Making Sense - Sam Harris - #128 — Transformations of Mind

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

00:00:10.880 Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber

00:00:14.680 feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.

00:00:18.440 In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at

00:00:22.720 samharris.org.

00:00:24.140 There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher, along with

00:00:28.360 other subscriber-only content.

00:00:30.520 We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support

00:00:34.640 of our subscribers.

00:00:35.880 So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.

00:00:46.700 Today I am speaking with Jeffrey Miller.

00:00:50.120 Jeffrey is an evolutionary psychologist, best known for his books The Mating Mind, Mating

00:00:55.680 Intelligence, Spent, and Mate.

00:00:58.840 He got his BA in Biology and Psychology from Columbia and his PhD in Psychology from Stanford.

00:01:04.720 He is a tenured professor at the University of New Mexico, and he has over 100 academic

00:01:11.020 publications, addressing sexual selection, mate choice, signaling theory, fitness indicators,

00:01:17.200 consumer behavior, marketing, intelligence, creativity, language, art, music, humor, emotions,

00:01:24.280 personality, psychopathology, and behavioral genetics.

00:01:27.680 Anyway, Jeffrey is a very interesting guy, and we recorded this event in Houston in March.

00:01:33.180 And we covered a wide range of topics, things like sexual selection and virtue signaling and

00:01:40.700 public shaming, social media, spent a fair amount of time on monogamy versus polyamory.

00:01:47.580 We touched other taboo topics in science, spoke briefly about genetic engineering and existential

00:01:54.640 risk, in particular AI.

00:01:57.220 Spoke about gender differences, the Google memo, many things here.

00:02:01.600 So, I hope you enjoy it.

00:02:04.080 I now bring you Jeffrey Miller.

00:02:13.220 Thank you.

00:02:22.560 Thank you, guys.

00:02:31.600 I must say, I'm a little thrown by this room.

00:02:35.580 I hope you're not expecting electric guitars and death metal music.

00:02:40.600 But thank you for coming out.

00:02:42.020 I've never been to Houston before, and it's an honor to be here.

00:02:49.640 So, I will jump right into this.

00:02:51.540 We have a very interesting guest tonight.

00:02:53.360 My guest is an evolutionary psychologist and a professor at the University of New Mexico.

00:02:58.200 He's the author of many books and many scientific papers, and he is focused on topics as diverse

00:03:05.120 as sexual selection, mate choice, consumer behavior, intelligence, creativity, language,

00:03:12.040 psychopathology, many other topics.

00:03:15.100 His research has been featured in Nature and Science and the New York Times and in many documentaries.

00:03:20.360 Please welcome Jeffrey Miller.

00:03:29.320 Thank you for coming, Jeffrey.

00:03:36.520 Hey, Texas.

00:03:40.640 So, we have a lot to talk about, and I guess, well, let's start with your field,

00:03:47.940 which is evolutionary psychology.

00:03:50.540 Why is this so fraught?

00:03:53.400 The thesis, which is now just undeniable, that we are evolved creatures,

00:04:01.440 and therefore not only our bodies have evolved, but our minds have evolved,

00:04:06.180 our brains have certainly evolved.

00:04:08.000 Why is this still so difficult to talk about?

00:04:12.500 Honestly, it's pretty surprising, because I've been working in this field for about 30 years,

00:04:17.960 and when we first started the field, it was fairly heretical to apply evolutionary theory,

00:04:24.540 natural selection, sexual selection, ideas of social competition and behavioral ecology,

00:04:29.680 to apply all of that biology that had worked so well for thousands of other species to apply it to humans.

00:04:36.540 It was new, but we had no idea that it would get such a political backlash.

00:04:42.600 And I think in the popular imagination, evolutionary psychology is still kind of associated stereotypically with,

00:04:49.540 oh, you guys study nothing but sex differences.

00:04:53.120 Or, oh, you guys do intelligence research, which very few of us actually do.

00:04:57.340 And I think it's part of a general defense of a kind of blank slate ideology that says,

00:05:07.700 look, if you bring animal behavior, if you bring genetics, if you bring evolutionary theory into the human sphere,

00:05:15.220 particularly where they affect political controversies,

00:05:20.580 then that's anathema, that's kind of a taboo.

00:05:23.880 It muddies the waters, it makes people uncomfortable.

00:05:29.280 But for reasons I'm honestly baffled by, I've never really felt uncomfortable viewing humans as animals.

00:05:37.140 I've never really felt uncomfortable with the idea that all of the hard work our ancestors did for millions of years

00:05:44.060 have endowed us with amazing capacities, like emotions, motivations, preferences,

00:05:49.660 that generally help us do awesome things and get along and invent things and make progress and show altruism.

00:06:00.080 I've never really felt the kind of panic, the moral panic that a lot of people seem to feel about this.

00:06:06.960 Is it an attachment to kind of mind-body dualism?

00:06:11.940 Because obviously no one's disputing that the body has evolved and that we are apes in that respect.

00:06:18.460 But is it a concern specifically that what we care about in the mind and differences between minds,

00:06:28.420 that that could be beholden to evolution?

00:06:31.040 I think so, but I think honestly, you know, the common folk aren't really approaching this metaphysically.

00:06:40.300 I don't think it's really about mind-body dualism or free will or any of that stuff you get in Philosophy 101.

00:06:46.880 I think it's often more to do with the fact that people worry that you're reducing the rich smorgasbord of human capabilities

00:06:57.660 down to a very small number of basic instincts, which is in fact the exact opposite of what I try to do.

00:07:07.260 A lot of my work has tried to illustrate, for example, that human capacities to produce art or learn and create music

00:07:17.060 or to have a good sense of humor are genuine adaptations that evolve for specific social and sexual functions

00:07:25.160 and that those are endowments that we have.

00:07:27.920 So that's not really reducing the human mind to simpler things.

00:07:33.780 It's saying, our ancestors cared so much in selecting mates and friends who were interesting and witty and funny

00:07:42.260 that we now are all amazingly witty and funny and interesting compared to any other primate.

00:07:48.440 Yeah, we are funnier than at least some of the orangutans.

00:07:52.320 Yeah.

00:07:53.320 Although I think all actors know that you don't want to share a stage with one.

00:07:57.020 He will be upstaged.

00:07:59.100 Well, so you just introduced, you surreptitiously introduced a concept,

00:08:02.960 which I think many people are not familiar with.

00:08:05.600 Everyone more or less knows about natural selection, but there's this other variable, sexual selection.

00:08:12.660 What is that?

00:08:14.680 Sexual selection, I think, was Darwin's most brilliant idea.

00:08:18.680 Natural selection, you know, Wallace also invented it.

00:08:22.100 Other folks would have invented it.

00:08:23.420 I think if we hadn't had Darwin, we might not have had sexual selection for another 50 years in the history of biology.

00:08:29.880 Brilliant idea.

00:08:30.880 Darwin realized if animals choose their mates selectively for certain traits,

00:08:35.720 those traits will tend to get amplified and become more complex and conspicuous and colorful and intricate and impressive.

00:08:43.420 They'll work better and better as signals of the animal's underlying good genes, good health, good coordination ability.

00:08:51.660 And that opens a real Pandora's box of amazing adaptations like bird song, whale song, you know, human song, human language

00:09:03.980 that you might not have been able to get if you only had natural selection for survival.

00:09:11.240 But Darwin's theory was kind of neglected for about a century.

00:09:14.180 Nobody really applied sexual selection theory very seriously to human behavior until the 70s and 80s.

00:09:22.120 And I got absolutely fascinated by it in grad school at Stanford in the late 80s when I thought, you know,

00:09:28.700 being a young single man, why is it that women and men have the mate preferences they do?

00:09:33.900 Why do they seem to care about these things like verbal fluency or humor or musical aptitude

00:09:41.640 that don't have survival payoffs in any simple way?

00:09:47.040 And that's what I ended up writing my dissertation about to argue that the same things that are romantically attractive now

00:09:54.600 in humans may have been romantically attractive in prehistory and may have shaped our minds to be able to do specifically those things.

00:10:03.180 So I think the human mind is not just a survival machine, it's also a courtship machine.

00:10:09.840 So how would you distinguish between something that has been selected for based on mate preference

00:10:16.420 and something that is what Stephen Jay Gould called a spandrel,

00:10:21.740 something that's just there by virtue of other underlying things but was never selected for

00:10:26.260 and never got anyone to further their genetic legacy?

00:10:30.240 Well, you look for certain patterns, like if there are abilities where kids don't very much care about them until puberty

00:10:38.300 and then they get really excited about them, right, just in time for mating, that's a hint.

00:10:44.600 If there are skills and aptitudes that people suddenly develop an interest in when they fall in love

00:10:51.340 and they really want to display those, that's a hint that it might have been sexually selected.

00:10:55.460 If people brag about a certain thing on their OkCupid dating profile, right, that's sort of a hint.

00:11:02.700 And crucially, maybe heartbreakingly, things that people did a lot before marriage

00:11:08.220 and then get kind of lazy about afterwards, where it's like, well, you used to do all these things.

00:11:13.820 I think we're going to need a list of these things just to be better people.

00:11:16.340 You know, that's what you expect from the profile and mating effort.

00:11:24.120 And I think with a lot of these kind of aesthetic and entertaining behaviors,

00:11:28.820 that's kind of the pattern that you tend to see with humans.

00:11:32.340 So let's take some of these categories.

00:11:35.260 How does this relate to consumer behavior?

00:11:39.200 So consumer behavior is a little bit more of a stretch.

00:11:43.580 So what I did in my book Spent, which was about 10 years ago, was I tried to analyze

00:11:50.200 why do we buy the goods and services that we do really in a modern market economy

00:11:55.580 with complex marketing and branding and advertising and lifestyle branding,

00:12:00.900 where you try to create a link between this product and this brand and this aspirational lifestyle.

00:12:09.200 In the consumer's mind, how does that work?

00:12:12.880 I think it's all signaling theory, right?

00:12:15.980 It's all about how do you signal what kind of entity you are to others.

00:12:19.980 Just like sexual ornaments can be described through signaling theory.

00:12:24.840 You know, what kind of peacock are you as displayed through peacock's tail?

00:12:28.900 But in the case of consumer behavior, we're not literally growing these ornaments.

00:12:33.880 We're making the money and running around buying them, right?

00:12:36.840 So whatever you're wearing out there in the audience, you've probably made a conscious choice

00:12:43.220 about this is my look for tonight.

00:12:47.180 This is the kind of person I want to come across as.

00:12:52.620 And you might be rethinking those choices now.

00:12:55.400 Right. And now, so look to your left and look to your right.

00:12:59.920 We're going to go see you when the Q&A starts.

00:13:01.400 Judge each other.

00:13:02.400 There's no hiding.

00:13:04.940 And we're all very good at picking up these sort of subtle cues about, oh, interesting jacket choice, right?

00:13:13.260 And those shoes on a first date, really?

00:13:15.520 So we are very tuned into the signaling, and we don't typically talk about it in these terms.

00:13:22.800 But I think there's a continuity between sexual selection for sexual ornamentation in nature

00:13:30.480 and consumer choice for goods and services in the modern market economy.

00:13:37.140 The underlying signaling principles, I think, are quite similar.

00:13:40.700 Now, there's this phrase that has seemed to have spread like a mental virus on social media.

00:13:48.380 You could probably guess the phrase I'm going for now, which I would imagine everyone has heard now,

00:13:54.580 but virtually no one had heard even 12 months ago.

00:13:58.200 And that phrase is virtue signaling.

00:14:00.640 Everyone who castigates me for having virtue signaled about something seems to have a green frog in their Twitter bio.

00:14:07.020 But so what is the, undoubtedly this is being overused, but what is virtue signaling,

00:14:14.380 and is it an embarrassing social trait or a necessary one?

00:14:20.060 I think virtue signaling gets a lot of flack, but it's really important, and I think it's largely positive.

00:14:27.180 We all do it all the time.

00:14:29.140 It's not monopolized by any particular part of the political spectrum.

00:14:33.700 I wrote a paper called Sexual Selection for Moral Virtues about 10 years ago where I tried to analyze

00:14:41.720 what are the virtues that we tend to show off to potential lovers during courtship, right?

00:14:48.240 They tend to be things like kindness and agreeableness and fidelity and commitment and, you know, romantic love.

00:14:56.440 And these are all signals that say I'm the kind of person who might make a good long-term partner and future parent.

00:15:03.500 So when you're doing virtue signaling in courtship, like, it's all good unless you're doing it deceptively.

00:15:10.520 And we're actually pretty good at picking out who is being deceptive because we, the technical term is shit testing,

00:15:17.900 we test them, like we give them little challenges, right?

00:15:21.740 And we see how they respond.

00:15:24.260 Now, in the political sphere...

00:15:25.840 Do you have any recommended challenges?

00:15:29.080 Some people might be on a first date here and you could just, well, cause chaos.

00:15:33.700 You really want to create a situation where someone's true moral character comes out when they're under severe stress

00:15:43.380 and they're tired and preferably a little tipsy and...

00:15:49.480 So make it a kind of moral obstacle course.

00:15:54.160 But in the political sphere, virtue signaling can be really toxic if a bunch of people get together and they say,

00:16:07.240 this is an issue where I'm going to demonstrate what a good and kind and concerned person I am about issue X

00:16:13.140 by advocating a new policy or intervention or law that doesn't actually address the problem in any pragmatic way

00:16:23.840 but is sort of symbolically associated with expressing concern.

00:16:29.500 And I think that's where you get real problems.

00:16:32.360 I tend to be...

00:16:37.360 I have a lot of respect for human instincts when it comes to managing our affairs in small groups.

00:16:43.720 I don't have a lot of respect for our instincts in terms of scaling up

00:16:48.400 to manage large-scale social policy decisions in nation-states.

00:16:53.960 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:55.360 So in that respect, what are your thoughts or misgivings about what we're doing on social media?

00:17:01.080 What you just said put me in mind of the kind of mob-like moral panic behavior we see spread

00:17:08.560 and it's a very low-cost virtue signal to forward something on Twitter

00:17:15.300 or to add your voice to this cacophony that is singling somebody out for abuse.

00:17:20.880 Yeah, I think when you get the intersection of virtue signaling

00:17:24.340 and a sort of online witch-hunt and mob mentality

00:17:28.600 and, you know, let's have an auto-defe that destroys someone's career

00:17:34.080 because I'm going to misinterpret this one thing they said,

00:17:37.440 take it out of context,

00:17:38.660 and then feed it to people who will reliably express outrage about it.

00:17:43.740 That's a terrible kind of society to live in.

00:17:46.320 And I think pretty much every public figure now

00:17:49.860 lives in almost constant fear of that happening.

00:17:54.240 And folks who engage regularly with social media,

00:17:58.140 like Sam or like Jordan Peterson or like Christina Hoff Summers

00:18:02.460 or anybody from anywhere across the spectrum,

00:18:05.800 is self-censoring quite a bit

00:18:09.280 because we know, you know,

00:18:13.600 everything we say is going to be taken out of context by someone

00:18:17.160 and they're going to try to weaponize it

00:18:19.460 into embarrassment or perhaps, you know,

00:18:24.220 a career-killing event.

00:18:27.560 So I hope that as a society we can develop

00:18:31.440 a better kind of conceptual immune system

00:18:37.840 that rejects that sort of dynamic

00:18:40.920 and that's very skeptical of

00:18:42.680 that particular kind of virtue signaling.

00:18:46.260 Is there something that the platforms themselves could change

00:18:50.260 or that we could change as far as our behavior goes?

00:18:53.800 Or is it conceivable that there's another sign to this

00:18:56.440 that we'll take it to such an absurd extreme

00:19:00.200 that everyone will have a thicker skin

00:19:03.020 and a more durable reputation as a result?

00:19:07.840 Well, when I talk to my students about this,

00:19:10.840 I point out, look, in five or ten years,

00:19:13.000 everybody will have augmented reality glasses or contact lenses.

00:19:17.400 We will all be recording audio and video all the time

00:19:21.500 for pretty much every interaction we have with everyone.

00:19:24.640 That means any cocktail conversation,

00:19:29.320 any little interchange

00:19:32.260 as you're walking down the hallway with someone,

00:19:33.980 everything that you do is going to be vulnerable

00:19:37.480 to going up on YouTube.

00:19:40.260 Is that just by definition dystopian

00:19:43.000 or do you see a silver lining to that?

00:19:45.900 It's going to be hell for about three years.

00:19:48.920 It's going to be hell.

00:19:51.180 There's going to be mass embarrassment and horror

00:19:54.800 and there will be a very steep learning curve

00:19:58.380 until we all realize we all dozens of times a day

00:20:02.780 say things that if taken out of context

00:20:05.120 are really, really embarrassing.

00:20:08.100 And I think we just have to level up

00:20:09.760 and realize that and get over it

00:20:11.600 and judge people by the whole mass of what they do and say

00:20:17.240 and not just by these isolated incidents.

00:20:19.660 Yeah.

00:20:19.880 Yeah.

00:20:23.260 Yeah.

00:20:25.560 Having been on the receiving end of a lot of this,

00:20:27.760 it seems to me that the most insidious thing

00:20:30.260 is to seize upon something that can be misconstrued out of context

00:20:36.940 for the purpose of misconstruing it out of context

00:20:39.620 and then hold someone accountable for that thing.

00:20:42.520 And rather than actually care about the totality

00:20:47.680 of what they think on any given issue.

00:20:49.980 And those efforts are always in bad faith

00:20:53.280 and I just feel like the penalty for doing that should increase.

00:20:58.720 I think that's something that we haven't found

00:21:02.160 whatever dial can be turned there.

00:21:04.040 But people do that with impunity

00:21:05.940 and seem to always get away with it

00:21:08.080 and there's really no recourse but to just keep saying

00:21:10.560 that's not what it meant in context.

00:21:13.380 Yeah.

00:21:13.680 I think we all have to hold each other accountable for that

00:21:17.340 and I think we have to do it kind of in private.

00:21:19.460 I think that's the leverage.

00:21:21.160 I mean, I'll sometimes impulsively want to tweet something

00:21:26.320 and my girlfriend who's also pretty active on Twitter

00:21:28.360 will go, eh, eh, I don't know about that.

00:21:30.860 Or it'll go out and it'll start to get some bad traction

00:21:34.600 and then she'll go...

00:21:36.100 Well, if you follow Jeffrey on Twitter

00:21:38.180 you'll know just how diabolical some of those edited tweets must be

00:21:42.540 because he's very edgy on Twitter.

00:21:45.500 Yeah.

00:21:45.880 So what you're getting is the stuff that made it past my girlfriend's.

00:21:50.440 Yeah, that says a lot about what it would look like if the dam burst.

00:21:56.720 But yeah, I think calling each other to account...

00:21:59.460 So for example, I had one incident a few months ago

00:22:03.600 where I retweeted something where some graduate student

00:22:10.080 at a particular university had used something called

00:22:13.080 the progressive stack in her classroom

00:22:15.700 which is a way of making sure you call on certain people

00:22:18.980 by ethnic groups before you call on other ethnic groups.

00:22:23.120 And that went viral much more than I expected it to.

00:22:26.820 I didn't really want her to get in as much trouble

00:22:30.180 as she did with her university.

00:22:32.300 But conservative media picked up on it.

00:22:35.800 And I ended up kind of writing an email to her dean saying

00:22:38.300 please don't take this too seriously.

00:22:40.480 I'm like...

00:22:41.280 I was one of the instigators of this.

00:22:45.560 Go easy.

00:22:46.560 This is ridiculous.

00:22:48.640 This is yet another witch hunt.

00:22:51.220 Don't cave to the social pressure.

00:22:53.380 And I think if you ever find yourself in a situation

00:22:56.620 where you've unwittingly fed one of these online mobs

00:23:00.780 you have a moral duty to try to correct it

00:23:04.520 to the extent that you can.

00:23:06.460 Yeah, that's interesting because there seems to be

00:23:10.260 an ethic certainly that public shaming

00:23:15.460 has an appropriate role to play here.

00:23:18.280 And so it's very tempting when you see something

00:23:20.160 that is clearly wrong

00:23:22.640 or something that has been put out there

00:23:25.480 for which the author should be embarrassed.

00:23:27.800 You feel that someone's getting away with murder somehow.

00:23:30.860 And you circulate that

00:23:32.300 for the purpose of shining some sunlight on this

00:23:35.520 and shaming this person.

00:23:39.220 At least...

00:23:39.940 I mean, I have done that from time to time

00:23:42.380 feeling like,

00:23:43.560 okay, this is totally warranted,

00:23:45.200 but I'm never foreseeing

00:23:47.540 some catastrophic reputational cost there.

00:23:51.360 I'm not saying that, you know,

00:23:52.080 this person should be fired

00:23:53.120 or...

00:23:54.040 And as you say,

00:23:55.440 things can get out of hand.

00:23:56.700 Is that initial ethical intuition,

00:23:59.800 you think, in error?

00:24:00.840 I mean, should we not be leveraging shame at all

00:24:03.900 in public discourse or on social media?

00:24:07.740 I think shame is...

00:24:09.200 is...

00:24:10.200 a dangerous tool,

00:24:12.600 but, like, what are the alternatives?

00:24:14.200 So, you know,

00:24:16.200 I'm a libertarian,

00:24:17.140 so I generally don't want the state

00:24:19.100 to outlaw things

00:24:20.040 that I don't disapprove of.

00:24:21.340 I think it's better to have

00:24:23.160 social norms enforced by shame

00:24:26.560 than laws enforced by state threat of violence.

00:24:31.240 Right.

00:24:33.200 So...

00:24:34.040 Can you do better than shame?

00:24:37.640 I think you can use shame carefully

00:24:39.320 or you can use it recklessly.

00:24:41.720 And I think to use it carefully,

00:24:43.460 you have to understand

00:24:44.520 what is the nature of shaming,

00:24:47.400 how do online mobs work,

00:24:49.720 how does human moral psychology work in general.

00:24:53.260 There's some good books out there now.

00:24:55.180 We have a much better understanding

00:24:56.780 of these so-called social emotions

00:24:59.540 like shame and gratitude

00:25:01.000 and anger than we used to 10 years ago.

00:25:03.900 And I think, at this point,

00:25:05.840 every citizen kind of owes it, you know,

00:25:07.840 to society to understand our instincts

00:25:11.660 about these issues

00:25:14.340 and to have a certain amount of distance

00:25:16.740 from our initial reactions

00:25:18.860 and to go,

00:25:19.460 oh, I have the urge

00:25:22.400 to express my moral outrage.

00:25:25.180 Is that really constructive?

00:25:27.800 If it gets out of hand,

00:25:29.340 will I regret it?

00:25:31.520 And is my moral outrage informed?

00:25:34.620 Or is it just kind of

00:25:36.900 a culturally programmed reaction

00:25:39.840 to an issue

00:25:40.700 that I don't really know anything about?

00:25:42.100 Well, you have many thoughts

00:25:45.520 on human sexuality

00:25:48.480 and our evolved moral intuitions

00:25:53.420 around monogamy

00:25:55.380 and its alternatives.

00:25:58.220 Polyamory is something

00:25:59.220 you've written about

00:26:00.480 and actually adopted.

00:26:02.800 This seems like

00:26:03.680 a very complicated way to live

00:26:05.320 for those of us

00:26:05.900 who are not part of it.

00:26:07.880 So let's talk about

00:26:09.280 just innovation in that sphere.

00:26:13.700 Well, first,

00:26:14.160 we should define polyamory.

00:26:16.300 But why is this just

00:26:19.380 not way more trouble

00:26:21.060 than it's worth?

00:26:22.900 Well,

00:26:23.560 it's totally worth it.

00:26:32.620 So I was a good little monogamist

00:26:35.320 and I believed in

00:26:36.560 monogamist mating

00:26:39.180 norms

00:26:40.300 until a few years ago

00:26:41.480 when my girlfriend

00:26:43.540 turned to me.

00:26:47.000 Humans have an innate tendency

00:26:49.320 to form long-term pair bonds,

00:26:51.100 no doubt.

00:26:51.860 Pair bonds are extremely important

00:26:53.620 in human evolution.

00:26:55.380 People finding mates,

00:26:57.280 settling down,

00:26:58.100 having a little home,

00:26:59.060 raising kids together,

00:27:00.260 buy parental care,

00:27:01.700 dads investing.

00:27:02.780 That has been crucial

00:27:04.020 to human evolution

00:27:05.520 for at least a million years.

00:27:06.840 and then it's

00:27:09.000 kind of gotten

00:27:09.980 ritualized culturally

00:27:11.420 into the expectation

00:27:13.580 of lifelong monogamous marriage

00:27:15.240 and every large

00:27:17.300 successful civilization

00:27:18.540 in human history

00:27:19.400 has adopted

00:27:20.140 monogamous marriage

00:27:22.100 as the typical

00:27:23.540 mating pattern

00:27:24.880 for most people

00:27:25.880 most of the time.

00:27:26.720 So I'm not going to go

00:27:28.640 dis-monogamy.

00:27:29.720 It has been a wildly

00:27:30.720 successful way

00:27:31.980 to take

00:27:33.140 sort of hominid pair bonds

00:27:35.280 and update them

00:27:36.220 for agricultural

00:27:37.900 and industrial civilizations

00:27:39.480 in ways that work

00:27:40.620 for most people

00:27:42.580 most of the time

00:27:44.340 pretty well.

00:27:45.100 however

00:27:46.660 they can be oppressive

00:27:49.340 to

00:27:50.520 certain people

00:27:52.320 who have certain values

00:27:53.560 or certain life situations

00:27:55.020 or simply certain personalities.

00:27:57.600 So I taught

00:27:58.360 I think the first

00:27:59.120 psychology of polyamory

00:28:00.360 course last term

00:28:01.300 at University of New Mexico

00:28:02.500 and we reviewed

00:28:04.160 all the empirical...

00:28:04.540 What was enrollment like

00:28:05.840 in that course?

00:28:06.800 It was...

00:28:07.100 It was...

00:28:08.300 What was the ratio

00:28:09.500 of men to women?

00:28:10.600 It was 50-50

00:28:13.600 and

00:28:14.700 it all

00:28:17.960 it all worked

00:28:18.820 very well

00:28:20.200 there are no

00:28:20.840 fisticuffs

00:28:21.580 or big arguments

00:28:22.720 other professors

00:28:25.600 gave me some flack

00:28:26.680 another story

00:28:28.940 but I think

00:28:32.040 in the modern era

00:28:33.400 if you

00:28:33.860 if you go back

00:28:34.660 and you ask

00:28:35.080 what were the original

00:28:35.860 cultural and social functions

00:28:37.580 of monogamous marriage

00:28:38.760 a lot of them

00:28:39.360 had to do with

00:28:40.140 things like

00:28:41.120 reduce the

00:28:42.400 transmission rate

00:28:43.380 of STDs

00:28:45.240 ensure paternity

00:28:46.580 certainty

00:28:47.040 that your kid is

00:28:48.220 who you think

00:28:48.640 your kid is

00:28:49.260 manage

00:28:50.540 inheritance

00:28:51.280 of wealth

00:28:52.120 and land

00:28:52.760 and

00:28:54.880 it was also

00:28:55.600 crucially

00:28:56.260 about spreading

00:28:57.260 reproductive opportunities

00:28:58.740 fairly evenly

00:28:59.680 across

00:29:00.320 young males

00:29:01.900 and young females

00:29:02.700 so that nobody

00:29:03.440 kind of monopolizes

00:29:04.660 the mating market

00:29:05.520 and that all

00:29:07.020 worked very

00:29:07.640 very well

00:29:08.220 you couldn't have had

00:29:09.320 Chinese or Roman

00:29:11.820 or medieval European

00:29:12.700 civilization

00:29:13.560 work as well

00:29:14.420 as it did

00:29:15.300 without monogamy

00:29:16.060 but in the modern world

00:29:18.420 21st century relationships

00:29:19.940 the issue is

00:29:21.000 are your kids

00:29:22.460 or grandkids

00:29:23.120 seriously going

00:29:24.360 to pursue

00:29:26.160 lifelong monogamous

00:29:29.060 marriage

00:29:29.540 as their

00:29:30.540 you know

00:29:31.700 default

00:29:32.480 or their aspiration

00:29:33.520 the surveys

00:29:35.380 among millennials

00:29:36.240 and Gen Z

00:29:37.060 say no

00:29:37.960 a lot of them

00:29:39.640 don't want that

00:29:40.800 so what are they

00:29:42.340 going to do

00:29:42.700 we don't know

00:29:43.380 this is probably

00:29:44.060 the topic

00:29:44.560 of my next book

00:29:45.460 but I think

00:29:47.200 we have to

00:29:47.840 basically look

00:29:48.640 at all the

00:29:49.060 different little

00:29:49.600 sexual subcultures

00:29:50.760 that have tried

00:29:51.580 different kinds

00:29:53.380 of mating patterns

00:29:54.360 right

00:29:55.300 monogamy people

00:29:57.060 polygamists

00:29:58.420 polyamorists

00:29:59.680 swingers

00:30:01.840 asexuals

00:30:04.340 figure out

00:30:05.700 what are the

00:30:06.160 lessons learned

00:30:07.060 from each of

00:30:07.740 those subcultures

00:30:08.600 can you

00:30:09.220 can you

00:30:09.520 differentiate those

00:30:10.240 because between

00:30:10.860 monogamy and

00:30:11.560 asexuals

00:30:12.300 it all sounded

00:30:12.780 like a big

00:30:13.440 orgy

00:30:14.060 it all sounds

00:30:20.000 like a big

00:30:20.620 messy

00:30:21.080 orgy

00:30:22.240 from the

00:30:22.620 outside

00:30:23.000 but

00:30:23.420 from the

00:30:24.320 inside

00:30:24.720 the poly

00:30:26.620 people think

00:30:27.180 the swingers

00:30:27.760 like

00:30:28.120 super conservative

00:30:30.340 and like

00:30:31.000 red state

00:30:31.680 and the swingers

00:30:32.380 think the

00:30:32.740 polyamorous

00:30:33.260 people are

00:30:33.820 really young

00:30:34.500 and naive

00:30:34.900 but what is

00:30:36.280 the difference

00:30:36.640 so

00:30:37.060 how does one

00:30:38.500 know whether

00:30:38.900 one is a

00:30:39.320 swinger

00:30:39.580 or polyamorous

00:30:40.620 if you're

00:30:43.380 probably a

00:30:43.940 swinger

00:30:44.280 if you're

00:30:45.380 a married

00:30:46.520 couple

00:30:46.900 and you like

00:30:48.460 to go to

00:30:48.960 events where

00:30:49.640 you meet

00:30:49.960 other married

00:30:50.540 couples

00:30:51.020 and you kind

00:30:52.040 of court

00:30:52.420 them

00:30:52.700 couple to

00:30:53.340 couple

00:30:53.720 and if

00:30:54.200 you get

00:30:54.500 along

00:30:55.000 then you

00:30:56.660 you get

00:30:57.940 together

00:30:58.320 and you

00:30:58.820 kind of swap

00:31:00.080 partners

00:31:00.580 temporarily

00:31:01.620 for a few

00:31:02.200 hours

00:31:02.600 or you

00:31:03.920 hang out

00:31:04.360 together

00:31:04.740 for a

00:31:05.120 weekend

00:31:05.360 with a

00:31:07.080 sexual swap

00:31:07.800 but typically

00:31:08.360 not a

00:31:09.000 long-term

00:31:09.680 emotional

00:31:10.280 connection

00:31:11.540 expected to

00:31:12.260 be formed

00:31:12.660 although they

00:31:13.080 happen sometimes

00:31:13.820 so swinging

00:31:15.020 is sort of

00:31:15.560 a couple

00:31:16.700 meets couple

00:31:17.320 thing

00:31:17.880 polyamory

00:31:18.860 is more

00:31:19.300 of a

00:31:19.700 there might

00:31:20.760 be this

00:31:21.100 individual

00:31:21.540 or they

00:31:22.040 might be

00:31:22.520 with another

00:31:23.240 individual

00:31:23.660 in an open

00:31:24.140 relationship

00:31:24.640 and each

00:31:25.600 of them

00:31:25.840 will typically

00:31:26.320 be dating

00:31:26.900 other people

00:31:27.720 with the

00:31:28.840 full knowledge

00:31:29.540 and consent

00:31:30.160 of everyone

00:31:30.680 involved

00:31:31.100 that's the

00:31:31.640 crucial thing

00:31:32.320 is the

00:31:33.240 honesty

00:31:33.600 and the

00:31:34.020 transparency

00:31:34.540 so that's

00:31:36.800 kind of

00:31:37.040 the poly

00:31:37.420 ideal

00:31:37.820 and there

00:31:40.180 are other

00:31:40.640 emerging ways

00:31:41.800 to do

00:31:42.400 this

00:31:42.820 I think

00:31:44.500 of it

00:31:44.800 as a

00:31:45.500 kind of

00:31:45.820 Cambrian

00:31:46.280 explosion

00:31:46.940 of different

00:31:47.460 relationship

00:31:48.040 patterns

00:31:49.280 most of

00:31:51.180 which will

00:31:51.680 end up

00:31:52.160 being

00:31:52.440 dumb

00:31:52.840 and fail

00:31:53.380 but the

00:31:55.020 ones that

00:31:55.560 don't fail

00:31:56.280 I think

00:31:56.960 will be

00:31:58.040 great

00:31:58.760 learning

00:31:59.120 experiences

00:31:59.820 for kind

00:32:00.320 of

00:32:00.440 updating

00:32:01.020 monogamy

00:32:03.160 and figuring

00:32:04.380 out how

00:32:04.880 to do

00:32:05.340 it or

00:32:05.840 something

00:32:06.200 else

00:32:06.540 better

00:32:06.920 so I

00:32:08.860 guess

00:32:09.040 it's not

00:32:09.640 hard to

00:32:10.300 envision

00:32:10.720 the

00:32:11.820 bumps

00:32:12.380 in the

00:32:12.640 road

00:32:12.920 down

00:32:13.320 that

00:32:13.540 path

00:32:14.520 so how

00:32:15.500 do you

00:32:15.760 deal

00:32:16.060 with

00:32:16.560 jealousy

00:32:17.680 how do

00:32:18.420 you deal

00:32:18.780 with

00:32:19.300 kind of

00:32:20.100 an

00:32:20.200 asymmetry

00:32:20.840 between

00:32:21.400 just how

00:32:22.500 much

00:32:22.860 one

00:32:23.340 partner

00:32:23.720 in the

00:32:24.080 relationship

00:32:24.520 is hooking

00:32:25.620 up with

00:32:25.900 other

00:32:26.060 people

00:32:26.420 and what

00:32:27.740 would you

00:32:28.060 can you

00:32:29.040 is there a

00:32:29.640 sociology

00:32:30.140 around this

00:32:31.340 that's understood

00:32:31.900 I mean what is

00:32:32.440 the success

00:32:32.980 rate or failure

00:32:33.680 rate of these

00:32:34.360 relationships

00:32:35.380 the success

00:32:37.980 and failure

00:32:38.400 rate seems

00:32:39.100 kind of

00:32:39.940 comparable

00:32:40.800 at least in

00:32:41.720 terms of how

00:32:42.360 happy people

00:32:43.020 are in these

00:32:43.720 relationships

00:32:44.440 short term

00:32:45.880 we don't yet

00:32:46.600 have good

00:32:47.060 data on how

00:32:48.040 stable are

00:32:49.360 they long

00:32:49.820 term

00:32:50.060 like

00:32:50.360 if

00:32:51.800 there's a

00:32:53.120 couple

00:32:53.320 who's

00:32:53.620 about to

00:32:54.120 have

00:32:54.300 twins

00:32:54.720 I would

00:32:55.240 not

00:32:55.600 necessarily

00:32:56.280 say

00:32:56.900 you guys

00:32:57.700 should

00:32:57.860 definitely

00:32:58.320 try polyamory

00:32:59.220 right now

00:32:59.840 okay

00:33:01.480 because I

00:33:02.340 don't know

00:33:03.000 how the

00:33:03.980 longevity

00:33:04.420 would work

00:33:04.940 out

00:33:05.200 but in

00:33:06.380 terms of

00:33:06.720 the jealousy

00:33:07.180 issue

00:33:07.680 here's where

00:33:09.360 I part

00:33:09.680 company with

00:33:10.340 the kind

00:33:10.660 of standard

00:33:11.120 polyamory

00:33:11.840 culture

00:33:13.120 a lot

00:33:13.520 of polyamorists

00:33:14.300 say

00:33:14.600 jealousy

00:33:15.400 is a

00:33:15.780 kind of

00:33:16.060 cultural

00:33:16.440 construct

00:33:17.060 it's arbitrary

00:33:18.020 you can

00:33:18.960 jettison

00:33:19.420 it

00:33:19.660 you can

00:33:19.980 unlearn

00:33:20.460 it

00:33:20.680 it doesn't

00:33:21.600 run

00:33:21.820 very deep

00:33:22.420 I think

00:33:23.480 on the

00:33:23.820 contrary

00:33:24.280 evolution

00:33:25.360 created

00:33:25.980 sexual

00:33:26.500 and emotional

00:33:27.180 jealousy

00:33:27.660 for very

00:33:28.340 very good

00:33:29.020 reasons

00:33:29.560 they are

00:33:30.480 deep

00:33:30.780 instincts

00:33:31.300 they have

00:33:31.780 important

00:33:32.180 adaptive

00:33:32.580 functions

00:33:33.240 however

00:33:34.580 that doesn't

00:33:36.260 mean

00:33:36.720 you have to

00:33:37.500 let them

00:33:37.840 rule your

00:33:38.220 life

00:33:38.540 so you

00:33:39.720 know

00:33:39.860 the Steve

00:33:40.380 Pinker

00:33:40.600 book

00:33:40.820 the better

00:33:41.200 angels

00:33:41.560 of our

00:33:41.860 nature

00:33:42.140 is all

00:33:42.540 about

00:33:42.900 we have

00:33:43.880 these

00:33:44.100 aggressive

00:33:44.480 homicidal

00:33:45.180 instincts

00:33:45.740 right

00:33:47.320 but we

00:33:48.180 managed

00:33:48.560 to drop

00:33:49.040 the rate

00:33:49.620 of

00:33:50.240 aggressive

00:33:50.600 homicide

00:33:51.080 by orders

00:33:52.060 of magnitude

00:33:52.640 over the

00:33:53.160 last

00:33:53.400 thousands

00:33:53.780 of years

00:33:54.280 that was

00:33:55.560 a win

00:33:56.080 for

00:33:56.380 civilization

00:33:57.020 taking

00:33:57.680 aggressive

00:33:59.700 instincts

00:34:00.340 and harnessing

00:34:01.360 them

00:34:01.540 and managing

00:34:02.160 them

00:34:02.440 and making

00:34:02.840 them not

00:34:03.540 run our

00:34:03.940 lives

00:34:04.320 I think

00:34:04.800 the same

00:34:05.260 thing

00:34:05.520 could be

00:34:05.960 done

00:34:06.260 with

00:34:07.260 sexual

00:34:07.620 jealousy

00:34:08.140 but most

00:34:09.420 people aren't

00:34:09.880 willing to

00:34:10.280 try

00:34:10.660 they're

00:34:12.220 terrified

00:34:12.800 of jealousy

00:34:13.520 and they

00:34:13.880 can't

00:34:14.200 imagine

00:34:14.740 being in

00:34:16.040 a relationship

00:34:16.600 where they're

00:34:17.040 comfortable

00:34:17.380 with a

00:34:17.840 partner

00:34:18.120 going out

00:34:19.220 on a

00:34:19.600 date

00:34:19.860 for a

00:34:20.860 night

00:34:21.100 that terrifies

00:34:22.440 them more

00:34:22.860 than like

00:34:23.400 bankruptcy

00:34:24.020 or

00:34:24.520 real

00:34:25.800 or a

00:34:26.960 bad

00:34:27.280 election

00:34:27.740 you know

00:34:28.180 but

00:34:30.240 it's

00:34:30.900 survivable

00:34:31.740 it's

00:34:32.620 survivable

00:34:33.420 and

00:34:34.260 the question

00:34:35.060 is why

00:34:35.640 and then

00:34:36.820 one wonders

00:34:37.500 whether that

00:34:38.000 murder curve

00:34:38.880 is going to

00:34:39.220 go up

00:34:39.640 if this ever

00:34:40.240 catches on

00:34:41.320 what's

00:34:43.580 the

00:34:43.920 there must

00:34:45.000 be some

00:34:45.500 perceived

00:34:46.300 limitation

00:34:48.000 of

00:34:48.380 well-being

00:34:49.320 imposed

00:34:50.100 by monogamy

00:34:50.840 that is

00:34:51.980 corrected

00:34:52.780 for by

00:34:53.500 polyamory

00:34:54.460 and it's

00:34:55.140 worth

00:34:55.580 the

00:34:55.960 jealousy

00:34:56.860 that you

00:34:57.260 say

00:34:57.740 is unavoidable

00:34:58.420 yeah

00:34:59.800 okay

00:35:00.140 so what

00:35:00.520 are the

00:35:00.720 upsides

00:35:01.220 it's

00:35:02.700 fun

00:35:03.000 you get

00:35:03.340 to meet

00:35:03.620 more

00:35:03.820 people

00:35:04.260 I think

00:35:05.760 humans

00:35:06.100 are actually

00:35:06.620 evolved

00:35:07.040 to use

00:35:07.580 sex

00:35:07.900 to make

00:35:08.240 friends

00:35:08.660 and I'm

00:35:10.860 not being

00:35:11.240 totally

00:35:11.540 facetious

00:35:12.020 about that

00:35:12.640 sex

00:35:13.640 is a

00:35:13.920 great

00:35:14.080 way

00:35:14.220 to get

00:35:14.460 to know

00:35:14.700 somebody

00:35:15.000 better

00:35:15.240 very

00:35:15.500 quickly

00:35:15.840 and

00:35:17.900 the

00:35:18.060 poly

00:35:18.300 that's

00:35:18.780 a

00:35:18.900 tweetable

00:35:19.640 meme

00:35:20.000 I think

00:35:20.420 and

00:35:24.220 so

00:35:25.200 the

00:35:26.000 poly

00:35:26.320 culture

00:35:26.820 tends

00:35:27.180 to be

00:35:27.520 very

00:35:27.760 tightly

00:35:28.220 socially

00:35:28.740 networked

00:35:29.880 and that

00:35:30.480 can bring

00:35:30.880 a lot

00:35:31.180 of

00:35:31.300 benefits

00:35:31.840 socially

00:35:32.460 emotionally

00:35:32.980 professionally

00:35:33.640 in terms

00:35:35.440 of careers

00:35:35.960 in terms

00:35:36.440 of like

00:35:37.000 cost

00:35:37.440 savings

00:35:37.960 all sorts

00:35:39.040 of ways

00:35:39.480 you

00:35:40.320 sort of

00:35:41.420 are

00:35:41.580 recreating

00:35:42.180 a tribe

00:35:42.900 in a way

00:35:43.720 that a lot

00:35:44.160 of modern

00:35:44.880 alienated

00:35:45.440 people

00:35:45.900 in society

00:35:46.820 don't have

00:35:47.400 a tribe

00:35:48.600 so is that

00:35:49.540 is it

00:35:50.180 functioning

00:35:50.780 that way

00:35:51.220 that there

00:35:51.620 is a kind

00:35:52.600 of community

00:35:53.560 that is

00:35:54.400 so

00:35:55.800 it's not

00:35:57.060 that polyamorous

00:35:58.300 people

00:35:58.800 are continually

00:36:00.320 having

00:36:01.060 you're in

00:36:02.240 an open

00:36:02.560 relationship

00:36:03.040 with people

00:36:04.080 who are

00:36:04.720 I don't know

00:36:05.640 what the name

00:36:06.080 is

00:36:06.280 civilians

00:36:06.780 who don't

00:36:08.220 know what

00:36:08.480 they're getting

00:36:08.740 into

00:36:09.140 right

00:36:09.860 this is

00:36:11.320 a kind

00:36:12.240 of hermetically

00:36:12.800 sealed

00:36:13.140 or I would

00:36:14.380 imagine people

00:36:14.840 are being

00:36:15.220 inducted into

00:36:16.620 this

00:36:16.880 and it's

00:36:17.740 sounding a little

00:36:19.120 cult like

00:36:19.660 is there any

00:36:20.520 kind of

00:36:20.940 proselytizing

00:36:22.040 of this

00:36:22.540 that is

00:36:23.020 necessary

00:36:24.820 to get this

00:36:25.420 working out

00:36:26.240 in the world

00:36:26.660 well

00:36:27.540 like all

00:36:28.060 great ideas

00:36:28.680 you have to

00:36:29.020 proselytize it

00:36:29.760 no

00:36:32.120 the crucial

00:36:33.240 thing though

00:36:33.880 is that

00:36:34.460 everybody

00:36:35.580 involved

00:36:36.040 should be

00:36:36.440 kind of

00:36:37.000 should give

00:36:38.120 fully informed

00:36:38.800 consent

00:36:39.320 for what's

00:36:39.860 happening

00:36:40.260 and you

00:36:40.760 should be

00:36:41.060 up front

00:36:41.640 like if you

00:36:42.200 go on a

00:36:42.660 date

00:36:42.960 and you're

00:36:43.960 polyamorous

00:36:44.600 and you're

00:36:44.920 in a relationship

00:36:46.060 you gotta

00:36:46.580 say

00:36:47.000 I'm in an

00:36:48.880 open relationship

00:36:49.560 I'm polyamorous

00:36:50.700 that's

00:36:51.320 you can't

00:36:52.880 like hide

00:36:53.420 that

00:36:53.800 but would

00:36:54.500 you reveal

00:36:55.440 that

00:36:55.840 even before

00:36:56.620 you go

00:36:57.080 on the

00:36:57.360 date

00:36:57.600 so that

00:36:57.940 there'd be

00:36:58.660 no surprise

00:36:59.540 in that

00:37:00.140 first conversation

00:37:01.020 well on

00:37:01.960 certain dating

00:37:02.580 sites

00:37:02.840 like okay

00:37:03.340 Cupid

00:37:03.700 you can

00:37:04.140 actually

00:37:04.500 specify

00:37:05.100 this is

00:37:06.380 my dating

00:37:06.980 orientation

00:37:07.540 non-monogamous

00:37:08.480 whatever

00:37:08.860 I think

00:37:11.260 more

00:37:13.460 seriously

00:37:14.080 a lot

00:37:15.240 of people

00:37:15.620 who are

00:37:15.820 in long

00:37:16.120 term

00:37:16.280 relationships

00:37:16.860 get stale

00:37:17.840 their

00:37:20.000 self

00:37:21.540 image

00:37:22.000 is

00:37:22.680 I don't

00:37:23.380 know

00:37:23.780 whether

00:37:24.240 I'm

00:37:24.480 an

00:37:24.600 interesting

00:37:24.980 person

00:37:25.420 anymore

00:37:25.800 I don't

00:37:26.520 know

00:37:26.700 how

00:37:26.860 attractive

00:37:27.300 I am

00:37:27.740 anymore

00:37:28.060 I don't

00:37:28.420 know

00:37:28.580 who I

00:37:28.960 am

00:37:29.160 I don't

00:37:29.400 know

00:37:29.520 what

00:37:29.660 my

00:37:29.840 interests

00:37:30.200 are

00:37:30.500 you

00:37:31.260 kind

00:37:31.520 of

00:37:31.600 get

00:37:31.760 locked

00:37:32.120 into

00:37:32.380 this

00:37:32.900 duet

00:37:35.120 with

00:37:35.920 a

00:37:36.440 partner

00:37:36.840 and

00:37:37.540 you're

00:37:39.560 just

00:37:39.740 sort

00:37:39.980 of

00:37:40.080 out

00:37:40.340 there

00:37:40.540 isolated

00:37:41.140 on

00:37:41.400 your

00:37:41.540 own

00:37:41.780 without

00:37:42.100 any

00:37:42.820 genuine

00:37:43.320 romantic

00:37:43.840 or

00:37:44.060 emotional

00:37:44.380 engagement

00:37:44.840 with

00:37:45.080 anybody

00:37:45.380 else

00:37:45.800 and I

00:37:46.600 think

00:37:46.720 for a lot

00:37:47.080 of married

00:37:47.400 couples

00:37:47.800 that can

00:37:48.200 be

00:37:48.360 extremely

00:37:49.000 alienating

00:37:50.800 after a

00:37:51.260 while

00:37:51.500 and

00:37:52.080 actually

00:37:52.580 increase

00:37:53.000 your

00:37:53.140 divorce

00:37:53.500 rate

00:37:53.840 because

00:37:55.640 a lot

00:37:55.900 of

00:37:56.020 people

00:37:56.240 feel

00:37:56.520 like

00:37:56.720 either

00:37:57.080 I'm

00:37:57.340 stuck

00:37:57.700 in

00:37:57.920 this

00:37:58.260 bored

00:37:58.860 to

00:37:59.040 tears

00:37:59.340 or

00:37:59.860 we

00:38:00.560 break

00:38:00.860 up

00:38:01.020 the

00:38:01.160 relationship

00:38:01.640 there

00:38:02.040 is

00:38:02.180 a

00:38:02.300 third

00:38:02.500 alternative

00:38:02.980 you

00:38:04.820 can

00:38:04.960 learn

00:38:05.140 more

00:38:05.320 about

00:38:05.640 consensual

00:38:06.200 non-monogamy

00:38:07.020 openness

00:38:08.120 transparency

00:38:09.220 maybe

00:38:10.100 open the

00:38:10.600 relationship

00:38:11.100 and try

00:38:12.040 it

00:38:12.260 and it

00:38:12.580 might

00:38:12.740 not

00:38:12.960 work

00:38:13.360 but

00:38:14.120 the

00:38:14.280 more

00:38:14.420 you

00:38:14.580 read

00:38:14.800 about

00:38:15.100 it

00:38:15.360 the

00:38:16.320 more

00:38:16.520 likely

00:38:16.840 it

00:38:17.020 is

00:38:17.180 to

00:38:17.320 work

00:38:17.600 and

00:38:18.420 a

00:38:18.560 lot

00:38:18.700 of

00:38:18.820 people

00:38:19.040 might

00:38:19.300 end

00:38:19.520 up

00:38:19.720 in

00:38:19.820 a

00:38:19.960 situation

00:38:20.460 I

00:38:20.700 think

00:38:20.960 that

00:38:21.240 Dan

00:38:21.760 Savage

00:38:22.320 calls

00:38:22.740 monogamish

00:38:23.560 where

00:38:25.480 you're

00:38:25.740 kind

00:38:25.960 of

00:38:26.060 90-95%

00:38:27.500 monogamous

00:38:28.260 but

00:38:29.480 maybe

00:38:29.900 the wife

00:38:31.000 goes out

00:38:31.480 on a

00:38:31.720 date

00:38:31.880 once a

00:38:32.340 month

00:38:32.560 with

00:38:32.780 somebody

00:38:33.100 else

00:38:33.440 and

00:38:34.800 you

00:38:34.940 can

00:38:35.100 handle

00:38:35.420 it

00:38:35.640 because

00:38:35.820 maybe

00:38:36.100 you

00:38:36.300 have

00:38:36.520 a

00:38:36.640 date

00:38:36.900 the

00:38:37.360 same

00:38:37.600 time

00:38:38.040 and

00:38:38.540 then

00:38:38.680 you

00:38:38.800 get

00:38:38.960 the

00:38:39.100 equity

00:38:39.480 there's

00:38:40.180 not

00:38:40.360 a

00:38:40.500 mismatch

00:38:40.960 so

00:38:42.140 I'm

00:38:42.260 not

00:38:42.520 advocating

00:38:43.220 this

00:38:43.660 for

00:38:43.800 everybody

00:38:44.180 but

00:38:44.620 I

00:38:45.320 am

00:38:45.500 saying

00:38:45.900 these

00:38:47.120 are

00:38:47.400 trends

00:38:48.060 that

00:38:48.560 are

00:38:48.680 happening

00:38:49.140 socially

00:38:49.680 in

00:38:49.880 America

00:38:50.340 and

00:38:50.780 they

00:38:50.960 are

00:38:51.200 rapidly

00:38:51.820 increasing

00:38:52.480 and

00:38:53.300 a

00:38:53.440 lot

00:38:53.620 of

00:38:53.740 people

00:38:53.980 under

00:38:54.200 30

00:38:54.580 take

00:38:54.920 these

00:38:55.180 seriously

00:38:55.760 as a

00:38:56.780 possible

00:38:57.560 way

00:38:58.200 of

00:38:58.340 life

00:38:58.660 and

00:38:58.820 we

00:38:58.960 should

00:38:59.120 pay

00:38:59.280 attention

00:38:59.640 to

00:38:59.900 it

00:39:00.100 do

00:39:00.560 more

00:39:00.760 research

00:39:01.140 on

00:39:01.400 it

00:39:01.540 think

00:39:01.820 hard

00:39:02.340 about

00:39:02.580 it

00:39:02.880 okay

00:39:04.080 so

00:39:04.220 I

00:39:04.300 just

00:39:04.440 want

00:39:04.600 to

00:39:04.700 say

00:39:04.920 the

00:39:05.100 fine

00:39:05.340 print

00:39:05.620 here

00:39:05.780 is

00:39:05.920 that

00:39:06.100 if

00:39:06.340 that

00:39:06.740 part

00:39:06.960 of

00:39:07.020 the

00:39:07.120 conversation

00:39:07.680 winds

00:39:08.500 up

00:39:08.640 deranging

00:39:09.100 any

00:39:09.360 of

00:39:09.500 your

00:39:09.620 lives

00:39:10.020 send

00:39:10.920 all

00:39:11.100 your

00:39:11.240 email

00:39:11.600 to

00:39:11.880 Jeffrey

00:39:12.320 and

00:39:12.560 not

00:39:12.960 my

00:39:16.260 polyamory

00:39:16.900 syllabus

00:39:17.380 is posted

00:39:18.120 online

00:39:18.620 you can

00:39:18.940 just

00:39:19.160 read all

00:39:19.640 the

00:39:19.920 papers

00:39:21.020 there

00:39:21.400 get

00:39:22.540 busy

00:39:22.800 with

00:39:22.960 that

00:39:23.200 I'm

00:39:25.080 hoping

00:39:25.280 my

00:39:25.440 wife

00:39:25.700 doesn't

00:39:25.980 hear

00:39:26.100 this

00:39:26.280 part

00:39:26.440 of

00:39:26.500 the

00:39:26.600 podcast

00:39:27.000 so

00:39:30.540 there

00:39:30.760 are

00:39:31.260 so

00:39:31.420 many

00:39:31.660 taboo

00:39:32.380 topics

00:39:33.000 that

00:39:33.220 we've

00:39:33.420 touched

00:39:33.620 on

00:39:33.840 some

00:39:34.220 at a

00:39:35.060 run

00:39:35.340 things

00:39:35.620 like

00:39:35.800 intelligence

00:39:36.300 and

00:39:37.160 gender

00:39:38.120 difference

00:39:38.760 and

00:39:39.200 are there

00:39:40.300 any

00:39:40.520 now

00:39:40.960 that

00:39:41.240 you

00:39:41.720 feel

00:39:42.880 like

00:39:43.100 we

00:39:43.380 we

00:39:43.860 just

00:39:43.980 have

00:39:44.260 to

00:39:44.420 learn

00:39:44.660 to

00:39:44.880 speak

00:39:45.140 about

00:39:45.440 more

00:39:46.060 honestly

00:39:46.460 from

00:39:46.820 a

00:39:47.040 biological

00:39:48.260 or

00:39:48.620 psychological

00:39:49.260 point of

00:39:50.520 view

00:39:50.660 or

00:39:51.020 are

00:39:51.680 these

00:39:51.960 third

00:39:52.480 rails

00:39:52.940 better left

00:39:53.720 untouched

00:39:54.500 I

00:39:59.640 think

00:40:00.140 at some

00:40:00.620 point

00:40:01.020 in the

00:40:01.360 next

00:40:01.860 10

00:40:03.460 or

00:40:03.580 20

00:40:03.840 years

00:40:04.360 America

00:40:05.480 is going

00:40:05.760 to have

00:40:06.000 to start

00:40:06.460 to make

00:40:07.160 its

00:40:07.380 peace

00:40:07.860 with

00:40:08.220 the

00:40:08.400 fact

00:40:08.680 that

00:40:08.880 a lot

00:40:09.220 of

00:40:09.380 mental

00:40:09.720 traits

00:40:10.180 are

00:40:10.420 heritable

00:40:10.960 not

00:40:13.080 necessarily

00:40:13.660 for

00:40:13.940 political

00:40:14.380 reasons

00:40:14.840 but

00:40:15.240 just

00:40:15.480 because

00:40:15.800 of

00:40:15.940 the

00:40:16.080 practicalities

00:40:17.080 of

00:40:17.360 the

00:40:19.240 genetic

00:40:19.580 technology

00:40:20.280 that are

00:40:21.540 going to

00:40:21.780 make it

00:40:22.060 possible

00:40:22.540 to do

00:40:23.200 pre-implantation

00:40:24.440 embryo

00:40:24.960 selection

00:40:25.400 and genetic

00:40:26.240 screening

00:40:26.780 where

00:40:28.580 probably

00:40:29.420 within

00:40:29.880 10

00:40:30.140 or 20

00:40:30.500 years

00:40:31.020 a couple

00:40:32.540 who are

00:40:32.960 having

00:40:33.240 a baby

00:40:33.720 are going

00:40:34.040 to have

00:40:34.260 the option

00:40:34.840 of

00:40:35.420 deciding

00:40:36.500 do

00:40:36.820 we

00:40:36.960 want

00:40:37.240 to

00:40:37.380 try

00:40:37.680 to

00:40:38.100 do

00:40:38.900 the

00:40:39.120 selection

00:40:39.540 among

00:40:39.920 all

00:40:40.220 the

00:40:40.360 possible

00:40:40.760 fertilized

00:40:41.840 eggs

00:40:42.280 selecting

00:40:43.760 for

00:40:44.020 this

00:40:44.260 trait

00:40:44.560 or

00:40:44.700 that

00:40:44.920 trait

00:40:45.240 or

00:40:45.440 this

00:40:45.660 other

00:40:45.880 trait

00:40:46.180 a lot

00:40:47.800 of

00:40:47.920 people

00:40:48.140 will

00:40:48.340 say

00:40:48.580 don't

00:40:49.560 care

00:40:49.880 let

00:40:50.480 the

00:40:50.640 chips

00:40:50.840 fall

00:40:51.100 where

00:40:51.280 they

00:40:51.480 may

00:40:51.780 let

00:40:52.220 it

00:40:52.320 be

00:40:52.460 random

00:40:52.780 but

00:40:54.260 some

00:40:54.540 folks

00:40:54.900 will

00:40:55.100 say

00:40:55.460 well

00:40:56.060 look

00:40:56.440 if

00:40:57.060 I

00:40:57.340 can

00:40:57.520 get

00:40:57.780 a

00:40:57.980 kid

00:40:58.220 who's

00:40:58.500 a

00:40:58.620 little

00:40:58.740 bit

00:40:58.940 smarter

00:40:59.320 than

00:40:59.600 they

00:40:59.720 would

00:40:59.860 otherwise

00:41:00.240 be

00:41:00.660 they'll

00:41:01.420 do

00:41:01.580 better

00:41:01.880 in

00:41:02.340 school

00:41:03.800 and

00:41:04.000 college

00:41:04.300 and

00:41:04.480 their

00:41:04.600 career

00:41:04.940 and

00:41:05.300 their

00:41:05.800 relationship

00:41:06.280 and

00:41:06.820 everything

00:41:07.440 else

00:41:07.880 why

00:41:09.020 not

00:41:09.340 or

00:41:10.300 they

00:41:11.760 might

00:41:12.060 go

00:41:12.600 maybe

00:41:13.500 some

00:41:13.760 moral

00:41:14.020 virtues

00:41:14.640 are

00:41:15.540 heritable

00:41:15.940 as

00:41:16.340 they

00:41:16.560 are

00:41:16.760 all

00:41:17.000 personality

00:41:17.600 traits

00:41:18.000 are

00:41:18.160 heritable

00:41:18.500 including

00:41:18.940 things

00:41:19.280 like

00:41:19.480 agreeableness

00:41:20.160 and

00:41:20.400 conscientiousness

00:41:21.320 so if

00:41:22.300 you could

00:41:22.500 select

00:41:22.800 for those

00:41:23.220 in your

00:41:23.460 kids

00:41:23.820 will

00:41:24.220 you

00:41:24.480 well

00:41:25.740 at a

00:41:25.980 certain

00:41:26.120 point

00:41:26.320 if

00:41:26.900 we

00:41:27.380 had

00:41:27.560 the

00:41:27.700 technology

00:41:28.200 and

00:41:29.020 there

00:41:29.180 were

00:41:29.380 no

00:41:29.860 safety

00:41:30.520 risks

00:41:31.060 if

00:41:31.460 we

00:41:31.880 had

00:41:32.040 vetted

00:41:32.300 it

00:41:32.820 fully

00:41:33.140 it

00:41:34.300 would

00:41:34.480 seem

00:41:34.920 like

00:41:36.200 a

00:41:36.440 truly

00:41:37.380 unconscionable

00:41:38.260 moral

00:41:38.640 lapse

00:41:39.120 not

00:41:39.660 to

00:41:39.880 give

00:41:40.060 your

00:41:40.280 kid

00:41:40.720 those

00:41:41.340 advantages

00:41:41.780 if

00:41:42.020 you

00:41:42.140 could

00:41:42.400 it's

00:41:42.580 like

00:41:43.120 not

00:41:44.300 putting

00:41:44.560 a

00:41:44.720 seat

00:41:44.880 belt

00:41:45.100 on

00:41:45.440 your

00:41:45.580 kid

00:41:45.780 there's

00:41:46.040 no

00:41:46.180 downside

00:41:46.680 to

00:41:46.840 wearing

00:41:46.980 the

00:41:47.120 seat

00:41:47.280 belt

00:41:47.520 and

00:41:48.000 you're

00:41:48.760 increasing

00:41:49.080 their

00:41:49.300 chance

00:41:49.700 of

00:41:49.800 survival

00:41:50.220 if

00:41:50.460 you

00:41:50.800 can

00:41:51.200 amplify

00:41:52.760 unambiguously

00:41:54.460 good

00:41:54.900 traits

00:41:55.480 without

00:41:56.000 raising

00:41:56.520 the

00:41:56.720 risk

00:41:57.000 of

00:41:57.280 negative

00:41:58.040 consequences

00:41:58.480 it

00:41:58.780 should

00:42:00.060 be

00:42:00.180 said

00:42:00.280 it's

00:42:00.400 not

00:42:00.520 guaranteed

00:42:01.100 that

00:42:01.900 the

00:42:02.060 genome

00:42:02.380 will

00:42:02.580 work

00:42:03.140 way

00:42:03.320 it

00:42:03.440 could

00:42:03.600 be

00:42:03.760 that

00:42:03.940 if

00:42:04.340 you

00:42:04.480 increase

00:42:05.040 the

00:42:05.700 genes

00:42:06.280 that

00:42:06.960 increase

00:42:07.340 the

00:42:07.500 probability

00:42:07.860 of

00:42:08.160 intelligence

00:42:08.760 you

00:42:09.060 could

00:42:09.300 be

00:42:09.520 increasing

00:42:10.000 the

00:42:10.740 liability

00:42:11.080 of

00:42:11.300 different

00:42:11.460 kinds

00:42:11.740 of

00:42:12.340 diseases

00:42:13.020 I think

00:42:13.920 there's

00:42:14.120 actually

00:42:14.300 some

00:42:14.600 data

00:42:15.300 already

00:42:15.660 on that

00:42:16.020 that

00:42:16.140 various

00:42:16.620 dystonias

00:42:17.380 are correlated

00:42:19.640 with whatever

00:42:20.300 genes we

00:42:21.020 understand

00:42:21.720 relate to

00:42:22.460 intelligence

00:42:22.840 but

00:42:23.160 if

00:42:23.960 something like

00:42:24.740 conscientiousness

00:42:25.780 can be

00:42:26.620 dissected out

00:42:27.620 genetically

00:42:28.760 such that

00:42:30.080 you get

00:42:31.040 the right

00:42:31.340 alleles

00:42:31.720 and you

00:42:32.640 are just

00:42:33.240 four standard

00:42:34.220 deviations

00:42:34.820 above the

00:42:35.280 norm

00:42:35.600 in that

00:42:36.900 trait

00:42:37.400 of course

00:42:38.540 people are

00:42:38.860 going to

00:42:39.040 do it

00:42:39.440 yeah I

00:42:40.700 think people

00:42:41.140 will do it

00:42:41.640 and the

00:42:41.980 people who

00:42:42.620 perhaps even

00:42:44.060 five years

00:42:45.320 earlier were

00:42:45.960 saying

00:42:46.300 oh IQ is

00:42:47.960 totally discredited

00:42:48.920 it's not

00:42:49.460 heritable at

00:42:50.000 all

00:42:50.280 nobody believes

00:42:51.020 in it

00:42:51.320 we read

00:42:51.800 Stephen

00:42:52.100 J.

00:42:52.340 Gould

00:42:52.500 to mismeasure

00:42:53.040 a man

00:42:53.500 IQ is

00:42:54.440 bunk

00:42:54.660 right

00:42:55.320 those will

00:42:56.280 be the

00:42:56.580 first people

00:42:57.280 to use

00:42:58.560 the genetic

00:42:59.040 screening

00:42:59.540 I bet

00:43:00.300 they will

00:43:02.140 turn on a

00:43:02.820 dime

00:43:03.140 as soon

00:43:03.580 as there's

00:43:04.000 actual

00:43:04.780 pragmatic

00:43:05.980 benefits

00:43:06.660 from it

00:43:07.140 I think

00:43:08.460 the real

00:43:08.860 issue

00:43:09.140 then is

00:43:09.640 going to

00:43:09.860 be

00:43:10.200 are we

00:43:11.460 going to

00:43:11.620 have a

00:43:11.880 society

00:43:12.240 wide

00:43:12.540 push

00:43:12.900 that

00:43:13.080 tries

00:43:13.380 to

00:43:13.560 make

00:43:13.800 access

00:43:14.340 to

00:43:15.060 that

00:43:15.300 technology

00:43:15.960 as

00:43:16.780 widespread

00:43:17.240 as

00:43:17.580 possible

00:43:18.060 so

00:43:18.380 that

00:43:18.560 whoever

00:43:18.780 wants

00:43:19.200 to

00:43:19.380 use

00:43:19.540 it

00:43:19.660 can

00:43:19.800 use

00:43:20.040 it

00:43:20.240 rather

00:43:20.840 than

00:43:21.080 it

00:43:21.220 just

00:43:21.400 being

00:43:21.600 the

00:43:21.740 preserve

00:43:22.100 of

00:43:22.400 of

00:43:22.760 the

00:43:23.520 rich

00:43:23.780 and

00:43:23.900 the

00:43:24.000 well

00:43:24.160 connected

00:43:24.540 I think

00:43:25.900 that's

00:43:26.300 going to

00:43:26.500 be

00:43:26.680 the

00:43:26.880 crucial

00:43:27.440 inequality

00:43:29.320 issue

00:43:29.780 in about

00:43:30.160 20 years

00:43:30.780 yeah

00:43:32.300 that would

00:43:33.340 be a

00:43:33.580 massive

00:43:33.880 amplifier

00:43:34.400 of

00:43:34.840 inequality

00:43:35.420 so

00:43:37.100 I guess

00:43:39.160 another issue

00:43:40.320 here

00:43:40.640 is

00:43:41.320 gender

00:43:41.840 difference

00:43:42.560 and

00:43:43.200 not

00:43:44.440 differences

00:43:44.800 in aptitude

00:43:45.460 but even

00:43:45.760 just

00:43:45.940 differences

00:43:46.260 in

00:43:46.540 interest

00:43:47.140 across

00:43:47.620 genders

00:43:47.920 there's

00:43:48.600 this

00:43:48.820 blank

00:43:49.160 slate

00:43:49.580 dogma

00:43:50.580 that

00:43:50.800 men

00:43:50.980 and

00:43:51.160 women

00:43:51.420 aren't

00:43:52.420 actually

00:43:52.900 different

00:43:53.400 despite

00:43:54.480 the

00:43:55.140 existence

00:43:55.440 of

00:43:55.660 things

00:43:55.880 like

00:43:56.220 a

00:43:56.740 uterus

00:43:57.160 and

00:43:59.380 so

00:44:00.640 I guess

00:44:00.940 this got

00:44:01.440 focused

00:44:01.780 very

00:44:01.980 recently

00:44:02.340 in the

00:44:04.100 last year

00:44:04.700 with the

00:44:05.300 James

00:44:05.660 Damore

00:44:06.060 memo

00:44:06.820 and the

00:44:07.400 Google

00:44:07.660 firing

00:44:08.380 I

00:44:09.400 actually

00:44:09.960 haven't

00:44:10.280 spent

00:44:10.580 as

00:44:10.780 much

00:44:11.140 time

00:44:11.740 focused

00:44:12.460 on

00:44:12.840 Damore

00:44:13.360 and

00:44:13.540 his

00:44:13.860 travails

00:44:15.000 subsequently

00:44:16.400 but

00:44:17.380 how did

00:44:19.160 all that

00:44:20.160 shake down

00:44:20.620 for you

00:44:20.940 as an

00:44:21.180 evolutionary

00:44:21.540 psychologist

00:44:22.100 that

00:44:23.820 that

00:44:23.840 was an

00:44:24.140 interesting

00:44:24.500 summer

00:44:24.860 last

00:44:25.160 summer

00:44:25.420 because

00:44:25.780 right

00:44:27.280 before

00:44:27.740 the

00:44:28.460 whole

00:44:28.720 Damore

00:44:29.200 Google

00:44:29.560 memo

00:44:29.900 thing

00:44:30.580 blew

00:44:30.860 up

00:44:31.100 I'd

00:44:31.320 written

00:44:31.560 an

00:44:32.940 article

00:44:33.220 for

00:44:34.020 quillat

00:44:34.480 dot com

00:44:35.260 magazine

00:44:36.580 called

00:44:36.980 the

00:44:37.200 neurodiversity

00:44:38.000 case

00:44:38.540 for free

00:44:39.360 speech

00:44:39.700 in which

00:44:40.760 I argued

00:44:41.400 that

00:44:41.800 people

00:44:42.580 who have

00:44:42.860 a range

00:44:43.360 of

00:44:43.840 neurodivergent

00:44:45.760 conditions

00:44:46.300 like

00:44:46.680 Asperger's

00:44:47.560 or PTSD

00:44:48.240 or whatever

00:44:48.900 it can

00:44:51.260 be difficult

00:44:51.780 to

00:44:52.500 obey

00:44:53.600 campus

00:44:54.240 speech

00:44:54.660 codes

00:44:55.080 that

00:44:55.340 say

00:44:55.580 never

00:44:55.900 be

00:44:56.140 offensive

00:44:56.520 to

00:44:56.760 anybody

00:44:57.040 else

00:44:57.440 like

00:44:57.940 I'm

00:44:58.340 pretty

00:44:58.520 aspy

00:44:58.960 and

00:44:59.100 that

00:44:59.220 means

00:44:59.420 I

00:44:59.580 can't

00:44:59.840 always

00:45:00.060 anticipate

00:45:00.580 who I'll

00:45:01.180 offend

00:45:01.500 if I

00:45:01.840 say

00:45:02.000 something

00:45:02.340 because

00:45:03.020 I don't

00:45:03.240 have a

00:45:03.500 good

00:45:03.640 theory

00:45:03.900 of

00:45:04.060 mind

00:45:04.380 I

00:45:04.700 don't

00:45:04.940 understand

00:45:05.440 other

00:45:05.680 people's

00:45:06.120 beliefs

00:45:06.360 and

00:45:06.520 desires

00:45:06.900 the way

00:45:07.320 some

00:45:08.160 folks

00:45:08.420 do

00:45:08.640 so

00:45:09.300 if

00:45:09.420 you

00:45:09.480 have

00:45:09.580 a

00:45:09.680 speech

00:45:09.960 code

00:45:10.220 that

00:45:10.420 says

00:45:10.720 if

00:45:11.240 you

00:45:11.400 offend

00:45:11.720 someone

00:45:12.160 you

00:45:12.960 must

00:45:13.240 have

00:45:13.400 meant

00:45:13.620 it

00:45:13.860 and

00:45:14.200 you

00:45:14.320 must

00:45:14.500 be

00:45:14.680 evil

00:45:15.040 and

00:45:15.280 you

00:45:15.400 should

00:45:15.540 be

00:45:15.680 punished

00:45:16.120 I

00:45:16.740 was

00:45:16.880 pointing

00:45:17.180 out

00:45:17.520 that's

00:45:18.440 not

00:45:18.620 really

00:45:18.860 fair

00:45:19.200 to

00:45:19.380 people

00:45:19.660 who

00:45:19.800 are

00:45:19.920 neurodivergent

00:45:20.740 and

00:45:20.960 who

00:45:21.080 have

00:45:21.460 Asperger's

00:45:22.620 or lots

00:45:22.940 of other

00:45:23.360 syndromes

00:45:24.140 then

00:45:25.100 about a

00:45:25.420 week

00:45:25.580 later

00:45:25.960 James

00:45:27.580 Amore

00:45:27.980 who

00:45:28.620 is

00:45:29.440 probably

00:45:29.860 also

00:45:30.220 on

00:45:30.440 the

00:45:30.540 Asperger

00:45:30.900 spectrum

00:45:31.380 right

00:45:32.160 Google

00:45:33.040 engineer

00:45:33.500 comes

00:45:34.460 out

00:45:34.720 with

00:45:34.920 this

00:45:35.280 memo

00:45:35.900 saying

00:45:36.460 look

00:45:37.740 maybe

00:45:38.200 some

00:45:39.060 of the

00:45:39.260 differences

00:45:39.640 in

00:45:40.980 men

00:45:41.720 and

00:45:41.880 women

00:45:42.100 in

00:45:42.320 terms

00:45:42.540 of

00:45:42.760 where

00:45:43.120 they

00:45:43.340 end

00:45:43.540 up

00:45:43.800 occupationally

00:45:44.800 might

00:45:45.740 be

00:45:45.940 due

00:45:46.120 to

00:45:46.340 different

00:45:46.740 preferences

00:45:47.260 that

00:45:48.900 they

00:45:49.040 have

00:45:49.320 about

00:45:49.680 are

00:45:50.300 they

00:45:50.440 interested

00:45:50.760 in

00:45:50.980 things

00:45:51.340 or

00:45:51.480 people

00:45:51.820 and

00:45:52.320 how

00:45:52.820 risk

00:45:53.320 seeking

00:45:53.580 are

00:45:53.820 they

00:45:54.000 and

00:45:54.160 so

00:45:54.340 forth

00:45:54.640 and

00:45:55.800 I

00:45:55.920 read

00:45:56.080 the

00:45:56.200 memo

00:45:56.440 and

00:45:56.660 I

00:45:56.800 thought

00:45:57.080 A

00:45:57.820 this

00:45:58.760 is

00:45:58.920 all

00:45:59.100 pretty

00:45:59.360 much

00:45:59.600 scientifically

00:46:00.060 correct

00:46:00.660 I

00:46:01.880 would

00:46:02.020 give

00:46:02.180 this

00:46:02.360 an

00:46:02.520 A

00:46:02.720 if

00:46:02.900 this

00:46:03.080 is

00:46:03.200 a

00:46:03.320 paper

00:46:03.540 in

00:46:03.660 a

00:46:03.740 graduate

00:46:03.940 seminar

00:46:04.340 but

00:46:05.040 B

00:46:05.340 this

00:46:05.640 is

00:46:05.760 going

00:46:05.920 to

00:46:06.000 be

00:46:06.120 a

00:46:06.260 world

00:46:06.460 of

00:46:06.660 hurt

00:46:06.960 for

00:46:07.940 demore

00:46:08.280 because

00:46:09.100 I'm

00:46:13.800 what

00:46:13.920 happened

00:46:14.400 let's

00:46:15.520 just

00:46:15.700 pause

00:46:16.360 there

00:46:16.540 for

00:46:16.660 a

00:46:16.740 second

00:46:16.860 because

00:46:17.140 it

00:46:17.600 is

00:46:18.100 a

00:46:19.280 shock

00:46:19.640 or

00:46:19.780 at

00:46:19.880 least

00:46:19.980 it

00:46:20.120 should

00:46:20.320 come

00:46:20.600 as

00:46:20.740 a

00:46:20.880 shock

00:46:21.160 to

00:46:21.360 us

00:46:21.600 that

00:46:21.900 he

00:46:22.840 was

00:46:23.060 fired

00:46:23.580 for

00:46:24.820 writing

00:46:25.860 something

00:46:26.320 which

00:46:26.840 you

00:46:28.040 an

00:46:28.660 expert

00:46:29.560 in

00:46:29.740 the

00:46:29.840 field

00:46:30.180 said

00:46:31.240 is

00:46:32.620 scientifically

00:46:33.380 correct

00:46:33.920 and

00:46:34.600 there

00:46:34.960 was

00:46:35.060 no

00:46:35.720 malicious

00:46:37.060 framing

00:46:37.660 of

00:46:37.980 it

00:46:38.080 it

00:46:38.240 was

00:46:38.380 just

00:46:38.980 this

00:46:39.980 summary

00:46:41.020 of

00:46:41.300 what

00:46:41.460 he

00:46:41.580 believed

00:46:41.900 to

00:46:42.020 be

00:46:42.120 the

00:46:42.360 current

00:46:42.820 science

00:46:43.300 and

00:46:43.520 his

00:46:43.760 fairly

00:46:45.120 tame

00:46:45.700 pushback

00:46:46.380 against

00:46:46.900 this

00:46:47.660 diversity

00:46:48.660 indoctrination

00:46:49.460 that he

00:46:49.780 was having

00:46:50.340 to

00:46:50.540 weather

00:46:51.040 as an

00:46:51.300 employee

00:46:51.620 there's

00:46:52.760 still

00:46:52.940 people

00:46:53.200 out there

00:46:53.500 who

00:46:53.640 think

00:46:53.860 that

00:46:54.020 he

00:46:54.160 did

00:46:54.400 something

00:46:54.940 incredibly

00:46:56.380 ugly

00:46:56.760 that

00:46:57.120 merited

00:46:57.980 his

00:46:58.440 firing

00:46:58.840 but

00:46:59.280 we

00:46:59.860 seem

00:47:00.080 to be

00:47:00.340 quite

00:47:00.680 far

00:47:00.900 from

00:47:01.080 that

00:47:01.300 yeah

00:47:02.780 I

00:47:03.240 mean

00:47:03.460 when I

00:47:04.020 read

00:47:04.200 it

00:47:04.320 I

00:47:04.440 thought

00:47:04.660 it's

00:47:04.880 actually

00:47:05.180 surprising

00:47:05.840 that

00:47:06.080 someone

00:47:06.300 who's

00:47:06.520 not

00:47:06.900 a

00:47:08.040 psychology

00:47:08.460 professor

00:47:08.960 would

00:47:09.180 get

00:47:09.400 the

00:47:09.920 empirical

00:47:10.340 research

00:47:10.900 pretty

00:47:11.640 much

00:47:11.860 that

00:47:12.140 accurate

00:47:13.020 and

00:47:14.320 it's

00:47:14.700 kind

00:47:14.880 of

00:47:15.000 surprising

00:47:15.500 and

00:47:15.680 alarming

00:47:15.960 that

00:47:16.180 Google

00:47:16.400 didn't

00:47:16.740 care

00:47:17.120 that it

00:47:18.800 was

00:47:18.940 accurate

00:47:19.360 that it

00:47:20.540 transgressed

00:47:21.880 their

00:47:22.460 diversity

00:47:24.180 agenda

00:47:24.700 so awkwardly

00:47:26.620 precisely

00:47:27.260 because

00:47:28.080 his claims

00:47:29.480 were empirically

00:47:30.220 pretty well

00:47:30.800 supported

00:47:31.320 so they

00:47:32.320 didn't

00:47:32.580 didn't

00:47:32.600 have

00:47:33.100 any

00:47:33.340 defense

00:47:33.980 apart

00:47:35.560 from

00:47:36.080 firing

00:47:37.100 him

00:47:37.380 and

00:47:37.540 saying

00:47:37.720 he

00:47:37.880 perpetuated

00:47:38.420 harmful

00:47:38.740 gender

00:47:39.040 stereotypes

00:47:39.580 that's

00:47:39.860 all

00:47:39.980 they

00:47:40.160 could

00:47:40.280 really

00:47:40.620 do

00:47:42.460 and

00:47:44.260 that

00:47:44.500 I

00:47:44.660 think

00:47:44.840 was

00:47:45.040 a

00:47:45.180 really

00:47:45.360 bad

00:47:45.700 moment

00:47:46.020 in

00:47:46.180 American

00:47:46.580 culture

00:47:47.780 because

00:47:48.180 it

00:47:48.460 means

00:47:48.920 well

00:47:49.960 it sends

00:47:50.220 a message

00:47:50.640 to

00:47:50.920 everybody

00:47:51.400 in

00:47:51.580 every

00:47:51.800 corporation

00:47:52.420 that

00:47:52.780 you

00:47:52.960 can

00:47:53.140 have

00:47:53.580 views

00:47:54.120 that

00:47:54.380 are

00:47:54.500 empirically

00:47:55.060 well

00:47:55.400 grounded

00:47:55.860 and perfectly

00:47:56.460 reasonable

00:47:57.060 and expressed

00:47:57.740 as

00:47:59.220 carefully

00:48:00.980 and constructively

00:48:02.220 as possible

00:48:03.000 and still

00:48:04.700 be subject

00:48:05.580 to these

00:48:06.040 witch hunts

00:48:06.620 and I

00:48:08.960 think that

00:48:09.340 exerts

00:48:10.000 a massive

00:48:10.740 chilling

00:48:11.320 effect

00:48:11.740 on public

00:48:13.120 discourse

00:48:13.540 and even

00:48:15.380 discourse

00:48:15.800 within

00:48:16.100 companies

00:48:16.620 yeah

00:48:17.980 yeah

00:48:18.640 well what

00:48:19.020 has the

00:48:19.300 aftermath

00:48:19.680 been like

00:48:20.140 I know

00:48:20.580 there's a

00:48:20.900 lawsuit

00:48:21.240 right

00:48:21.840 have you

00:48:22.700 followed

00:48:23.100 any of

00:48:23.440 that

00:48:23.660 I

00:48:24.620 haven't

00:48:24.860 really

00:48:25.040 followed

00:48:25.340 it in

00:48:26.140 detail

00:48:26.540 because

00:48:26.880 I know

00:48:27.240 Google

00:48:27.540 can afford

00:48:28.180 better

00:48:29.160 lawyers

00:48:29.580 than

00:48:29.820 more

00:48:30.160 so

00:48:31.240 and this

00:48:32.480 is

00:48:32.840 America

00:48:33.800 so

00:48:34.260 more

00:48:35.360 expensive

00:48:35.700 lawyers

00:48:36.060 win

00:48:36.280 so

00:48:38.420 we

00:48:38.680 have

00:48:39.020 these

00:48:39.200 evolved

00:48:39.920 moral

00:48:41.360 capacities

00:48:42.540 we have

00:48:43.340 evolved

00:48:43.780 moral

00:48:44.140 intuitions

00:48:44.780 we're

00:48:45.080 highly

00:48:45.660 moralizing

00:48:46.580 creatures

00:48:47.300 being

00:48:48.240 social

00:48:48.700 primates

00:48:49.300 this

00:48:49.520 extends

00:48:49.960 to

00:48:50.240 pretty

00:48:50.540 much

00:48:50.740 everything

00:48:51.120 we

00:48:51.360 do

00:48:51.720 there's

00:48:52.760 a

00:48:53.400 descriptive

00:48:53.820 story

00:48:54.240 to tell

00:48:54.680 about

00:48:55.020 how we

00:48:55.500 got

00:48:55.740 here

00:48:56.040 in terms

00:48:56.880 of

00:48:56.980 evolution

00:48:57.400 but

00:48:58.260 there's

00:48:58.500 a

00:48:58.800 very

00:48:59.220 different

00:48:59.580 project

00:49:00.040 and this

00:49:00.340 is

00:49:00.420 something

00:49:00.600 that I

00:49:01.040 attempted

00:49:01.940 to put

00:49:02.660 forward

00:49:02.860 my own

00:49:03.140 views

00:49:03.360 about

00:49:03.660 in the

00:49:03.880 moral

00:49:04.060 landscape

00:49:04.460 which is

00:49:05.800 a normative

00:49:06.780 one

00:49:07.040 you can

00:49:07.720 start

00:49:08.040 from where

00:49:08.500 we're

00:49:08.720 at

00:49:09.100 and

00:49:10.220 just

00:49:11.340 take an

00:49:11.660 inventory

00:49:12.120 of

00:49:12.460 our

00:49:13.520 moral

00:49:13.820 hardware

00:49:14.260 such as

00:49:14.680 it is

00:49:15.040 and then

00:49:16.000 ask a

00:49:16.400 very

00:49:16.520 different

00:49:16.800 set

00:49:17.000 of

00:49:17.120 questions

00:49:17.500 just

00:49:17.880 how

00:49:18.140 good

00:49:18.540 can

00:49:19.100 human

00:49:19.420 life

00:49:19.720 become

00:49:20.260 how

00:49:21.160 good

00:49:21.840 can

00:49:22.020 the

00:49:22.460 life

00:49:22.680 of

00:49:22.800 any

00:49:22.980 conscious

00:49:23.400 creature

00:49:23.720 become

00:49:24.200 given

00:49:25.040 everything

00:49:25.840 that we

00:49:26.200 can

00:49:26.340 change

00:49:26.660 about

00:49:26.960 ourselves

00:49:27.420 and about

00:49:27.920 our

00:49:28.260 institutions

00:49:28.760 and about

00:49:29.240 our

00:49:29.400 social

00:49:29.760 arrangements

00:49:30.320 and

00:49:30.780 so

00:49:31.600 it's

00:49:32.760 different

00:49:33.200 to

00:49:34.580 take

00:49:35.040 an

00:49:35.180 inventory

00:49:35.760 of

00:49:36.380 our

00:49:36.620 moral

00:49:36.860 psychology

00:49:37.580 descriptively

00:49:38.560 someone

00:49:38.820 like

00:49:39.180 Jonathan

00:49:40.160 Haidt

00:49:41.200 will

00:49:41.600 talk about

00:49:42.760 human

00:49:43.020 morality

00:49:43.460 in terms

00:49:43.760 of

00:49:43.860 the facts

00:49:45.040 on the

00:49:45.280 ground

00:49:45.560 people

00:49:45.900 have

00:49:46.120 very

00:49:46.340 strong

00:49:46.880 intuitions

00:49:47.560 about

00:49:47.760 jealousy

00:49:48.180 say

00:49:48.560 or

00:49:48.840 humiliation

00:49:50.080 or

00:49:50.580 concern

00:49:51.860 for

00:49:52.280 authority

00:49:52.780 if

00:49:53.280 you're

00:49:54.000 conservative

00:49:54.700 but not

00:49:55.260 so much

00:49:55.580 if

00:49:55.700 you're

00:49:55.800 liberal

00:49:56.060 but

00:49:56.900 what

00:49:57.920 I

00:49:58.080 tend

00:49:58.280 to

00:49:58.380 want

00:49:58.520 to

00:49:58.600 do

00:49:58.680 is

00:49:58.800 ask

00:49:59.020 a

00:49:59.160 further

00:49:59.420 question

00:49:59.860 about

00:50:00.140 what

00:50:00.660 is

00:50:01.460 possible

00:50:02.020 for

00:50:02.580 conscious

00:50:03.100 minds

00:50:03.540 like

00:50:03.820 our

00:50:04.000 own

00:50:04.260 in

00:50:04.460 terms

00:50:04.700 of

00:50:05.020 flourishing

00:50:06.120 do you

00:50:06.780 think

00:50:06.940 that's

00:50:07.120 a

00:50:07.220 valid

00:50:07.540 differentiation

00:50:08.320 or

00:50:08.880 do you

00:50:09.420 still

00:50:09.740 want

00:50:10.160 to

00:50:10.280 continue

00:50:10.700 to

00:50:10.860 see

00:50:10.980 everything

00:50:11.300 in

00:50:11.920 evolutionary

00:50:12.460 terms

00:50:12.980 well

00:50:14.720 I

00:50:14.920 think

00:50:15.120 the

00:50:16.660 evolved

00:50:17.360 moral

00:50:17.760 psychology

00:50:18.440 that we

00:50:18.840 have

00:50:19.280 is

00:50:19.660 a set

00:50:20.600 of

00:50:20.720 little

00:50:20.900 tools

00:50:21.320 that are

00:50:21.620 largely

00:50:22.020 about

00:50:22.460 managing

00:50:23.140 relationships

00:50:24.020 like

00:50:24.560 kinship

00:50:26.800 and how

00:50:27.120 nice

00:50:27.400 should I

00:50:27.660 be to

00:50:27.980 my

00:50:28.260 offspring

00:50:28.900 and my

00:50:29.460 blood

00:50:29.700 relatives

00:50:30.120 and managing

00:50:30.900 reciprocity

00:50:31.720 relationships

00:50:32.320 and trade

00:50:32.980 and managing

00:50:34.320 in-group

00:50:35.120 dynamics

00:50:36.020 and making

00:50:36.520 sure the

00:50:36.920 clan

00:50:37.280 and the

00:50:38.020 tribe

00:50:38.320 work

00:50:38.680 and then

00:50:39.300 doing the

00:50:39.700 little

00:50:39.840 virtue

00:50:40.160 signaling

00:50:40.600 that we

00:50:40.940 use to

00:50:41.320 attract

00:50:41.640 social

00:50:42.080 and sexual

00:50:42.540 partners

00:50:42.960 and that's

00:50:44.180 sort of

00:50:44.540 the

00:50:44.680 toolbox

00:50:45.020 that we

00:50:46.240 have

00:50:46.720 but we

00:50:48.180 can

00:50:48.460 repurpose

00:50:49.180 a lot

00:50:49.680 of that

00:50:50.040 stuff

00:50:50.540 to

00:50:52.780 achieve

00:50:54.540 levels

00:50:55.020 of

00:50:55.400 moral

00:50:57.320 excellence

00:50:57.860 and progress

00:50:58.460 that go

00:50:59.180 far beyond

00:50:59.940 what any

00:51:00.720 prehistoric

00:51:02.440 human could

00:51:02.840 have imagined

00:51:03.360 I mean

00:51:04.340 I really

00:51:05.020 like for

00:51:05.440 example

00:51:05.740 the

00:51:06.000 Deidre

00:51:06.340 McCloskey

00:51:07.160 idea that

00:51:07.760 there's a

00:51:08.160 set of

00:51:08.420 bourgeois

00:51:08.820 virtues

00:51:09.540 that get

00:51:10.880 cultivated

00:51:11.440 under

00:51:11.900 capitalist

00:51:12.460 society

00:51:13.120 where

00:51:13.980 to succeed

00:51:15.600 as a

00:51:16.760 storekeeper

00:51:18.360 in

00:51:18.760 18th century

00:51:19.540 Europe

00:51:19.900 you have

00:51:20.740 to pay

00:51:21.060 attention

00:51:21.440 to

00:51:21.700 what kind

00:51:22.420 of

00:51:22.660 things

00:51:23.600 am I

00:51:23.860 offering

00:51:24.120 to my

00:51:24.440 customers

00:51:24.840 how can

00:51:25.280 I add

00:51:25.640 value

00:51:26.000 to their

00:51:26.340 lives

00:51:26.680 so they

00:51:27.000 will

00:51:27.140 voluntarily

00:51:27.660 exchange

00:51:28.160 things

00:51:28.440 with me

00:51:28.900 and that

00:51:29.660 selects

00:51:30.140 for

00:51:30.280 conscientiousness

00:51:31.280 and

00:51:31.700 empathy

00:51:32.600 and

00:51:33.360 reliability

00:51:34.240 and good

00:51:35.060 reputation

00:51:35.660 in ways

00:51:36.260 that

00:51:36.520 simply

00:51:37.720 didn't

00:51:38.000 happen

00:51:38.380 before

00:51:38.840 in

00:51:39.160 prehistory

00:51:39.800 and

00:51:40.220 then

00:51:40.400 I

00:51:40.560 think

00:51:40.720 virtue

00:51:41.020 signaling

00:51:41.440 gets a

00:51:42.240 bad rap

00:51:42.800 but

00:51:43.060 it's

00:51:43.420 been at

00:51:44.800 the heart

00:51:45.140 of almost

00:51:45.560 every

00:51:45.940 major

00:51:46.360 ethical

00:51:46.820 development

00:51:48.760 like

00:51:49.340 of course

00:51:50.140 the early

00:51:50.700 anti-slavery

00:51:51.520 abolitionists

00:51:52.360 were partly

00:51:52.800 virtue signaling

00:51:53.680 here's my

00:51:54.800 empathy

00:51:55.160 because I'm

00:51:55.620 concerned about

00:51:56.180 these other

00:51:56.600 people I don't

00:51:57.160 care about

00:51:57.740 the animal

00:51:59.840 rights movement

00:52:00.620 like

00:52:01.120 I care about

00:52:02.040 cute cuddly

00:52:02.660 mammals

00:52:03.060 let's save

00:52:03.720 them

00:52:03.960 it's easy

00:52:05.140 to mock

00:52:05.620 that

00:52:06.000 but

00:52:07.000 virtue

00:52:07.840 signaling

00:52:08.300 lets you

00:52:08.800 get

00:52:09.080 a

00:52:09.960 beach

00:52:10.360 head

00:52:10.740 on

00:52:11.800 moral

00:52:12.120 issues

00:52:12.560 that

00:52:12.800 nobody

00:52:13.040 would

00:52:13.220 care

00:52:13.460 about

00:52:13.740 otherwise

00:52:14.340 right

00:52:15.440 and I've

00:52:17.020 seen this

00:52:17.440 happen

00:52:17.860 in

00:52:18.440 the

00:52:19.820 vegan

00:52:20.040 movement

00:52:20.400 that

00:52:20.680 my

00:52:21.200 girlfriend's

00:52:21.700 involved

00:52:22.140 with

00:52:22.460 that

00:52:22.760 you know

00:52:23.480 the way

00:52:23.820 to reach

00:52:24.260 out

00:52:24.600 to certain

00:52:25.100 kinds

00:52:25.420 of people

00:52:25.840 is not

00:52:26.320 necessarily

00:52:26.980 to say

00:52:27.740 well look

00:52:28.760 if you're

00:52:29.060 a strict

00:52:29.540 utilitarian

00:52:31.000 then

00:52:31.540 and here's

00:52:33.080 the evidence

00:52:33.540 for this

00:52:34.040 animal having

00:52:34.940 this level

00:52:35.420 of sentience

00:52:36.040 therefore

00:52:36.380 you shouldn't

00:52:36.840 eat it

00:52:37.220 no

00:52:37.920 the way

00:52:38.880 to

00:52:39.120 popularize

00:52:40.560 that movement

00:52:41.120 is to make

00:52:41.880 veganism

00:52:43.000 a virtue

00:52:43.720 a social

00:52:44.880 virtue

00:52:45.340 and

00:52:46.700 and then

00:52:47.760 to convert

00:52:48.460 your lovers

00:52:50.060 and your friends

00:52:50.920 and your family

00:52:51.620 through that

00:52:52.460 route

00:52:52.980 and I think

00:52:53.640 it can be

00:52:54.260 a great

00:52:54.680 source

00:52:55.860 for moral

00:52:56.340 progress

00:52:56.900 what keeps

00:52:59.760 you awake

00:53:00.140 at night

00:53:00.460 as far

00:53:00.860 as the

00:53:01.440 risks

00:53:02.480 that we

00:53:02.820 face

00:53:03.120 as a

00:53:03.400 species

00:53:03.660 what worries

00:53:04.580 you

00:53:04.820 going forward

00:53:05.600 I'm terrified

00:53:07.260 about

00:53:07.720 this set

00:53:08.740 of risks

00:53:09.760 called

00:53:10.060 existential

00:53:10.680 risks

00:53:11.260 and my

00:53:13.160 friends

00:53:13.440 in the

00:53:13.680 affective

00:53:14.060 altruism

00:53:14.560 community

00:53:15.080 focus on

00:53:15.780 those

00:53:16.000 quite a bit

00:53:16.520 these are

00:53:16.900 risks

00:53:17.300 that are

00:53:18.180 not just

00:53:18.620 global

00:53:19.020 catastrophic

00:53:19.800 risks

00:53:20.380 where millions

00:53:21.160 could die

00:53:22.580 or billions

00:53:23.080 but the risks

00:53:24.480 where everybody

00:53:25.160 could die

00:53:25.780 so existential

00:53:27.240 meaning

00:53:27.760 does the human

00:53:28.740 species go

00:53:29.460 extinct entirely

00:53:30.480 like within

00:53:31.180 this century

00:53:31.740 or do at least

00:53:32.980 a few of us

00:53:33.540 survive

00:53:33.940 and the big

00:53:35.080 existential risks

00:53:36.020 that people

00:53:36.380 worry the most

00:53:37.800 about are

00:53:38.460 nuclear war

00:53:39.640 bioweapons

00:53:42.280 like engineered

00:53:43.140 pandemics

00:53:44.020 artificial

00:53:47.620 intelligence

00:53:48.520 things that

00:53:50.700 aren't really

00:53:51.440 existential risks

00:53:52.620 like okay

00:53:53.160 meteor impacts

00:53:54.540 they would be

00:53:56.220 x risks

00:53:56.840 but the

00:53:57.260 probability

00:53:57.740 it'll happen

00:53:58.260 is extremely

00:53:59.240 low

00:53:59.720 and those

00:54:01.660 things are

00:54:01.980 already being

00:54:02.400 monitored

00:54:02.760 I think

00:54:03.840 AI is the

00:54:04.560 wild card

00:54:05.160 AI is what

00:54:05.900 keeps me

00:54:06.360 awake at

00:54:06.820 night

00:54:07.080 I've started

00:54:08.920 to think

00:54:09.480 and work a

00:54:10.420 little bit

00:54:10.800 on AI

00:54:11.380 safety

00:54:12.020 research

00:54:12.620 the issue

00:54:14.520 there is

00:54:15.400 nobody really

00:54:17.800 knows how

00:54:18.360 far we are

00:54:19.160 away from

00:54:19.880 developing

00:54:20.360 artificial

00:54:20.780 general

00:54:21.240 intelligence

00:54:21.740 that will be

00:54:22.460 smarter than

00:54:23.140 us in at

00:54:23.880 least some

00:54:24.240 ways

00:54:24.580 it's very

00:54:26.020 hard to

00:54:26.380 predict what

00:54:27.520 kind of agenda

00:54:28.300 or behavior

00:54:28.900 such a thing

00:54:29.520 would have

00:54:30.160 it's very

00:54:32.340 hard to apply

00:54:33.200 our intuitive

00:54:34.480 psychology

00:54:35.200 of like how

00:54:36.420 do you talk

00:54:36.920 to such a

00:54:37.380 thing or

00:54:37.700 convince it

00:54:38.280 or propagandize

00:54:39.300 it if it

00:54:41.000 might operate

00:54:41.680 on completely

00:54:42.340 different

00:54:42.820 principles

00:54:43.360 with different

00:54:44.780 preferences and

00:54:45.980 priorities than

00:54:46.680 we do

00:54:47.040 so there's

00:54:48.600 a lot

00:54:48.960 of uncertainty

00:54:49.660 what we do

00:54:50.460 know though

00:54:51.040 is America

00:54:53.500 and China

00:54:54.100 are investing

00:54:54.860 hugely

00:54:55.580 in an AI

00:54:57.720 arms race

00:54:58.540 and some

00:55:00.280 of the top

00:55:00.720 talent

00:55:01.220 in both

00:55:02.740 countries

00:55:03.160 is going

00:55:03.600 into this

00:55:04.240 and both

00:55:05.800 countries

00:55:06.240 are quickly

00:55:07.080 realizing

00:55:07.680 that if we

00:55:08.300 fall behind

00:55:09.040 we'll be

00:55:09.500 at a very

00:55:10.500 serious

00:55:11.120 military

00:55:12.580 and economic

00:55:13.280 and even

00:55:14.060 cultural

00:55:14.540 disadvantage

00:55:15.140 so that

00:55:17.580 kind of

00:55:18.220 makes me

00:55:20.180 want to

00:55:20.440 barf

00:55:20.820 and it's

00:55:23.380 something

00:55:24.080 also where

00:55:25.700 people have

00:55:26.120 been misprogrammed

00:55:27.280 by Hollywood

00:55:27.920 to worry about

00:55:28.460 the wrong

00:55:28.940 kinds of

00:55:29.400 things happening

00:55:30.100 what do you

00:55:31.860 make of the

00:55:32.220 fact that

00:55:32.780 there's some

00:55:33.560 very smart

00:55:34.000 people

00:55:34.420 who are

00:55:36.700 arguably as

00:55:37.400 close to the

00:55:37.980 data as we

00:55:38.840 are who are

00:55:39.320 not worried

00:55:40.000 about this

00:55:40.420 this is

00:55:40.620 something we

00:55:40.920 were talking

00:55:41.280 about backstage

00:55:42.200 what are they

00:55:44.120 not

00:55:44.480 seen

00:55:45.840 and what's

00:55:48.060 the likelihood

00:55:48.600 that they're

00:55:49.940 right and

00:55:50.400 we're wrong

00:55:50.980 to be

00:55:51.400 concerned about

00:55:52.220 AI

00:55:53.160 so for

00:55:54.560 example

00:55:54.860 Steven Pinker

00:55:55.640 in the

00:55:56.300 Enlightenment

00:55:56.940 Now book

00:55:57.480 which I love

00:55:58.280 and which is

00:55:58.740 awesome

00:55:59.140 but there's

00:55:59.580 a chapter

00:55:59.960 in it

00:56:00.300 on existential

00:56:00.880 risk

00:56:01.420 where he's

00:56:02.020 fairly

00:56:03.020 dismissive

00:56:05.340 of AI

00:56:06.060 as an

00:56:07.300 ex-risk

00:56:07.960 I think

00:56:11.380 it's notable

00:56:11.940 that a lot

00:56:12.500 of people

00:56:12.860 who used

00:56:13.380 to be

00:56:13.680 skeptical

00:56:14.120 about AI

00:56:14.980 as an

00:56:16.200 ex-risk

00:56:16.780 are now

00:56:17.280 worried

00:56:17.620 about it

00:56:18.060 a lot

00:56:18.460 of people

00:56:18.720 change

00:56:19.040 their minds

00:56:19.440 in that

00:56:19.800 direction

00:56:20.260 there are

00:56:21.240 very few

00:56:21.680 people

00:56:21.980 who say

00:56:22.360 oh I

00:56:22.760 used to

00:56:23.120 worry

00:56:23.280 about it

00:56:23.620 last year

00:56:24.060 but now

00:56:24.380 I've been

00:56:24.660 convinced

00:56:25.180 it's fine

00:56:27.060 I don't know

00:56:29.560 what I was

00:56:29.940 thinking

00:56:30.180 chicken little

00:56:30.900 don't worry

00:56:31.980 well just

00:56:33.280 to take

00:56:34.420 that structure

00:56:34.920 how many

00:56:35.280 people are

00:56:35.660 going that

00:56:36.160 direction

00:56:36.600 with monogamy

00:56:38.040 versus polyamory

00:56:39.200 yeah

00:56:40.200 there's

00:56:42.340 just a

00:56:43.320 stampede

00:56:43.920 out of

00:56:44.200 monogamy

00:56:44.660 it's really

00:56:45.120 cute

00:56:45.500 there's no

00:56:46.840 stampede

00:56:47.360 back

00:56:47.680 just these

00:56:49.780 wrecked

00:56:51.300 people

00:56:51.620 who

00:56:51.920 there's a

00:56:53.480 little stampede

00:56:54.120 out of

00:56:54.380 monogamy

00:56:54.760 in high

00:56:55.080 school

00:56:55.300 and then

00:56:55.640 there's a

00:56:56.080 little bit

00:56:56.400 of a

00:56:56.620 stampede

00:56:57.000 back

00:56:57.360 when people

00:56:57.960 get pregnant

00:56:58.460 that's

00:57:00.880 true

00:57:01.140 but I

00:57:04.220 think with

00:57:04.480 the AI

00:57:04.800 thing

00:57:05.220 my view

00:57:06.680 is

00:57:07.140 even

00:57:08.660 something

00:57:09.980 that causes

00:57:10.580 a 1%

00:57:11.280 chance of

00:57:12.320 extinction

00:57:12.780 is worth

00:57:13.440 really worrying

00:57:15.400 about very

00:57:16.100 very seriously

00:57:17.500 and devoting

00:57:18.140 billions of

00:57:18.660 dollars to

00:57:19.380 yeah

00:57:20.060 yeah a 1%

00:57:22.260 probability

00:57:22.900 of destroying

00:57:24.380 absolutely

00:57:24.920 everything

00:57:25.340 is still

00:57:26.780 a major

00:57:27.460 thing to

00:57:28.700 hedge

00:57:28.900 against

00:57:29.280 listen I

00:57:30.020 want to

00:57:30.260 now open

00:57:30.820 it to

00:57:31.080 all of

00:57:31.660 you

00:57:31.840 because

00:57:32.120 for me

00:57:32.700 the real

00:57:33.500 motivation

00:57:34.740 to have

00:57:35.160 these live

00:57:35.640 events

00:57:35.940 is to

00:57:36.380 make it

00:57:36.760 a proper

00:57:37.140 dialogue

00:57:37.700 so there

00:57:38.360 should be

00:57:38.680 microphones

00:57:39.240 in the

00:57:40.420 aisles

00:57:40.860 should be

00:57:42.040 two

00:57:42.420 and we

00:57:43.680 would love

00:57:43.980 your questions

00:57:44.520 and we

00:57:44.920 have

00:57:45.240 we have

00:57:46.460 a full

00:57:47.180 hour where

00:57:47.720 we can

00:57:48.060 take them

00:57:48.640 so

00:57:48.940 so I

00:57:50.860 guess we'll

00:57:51.120 start

00:57:51.620 over here

00:57:52.860 our left

00:57:54.280 all right

00:57:56.240 I think it's

00:57:56.760 done

00:57:56.920 I should

00:57:58.320 say just

00:57:58.700 as a

00:57:59.340 preamble

00:58:00.220 if your

00:58:00.840 question can

00:58:01.420 end in a

00:58:01.840 question

00:58:02.220 that would

00:58:03.820 be good

00:58:04.220 if you can

00:58:04.860 just even

00:58:05.820 just accomplish

00:58:06.500 a high rising

00:58:07.200 tone at the

00:58:07.840 end of whatever

00:58:08.440 you say

00:58:08.860 the audience

00:58:11.040 will appreciate

00:58:11.660 it and if

00:58:12.340 you can be

00:58:12.840 brief

00:58:13.640 otherwise

00:58:14.560 you're

00:58:15.840 surrounded by

00:58:16.560 a thousand

00:58:17.440 very impatient

00:58:18.300 people

00:58:18.780 all right

00:58:19.840 so no

00:58:20.800 thanks so much

00:58:21.320 for that

00:58:21.620 so just

00:58:22.420 just two

00:58:23.660 things that I

00:58:24.320 thought about

00:58:24.840 so I

00:58:25.400 lived in

00:58:25.700 South Africa

00:58:26.060 was there

00:58:26.480 for the

00:58:26.740 SACO

00:58:27.180 incident

00:58:28.000 I definitely

00:58:28.440 remember that

00:58:28.860 but what I

00:58:29.300 want to

00:58:29.500 mention is

00:58:29.860 that in

00:58:31.280 so many

00:58:31.760 places in

00:58:32.220 Africa

00:58:32.660 polygamy

00:58:33.660 was the

00:58:34.220 norm for

00:58:34.860 the longest

00:58:35.200 time

00:58:35.620 and even

00:58:37.580 within that

00:58:38.480 like there

00:58:39.420 were so many

00:58:40.260 folks are still

00:58:40.920 going and having

00:58:41.400 relationships with

00:58:42.180 other women

00:58:43.440 and the

00:58:45.060 wives in that

00:58:46.200 relationship are

00:58:46.740 aware of that

00:58:47.320 it's actually

00:58:47.920 almost a norm

00:58:48.680 sometimes

00:58:49.260 but despite

00:58:50.840 that fact

00:58:51.400 they still

00:58:51.900 get jealous

00:58:52.520 and all of

00:58:54.040 my younger

00:58:54.480 African friends

00:58:55.240 when I asked

00:58:55.740 them about

00:58:56.060 this

00:58:56.320 they have

00:58:57.000 no interest

00:58:57.500 in polygamy

00:58:57.980 no interest

00:58:59.140 in polyamory

00:58:59.820 or whatever

00:59:00.080 they want

00:59:00.800 a monogamous

00:59:01.400 relationship

00:59:01.960 so whenever

00:59:03.640 you say this

00:59:04.320 kind of stuff

00:59:04.760 for me

00:59:05.200 I'm thinking

00:59:05.860 kind of like

00:59:06.580 I feel like

00:59:07.680 some of this

00:59:08.060 stuff has been

00:59:08.520 tried before

00:59:09.180 and it really

00:59:09.900 didn't work

00:59:10.440 and even the

00:59:11.100 people who

00:59:11.560 were in

00:59:12.080 situations like

00:59:13.380 this are

00:59:14.260 actually moving

00:59:14.880 closer towards

00:59:16.020 monogamy

00:59:16.500 and the

00:59:17.740 second part of

00:59:18.800 that is that

00:59:19.600 we talked about

00:59:20.620 from the people

00:59:21.600 in the

00:59:21.800 relationships

00:59:22.320 standpoint

00:59:22.800 but what

00:59:23.640 about the

00:59:24.020 children

00:59:24.340 because I

00:59:25.420 know for me

00:59:25.940 myself

00:59:26.460 if I knew

00:59:27.180 that my

00:59:27.700 dad was

00:59:28.240 going and

00:59:28.760 having even

00:59:29.960 going on

00:59:30.400 dates even

00:59:30.940 if he was

00:59:31.420 announcing it

00:59:32.080 that's going

00:59:33.120 to really

00:59:33.420 affect me

00:59:34.100 and even

00:59:35.020 my African

00:59:35.720 friends who

00:59:36.480 knew that

00:59:36.840 their dads

00:59:37.320 were going

00:59:38.540 on this

00:59:38.880 it really

00:59:39.300 affected them

00:59:39.860 as well

00:59:40.280 so what I

00:59:41.540 want to know

00:59:41.840 is why do

00:59:42.520 you think

00:59:43.000 that places

00:59:43.940 that already

00:59:44.320 have kind of

00:59:44.820 relationships

00:59:45.180 like this

00:59:45.640 are actually

00:59:45.980 moving towards

00:59:46.740 monogamy

00:59:47.240 rather than

00:59:48.300 maintaining that

00:59:49.100 and two

00:59:49.960 what do you

00:59:50.860 think the

00:59:51.420 effect on

00:59:52.160 children

00:59:52.780 in such

00:59:53.780 relationships

00:59:54.280 is going

00:59:54.600 to be

00:59:54.920 yeah good

00:59:57.300 question

00:59:57.720 so polyamory

00:59:59.640 is very

01:00:00.180 different from

01:00:00.900 traditional

01:00:01.420 polygamy

01:00:02.060 right

01:00:02.480 polygamy

01:00:02.920 is there's

01:00:03.680 there's one

01:00:04.280 man with

01:00:04.840 multiple

01:00:05.160 women

01:00:05.560 and he's

01:00:06.640 typically

01:00:07.020 the high

01:00:08.040 status

01:00:08.420 dominant

01:00:08.900 guy

01:00:09.400 and he

01:00:09.800 sort of

01:00:10.080 monopolizes

01:00:10.780 a few

01:00:11.180 local

01:00:11.480 women

01:00:11.780 and then

01:00:12.300 other guys

01:00:13.140 don't have

01:00:13.920 women

01:00:14.360 and they're

01:00:15.180 frustrated

01:00:15.700 so it's

01:00:16.140 a very

01:00:16.360 socially

01:00:16.780 destabilizing

01:00:17.800 situation

01:00:18.420 with a lot

01:00:19.660 of variation

01:00:20.380 and reproductive

01:00:21.140 success

01:00:21.780 across

01:00:22.260 men

01:00:23.180 and a lot

01:00:24.040 of violence

01:00:25.520 actually

01:00:26.000 and this is

01:00:26.920 exactly why

01:00:27.880 cultural monogamy

01:00:28.940 was instituted

01:00:29.820 to cut down

01:00:30.980 on that

01:00:32.080 violence and

01:00:33.360 jealousy

01:00:33.720 and sort of

01:00:34.960 distribute mates

01:00:35.780 more evenly

01:00:36.300 what they don't do

01:00:38.280 in those cultures

01:00:39.060 is any of the

01:00:40.320 basic ethical

01:00:41.320 precepts

01:00:42.520 of polyamory

01:00:43.360 which is

01:00:43.900 open

01:00:44.780 consensual

01:00:45.940 transparent

01:00:46.920 communication

01:00:47.980 with everyone

01:00:49.280 about everything

01:00:50.040 that's happening

01:00:50.640 so polyamory

01:00:52.280 is as new

01:00:53.360 relative to

01:00:54.440 human mating

01:00:54.940 as the smartphone

01:00:55.720 with all the

01:00:58.620 strengths and

01:00:59.460 benefits of that

01:01:00.280 it might be

01:01:01.220 awesome

01:01:01.620 it might crash

01:01:02.560 and burn terribly

01:01:03.340 we don't know yet

01:01:04.320 so far for some

01:01:05.540 people it seems

01:01:06.160 to work

01:01:06.680 and we can

01:01:08.580 predict

01:01:09.060 it won't work

01:01:10.420 for everybody

01:01:11.480 some people

01:01:12.480 will not have

01:01:13.280 the personality

01:01:13.940 traits that make

01:01:14.740 it work

01:01:15.100 I suspect

01:01:15.800 successful poly

01:01:17.120 requires

01:01:17.700 in today's

01:01:19.500 culture

01:01:19.900 a very high

01:01:21.080 degree of

01:01:21.560 intelligence

01:01:22.200 organization

01:01:23.440 conscientiousness

01:01:24.820 emotional

01:01:25.520 self-control

01:01:26.380 self-insight

01:01:28.820 anger management

01:01:30.640 all of that

01:01:31.720 second question

01:01:33.560 briefly

01:01:34.020 I think kids

01:01:35.540 are incredibly

01:01:36.200 adaptable

01:01:36.940 about whatever

01:01:38.140 their parents

01:01:38.720 are doing

01:01:39.200 as long as

01:01:39.760 they get good

01:01:40.420 input and support

01:01:41.400 and care

01:01:41.960 from one or

01:01:42.900 more adult

01:01:43.620 caregivers

01:01:44.160 I think

01:01:45.160 they can

01:01:45.500 adapt

01:01:45.840 pretty quickly

01:01:46.640 to anything

01:01:47.960 going on

01:01:48.680 as long as

01:01:49.240 there's not

01:01:49.600 a whole lot

01:01:50.080 of violence

01:01:50.520 and abuse

01:01:51.020 and we see

01:01:53.040 that in

01:01:53.900 every culture

01:01:55.360 that has

01:01:55.760 different mating

01:01:56.380 norms

01:01:56.760 the kids

01:01:57.180 don't care

01:01:57.840 if they

01:01:58.520 think it's

01:01:58.960 normal

01:01:59.340 as long as

01:02:01.320 they're being

01:02:02.340 taken care of

01:02:03.380 thank you

01:02:04.640 hi

01:02:06.240 thank both

01:02:07.280 of you

01:02:07.540 for this

01:02:08.260 conversation

01:02:08.800 I've really

01:02:09.280 enjoyed

01:02:09.600 and I

01:02:09.920 enjoyed

01:02:10.060 the podcast

01:02:10.700 this question

01:02:12.060 is for

01:02:12.380 Sam primarily

01:02:13.280 but it

01:02:13.700 seems to

01:02:14.060 have

01:02:14.280 relevance

01:02:14.800 to many

01:02:15.260 of the

01:02:15.500 issues

01:02:15.800 that you've

01:02:16.180 touched on

01:02:16.660 in this

01:02:16.980 conversation

01:02:17.540 so Sam

01:02:19.380 in your

01:02:20.180 post

01:02:20.460 Charlottesville

01:02:21.240 podcast

01:02:21.720 with

01:02:22.180 Douglas

01:02:22.600 Murray

01:02:22.940 you articulated

01:02:23.900 a hesitance

01:02:24.700 to engage

01:02:25.260 with

01:02:25.480 Stefan

01:02:26.000 Molyneux

01:02:26.520 because he

01:02:27.020 had talked

01:02:27.400 with Jared

01:02:27.920 Taylor

01:02:28.320 and was

01:02:29.000 therefore

01:02:29.360 in some

01:02:29.900 sense

01:02:30.200 tainted

01:02:30.680 obviously

01:02:31.780 you should

01:02:32.480 only have

01:02:33.100 conversations

01:02:33.800 you think

01:02:34.260 are likely

01:02:34.660 to be fruitful

01:02:35.320 but because

01:02:36.300 you're so

01:02:36.700 cognizant

01:02:37.280 of incentives

01:02:37.840 do you see

01:02:38.900 how publicly

01:02:39.540 parameterizing

01:02:40.560 your willingness

01:02:41.140 to engage

01:02:41.860 with people

01:02:42.400 around this

01:02:43.040 six degrees

01:02:43.740 of Richard

01:02:44.280 Spencer

01:02:44.740 principle

01:02:45.380 encourages

01:02:46.320 the kind

01:02:46.960 of dishonest

01:02:47.620 smearing

01:02:47.980 that you

01:02:48.500 and so

01:02:48.860 many of

01:02:49.200 your friends

01:02:49.600 have been

01:02:49.900 subject to

01:02:50.580 is the

01:02:51.600 tarnished

01:02:52.080 reputation

01:02:52.940 of an

01:02:53.440 interlocutor

01:02:54.100 the right

01:02:54.740 predictor

01:02:55.280 of the value

01:02:55.880 of a

01:02:56.160 discussion

01:02:56.620 yeah

01:02:58.160 well again

01:02:59.160 this is

01:02:59.680 I have to

01:03:00.400 confess

01:03:00.980 some

01:03:02.100 uncertainty

01:03:02.620 as to

01:03:03.660 who

01:03:04.800 anyone

01:03:05.260 is

01:03:05.680 I mean

01:03:05.920 so I

01:03:06.320 only know

01:03:07.140 what I

01:03:07.420 know

01:03:07.600 about

01:03:07.800 somebody

01:03:08.040 like

01:03:08.260 Stefan

01:03:08.560 I

01:03:09.360 know

01:03:09.880 enough

01:03:10.400 or at

01:03:10.800 least

01:03:10.920 I

01:03:11.080 think

01:03:11.280 I

01:03:11.400 know

01:03:11.540 enough

01:03:11.760 about

01:03:12.060 him

01:03:12.300 to worry

01:03:13.360 that he's

01:03:13.820 not

01:03:14.240 someone

01:03:14.920 I

01:03:15.100 should

01:03:15.220 be

01:03:15.500 speaking

01:03:15.800 with

01:03:16.080 and

01:03:16.240 one

01:03:16.680 data

01:03:16.980 point

01:03:17.300 was

01:03:17.820 the

01:03:18.520 conversation

01:03:19.000 I

01:03:19.180 saw

01:03:19.460 him

01:03:19.660 have

01:03:19.980 with

01:03:20.500 Jared

01:03:20.860 Taylor

01:03:21.200 so

01:03:21.580 like

01:03:21.760 presumably

01:03:22.940 he

01:03:23.460 knows

01:03:25.160 who

01:03:25.380 Jared

01:03:25.680 is

01:03:26.180 and

01:03:26.860 he

01:03:27.020 found

01:03:27.460 no

01:03:28.300 daylight

01:03:28.820 between

01:03:29.180 him

01:03:29.560 and

01:03:29.760 Jared

01:03:30.080 when he

01:03:30.460 was

01:03:30.720 speaking

01:03:31.240 to him

01:03:31.480 on the

01:03:31.660 podcast

01:03:32.060 they

01:03:32.280 were

01:03:32.480 just

01:03:33.320 like

01:03:34.520 two

01:03:34.720 peas

01:03:34.960 in

01:03:35.060 a

01:03:35.160 pod

01:03:35.480 and

01:03:36.760 Jared

01:03:37.800 Taylor

01:03:38.240 you

01:03:38.980 can see

01:03:39.380 talking

01:03:39.820 to just

01:03:40.320 a

01:03:40.520 straight

01:03:40.840 up

01:03:41.020 neo

01:03:41.260 Nazi

01:03:41.620 again

01:03:42.500 without

01:03:42.720 any

01:03:43.240 daylight

01:03:43.780 between

01:03:44.160 them

01:03:44.440 right

01:03:44.700 so

01:03:44.900 this

01:03:45.440 is

01:03:45.560 not

01:03:45.840 again

01:03:46.380 this

01:03:46.880 may

01:03:47.100 seem

01:03:47.500 like

01:03:47.760 a

01:03:48.040 transitive

01:03:49.280 property

01:03:49.700 that

01:03:49.980 shouldn't

01:03:50.360 be

01:03:50.620 operating

01:03:51.620 but

01:03:51.960 I

01:03:52.720 think

01:03:52.960 there's

01:03:53.300 some

01:03:53.680 there's

01:03:54.900 something

01:03:55.220 fishy

01:03:55.900 there

01:03:56.220 again

01:03:56.640 the

01:03:56.860 ethics

01:03:57.160 of

01:03:57.320 this

01:03:57.460 are

01:03:57.560 not

01:03:57.860 totally

01:03:58.840 worked

01:03:59.120 out

01:03:59.320 in my

01:03:59.600 head

01:03:59.820 I

01:03:59.940 don't

01:04:00.080 know

01:04:00.260 where

01:04:00.560 the

01:04:00.760 line

01:04:01.060 is

01:04:01.280 between

01:04:01.740 it

01:04:02.720 being

01:04:02.900 a

01:04:03.040 bad

01:04:03.280 thing

01:04:03.480 to give

01:04:03.820 someone

01:04:04.040 a

01:04:04.180 platform

01:04:04.680 by

01:04:05.400 just

01:04:05.600 agreeing

01:04:05.940 to

01:04:06.200 talk

01:04:06.440 to

01:04:06.560 them

01:04:06.720 or

01:04:07.500 it

01:04:07.620 being

01:04:07.720 a

01:04:07.880 good

01:04:08.080 thing

01:04:08.460 to

01:04:08.960 invite

01:04:10.060 someone

01:04:10.340 on

01:04:10.760 who

01:04:11.100 holds

01:04:12.140 morally

01:04:12.580 reprehensible

01:04:13.380 views

01:04:13.940 and

01:04:14.520 just

01:04:14.780 debate

01:04:15.100 them

01:04:15.340 and

01:04:15.540 air

01:04:16.240 those

01:04:16.560 views

01:04:16.820 and

01:04:16.960 I

01:04:46.920 don't know where the line is and strangely it gets much easier and I think I said this when I was speaking to Douglas on that podcast it gets much easier when the person is obviously evil right like you know I could talk to the Unabomber and not have to waste any fuel virtue signaling to my audience saying you know it's a really terrible thing you did sending those bombs in the mail I mean that would just that would go without saying and so it's kind of an uncanny valley problem with respect to moral culpability. I don't know if you have

01:04:46.940 any thoughts about any thoughts about any thoughts about any thoughts about any thoughts about this and you know who one should talk to and where one draws the line but I'm just I'm still working it out and I don't I mean Stefan is kind of a corner case and I admit to not having spent many hours trying to figure out who he is. So thank you very much. Hi Sam. I just first want to say that I really appreciate your style of communication. It's really changed the way that I've dealt

01:05:13.100 with people on a daily basis. Oh cool. Thank you. And my question is how do we reconcile the difference between our biological need to reproduce

01:05:23.400 and growing concerns that overpopulation might be a problem in the future? It's not clear to me what the consensus is now with respect to population concerns. I mean it's like

01:05:36.480 that you can find people who are just as concerned about underpopulation. You know it's like the difference between there being too many of us and too few of us might come down to like 20 people. It's like there's this weird factoid that in Japan right now they sell more adult diapers than kids diapers. That's fairly alarming to picture.

01:05:59.940 If we could get fully obedient AI and to service our needs and you know and I guess in the context of this conversation those needs could extend to you know polyamorous robots.

01:06:13.420 Something like Westworld. But in the absent that I mean it seemed it does seem and maybe you have some insight into this but it seems like we are in some vast Ponzi scheme.

01:06:26.200 You need a new generation to stack under this looming pyramid of aging people. What are your thoughts on world population and what it's going to be like to have 9 or 12 billion of us?

01:06:41.040 I mean I'm pretty pronatalist and I think there's a lot of alarmism about overpopulation. It has been since the 70s. Most of that alarmism hasn't come true.

01:06:49.800 That was Paul Ehrlich right?

01:06:51.600 Right. Yeah. The population bomb.

01:06:54.680 I think as a utilitarian the more people the better. All else being equal.

01:07:00.240 And one of the things that gets me excited about managing the AI X risk is if we do it, if we survive, if we colonize the solar system, the galaxy, the supercluster and then we have,

01:07:12.360 we could have 10 to the 30th sentient beings that are post-human. I think that would be amazing.

01:07:19.700 I'm willing to add up utilities and go the more the better. So we should have that long view that as long as we don't wreck the planet in a really predictably dramatic, horrible way,

01:07:35.100 we should have some faith that our little kids and grandkids will be smart and will be able to help solve problems we can't even solve yet.

01:07:42.660 Yeah. That's a relief. Thank you.

01:07:47.960 So it seems to me that money in politics is the largest problem in American society today because it's the problem that stops other problems from being solved.

01:07:58.340 So, for example, Sam, if you think a lack of an AI safety net is a huge problem, then if technology companies lobby against that solution because it increases their revenue,

01:08:11.520 then that problem won't be solved. So my question for you or for either of you is, what are your thoughts on money and politics?

01:08:21.440 I think it is a huge problem. It's hard to solve because the line between...

01:08:27.520 If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org.

01:08:33.380 Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast, along with other subscriber-only content,

01:08:39.980 including bonus episodes and AMAs and the conversations I've been having on the Waking Up app.

01:08:45.500 The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support.

01:08:49.580 And you can subscribe now at samharris.org.

01:08:57.520 The Making Sense podcast is a production of Waking Up app.

Making Sense - Sam Harris - June 04, 2018

#128 — Transformations of Mind

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript