrong. You know, we're not gonna pay attention to what you've done. Um, we need to embrace all the ways in which all the different people in the world use the subscribe button or the like and the dislike button. </s><s>[INST] So in terms of signals of machine learning, uh, using for the search and for the recommendation, you mentioned titles like metadata, like text data that people provide description and title and maybe keywords. Maybe you can speak to the value of those things in search and also this incredible, fascinating area of the content itself. So the video content itself, trying to understand what's happening in the video. So Youtube released a data set that, you know, the, the machine learning computer vision world, This is just an exciting space. How much is that currently? How much are you playing with that currently? How much is your hope for the future of being able to analyze the content of the video itself? [/INST] Well, we have been working on that also since I came to Youtube </s><s>[INST] analyzing the content, [/INST] analyzing the content of the video. Right. Um, and uh, what I can tell you is that uh, our ability to do it well is still somewhat crude. We can, we can tell if it's a music video, we can tell if it's a sports video, we can probably tell you that people are playing soccer. Um We probably can't tell whether it's uh Manchester United or my daughter's soccer team. So these things are kind of difficult and and using them, we can use them in some ways. So for instance, we use that kind of information to understand and inform these clusters that I talked about. Uh and also maybe to add some words like soccer for instance, to the video if if it doesn't occur in the title or the description, which is remarkable that often it doesn't. Um I one of the things that I ask creators to do is is please help us out with the title and the description um for instance, we were a few years ago having a live stream of some competition for World of Warcraft on Youtube and it was a very important competition. But if you typed World of Warcraft in search, you wouldn't find it. </s><s>[INST] Well, the Warcraft wasn't in the title. [/INST] World of Warcraft wasn't in the title, it was Match for 78, you know, a team versus B team and World of Warcraft wasn't the title. Just like, come on, give me </s>

<s>[INST] expressions, [/INST] expressions, body language. The way that he sits back in the chair and slouch. Is that the kind of the way that he makes fun of people and you know kind of uses irony, just some of it is just lost and it needs to be conveyed </s><s>[INST] the depth of humor and wit. I met quite a few like political leaders like that and to speak only Russian when I was traveling in Ukraine, I don't know how you translate that. I think it's almost the other person that reminds me like that a little bit is Obama. There's Obama had a wit and intelligence but like he would smile and just set something that add a lot to it like uh like that he's trolling you or he's being sarcastic or like I don't, it's me converting it towards, it's obvious that all english speakers if they listen to Obama, but if you have to translate to a different language, I think you're gonna lose a lot of [/INST] Yeah, I mean when I watched the, I mean I watched many of Putin speeches, you know, just in Russian, not looking at any of the, you know, the subtitles or anything and it's just watching the word that his body language is at the time when he's saying things, whether you smoke, he'll sneer, he'll laugh, he'll he'll ad lib, you know, kind of something that obviously kind of, you know, wasn't there on the prepared speech and it's really critical and you know, kind of a lot some people speak, you know, like trump, it's just, it's kind of just words Putin, the words are very important, trumpets, the atmosphere, it's the kind of the way you feel about things, it's the buzz you get, you know, it's revving people up, it's the kind of slogans and Putin is, you know, he's conveying a lot in what he's saying </s><s>[INST] that I think, I mean of course, I don't know much because I only speak Russian in english, but I have in english or Russian have not met almost anyone ever as interesting in conversation as Putin the I think he shines, not in speeches, but in interactions with others [/INST] Yeah, when you watch those interviews and things with him and I've been at many of these sessions, it's been hours of him parrying questions and it's like watching a boxer sparring, you know, the kind of training about yeah, come on, give me another one, you know, and it's kind of like, and he prides himself and and he's made mistakes often. But the breadth of the issues that he's often covered has been interested has been fascinating. And I used to just take, you know, kind of, really detailed notes about this because you learn a term, but it's also about his worldview. Again, I mean, he does live in a certain box, like, we all do, and, you know, again, his world experience is not as extensive as, you know, you would hope it would be, but that's why you have to really pay attention. That's where we've messed </s><s>[INST] up. [/INST] That's where we haven't really paid a lot of attention to what he's been saying. He's been telegraphing this grievances, dissatisfaction, this, I'm gonna do something for years. </s><s>[INST] And the thing is during war time, the combined with propaganda and the narratives, resentment and grievance that you dig in on those, like, maybe you start out not believing it, but you're sure it's all going to believe it eventually. Well, [/INST] you convince yourself over time. Yeah, look, the longer you're in a position like Putin 22 years now, 23 years could be out there for 36 years. You become more and more rigid. I mean, this is, again, you know, something that you see in history, you know, you look at, you know, people through history of moved from, kind of, being kind of left wing and, you know, in the perspective too hard, right? They kind of have a kind of a sort of an ossification or rigidity emerges in their views. I mean, again, I used to have these arguments with Professor Price about Lenin because he would talk about and he said, but he didn't change his mind from being 18. Have you not thought about that? I mean, it's like we're not formed fully formed and individuals at 18, you know, we don't know anything, you know, something, but not everything. I mean, obviously the younger context, you know, the kind of the way that you kind of grew up the place, you grew up, the things that happened to the traumas you have, I mean, all of these have an impact, but if you don't grow beyond all of that, and Putin has been stuck in place since 2000 when he became President, he's not out and about, you know, kind of being a man of the people, you know, he, you know, he's not doing the kind of things that I used to do. Yeah, he gets out there and he goes to Kazakhstan and you know, got Tajikistan and he goes to china and he does this nothing. And a covid he didn't go anywhere. I mean very few places. And so he got he's got stuck and that worries me a lot because you could see before that he had a bit more flexibility of thought and that's why nobody should be in place forever. You should always kind of like get out there and go out there and learn a new skill. You know kind of you need some sort of you know he needed to get out more and do something different. </s><s>[INST] You had an interesting point. You've made that both Land Mizlansky and uh Putin are thinking about They're just politicians. They're thinking about the 2024 election which is coming up for both of them. [/INST] Have said that in some of the other interviews. Yeah that's true. </s>

<s>[INST] the mapping to good and evil. You made you made you realize made me realize that you can sort of in the way in the choices you make can define the where you end up and that means all of us are capable of the good evil. It all matters in the different choices along the trajectory to those places that you make. It's fascinating. I mean games can do that philosophical to you and it's rare. It seems rare. [/INST] Yeah. Well games, I think a unique medium because you as the player, you're not just passively consuming the the entertainment, right? You're you're actually actively involved as an as an agent. So I think that's what makes it in some ways can be more visceral than other other mediums like, you know, films and books. So the second, so that was, you know, designing ai in games. And then the third use uh we've used of AI is in deep mind from the beginning which is using games as a testing ground for proving out ai algorithms and developing ai algorithms and that was that was a sort of a core component of our vision at the start of Deepmind was that we would use games very heavily as our main testing ground certainly to begin with because it's super efficient to use games. And also, you know, it's very easy to have metrics to see how well your systems are improving and what direction your ideas are going in and whether you're making incremental improvements. </s><s>[INST] And because those games are often rooted in something that humans did for a long time beforehand, there's already a strong set of rules, like it's already a damn good benchmark. [/INST] Yes, it's really good for so many reasons because you've got you've got you've got clear measures of how good humans can be at these things and in some cases like go, we've been playing it for thousands of years. Um and and often they have scores or at least wind conditions, so it's very easy for reward learning systems to get a reward. It's very easy to specify what that reward is. Um and also at the end it's easy to, you know, to test externally, you know, how strong is your system by of course playing against, you know, the world's strongest players at those games. So it's it's so good for so many reasons and it's also very efficient to run potentially millions of simulations in parallel on the cloud. So um I think there's a huge reason why we were so successful back in, you know, starting out 2010, how come we were able to progress so quickly, because we've utilized games and, you know, at the beginning of Deepmind, we also hired some amazing game engineers who I knew from my previous lives in the games industry. And uh and that helped to bootstrap us very quickly. </s><s>[INST] And plus it's somehow super compelling almost at a philosophical level of man versus machine, over over over chess board or a go board. And especially given that the entire history of AI is defined by people saying it's going to be impossible to make a machine that beats a human being in chess. And then once that happened, people were certain when I was coming up in a I they go is not a game that can be solved because of the combinatorial complexity. It's just too, it's it's it's, you know, no matter how much moore's law, you have compute, it's just never going to be able to crack the game of go. And so that then there's something compelling about facing sort of taking on the impossibility of that task from the ai researcher perspective, engineer perspective. And then as a human being, just observing this whole thing, um your beliefs about what you thought was impossible being broken apart. It's humbling to realize we're not as smart as we thought. It's humbling to realize that the things we think are impossible now, perhaps will be done in the future, there's something really powerful about a game ai system being a human being in a game that drives that message home for like millions, billions of people, especially in the case of go, [/INST] well, look, I think it's I mean it has been a fascinating journey and and especially as I I think about it from, I can understand it from both sides, both as the ai, you know, creators of the Ai, but also as a games player originally. So, you know, it was a it was a really interesting, no, I mean, it was a fantastic but also somewhat bittersweet moment, the Alphago match for me, um seeing that and being obviously heavily, heavily involved in that. Um but you know, as you say, chess has been the, I mean, Kasparov, I think rightly called it the Drosophila of, of intelligence. Right? So it's sort of, I love that phrase and I think he's right because chess has been hand in hand with ai from the beginning of the whole field. Right? So I think every Ai practitioners starting with touring in Claude Shannon and all those, the sort of forefathers of the field um tried their hand at writing a chess program. I've got original audition of Claude Shannon's first chess program, it was 1949 the original sort of paper and they all did that ensuring famously wrote a chess program that, but all the computers around then were obviously too slow to run it. So he had to run, he had to be the computer, right? So he literally, I think spent two or three days running his own program by hand with pencil and paper and playing, playing a friend of his with his chess program. So </s><s>[INST] of course [/INST] Deep Blue was a huge moment beating Kasparov. Um but actually when that happened, I remember that very, very vividly of course, because it was, you know, chess and computers and ai all the things I loved and I was at college at the time, but I remember coming away from that, being more impressed by Kasparov's mind than I was by deep Blue, because here was Kasparov with his human mind, not only could he play chess more or less to the same level as this brute of a calculation machine, but of course Kasparov can do everything else. Humans can do ride a bike, talk, many languages, do politics, all the rest of the amazing things that Kasparov does, and so with the same brain and yet deep blue uh brilliant as it was at chess, had been hand coded for chess and um actually had distilled the knowledge of chess grandmasters into, into a cool program, but it couldn't do anything else. Like it couldn't even play a strictly simpler game like tic tac toe. So um something to me was missing from um intelligence from that system that that we would regard as intelligence. And I think it was this idea of generality and and also learning. Um so </s>

<s>[INST] Trying to stay one step ahead of the Attackers. [/INST] It's an it's an inherently adversarial </s><s>[INST] space, [/INST] but I think it's an interesting. Security is interesting because of the different kind of threats that we've managed over the last five years. There are ones. Um, well basically the adversaries keep on getting better and better. So trying to kind of interfere with, um, you know, security is certainly one area of this. If you have like nation states that are trying to interfere in elections or something like they're kind of evolving their tactics. Whereas on the other hand, I don't want to be too too simplistic about it. But like if you know someone is saying something hateful, people usually aren't getting smarter and smarter about how they say hateful things. Right? So, um, maybe there's some element of that, but it's a very small dynamic compared to um, you know, how advanced Attackers and some of these other places get over time. </s><s>[INST] I believe most people are good. So they actually get better over time and not being less hateful because they realize it's not fun being hateful. That's at least the belief I have. But first bathroom break. [/INST] Sure. Okay, </s><s>[INST] so we'll come back to a I but let me ask some difficult questions Now social dilemma is a popular documentary that raised concerns about the effects of social media and society. You responded with a point by point rebuttal titled what the social dilemma gets wrong. People should read that. I would say the key point they make is because social media is funded by ads, algorithms want to maximize attention and engagement and an effective way to do so is to get people angry at each other increased division and so on. Can you steal man their criticisms and arguments that they make in the documentary as a way to understand the concern and as a way to respond to it? [/INST] Well, yeah, I think I think that's a good conversation to have. I don't happen to agree with the conclusions and I think that they make a few assumptions that are um just very big jumps that I I don't think are reasonable to make, but I understand overall why people would be concerned that our business model and adds in general, um we do make more money as people use the service more in general. Right? So as a kind of basic assumption, okay. Do we have an incentive for people to to build a service that people use more yes on a lot of levels. I mean we think what we're doing is good. So um you know, we think that if people are finding it useful, they'll use it more um or if you just look at it is this sort of if if the only thing we cared about is money, which I i is not for anyone who knows me, but okay, we're, we're a company. So let's say you just kind of um, simplified it down to that, then would we want people to use the services more? Yes. But then, and then you get to the second question, which is, does kind of getting people agitated, make them more likely to use, um, the services more. And I think from looking at other media in the world, especially tv and you know, there's the old news adage, if it bleeds, it leads, like, I think this is, there are and that there were a bunch of reasons why someone might think that that kind of provocative content would be the most engaging now. What I've always found is two things one is that we'll grab someone's attention in the near term is not necessarily something that they're going to appreciate having seen, um, or going to be the best over the long term. So I think what, what a lot of people get wrong is that we're not, I'm not building this company to like make the most money or get people to spend the most time on this in the next quarter, the next year, right? I mean, I've been doing this for, You know, 17 years at this point and I'm still relatively young and you have a lot more that I want to do over the coming decades. So like I think that it's too simplistic to say, hey this might increase time in the near term, therefore it's what you're gonna do because I actually think a deeper look at it, kind of what my incentives are, the incentives of a company that are focused on the long term um is to basically do what people are going to find valuable over time, not what is going to draw people's attention today. The other thing that I would say is that I think a lot of times people look at this from the perspective of media um or or kind of information or civic discourse, but one other way of looking at this, it's just that, okay, I'm a product designer at our company. You know, we we build products and a big part of building a product is not just the function and utility of what you're delivering, but the feeling of how it feels, right? We spend a lot of time talking about um virtual reality and how the the kind of key aspect of that experience is the the feeling of presence, which is, it's a visceral thing, it's not just about the utility that you're delivering, it's about like the sensation and similarly, yeah, I care a lot about how people feel when they use our products and I don't want to build products that make people angry. I mean that's like not I think what we're here on this earth to do is to, you know, build something that, you know, people spend a bunch of time doing and it just kind of makes them angry at other people. I mean, I think that that's that's not good. That's, you know, that's that's not what I think would be um sort of a good use of our time or a good contribution to the world. So, okay, you know, it's like people, they tell us on a per content basis, you know, does this thing, do I like it? Do I love, it doesn't make me angry, doesn't make me sad. And, you know, based on that. I mean, we we choose to basically show content that makes people angry less. Um because, you know, of course, if you're if you're if you're designing a product and you want people to to be able to um to to connect and and and feel good over over a long period of time, then that's um you know, naturally what you're gonna do. So I don't know. I think overall I am, I understand at a high level if you're not thinking too deeply about it why that argument might be appealing. But I just think if you actually look at what our real incentives are, not just like, you know, it is if we were trying to optimize for the next week. Um but like, as people working on this, like why are we here? And I I think it's pretty clear that that's not actually how you would want to design the system. I guess one other thing that I'd say is that, you know, while we're focused on the the ads business model, I do think it's important to note that a lot of these issues are not unique to ads. I mean, so take like a subscription news business model, for example, I think that has, you know, just as many potential pitfalls. Um you know, maybe if someone's paying for a subscription, you don't get paid per piece of content that they look at, but, you know, say for example, I I think like a bunch of the partisanship that we see could potentially be made worse. Bye. You have these these kind of partisan um news organizations that basically sell subscriptions and they're only going to get people on one side to basically subscribe to them. So their incentive is not to um print content or or or produce content that's kind of centrist or down the line either. Um I bet that was a lot of them find is that if they produce stuff that's that's kind of more polarizing or more partisan than um then that is what gets the more subscribers. So I I think that this stuff is all um there's no perfect business model, everything has pitfalls. Um the thing that I think is great about advertising is it makes it's the consumer services free, which if you if you believe that everyone should have a voice and everyone should be able to connect and that's a great thing. Um it as opposed to building a luxury service that not everyone can afford? But look, I mean, every business model, you know, you have to be careful about how you're implementing what you're doing. </s>

<s>[INST] and be in India in, you know, 22 hours is shocking. In terms of its usefulness, I would argue that's not in the top five, but in terms of its ability to inspire. Somebody I forgot who told me this idea that there's something about the atmosphere, earth's atmosphere that allows you to look up and see the stars. Like if we didn't have that, human civilization would not have happened. Meaning like being able to look up and see something out there would fill our, like something that allows you to look up versus just look down. To like first looking at your local environment. Be able to like wander and see, holy shit, there's a big world out there. I don't know anything. If you're able to look up and see that, that kind of humility combined with the ability to dream about exploring. Maybe it just inspires the exploration. It's kind of an interesting thought given how inspiring, for example, the extra upgraded super cool version of flying, which is flying to other planets. I mean, there's going to be, hopefully it's possible. This century, a child born, no, not this century, maybe this century, a child born on another planet that looks up, that looks back at earth. And it has to be educated by his, her parents that like there's another place, there's another place [/INST] where life is way easier. Oh God, it's so easyattering. There's water everywhere. </s><s>[INST] Exactly. Yeah, exactly. People complain about earth, man, [/INST] the earth is really good. It's really, really good here. Water everywhere, anything. I wouldn't even leave, given like right now, like if somebody said, like, oh, you could like, you could go to the moon. I'd be like, no, I'm good. If I died in space, I'd be so pissed. </s><s>[INST] I love it here. Yeah, but you're still, [/INST] there's a longing to explore for you. There's a longing to explore, but I really think I'm such a, like my longing to explore is like rivers, streams, oceans, jungles, like to me, yeah. I would watch the hell out of the live stream of Elon touching down on Mars. Like I'd be like, this is incredible. It's amazing that I get to be around to see this. </s><s>[INST] I'm staying where I'll be right here. Yeah, but it's good that the human spirit pushes us. Oh, it's amazing. That was possible. And it does that for you. What, just the out there questions, what's the most dangerous animal in the Amazon, would you say? Mammal, let's go with mammal. Dangerous mammal. Like dangerous in terms of you walking around, doing the solo hike. [/INST] I'm gonna disappoint everybody with this, but it's humans, it's nothing. There's no, if I'm out in the Amazon, there's nothing that's going to attack me. You know, and in India, you might have an old leopard or a tiger that's missing a tooth that decides your prey, or you might have an angry elephant that's in must that just decides to flatten you. In the Amazon, you're not, there's real, jaguars won't even let you see them. Yeah. And there's really nothing else. One of my friends, a brilliant scientist friend of mine, Pat got attacked by a rabid ocelot once, but that's like a dieseled house cat just having a fit. </s><s>[INST] You know, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Yeah, it's just the assholes of the animal kingdom. Okay, what, in terms of humans, you said that the tribes, some of them, uncontacted can be exceptionally dangerous. What's your experience with them? What should people learn? Because it's such a fascinating part of life here on earth that there's tribes that don't have much or any contact [/INST] with the quote unquote civilized world. Yeah, most of the people that I meet don't actually really understand how isolated these people are or how weird it is that we're sitting here and that we have iPhones and airplanes and all this stuff. And these people are living naked in the forest at this moment. And so the thing though, you know, I also was recently somebody said, somebody said, oh, there's like paleolithic tribes. And it's like, no, no, no, just by default, they're modern tribes living now. They just happen to be living out in the jungle. And there's a huge debate about, you know, do we try and contact them and bring them in? And there's two camps of people on this who they say that it was the trauma of the rubber boom that sent them out that far into the forest and made them terrified of the outside world. And so that's also what made them so hyper violent. I mean, there's one of the guys we work with on our team, Victor was in, I think it was 2004. He's coming down river and he had a load of mahogany wood and he's piloting this boat and he sent two people, husband and wife ahead to go start cooking breakfast on the beach so they could put the little kitchenette thing down and pick, put the propane. He sent them ahead as the, he's going nice and slow with the barge coming down the river. They go ahead, reach the beach, they get out. He starts cutting some cane to start making a fire. Tribe comes out, no warning. They just start screaming, they start shooting arrows. The man instantly gets an arrow through the leg and it pins his leg so he can't run. He tells his wife, go save yourself. And she does, she jumps in the water. There's arrows falling around her too. And as she's floating down the river, she looks back and the last thing she sees is these guys getting to her husband and beginning to rip him apart. As Victor comes down the river, this is a guy we work with every day, he comes down the river and sees his friend disemboweled, opened up, dissected, his parts are all over the beach. The beach is red and they only found out what happened because they found her later on holding onto a stick in the river and they were like, what happened? And she was like, they just attacked. They don't want people on their land. On the sort of the underground WhatsApp chain of the Amazon, they, a few in August, like this was not internationally known some loggers went up and tried to steal a few trees from where the tribes were. And then everybody sent the pictures of what the loggers </s>