All Episodes
Jan. 22, 2025 - The Joe Rogan Experience
03:21:04
Joe Rogan Experience #2260 - Lex Fridman
Participants
Main voices
j
joe rogan
01:43:19
l
lex fridman
01:18:01
Appearances
j
jamie vernon
04:23
j
julie roginsky
03:22
m
michael j knowles
01:52
p
piers morgan
01:04
w
wajahat ali
01:07
Clips
d
dave rubin
00:06
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
joe rogan
So, Jamie, what was your question?
jamie vernon
It was too Lex, but it was really like, because see, I wouldn't know.
joe rogan
Hardcore science question.
unidentified
Yeah.
jamie vernon
Based on physics.
joe rogan
Okay.
jamie vernon
In theory, if you were in space and you maybe ejaculated.
Is it possible that the ejaculate would propel you backwards?
Is there enough power in there to propel you?
lex fridman
There's only one way to find out.
joe rogan
It depends on how long you hold it in for.
If you didn't jerk off for four months, and then you had the mother load.
jamie vernon
You need something to go one way, so you go the other way.
Lex had an answer, but I don't know.
joe rogan
What's the answer?
jamie vernon
He had a thought, I guess.
joe rogan
What if you blow out at the same time?
lex fridman
Yeah, yeah.
I think in space, the biodynamics of the liquids is different.
I think it's actually difficult to have sex in space and to get people pregnant in space.
joe rogan
Has anybody ever gotten pregnant on the space station?
Are they allowed even to have sex?
lex fridman
No, nobody has officially had sex in space.
joe rogan
Officially?
lex fridman
Officially, but unofficially, of course, people have tried.
joe rogan
I wonder if they have.
I mean, how monitored are they?
lex fridman
There is a Wikipedia page.
About sex in space.
And it's actually pretty detailed.
joe rogan
But it's Wikipedia, so you know it's half bullshit.
lex fridman
There's citations.
unidentified
I encourage people to look into it.
lex fridman
Read in detail.
I mean, it's a serious problem.
If you want to...
You know, colonized space, you probably want to have a lot of sex and get pregnant and have kids.
joe rogan
Well, don't you think they'll develop some sort of gravity-generating machines?
lex fridman
Yeah, absolutely.
You have to.
Like, Jeff Bezos talks about this a lot.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
Like, how you create artificial gravity in space.
Because for Jeff Bezos, the likely way to colonize space is to have space stations.
Elon is more focused on colonizing planets, Mars.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
So, both are obviously going to be necessary, and you need to have gravity in order to get laid.
joe rogan
Bro, the first people that make that trip.
lex fridman
Yeah, Jamie was saying he wants to go.
unidentified
I mean, I'm not that trip, but a trip.
joe rogan
You go eventually?
jamie vernon
No, why not?
joe rogan
Oh, dude, why?
What if you die out there?
jamie vernon
Okay, we're going to die.
lex fridman
Everybody dies.
joe rogan
Yeah, but you don't want to die that way, dude.
jamie vernon
If you get to decide one way to die, that's not one of the worst ways.
joe rogan
Oh, it's the worst way.
You're going to die in space, running out of air.
jamie vernon
You don't know how it's going to happen.
It could be on re-entry.
joe rogan
Yeah, you could just cook instantly.
jamie vernon
Could be on the way up.
joe rogan
You get hit by a micrometeorite.
jamie vernon
Could be while you're asleep up there.
joe rogan
Could be.
lex fridman
Imagine standing on Mars, looking back at Earth.
joe rogan
Going, what the fuck did I do?
Why did I do this?
lex fridman
Yeah, and then having kids on Mars.
joe rogan
Oh, those poor kids.
lex fridman
We came from there.
joe rogan
You think homeschooling's bad.
How about space schooling?
lex fridman
Just imagine the crazy shit that happens on Mars.
I mean, it's going to be, what, 100,000 people?
joe rogan
Yeah, and so you're going to get one psycho who's going to run everything, and they're going to take over.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Probably some cult leader.
Convinces everybody to do it his way.
lex fridman
It's gonna be a sex cult, 100%.
joe rogan
100%.
lex fridman
And we're back to sex in space.
joe rogan
Right, they're gonna say, like, listen, if Elon is their man, Elon wants to procreate every chance he can.
How many kids does he have now?
Allegedly.
lex fridman
Double digits.
joe rogan
No, we don't even know how many.
lex fridman
Well...
joe rogan
Because they think he's got secret kids.
lex fridman
They think?
Who's they?
joe rogan
They!
The fucking people that run the world.
lex fridman
Is there a Wikipedia page on this?
joe rogan
There probably is.
He's probably got secret kids.
lex fridman
Secret kids.
joe rogan
Yeah.
When you have, like, what does he have?
Like, $300-plus billion?
lex fridman
That's wrong.
joe rogan
You can have a few ladies here, there, all over the place having kids.
There's a lot of ladies who just want to have kids.
They don't want a guy around.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Especially when they get a little older.
lex fridman
There's a castle in the south of France with, like, a harem.
Just a bunch of kids.
joe rogan
Waiting for them.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Just waiting for Dad to land his rocket ship.
unidentified
Online it officially says at least 12. At least 12 kids.
joe rogan
See, nobody even knows.
Imagine no one knows how many kids you have.
That's kind of crazy.
lex fridman
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's the situation Genghis Khan was in, you know?
joe rogan
Well, he was doing it a little differently.
He was a little bit more forceful.
lex fridman
Actually, I mean, there's a lot of different perspectives on that.
What's the book on Genghis Khan?
So, first of all, there's obviously the Dan Carlin.
Wrath of the Khans, and in that series of podcasts, he criticizes the book Jack...
Weatherford.
jamie vernon
Making of the Modern World.
lex fridman
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.
Genghis Khan and the Mongols and the Making of the Modern World.
joe rogan
Yeah, so that's the...
There it is.
Nice.
That is one of the things that Dan Carlin talks about, that when enough time has passed, that they sort of look at...
These marauders and murderers in a different light and saying, oh, he opened up trade to the east.
Sure.
Also, killed 10% of the population of Earth.
Lit people on fire and launched them on catapults onto thatched roofs.
lex fridman
Well, I think actually Dan Collins makes a really good point.
How long do you wait until...
You know, that you could tell these kinds of stories about Hitler.
I think that's an example he uses.
joe rogan
Yes, that's what he uses.
lex fridman
But, you know, you want to be historically accurate here.
And Genghis Khan, there's a lot of different perspectives, including opening up trade and including what was the protocol based on which he was doing the murdering.
So it was very clear before the invasion, he always said, you can surrender and then we would not murder anybody.
You just have to follow the law.
And the law is very, very sort of clear, and it's basically enforcing a law of the land, so free trade, free practice of religion, and you have to pay taxes instead of to your king, you have to pay taxes to the Mongol Empire.
joe rogan
But did they really say, we won't kill anyone?
lex fridman
Yes, 100%.
They followed that, and this is...
Very well documented.
joe rogan
Really?
lex fridman
Yes.
joe rogan
So everybody could have just laid down and 10% of the world's population wouldn't be dead?
lex fridman
Yes.
unidentified
Really?
lex fridman
So the nuance there is that sometimes they killed the upper classes.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
Well, you know, didn't they kill the royals by, like, crushing them to death?
They'd have lunch over them?
lex fridman
They were...
Listen, this is a different time, but they were brutal.
Oh, yeah.
Because they want to...
They use fear as part of the military tactics, right?
So they want people to be terrified and they want people to talk about how terrifying the Mongol Empire is so that they forfeit more easily.
unidentified
You know, there's a lot of aspects of it.
lex fridman
Not to say that Genghis Khan is a feminist, but there's a lot of progressive aspects.
He put a lot of women in positions of power.
Gave a lot of rights to women.
This is a very strange perspective.
joe rogan
Yeah, but he did a lot of raping.
lex fridman
Nope.
There's not his kids.
joe rogan
What do you mean, nope?
When he would conquer these places, he would take women.
And they would become his new wives.
Yeah, but it wasn't their call.
So that's kind of rapey.
lex fridman
That's very rapey, yeah.
So, but there's a...
joe rogan
If you just fucking take them and make them have your kids.
lex fridman
There's the kind of mass rape that the Soviet soldiers did at the end of World War II when they're marching towards Berlin, which is extremely violent, vicious, and sort of that kind of rape, which is part of the terror of war.
And then there's like creating a harem of women, right?
So it's a different...
I think the main point is that, you know, this is something you talk about, that a large percent of the population, as that one study from like 20 years ago, found are descendants of Genghis Khan.
joe rogan
Huge, yeah.
lex fridman
I think the way to do that is to make everybody who is your descendant popular within the culture.
Like, you can't have that many...
Have your DNA propagate throughout civilization by raping.
You have to have everybody to have a high status for people that are associated with Genghis Khan.
You can't have that kind of thing with fear.
You can only do it with respect and high status.
And he, for several generations, created an empire that was flourishing.
unidentified
Okay, you're kind of whitewashing that.
joe rogan
I mean, they killed a million people in Jin China and turned their bones into a stack, a pile that they recognized as snow-covered mountains from the distance.
That's what they thought it was until they got up on it.
When the Shah of Chorisma came there to check it out, he's like, where is everybody?
They had abandoned the roads because there were so many dead bodies that the roads had deteriorated into muck.
lex fridman
Yeah, let me actually sort of backtrack a little bit here because I'm uncomfortable because I'm deeply involved in the military affairs of modern day.
And so there's a kind of...
I was just kind of having fun.
Yes, there was mass murder that was happening.
It was vicious.
And I'm not a scholar of Genghis Khan.
I was simply saying that it's interesting how history looks at these different empires.
For example, we venerate the Roman Empire.
Not we, but ancient Greece.
And they were equally, if not more, brutal in their conquests and their destruction.
joe rogan
There's never really been a time where there was a leading superpower that wasn't brutal.
lex fridman
It's, I think, become less and less brutal over time.
And people document this.
So war, the number of people, less percent of the population killed is less and less.
joe rogan
But what about Ukraine and Russia?
How many people have died, all told, between the two?
It's got to be close to a million.
lex fridman
It's over a million casualties, which includes death and injuries.
And the estimates vary, but I think a good estimate is over 400,000 total, maybe over 500,000 on both sides.
And the dead on the Ukraine side is probably one-third or one-fourth of the total dead.
joe rogan
Really?
So three quarters of them on the Russian side?
Really?
What do you attribute that to?
lex fridman
I think there's military scholars that understand this really well.
I think, in general, the invading force loses more people than the defending force.
That's one aspect.
Of course, the Ukrainian military will say it's about the effectiveness of the Ukrainian military.
And also one of the other things they say is that the medical capabilities, so the medics are really strong on the Ukrainian side, which is also tragic because you're able to save lives, but you have the injuries, the pain of war, you know, that the veterans have to go through.
So they're able to save lives more effectively also.
But there is a big characteristic of the invading force usually loses more people.
joe rogan
What was it like?
Going over there and interviewing Zelensky.
lex fridman
So I should say I went to Ukraine twice after February 24, 2022, invasion.
And maybe it's good for me to also say where I come from because it's surreal to be there for me.
joe rogan
Sure.
lex fridman
Both my parents are from Ukraine, from Kiev and Kharkiv.
These are towns in Ukraine, cities in Ukraine.
I've been there many times.
I myself was born in Tajikistan, speaking of Genghis Khan.
And I lived there, in Tajikistan.
And by the way, I'm regretting defending Genghis Khan in this conversation for fun.
joe rogan
You didn't really defend.
lex fridman
Yeah, I want to be, sort of say that over and over again.
War is hell.
And I'm almost at tension between how much Roman Empire...
Caesar and these folks are venerated.
And Genghis Khan is seen as this barbarian that was just destroying and raping and so on.
They were all horrible, vicious warmongers.
joe rogan
All of them.
Yeah.
lex fridman
Anyway, Tajikistan and I lived for a time in Kiev and I lived for a time in Moscow.
I have family in Ukraine.
I have family in Russia.
And so, and I should say in World War II. A lot of my family was slaughtered in Babi Yar, which is a ravine in Kiev, where they gather people around, the Nazis, and they just put them in this ravine and just shot them and put another layer of humans, told them to get naked and lay face down and slaughter and slaughter like this.
It's mass graves, mass slaughter.
And my grandfather fought the Nazis.
He's a machine gunner, which he's one of the few that survives, which is the reason I'm here, that they basically tried to hold off the Nazi armada.
And the surreal aspect of all of this is the same land.
I still remember the song 22nd of June.
At 4 a.m., the bombing of Kyiv began.
So this is in 1941, June 22nd.
Just imagine, speaking of Genghis Khan, complete surprise, just the Nazi armada, just coming, Operation Barbarossa, this massive military force invading your land.
It's Kiev, and there's the greatest, the biggest battles of all time were on this land.
The Battle of Kiev, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow.
We're talking about hundreds of thousands, millions of people just slaughtering each other.
And the way Hitler, of course, approached the battle, and so does Stalin, is nobody surrenders.
It's, there's no, it's all in.
Slaughter.
It doesn't matter if it's winter.
It doesn't matter if there's no guns.
It doesn't matter.
It's just victory or death on both sides.
And so it's just brutal war.
So this is the land, right?
And I have, you know, for a lot of people in this land, this history is part of them.
It's part of their blood.
They remember these struggles.
They remember this.
This political, this geopolitical, this military, this social, this is real.
Imagine the United States living maybe a few decades after the Civil War.
You remember.
You have relatives that died.
You remember the real hatred, the real tensions, the real battles.
unidentified
Yeah, it was surreal to be back there.
lex fridman
And to try to do what I was doing, which is to push for peace.
since there's probably a lot to say about this war.
I should say that I interviewed Volodymyr Zelensky and I will be traveling to Russia to interview Vladimir Putin.
And I'm aware of the risks.
I accept the risks.
And the goal, the mission, is to just push for peace, to do my small part in pushing for peace.
And that's what I was trying to do in this conversation.
And it required just a huge amount of preparation.
For people who don't know, maybe I'll lay out where there was opportunities for peace.
So since the beginning of the war, February 24, 2022, I think there was three moments.
To make peace.
From the perspective of Ukraine, you want to make peace from strength.
So when you're in a position of strength.
The first time to make peace was March and April of 2022, when the Ukrainian forces were able to successfully defend the north, defend Kyiv.
There's this huge optimism, this belief that we push back this gigantic Russian military.
That's a place for leverage.
And the confidence both of the U.S. funding, the European militaries, and the Ukrainian military that we can win this.
This is when you make peace, when there is a perception and a reality of strength.
The second time was in the fall of 2022, when there was a successful counteroffensive by the Ukrainian forces that recaptured Kharkiv and Kherson.
This is the south and the east of Ukraine.
And there was this real sense that the Ukrainian forces could defeat the Russian forces.
Huge optimism.
A lot of pressure from the U.S. to make peace then.
This is the strength and perhaps the weakness of Volodymyr Zelensky, who I do think is a historic figure and a great leader, is that he won.
Deeply emotionally feels the suffering of the people and the loss that war creates.
And he single-handedly has to unite the nation and carry the will of a people and the morale of a people.
He has to lift the morale of a people.
And that kind of man struggles to make peace because he wants justice, not peace.
And so from a position of strength there, he wants to go further.
Recapture all of the land that he sees belongs to Ukraine.
But that's exactly when you make peace.
And so his very strength, a man that stayed in Kyiv, that said, you know, fuck you.
We're not going to, we're going to win this.
That kind of man that lifted a whole nation, that united a whole nation, that man has also struggled to make peace.
And so the third time to make peace.
After all of that, the Russian military regrouped and has been capturing land gradually.
So the third time to make peace is now.
The Trump administration, there's a momentum.
They want to make peace.
He's a great dealmaker.
He wants to end wars in all parts of the world.
joe rogan
He's made the deal in Gaza now.
lex fridman
Made the deal in Gaza, and that's a super complicated situation too because they made a ceasefire deal with the hostages.
joe rogan
But isn't it amazing that the Biden administration had two years, couldn't get anything done, and Trump kids had done it a day.
He was saying that he was going to be able to do that, and everybody dismissed it.
lex fridman
Yeah, and I think there's a political battle now, taking credit for who made the ceasefire, which I think is silly.
joe rogan
Of course you can have that.
Biden is the president.
He's still the president for another few days.
lex fridman
The point is, with Donald Trump, there's a real will and a momentum to make peace.
There's a respect, there's a fear, there's, you know, whatever you think about Donald Trump, he is this person that world leaders respect in the full meaning of the word respect.
Not like admire, but fear.
I think both Zelensky and Putin fear Donald Trump.
And that's a great person to then make peace because he has the leverage.
All of them believe, Putin and Zelensky, that Trump can do some crazy shit.
joe rogan
And he probably would, but he doesn't want to.
lex fridman
Right, he doesn't want to.
This is the difference.
joe rogan
That's a very unique position that he's in, where they're afraid of him, but yet he wants peace.
lex fridman
Exactly.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
And so this is the time.
And if you don't make peace now, what's going to happen is the funding from U.S. and the support from U.S. is going to dwindle gradually.
And Putin is willing and able to just wait and to let the war continue for months and for years.
And meanwhile, people are dying every single day.
Thousands of people.
unidentified
What's so horrible about this war, too, is there's GoPro footage.
joe rogan
There's a lot of cell phone footage.
There's a lot of GoPro footage.
I've watched too much of it, unfortunately.
But it's rough, man.
It's a horrible war.
And it's a war that's so confusing over here, especially to the uninitiated, for the people that are just kind of reading the newspaper and getting a sort of a cursory understanding of what happened.
Russia invaded.
Why?
You know, what'd they do?
And then you've got to get into the whole...
U.S.-backed coup in 2014, and then you have to think about NATO and the agreement that was made the fall of, you know, when the wall came down in Berlin, the agreement that NATO would not push forth and move closer to Russia, which they violated over and over and over again.
The whole thing is so complicated that It takes forever just to sort of get an understanding of the pieces that are involved.
Forget about who's responsible for what, but just like how many different things are happening, you know, simultaneously that are forcing Putin's hand, now Zelensky's hand.
And just to be on this side of the world watching it take place, it's almost unbelievable.
It's so hard to believe that Russia and Ukraine, which were both a part of the Soviet Union, Just not that long ago.
Well, during my lifetime, now they're at war.
lex fridman
I should say that I believe...
So how do you handle situations like this?
I believe the US actually gave not enough money to Ukraine.
They should have given more money, hit really hard, and then make peace.
This is the point.
A month or two after the start of the war, you can learn the same kind of lesson with Iraq and Afghanistan.
There's no reason those...
Those invasions, those military operations.
joe rogan
There's no other way.
There's no other way than just give money.
Give money and hit hard.
There's no other way.
What about...
lex fridman
Avoid it.
Avoid it.
joe rogan
Yeah, what about have NATO back out?
lex fridman
Well, a lot of this is about diplomatic rhetoric.
And yes, NATO was consistently talking shit to Putin.
And that's not...
Like, a lot of this is about diplomacy.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
And you can't just...
You can't just pressure with words.
For some people, it seems almost silly that you need to show respect to world leaders.
But there needs to be shown real respect.
Putin has laid out the interest of the Russian Federation.
He said he's been very clear about what the interests are.
They want their security to be respected.
They want their nation to be respected.
He's very clear.
Simply, at the negotiation table, he just needs to be respected.
His perspective needs to be understood and heard.
You can't just say, Putin is evil, bad guy, authoritarian, hates freedom, we need to destroy him.
This whole vibe and energy, this idealistic sense that you bring to the table.
You have to respect leaders.
You have to respect Xi Jinping.
You have to respect Putin when you're at the negotiation table.
Not when you're on Twitter and X or talking shit or historians or activists.
Fine.
You can criticize as much as you want, as vicious as you want.
You can mock.
Artists can mock as much as they want.
Comedians.
It doesn't matter.
When you're a world leader and you come to the table, you have to show respect.
You have to treat other world leaders, as funny as it is to say, the way you want to be treated.
With respect.
joe rogan
It's not funny at all.
Yeah, it makes sense.
If you want to get things done.
lex fridman
If you want to get things done.
And more importantly, if you want in this war for the death to end.
One of the things I kept pushing in an almost childlike way with Zelensky is getting him to open himself up for peace.
Because he kept shutting it down.
He kept mocking Putin.
He kept criticizing Putin.
Which is okay.
It's okay to sort of criticize and say that there's war crimes, that there's real vicious violence and destruction happening.
But along that, there has to be a door open of respect, of I'm willing to come to the table to negotiate and respect the other nation's interests, as opposed to saying I'm only going to talk to the United States.
You have to be open to negotiate.
Unfortunately, this is the motherfucker of peace.
You have to compromise.
You have to sit across the table as a world leader with a person you might fucking hate.
Because unlike Putin, I should say, Zelensky goes to the front.
He talks to the soldiers.
He sees the dead bodies.
He talks to the civilians, the mothers that lost their children, the wives that lost their husband, right?
This person who's an empath, who's an emotional being, he's wearing all that in his mind.
There's a real pain there.
He's tortured, tormented by this.
If you're a leader, you have to put all that aside.
And you have to sit and save your nation by compromising.
That's it.
And that's the hard thing of it.
Especially now there's an opportunity where the Trump figure rolls in who wants to make peace.
You have to use this opportunity.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
And it's tough.
It's very, very tough.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You're putting it mildly.
Very tough.
What do you think Trump can do now?
What could possibly, if Zelensky wants victory, they want revenge, what can Trump do to sort of bring peace to the table?
lex fridman
I think some of these notions sound naive.
But literally meet, which they haven't been meeting.
So meet with Putin, meet with Zelensky.
joe rogan
They haven't been meeting at all?
lex fridman
No.
So Zelensky comes down, they've been meeting with Zelensky, but there is no meeting with Putin.
I think the right thing to do is to go to, whether it's Switzerland or Turkey, Istanbul or Minsk.
The biggest thing for me would be literally the three of them sit together.
I think I trust in Trump's negotiation ability and the carrot and the stick of the United States military and the United States economy for being able to control oil prices, being able to control trade with tariffs, being able to threaten.
Military force and funding and so on, plus sanctions, all of this.
You can roll in with that carrot and stick, implied or made implicit or explicit, and just sit at the table and talk like human beings and show each other respect.
That, you know, is one of the things that actually COVID did.
There's something that happens where remote communication just is not it.
Like, the silly thing about this podcast being in person, right?
There's a real power there.
Everything else is, you know, like fucking with a condom.
Yeah.
You have to show up.
joe rogan
It's more like jerking off with a condom on.
lex fridman
Jerking off with a thing.
joe rogan
It's not even fucking with a condom on.
lex fridman
For the metaphor, yeah.
It's part of the reason I wanted to talk to President Zelensky in Russian, which I speak fluently.
And he speaks fluently.
It's his primary language.
For people who seem to misunderstand this on the internet, he spoke Russian his whole life.
That's his main language.
He speaks with his wife, with his whole staff, with all of this.
This is his language.
It's just that now the Ukrainian language has become a symbol of independence.
So they're fighting for their independence, for their sovereignty.
I understand it, but, you know...
joe rogan
So he spoke with you in Ukrainian?
lex fridman
He kept going back and forth.
But yeah, most of the powerful things were said in Ukrainian.
So I'm listening to an interpreter through a shitty headset.
The interpreter's not, forgive me to the interpreter, but he's not very good.
He's delayed.
There's noise.
joe rogan
God, but wouldn't it make more sense if he spoke to you in a language that you understand?
lex fridman
Yeah, we'd really tried.
But this is a man, once again.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
He's the leader of a nation in a time of war, and he's not stylistically who he is.
Like, he's all in.
This is like a Braveheart-type character.
joe rogan
Playoffs.
We're talking about playoffs?
You bet we are.
Get in on the action with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Scoring touchdowns is key to winning the playoffs, and you can score big by betting on them at DraftKings, the number one place to bet touchdowns.
Ready to place your bet?
Try betting on something simple, like a player to score six.
Go to DraftKings Sportsbook app and make your pick.
New DraftKings customers can bet five bucks.
to get $200 in bonus bets instantly.
Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code ROGAN. That's code ROGAN for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just $5.
Only on DraftKings Sportsbook.
The crown is yours.
unidentified
Gambling problem?
Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
In New York, call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY-467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling.
Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.
Please play responsibly.
On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction.
Void in Ontario.
Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance.
For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio.
joe rogan
Which is so crazy because he started his career as a comedian.
lex fridman
Right.
Right.
I mean, you never know who the leaders are that step up.
I think a lot of people sort of say that it's trivial that he stayed in Kiev when the Russian military invaded.
To me, it's not trivial at all.
I think that's a truly heroic act to stay when you know...
When nobody knows what's going to happen and all the experts are saying Kiev is going to be taken.
To stay as a leader in that same place where you were the night before, like working, and not flee when everybody, the CIA, everybody's telling you to flee.
To stay there like a bad motherfucker and actually go outside and film yourself speaking to the nation that we're going to win this.
We're going to hold strong.
That's an insane thing to do.
And maybe it does require, like, it's a Trump-level insanity, right?
It's similar to me to the Trump standing up when there's still bullets flying and saying, fight, fight, fight.
Where does that come from?
I don't know.
But most people don't have that.
It's nice.
It was refreshing.
It was refreshing when you see that.
Like, holy fuck, yes.
We want that guy.
And he really united a nation.
The nation was fracturing.
He was actually not popular at all up to that war because the policies he was trying were not working.
joe rogan
What policies specifically?
lex fridman
So the stuff that was working, I don't know the internals of the Ukrainian politics that well.
So he won in 2019 based on his desire to fight corruption.
And to modernize the Ukrainian digital system, which he did very successfully.
It's actually super interesting.
They have an app called Dia, where it's your passport.
All your identifications are all appified, which I don't understand why the United States doesn't have that.
You can update your license.
You can get your license instantly.
It's like the 21st century version of what government should work.
The reason they did that is it's a way to fight corruption.
Whenever you have paperwork, there's a place for corruption to seep in.
So he was very serious about fighting corruption.
And that's the other thing is there is corruption in Ukraine.
There's not as much as people perceive, but it's a serious problem.
joe rogan
Is it less now than before?
lex fridman
See, I want to be careful here because I don't...
It's very difficult to know.
The perception, there's a serious concern about corruption.
In a time of war, there's always going to be more corruption.
The United States spent $9 trillion on the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the Middle East.
After 9-11, on that part of the world, they spent $9 trillion and it's growing.
Using all that money, you've had a lot of guests on this program talking about how that money was used.
There's a lot of shady shit that happened.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
lex fridman
War breeds corruption.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
lex fridman
This is one of the reasons you should be concerned about the military-industrial complex is because that money is just not used well.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
But that's all.
That's a discussion.
The reality of corruption in Ukraine is it should be dealt with after you make peace.
All the problems, the elections were suspended to, the ideas of democracy.
There is censorship in Ukraine now.
All of those ideas.
All of those things cannot be fixed until the war has ended.
The reason there is censorship now in Ukraine is because it's a war.
The ideas of democracy, in part, have to be suspended during a war to effectively fight that war.
This is a whole idea of martial law.
The United States has this.
You don't fuck around.
You have to win the war.
When your land is invaded, everybody has to be focused on this.
The problem is it's a slippery slope.
When all the media channels are being controlled and the president and everybody is so invested in, quote-unquote, winning the war, then where are the critical voices that say we need peace?
They're coming from the outside, but you need that.
The thing is...
It's a really complicated tension.
During the war with martial law, you do want to suspend elections, potentially.
It's a really difficult trade-off.
The United States has the same thing.
If we were to be invaded, I don't know by who, this is not Canada.
I don't want to make a joke out of this, but there's going to be a...
A quick fight?
Yeah, exactly.
There would be a martial law where elections would be delayed or suspended and so on.
So all those criticisms, all those concerns can only be dealt with once you make peace.
And in terms of corruption, there's a lot of people that know Zelensky well, and this has been my impression.
Having met him, I don't think he, and I've not heard anybody that knows him well say that he's personally corrupt.
This is really important.
He himself is not personally corrupt, and he legitimately is fighting corruption.
Now, he's in a system that has corruption.
Russia has corruption.
It's really difficult to weed out corruption.
But he legitimately...
At least to me, that's really important that he, as a single human being, and the people really close around him, like really close.
Corruption starts to seep in, of course, when you go further out.
But in that direct human being, he is not personally corrupt.
Financially speaking, he singularly believes in the idea of Ukraine as a sovereign nation, and he's willing to die for that idea.
That is his strength, and that is also his weakness, when it's time to make peace.
joe rogan
When you are preparing to do something like this, and you are, you know, you're doing your research, you're getting ready to go do it, what are your concerns, other than your own physical safety, of course?
But like, what is your...
Like, ultimately, what's your concerns?
What are your goals when you're setting out to do this?
Because this is very different than any other kind of podcast interview.
There's no other format, really, where a world leader in the middle of a huge international conflict is going to sit down for three hours and talk to an American scientist.
Which is weird too, right?
It's like, why are you doing it?
You know what I mean?
This guy who works in AI just decides he's going to start a podcast.
The podcast becomes very successful.
And all of a sudden he's like, I'd like to talk to everybody.
I'd like to go over and talk to Zelensky and talk to Putin.
And everybody's like, why you?
What the fuck are you doing?
So you get a lot of that, and then unfortunately for you, you read the comments, so you get sucked into all that negativity.
lex fridman
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to say there.
First of all, on the comments side, I always have a little Joe Rogan on my shoulder saying, don't read the comments.
joe rogan
Don't read the comments.
lex fridman
And in this situation, it's especially intense.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
I should say, like, privately, after I did a conversation with Zelensky, every single person that knows the situation well knows me personally.
Has written to me and it's all been really positive.
Like really positive.
Almost like in the desert wanting water positive.
Because there's a lot of voices that are afraid to speak that want peace.
joe rogan
Sure.
lex fridman
But online, and this is something we talked about online a little bit, there's just like these like swarms of people that are like...
joe rogan
Not even necessarily people.
lex fridman
That's, I... I don't want to sort of go too far in that territory assuming that anybody who criticized me is a bot.
joe rogan
No, no.
I'm not saying that.
But there's an enormous element of that that's real.
Whether it's bots or whether it's hired people, paid propagandists, the conversation is not a pure conversation between people expressing their ideas.
There's a lot of propaganda online and it's very confusing to try to discern what the percentage is.
You know, we've talked about this a bunch of times on the podcast, but there was a former FBI analyst who estimated that it's on Twitter alone.
This is before the purchase.
He believed it was around 80%.
So 80% fake accounts.
80% not just propaganda, like government propaganda, but most certainly corporations are hiring people to do similar things.
I'm sure there's companies that will do that for public figures, actors, people that are involved in conflict.
This is part of the Blake Lively dispute.
She's accusing that Justin Baldoni actor of an organized attack on her, which is probably what it feels like anyway when you're involved in something on social media, like, oh my god, this is organized, or they're attacking you.
But it's a very confusing landscape.
Ideally, what we would want with social media is...
Different people, informed and uninformed, but at least expressing their ideas on things and exchanging information back and forth and talking.
It's not the whole story, though.
There's a lot of other players involved that are not real.
There's AI, for sure.
There's definitely large language models that are involved in this back and forth with...
You know, automation and, you know, they look out for certain code words and these accounts attack certain ideas.
So it's hard to know, like, what the actual will of the people is.
lex fridman
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely true.
And I've seen a lot of evidence of this, that there's Ukrainian bot farms and Russian bot farms.
joe rogan
Have you spoke to Elon about this?
lex fridman
About bot farms?
joe rogan
Yeah, because he knows a lot more now, of course, right?
Because there was the big concern when he was buying Twitter.
They were trying to say that it was 5%.
It was only 5% bots.
And they were doing that on an extremely low sample size.
They were doing it off of 100 people.
So they got 100 people.
And out of those 100 people, five of them, they determined were bots.
And so they went with 5%, which is just ridiculous.
You're dealing with how many people are on Twitter every day.
What's the total Twitter audience?
It's not as big as Facebook, right?
Facebook is 3.2 billion worldwide, which is unbelievable.
lex fridman
I think X has a smaller number, but very influential and very active, yeah.
joe rogan
Very active, very influential.
245 daily active.
What is the total amount of accounts on it, though?
Because, you know, there's daily active, and then there's just people that just read them.
There's a lot of people that just read.
541.56 million monthly active users.
So, again, that's active users.
So, total users.
What's the total users?
See, it's all active.
I want to know it counts.
jamie vernon
That's the only...
I don't...
unidentified
They delete counts all the time.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah, they definitely do.
So they must have some sort of a system where they weed out bots.
There's a lot of concern right now on Twitter about censorship.
I try to stay out of Twitter as much as I can, honestly, because I think it's bad for your mental health.
I really do.
I think people just...
Barking at each other all day is not good to absorb.
I want to absorb real people that I interact with.
I mean, I try to pay attention to the news.
I try to pay attention to whatever controversial ideas are out there and try to see what I think.
But I don't think it's good to dive in to social media all day.
I think it's uniquely bad.
And I think so many people are involved in it, and they don't realize that they're poisoning their brain, just like they would poison their body if they were eating junk food all day.
I think it's genuinely bad for you.
lex fridman
Yeah, I mean, and you and I, and also in a particular, you know, doing a podcast, and we're also very different human beings.
I would say your psychological fortitude is pretty strong.
And I'm more...
I wear my heart on my sleeve maybe a little bit more, and what if I, like, shit gets to me.
And, you know, when you try to put compassion out there in the world in the way I did, especially with this conversation with Zelensky, the attacks, like...
joe rogan
You just have to recognize who the kind of people that are doing that are.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know, those are just really weak people.
Really weak...
Psychologically damaged, mentally ill people that are probably medicated.
lex fridman
To push back, I think some of them are actually good, sophisticated people.
They're just acting not their best selves.
I've seen this.
There's people that are like, I know them personally, and online, the worst shit comes out of them.
joe rogan
Well, because they're mentally ill.
lex fridman
But then all of us are a bit mentally ill.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, we're all a little mentally ill.
Like, no one is enlightened that I've met.
I've never met one person who's perfect, right?
I don't think it's possible with this journey that we're on as these meat vehicles, these soul-carrying meat vehicles navigating a very confusing world.
I don't think it's possible to be perfect.
You can have a desire to be a good person, and some people don't have that.
And the excuse that they always use is...
I mean, this is the Donald Trump excuse.
You do anything you can to stop Hitler, you know?
Right?
And this is why they want to conflate, and they always want to...
Pretend that everyone's Hitler.
The problem with that is that just after a while, it's crying wolf and people like, oh, this is a bullshit game you're playing and you're just using it as an excuse.
Elon's talked about this a lot about, and he's absolutely correct, is that people use woke ideology as an excuse to be an asshole.
And it's really just people that are assholes that are attaching themselves to things that make them feel righteous.
To give them virtue and to allow them to say the most awful things about other people that have different perspectives and then just by nature, if you're doing that, you're doing the wrong thing.
You're a bad person.
You can justify it all you want.
You can find people that agree with you all you want.
But those people are also on the wrong track.
The people that are listening to you and agreeing with you, they're on the wrong track.
They're the wrong track if we want to be collectively a kind, compassionate, cohesive society, a community of human beings that all live together.
That's totally possible.
If you can do it in small groups of people, you can do it in enormous groups of people.
It just has to be an ethic that gets promoted.
It has to be something that you see people that you admire adhere to, and you do it as well.
Whenever someone goes outside of that, and whenever someone starts making horrific, unfounded personal attacks because someone has a different political ideology or...
You know, just going after them every day, all day long.
Like, you're just broken.
You're on the wrong path, period.
And intelligent, aware people that have control of their emotions recognize that, and they're not going to take your perspective seriously.
So you're going to be less and less effective with what you do.
lex fridman
And in general, the failure mode is to paint the world, to draw a line between good and evil.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
Whether it's the line in geography, Russians, Putin is evil.
Or if it's Trump, Trump is evil.
Right.
The version of that is Hitler.
So I'm a big proponent of Solzhenitsyn's famous, the author of Gulag Archipelago, that the line between good and evil runs to the heart of every man, that all of us have that in us.
Yes.
It is good to be humbled by that reality.
And if you are humbled by that reality, then you're not going to see any other people as purely evil or purely good.
All of that kind of thing is used to just hate others.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah.
And even when it's unfounded.
You know, even like I'm watching the Pete Hegseth, the confirmation hearings, and they...
These ignorant people are going after his tattoo, not even knowing what the tattoo is, and trying to pretend that it's some sort of radical, hateful tattoo when it's just an ancient Christian tattoo.
It's so strange.
I mean, that tattoo's in churches.
That symbol's in churches.
That symbol's been around for a long fucking time.
It's just a Christian tattoo.
And I was watching the Piers Morgan show and Piers Morgan had Michael Knowles and these two super wack and Dave Rubin and two super wacky leftist people that didn't know what the tattoo was and they were criticizing it and Piers Morgan kept asking, what is the tattoo?
What is it?
Tell me what it is.
And the guy would go, you're not answering the question.
Go back to it.
What is it?
Well, let's look it up.
He's like, no, no, no, no.
Don't look it up.
I want you to tell me if you're saying it's offensive.
And so then the woman chimes in and Michael Knowles just clowns her, just absolutely knows the history of the tattoo, including like, you know, she's talking about it before it existed before Islam, you know, and she's criticizing what it is.
And he's like, do you understand that?
Islam didn't exist when this tattoo, when this symbol existed.
Like, it's not an anti-Muslim symbol because there was no Muslims when this symbol was created.
Like, this is bonkers.
And they're all in, digging their heels in, pretending, just trying to win this conversation.
Just trying to win.
And Pierce Morgan's doing that.
He's like the Jerry Springer of political ideology now.
He just has people get on the show and yell at each other.
It's very entertaining, and he gets great soundbites out of it.
It's kind of genius in terms of an engagement perspective.
If you looked at your show as just like, how do I get more engagement?
Well, that's how you do it.
You get some wacky leftists going to say nutty things.
You get some right-wing person that's going to say nutty.
lex fridman
I wish he did less of that.
I should say that Piers Morgan, I think, is a great interviewer.
Like, he's legit a great interviewer, but he also has...
He can put on his Jerry Springer hat on, too.
joe rogan
He's making money.
Listen, I mean...
lex fridman
I mean, he does both.
He does do long-form great interviews.
joe rogan
He's found his lane.
lex fridman
All right.
joe rogan
His name is Jerry Springer.
But he's doing a good job exposing these people.
It's very valuable.
Like, that conversation was very valuable for me.
Because, like, this is adorable.
Watching this guy, like, flounder around trying to come up with a reason why this tattoo is so offensive.
lex fridman
Yeah, but see, what I don't like about that is that guy is floundering, but there could be actually facets to that person outside of this ridiculousness.
That's interesting.
joe rogan
Right, so you've got to cleanse that from your mind, son.
unidentified
They do.
joe rogan
If you want to be the guy who's on television talking about important issues, and you've got this stupid thing in your head where you're arguing about a tattoo that you don't even understand, you've got to cleanse that stupidity out of your fucking mind.
Sometimes the best way to do that is to get clowned on television.
So you got exposed, she got exposed, they both look like morons, and then Michael Nolas, who...
Did a fantastic job of like smiling, never raising his voice, calmly explaining it.
Have you seen it?
lex fridman
No, I haven't.
joe rogan
See if you can find it, Jamie.
It's pretty wonderful.
Michael Knowles is a pro.
He's a pro.
The way he handled it was remarkable.
I know people criticize that guy, but fucking people criticize everybody.
I'm just saying, in this moment...
lex fridman
Don't read the comments, Joe.
joe rogan
Yeah, don't read the comments.
Yeah.
Yeah, even about other people, right?
lex fridman
Well, that's the thing.
I think you said that you sometimes read comments from friends of yours.
joe rogan
Yeah, I don't even like doing that.
I try not to do that, too.
lex fridman
This is the thing that bothers me about comments, is I don't read them, but, like, I don't know, my mom will read them, and she'll text me something like, don't listen to what people say.
unidentified
It's okay.
joe rogan
My mom will send me things.
Is this true?
I'm like, Mom, come on.
Yeah, this is it.
This is wonderful.
Watch this.
The two people on the far right of the screen, the lady in the pink jacket and the dude with the beard, they're fucked.
They got cooked.
michael j knowles
You could accuse Pete of as being too alert and energetic.
I found it overwhelming, actually, while I was there, tired, trying to dust the sand out of my eyes.
But you suggest that the graduate of Princeton and Harvard, who for decades has been in the U.S. military, served his country honorably, that he's somehow unqualified to work at the Pentagon.
The most egregious accusation you make against him, though, is that he's an extremist because he has a tattoo.
unidentified
Could you tell us what the tattoo is?
wajahat ali
The tattoos, specifically, I did not make the allegation that he's an extremist.
It was actually his fellow colleague who called him as an insider threat.
michael j knowles
Yeah, right.
unidentified
So what's the tattoo?
It was not me.
julie roginsky
I can tell you.
wajahat ali
It was his fellow.
piers morgan
Hang on, let me try and answer.
unidentified
Because he, would you raise the, hang on, would you raise the tattoo?
wajahat ali
Go ahead.
It's a fair question.
piers morgan
What is this tattoo that you're saying about?
wajahat ali
I mentioned the facts.
piers morgan
It was his colleague.
unidentified
Wait, wait, wait.
piers morgan
Two things.
Simple question.
What is this tattoo that you're so upset about?
wajahat ali
I wasn't the one upset about it.
I was talking about his fellow colleague.
This is exactly what I said.
His fellow colleague.
piers morgan
Do you know what it was?
wajahat ali
In the U.S. Army, called him out as a potential insider threat looking at the tattoos on his chest.
piers morgan
What is the tattoo?
wajahat ali
And also, I called him an extremist based upon his own book.
unidentified
Read the book, American Crusade.
piers morgan
What is the tattoo?
wajahat ali
His own words.
piers morgan
If you don't know what the tattoo is, just admit it.
wajahat ali
Oh, my Lord.
piers morgan
Let the lady talk.
wajahat ali
When the lady talks, it's even more brutal.
lex fridman
It's genuinely painful.
joe rogan
A woman hasn't spoken yet.
A woman hasn't spoken yet.
Let her speak.
unidentified
A woman hasn't spoken yet.
jamie vernon
I did hear him answer it, but they were all talking over each other.
joe rogan
Did I say the words?
jamie vernon
Yeah, they weren't talking about the cross.
They're talking about a different tattoo.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, she is talking about that as well.
But it'll go on to that.
piers morgan
Do you actually know what that tattoo is or not?
wajahat ali
Listen, what I do know is I read his book.
Do you?
Do you know or not?
American Crusade.
In his book.
Wait a second.
piers morgan
Be honest.
Be honest.
wajahat ali
I am.
lex fridman
Look, this is Jerry Springer.
unidentified
No one's going to crucify you if you don't know the answer.
piers morgan
But do you know the answer?
wajahat ali
Putting our national security at risk for Pete Hexen.
I am telling you everything and you guys are finding ways to spend.
unidentified
Why are you guys okay with a man who has an NDA with a woman that he allegedly sexually assaulted?
Do you know what the tattoo is that you got so upset about?
joe rogan
No, it goes further.
See if you can find where the woman's speaking because it gets even more brutal because she's incorrect.
And Michael Knowles corrects her.
And when he corrects her, it's fucking great.
lex fridman
It's a good way to expose.
joe rogan
See if you can find the other one, Jamie.
lex fridman
Very narrow.
unidentified
I'm a change agent.
jamie vernon
That's going to be in here.
I missed the whole show.
It's an hour-long show.
We're all talking the entire time.
joe rogan
Click right there.
I'll know where it is.
piers morgan
What is the answer?
wajahat ali
This falls along a threat as an insider threat.
piers morgan
I'm going back to Michael.
unidentified
You had 98 chances to answer and you failed the test.
wajahat ali
Sorry.
piers morgan
I'm going to Michael.
I'm going to Michael.
Don't talk over each other.
michael j knowles
Michael.
The tattoo in question is called a Jerusalem cross.
This is a medieval Christian symbol that goes back a long time.
In fact, at Jimmy Carter's funeral, there was a Jerusalem cross on the floor of the cathedral and on the program for the funeral.
There's one other tattoo that some have suggested could be extremist.
It's the phrase deus volt, which is a medieval Christian slogan, a long traditional slogan that refers to God's will, and it goes back a long way.
These are very traditional, very mainstream Christian symbols that not only are not extreme in any way, but which even the people who want to accuse him of extremism couldn't possibly name.
That is pathetic.
piers morgan
All right.
wajahat ali
His insider guardsman did it, which is what I said, and also I said that he called himself too extreme for the U.S. military in his book.
That's pathetic.
Is Pete Hexteth lying that he's too extreme in his book?
piers morgan
Let me go to Julie.
michael j knowles
He's too extreme for radical leftists.
piers morgan
Let me go to Julie.
wajahat ali
Is he lying?
piers morgan
Be gentlemanly, please.
We have a lady who's not spoken.
Julie, be waiting very patiently.
Your view of this?
I'll tell you what, before you answer, I know you said in your sub stack about this, under normal circumstances, he, Pete Hexteth, would be precluded from serving...
In any leadership role.
So explain why you said that.
julie roginsky
Well, let me...
I will explain in one second.
Let me go back to something that was said in the very beginning, that he spent more than 10 years at Fox News, and that's what qualifies him to be in this position that he wants to be in.
I spent more than 10 years at Fox News.
I don't think I'm qualified to run the DoD whatsoever based on my time at Fox News.
I didn't see that's what makes him.
unidentified
I said that was one of the things.
julie roginsky
If you...
Well, I don't think that's even a remote qualification.
That's one.
dave rubin
Being able to communicate ideas as the Secretary of Defense and explain policy is actually a very big part of the job.
julie roginsky
There are plenty of qualified Republicans out there who can run the DoD who also are good on television.
It does not need to be Pete Hexeth.
wajahat ali
Secondly...
julie roginsky
Again, you talked about NDAs.
I am bound by an NDA at Fox News.
If I were not bound by an NDA and if Fox News wanted to release me from that NDA, I could tell you about my time with Pete Hexeth.
Unfortunately, that's not possible.
But I will say that the reason that there are so many people who anonymously came forward at Fox News is that because they're also bound by confidentiality provisions, which one-third of all American workers need to sign on their first day of work.
And if they were to go public, they could get sued.
The reason this accuser is not heard from is because, according to The New Yorker, She tried desperately to meet with Joni Ernst on the committee, and Joni Ernst turned her down.
So the reason that she has not been able to come out publicly is because she has an NDA, and even privately, she could not meet with a senator on this committee who is also a rape survivor to share her story, because that rape survivor did not want to hear from a woman who was going to put her potentially in a position to vote against Pete Hexeth.
Peter Hexeth has written himself while at Princeton saying that women who are passed out, if you have sex with them while they're unconscious, that's not really rape.
Right?
Now, the American military...
Is that written somewhere?
joe rogan
I don't know.
lex fridman
It doesn't sound true, but yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's hard to say, but scoot ahead to where they start discussing the tattoo.
It's in the same flow.
It's not that far away.
lex fridman
This is definitely not a good format, though.
joe rogan
No.
Well, at least they're letting her talk.
julie roginsky
You can just go have your way with them.
lex fridman
Not really.
julie roginsky
So I don't know which soldiers you've been talking to who think Pete Hexeth is a great thing for the military.
There's not one woman out there who cares about being assaulted on deployment, who thinks that this is the person that needs to be in charge of the United States military.
And as for the cross that you talked about, yes, Deus Vult, which is the cross that he has, and the slogan that he has, is an old Christian cross.
The phrase, excuse me, the phrase.
The phrase, however, was uttered by Crusaders as they were slaughtering Jews and Muslims during the Second Crusade specifically.
So it's not just a random cross.
It's not just a random phrase.
michael j knowles
It's not true.
The phrase was uttered after the Council of Claremont when Pope Urban II declared the Crusade.
It was actually probably Dieu le Voule, but it's been rendered in Latin as Deus Volta.
It has nothing to do with slaughtering Jews.
It has nothing to do with slaughtering Muslims because the Muslims had invaded Europe, not the other way around.
julie roginsky
Oh, my God.
Are you really saying that the reason the crusade, which was sent to the Holy Land to liberate the Holy Land, from whom?
From Jews and Muslims.
The crusade began because the Eastern...
michael j knowles
I'll tell you why the Crusade began.
Because the Eastern Emperor asked for help from the Western Pope because the Seljuk Turks were slaughtering Christians in the Holy Land.
Because those lands were Christian before the Muslims invaded in the 7th century.
So, that's why.
julie roginsky
No, no, no.
wajahat ali
Those Crusades...
julie roginsky
Listen, those lands...
unidentified
I'm sorry.
julie roginsky
Those lands...
No, no.
joe rogan
Keep going.
julie roginsky
Those lands became Christian after the first crusade, okay?
So let's be very clear.
unidentified
The lands were Christian in the first and second centuries, and then the Muslims...
michael j knowles
Islam didn't exist before the 7th century.
What are you talking about?
julie roginsky
Okay, I could...
Listen, listen.
I can go all day if you want to talk about the crusades, but the point is...
I can't say it.
unidentified
But what that has to do with...
julie roginsky
What that has to do with Pete Hegseth is it's not that he has a random cross.
That talks about his faith in Jesus Christ.
He used a very specific terminology.
But putting all of that aside...
michael j knowles
A phrase that was first uttered to defend persecuted Christians in the Middle East, just like they're being persecuted today.
julie roginsky
Okay.
wajahat ali
And that's who you want as a Secretary of Defense.
Wonderful.
julie roginsky
If you want to talk about the Crusades...
piers morgan
Julie, finish your point, and I'll go to Dave to respond.
julie roginsky
My point is that I cannot even...
I cannot even believe that something the Vatican apologized for is something you're defending, which is the slaughter of Jews and Muslims during the Crusades.
michael j knowles
What did the Vatican apologize for?
julie roginsky
Excuse me, the Vatican said the Crusades...
michael j knowles
What are you talking about?
julie roginsky
Oh, my Jesus.
You know what?
Why don't you give me a call after this, and I will walk you through exactly what the Vatican apologized for when it came to the treatment of Muslims during the Crusades.
unidentified
Time out.
julie roginsky
Time out.
piers morgan
We'll do a separate Crusades debate another time.
Let me bring Dave Rubin in.
joe rogan
The worst way to have conversations.
lex fridman
I mean, I'm getting a headache from this.
Fuck these people.
Fuck that whole...
I'm sorry.
You can't talk like this.
Each of those individual people, I'm not sure about the second guy, even the woman, would be a fascinating four or five hour conversation.
joe rogan
You should probably have her on.
lex fridman
Her and Mackinoles and Piers Morgan, yes.
This is not the right...
I'm so exhausted of this fucking bullshit.
joe rogan
I know.
lex fridman
I can't.
I'm like angry right now.
piers morgan
Yeah, I know.
joe rogan
I want to play more for you.
Published a column saying sex with unconscious women is...
Jesus.
Imagine not just thinking that, but publishing it?
jamie vernon
Yeah, I mean...
joe rogan
What did he actually say?
jamie vernon
If you want to read it, we can read it.
lex fridman
Well, rape in quotes.
Intercourse.
joe rogan
Bemusing yet mandatory orientation program revolved entirely around whether in an instance of sexual intercourse constituted rape, the actual instance portrayed in the skit was in fact...
Oh, it was a skit?
In fact, not a clear case of rape, at least not in my home state.
So this is Hexis saying this.
In short, though intercourse was not consented to, there was no duress because the girl drank herself into unconsciousness.
Both criteria must be satisfied for rape.
Unfortunately, the panelists never cited any legal definition of rape.
Yet the panel, all females in the session I attended, claimed that rape it was.
Huh.
What year was this?
So are they talking about, this is what's confusing, are they talking, it says a skit, and then it says they're talking about a legal definition of rape?
Has the legal definition changed over the years?
Like, when was this?
Is he talking about a legal definition or is he talking about his own opinion?
Right, there's a giant difference between the two of them, right?
Especially if you take it something out of context, you don't know if he elaborated.
Article for his college newspaper saying that having sex with unconscious women isn't rape because the criteria for rape isn't met.
So this is in his college newspaper.
So how old is he?
Is he like 50?
How old is Pete Hegseth?
lex fridman
Yeah, he's up there, right?
joe rogan
Which is really weird to think that...
jamie vernon
44. College would have been around 2000-ish.
joe rogan
Well, yeah.
I remember in...
2000-ish, I remember when we were doing the podcast, there was a brief moment of time where people were talking about if a man had sex with a woman and they had both been drinking, that it was rape.
That the woman could not consent because she was drunk.
But the man's drunk too.
So it gets weird.
We understand traditionally men are pursuing women.
And that plying someone with alcohol is...
A famous thing that people do.
It's kind of a weird legal thing.
Come on, one more drink, have another drink, have another drink.
And we all know that when people get drunk, they do stupid shit.
But we don't know what happened if you're both drunk.
You know, so this is what I'm getting at is that 2000, these conversations are already being had.
The question is like, is he saying this from his personal perspective?
Or is he saying it from a legal perspective?
I don't know what else was in the text.
You know, I'm trying to be as charitable as possible.
Because if, like, Moore was in the, like, that's a reprehensible act, that's, like, did he say anything like that?
Or was it just specifically talking about the legal definition?
Because he said in his state, right?
jamie vernon
Also, it says, to be clear, he did not write it himself.
He published it.
joe rogan
Oh.
jamie vernon
That's what this says.
In short, like I said, did not publish.
I'll put it up on screen.
He did not, or did publish such a column while he held the role of publisher.
joe rogan
He did not write it himself.
jamie vernon
He did not write it.
It was written by someone else.
joe rogan
Okay, so he just published someone's opinions.
Okay, that's very different.
That's very, very, very different.
She said he said that.
That's not what he said at all.
See, that right there...
lex fridman
I'm just so exhausted.
joe rogan
That's exhausting.
lex fridman
Both, like, with the thing about Trump, with both sides...
joe rogan
But that right there is crazy, because my opinion of him shifted briefly when I was...
You know, I was watching Daniel Negreanu, you know, the great poker player, was on Tim Pool's show.
And they were talking about his shift in political ideologies, and then a lot of it came from...
When they were accusing Trump of saying that thing that Obama repeated falsely during the campaign was that he was talking about white nationalists and neo-Nazis and saying there's very fine people on both sides.
And Negrano had heard that.
He had heard the clip where Trump said it, where it was edited.
He had never seen the full thing.
And then once he saw the full thing, he was like, what the fuck?
And it immediately made him realize, oh, my God, they're lying.
They're lying.
And then he talked about how Obama repeated.
This is years after Daniel had known it was false.
Obama repeating it at the campaign speeches.
And then Obama's sitting right next to Trump and they're joking around with each other.
Hey, pal, I know you're a neo-Nazi lover.
You fucking rascal.
I had you win.
But just what that lady did on that show, and then when we find out that Hegseth didn't actually write that, he just published it.
You know, and he published it in college as a 20-year-old or whatever he was.
lex fridman
I think there should be also room for that lady to then change her mind and apologize.
joe rogan
Yes.
lex fridman
Because a lot of us parrot, including probably you and I. Never.
Yeah.
joe rogan
How dare you?
lex fridman
Parrot bullshit we see online.
joe rogan
Yeah, of course.
lex fridman
And then we should give each other room to like say, I fucked up.
joe rogan
But people don't want to say that.
This is what they have to understand.
Even people I don't like, listen to me.
There's strength in that.
It's better than digging your heels in.
There's strength in saying, I was uninformed or I was misinformed.
I fucked up.
I've said it before.
It's important to do.
You've got to do it.
Because you can't have an erroneous idea in your head and repeat it over and over again.
You can't have an incorrect, false opinion that you have defended and now you can't ever accept, even with new information that shows that it's not true.
lex fridman
I should also say, because it's fucking sitting in my head, on this topic.
I'm probably going to do like a five plus hour interview with Jack Weatherford on Genghis Khan.
And I read his book.
joe rogan
All right.
lex fridman
And I don't, I'm not proud of the way I formulated my, for the fuck of it.
joe rogan
In the beginning of it?
lex fridman
In the beginning.
I'm still bothered by the looseness with which I talked about rape.
There is, and I don't think I have.
In me, the eloquence or the skill to improve on that.
I think, in general, it's trying to find the right words to describe the historically accurate thing, the data that we have, and then the narratives.
I think the point Jack Weatherford makes is that we keep oscillating back and forth on Genghis Khan.
He's one, like, this epic...
Great conqueror, like, currently, Alexander the Great has that good vibes all around him.
Nobody talks about him as a horrible human.
joe rogan
Horrible human.
lex fridman
Yeah, but currently, Genghis Khan has this kind of barbarian, evil, just rapist.
joe rogan
Well, they're just so good at it.
They were so good at murder.
They were so good at war.
I mean, they're so uniquely good at military strategy.
lex fridman
So, it's about...
He always kept the army to about 100,000.
It's small.
So it's 100,000 horses.
Each soldier had five horses, so four spare horses with him.
So imagine it's 500,000 horses.
joe rogan
Which they used their blood to fuel them.
lex fridman
Yeah, they would.
joe rogan
They used that for food.
lex fridman
So it's very portable.
They're not bringing, logistically, the whole, I mean, just imagine this armada moving at like, they can move like 50 miles a day.
This entire army, and they don't have to follow the roads, which all the military would follow the roads.
So you can go around, you can surround, you can...
And they did the, as you know, they can retreat, feign retreat, and then attack from the sides.
It's the blitzkrieg that's the...
joe rogan
Genius stuff.
lex fridman
And a lot of people, including Dan Carlin, say it's the greatest military in history.
It would defeat every single military, including Napoleon.
With the muskets and everything.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
They would destroy Napoleon.
And then, of course, in the 20th century.
joe rogan
You know who they didn't defeat?
Samurais.
lex fridman
Right.
But they never really fought.
joe rogan
They did.
lex fridman
Twice they fought, but it's not a real battle.
joe rogan
These guys are fucking crazy.
They thought they were crazy.
These guys were like practicing their whole lives for one-on-one combat with swords.
lex fridman
As far as I know, they never really had a full-on battle.
I wish they did.
joe rogan
There were some battles.
There was battles on an island, one of the islands outside of Japan.
But the Japanese successfully held off the Mongols.
And they were like one of the only civilizations to ever pull that off.
lex fridman
I think one of the issues with Mongols, except Kublai Khan, Is they were not good with water.
They didn't know how to...
The ship thing was not...
unidentified
Oh.
joe rogan
What a big mistake.
lex fridman
Well, they...
joe rogan
Imagine if they got as good with water as they were with horses.
That would have been a real problem.
lex fridman
Well, a lot of things they had advantage on.
Like, for example, they can ride on ice.
And so...
joe rogan
How'd they do that?
unidentified
They...
lex fridman
In Mongolia, they...
These people, like...
joe rogan
Did they have different horseshoes?
Did they even shoe their horses back then?
lex fridman
No, I don't think so.
unidentified
Really?
lex fridman
No, no, no.
It's all...
Like, they don't have...
joe rogan
When do they start shoeing horses?
lex fridman
That's a good question.
But that doesn't feel like a Mongol thing.
I mean, people can ride...
The mounted archery.
I'm sure you know about this.
joe rogan
The mounted archery is so insane.
They had the ability to hang off the side of the horse so they would shoot from under the horse's neck.
So they were completely defended by the horse and they were shooting arrows.
And their bows were 160 pounds.
So you had to be insane.
They said that a lot of the skeletons they find from that era, their bones are deformed.
Because your whole body has just been pulling a hundred and sixty pounds with your right arm or your left arm like your whole life so your right side is like Insanely muscled and your bones are all twisted and thicker and denser tendons and everything because they've been doing that since they were children They were an insanely formidable army Insanely formidable.
But here's something to take into consideration when we're saying about how Genghis Khan's genes were spread.
Just right off the bat, it's all awful.
All horrible.
I wish no one ever got killed by anybody ever.
It's all awful.
All war is hell.
All of it.
All is hell.
There was so much of it going on throughout human history that women There was a survival mechanism in accepting this conqueror as your new husband when he slaughtered your husband.
It's the only way your genes passed on.
So these women were able, even if they said they fell in love with him, even if they did marry him, even if they were happy to marry him, there was...
Like almost an evolutionary requirement because we slaughtered each other so much that if you wanted your genes to pass on, you had to accept the slaughter of your former mate.
lex fridman
And then in modern day society, we would call that rape.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
But you have to use different words for that time because there is rape where it's like violent.
joe rogan
Rape as part of war as part of a mechanism of terror I think even as just part of society up until like a few thousand years ago or even a few hundred years ago, I think human beings you know like I've had a bunch of friends who've served overseas and the stories they tell from Afghanistan especially with the child raping fucking bone curdling like you blood curdling You just want to leave the room when
they're talking.
You don't even want to hear this.
You don't want to think that this is happening.
And it's happening right now.
Because it's an old culture.
It's an old culture.
And it's separate from the rest of the world.
It's very remote.
Very difficult to access.
You have warlords and herders who are living in these nomadic tribes to this day.
Not much different than when Alexander the Great conquered it.
lex fridman
So I should say that Jenkins Kahn, from everything I understand, Was not progressive, but he was very pragmatic.
This is why he...
joe rogan
Allowed all religions.
lex fridman
All religions, which is Thomas Jefferson, I should say, deeply admired Genghis Khan for this, the freedom of religion.
And he didn't just say freedom of religion.
It's freedom of an individual to practice any religion they want, which is a...
It's like individualism.
It's a really revolutionary, badass idea for that time, for that place.
joe rogan
Well, he recognized strength, and the value of accepting strength, and there's strength in unity, there's strength in community.
If people can worship whatever they want, but all be united under one banner, it's better than dividing everybody.
lex fridman
And the feminist thing that I mentioned, he would put women in power.
Why?
Is he a feminist?
No, he understood that women are able to...
Men conquer better, in his perspective, and women rule better, because they keep a stable society.
So he would marry a woman to the king of the place, and then send the king off to fight, the ruler to fight, knowing for sure he's going to die.
But the woman is now ruling.
And then there's a lot of like...
Progressive things about, like, they were allowed to show their face, especially in the Persian lands where they conquered.
Like, they're allowed to wear these fancy headdresses, which is, you know...
joe rogan
Take a floss a little.
unidentified
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Six got excited about that.
lex fridman
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
New rules.
lex fridman
And the other thing, you know, on the...
The tricky thing is the Mongolian tribes, where Genghis Khan came up, by the way, came up from nothing.
Father slaughtered.
I mean, this is from nothing.
That was a common practice to steal wives, to steal women.
joe rogan
Well, he had one of his wives stolen and she came back pregnant.
lex fridman
That was like the origin story.
The origin story of Genghis Khan is like the love of his life who was married to him for his whole life that he proposed or he said, we're going to marry at nine years old.
She was kidnapped.
And he had to raise an army in order to rescue her back.
That was the split in the road.
He would have been a normal Mongol, but here he has to raise an army to rescue her back.
unidentified
Wow.
lex fridman
And then he realized he's really fucking good at this whole wrestling thing.
But it started with, you know...
joe rogan
That's so crazy.
What?
unidentified
Go ahead.
jamie vernon
What I could find is that the horses were unshoed.
joe rogan
Unshoed.
jamie vernon
But they did do something that...
This says here they use some sort of skin to cover it.
Interesting.
joe rogan
Horseshoes were around for at least 200 or 300 years before them, so they probably knew about them.
Skins.
That's interesting.
What you're saying about him developing the ability and like, hey, I'm really good at this.
Do you know that's exactly what happened with the Somali pirates?
Do you know the Somali pirates origin story?
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
The Somali pirates called themselves the People's Coast Guard of Somalia.
They were defending their waters against Europeans dumping toxic waste in the ocean.
They were fishermen.
So they had found that these ships were dumping water and killing all their fish.
And so these motherfuckers, we're going to hold them responsible.
So they boarded these ships, kidnapped them, and said, hey, you have to pay us.
We've lost all this money from all our fish.
We don't have any fish.
Give us money or we'll kill these motherfuckers.
And they gave them money and they said, hey, let's start kidnapping people.
This is way better.
And then, you know, there's obviously there's a narcotic aspect to it because of cats.
Because the widespread use of this narcotic cat, which is like an amphetamine.
Is it a leaf?
K-H-A-T? That's like, you know, the guy on the boat.
Look, look at me.
I'm the captain now.
That guy's cracked out.
I mean, they're all real skinny.
lex fridman
And what's really important in that dynamic is who is the leader that emerges.
That's the interesting thing about Genghis Khan.
He became super powerful.
That person could have been...
Genghis Khan could have been a bunch of different people.
unidentified
Right.
lex fridman
He instilled one of the really revolutionary things is meritocracy.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
By the way, he appointed his kids.
Several people, including Marcus Aurelius, wrote fancy meditations.
He failed as an emperor by appointing his kids.
Before him, the five emperors all appointed generals based on merit.
So Genghis Khan always appointed based on merit.
Who's the best person here to lead the groups?
Which is a revolutionary idea for the time because it was usually based on kin.
Like your relationship, your brothers, your sisters, your father, so on.
That was really important.
And the other thing I mentioned about the tribes, the origin story, is everybody would kidnap and actual rape the women.
They would steal women in the Mongol Empire.
As soon as he won over the entire original Mongolia, he banned.
That was a strict rule.
There's no kidnapping of wives.
That was a rule for Mongolia, and that rule propagated everywhere.
joe rogan
That's wild.
It's like, this is what got us into this shit.
lex fridman
Yeah.
Which is one of the pieces of evidence where there was a lot of cracking down on the whole rape thing.
unidentified
But...
lex fridman
There's a caveat of, like, well, why is there so many dead bodies where, like, the atmosphere changed?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Why is the carbon footprint different of the human race during the time that he was alive?
But it's interesting because we also have to look at things in a perspective of living in the year 1200. Or what is it?
1240s?
Like, when was he around?
lex fridman
I should know this.
unidentified
12 or 13. Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, Jamie will find out.
You have to.
It's very hard to do and it's not apologizing for these people.
I'm not like saying that we should apply the way they looked at the world today.
I think the way we look at the world is infinitely better and we're moving in an infinitely better direction.
And I think we have like large extremes that go in one direction and things push back in the other direction too far.
There's an overcorrection and then they balance out.
I think we're generally moving in a direction of a more kind, more peaceful society.
I think we're better.
That said.
Twelve hundred years ago, the world was hell.
There was no newspapers.
No one could read.
Okay, where did you get your information from?
You got your information from priests and from generals and, you know, you shared information of your farmers.
The world was horrific.
People fought with bows and arrows and cannons and catapults and murder was commonplace.
If you were twelve years old, you've probably seen a few people killed already.
It was a different time to be alive.
Diseases would kill everybody.
There was no medicine.
You broke your leg, you're dead.
You know, you get infected, you're dead.
It was just, the world was a very, very different place.
It was so, so dangerous and so fucking terrifying, and people relied on their base instincts.
And the worst aspects of humanity, they relied on that to survive because that was all around you.
You had to become a monster if you wanted to live in monstrous times.
lex fridman
And that's why the rule of law had to be enforced in a brutal way.
One of the really powerful things he did is protect merchants, people that traded.
unidentified
If you fuck with people that trade, that...
lex fridman
On the Silk Road, you're going to get slaughtered.
It's not like there's going to be a process.
You get slaughtered.
In fact, one of the reasons, I hesitate to say this because people are projecting to the future, but he took Kiev and slaughtered people because they broke the rule of, I forget the term for this, but the people that are sent out to communicate.
Before the battle starts.
The ambassadors.
unidentified
The rule is you don't fuck with them.
lex fridman
And the Kievan residents killed them.
And that's where you break the rule.
It's like, that's it.
Then it's total war.
And you had to do that.
I mean, you don't have to do that, but that is one of the...
joe rogan
Well, if you're living back then, you have to do that.
lex fridman
And then you look at, like...
But the result is complete slaughter.
And by the way, thank you for rescuing me.
I said a bunch of stupid shit, and you're adding more complexity and depth and nuance.
joe rogan
Well, we just got started.
I love you, brother.
lex fridman
I love you, too.
joe rogan
I love you to death, man.
You know how you, when you begin a podcast, I don't know if you're like this, but for me, I gotta get cooking.
You know, sometimes that's one of the reasons why I like to talk to people.
I like to talk sometimes like 15 minutes even before we go on air.
The danger is they're going to say something and I'm going to ask them to repeat it.
I don't want that.
So sometimes I'll come in hot and I'm like, let's just go right now.
But your brain, you don't know we're going to talk about the Mongols and rape, right?
And so then all of a sudden you were in this very intense conversation.
About the responsibility you have as a podcaster, which is a crazy thing to say.
But you do.
You have probably more responsibility than anybody.
And then this subject comes up in the middle of that.
And then you're like...
lex fridman
And before that, we were joking about ejaculating in space.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's how we started it.
Bro, I mean, we used to open up some of the most serious conversations this podcast ever had with a Fleshlight ad.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
The early days of the podcast, that was the only sponsor we had.
So it's like, you know, this is, again, you reacting to criticism, right?
So it's like the fear of the criticism of you yourself knowing you could have done a better job of explaining that had you prepared something, which is really the difference between off-the-cuff conversations and like...
Your actual well-considered thoughts on things expressed in the best way possible, which is what you would do if you're going to write it out, if you're going to write a Substack piece about it.
lex fridman
Well, one of the things I'm trying to do for myself personally, I think a lot of people have to do this, young kids have to do this, is figure out how to create a psychological framework where I'm not affected by the internet.
It sounds like ridiculous to say, but you say don't read the comments, but they come at you.
They'll find their way.
joe rogan
It doesn't work.
Nobody's good at it.
Even Elon's not good at it.
Just post and ghost.
Post and ghost.
Post things that you think are interesting and just get out of there.
Don't read stuff about yourself.
Someone said this.
I think it was Anthony Hopkins.
He was talking about someone's opinion of him.
He said, that doesn't concern me.
No.
Was it Anthony Hopkins?
I think it was.
But he was like, their opinions of me are not my business.
lex fridman
But let's add to this little puzzle.
What if a bunch of your friends, say you're getting canceled online.
By the way, Tucker Carlson is good at this.
He doesn't read anything.
joe rogan
Yeah, he doesn't even have social media.
I know.
I always want to send him things.
I'm like, this motherfucker's not even going to look at this.
lex fridman
What if all your friends have read the thing?
Right?
Or your parents or so on, your loved ones.
And the thing could be just a bunch of lies about you.
joe rogan
Sure.
lex fridman
For me, that's a little bit of a tricky thing.
joe rogan
Well, that's not something you should ignore, right?
If you want to make a statement, there's nothing wrong with that.
What I'm saying is don't regularly engage in people's opinions of the product that you put out.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
I don't think it's healthy for you, because I think, first of all, I've said this before, I'm only kind of joking, but I'm kind of serious.
Most people commenting are losers.
Sorry.
If you're doing it all the time, and you're doing it in a negative way all the time, this is not everybody.
There's a lot of really well-thought-out commentary on YouTube videos that I see, if occasionally I'll read someone's Instagram page, and I'll read my friends' comments.
Some people are brilliant.
Don't get me wrong.
It is a haven for fuckheads.
It's a place where people can go and just try to insult people and say the most negative thing possible.
And they generally, I think, there's generally a lot of, like, dull-minded people that gravitate towards the negativity.
You know where that differs is Christians, which is interesting.
Like, a lot of, like...
Low-wattage Christians are still super nice.
And they'll just praise Jesus and look for forgiveness.
The real ones, right?
Which is a great thing that we should all aspire to.
lex fridman
Yeah, like the default state is super nice.
joe rogan
Yes, the default state.
What you're supposed to do, if you really follow Jesus' teaching, is be completely non-violent and be a beautiful person and love everybody like it's your brother.
That's what he wants.
And if you follow that.
There's just too many assholes and too many disgruntled people out there that have terrible lives.
You know, the most men lead lives of quiet desperation, the Thoreau line that I fucking love so dearly.
It's such a great line.
That's so true and maybe even more true today because of the unnatural world in which we're thrust in.
So not only are people doing things that they hate most of the time, but they're also engaging.
With their phone more than they are with people.
So they're engaging in this very bizarre, non-physical way that is detached from any human interaction, detached from emotions, eye contact, the feel of being with someone, the back and forth of a conversation between two people.
Like if you and I were going to disagree about something, if there was like some political thing or some social thing that you and I disagreed about, we could sit And just, I want to know why you think the way you think.
Like, I want to know.
Like, if you think a thing and I disagree with it, the first thing I want to know is, and this is not something I always had.
I got way better at this in my life as I've gotten older and had more conversations with people.
You got to, like, absolutely know what this person thinks.
Don't, like, attack it.
Don't twist it around.
Don't distort it.
You have to kind of steel man it.
You have to be as charitable to that position as possible.
And then occasionally, when you find things that you disagree with, you have to stop and you have to say, okay, here's my problem with this.
And it has to be done in good faith.
You have to be doing it not to win.
You have to be doing it to figure out what's right.
And everybody's so fucking attached to their opinions and their ideology that...
Most of the time, most conversations are had where one person, at least on social media, one person is trying to win.
You're trying to win all the time.
You're playing this stupid game.
It's a dumbass game where everybody's a loser.
lex fridman
But we just watched the Piers Morgan thing.
joe rogan
That's the same thing.
lex fridman
It clearly pulled in your attention.
joe rogan
I love it.
lex fridman
You're aware of it.
See, you love it.
You're part of the problem, Joe.
joe rogan
Oh, 100%.
I'm a huge part of the problem.
Don't get me wrong.
lex fridman
Meaning you're a human being.
joe rogan
Well, yeah.
Also, how much do I contribute to people wasting their time?
TikTok reels, Instagram reels, Twitter things.
How many fucking Twitter articles get written about every stupid thing I said?
I mean, for three days, Dragon Believer was trending.
Just because some wacky old lady thinks I believe in dragons.
But this is just the nature of the world.
I love that aspect of the internet.
I love the wacky shit.
Even the Ukraine war footage, which is horrible, what it's doing is giving you a more nuanced version of the world.
And some of it's not good.
Like, I watched a video today of a guy who got killed by a tiger.
Well, he didn't get killed by a tiger.
He got torn apart by a tiger.
The wounds, man.
The wounds that this guy, like, I didn't think, like, what would a tiger do to you if a tiger bit your face?
You want to say?
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, you do.
I know you do.
lex fridman
Because I'm...
joe rogan
You get a little curious.
I'm switching over to Android, buddy.
unidentified
Welcome.
joe rogan
Yeah, I just have a few more steps that I have to do before I switch over, and I'm going to try to communicate only with encrypted apps from now on.
lex fridman
Hey, is WhatsApp still?
joe rogan
It's just sort of like limiting Twitter replies to registered accounts.
You know, people like to do that.
I'm going to try to do that.
I'm going to try to use WhatsApp for everything.
I was going to use Signal, but...
lex fridman
Yeah.
I don't know.
The people that use Signal, I don't know.
joe rogan
It seems too secret squirrel.
lex fridman
I don't even know what that means, but yeah.
joe rogan
You know, like you're a spy of using Signal.
I use it, though.
I use it all the time.
I mean, I'm totally being hypocritical here.
What was I looking at?
Oh, the tiger thing.
Bro, this one's rough.
This one's rough.
This is Tom Segura.
I sent it to him today.
Tom Segura and I send each other every day the worst shit that we can find on the internet.
And it has been, like, legitimately, it's been one of the worst aspects of modern life for me.
It's like, every fucking day, me and Tom are sending each other guys getting killed by assassins.
lex fridman
Nice.
joe rogan
It's every day.
There's so many footage, so many videos of cartel members whacking people.
After a while, you're like, holy shit, I don't know if I could do this anymore.
Every day, someone's getting run over by a truck.
Every day.
So here it is.
So this guy, they're shooting at the...
Give me some volume so I can hear this.
So they shot at the Tigers just before this because this guy had been bitten up.
And so, see, they're shooting at him right now, and the target's like, nah, bitch.
And the Tigers just biting down on this guy.
unidentified
So this is what the guy looked like.
joe rogan
This is his wounds.
jamie vernon
Wow.
joe rogan
Bro.
Look at his head.
I mean, his bone is exposed.
jamie vernon
No, he's moving.
joe rogan
Yeah, no, he's alive, dude.
unidentified
What the fuck?
joe rogan
Look at his face.
Watch this show his face.
So this guy climbed into a wildlife enclosure.
Those were not wild tigers.
It was, uh, they were, you know, I don't want to say tamed.
They're not tamed, but they're in some way.
At least minimized in their effectiveness.
Our buddy Paul sent me that.
Paul Rosalie sent me that.
lex fridman
Oh yeah, so this does remind me of the jungle.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
Our buddy Paul is fearless.
joe rogan
He's a bad motherfucker.
Paul Rosalie's a bad motherfucker.
That guy is...
Literally putting his money where his mouth is, where his life is, trying to save the Amazon.
Living in it.
Helping people.
Hiring people to guard it.
Taking people that were chopping the wood, chopping the trees down, and then giving them a new job to protect the trees.
It's fucking amazing.
lex fridman
And he feels the pain.
He literally physically feels the pain of lost trees.
joe rogan
He sent me something.
I don't even know if I'm allowed to talk about it.
If we're not, I'll edit it out afterwards.
But he sent me a video.
I can't show the video, but he sent me a video of an uncontacted tribe that he discovered.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Did he send you that?
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Fucking insane.
lex fridman
Yeah, it's insane.
joe rogan
Just complete uncontacted tribe naked in the forest, hundreds of them.
And they're like pushing these boats filled with bananas out to them to give them food.
lex fridman
The reason, we could probably talk about it, they try not to show it so people don't show up and try to find them.
joe rogan
Exactly.
lex fridman
You want to kind of protect them.
joe rogan
Exactly.
That's why I don't know if we could even talk about it.
But he has brought up the uncontacted tribes before on the show.
And one of his friends was murdered by one.
One of the tribes, he was, these guys drop off food to these people.
One day they're like, you know what?
Enough.
Whap.
I'm just going to kill you.
Fuck you.
I don't trust you.
lex fridman
Yeah, we hung out.
We talked to a guy that works with Paul that has like a scar from a spear.
joe rogan
Jeez.
Jeez.
Bro.
At least 100 uncontacted groups in the rainforest.
Unbelievable, man.
They're living like they were living 20,000 years ago.
Maybe even more.
You know?
Completely uncontacted.
That is...
That is, to me, one of the most fascinating aspects of human life today.
It's not just that we're on the verge of quantum computing and AI becoming sentient.
We're coexisting at the same time with people that have a completely subsistence-based lifestyle with the stuff that's around them.
You know, stone tools, literally.
Pointed sticks for spears.
That they've been doing this for thousands and thousands of years.
And they're living at the same time as smartphone addiction.
lex fridman
Not only that, those people probably, their roots go, they could be the original civilization.
I mean, I believe that there is...
joe rogan
Look at that.
Isn't that crazy?
Look at those people.
That is so wild.
jamie vernon
This is taken in June, I think.
joe rogan
Man, that would be so...
If you could just be a fucking fly on the wall and observe that life without interfering somehow, just remotely.
God, that would be so incredible.
lex fridman
You would be doing what the aliens are doing right now.
joe rogan
I think that is what they're doing.
I think it's real similar.
I really do.
I think if you just looked at the natural progression of human beings and what we're talking about with quantum computing and AI and the technological innovations that are...
Without doubt gonna hit us like a tsunami over the next 20 years 30 years whatever it is we What are we gonna become?
We're gonna become what they are the same kind of thing and if there was a planet that had something like us That's emerging and just figuring out how to split the atom and you know and still involved in tribal warfare A primate that's still involved with tribal warfare but now has nuclear bombs.
That's us.
Also dick pics.
Also OnlyFans.
Also just massive social media addicts all over the entire planet while we're engaging in tribal warfare with hypersonic weapons.
So they would be studying us the same way we're studying these folks.
Same thing, you know?
When we find out a guy got hit with a spear, like, oh, fuck, what happened?
These people are crazy.
Like, you gotta be careful.
Like, when Paul was saying that they were there and they realized that the tribe was close, like they were starting to hear things, and they realized they were probably being hunted, and they just got the fuck out of there as quick as they could, that's terrifying.
I do not want to wake up to news on my feed that Paul Rosalie got killed by an uncontacted tribe.
lex fridman
I mean, that guy leaps into adventure.
I've gotten the chance to hang out with him, and it's great.
There's certain people...
I haven't met many people like him in the way that you've described, but also in the way where he sees...
Elon is a little bit like this, actually.
He sees the opportunity for adventure, and he just leaps into it.
There's not like a...
Deep, deliberate process of strategy and planning and so on.
It's just something pulls at him.
And that's a really fun person to be with.
But couple that with just extreme competence.
Like, he's good at surviving.
He's good at taking risks and good at surviving.
So, like, the uncontacted tribes or the crazy shit we did in the jungle, just, like, getting lost.
joe rogan
And he's a really nice guy.
lex fridman
Super nice.
joe rogan
A really nice guy and it's just like there's something to that.
He's an actual good person.
He's really doing this for a good cause.
lex fridman
Yeah, and it's not just the Amazon rainforest.
He's also going to Africa and India and sort of trying to save nature.
I mean, you go out hunting.
The forest is a bit different than the Amazon rainforest.
Their life is real intense.
unidentified
You're in the middle of a soup of life.
joe rogan
When you have that much life, just think about the amount of insects.
You were around it, the buzzing at night.
Explain that, what that sounds like.
lex fridman
It's an orchestra.
Millions of little organisms.
joe rogan
Screaming.
There's no silence at night.
lex fridman
They're all fucking.
joe rogan
They're all screaming and fucking and killing each other.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And it's all life eats life all around you.
It's life eating life.
lex fridman
And one of the ways to experience that is the sound.
The other way is just standing there, stuff starts crawling on you pretty quickly.
joe rogan
Did you get bit by a bullet ant?
lex fridman
No, but step very close to it.
There's a lot.
joe rogan
I want to get bit by one.
lex fridman
In the context here, I would love to get bit by one.
joe rogan
Would you do it on the podcast?
If we brought in bullet dance?
lex fridman
Let's go.
joe rogan
You have to take a day off of everything else, I think.
lex fridman
What are you, a pussy?
joe rogan
I think you do.
I think you don't want to be interviewing some person about AI just sweating.
Just sweating in agony.
Everybody likes to think they have super high pain tolerance.
You know that about men?
It's fun.
Men always like to think, oh man, I got fucking crazy pain tolerance.
lex fridman
Meanwhile, don't women have a much higher pain tolerance?
unidentified
Much higher.
joe rogan
You know what's the highest?
Redheaded women.
lex fridman
Oh, that explains a lot.
joe rogan
This is up for debate.
But I sent Jamie something recently.
Do you remember that thing I sent you?
So we were talking about it on the podcast multiple times because I had read that, that they had a higher pain threshold.
I'm like, that's weird.
I wonder why.
Well, because everybody's been fucking with gingers forever.
They've been beating their ass.
They're like an MMA guy who's got two older brothers.
They can take it.
The scariest MMA fighters have older brothers who used to beat them up.
Because they're ready to fucking throw down all the time.
Like the scariest guys or abusive stepdad.
Those two.
That makes a scary guy.
Or abusive father.
The guys that I know that are the fucking scariest, they had abusive dads.
They had people that beat them up when they were young.
They just get fucking used to going, just ready to go.
They don't have a fear of going, they want to go.
They want to go all the time.
Let's fucking go.
Like, they've just been, that's the only way to survive.
If you're a kid, and you have a brother who's four years old, and your dad is a raging alcoholic, and he beats your mom in front of you, and your brother beats your ass too.
Like, fuck, man.
You better be hard, or you're not gonna make it.
There's no pillow to cry into, man.
You gotta fight your brother.
He's four years older than you.
He might knock you out today.
He knocked you out last week.
He laughs at you when you're on your back.
lex fridman
Yeah.
I mean, not to return to the topic, but Genghis Khan murdered his older brother because he was picking on him.
joe rogan
Because he stole his fish.
lex fridman
Stole his fish.
joe rogan
Yeah, he said, fuck you.
Shot him with a bow and arrow.
The mom freaked out.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Called him a monster.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
She was right.
Well, also, you learn how to kill your brother when you're, you know, what was he, six?
Wasn't he?
lex fridman
Yeah, something like that.
joe rogan
Something like that, yeah.
lex fridman
And he gets married at nine.
joe rogan
Yeah, you're getting off on the wrong foot.
unidentified
And conquers an empire at 16. But they didn't expect you to live past 30, you know?
joe rogan
If you got to 30, you were an old fuck back then.
lex fridman
Meanwhile, he lived, like, into his 60s, I think.
joe rogan
Yeah, he lived really long, and he was consulting with monks because he was trying to figure out how to live longer, how to live forever.
He felt the iron ebbing from his blood.
He felt the body weaken.
He wanted to be on TRT. He'd be fucking great.
lex fridman
Meanwhile, his kids are kind of disappointing.
joe rogan
Well, of course.
Isn't that always the case?
That's the thing.
Show me a man who's a great man who's the son of a great man.
lex fridman
It's tough.
joe rogan
It's tough.
It's a hard road.
I mean, you have to have a very exceptional father who recognizes the requirements that this kid is going to go through if you're fucking Genghis Khan's son.
And meanwhile, you're also running an empire.
Like, raising kids is...
It is a very involving thing.
And it's a nuanced thing.
And you have to know which ones to push and which ones to just let them be themselves, which ones to support, which ones to encourage, and how to encourage and how to...
How to instill discipline, how to show them how important it is to feel the pain of loss and to feel like failure and to understand that this doesn't make you a bad person.
These are just the lessons of life and the energy that comes with doing something well and throwing yourself into something and finding success versus half-assing your existence and feeling filled with misery and regret.
And that's a difficult thing when you're sleeping on silk sheets.
You know, that was like what Marvin Hagley used to talk about.
Like, you know, it's hard to get up in the morning and run when you're sleeping in silk sheets.
He was talking about the pull of as you become successful, boxers get softer.
And it's because they start getting rich.
You know, and then, you know, just chill a little bit.
Well, if you have a son then, and the son's growing up rich, and you're chill, like, fuck, man.
Like, you want to make a conqueror?
You want to make a champion fighter?
Rough childhood.
I don't think you should do it.
Definitely shouldn't be mean to your kid, just so that they can be a badass fighter.
lex fridman
Well, I think it's also, there's probably a balance you can hit, but a lot of these folks, because they had nothing, they want to spoil their kids.
They go too far in the other direction.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
It's harder to be a strict parent, I think.
joe rogan
Mitzi sure used to ignore Pauly just to make him funnier.
She talked about it.
She talked about ignoring him when he was crying.
It'll make him funny.
She was right.
She knew what she was doing.
But it's like, to do that, if you're a conqueror, and you came up from shooting your brother with a bow and arrow, and then raising an army to take back your wife, and then you have children, and your children are born when you're 40, you know, and you've got this insane empire that's like one of the most Spectacular and impressive military accomplishments.
If you just look at it in terms of just like the sheer numbers of human beings they sent into the reincarnation cycle.
It's a crazy number, man.
They killed somewhere between, I think the estimates are 50 to 60 million people.
Over the course of his lifetime, 10% of the population of Earth.
lex fridman
Yeah, and they, you know, how?
unidentified
Brutal.
joe rogan
One-on-one contact.
Bows and arrows, fire, catapults, swords, spears, trampled.
lex fridman
And through all of that, it doesn't seem like power corrupted the guy.
So he was big on unmarked grave.
No statues were allowed to be made of him.
No paintings, no anything.
joe rogan
Not just that.
They killed everybody that was involved in it.
The people that went to bury him, another group came out to kill them.
And then another group came out to kill the people that killed them.
They came in three waves so that no one would have any idea where Genghis Khan is buried.
And we still don't know.
lex fridman
You know, that's one of the qualities of...
There's a perception of Zelensky, sort of the actor, the showman, all that kind of stuff.
Some of that is true, but in his interactions that I'm aware of with the soldiers, there is no...
Like, he wants to be on the exact same level, sleep on the same bunks, no glamour, none of that, which I personally admire in a leader in general.
Just walk amongst the soldiers.
joe rogan
It's a very admirable thing.
I mean, if you're going to ask people to lead...
Could you imagine if Biden was at the front line?
You know what I'm saying?
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Maybe you see Kamala Harris at the front line in Afghanistan.
Could you see that?
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
Could you see Obama at the front line?
No.
Could you see Trump at the front line?
Fuck out of here.
78 years old.
Leave him alone.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's a very admirable thing.
And that's the thing if people have always said the number one concern that people have with the military-industrial complex is sending young men.
To die in a war that's unnecessary for profit while you are in an air-conditioned office, right?
That was during Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Who was it?
McGovern?
Did McGovern say that?
But it was a very powerful speech.
He said, I'm tired of watching these old men in air-conditioned offices send young men to die.
In these unnecessary wars.
So if you're willing to be out there, too, that's a very different thing.
That's a very different thing.
lex fridman
I mean, some people make the argument that a president should moderate how much they do that because...
joe rogan
You could die.
lex fridman
You could die, but it also wears on...
To make compromised decisions in the realm of geopolitics, in the realm of war, you have to have a bit of coldness.
If you really feel the pain of soldiers, you may make unwise decisions.
joe rogan
In terms of diplomatic decisions?
lex fridman
Yes, in terms of, for example, you've seen a lot of people die, children die, and if you've seen enough, the idea of quote-unquote peace is a dirty word.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
Like, you want justice.
joe rogan
Isn't that a problem right now, not just in Ukraine, but also in Gaza?
This is the thing that...
The sheer number of people that died that had nothing to do with it is crazy.
It's crazy.
I think the most recent estimate, and they don't even know because there's so many people that are under rubble, the most recent estimate was somewhere north of 60,000 people.
And how many of them are kids?
Like, what's the number of kids that have been killed by missiles that had done nothing wrong?
Like, what's that number?
And those kids have families.
And those kids have mothers and brothers and sisters and some people that lived and some people that died.
And whoever makes it out of that, you want to radicalize somebody.
You want to radicalize somebody to just want nothing but revenge.
I can think of no better way.
No better way.
lex fridman
And here Donald Trump is tasked with going in there and trying to make peace.
I think I'm pretty optimistic about just knowing the skill set of all the people involved in Israel-Palestine, in Russia-Ukraine.
I'm pretty optimistic about.
joe rogan
I can't believe those people.
Those hostages are still alive.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
How many of them are still alive now?
lex fridman
I don't know what the exact numbers are.
But it's crazy that they were not freed sooner.
joe rogan
The whole thing's horrible, from top to bottom, including all the people that have decided what happened, people that are saying it was definitely a false flag.
Like, boy, these things are complicated.
These things are complicated.
It's definitely, like, whenever something horrible happens and someone fucked up, like, someone fucked up.
Israel's the most protected place on Earth.
It's one of the most secure.
Countries on Earth.
For them to let something like that happen is just a huge fuck up.
But what I had heard was that there was also a lot of troops that were stationed near where there were protests.
So there was a lot of protests about Netanyahu before October 7th happened, which most people aren't even aware of.
There was hundreds of thousands of people in the streets.
Protesting Netanyahu before October 7th.
So then October 7th comes, and then all of a sudden...
Now, whenever you have any sort of military engagement, you're at war right now.
When those things happen, one of the first things that happens is all the protests and all the bullshit stops.
Because now a bunch of people got killed.
And when anything like that happens, and you are now...
Involved in a countrywide assault on this other country.
Everything else gets put aside.
And so the big conspiracy fear has always been when a leader knows that they're going to get pushed out, they'll start a false flag or start a war.
So they look at October 7th and they say they let that happen.
Or they say they had knowledge of it.
They knew it was going to happen.
They knew it, but they wanted an excuse to raise Gaza.
They want an excuse to just have a full-on bombing campaign against Hamas.
lex fridman
I mean, you definitely need to look at the incentives there.
That is one of the concerns in Ukraine for President Zelensky.
The prospects of ending the war.
Because right now the country is unified.
If you end the war and you have elections, now you have to face a lot of the consequences internally about the potential discovery of corruption, about the suspension of democracy, about all these things.
And the same thing with Netanyahu, who, by the way, also, they want to do a three-hour podcast with me.
I talked to him before October 7th for an hour.
I regret talking to him for an hour.
One of the things I really...
Learned a lot from you and just from myself.
You can't do...
One of the things I really don't like what happened with me talking to Donald Trump is like 40 minutes with Donald Trump.
It was a mistake.
joe rogan
I was almost willing to do that with Kamala Harris.
I was entertaining the 45 minute one.
I was entertaining.
Because I was like, maybe if I could just come in at a 10 to work my brain up.
Like really come in and just engage with her real quick.
lex fridman
I just wanted to get I wanted to get loose I don't the problem is like I want to see how you are as a real person I think actually genuinely with you and Kamala Harris, I think 45 minutes is horrible, but I think you're so skilled and like Compassionate just like it's fun fun to talk to you.
joe rogan
I think you would just end up being much much longer That's that's the hope if that's the hope yeah There would be questions, though, and some questions would be very complicated, like the immigration question.
Like, I would say, what's happening?
Like, what is happening?
Do you think that there should be limitations to this?
Do you think it should be stopped outright?
Do you think we should round up all the people that we know that are terrorists that made it across?
Are we keeping track of them?
Do we know how many?
Do we know what happened?
Do we know why it happened?
Why are people opposed to the idea of cracking down on Border Patrol, making more soldiers available, putting walls up everywhere?
Like, what is the reason to not do this?
Like, tell me what you're thinking.
And when people start talking about labor, they're talking about bringing in labor and that our population is lower.
Like, Chuck Schumer brought that up.
He talked about, like, we need workers.
And I'm like, what are we saying?
Is that really what the problem is?
That Americans aren't willing to do jobs and you want to bring in illegal people?
How about just make legal immigration easier for poor people that are trying to get over here?
How about just scan them, screen them, make sure that they're not fucking murderers, make sure they're not cartel members, and then let them in easier?
Like, wouldn't that be a better way to do it, to vet people?
But the idea of not vetting people just doesn't make any sense at all.
That would have been a problem.
That conversation would have been a problem because it doesn't make any sense at all.
And I'm a grandchild of immigrants.
I believe in immigration.
I think America is the fucking shining light in the world.
Like, if you can get here, you can actually make something happen.
There's not a caste system.
They actually reward people from, you know, started from the bottom, now we're here.
Like, that's a thing here.
Although that's Drake, he's Canada.
But that thought...
lex fridman
That's going to be America soon, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, we're going to take over Canada for sure.
Yeah, that needs to happen.
Yeah, 51st state.
Let's go.
Puerto Rico's next.
You've got to become a real state now, Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico's got a weird thing where you're allowed to not pay taxes, but you can't vote.
Do you know that deal?
That's the Peter Schiff deal.
You don't...
Yeah, you don't vote, but you don't pay federal income tax.
I feel like I think you're going to go to jail someday.
I think one day they're going to fucking pull you inside and go, we changed that rule and you owe us $4 billion in back taxes, you fucking criminal.
What are you doing out here?
Hanging out on this island, just stealing money.
lex fridman
But yeah, we definitely need legal immigration, the idea of bringing the best people in the world here.
But also...
Mark Andreessen talks about this.
We need to make sure we recruit the Midwest, the farm boys, get them to do epic shit inside Americans.
joe rogan
Well, here's step one.
Ramp up the fucking education system.
Jesus Christ.
At what point in time do we not say, how far do we have to slip down the list?
of like the best performing students in the world before someone comes along and says hey the whole thing about this place is if our kids are losers they're gonna grow up to become loser adults make it way easier to be a winner What's the best way to do that?
Have a way better education system.
Just imagine if they completely revamped the education system in this country, just poured a shitload of money and had the wisest minds come up with a brilliant strategy for more creative ways of approaching learning, pushing people into viable pathways that maybe didn't even exist when the education system was structured.
Because things have changed so much in the world.
You could probably do a Way better job than we're doing, which would make people come out of that, they would emerge better qualified people.
So we would get more shit done in America.
So America would prosper overall.
The GDP would grow.
Everything would be better.
You'd have less poverty.
That's where they need to start.
It's not just let in all the immigrants.
How about fix what we got here and then expand that outward?
Like, make this place the best it can be and then expand that idea out to the rest of the world.
So instead of, like, letting everybody walk here from third world countries, because third world countries suck, expand what's better out to the rest of the world.
lex fridman
And a big part of that is actually culturally changing.
Accepting, celebrating, venerating meritocracy.
Yes.
The guy in the class, having gone to school in the Soviet Union, I was good at math, and I was actually, believe it or not, super cool.
Because I was good at math in class when I was like whoa like I was the cool kid because I was good at math like I was getting like in America I had a girlfriend when I was young.
joe rogan
Shut the fuck up, bitch.
I think it's wrong.
I think they're wrong.
You should get violent.
You should but I think they're wrong because but it's a fascinating thing to make fun of the smart kid.
Especially math.
Look at that fucking robot over there.
lex fridman
Science.
Isn't that weird?
But honestly even Yeah, I mean, in all walks of life.
Sports is a little better.
We do celebrate great athletes, but there's still kind of the participation trophy thing.
There's still a kind of sense where we want to help the people that aren't quite as good at a thing.
joe rogan
That's only with little kids, though.
Sports are more the pure.
lex fridman
But it starts there.
How little?
joe rogan
Sports, once kids get into the teenage years, sports is a meritocracy.
lex fridman
Yes.
But culturally, do we really say, like, this is amazing that this person is winning?
Yeah.
joe rogan
I want to take you to a Texas football game.
lex fridman
Well, Texas is different.
I mean, Texas is Texas.
joe rogan
This is what America should be.
This is what America should be.
That it should all be fired up.
lex fridman
But not just about football.
joe rogan
No, but all kinds of things.
lex fridman
But about, like, everything.
Music, math.
joe rogan
Here's the problem.
Football, like, quarterbacks get laid.
Alright, that's a handsome guy.
lex fridman
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
joe rogan
Okay, scientists...
lex fridman
Physicists in the Soviet Union will get a lot of pussy.
joe rogan
What about Feynman?
lex fridman
Well, he got...
Yes.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
But he's another level.
joe rogan
Those guys were freaks, right?
Oppenheimer, you saw the movie.
He was a freak.
Those guys were studs because they were the smart people and there was a lot of grad students that wanted to fuck the professor.
And that was normal stuff back then.
lex fridman
But I don't know if they were studs in the general population.
joe rogan
They were studs in a way.
They were like, look, Einstein was a national hero, right?
There's no one like that today.
There's no one scientist that's a groundbreaking research of theory of relativity where everybody's aware of it.
There's nothing like that today.
lex fridman
We celebrate people like maybe like Neil deGrasse Tyson who are communicators of science.
joe rogan
Yeah, but not to the same extent.
He's criticized way more than Einstein ever was.
Einstein was pretty celebrated.
It's just...
Even Feynman, for the people that knew him, he was a cultural figure.
He wasn't an obscure name.
If you brought up Richard Feynman, most people that watch the news and read newspapers probably know who he is if they were in their 30s.
That's not the case today for, say, someone who's groundbreaking research with AI or someone who's involved in quantum computing.
It's just a few of these science communicators.
Brian Cox, guys like him were great at it in terms of space.
And some guys are better at it in terms of talking about AI or talking about all the different emerging technologies because there's so many of them.
But there's no one person other than Elon.
But Elon's such a d***.
Unique character you can't even like you can't put him in the same categories in Einstein because he's just like a cultural weirdness Like who is this guy like making memes?
Cracking jokes dunking on people telling people to go fuck themselves buys Twitter You know it runs a bunch of different companies simultaneously while playing video games constantly.
It's like That doesn't fit in anywhere else.
That's like a very unique Thing that exists this Elon Musk guy like he's one of the most unique human beings in all of history But you can even move to like even the Jeff Bezos who by the way successfully launched the first Rocket yesterday to orbit yeah,
which is which is incredible amazing even he is gets like I think that's that should be That that should be venerated sure, but he's not the guy that's making the He's not doing the calculations and designing and engineering the machines like Werner Von Braun was.
So it's like what we're fascinated by today is different.
We're fascinated by these public figures that talk about the work that's going on, but the people that are actually doing it, there's not one standout.
lex fridman
Although, to say, both Jeff Bezos and Elon are legit good engineers.
To see them on the factory floor, they know what they're doing.
joe rogan
Yeah, for sure.
But the thing about Elon is weird.
He just does so many things.
You get confused.
How can you do this?
I was talking about possibly buying TikTok.
I wonder if they would go after him if he did that.
Would that be like a minute?
But Bezos, or rather, Zuckerberg rather, they bought Instagram, right?
So they have Facebook and Instagram, right?
Like, why couldn't you have TikTok and Twitter?
lex fridman
What are you talking about, Monopoly-wise?
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't think they'll go after them.
They're trying to split up Google right now, Alphabet.
joe rogan
Really?
lex fridman
Like, to make maybe Chrome or YouTube its own business.
I think...
joe rogan
There's an argument.
lex fridman
There's some argument, but like...
joe rogan
The crazy thing about YouTube is how effective it is.
YouTube seems so straightforward.
You just have a place where people can upload videos.
Okay, that's straightforward.
Everybody should be able to make one of those.
But no, there's just one.
lex fridman
Really hard to actually pull that off on the engineering side.
Oh, yeah.
There's just no other place like it to be able to host that much data.
joe rogan
How about the scale?
Just the volume.
The volume of fucking data that comes into their site every day.
lex fridman
Yeah.
And then there's people, of course, online sort of criticizing YouTube for censorship, blah, blah, blah.
joe rogan
Which they should, though.
lex fridman
They should, but like, hey.
More people need to be like, this fucking thing exists.
It's like Wi-Fi on the airplane.
There's no other platform like YouTube in terms of the set of features, the community they create, the search and discovery.
jamie vernon
Do you think Apple regrets being one of the first built-in apps on the iPhone?
That could have had a lot to do with the growth.
joe rogan
Well, it definitely did, I'm sure.
jamie vernon
They didn't make it, but they included it.
joe rogan
Right.
jamie vernon
Also, Google Maps was too, until they made their own.
joe rogan
Well, I mean, you probably want to have the best shit on your phone if you want people to buy it.
You're kind of trapped.
Everybody knows YouTube is the best shit.
And if you get YouTube on an Android phone natively, instantly, which you can, when you get an Android phone, it already has YouTube loaded onto it.
Why wouldn't you load it on an iPhone?
Everybody uses YouTube.
You've got to pick your battles.
jamie vernon
It was 2007, though.
joe rogan
That's true.
jamie vernon
You could only have three-minute videos back then.
joe rogan
You're right.
They probably didn't realize how big YouTube was going to be, right?
But what they did do that's the sneakiest thing that drives me crazy is the 30%.
So, like, if you start an app, you put an app in the App Store, the Apple Store, they get 30%.
Like, that's crazy.
lex fridman
But because YouTube dominates so much, if people get censored, that's really painful.
Like, that's not...
joe rogan
Well, they're so in control of the video market.
And, you know, I don't envy it.
It's got to be an insane...
But it's just kind of wild that no one else has been able to come up with anything even remotely close.
You know, you've got Rumble.
They do really well.
But it's like Rumble's like a very conservative, ivermectin-using, libertarian sort of space.
lex fridman
It's like the opposite of Blue Sky.
Blue Sky is like...
joe rogan
Exactly.
But there's a lot of left-wing shows on Rumble.
Rumble is essentially a legitimate free speech platform.
They don't censor left-wing views.
Isn't Breaking Points, are they on Rumble?
lex fridman
I watch them on YouTube.
jamie vernon
I was thinking Twitch for a while, though, was kind of close, and then Amazon bought it.
joe rogan
Right, right.
Twitch was close.
But then when Amazon bought it, Twitch kind of disappeared.
jamie vernon
It's still a thing, but it doesn't make money.
It's not profitable, which arguably neither is YouTube.
But isn't that crazy?
joe rogan
Like, if they didn't buy it, maybe it would have been, because Twitch was huge.
jamie vernon
It still is.
joe rogan
Really?
jamie vernon
Yeah, I mean, that's what kids watch.
joe rogan
But a lot of kids, they stream everywhere now, right?
And there's a bunch of different...
Like, is video games different?
Are there, like, a bunch of different...
jamie vernon
Twitch became more...
It was just in TV, and it's kind of reverted back to it now.
Like, most of the popular stuff is IRL streaming, people walking around, going places, doing streaming, going, you know...
Doing nonsense.
joe rogan
That's so weird.
And so what are the video games streamed on?
What does everybody like?
jamie vernon
It's still that.
There's been a few other ones I've tried.
People like YouTube tried to do it.
Facebook tried to do it.
Microsoft tried to do it.
joe rogan
It didn't work?
jamie vernon
Twitch is still.
lex fridman
I watch video games streams on YouTube.
jamie vernon
There's still a few there.
Twitter's now tried to do it.
But the Microsoft one went away.
YouTube doesn't really advertise the live streaming stuff very well.
You can find it, but it's not.
joe rogan
So essentially, it's just Twitch for video games.
jamie vernon
It's dominant, for sure.
joe rogan
Dominant.
Okay, so Twitch didn't go away.
I'm just old.
So it's...
I thought there was a bunch of new ones that were good, though, that people were using.
jamie vernon
Kick took off.
Everyone sort of went back to Twitch after they made deals there.
joe rogan
So was that a deal where they get a famous streamer, and they say, hey, we're going to give you money to come over to this new platform, and then they try to start the platform?
jamie vernon
Yeah, I mean, it's a good idea.
You buy everyone to come over, and hopefully everyone sticks.
It just didn't stick.
joe rogan
But just think about the resources you would have to have if you wanted to take on YouTube.
Like, look if Elon had decided, like, okay, we need to turn X into the new YouTube.
lex fridman
Well, he kind of wants to do that, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
But if you wanted to start a separate app, because Twitch, or excuse me, X is still mostly people exchanging information.
Mostly exchanging hyperlinks.
lex fridman
The closest thing it's to is, like, TikTok on the video.
The short video.
Clips is good.
So I can see, actually, I'm buying TikTok.
It makes total sense and integrating it into X. But in terms of long-form content, it's just not quite there because you have to implement all of these features.
And it is, engineering-wise, really difficult to have that much video.
joe rogan
We upload hours at a time.
Hours.
So think about it.
Each one of our shows is at least two hours.
Three hours, mostly.
That's so much fucking data.
If you're letting everybody do that, how much are you paying for bandwidth?
Like, what is that like?
Because it's free?
And then you have to get ads?
And then the ad's like, hey, we don't want anybody saying fuck.
Oh, shit.
Alright, put up a filter.
Get rid of all the fucks so that Paul Molliv can sell their fucking...
Hand soap.
Whatever it is.
Whoever's getting upset at us.
Oh, did someone talk about the vaccine?
Yeah, you can't get an ad because we're trying to sell vaccine ads, so don't be a cocksucker.
Don't ruin my giant business that I've created on your data.
lex fridman
But it is surprising that nobody's built a competitor.
joe rogan
Not even close.
lex fridman
And it just shows how incredible the teams are, right?
joe rogan
Well, they nailed it.
This is what they did.
They made the perfect algorithm to constantly show you things you're interested in.
You know, when I go to my YouTube feed, they're right every day.
Every day they're right.
I'm like, oh, I'm interested in that.
Oh, when was that built?
Oh, look at that.
Oh, is that real?
That's what they got me every fucking day.
lex fridman
Yeah, I actually tweeted complaining a little bit about YouTube recently.
And we had a whole meeting and stuff.
joe rogan
What were you complaining about?
lex fridman
So they have this incredible...
I don't want to complain about Wi-Fi on the airplane before saying the positive.
So they have this incredible feature called MLA Multilanguage Audio.
I don't know if you know about this, but you can have multiple tracks of audio for a single podcast, a video, in different languages.
So I had to do that for the last interview.
That's overdubbed into three languages for the different...
joe rogan
Did you use AI to do that, or did you hire people?
lex fridman
So I did both, but in this case we did AI because of the voice cloning.
There's something really intimate and powerful about hearing the person speak in that language.
Just found out that, you know, for example, on audio, people listen to the Zelensky interview.
It's dubbed into English.
He's speaking Russian or Ukrainian.
They listen and they enjoy it.
Like, you could see the numbers.
You could see how they write to me personal messages, how they, you know, on Instagram stories.
They're listening to it in English.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
And they're able to listen to it for a prolonged period of time like it's in English.
joe rogan
Did you review it?
And listen to it and make sure the context translates correctly?
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
lex fridman
So I should give a shout-out to a company called Eleven Labs that do the voice cloning, that do the translation, and what's called text-to-speech.
They're incredible people.
Not just the product, actually.
There are certain companies that I work with.
Nothing frustrates me more than incompetence and nothing excites me more than competence.
They're just sweet people.
By the way, stayed up crazy hours through the holidays.
A lot of big companies take two months off.
They're 9 to 5. They're all very polite.
There's a manager of a manager and there's meetings and it's slow and there's this bureaucracy.
With Love& Labs, with a lot of startups, good startups, you're like...
Have this just vibrancy and kindness and everybody's excited all that kind of stuff.
Anyway, they do the the text-to-speech, you know, you have like text on the page that you can speak in the Joe Rogan voice.
I mean you're aware of this thing.
So if you want to translate, you first translate, transcribe the original language, translate it on the page and then text-to-speech bring it.
To life in that other different language.
The translation step is the tricky one, is the hardest one, where a human should correct and help.
I got...
I mean, we had very little time to do this.
We had to do it really rapidly.
But you get into trouble.
So, for example, he said...
joe rogan
How much time did you have?
lex fridman
I don't know.
I don't remember the exact number of days, but probably five or six days.
To do everything.
joe rogan
In three languages.
lex fridman
In three languages.
And he and I did the asshole thing, which is we kept switching languages sentence to sentence.
Oh, no.
And he would swear in Russian mid-sentence.
So, of course, the translator is sweating because most of the sentence is Ukrainian.
And then he says, fuck, or go fuck yourself.
He swore a lot.
That part would be in Russian.
The swear.
So you have to catch all of that.
You have to not make mistakes.
And some of it, there was AI in the loop.
We had to figure out because nobody really has done this kind of thing before.
So we had to figure it all out.
And mistakes can be made when you're rushing like this.
Rushing like this.
Like I just did.
By the way...
Me saying that could be transcribed into me saying Russian.
Right, right, right.
So, for example, we said he was talking about corruption, sensitive topic.
He said something like, anybody who we caught doing something with the weapons or being corrupt, we would beat, the exact term is beat them on the hands.
He was speaking Ukrainian, which in Ukrainian means we'll crack down on them.
That was automatically translated to slap them on the wrist.
joe rogan
Interesting.
lex fridman
Which makes sense as a direct literal translation.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
Because you beat them on the hand, slap them on the wrist.
Makes sense.
And I didn't catch it.
I'm not sleeping.
I'm reading it.
I speak all the languages.
So I'm trying to figure out this puzzle.
And we didn't catch it.
And then, of course, a lot of people got really mad.
And they spoke up.
The internet in general is like, how can you translate this?
Of course, it must be because I'm a Putin shill.
I'm getting funded.
I'm not translating.
But yeah, there could be sensitive moments.
You had a lot of really high-profile figures here.
There could be sensitive moments if translated.
Could do a lot of damage.
On the flip side, it makes it accessible, especially for important conversations.
It makes it accessible to people that really need to hear it.
joe rogan
Why were you under such a time constraint?
lex fridman
Because the seriousness of the conversation, like every single day there's major missile launches.
joe rogan
So did you, it just, you didn't have a five-day deadline, you just, it took you five days to do it?
lex fridman
Yes, and the, I don't want to sort of put it on them, but the President Zelensky's office was...
Asking, like, as soon as possible.
They were really pushing it, and they were implying, probably correctly, that there's just going to be a lot of dynamic stuff happening on the peace negotiations.
So he wanted to use this as a statement.
Because, you know, the Kremlin watched it, so everybody's watching it.
And, like, it's part of the puzzle pieces that they're using to figure out when we're going to meet.
When are we going to?
What are going to be the outlines of a treaty?
You have to take it very seriously.
I've learned a lot because you need to probably hire more and trust everybody involved and turn it around much quicker.
You know me, in terms of production and everything, the team is one person.
Folks helping with editing, but it's just a tiny team.
And so for things like this, you have to take it seriously.
You have to maybe have a special force team that kind of steps up and helps.
joe rogan
A group of people that are translators that you could really count on to get it right.
lex fridman
Because a lot of the...
joe rogan
But you would want to have to personally review it anyway.
lex fridman
100%, but...
You want the translators you trust to do a good job.
And one of the things we learned really quickly is you can't just get any translator.
I mean, translation isn't art.
It truly is.
And people that were translating it, it's like open mic comedy.
Right.
You think even the same joke in the mouth of different comics would just be way different.
And the way they were translating it was cold.
They were missing the points.
They were not understanding the context.
joe rogan
The AI way is genius.
lex fridman
Yeah, but the translation piece of the AI still needs the human to fix it.
joe rogan
And how does the human emphasize emotion?
Like if he has a specific intonation, if the way he's talking about, how does AI know?
How to say the words in translation and which ones to emphasize.
lex fridman
So this is where Eleven Labs is really incredible.
It uses the actual words to figure out the intonation.
joe rogan
Okay, so the translation of the words?
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Or the original word, hearing the word?
lex fridman
No, it's always working on the text.
So let's just stick with English for now before I say translation.
Text on the page.
Like, I have a Dwight Eisenhower speech here.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fire signifies.
That feels like a serious thing.
Like, we could probably infer how to read that.
If I gave you that text, you would infer the heaviness, the timing.
And AI is pretty good at doing that.
Not perfect.
And you can...
joe rogan
What if you delivered that speech like Hitler?
Like, I want to know, like, how are they getting the, like, when would yell about stuff, and then they had a translation of it in English.
And so are they doing it off text, or are they doing it off the sound of the, like, when he's saying the words and translating it?
Because then you would know he's conveying a certain amount of emotion.
Or are they...
Editing it in post and saying he's got to be louder here, he's yelling.
Is a human involved in that?
lex fridman
Yeah, a human involved in every part of that.
So they're setting the hyperparameters of how loud is it, how dynamic it is.
They can change all of that and they can change specific...
They can basically generate...
You know, like, five different options for this sentence, and then...
joe rogan
That's so crazy.
lex fridman
But that is an art form, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
But it really is so crazy that we're not going to be able to tell if you said something.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, we're kind of there.
There's real cheap ones of me selling everything.
I see it all the time on Instagram.
Like, you know, different rappers and...
Country-Western songs and go to this restaurant.
You just generate them from AI. But you can still kind of tell.
But then I've seen some ones.
I'm sure you've seen that one.
The one guy where it's a completely AI-generated thing, voice and everything, and he's talking and he's telling you this is completely AI-generated.
And you probably can't believe this, but it's true.
He's explaining how it's done, and it's nuts.
It's so realistic.
lex fridman
And I mean...
I should say, like, from my experience with the Zelensky conversation, it's dubbed into all these languages.
It's dubbed into English.
He's speaking Ukrainian and Russian.
There's a lot of people, like, I've seen this, that think he's speaking English.
Just because it's so close.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
It's his voice.
joe rogan
It's crazy.
lex fridman
And so, like, now I have this responsibility.
Here I am with my fucking exhausted, sleep-deprived...
Translating, like, his exact words.
I could put whatever words in his mouth.
Like, I could have...
The slap on the wrist thing, you know...
Let me just take responsibility, I guess.
I fucked up.
You know, it was three hours.
It's very tough to, like...
Right.
But, like, I could have, you know, put in, like, I like dicks in there.
Just throw it in there.
Just throw it in there, you know, just for fun.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's kind of crazy, right?
lex fridman
Yeah.
And there's a lot of people that believe, like, okay, this is what he's saying.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
So, I mean, there's a huge responsibility with that, and I think that's why people trust a particular podcast and so on.
Like, you're not going to fuck with that responsibility.
joe rogan
Right.
No, you're very aware of it, and you take it very seriously.
lex fridman
Yeah, but it's still hard to decide who and how to talk to.
It's really, really difficult to think through the Zelensky conversation.
It's difficult to think about whether to talk to Putin or not and how to talk to him.
It's difficult to think about Benjamin Netanyahu, to talk to him after October 7th.
He's one of the most universally hated people on the planet now.
And it's like, okay, so how do you talk to him?
joe rogan
And what do you get him to say about the innocent people that have been killed?
lex fridman
But he has a certain perspective.
Which I should say that a lot of people inside Israel probably support.
I should also say, not now, but earlier in Qatar, when Hamas was in Qatar, they were interested in doing a podcast.
The members of Hamas were not in hiding, so the representatives were interested in doing a podcast, and there I decided not to because it's like everyone knows what Hamas is.
It's almost like, easy, why not do a podcast?
But it was like, well, that just feels...
I mean, you are platforming hate there that's in a way where you can't properly dissect and present and analyze and push and pull.
joe rogan
You can't criticize them.
You're not going to be in a position where you can criticize them.
lex fridman
Well, I should say, in Qatar, it's safe.
joe rogan
What's that?
lex fridman
In Qatar, it's safe.
So there I could criticize.
In fact, one of the ways I would imagine talking to Hamas is pushing them actually pretty hard.
In that case, I would actually push hard, and they would probably, because a lot of them are kind of just pretty shallow and insane.
So, like, they would just get really angry.
Like, there's a real anger.
They would not come off as...
One of the fears talking to dictators is just the charisma.
My opening statement to Netanyahu was, you know, a lot of people hate you.
When I talked to him in August, a lot of people were protesting outside.
There's a lot of people that hate you.
What do you have to say to those people?
That's the opening thing.
He said something like, everybody loves me.
I just gave a talk in Iran, and 20 million people listened to me, and they love me.
So how do you talk to a person where the reality is like, well, no, no, there is people that love you, Prime Minister Netanyahu, but there's quite a lot of people outside.
That don't love you.
joe rogan
What did you expect him when you brought that up?
Did you have expectations?
What did you expect him to say?
lex fridman
I expected for him to analyze where that hate comes from, to start to empathize, fake or not, to understand that perspective.
And to understand the perspective maybe of the Palestinians or the Gazans that hate him.
And then maybe make the case of Israel like...
After steel manning the Palestinian case, say, well, listen, we're like this tiny country that everybody's shooting rockets at.
Then make the case for Israel, the historic case, the military case, the geopolitical case.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
But he didn't.
There was like, everybody loves me.
unidentified
Jeez.
lex fridman
But in that answer...
joe rogan
Do you think he really believed that?
lex fridman
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
He believed it.
He's locked in.
lex fridman
Locked in.
Or, I mean, it's complicated.
He's just so...
That was definitely a wall.
joe rogan
How much more time does he have in power?
lex fridman
I mean, that's a consistent minute-by-minute thing.
As long as he is being elected.
And it's the same question for Zelensky.
How long does he have in power?
It's the same question for Putin.
joe rogan
When does Israel have their elections again?
Are they doing that while they're in the middle of this conflict?
lex fridman
I'm not deeply familiar with the dynamics of it, but I think they can have elections at any time.
There's coalitions.
I think a bunch of countries have this kind of thing.
So I think there's elections coming up.
There might be a martial law type of situation.
Forgive me, I'm not exactly sure.
But it's basically under constant internal political pressure where he can lose power.
joe rogan
Are you aware at all of his political opponents?
lex fridman
Yeah, there's a bunch.
There's a bunch of people.
I mean, they have to walk a tight rope because there is a lot of fear and anger inside of Israel now.
Like you said, after October 7th, there's like an existential fear.
The whole assumption of the Israeli people was that this kind of attack cannot possibly happen with the Iron Dome and the defenses.
And so you have a more...
There's more room, there's capacity to elect more radical people that are more...
Right wing.
They're more aggressive.
They're more militaristic.
joe rogan
Well, this is one of the big reasons why people love to dive into the false flag narrative.
Because they find an incentive for people to allow something to take place.
Because if you allow something to take place and you sacrifice a certain percentage of your population, you have now new rules.
And you have much more power.
And you have a society that's behind you now.
Because there's a reason why they want to fight.
And this is why anytime there's anything that ever happens, there's a bunch of people that think it's a false flag.
A bunch of people think 9-11 was a false flag.
And then there's real ones that we know about, like Operation Northwoods.
Didn't happen, but they really did sign.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff signed a proposal where they wanted to blow up American airliner and blame Cuba.
We wanted to arm Cuban friendlies and attack Guantanamo Bay.
And they wanted to invade Cuba.
Under false pretenses of a false flag.
We really do stuff like that.
And I say by we, I mean humans.
Humans in power.
Nero burned Rome.
Hitler burned Reichstag.
There's false flags.
They create these situations to force people to fight.
And that's a real thing.
But it's also like...
People get caught with their pants down, too.
So it's like it's hard to know what's what.
It's hard to know what's what.
lex fridman
But the same organization that did the whole pager thing, the sophisticated intelligence required for that, somehow missed an obvious breach of a...
Right.
joe rogan
And they were warned by Egypt.
The whole thing is very tragic.
lex fridman
Jamie, just a quick request.
Are you tracking the Starship?
Launch.
joe rogan
I know, you want to watch.
We've got five minutes, I think.
lex fridman
Okay.
joe rogan
Four minutes.
It's 3.56 right now.
lex fridman
Fuck yeah, I want to watch it.
joe rogan
Yeah, I know you do.
lex fridman
America.
joe rogan
We're going to wrap it up with that.
Is it launching live?
lex fridman
Yeah, it's live.
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Let's hope it doesn't blow up.
That would suck.
What if it blows up while we're watching?
lex fridman
I don't think at this stage, blowing up, I mean, it would be really awesome if it doesn't blow up, if it flies and then it's caught by the...
jamie vernon
In 13 minutes.
joe rogan
In 13 minutes.
Okay, we've got time.
Jamie, keep an eye on it.
lex fridman
At this time, I mean, it's called Starship Test 7 for a reason.
Right.
joe rogan
Blow a few up every now and again.
Find out what the tolerances are.
lex fridman
It is nice for Jeff Bezos to succeed on the first try.
The first one is really important because there's a lot of skepticism.
Couldn't this even be done with the new Glenn rocket?
joe rogan
And now Bezos and Elon are homies again.
lex fridman
Homies.
joe rogan
They're expressing platitudes on Twitter.
lex fridman
Yeah, they're...
They're going to sit together at the inauguration.
joe rogan
What, Jamie?
jamie vernon
I'm trying to check.
I'm not finding the right video.
joe rogan
Okay.
No worries.
jamie vernon
Where should I go?
Because I tried typing SpaceX.
lex fridman
Yeah, be really careful.
Just find the official SpaceX channel or you can go on X. Yeah, go on X. There's going to be a bunch of bots selling you crypto if you're not careful.
Don't go on Pornhub.
That's a different one.
joe rogan
You can't go on Pornhub in Texas.
lex fridman
This is a violation of human rights.
joe rogan
That's what I'm saying.
That's what I'm saying.
lex fridman
Are you going to the inauguration?
joe rogan
Perhaps.
Are you?
lex fridman
Unfortunately, yeah.
joe rogan
Really?
Unfortunately?
lex fridman
Socializing.
All the socializing.
joe rogan
Oh, you're doing it on purpose for work?
lex fridman
No, I just...
No, listen.
unidentified
I never go out to things for work.
lex fridman
I don't work.
It's more like...
I felt like it's an opportunity like...
joe rogan
To meet people?
lex fridman
No, like you would regret it if you didn't go.
Like it's a historic...
It's a historic moment.
And also George St. Pierre said he's going somewhere.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I think Gordon's going too.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's a very different thing this time around.
People are very hopeful with him as president now, which is very different than in 2016. 2016 was like this existential crisis that the media just blasted into everybody's head.
I think enough time has passed and enough faith has been lost in the media that people have sort of woken up out of that and realized we can't keep going the way we're going.
lex fridman
I hope the good vibes continue in general.
The politicization of everything will not escalate quickly here.
joe rogan
It's possible.
It's possible.
lex fridman
Even the inauguration itself.
I hope they're not.
It's not a divisive event.
It's more of an inspiring event.
joe rogan
Well, it's going to be divisive with some people.
There's no getting around that.
Some people, just their psychology.
Like that lady in the pink that was yelling.
The lady that said that Pete Hegseth said that when he really didn't say it.
He just published it.
Someone else wrote it.
jamie vernon
It says 37 minutes.
joe rogan
37?
We don't have that kind of time.
jamie vernon
This just went live, so it doesn't say anything.
joe rogan
Just a big old SpaceX.
There it is.
Is that it sitting there chilling?
jamie vernon
I'm trying to double check most of these.
They all say 37 minutes and counting.
unidentified
Wow.
Let's see.
joe rogan
Who's Felix?
jamie vernon
These are just channels.
joe rogan
Oh, so a bunch of different channels.
jamie vernon
There's tons of channels with it.
That's why I'm trying to find the most accurate or real one.
Because someone could be live streaming a fake one.
joe rogan
What are they live streaming, though?
All sorts of stuff.
Does SpaceX have its own page?
jamie vernon
I just went to live on YouTube.
This is where I was bringing up with Twitch.
It's hard to find stuff that's live.
joe rogan
Does SpaceX have an account?
jamie vernon
When I typed it in, that's when he was bringing it up.
You start getting all sorts of crazy shit.
And I get all these weird...
That's not them?
joe rogan
That's not them?
SpaceX Live?
jamie vernon
No.
They wouldn't put that in their official account.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
lex fridman
That's not NASA's channel.
You know what?
SpaceX might have just closed their YouTube channel, I'm guessing, because they want to do it on X, right?
jamie vernon
Yeah, that makes sense.
So I went to there, and that's what...
joe rogan
Oh, how weird.
How weird.
jamie vernon
It just went up three minutes ago.
joe rogan
So it's just a bunch of fakers pretending to be SpaceX.
SpaceX Live?
Like that?
You're not SpaceX.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Tricking me into looking at your channel.
jamie vernon
They're boosting the algorithm.
joe rogan
I guess.
So this is it.
jamie vernon
This is an older one, I think.
joe rogan
Oh, this is old?
lex fridman
And some of them...
Everyday Astronaut is really great.
I recommend people stream him.
He's great.
Wait, I feel like...
Have you talked to him?
I'm not exactly sure.
But he was...
He went after Bart...
What is his name?
joe rogan
Bart Cibril?
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Did he?
lex fridman
He's really...
I mean, and not when after, I should say.
Just use the opportunity to educate.
Like, he, like, has this really long...
joe rogan
Gotta get the two of them in the same room.
lex fridman
Yeah, for sure.
That's what he wants.
He keeps being on my case.
I want to debate him.
joe rogan
Did you ever have Bart on your podcast?
lex fridman
No.
But Bart wants to debate him.
I was like, hey, do I want this?
Right.
joe rogan
Of course you do.
Shut the fuck up.
Do it.
lex fridman
I think...
I think there's a...
Yeah.
It's something that happened in the past.
What are we going to learn from it?
Say it was completely fake.
I would rather focus on modern day conspiracies.
joe rogan
What?
You don't want to know if they fake the moon landing?
Are you crazy?
lex fridman
No, I do want to know.
How does your life change?
joe rogan
A lot.
A lot.
This is how.
Because you know that the government is able to fake the fucking moon landing and to get people to shut their mouths and a bunch of people disappeared.
unidentified
The story is nuts, dude.
joe rogan
Do you know the story about God, what was his name?
I don't remember, but he was a journalist.
What was he assigned to do?
He was assigned to do an audit of NASA and he wrote Hundreds of pages.
And his analysis, this is like 1964, 65, 66, somewhere around then.
So it was years before the moon landings.
God, I can't remember his fucking name.
I used to have this shit at the tip of my tongue.
But he parked his car with his family in and on a train track.
And a train smashed their car and the...
The document was never retrieved.
It vanished.
It went away.
Bye-bye.
And then a few years later, everyone's on the moon.
Gus Grisham, the pilot of Apollo 1, the guy that burned alive in that thing, he hung a lemon on that thing saying that it would never work.
They couldn't communicate with the tower.
How's this thing supposed to get us to the moon?
And that guy, you know, people, his family believes he was murdered for that.
There's a lot of weirdness in the moon landing, buddy.
lex fridman
See, Tim Dodd...
joe rogan
If they really did pull it off, and then all these people are cucking for the fucking government of the 1960s, it's kind of hilarious.
lex fridman
Wait, they pulled off the fake?
joe rogan
The faking.
lex fridman
The faking.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
So, Tim Dodd, everyday astronaut, apparently has an answer to all of this.
joe rogan
Yeah?
What's his answer to the Van Allen radiation belts?
lex fridman
There is an answer.
I'm not going to turn this debate into...
joe rogan
It's a cute one.
Whatever it is.
lex fridman
The answer?
joe rogan
It has to be cute.
To send people through thousands of miles of intense radiation and have no biological animal that you've ever done that to that's come back alive and just let's try it on people.
lex fridman
So let me try to convince you as an agent of the Mossad and the CIA. I think...
Okay, this is from me looking at Wikipedia for about five seconds.
I thought the belt is not all the way around, so you can go around the belt.
joe rogan
No, you can get through the top and the bottom, but you have to fly out of Antarctica, and you really can't do that.
The way we did it, we had to go through it, and we had to go through it, I think it was for a couple hours.
Maybe it's possible.
Maybe it really is.
lex fridman
We're going to find out soon, right?
joe rogan
Hopefully, unless they go through Antarctica.
So it's like a donut.
That's what it is.
The intense band of radiation is like a donut.
lex fridman
But apparently the actual amount of radiation is not that intense.
I mean, again, speaking as a massage agent.
joe rogan
It depends on who you're asking.
Van Allen thought it was pretty fucking intense.
Also, there was Operation Starfish Prime.
Do you know about that?
Operation Starfish Prime, they were trying to blow a hole through the radiation belt.
So they launched nuclear weapons into space and detonated them.
And it had the opposite effect.
Like, supercharged.
The radiation belt made it more radioactive.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Operation Starfish Prime.
jamie vernon
Google that.
joe rogan
What's that?
jamie vernon
I think it was temporary.
And it dissipated over time.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
lex fridman
Jamie is also a Mossad.
joe rogan
No, no, he's right.
No, he's right.
But, I mean, like, when they measured it.
When they measured it, it was, like, way more radiation.
They didn't blow a hole through it at all.
They fucked it up.
They supercharged it.
But just the fact that they were trying to do that.
They were trying to blow up.
Nuclear weapons in space like if I was the aliens, that's when I would start showing up like look at these fucking assholes high-altitude nuclear tests What what are people doing?
Not only that it shut off the power in Hawaii.
It fucked Hawaii up Hawaii had like a brownout like these guys are psychopaths Can you imagine, like, sitting at a table with a bunch of generals, and this guy comes in with a cigar?
I want to launch a fucking nuke in space!
I want to see what happens.
I just want to see what happens.
You know what my favorite one of those is?
The very first detonation of the very first nuclear bomb.
There was a non-zero chance that that bomb was going to destroy the entire atmosphere of the Earth.
lex fridman
Just imagine what that feels like, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
And they were like, let's see.
lex fridman
Let's see.
joe rogan
Boom!
Nope.
We're still here.
They were reasonably sure that it wasn't going to do that.
But, you know, you've never done that before.
Who knows?
lex fridman
And there's a lot of people asking the question of, like, in the war in Ukraine, whether Putin is willing to use even tactical nuclear weapons.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
Just send a statement.
That's an open question.
joe rogan
It is an open question.
lex fridman
And it's like a terrifying possibility.
We, I think, generationally have forgotten what nuclear weapons are.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
Most people think it's a fun TikTok meme.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
The mushroom cloud can just...
And then what happens next?
More of them.
joe rogan
Back and forth, back and forth.
Everything's gone.
Everything's gone like that.
lex fridman
And that's why I'm excited about Starship launches.
joe rogan
Let's get the fuck out of here!
Let's live on the sex cult on Mars.
lex fridman
No, I love Earth.
I prefer Earth.
The sex cult.
joe rogan
Right, but if you had to be a person who lived and Earth was going to blow, you'd probably try it.
You'd say, listen, maybe I'm going to be the fucking Davy Crockett of Mars, and then years from now this would be a mall.
And everybody will remember when Lex came over on the rocket.
Yeah.
lex fridman
I mean, it really is exciting to see what kind of societies form on Mars.
Even just 100 people, 1,000 people, 10,000 people, 100,000 people.
joe rogan
What are the prospects of terraforming?
Because the problem is Mars is too far from the sun.
It's just not warm enough.
So what are they going to do in terms of oxygen?
Do you know Terrence Howard, the actor?
You know Terrence Howard's theory?
He's got a great theory.
It's a really interesting theory.
That all solar systems, that instead of it being like a collection of debris from the outer galaxies, it's that too.
But what it really is, is the sun is ejecting matter.
And we know that, right?
So after millions and millions of years of sun ejecting matter, the matter coalesces and becomes a planet.
As it gets further and further from the Sun, it becomes more hospitable to life.
As it gets into that Goldilocks zone where Earth is, it peoples.
And then he thinks that this is happening all throughout the galaxy.
That planets get to a certain stage and then they people.
And then those planets are slowly going to move further and further away further and get colder and colder.
And it's up to these creatures to figure out how to get the fuck out of there.
Before it becomes inhospitable.
And that's where the advanced civilizations come in.
And this is why he thinks the most advanced civilizations are on the planets that are the furthest from the Sun.
Because they're the ones who've adapted and figured out a way to exist off of some other form of energy other than just sunlight.
lex fridman
Wait, does he have an idea about which planets in our solar system might be peopled?
joe rogan
Probably used to be Mars.
lex fridman
Mars.
Still or no?
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
There's nothing on there now.
I mean, it's not hospitable.
But there could have been.
There was an atmosphere.
lex fridman
There could be life there.
Now there's water there.
joe rogan
There could be...
Well, there's probably some sort of bacterial life, right?
There's probably...
The real question is, is there any evidence that there was other life?
Like, think about how difficult it is for us to find, like, dinosaur bones, right?
Like, dinosaurs have to become a fossil.
It's a very complicated process.
They have to die in mud or something.
They have to get covered up and then they calcify.
And if you don't know, when you get a fossil, the bone that's fossilized, it's not really that bone.
What it is is it's been remineralized by all the earth elements.
And so it's kind of a different thing.
But it's in the shape of the bone.
That's fossilized bone.
What if you're talking about like 30 million years, 50 million years, 100 million years, 200 million years, a billion years?
What if Mars a billion years ago had life on it?
What would be left?
lex fridman
Nothing.
I mean, in that case, nothing.
joe rogan
What would be left?
Like, Earth is four point something billion years old, right?
How old's Mars?
Do we know?
How old's Mars?
lex fridman
Yeah, that's good estimates for that.
joe rogan
Like, is Mars older?
lex fridman
I believe it's older, yeah.
joe rogan
So that's pretty similar.
Right?
lex fridman
When did the solar system start forming?
unidentified
See, these are just wild guesses by a bunch of fucking eggheads.
joe rogan
Bunch of eggheads with wild guesses.
I'm going with Terrence Howard.
I think he's right.
What a brilliant idea, though.
lex fridman
I'm offended you called him an actor.
He could be a mathematician, physicist.
joe rogan
He's a lot of things.
Brilliant guy.
lex fridman
His conversation with Eric Weinstein and you was just as art.
joe rogan
It was a good conversation.
lex fridman
Some conversations are art.
joe rogan
Yeah, that was a good one.
Because he's a good guy.
He's a good guy, and Eric's a very good guy the way he handled it.
He was stern and very clear and obvious who was right, but very kind and very friendly, which is a quality that Eric has.
The ability to do that, especially when you're talking about something that's so incredibly complex and esoteric.
You're talking about like...
Super complicated math, and he's showing it to him.
Do you know how to do this?
You're showing it on the board, and you can tell he doesn't know how to do this?
He's like, let me explain how this works.
And then you realize, oh boy.
Self-taught, you know?
This is the thing.
There's a lot of brilliant people that just don't get the correct education, but they're still brilliant.
lex fridman
Yeah, the raw horsepower is there.
joe rogan
Yes, the raw horsepower is there.
But I think this theory that he has about planets peopling, I find it so fascinating.
I couldn't stop thinking about it for days.
I was like, I think he's right.
lex fridman
Yeah, I mean, we're going to find out.
Even if you discover bacteria on Mars, that's going to change everything.
I'm convinced that there's alien life throughout even the galaxy, but that's a really open question, and most people don't think so.
joe rogan
You know what I think?
I don't think it gets past...
Where we are very often.
I think it probably fucks up a lot.
I think it's too difficult to harness the power of the sun while you're a tribal monkey and not blow yourself up or fuck things up horribly or just get involved in natural disasters that you didn't adequately prepare for.
I mean, we're still not...
We're not prepared at all for asteroid impacts.
lex fridman
I mean, yeah, young address impact theory, it's very recent.
joe rogan
Yeah, and also super volcanoes.
We're not prepared at all.
If we have a super volcano, if Yellowstone blows, which it's gonna, one of these is gonna, one of the big ones is gonna blow, they just do.
It might blow 100,000 years from now, it might blow next week.
They fucking happen, and we're not prepared.
We're not prepared for that.
lex fridman
Even if you just look at the LA fire, sorry to interrupt, imagine the chaos that's going to be created.
joe rogan
Oh, and imagine the LA fires with no fire department.
lex fridman
Right.
joe rogan
Okay?
Imagine that.
Imagine that there's no one out there trying to put that fire out.
That would be fucking insane.
And, you know, I think Civilization has probably gone through a gang of those before.
I think Graham Hancock, as much as he gets criticized, I think he's onto something.
I think Randall Carlson is as well.
I think they're onto something.
I think...
It's probably the end of the Ice Age.
It's probably asteroid impacts.
There's too much physical evidence that corresponds with the timeline for it to be ignored.
I mean, it's a pretty accepted theory now, the Younger Dryas Impact Theory.
It's just like what happened during that time and what existed before that time.
And all the stuff that we see a few thousand years later, is that a reimagining of civilization out of complete and utter chaos?
Because I think it might be.
And it might be one of the reasons why we're so fucking barbaric.
It might be that our ancestors were the ones who survived the most horrific time in history.
We got hit by asteroids and civilization just evaporated instantaneously.
Millions of people probably instantaneously died.
We were left with chaos in a completely different climate.
Places that were covered in ice are now raging rivers.
The whole thing's fucked.
All the animals are dead.
Most people you know that are anywhere near the impact are dead.
People get washed away in the floods.
Entire civilizations just instantaneously flooded and destroyed.
That could happen again.
That could happen again tomorrow.
That could happen again next month.
We're in the shooting gallery.
We're in the shooting gallery of the universe, and I bet that's pretty common.
So I bet the race is to try to get intelligent enough that you can do all these different things, but also intelligent enough that you abandon these ancient primal instincts that you have.
And that's where we're at the cusp of that.
We're at the cusp of our tribal chaos mixed in with impossible knowledge.
And it's all like happening at the same time.
And so there's this wild race that's going on.
And people like you and people like me and people that are hopeful, we hope we get it right.
We hope we get it right.
But we might not get it right.
And I think out there in the universe, I think it's probably more likely that people don't get it right than do get it right.
And if they do get wiped out, I mean, we got the Toba volcano, we got down somewhere around 70,000 years ago to a few thousand people on Earth.
What are those motherfuckers like?
Like, Jesus Christ, those are our ancestors.
Those people must have been brutal.
lex fridman
Well, that's one of the things I've just seen, even on the smaller scale of the war in Ukraine, is, you know, your house or the city gets destroyed, and people adapt immediately.
Like, the tough people rise up.
Like, it changes you immediately.
There's a resilience to the human spirit.
unidentified
It's crazy.
lex fridman
You can adjust.
So if an asteroid hits Earth, like the United States, you know, let's say 70% of people dead.
joe rogan
Yeah.
You get an unlocked power that, like, your character in the video game has.
lex fridman
Yeah.
I mean, this is where the people in Texas immediately become the valued commodity versus, like, I don't know.
People in Silicon Valley or something.
Technology doesn't matter.
None of that matters.
Survival matters.
Individual, radical individualism matters.
And that's one of the things that gives me hope.
joe rogan
Community matters.
lex fridman
Local.
Very local.
joe rogan
You've got to band together.
lex fridman
But, like, it really is a tension of...
Because it's not collectivism.
It's not like...
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
So governments that rely on central authorities...
Fall apart from that kind of thing.
joe rogan
Well, 100%.
Any natural disaster government, like a real big one, like an asteroid impact, it's gone.
The government doesn't do anything anymore.
They're useless.
Power goes out for a month, they're gone.
Everybody's gone.
It's any man for himself.
No one's protecting you from outlaws.
You've seen that already in the California fires.
There's gangs of kids, a hundred at a time, breaking into houses and looting them in the middle of these evacuation zones.
You're seeing chaos.
They can't protect you from that if something happens.
And this is something we're not prepared for.
We're spending so much time doing other things and not recognizing the incredible vulnerability that our society has.
This very fragile system that we put in place that's so much better than at any time in human history.
This is the best time to be alive ever, by far.
And it's so fragile.
And we don't think it's fragile because the power stays on.
lex fridman
Yeah, and one of the things, you know, just having traveled across the world, like the thing that really America stands out with and why I'm excited about what's happening now is the radical individual freedom.
I think the freer the country is, the individual, back to Genghis Khan with the freedom to practice religion, the freer the people are, the more resilient they are to the...
The terrors, the catastrophes of the world.
They just respond.
They're much more dynamic.
The more centralized and collectivist the society is, the more you're susceptible to corruption, to this kind of propaganda.
You're not able to respond to even the pandemic.
Just governments are not able to do that.
The Fauci's of the world will always emerge.
It's not even...
Say even Fauci wanted to do the right thing or something.
It's impossible for the centralized authorities to do the right thing.
You have to have a distributed...
You have to put much more weight on the freedom of the individual.
joe rogan
That's a really important thing that you just said.
It's impossible for the centralized authorities to do the right thing.
It really almost is, if they want to do their job.
lex fridman
That's why at Doge, there's a lot of promise there.
You want to decrease the power, the size.
And the bureaucracy of the federal government.
You want them to be mobile, agile, small, efficient, and distributed to the state or to the small companies, the companies.
joe rogan
And how about stop going after the American people?
How about that too?
lex fridman
Which part?
Every part?
joe rogan
All sorts of things.
All sorts of things.
Attacking people, what's happened with this country because of January 6th and their version of it and what actually happened.
You know, what the FBI did with the Twitter files, with influencing things, what they did with Facebook, where they contacted and were telling them to take down memes.
lex fridman
Can I actually just say about that, I don't know if he gets enough credit, but I think what Mark Zuckerberg did on your podcast is actually, it may not seem that way, but it's courageous.
joe rogan
I think it's courageous.
I think he had to do it, too.
I think it's both things.
lex fridman
But internally, he's running a gigantic company.
joe rogan
He's running a gigantic company, but also...
This is the way things are rolling.
Like, you either get in the way and get rolled over or you get on board.
And if you want your company to succeed in today's day and age and not be disdained and universally, whether it's whether people boycott it or people just start hating on it, the stock drops.
Like, if a new thing that's like Facebook, because Facebook is, although it's so common, It's one of those ones you could do without, kind of.
It doesn't have the kind of information gathering aspect that X does.
Like, if I want to find out what's going on in the world, I go to X. Facebook's not like that.
It's like people talking about stuff and posting videos and things, like...
lex fridman
I mean, there's also WhatsApp.
joe rogan
That one could take a hit.
That could take a big hit if people just decided to, like, fuck you and your censorship.
You know, and I think more people are inclined to say fuck you and your censorship now than ever before.
So it's a good business decision to stop censoring people.
And the community notes thing is fucking genius.
It's the greatest invention ever in terms of like the ability to find out what's right or what's wrong.
Let's let people post things and it was not true.
Enough people report it.
People look at it and go, oh, it turns out that's not true at all.
And here's why it's not true.
That shit's huge.
It's you.
It's funny when Elon gets community noted, too.
Even he gets community noted.
lex fridman
It's so great.
It's so great.
joe rogan
Yeah, you get community noted, son.
Everybody does.
But it's the best way.
It's the best way to find out what's real and what's not real.
But then it's also like, you know, should you let people on your platform that are just fucking straight up Nazis and trying to recruit people?
Should you let horrible racism exist on your platform?
The problem was that slippery slope, man.
If you say no, if you say no, then other people are going to decide.
Remember Punch a Nazi?
Were people saying you should punch a Nazi?
I remember Kurt Metzger was like, well, who fucking gets to say who's a Nazi?
If it was just a guy running a gas chamber, yeah, punch a Nazi.
But if it's just some guy who doesn't think that a trans woman should be competing against his daughter in high school sports, like, that's not a Nazi.
Like, you've changed the term.
lex fridman
I think the slippery slope is important.
There's people like Pavel Durov, who's running Telegram, and he was, you know, Europe, rest in peace, is going after him for, like...
joe rogan
He got arrested.
lex fridman
Yeah, well, because there is legitimate terrorists talking to each other on Telegram, but, like, what's the alternative?
joe rogan
But if it's an encrypted app, how are you going to stop it?
How are you going to stop, if it really is encrypted, if they can't read it, right?
Like, this is WhatsApp.
If you use WhatsApp, if you and I message each other on WhatsApp, no one can read it but us.
lex fridman
Yeah, but the government wants the backdoor.
That's what they wanted with Telegram.
joe rogan
Right, but that's crazy, because you could use that backdoor in all kinds of ways.
Like, they use that backdoor for Signal.
That's how they found out that Tucker Carlson was talking to Putin's people about setting up an interview.
He was like, we know you did it on signals.
Tucker's like, I didn't even know you could do that!
lex fridman
That's what Tucker says.
joe rogan
You think Tucker's lying?
How dare you?
lex fridman
He's not lying.
You son of a bitch.
joe rogan
You are a Russian plant.
lex fridman
CIA, Mossad, and Russian, yes, for sure.
unidentified
All of them?
lex fridman
How do you get on all of them?
Bring me to the meeting, bro.
joe rogan
I want to see what happens.
I want to see what they do with that goat.
Well, Tucker said they read his signal.
lex fridman
Well, it's very possible.
But technologically, I'm not sure how it's possible to do that.
Pegasus.
joe rogan
But the way it's been explained to me is even though your phone is encrypted, it's not encrypted to you.
Like, you see it.
It's encrypted peer-to-peer, right?
So if they can just see your phone.
lex fridman
You mean there's some kind of screen recording type of thing?
joe rogan
Yeah, not just screen recording.
Get access to your phone.
Find out all your contacts.
All your emails, all your passwords, all your this.
lex fridman
Yes, but signal publications, end-to-end encrypted, so it's difficult.
I mean, it's possible, it's difficult.
joe rogan
But it's not through signal.
If you're going through the phone, so if you're using Pegasus, you're just compromising the entire phone.
If signal's on that phone, you know the passwords already.
You go into signal, you can go into anything.
lex fridman
Oh, in that way.
joe rogan
Yeah, you have access to the phone.
lex fridman
But that's, right, that's legitimate hacking, right.
joe rogan
Right, but this is what they're doing.
unidentified
Right.
lex fridman
That's not what they wanted with Telegram.
They wanted a full-on backdoor.
joe rogan
Gavin DeBecker explained this to me.
He said with Pegasus 1, you needed to click a link.
This was the Jeff Bezos thing.
Someone sent him a bad link on WhatsApp.
He clicked it.
They had access to his phone.
They got compromising information on him.
With Pegasus 2, they just need your phone number.
So they got your phone number.
Boom, they're in your phone.
That's it.
And so if that's the case, if you have a An app like Signal.
Like, I would assume they could read your signal.
Because it's like right there on your phone.
Like, if you already got the phone open, and they've got a compromise where they can get into your phone.
lex fridman
That's actually, by the way, why, you know, I'm going to Ukraine, going to Russia, going back to Ukraine.
joe rogan
Trying to get your phone hacked.
lex fridman
Well, I also try to make sure, like...
Dick pics that I sent to you and Tim Dillon aside, I try not to...
There's nothing to hide.
joe rogan
Right.
Do you have a burner?
Do you get a burner phone?
Do you bring when you go overseas?
You bring a real phone?
lex fridman
I wouldn't tell you.
joe rogan
Bro, that phone is hearing everything we say.
lex fridman
Yeah, for sure.
joe rogan
For sure.
lex fridman
What are we saying that we need to hide?
I mean, there's some embarrassing things for sure.
Like, you know...
joe rogan
Drunk texts.
lex fridman
Drunk texts.
Yeah, I mean, from the past.
I'm some shit from the past.
I'm so glad I grew up when I did.
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
Imagine if you were 15 with a phone that you could take a picture of your dick.
lex fridman
So there's like a hit piece on me.
Fine, great, wonderful.
I love you all.
Write some more.
But this journalist found like some shit poetry I wrote.
joe rogan
Oh, no.
lex fridman
When you were young?
Yeah, well.
joe rogan
Were you hanging around with comedians?
lex fridman
It was like late.
It might have been late 20s, early 30s, so there's not even an excuse that you're not that young.
joe rogan
It just sucked.
lex fridman
It just sucked, yeah.
And I was just reading it.
Because they know how to get...
Who is this article for?
joe rogan
It's for the person writing it.
They want to hate on you.
And it's clicks.
And you're popular.
So they want to hate on you by attacking your shitty poetry.
lex fridman
It's just hilarious.
joe rogan
Well, they got you.
You gave them a little rope.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they hung you with it.
lex fridman
But, like, what I'm saying is that's not a big deal.
The bigger deal is, like, if you grew up with that.
So there's, like, shit you said when you're 14 or 15 or 16. Yeah, exactly.
It's even the piece, like, you know, that stuff, like, the article, all of that kind of stuff.
You can even...
I mean, one of the big things we have to do is allow people to evolve and just say, you know, yeah, that was shit poetry.
Well, I'm still horrible.
I'm worse at poetry now.
But, like, that was embarrassing that I would be publishing shit poetry.
joe rogan
I think that these people that attack, almost all of them are leftists.
And I think leftism is a religion, just like being a Christian is a religion, in that there's a way that you approach it.
Marc Andreessen says it best.
He was describing that it has all the attributes of a cult.
And I think people have a default system in their mind, we all do, that we fall into, that gives us a religious-like adherence to some ideas.
And the thing that this cult is lacking, which is paramount to Christianity, is forgiveness.
There's no road to redemption.
Everyone is ostracized and kicked out.
And what you wind up doing is you wind up cannibalizing your own thing.
You can never be left enough.
There's always crazy people that are like far to the end of it and every ideological group gets defined by its most extreme members.
That's why when people think about, like, far-right people, who do you think are the worst people?
You think of, like, people who want war, warmongers, assholes, you know, stupid people, uneducated.
That's what people think of when they think of, like, the worst.
They think of, like, white nationalists.
That's what they think of when they think of far-right.
So you can kind of, like, you flavor everything else in the group by the worst members of the group.
And if you don't have forgiveness in your religion, like, you have a fucking terrible religion.
If you don't have a path to redemption.
And you want extreme adherence to dogma, even if, like, even if whatever this idea with this ideology that you're pushing is, like, clearly, clearly destructive to a bunch of humans.
That's what they're dealing with.
It's like people fall into thought patterns, man.
Most people are too busy to formulize their own opinions, so they develop opinions to sort of merge with the people that they're in touch with all the time.
And if you get stuck in one of those fucking woke hives, you're basically surrounded by mentally ill people that are preaching in a logical version of the world that no one believes could ever exist.
lex fridman
I hope there will be left-wing leaders that emerge that kind of shed that.
joe rogan
I think they will have to just by virtue of their survival.
I think the woke thing is so widely rejected now.
And when I say the woke thing, I mean what Elon calls the mind virus.
The crazy aspect of it.
Like your kid knows it's trans when it's two.
That kind of shit.
Like the people that are just far off the rails.
That's gonna die off.
It's just too nutty and it doesn't make any sense and it's ultimately destructive to a lot of different groups of people.
And it's not fair.
The trans women in sports thing is the most unfair aspect of it.
That one's so crazy.
When you see people argue for it, inclusivity, like, you're out of your fucking mind.
Like, you're out of your mind.
And the inability to discern who's a pervert and who's actually trans, like the impossible nature and then just greenlighting perverts to do whatever they want.
lex fridman
And that, you know, my concern is I do think the woke-ism is either dying or dead.
My concern is those folks who are now looking for a new religion.
There's people like that on the right.
I think they're mostly rejected.
joe rogan
No, there's a lot of people like that on the right.
The right has a woke right.
They have an attacking, woke fucking...
They're not united.
There's an aspect to the right that attacks other people on the right.
Especially now, because the right has more attention than ever before.
There's always going to be a group.
In any sort of ideology, there's going to be a group of people that...
Use the opportunity to attack people to elevate themselves.
lex fridman
Yeah, I think Marc Andreessen...
joe rogan
Is it going up?
unidentified
Five minutes.
joe rogan
Five minutes.
lex fridman
I think Marc Andreessen calls the battle, I think, on the right, maybe, between the techno-libertarians versus the nationalists.
So there's these protectionist people that say, like, no more immigration.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
Mass deport everybody.
And then there's these people, which they align on a lot of ideas.
These people that say, we need to fucking build.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
Like, they're both America first, but they just have a different flavor of that.
You know, the Marc Andreessen's of the world probably are, or at least Silicon Valley, accepts immigration.
Like, we need to allow legal immigration of the best people in the world.
joe rogan
Right.
lex fridman
But the nationalists...
Part of the right.
They're like, no, fuck that.
Fuck you with your H-1B. Fuck you with the...
We don't need any more.
We need Mirka.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
We don't need...
joe rogan
What is your take on the H-1B thing?
Because I saw the argument and I was like, wait a minute.
What is it?
Do you guys want cheap labor?
Are you trying to get super skillful engineers from other places?
What are we asking for here?
lex fridman
I think, as I understand, H-1B is just abused to get...
joe rogan
Cheaper labor.
lex fridman
So he needs to be reformed.
I think the argument got really muddled.
joe rogan
Right, because everybody was looking at the worst aspects of H-1B, which is the cheap labor, right?
lex fridman
But there is an aspect.
I think there's an O-1 visa.
There's different kinds of visas where we need to get the best, baddest motherfuckers from the rest of the world and have them work here.
joe rogan
Look at that, baby.
$3.53 to go.
Look at it steaming.
Look at all those carbons being emitted into the atmosphere by people who sell electric cars.
You'd have to drive a hundred thousand fucking cars 24 hours a day for a year to get any of the release of carbon that that thing has.
lex fridman
Here you go with your woke bullshit again.
joe rogan
You'd have to drive my Chevelle until the universe died of heat death to get as much...
As you're going to get off of this one rocket launch.
lex fridman
Turns out you need a combustion engine to get off this.
joe rogan
Do you think we do, man?
What do you think is going on with the UAPs?
Do you think these motherfuckers have some new shit?
lex fridman
Well, that's the Eric Weinstein.
Like, you don't need to worry about the rockets.
You need to crack physics.
joe rogan
Yeah.
lex fridman
I think, yeah.
joe rogan
Weinstein has a very unusual theory involving that one university that has a completely...
Overqualified physics department.
It's also connected to a stockbroker, or not a stockbroker, a financial thing.
What are those things called?
You know what I'm talking about, Jamie?
God damn it.
The point is...
No, it's like some financial investment group that does better numbers.
They do like Bertie Madoff numbers, like nutty numbers.
What's that?
jamie vernon
Venture Capital.
joe rogan
Thank you.
That's it.
So this company is connected to this university.
This company makes extraordinary amounts of money.
This university has an insane physics department and they're not publishing anything.
And Eric's like, what are you guys doing?
lex fridman
That's real weird.
joe rogan
What the fuck are you doing?
So he thinks that these motherfuckers branched off.
He thinks that the government probably got a bunch of super top secret squirrel type dudes.
They're working on some high level shit and they branched off decades ago.
And that they've been working on this for a long time.
lex fridman
Of course, the military often swoops in and wants that talent, wants that technology, wants those ideas, right?
joe rogan
They're probably connected, all intertwined with the military because who's going to build these things, right?
You need the defense department.
You need defense contractors, rather.
You need, like, Raytheon.
You need someone like that who knows how to make spaceships, like, make this fucking thing, you know?
And they probably back-engineered it all.
They probably found some crash things that are probably left here on purpose and, like, figure it out, monkeys.
And then, you know, 1947, these dudes are fucking fumbling around and all of a sudden they figure out fiber optics.
All of a sudden they figure out transistors.
All of a sudden, like, there's a bunch of weird shit that just kind of emerges after these crash sites.
That's what I like to believe.
lex fridman
Yeah, I kind of believe that.
I also believe that there's...
That they're not so focused on us.
They're doing it here and everywhere else, too.
Maybe.
joe rogan
Why wouldn't they be focused on us?
lex fridman
I just feel like there's a lot of tribes in the Amazon.
joe rogan
I think there are, but I bet it takes a long-ass time for it to get to the distance that our Earth got from the sun, where you can get liquid water.
And it only lasts for a little while until it freezes again.
lex fridman
Oh, maybe.
If that's the case and they understand that, then yes.
joe rogan
If you thought about, like, the way...
Let's just assume that the way life was created on Earth is the only way life is created anywhere in the universe.
Let's assume that all those rules apply.
And let's assume that Terrence Howard's on to something.
lex fridman
The peopling.
joe rogan
The peopling.
You would imagine that it would have to get where we are, where the water melts, where the ice melts.
17 seconds.
And then...
Life emerges from the sea like it did here, right?
Doesn't that make sense?
That that would happen everywhere?
Oh, Jesus.
lex fridman
Wherever there's water.
joe rogan
Here we go.
unidentified
- Four, three, two, one.
joe rogan
- Here it goes. - That's a hundred million diesel trucks blowing coal.
lex fridman
This is America, baby.
joe rogan
Look at that thing.
michael j knowles
The vehicle's pitching downrange.
joe rogan
Holy shit, man.
lex fridman
And that thing's gonna get caught.
joe rogan
Bro, I want a rocket.
I just decided I want a rocket.
jamie vernon
We could go up on that, dude.
joe rogan
I need a rocket.
jamie vernon
Do a podcast in space.
joe rogan
I want a rocket.
jamie vernon
Look down.
All right, we're more than 30 seconds into flight.
unidentified
Telemetry shot 33 out of 33 engines as it's pitching downrange.
joe rogan
Look how high that is.
In 30 seconds.
unidentified
Booster ship, avionics power, telemetry nominal.
jamie vernon
Bro.
joe rogan
Is it going to snap off?
unidentified
I don't know.
When it snaps off, where does it go?
lex fridman
You're talking about the...
joe rogan
They drop it in the ocean?
lex fridman
No, it lands.
joe rogan
Oh, that's right.
It's the Falcon.
unidentified
Yeah, it gets caught by these arms.
joe rogan
I know, I was thinking about the Saturn V. I think it was like a booster.
I forgot.
It actually can land, which is even nuttier.
lex fridman
Yeah, it's nutty.
It's that this gigantic thing that's the size of a skyscraper, it just lands.
joe rogan
They just pass through the greatest stress the vehicle's going to experience going uphill.
jamie vernon
Speed is 2,000 kilometers an hour.
joe rogan
What the fuck?
It keeps getting faster.
lex fridman
Look how high it is, huh?
joe rogan
As they get away from the gravity of Earth, look how it gets faster, you fucking flat Earth dorks.
lex fridman
It gets easier and easier.
I don't know, it looks flat from here.
joe rogan
It does look flat.
They're right.
Oh my god.
Bro, you believe this CGI? You really believe this is happening?
You are a shill, Lex.
lex fridman
Watch, the camera might go out for a little bit, which will explain everything.
joe rogan
Have you seen the guy who takes the flat-earth people to Antarctica, where they can see the sun spin around, and they're like, oh, shit.
You can go to Antarctica that's not an ice ball?
No!
lex fridman
I mean, I like people that can change their mind in that way.
jamie vernon
Bro.
lex fridman
Let's see if it lands.
It should be a few minutes.
joe rogan
This is so nuts.
jamie vernon
I think this here in the corner is like all the...
Different boosters or something?
joe rogan
So it's 54 miles or 54 kilometers in the sky right now.
unidentified
Fuck, dude.
lex fridman
And it actually has, I think, satellites on board.
jamie vernon
I was active.
Just turned them all off.
Just slowed down.
lex fridman
Stage separation.
joe rogan
So that fucker's gonna go land.
lex fridman
That's gonna go land.
joe rogan
That's so crazy.
jamie vernon
What does that take now?
Like two minutes before it comes back down?
lex fridman
Maybe three, four more.
joe rogan
That is so fucking crazy.
It's going to go land now.
unidentified
Look at the earth.
joe rogan
It looks round.
unidentified
Lex, the earth looks kind of round.
Oh, wait a minute.
jamie vernon
It looks flat there.
joe rogan
Oh, this is the real camera.
That other one is bullshit.
jamie vernon
Facebook's kind of more around than me.
unidentified
That other one is a fisheye lens.
joe rogan
Yeah, where's the stars?
This is bullshit.
This is in a lab in Nevada.
lex fridman
This is a screensaver.
What is this?
unidentified
Wow.
lex fridman
I think they have a payload of a satellite that they're testing and releasing.
joe rogan
Bro, imagine what it feels like looking out the window.
jamie vernon
The one on the right is going way faster now.
unidentified
It's humbling.
jamie vernon
Almost to 6,000 kilometers an hour.
joe rogan
Oh my god.
jamie vernon
The other one's heading back down.
Still slowing down.
Wow.
Space station?
joe rogan
What is that?
Is that the space station?
Is that what that is?
jamie vernon
I hope so.
I don't know what the fuck is.
joe rogan
She just said it.
She just said it.
unidentified
Otherwise we just saw some UFO. She just said it.
Definitely a UFO. Is it possible they get that close to the space station?
joe rogan
Like, hey, guys!
lex fridman
Yeah, I mean, they're extremely precise about their flight trajectory.
unidentified
Would you ever fly on one of these?
No.
joe rogan
No, no, no, no.
lex fridman
How much would I need to pay you?
joe rogan
No, no, no.
I'm already rich.
You can't get me with that.
lex fridman
That's the one fucking money thing.
unidentified
Yeah, I don't have that expensive taste.
lex fridman
I would love to find one of these, man.
julie roginsky
Flat.
joe rogan
Dude, that's so insane.
lex fridman
Incredibly flat.
joe rogan
Look, it's CGI, bro.
unidentified
Starship's ship is still firing its engines right now.
joe rogan
What do you think would happen if you did send flat earthers up in that and they got to see?
Do you think they would believe what they're...
unidentified
How many of them are schizophrenic though?
lex fridman
They'll think everything was a lie.
joe rogan
Like what percentage of the Flat Earth community, like the percentage of all communities, it's like 1% that are schizophrenic, right?
Isn't it?
Like across the board?
lex fridman
Something like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, so it's not disparaging the Flat Earth community.
I'm just saying.
lex fridman
Can you be like schizophrenic light?
joe rogan
I wonder if they have a higher percentage.
lex fridman
Can you just be a little schizophrenic?
joe rogan
Yeah, you definitely can.
I know a dude who's got a touch.
They got a touch.
lex fridman
Yeah, a little bit.
joe rogan
Just a touch.
I told this story once.
I was talking to this comedian, and I've known this guy forever.
I thought he was totally normal.
But he's always like odd.
And he starts showing me pictures on his phone of clouds.
And he's like, you see that?
I go, yeah.
jamie vernon
It's gonna go through a cloud right now.
joe rogan
Whoa.
jamie vernon
That's a high-ass cloud.
unidentified
Holy shit.
jamie vernon
20 kilometers up.
joe rogan
Wow.
That's so fucking cool.
How fucking cool is that?
This thing is going to go land now.
lex fridman
You want to make a bet about if it's going to catch?
joe rogan
Oh, it's going to catch.
lex fridman
Yeah, I believe so too.
joe rogan
Yeah, no, I wouldn't bet against it.
That would be un-American.
Look how cool that is, man.
They're focusing on it now from a distance.
jamie vernon
It just dropped fast.
It's now only two kilometers above.
unidentified
This is so insane.
lex fridman
This is amazing.
joe rogan
This is so insane.
lex fridman
So it has this, it's controlling fully the position of this.
joe rogan
Look at how wild this is.
Look at the tower coming in to catch it too.
Oh my god.
lex fridman
Fuck yeah.
joe rogan
Fuck yeah!
Wow!
lex fridman
Holy shit now.
joe rogan
That is so fucking badass.
jamie vernon
That is exactly seven minutes from when it left.
joe rogan
Seven minutes for the whole flight?
unidentified
Yeah.
Wow.
lex fridman
That's a fucking building.
joe rogan
That is so dope.
jamie vernon
Look at the other ones.
joe rogan
What is that?
jamie vernon
Climbing in speed.
16,000 kilometers an hour.
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
jamie vernon
140 kilometers away.
joe rogan
Wow.
lex fridman
New Glenn yesterday.
Starship today.
This is why I fucking love America.
joe rogan
That's so incredible, dude.
That's so incredible.
Hey, the question is, like, how tall is that in reference to, like, a building?
Isn't it, like, a 20-story building or something crazy?
jamie vernon
Yeah, they showed before it took off right there.
lex fridman
Yeah, wow.
unidentified
Look how much bigger it is than the Millennium Falcon.
I like how they...
He compares it to the Millennium Falcon.
joe rogan
How fucking amazing is that?
What's the other one?
Is that Blue Origin?
jamie vernon
It's a different SpaceX.
joe rogan
Oh, that's another SpaceX one?
lex fridman
It's bigger than the Blue Origin rocket, but quite a bit.
I think it's the biggest rocket ever made.
joe rogan
123 meters.
jamie vernon
Yeah, and that part right here, halfway, that's what came back.
joe rogan
Right.
So that's gotta be...
I mean, do you think it's...
It looks higher than half.
lex fridman
How many floors of, like...
joe rogan
Yeah, it's gotta be 70 meters.
That's so crazy.
That's so big.
lex fridman
Yeah, it's like 33 Raptor engines, so just the raw power.
Just even one of those engines is...
If you ever see it live, it's incredible.
joe rogan
It's so much cooler watching it actually happen live than it is watching a video.
When you watch a video, you're like, yeah, that's cool, but we didn't know what was gonna happen.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's the cool thing about live.
lex fridman
Yeah.
joe rogan
Fuck yeah.
That was awesome.
lex fridman
That was fucking awesome.
joe rogan
Let's end with that.
We're ending on a positive note.
American ingenuity, baby.
lex fridman
Let's go America.
joe rogan
Peace on Earth.
Good one to all.
lex fridman
Love you, brother.
joe rogan
Love you too, man.
unidentified
Thank you.
Bye.
Export Selection