The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

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00:00:57.540 Hello, everybody.

00:01:12.460 I had the opportunity today to speak with Jamie Wheel, who's author of Recapture the Rapture.

00:01:19.100 And we talked about his book and his thoughts and my thoughts and my new book as well today.

00:01:25.860 I have a book coming out in November called We Who Wrestle with God.

00:01:29.460 And Jamie and I are walking parallel paths in many ways.

00:01:34.500 And that's not surprising because, like every historical moment, has its zeitgeist, right?

00:01:39.380 Its spirit.

00:01:40.140 And that speaks through many people simultaneously.

00:01:42.780 And we talked about exactly what that might mean.

00:01:46.740 Jamie concentrates, for example, in this book on what's come to be known as the meaning crisis

00:01:52.360 and associates that with the Nietzschean death of God, which is the appropriate association.

00:01:56.840 The demolition of the higher unity that, say, held Western culture together

00:02:00.920 and gave it its enthusiastic impetus over the last 2,000 years.

00:02:04.920 We've exhausted that in a sense.

00:02:07.720 And because of that, people are hedonistic and nihilistic and hopeless and anxious and lost.

00:02:15.340 And that's not a wonderful condition.

00:02:18.400 Now, one of the consequences of such conditions, mythologically speaking,

00:02:23.280 is that it's at those times when something new is born.

00:02:27.340 That's why Christ is born at the darkest point of the year, for example.

00:02:30.940 It's a very common mythological motif.

00:02:33.580 And we examine today what it is that died, I would say,

00:02:38.800 and also what it is that's in the difficult process of being born

00:02:41.980 and what beneficial and monstrous forms that might take

00:02:46.000 and how that's making itself manifest in the popular and intellectual culture.

00:02:51.920 And so, join us for that inquiry.

00:02:55.300 So, one of the centerpieces of the argument that you make in this book,

00:03:02.940 Recapture the Rapture,

00:03:05.460 is derived from Nietzsche's favorite, famous observation about the death of God.

00:03:12.940 So, I thought maybe we could start by talking about that.

00:03:17.420 Now, it seems to me that if you wanted to secularize that discussion,

00:03:24.300 you'd do it in something approximating the following manner.

00:03:28.260 You'd assume that there's only two possibilities.

00:03:31.620 And one possibility would be that our perceptions and our thoughts and our goal-directed striving

00:03:37.860 moves towards something approximating a higher order or transcendental unity,

00:03:44.500 or it doesn't.

00:03:46.740 Those are the only two options, as far as I can tell.

00:03:49.380 And the idea of a monotheistic God at the bottom of everything or at the top

00:03:55.700 is an elaboration of the idea that all the things that human beings are oriented towards

00:04:01.480 come together in a unity.

00:04:04.940 And the problem with questioning that hypothesis is that

00:04:10.160 you fall into the problem that there's no organizing principle at all.

00:04:15.840 That's the problem of nihilism.

00:04:20.180 Or alternatively, you fall into the problem that if there's nothing that unites

00:04:24.420 are striving at the highest level, then we have to live in psychological and social conflict,

00:04:30.740 because the various things that drive us will be antagonistic to one another.

00:04:36.660 So, you fall into the problem of nihilism or a disunified plurality.

00:04:42.560 Another problem emerges, too, and both Nietzsche and Dostoevsky pointed to this

00:04:46.760 because they were thinking along parallel tracks, which is that

00:04:50.600 if the hypothesis that has served as the highest unity disappears,

00:04:59.460 and a unity is psychologically and socially necessary,

00:05:03.180 then other forms of unity will emerge to replace the dead value.

00:05:11.640 And so, I would say, and this also follows Nietzsche and Dostoevsky's thought,

00:05:16.740 that one of the things that we've seen happening in consequence of the death of God,

00:05:21.060 apart from nihilism and plurality,

00:05:23.000 is the insistence that power, for example, unifies.

00:05:27.540 That's a Marxist insistence or a postmodern insistence

00:05:30.780 that the only unifying narrative is one of power.

00:05:35.820 And so, the unity problem looks to me like it's inescapable,

00:05:39.800 whether you approach it from a religious perspective or a secular perspective.

00:05:43.460 And that's the landscape of the problem, as far as I can tell.

00:05:48.560 Like, all of those different consequences, let's say,

00:05:52.160 of the death of God are problematic, to say the least.

00:05:57.840 I'll close with one other observation,

00:06:00.280 because it's, in some ways, what you're striving towards,

00:06:02.960 as far as I can tell, in this book.

00:06:04.520 If there's a unity at the pinnacle, let's say,

00:06:12.160 then what is its nature and also what should be its nature?

00:06:18.560 So, I would say, for example, that attempting to unify yourself

00:06:22.740 or a society on the basis of power is a counterproductive enterprise.

00:06:27.400 That's not a principle that's going to produce an iterable game,

00:06:32.460 a continually playable game, an expandable game, or a desirable game.

00:06:37.020 So, well, those are some, you know,

00:06:39.760 I've been meditating on what you've written,

00:06:42.960 and those are some of the thoughts that came to mind.

00:06:45.220 So, I guess I'd be interested in your thoughts on those issues.

00:06:51.220 Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing, just to clarify,

00:06:54.980 is that everybody knows the God is dead bumper sticker slogan for Nietzsche.

00:06:59.720 Not everybody knows the rest of that paragraph.

00:07:01.640 Yeah, that's for sure.

00:07:02.060 Right, not everybody knows the rest of the paragraph.

00:07:03.480 So, people think of it as sort of like tap dancing on the grave of belief,

00:07:07.200 of piety, that this is a move to modernity and atheism.

00:07:10.500 But it was actually a caution.

00:07:12.620 Nietzsche was saying, hey, you know, modernity is killing our gods.

00:07:17.740 But be careful when you kill your god.

00:07:19.600 Yeah, because when you kill your god,

00:07:21.420 you rip out the entire social moral construct that underpins faith, devotion, and belief,

00:07:27.060 which I think is what you're speaking about, about the ultimate truth.

00:07:29.720 And when you rip away something that is demanding reverence or submission,

00:07:36.200 union, and you replace it with merely politicized power games,

00:07:41.540 there can be hell to pay.

00:07:44.020 Yeah, well, Nietzsche foresaw that directly.

00:07:48.000 Right.

00:07:48.520 Claiming that millions of people would die in consequence of the rise of replacement ideologies,

00:07:55.040 let's say.

00:07:55.460 You know, in this death of God idea,

00:07:58.900 although Nietzsche,

00:08:01.260 in some ways,

00:08:03.820 pronounced that as a novel occurrence,

00:08:05.980 you know,

00:08:06.260 a once-in-human-history occurrence,

00:08:08.300 that's not true.

00:08:09.380 So, Mircea Eliade, who's perhaps the world's greatest historian of religions,

00:08:14.540 has documented this occurrence repetitively throughout history.

00:08:18.980 It's a recurring theme, the collapse of the highest unifying order.

00:08:23.600 It's what destroys cultures.

00:08:25.380 They lose faith in their own presuppositions and can't undertake the effort necessary to sustain themselves.

00:08:32.140 In consequence, this is so old.

00:08:34.900 So, the oldest story we know that we have is called the Enuma Elish,

00:08:38.700 and it's a Mesopotamian creation myth.

00:08:40.960 And it's part of a collection of myths that emerged around the same time as the Genesis story did,

00:08:48.260 and has many of the same narrative themes.

00:08:51.320 You mentioned this in your chat with Elon.

00:08:52.980 Yeah, well, one of the insistences in that story is that careless and fractious sub-deities,

00:09:04.040 that's a good way of thinking about it.

00:09:05.500 You could think about them as motivational states or emotional states,

00:09:08.520 powerful driving forces.

00:09:10.140 If they're careless and disintegrated,

00:09:13.740 and they lack reverence,

00:09:15.740 they kill the principle upon which they're founded,

00:09:18.740 an attempt to live on its corpse.

00:09:20.520 Like, that's a direct pronouncement in the Enuma Elish.

00:09:24.900 It's one of the major plot lines,

00:09:26.680 and it's the prodroma to the return of the goddess of chaos, fundamentally,

00:09:32.120 who returns in that story,

00:09:36.820 irritated beyond belief that her consort,

00:09:40.000 her orderly consort, has been carelessly dispensed with

00:09:43.180 and determined to produce something akin to the flood of Noah.

00:09:48.780 That's another good analog.

00:09:50.520 This is a very old problem,

00:09:53.140 the idea that there is a central unifying theme

00:09:56.800 that has to be attended to and followed

00:09:59.980 by people who want to organize themselves psychologically and socially.

00:10:04.040 And then if that's treated improperly,

00:10:07.480 that would be lack of respect for your mother and father,

00:10:10.040 let's say, from a commandment's perspective

00:10:11.820 or irreverence with regards to the highest value,

00:10:14.360 that there's a pattern to the cataclysm that follows in the wake of that.

00:10:21.020 And, you know, it's surprising to me in some ways

00:10:23.820 that that's not more widely known

00:10:25.640 because Iliade wasn't an unknown thinker,

00:10:28.680 and he documented this extraordinarily carefully.

00:10:33.140 You know, I talked to Camille Pellia about this at one point.

00:10:38.420 She said something that I found quite striking.

00:10:41.480 So I had familiarized myself with the work of a gentleman named Eric Neumann.

00:10:47.300 Neumann was Carl Jung's greatest student,

00:10:50.460 which is really saying quite something.

00:10:52.640 And he wrote two very profound books,

00:10:56.480 one called The Great Mother,

00:10:58.020 which is a study of the symbolism of chaos.

00:11:00.820 That's a good way of thinking, of productive chaos.

00:11:02.840 It's a study of the symbolism of productive chaos.

00:11:05.420 And another book called The Origins and History of Consciousness,

00:11:09.480 which is an elaboration of the hero myth,

00:11:11.720 although much deeper than the sort of treatment, say,

00:11:14.800 meted out to that by Joseph Campbell.

00:11:17.420 And Pellia said straightforwardly

00:11:21.640 that had the academy, the literary critics in particular,

00:11:26.420 turned to Neumann, Eliade, Jung instead of Derrida and Foucault,

00:11:34.060 that the entire intellectual history of the last 50 years

00:11:41.420 would be profoundly different,

00:11:42.920 and we wouldn't be in the culture war that we're in now.

00:11:46.280 Now, that was very striking to me

00:11:47.800 because she was the only person that I'd come across

00:11:49.960 who was a very astute literary critic

00:11:54.460 who knew Neumann's work deeply

00:11:56.160 and the associated works that surrounded,

00:11:59.780 including Eliade's work.

00:12:01.140 But we know that Joseph Campbell's work, for example,

00:12:05.420 has had quite a cultural effect,

00:12:07.340 and I would say one that's been,

00:12:09.280 at least to some degree, reunifying.

00:12:12.180 You know, and all of that work exists in contradistinction

00:12:16.300 to the postmodern insistence

00:12:17.980 that there's no higher-order narrative,

00:12:20.100 because that's the fundamental claim of postmodernism, right?

00:12:22.500 There's no unifying metanarrative.

00:12:24.820 And that's another reflection of this idea of the death of God.

00:12:29.640 Well, I mean, to be fair, though, to that movement, right,

00:12:32.680 it was critiques of the middlemen

00:12:34.400 wielding narratives in unclear, unjust, or unilateral ways.

00:12:40.600 So when you hold out the monad,

00:12:43.180 you're like, there is some ultimate unifying ordering,

00:12:46.920 truth or principle, by which we should all come together.

00:12:50.100 Perhaps, right?

00:12:51.340 Perhaps.

00:12:52.100 Super, super interesting point of inquiry.

00:12:54.180 But the trick is the priest class

00:12:56.260 and who gets to position themselves

00:12:59.260 as privileged or preferred intermediaries.

00:13:03.140 Yeah, well...

00:13:03.600 Because those guys haven't always done a great job.

00:13:06.200 Well, you see that dynamic in the Gospels.

00:13:09.160 Well, because the part of the underlying structure

00:13:14.080 of the Passion story is the persecution

00:13:18.220 and then crucifixion of Christ

00:13:20.160 at the hands of, really, there are more actors,

00:13:25.660 but three of the central actors

00:13:27.640 are the class of Pharisees, scribes, and lawyers.

00:13:32.000 And the Pharisees are religious hypocrites

00:13:35.940 and they're exactly the ones

00:13:37.740 who employ the idea of a higher order value

00:13:41.680 to do nothing but further their own status and power, right?

00:13:46.220 And Christ criticizes the Pharisees constantly,

00:13:49.740 pointing out that their religious devotion,

00:13:52.280 so to speak, did absolutely nothing at all

00:13:54.820 except provide for them

00:13:56.060 the highest positions of status and power.

00:13:58.480 However, the scribes, as far as I can tell,

00:14:01.220 in the biblical narrative

00:14:02.200 are akin to the modern academics

00:14:03.860 who attempt to substitute intellectual inquiry

00:14:07.280 for, what would you say,

00:14:10.520 for exploration and reverence.

00:14:12.700 That's a good way of thinking about it.

00:14:14.240 Sophists.

00:14:14.720 Then the lawyers.

00:14:15.380 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:14:16.500 And, well, and they're also self-serving,

00:14:18.220 but they're self-serving

00:14:19.720 in a more Luciferian manner, I would say,

00:14:21.800 because the proclivity of the Pharisees

00:14:24.280 is to use the religious enterprise

00:14:26.100 to foster their own social status.

00:14:30.500 The proclivity of the intellectual scribe types

00:14:34.180 is to place their own intellect,

00:14:36.640 worship of their own intellect,

00:14:38.020 in the highest possible position.

00:14:39.660 Then you have the lawyers,

00:14:41.040 and they're the ones who use legalism,

00:14:44.700 again, in the service of their own

00:14:46.660 narrow and self-focused ends.

00:14:50.060 And so that postmodern dilemma

00:14:53.700 that you point to,

00:14:55.200 which is the proclivity of the sacred enterprise

00:15:00.380 to be captured by the power seekers,

00:15:02.640 that's also a very ancient problem.

00:15:06.360 You see that in ancient Egyptian mythology,

00:15:08.480 for example.

00:15:09.160 So the figure of Seth,

00:15:12.020 who's the evil brother of the king,

00:15:15.380 is the Luciferian figure

00:15:17.800 that's always the shadow of the proper authority.

00:15:22.640 Yeah, exactly.

00:15:23.660 Or like Lucifer or Mephistopheles.

00:15:25.840 And the idea there,

00:15:27.260 it's a valid idea, obviously,

00:15:29.300 is that as you produce

00:15:31.420 a sociological hierarchy,

00:15:35.480 say, on the masculine side,

00:15:38.260 the so-called patriarchy,

00:15:39.600 is that some of that's going to be valid

00:15:41.920 and rule as a consequence

00:15:44.040 of authority and ability,

00:15:45.160 but some of it's going to devolve

00:15:46.540 into a power game.

00:15:47.940 The problem, as far as I can tell,

00:15:49.740 with the postmodernists,

00:15:51.360 one of many,

00:15:52.460 is that they concluded

00:15:55.160 that there was no other game than power.

00:15:57.480 And that's an unbelievably dangerous presumption.

00:16:01.300 I mean, you can understand its logic.

00:16:02.880 You laid it out to some degree.

00:16:04.520 There's no shortage of corruption

00:16:05.960 wherever you look,

00:16:07.780 inside and out.

00:16:09.020 But that doesn't mean

00:16:10.040 that everything is corrupt.

00:16:11.600 And it also doesn't mean

00:16:12.620 that power is the fundamental principle

00:16:15.680 that should unite everything.

00:16:17.480 And, of course,

00:16:18.020 the question emerges,

00:16:18.880 and you are exploring this in your book,

00:16:20.420 if it's not nothing,

00:16:23.240 nihilism and disunity,

00:16:24.640 and it's not power,

00:16:25.900 compulsion, and force,

00:16:27.240 then what should be at the pinnacle?

00:16:29.700 And that's a,

00:16:31.800 well, that's the fundamental question.

00:16:34.300 As hostilities with Hezbollah

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00:17:43.340 Yeah, I mean, hopefully it's gnosis.

00:17:49.840 Hopefully it's direct connection

00:17:51.840 to that which is greater

00:17:53.960 than our knowing.

00:17:55.900 And a submission to that,

00:17:57.600 but a willing submission

00:17:59.160 with autonomy,

00:18:00.620 not mediated by corruptible middlemen.

00:18:05.840 So you were speaking,

00:18:07.120 you know, like bring all of this down,

00:18:08.380 because this also sounds

00:18:09.220 very Abrahamic to me.

00:18:10.360 Like you feel like you're sourcing

00:18:12.480 from the Old Testament,

00:18:14.840 code-based, right?

00:18:17.000 Deference to unifying power

00:18:19.500 or authority.

00:18:20.780 And I'm more curious

00:18:21.760 about the New Testament.

00:18:23.480 So for instance,

00:18:24.000 like just recently,

00:18:24.640 let's just bring it down

00:18:25.400 for listeners, right?

00:18:27.060 Recently, Louisiana,

00:18:28.220 I think maybe Tennessee,

00:18:29.080 but definitely Louisiana

00:18:29.780 has talked about

00:18:30.520 mandating 10 commandments

00:18:31.900 in classrooms,

00:18:33.440 things like that.

00:18:34.240 And there's a whole,

00:18:35.320 you know, chunk of America

00:18:37.060 that feels like,

00:18:37.660 yes, that is an important return

00:18:39.300 to definitive values

00:18:41.380 versus this choose-your-own-adventure

00:18:44.140 mishmash

00:18:44.700 of whatever feels good for me.

00:18:46.180 And that tends to be

00:18:46.880 an evangelical proclivity,

00:18:48.460 that requirement.

00:18:50.060 It's kind of interesting

00:18:51.040 because they're Protestants,

00:18:52.380 you know,

00:18:52.580 it's interesting to see

00:18:53.540 that particular branch

00:18:55.400 of Christianity

00:18:56.140 develop this insistence

00:18:58.300 on a return

00:18:58.920 to those fundamental

00:19:00.220 stated values,

00:19:01.340 let's say.

00:19:02.160 Yeah, but it is super interesting.

00:19:03.480 Do you know,

00:19:04.300 what's his name?

00:19:05.500 He wrote Fantasyland.

00:19:06.580 Fantasyland,

00:19:08.680 500 years of how America

00:19:09.860 went haywire.

00:19:11.240 Kurt Anderson,

00:19:12.260 he was at Harvard

00:19:13.500 and then has written,

00:19:15.460 he did Studio 360,

00:19:16.500 but he's a sort of

00:19:17.320 popular intellectual historian.

00:19:19.080 And he talks about how,

00:19:21.680 in some respects,

00:19:22.880 the Southern Baptist

00:19:24.700 Evangelical Pentecostal movement,

00:19:26.780 right?

00:19:27.700 He uses the Scopes Monkey Trial

00:19:29.700 as kind of a pivot point.

00:19:30.760 almost became

00:19:32.760 a pre-Reformation,

00:19:36.440 right?

00:19:38.260 Retrenchment

00:19:38.700 of Christian faith

00:19:40.080 because the mainline

00:19:42.140 Protestant faiths,

00:19:44.220 the Anglican,

00:19:44.960 Episcopalian,

00:19:46.020 Lutheran,

00:19:47.040 et cetera,

00:19:47.960 were oriented

00:19:48.520 with the North.

00:19:49.960 And those faiths

00:19:51.280 from the Scots-Irish,

00:19:52.240 you know,

00:19:52.460 Appalachian migrations

00:19:53.760 and all the sort of history

00:19:54.880 that had led to it

00:19:55.860 became,

00:19:56.740 there was a sort of schism.

00:19:57.800 And the Scopes Monkey Trial

00:19:59.880 was kind of that,

00:20:00.480 you know,

00:20:00.680 evolution versus creationism.

00:20:02.380 So that was partly intellectual

00:20:03.580 and partly geographical.

00:20:05.060 Yes.

00:20:05.440 And basically,

00:20:06.360 the sort of aftershocks

00:20:07.860 of the Civil War.

00:20:09.040 And that was when

00:20:10.180 we got this break.

00:20:10.960 And that is how you have,

00:20:12.160 you know,

00:20:12.320 what was the YouGov survey?

00:20:13.740 It was something like

00:20:14.300 56% of Americans

00:20:15.700 believe in demonic possession.

00:20:17.240 Like America is...

00:20:18.400 Because they watch

00:20:18.820 their politicians.

00:20:19.900 Right.

00:20:20.280 America is a uniquely,

00:20:22.840 profoundly faith-based place

00:20:25.000 compared to Western Europe,

00:20:26.220 compared to all those other places.

00:20:27.920 And characterized by

00:20:28.760 continual revivals

00:20:29.860 of that spirit, right?

00:20:31.040 Yeah.

00:20:31.400 But we go back to Louisiana

00:20:32.920 and the Ten Commandments

00:20:33.780 and the Colossians.

00:20:34.360 Why are we posting

00:20:35.760 a deeply ancient,

00:20:38.400 quite anachronistic,

00:20:39.900 almost Hammurabi's code level,

00:20:42.560 Abrahamic thing?

00:20:43.720 Not the Sermon on the Mount.

00:20:45.540 Not that turn the other cheek

00:20:46.640 and love thy neighbor.

00:20:48.100 Not the blessed of the meek

00:20:49.080 and humble,

00:20:49.600 for they shall inherit the earth.

00:20:50.780 Right.

00:20:50.920 There is a New Testament,

00:20:52.400 right,

00:20:53.000 gospel good news

00:20:54.580 that is being eclipsed.

00:20:56.280 So, it almost feels like

00:20:57.280 the posting of the Old Testament,

00:20:59.040 of the Ten Commandments

00:21:00.980 these days,

00:21:01.920 is almost a shibboleth,

00:21:03.620 right?

00:21:03.840 It's almost a sorting mechanism,

00:21:06.800 which is if you are

00:21:07.760 pre-Reformation,

00:21:08.720 and Sam Harris talks about

00:21:09.500 this with Islam, right?

00:21:10.240 That's his main critique of Islam

00:21:11.760 is they never went through

00:21:12.540 a Reformation, right?

00:21:13.720 So, you've got medieval sentiments

00:21:15.280 that haven't been updated.

00:21:17.120 Well, yeah,

00:21:17.740 the danger of that,

00:21:18.740 I suppose,

00:21:19.280 is the reduction of morality

00:21:20.640 to abiding by a code.

00:21:22.940 So, okay,

00:21:23.420 so let's take that apart

00:21:24.700 a little bit.

00:21:25.300 I mean,

00:21:25.620 I have some sympathy

00:21:27.340 for the literalism

00:21:29.320 of the Protestants,

00:21:31.860 even insofar as

00:21:33.120 that might have produced

00:21:34.480 a phenomenon

00:21:35.440 like the monkey trial

00:21:36.520 that you referred to,

00:21:37.580 because what the evangelists

00:21:39.840 have been concerned about,

00:21:41.500 and rightly so,

00:21:42.320 is that an unthinking Darwinism

00:21:45.320 poses a tremendous threat

00:21:47.680 to the integrity

00:21:48.440 of the moral code

00:21:49.540 that the West

00:21:50.100 is predicated on,

00:21:51.020 and there's absolutely

00:21:51.700 no doubt about that.

00:21:53.200 Now, what that means

00:21:54.400 about Darwinism,

00:21:55.280 that's a whole other

00:21:56.220 complicated question,

00:21:57.300 but I can understand...

00:21:58.480 And specifically biological Darwinism,

00:21:59.720 not social Darwinism.

00:22:00.920 Specifically biological Darwinism,

00:22:02.920 yeah, yeah.

00:22:03.520 Well, because it is

00:22:04.780 very difficult

00:22:05.360 to reconcile

00:22:06.820 the claims of the,

00:22:09.000 especially the,

00:22:09.900 the more naive claims,

00:22:12.600 you might say,

00:22:13.300 of the evolutionary biologists

00:22:14.740 with the Genesis account,

00:22:16.220 for example.

00:22:17.100 It's a very difficult

00:22:17.800 thing to do.

00:22:19.140 And...

00:22:19.540 What do you mean

00:22:20.240 when you say that?

00:22:21.020 Naive claims

00:22:21.920 about Genesis?

00:22:24.560 Well, it's not as if

00:22:26.500 our biological Darwinism

00:22:29.620 has cracked

00:22:30.440 the problem of life.

00:22:33.120 It's a theory

00:22:34.100 that isn't complete,

00:22:35.640 and the details of it

00:22:37.300 are still being worked out,

00:22:39.480 and that's very damaging often.

00:22:41.620 So, for example,

00:22:43.300 you have,

00:22:44.420 this is just one example,

00:22:45.720 you have claims

00:22:46.860 of people like Dawkins,

00:22:47.960 that reproduction

00:22:49.560 can be reduced to sex,

00:22:51.760 and that sex

00:22:52.320 can be reduced

00:22:53.640 to the proclivity

00:22:55.400 of genetic material

00:22:56.920 to replicate itself,

00:22:58.060 and that has all sorts

00:23:00.020 of metaphysical

00:23:01.680 implications,

00:23:04.400 and those metaphysical

00:23:07.620 implications

00:23:08.140 are very damaging.

00:23:09.540 They're,

00:23:10.000 they promote a certain

00:23:10.940 kind of hopeless nihilism.

00:23:12.320 In the sense of it's just,

00:23:13.360 it's all just random

00:23:14.360 creation destruction,

00:23:15.880 no point of purpose,

00:23:16.860 no teleological output.

00:23:18.360 Partly that,

00:23:19.040 and partly,

00:23:19.800 or,

00:23:20.100 and partly the notion

00:23:21.560 that even within that

00:23:24.000 were pawns

00:23:24.960 of these massive forces

00:23:26.240 that are reducible,

00:23:27.380 let's say,

00:23:27.820 to something approximating

00:23:29.160 the desire of genes,

00:23:30.280 the desire,

00:23:31.120 I know that's improper

00:23:32.080 terminology,

00:23:33.040 to replicate themselves.

00:23:34.420 Although,

00:23:35.800 if pushed,

00:23:36.680 Dawkins would say

00:23:37.520 that the genes

00:23:38.160 have no desire,

00:23:39.180 but that's not the point

00:23:40.260 because his book,

00:23:41.700 The Selfish Gene,

00:23:43.300 what,

00:23:43.600 what,

00:23:43.860 what would you say?

00:23:45.320 The,

00:23:45.620 the,

00:23:45.980 the sense

00:23:47.440 that that desire

00:23:48.480 is there

00:23:48.920 is implicit

00:23:49.560 in the text,

00:23:50.420 and so,

00:23:52.300 that has

00:23:52.980 very troublesome

00:23:54.100 metaphysical implications

00:23:55.560 because people can't

00:23:57.180 live in the absence

00:23:58.120 of some relationship

00:23:59.560 with transcendent meaning,

00:24:01.040 and they need that meaning

00:24:01.940 to help them

00:24:02.700 bear the

00:24:03.780 suffering of their life

00:24:05.820 without becoming demoralized,

00:24:07.600 without becoming corrupt.

00:24:08.920 This isn't optional.

00:24:10.960 No,

00:24:11.180 and,

00:24:11.500 and,

00:24:12.300 and I think

00:24:13.060 one of the things

00:24:13.820 the new atheists

00:24:14.740 did very badly wrong

00:24:16.240 was

00:24:16.520 fail to take

00:24:17.940 the problem

00:24:18.640 that they were addressing

00:24:19.500 with due seriousness.

00:24:21.260 So,

00:24:21.960 either,

00:24:22.980 either as an existential problem,

00:24:25.260 you know,

00:24:25.480 although Sam Harris

00:24:26.260 wrestles with that

00:24:27.020 to some degree

00:24:27.580 because Harris

00:24:28.420 definitely

00:24:28.980 believes in the existence

00:24:30.400 of something

00:24:31.020 approximating transcendent evil,

00:24:33.140 right,

00:24:33.440 which is a religious stance,

00:24:35.460 all things considered.

00:24:37.120 But,

00:24:38.200 the problem,

00:24:39.280 the problem of meaning

00:24:40.320 can't just be dispensed with

00:24:41.740 by reference

00:24:42.520 to something like

00:24:43.420 our deterministic relationship

00:24:45.320 to a set of selfish genes.

00:24:47.120 So,

00:24:47.260 so basically,

00:24:47.800 are you saying

00:24:48.340 that in,

00:24:48.740 in the God is dead moment

00:24:50.060 and in the rise

00:24:50.760 of the new atheists

00:24:51.460 and them sort of thinking

00:24:52.380 that the,

00:24:52.960 that the battle

00:24:53.460 had been won,

00:24:54.220 that they neglected

00:24:55.120 to replace it

00:24:55.980 with a sufficiently

00:24:56.860 robust

00:24:57.640 and inspiring

00:24:59.140 alternate story

00:25:00.060 because random selection,

00:25:01.620 random selection

00:25:02.500 of selfish genes

00:25:03.360 is inadequate

00:25:04.320 to guide

00:25:05.560 culture

00:25:06.340 and the human experience.

00:25:07.500 it's also not random.

00:25:09.300 There's sexual selection.

00:25:11.640 Darwin

00:25:11.940 concentrated on

00:25:13.260 sexual selection

00:25:14.000 to a large degree,

00:25:15.000 although for about

00:25:15.700 a hundred years

00:25:16.300 after Darwin,

00:25:17.120 the evolutionary biologists

00:25:18.280 tended to

00:25:19.100 avoid the topic

00:25:20.960 of sexual selection

00:25:21.860 because it didn't fit

00:25:22.800 so nicely in

00:25:23.620 with the notion

00:25:24.240 of random evolution.

00:25:25.840 There's nothing

00:25:26.220 bloody random

00:25:26.920 about sexual selection.

00:25:28.840 Butterflies can detect

00:25:30.060 departures from symmetry

00:25:32.300 on the part

00:25:33.200 of their partners

00:25:34.020 at one part

00:25:35.060 in a million.

00:25:36.640 Like,

00:25:36.860 their selection

00:25:37.360 for beauty

00:25:37.860 is by no means

00:25:39.220 accidental

00:25:39.800 and it's certainly

00:25:40.940 the case

00:25:41.440 that conscious choice

00:25:43.500 has selected

00:25:44.740 human morphology

00:25:46.600 down to its

00:25:47.320 finest details.

00:25:48.720 That's not random

00:25:49.800 at all.

00:25:50.360 Now,

00:25:50.640 the mutation process

00:25:51.720 is random

00:25:52.240 and I know

00:25:52.680 Dawkins knows

00:25:53.420 perfectly well as well.

00:25:54.200 So are you suggesting

00:25:54.720 there's a bias

00:25:55.360 towards selection

00:25:56.160 of goodness,

00:25:56.700 truth,

00:25:56.880 and beauty,

00:25:57.400 for instance?

00:25:58.200 Well,

00:25:59.480 I would actually say

00:26:00.660 that there's likely

00:26:01.480 a selection

00:26:02.080 towards something

00:26:03.020 approximating

00:26:03.940 the embodiment

00:26:05.240 of that higher order

00:26:06.640 unity that we've

00:26:07.600 been speaking of.

00:26:08.940 So,

00:26:09.280 I mean,

00:26:09.760 I can give you

00:26:10.220 an example of that.

00:26:11.660 It's like that

00:26:12.500 William Blake quote,

00:26:13.340 tiger, tiger,

00:26:13.980 burning bright,

00:26:14.580 thy fearful symmetry,

00:26:15.780 right?

00:26:16.020 Fearful symmetry,

00:26:17.300 right,

00:26:17.620 is noticeable.

00:26:18.700 The patterns,

00:26:19.280 the harmonics,

00:26:19.860 Pythagoras,

00:26:20.180 music,

00:26:20.480 Yeah, well,

00:26:20.840 you can think about

00:26:21.660 that in relationship

00:26:22.480 to something like

00:26:23.280 the hero myth.

00:26:24.180 I mean,

00:26:24.440 you could,

00:26:25.060 it's certainly

00:26:25.720 no stretch

00:26:26.560 of the imagination

00:26:27.480 to presume that

00:26:28.940 men who embody

00:26:29.920 the heroism

00:26:30.740 that's part and parcel

00:26:31.780 of the hero narrative

00:26:32.740 are much more

00:26:33.480 attractive to women.

00:26:35.280 Obviously,

00:26:36.540 I mean,

00:26:36.760 that's the basis

00:26:37.420 of every romantic

00:26:38.320 adventure story

00:26:40.020 that's ever been written.

00:26:41.380 And so there is

00:26:42.280 something like

00:26:43.740 selection bias

00:26:45.380 in the direction

00:26:46.180 of the same patterns

00:26:47.420 that are portrayed

00:26:48.160 in our most

00:26:49.320 fundamental narratives.

00:26:50.400 And none of that's

00:26:51.520 accidental.

00:26:52.800 And I would say

00:26:53.700 that does imply

00:26:54.660 something like

00:26:55.440 a relationship

00:26:56.100 between sexual selection

00:26:58.240 and embodiment

00:26:59.040 of the virtues

00:26:59.740 that are part

00:27:01.180 of our deepest stories

00:27:02.480 because part

00:27:04.040 of the pattern

00:27:05.100 of the hero

00:27:05.700 is the portrayal,

00:27:10.460 the embodiment

00:27:11.120 of existential courage

00:27:12.720 in the face

00:27:13.740 of life's catastrophes.

00:27:15.320 Okay,

00:27:15.640 so this is a beautiful

00:27:16.780 point here

00:27:17.260 because to me

00:27:17.800 this distills

00:27:19.500 your exact role

00:27:21.560 in the information

00:27:24.020 and influence space

00:27:26.160 because we've talked

00:27:27.220 about two things

00:27:27.980 so far, right?

00:27:28.820 One was

00:27:29.560 the erosion

00:27:32.180 of the monad,

00:27:33.160 a unifying truth,

00:27:34.340 right?

00:27:34.980 And then you've also

00:27:35.880 just talked about

00:27:36.560 kind of in some respects

00:27:37.840 not biological determinism

00:27:39.760 but sort of the way

00:27:40.460 things are, right?

00:27:41.080 the chad,

00:27:43.920 high testosterone,

00:27:45.320 heroic male

00:27:46.240 being true and just,

00:27:48.480 right?

00:27:48.680 The natural outcome.

00:27:49.940 It would be natural

00:27:50.540 that women swoon,

00:27:51.360 it would be natural

00:27:51.900 that he leads his people,

00:27:53.080 those kind of things.

00:27:54.220 So you are holding

00:27:56.040 in my understanding

00:27:58.700 of your work

00:27:59.520 a deep Western

00:28:02.840 Judeo-Christian

00:28:04.820 and sort of

00:28:06.800 enlightenment value space.

00:28:08.960 Would that feel

00:28:09.640 accurate to you?

00:28:12.040 Because,

00:28:12.640 and you're saying,

00:28:13.600 hey,

00:28:13.820 there are important

00:28:14.740 things here

00:28:15.300 but how do we,

00:28:16.940 how do you,

00:28:17.620 for instance,

00:28:18.380 speak these

00:28:19.080 and not end up

00:28:20.260 as a battering ram

00:28:21.320 in the culture wars,

00:28:23.800 right?

00:28:23.940 Not a useful idiot,

00:28:24.900 a useful genius,

00:28:26.300 right?

00:28:26.840 To Christian

00:28:28.660 ethno-nationalism,

00:28:30.080 seven kingdoms,

00:28:31.760 right?

00:28:32.060 Like jihadi

00:28:33.680 for Jesus peeps.

00:28:34.980 Yeah.

00:28:35.320 Or,

00:28:35.900 or biological determinism

00:28:38.460 and,

00:28:38.840 and,

00:28:39.240 and grist for the mill

00:28:40.320 of the incels,

00:28:42.180 right?

00:28:42.600 Yeah.

00:28:43.160 So you're speaking language

00:28:45.040 that comes from

00:28:45.880 a much deeper place

00:28:47.080 but in our current moment

00:28:49.160 of hot takes,

00:28:50.520 right,

00:28:50.920 and retweets

00:28:51.760 and,

00:28:52.480 and,

00:28:52.720 and rage bait,

00:28:54.260 what you're saying

00:28:55.860 has the capacity

00:28:57.360 to get weaponized

00:28:59.100 into some very ugly things

00:29:00.680 that I don't think

00:29:01.900 are from the heart

00:29:02.620 of what you're saying.

00:29:03.240 all the time,

00:29:03.600 right?

00:29:03.840 Because it,

00:29:04.440 partly because it can

00:29:05.300 get fractionated.

00:29:06.280 I,

00:29:06.360 I suppose

00:29:07.200 part of the

00:29:08.600 attraction

00:29:09.740 of the

00:29:11.180 ethno-national

00:29:12.220 Christian movement

00:29:13.360 that's developing,

00:29:14.340 let's say,

00:29:14.640 on the right,

00:29:15.240 which in some ways

00:29:16.960 is another form

00:29:17.820 of Pharisaism

00:29:18.780 because it's

00:29:19.500 the attempt

00:29:20.440 by the bad actors

00:29:22.320 on the

00:29:23.700 prejudiced

00:29:25.500 side of the equation

00:29:27.820 to harness

00:29:29.080 the power

00:29:30.060 of Christianity

00:29:30.760 for their own

00:29:31.580 self-aggrandizement

00:29:32.720 but there's

00:29:34.120 an attraction

00:29:34.680 in that too

00:29:35.420 that's deeper

00:29:35.980 than that

00:29:36.440 because

00:29:36.860 And just base

00:29:37.920 tribalism,

00:29:38.620 us versus them,

00:29:40.140 right?

00:29:40.840 Well,

00:29:41.200 that and the fact,

00:29:41.960 yes,

00:29:42.380 definitely,

00:29:43.000 but that also

00:29:43.660 and the fact

00:29:44.520 that compared

00:29:46.120 to a dependent

00:29:47.620 and neurotic male,

00:29:49.300 an aggressive

00:29:49.840 and warrior-like male

00:29:51.040 is attractive

00:29:51.780 and so

00:29:52.940 in,

00:29:54.160 in so far

00:29:55.520 as our culture

00:29:56.240 has done everything

00:29:56.980 it could

00:29:57.520 to demoralize

00:29:59.360 young men

00:30:00.040 in part

00:30:01.720 because of

00:30:02.340 what would you say?

00:30:04.440 An implicit

00:30:05.120 critique

00:30:05.760 of the oppressive

00:30:06.600 patriarchy,

00:30:07.540 all it does

00:30:08.120 is increase

00:30:08.660 the attractiveness

00:30:09.480 of aggression

00:30:10.160 to the young men

00:30:11.340 who are demoralized

00:30:12.320 and the Christian

00:30:13.140 nationalist types

00:30:14.160 are capitalizing

00:30:15.660 on that,

00:30:16.140 it's not surprising.

00:30:17.320 I'm not trying

00:30:17.900 to justify it

00:30:18.760 because it's

00:30:19.980 a fragmented story.

00:30:22.100 I mean,

00:30:22.740 the hero,

00:30:24.540 the archetypal hero,

00:30:25.600 has a warrior element

00:30:27.540 but

00:30:28.460 that warrior element

00:30:30.640 is conjoined

00:30:31.440 with

00:30:31.820 an extreme

00:30:33.300 proclivity

00:30:34.540 for self-sacrifice

00:30:35.860 and

00:30:36.300 generous

00:30:37.600 social conduct

00:30:39.220 and reciprocal

00:30:40.000 altruism.

00:30:41.180 Yes.

00:30:41.460 So,

00:30:42.020 and that's,

00:30:43.680 that's an unbelievably

00:30:44.700 important part

00:30:45.540 of the story.

00:30:46.060 Now,

00:30:46.280 you even see this,

00:30:47.600 by the way,

00:30:49.040 in female

00:30:50.060 pornographic fantasies

00:30:51.420 because we know

00:30:52.100 the landscape

00:30:52.700 of female

00:30:53.460 pornographic fantasy

00:30:54.520 which tends

00:30:55.120 to be literary

00:30:55.760 is the object

00:30:57.680 of desire

00:30:58.500 is a man

00:30:59.960 with a well-developed

00:31:01.540 capacity

00:31:02.080 for mayhem.

00:31:04.320 So that,

00:31:04.740 well,

00:31:04.880 the standard characters,

00:31:06.240 the Google engineers

00:31:07.160 mapped this

00:31:07.900 when they were looking

00:31:08.740 at pornography use

00:31:09.760 online

00:31:10.320 in a very good book

00:31:11.800 called

00:31:12.040 A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

00:31:13.420 The canonical

00:31:14.380 hero of

00:31:15.520 female pornography

00:31:16.600 is

00:31:17.060 vampire,

00:31:19.480 werewolf,

00:31:20.220 pirate,

00:31:20.900 billionaire,

00:31:21.780 surgeon.

00:31:22.140 And mad,

00:31:23.040 bad,

00:31:23.340 and dangerous

00:31:23.820 to know.

00:31:24.500 But,

00:31:24.860 but what happens

00:31:25.800 in the narrative

00:31:26.420 is that that

00:31:27.320 monster,

00:31:29.280 that beast,

00:31:29.920 is enticed

00:31:30.740 into a reciprocal

00:31:31.720 relationship

00:31:32.480 that's permanent.

00:31:33.720 So there's a,

00:31:35.000 there's the wildness

00:31:36.200 and the monstrosity

00:31:37.280 part of the

00:31:38.440 masculine

00:31:39.240 psyche

00:31:40.760 that's being portrayed

00:31:41.860 in the fantasies,

00:31:42.900 but then that's

00:31:44.200 something that's

00:31:45.360 you could say

00:31:46.680 in a way

00:31:47.100 domesticated,

00:31:48.020 although that's not

00:31:48.660 exactly,

00:31:49.340 that's not a perfect

00:31:50.220 term for it,

00:31:51.140 but brought into

00:31:51.920 productive relationship

00:31:53.040 with,

00:31:53.860 well,

00:31:54.100 with a woman

00:31:54.680 in the pornographic

00:31:55.820 fantasy,

00:31:56.240 but then the broader

00:31:57.120 community.

00:31:58.320 So there's a balance,

00:31:59.380 there's a very tight

00:32:00.040 balance,

00:32:00.520 and it's one that

00:32:01.060 women are trying to

00:32:01.720 strike all the time

00:32:02.500 with in relationship

00:32:03.480 to men,

00:32:04.020 is they want men

00:32:04.720 who are capable

00:32:05.380 and,

00:32:06.340 and even capable

00:32:07.760 of being dangerous,

00:32:08.660 but they want that

00:32:09.800 encapsulated

00:32:10.760 within.

00:32:12.000 It's the soothing

00:32:12.620 of the savage beast,

00:32:13.860 right?

00:32:14.100 That there's the need

00:32:14.680 to harness that kind

00:32:15.800 of,

00:32:15.980 that un,

00:32:17.060 unrestrained

00:32:18.360 or unconstrained

00:32:19.400 vitalism.

00:32:20.060 Yeah,

00:32:20.220 to harness it.

00:32:21.000 Right,

00:32:21.180 right,

00:32:21.480 right.

00:32:21.800 Well,

00:32:22.000 and you see,

00:32:22.500 you see this,

00:32:23.720 you see this in the

00:32:24.920 Abraham story,

00:32:25.720 in the Abraham story

00:32:26.940 in particular,

00:32:28.140 because Abraham is

00:32:30.620 a relatively

00:32:31.920 sheltered

00:32:34.020 and privileged

00:32:34.820 individual

00:32:35.380 at the beginning

00:32:36.080 of the journey.

00:32:37.080 He's 70 years old

00:32:38.180 when it starts,

00:32:39.140 and God comes to him

00:32:40.800 as the voice

00:32:41.420 of adventure,

00:32:42.560 right?

00:32:43.060 Because God tells

00:32:43.980 Abraham that if he goes

00:32:45.440 out in,

00:32:45.960 that he's to go out

00:32:46.760 into the world

00:32:47.320 to leave his zone

00:32:48.260 of comfort,

00:32:49.920 right,

00:32:50.240 to occupy that

00:32:51.280 exploratory space

00:32:52.860 that's maximally

00:32:54.100 rewarding,

00:32:55.080 and to expand himself

00:32:56.620 in consequence,

00:32:57.780 and that that's to be

00:32:58.920 done in preference

00:32:59.760 to the comfort

00:33:00.620 that he already

00:33:01.380 experiences.

00:33:02.580 So that's very

00:33:03.300 interesting.

00:33:04.280 It's a very interesting

00:33:05.060 characterization of God,

00:33:06.460 and God makes Abraham

00:33:08.060 an offer,

00:33:08.980 basically,

00:33:09.760 which I think is

00:33:10.820 an offer that's

00:33:13.200 very much worth

00:33:13.960 thinking about

00:33:14.580 from an evolutionary

00:33:15.380 biology perspective.

00:33:17.820 God tells Abraham

00:33:18.820 that if he abides

00:33:20.820 faithfully by the

00:33:22.000 spirit of adventure,

00:33:23.540 and he makes the

00:33:24.760 sacrifices necessary

00:33:26.460 to transform himself

00:33:27.880 in that endeavor,

00:33:29.160 just as you have to

00:33:30.160 change when you

00:33:31.000 take on more

00:33:32.140 responsibility

00:33:32.840 and more adventure,

00:33:35.240 that four things

00:33:36.840 will happen to him.

00:33:38.280 His life will become

00:33:39.220 a blessing to him,

00:33:40.800 so that's a pretty

00:33:41.400 good deal,

00:33:42.000 and a genuine

00:33:42.580 blessing to him,

00:33:43.900 that his

00:33:45.280 name will become

00:33:46.340 recognized and

00:33:47.700 admired among his

00:33:48.620 peers, but for

00:33:49.480 valid reasons,

00:33:50.300 so he's not a

00:33:51.220 narcissist or a

00:33:52.180 psychopath,

00:33:53.520 that he will

00:33:54.980 establish something

00:33:55.840 of lasting

00:33:56.580 permanence,

00:33:57.940 and that he'll do

00:33:58.780 that in a way

00:33:59.480 that's good for

00:34:00.220 everyone else.

00:34:01.420 Now, is that the

00:34:02.600 explicit promise?

00:34:03.500 That's the covenant.

00:34:03.940 You bet.

00:34:04.560 That's the covenant.

00:34:05.660 Before he jumps?

00:34:07.220 That's the offer

00:34:08.220 that's on the table

00:34:09.220 when the spirit of

00:34:10.680 adventure makes

00:34:11.360 itself manifest.

00:34:12.180 Good quote.

00:34:13.360 If you do this.

00:34:14.340 Well, that's what

00:34:15.440 God tells Abraham

00:34:16.420 when he's attempting

00:34:18.340 to entice him

00:34:19.240 into the adventure,

00:34:20.040 because the question

00:34:21.300 that's posed in the

00:34:22.280 Abrahamic story at the

00:34:23.340 beginning is the

00:34:24.940 question that Dostoevsky

00:34:26.440 asked about socialism

00:34:28.140 in Notes from

00:34:29.080 Underground.

00:34:30.160 You know,

00:34:30.400 Dostoevsky's critique

00:34:31.560 of socialism,

00:34:32.700 which was a successful

00:34:33.960 socialism,

00:34:34.640 was essentially this.

00:34:35.700 He said that if you

00:34:37.260 provided people with

00:34:38.420 all of the,

00:34:39.060 everything they needed

00:34:40.640 and wanted at hand,

00:34:42.880 he said,

00:34:43.560 so they had nothing

00:34:44.260 to do but busy

00:34:45.580 themselves with

00:34:46.540 the reproduction

00:34:48.080 of the species

00:34:49.060 and the eating

00:34:50.380 of cakes,

00:34:51.560 right?

00:34:51.780 So it's a hedonistic

00:34:52.720 paradise,

00:34:53.420 an infantile hedonistic

00:34:54.620 paradise is,

00:34:55.980 well,

00:34:56.200 what could be better

00:34:57.020 than that?

00:34:57.920 And Dostoevsky's

00:34:59.080 response was that

00:35:00.760 if you provided people

00:35:02.340 with nothing but that,

00:35:03.860 they would smash it

00:35:04.840 to bits just so that

00:35:05.920 something interesting

00:35:06.740 would happen,

00:35:07.240 because that there's

00:35:08.820 an impetus towards

00:35:10.940 upward-moving development

00:35:12.960 that overrides

00:35:15.320 everything else,

00:35:16.760 including the mere

00:35:18.400 satiation,

00:35:19.400 let's say,

00:35:19.840 of material needs.

00:35:22.000 That's also exemplified

00:35:23.640 in the image

00:35:24.600 of Jacob's ladder,

00:35:25.700 this sort of upward-extending

00:35:27.340 pathway to the transcendent

00:35:29.320 that Jacob determines

00:35:30.920 to traverse

00:35:32.060 when he decides

00:35:33.060 that he's going

00:35:33.580 to change his life.

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00:36:54.580 So here we've got

00:36:58.520 higher and lower.

00:36:59.360 You're saying that

00:36:59.820 might be an aspirational

00:37:00.760 kind of soul urge,

00:37:02.640 right?

00:37:02.860 But then like Bob Sapolsky's

00:37:03.980 work at Stanford

00:37:04.600 could also just be

00:37:05.560 dopaminergic novelty-seeking

00:37:07.640 in the sense that

00:37:08.520 we flatline

00:37:09.840 when we're faced with

00:37:11.460 everything we always want.

00:37:13.880 It is dopaminergic novelty-seeking

00:37:15.860 because-

00:37:16.500 We're hard-wired to get

00:37:16.840 the 4x return

00:37:17.940 on what's new

00:37:19.040 different.

00:37:20.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:37:20.560 So we discount

00:37:21.400 current value.

00:37:22.700 So that system

00:37:23.660 that you're describing,

00:37:24.880 the dopamine system,

00:37:26.100 that's an appetitive

00:37:27.580 reward system

00:37:28.420 and it signifies

00:37:29.360 the possibility

00:37:30.200 of consumatory reward.

00:37:32.780 So it's a quest system

00:37:34.280 and it's not

00:37:35.140 a cognitive system

00:37:36.180 precisely because

00:37:37.080 the dopaminergic system

00:37:38.540 is grounded

00:37:39.920 in the hypothalamus

00:37:41.040 which is an unbelievably

00:37:42.160 old part of the brain.

00:37:43.440 It's right on top

00:37:44.040 of the spinal cord.

00:37:45.040 It's the basic

00:37:46.020 motivational control

00:37:47.820 system of the entire brain

00:37:49.440 and the dopaminergic system

00:37:51.240 is instantiated in that.

00:37:52.720 Half of the hypothalamus

00:37:54.640 is concerned

00:37:56.840 with fundamental

00:37:57.820 motivational states

00:37:59.040 like thirst

00:37:59.900 and hunger,

00:38:00.880 lust,

00:38:01.580 defensive aggression,

00:38:03.120 etc.

00:38:03.720 The other half

00:38:04.800 is focused on

00:38:05.700 exploratory behavior.

00:38:07.480 So and that's

00:38:07.940 approach behavior,

00:38:08.840 that's movement forward

00:38:09.800 and so that

00:38:10.420 if you think about

00:38:11.500 that,

00:38:12.300 the action

00:38:13.000 of that system,

00:38:14.480 that dopaminergic

00:38:15.400 exploratory system,

00:38:16.440 that is what's

00:38:17.280 instantiated in hero mythology

00:38:18.900 and it's a fundamental

00:38:22.420 source of the kind

00:38:26.340 of reward that people

00:38:27.180 really like to pursue

00:38:28.320 but it is associated

00:38:29.800 with exploration

00:38:30.700 and expansion,

00:38:31.700 not with satiation

00:38:32.960 and consumatory reward.

00:38:35.140 Right?

00:38:35.300 It's a very,

00:38:35.820 very different notion

00:38:37.020 of reward.

00:38:38.600 You know,

00:38:38.780 when you said,

00:38:40.340 is this,

00:38:41.720 I can't remember

00:38:42.840 precisely your wording,

00:38:44.080 is that,

00:38:44.700 is this nothing but,

00:38:46.240 I know you didn't

00:38:47.420 exactly say that,

00:38:48.380 the action of the

00:38:49.100 dopaminergic system,

00:38:50.180 I would say,

00:38:50.780 well,

00:38:51.640 my sense is that,

00:38:53.420 and I think we're

00:38:53.980 on the cusp of this,

00:38:54.920 is that we're going

00:38:55.540 to see that our

00:38:56.880 theological presuppositions

00:38:58.600 and our biological

00:38:59.800 presuppositions

00:39:00.820 are pointing in

00:39:01.580 precisely the same

00:39:02.380 direction.

00:39:03.200 As the neuroscience

00:39:03.920 has got more

00:39:04.620 sophisticated,

00:39:05.320 that's become

00:39:05.780 more and more obvious.

00:39:06.940 Well,

00:39:07.220 that,

00:39:07.640 yes,

00:39:07.940 and that feels like

00:39:08.820 the sort of

00:39:09.480 implicit theme

00:39:10.220 of our conversation

00:39:10.840 so far,

00:39:11.500 right?

00:39:11.620 We've been talking

00:39:12.000 about the monad

00:39:12.620 and we've been talking

00:39:13.060 about,

00:39:13.340 you know,

00:39:13.560 high-T heroes.

00:39:15.080 Yeah,

00:39:15.320 right.

00:39:15.640 Right?

00:39:15.840 And so,

00:39:17.280 potentially,

00:39:18.300 right,

00:39:18.560 is it that

00:39:19.240 our science

00:39:20.340 will finally catch up

00:39:21.360 to our philosophy

00:39:22.220 and theology

00:39:22.800 or is it that

00:39:24.060 we write

00:39:24.620 convenient just-so stories

00:39:26.220 to explain what is

00:39:27.060 actually being dictated

00:39:28.020 at a more primal-based

00:39:28.860 level beyond our

00:39:30.320 can and beyond

00:39:30.980 our will and motivation?

00:39:31.740 I don't have a point

00:39:32.920 of view on that,

00:39:33.400 but I'm curious about it.

00:39:34.260 Well,

00:39:34.780 I don't think

00:39:36.080 they're convenient

00:39:36.740 just-so stories

00:39:37.960 because I think

00:39:38.700 they're as correct

00:39:41.100 as anything can be

00:39:42.140 correct.

00:39:43.160 I mean,

00:39:43.480 let me give you

00:39:44.180 an example of that.

00:39:45.180 So,

00:39:46.500 the hero myth

00:39:49.380 that's laid out

00:39:50.200 in the passion story

00:39:51.840 is,

00:39:54.000 has,

00:39:54.740 as part of its structure,

00:39:56.220 the insistence

00:39:57.020 that

00:39:57.440 there's nothing

00:40:00.180 that's more transformative

00:40:01.560 than

00:40:02.280 the willingness

00:40:03.460 to embrace

00:40:04.520 the full horror

00:40:06.380 of life,

00:40:07.700 right?

00:40:08.020 Because that's what

00:40:08.740 the passion story is.

00:40:09.800 it's an archetypal

00:40:12.820 tragedy

00:40:15.000 taken to a

00:40:16.460 metaphysical level.

00:40:17.500 And it's an

00:40:18.100 archetypal tragedy

00:40:18.900 because

00:40:19.360 Christ technically

00:40:21.920 undergoes

00:40:22.860 virtually all the

00:40:24.180 varieties of suffering

00:40:25.180 that are possible.

00:40:26.200 Yeah.

00:40:26.440 Right?

00:40:26.760 Okay.

00:40:27.000 Absolutely.

00:40:27.320 But accepts that,

00:40:28.320 right?

00:40:28.560 Or even welcomes it,

00:40:29.660 which is a very strange

00:40:30.600 thing.

00:40:30.920 But that's not

00:40:32.000 where it ends

00:40:32.840 because there's a

00:40:34.320 mythological surround

00:40:35.740 of image

00:40:38.160 and story

00:40:38.880 that accompanies

00:40:40.920 the passion

00:40:42.080 that also insists

00:40:43.480 that

00:40:43.880 after Christ

00:40:45.240 is crucified

00:40:45.860 and died,

00:40:46.520 he harrows hell.

00:40:47.540 And that's something

00:40:48.220 like a

00:40:49.300 forthright

00:40:50.100 confrontation

00:40:50.780 with the domain

00:40:51.820 of malevolence

00:40:52.600 itself.

00:40:53.060 But the story

00:40:54.340 is very

00:40:54.840 straightforward.

00:40:56.220 If you think

00:40:57.120 about it

00:40:57.600 from a

00:40:58.400 developmental

00:40:58.800 perspective

00:40:59.560 or a

00:41:00.320 biological

00:41:00.780 perspective,

00:41:01.680 the story

00:41:02.520 is that

00:41:03.120 there's no

00:41:03.720 way that

00:41:04.280 you can

00:41:04.660 adapt to

00:41:05.340 life

00:41:05.880 without

00:41:06.780 embracing

00:41:07.400 all of

00:41:08.560 its horrors,

00:41:09.640 including

00:41:10.060 the proclivity,

00:41:11.300 the human

00:41:11.580 proclivity

00:41:12.040 for evil.

00:41:12.800 And then

00:41:13.160 there's an

00:41:13.640 additional

00:41:14.240 addendum

00:41:14.980 to that,

00:41:15.500 which is

00:41:15.920 the degree

00:41:17.460 to which

00:41:17.920 you'll be

00:41:18.380 redeemed

00:41:18.880 is proportionate

00:41:19.900 to the

00:41:20.280 courage

00:41:20.720 that

00:41:21.640 you embody

00:41:23.040 in that

00:41:23.840 confrontation.

00:41:24.900 And I

00:41:25.360 think that

00:41:26.100 looks to

00:41:26.520 me just

00:41:27.060 to be

00:41:27.420 correct.

00:41:28.320 And so

00:41:28.500 it's not

00:41:28.800 a just-so

00:41:29.520 story,

00:41:30.180 unless life

00:41:31.640 itself is a

00:41:32.460 just-so

00:41:32.920 story,

00:41:33.360 because the

00:41:33.860 alternative

00:41:34.320 hypothesis

00:41:35.020 is that

00:41:35.620 you could

00:41:35.960 adapt

00:41:36.460 property

00:41:37.400 to life

00:41:38.000 by shrinking

00:41:38.940 from its

00:41:39.660 most aversive

00:41:40.940 elements.

00:41:42.120 And that's

00:41:42.540 preposterous.

00:41:43.800 I can't

00:41:45.400 see any

00:41:46.580 circumstances

00:41:47.320 at all

00:41:48.280 under which

00:41:48.800 you could

00:41:49.080 make a

00:41:49.400 credible

00:41:49.620 case

00:41:50.000 that that

00:41:50.380 could possibly

00:41:50.960 be true.

00:41:51.820 Because

00:41:52.260 even when

00:41:53.440 children are

00:41:53.940 trying to

00:41:54.380 expand their

00:41:55.060 competence,

00:41:55.740 let's say,

00:41:56.700 in a relatively

00:41:57.420 incremental

00:41:57.920 manner,

00:41:59.400 what they're

00:42:00.080 always doing

00:42:01.160 when they

00:42:01.680 do that

00:42:02.180 is putting

00:42:02.660 themselves

00:42:03.060 on the

00:42:03.460 edge of

00:42:03.780 their ability

00:42:04.340 and flirting

00:42:04.920 with catastrophe.

00:42:06.380 You know,

00:42:06.620 you can do

00:42:07.040 that foolishly

00:42:08.380 and dangerously,

00:42:09.320 and sometimes

00:42:09.840 that's useful,

00:42:10.600 but you can

00:42:11.780 do it in a

00:42:12.280 manner that's

00:42:13.480 incremental

00:42:14.040 and sensible,

00:42:14.740 and it works

00:42:15.400 just as well.

00:42:16.700 Or even

00:42:17.420 better,

00:42:17.780 right?

00:42:17.980 I mean,

00:42:18.180 play is

00:42:18.980 arguably just

00:42:19.720 the ability

00:42:20.080 to make

00:42:20.400 mistakes without

00:42:21.080 fear.

00:42:22.260 Right?

00:42:22.820 That's what

00:42:23.600 all animals

00:42:24.280 do,

00:42:24.600 all mammals

00:42:25.000 do,

00:42:25.440 wolves do

00:42:25.840 it,

00:42:26.000 kids do

00:42:26.380 it.

00:42:26.880 Right,

00:42:27.140 and that

00:42:27.360 might be

00:42:27.760 also the

00:42:28.240 highest

00:42:28.520 form of

00:42:29.120 engagement.

00:42:30.000 Well,

00:42:30.220 and volitional

00:42:31.740 novelty generation.

00:42:33.320 So rather

00:42:33.700 than just

00:42:34.300 faceless,

00:42:35.080 formless,

00:42:35.860 pointless

00:42:36.580 evolution,

00:42:37.400 creation,

00:42:37.680 destruction,

00:42:38.460 right,

00:42:38.760 when volition,

00:42:39.980 when free will

00:42:40.580 comes into the

00:42:41.140 mix,

00:42:41.540 we get to

00:42:42.040 create new,

00:42:43.300 we get to

00:42:43.720 explore the

00:42:45.200 adjacent

00:42:45.480 possible.

00:42:45.940 them.

00:42:47.500 Well,

00:42:47.860 and that

00:42:48.160 seems to

00:42:48.600 be no

00:42:49.180 different

00:42:49.560 than the

00:42:50.320 biblical

00:42:50.640 notion,

00:42:51.260 for example,

00:42:51.980 that human

00:42:52.940 beings are

00:42:53.580 constructed so

00:42:54.500 that the role

00:42:55.260 they play is

00:42:56.000 one of

00:42:56.360 co-creation.

00:42:57.580 Stewardship.

00:42:58.280 That's what's

00:42:58.560 implied,

00:42:59.280 and stewardship,

00:43:00.340 that's what's

00:43:00.860 implied in the

00:43:01.900 initial Genesis

00:43:03.420 narrative,

00:43:04.760 when there's an

00:43:05.900 insistence that

00:43:06.800 we first see God

00:43:08.800 characterized as

00:43:09.760 the creator of

00:43:10.580 all things,

00:43:11.180 and then we see

00:43:11.840 human beings

00:43:12.440 characterized as

00:43:13.620 made in the

00:43:14.580 image of God,

00:43:15.320 which obviously

00:43:16.040 implies some

00:43:17.400 lower resolution

00:43:20.260 embodiment of

00:43:22.180 that creative

00:43:22.840 capacity,

00:43:23.780 and that seems

00:43:24.560 to me to be

00:43:25.140 perfectly accurate,

00:43:26.160 and I do think

00:43:26.920 that that's as

00:43:28.160 good a definition

00:43:28.960 of what

00:43:29.460 consciousness

00:43:29.960 constitutes as

00:43:30.980 anything that's

00:43:31.560 ever been

00:43:32.040 described.

00:43:33.460 I mean,

00:43:33.740 we are playing

00:43:34.780 constantly.

00:43:36.440 We play with

00:43:37.340 the possibility

00:43:38.260 that's in front

00:43:39.200 of us exactly

00:43:40.160 the same way

00:43:41.020 that God in

00:43:42.980 the initial

00:43:44.040 phases of the

00:43:44.860 Genesis story

00:43:45.680 plays with

00:43:46.280 the

00:43:46.440 which is

00:43:47.760 the chaotic

00:43:48.780 possibility

00:43:49.540 out of which

00:43:50.580 reality itself

00:43:51.820 emerges,

00:43:52.640 and there's a

00:43:53.860 perfect isomorphism

00:43:55.060 there,

00:43:55.420 and as far as

00:43:56.060 I'm concerned,

00:43:57.180 you can map

00:43:57.880 that.

00:43:59.220 We have mapped

00:44:00.600 that neuropsychologically.

00:44:02.760 I mean,

00:44:03.140 the further reaches

00:44:04.260 of that exploration

00:44:05.580 haven't been

00:44:06.200 integrated completely

00:44:07.200 into the culture

00:44:07.900 yet,

00:44:08.240 but it's there.

00:44:09.180 So then you get

00:44:10.160 Stuart Brand's

00:44:11.180 whole earth

00:44:11.740 catalog bit

00:44:12.400 about we are

00:44:13.120 as gods,

00:44:13.880 we may as

00:44:14.320 well get good

00:44:14.820 at it.

00:44:15.760 So how do

00:44:16.460 you say,

00:44:16.900 isomorphically,

00:44:17.940 we are the

00:44:18.740 same,

00:44:19.000 we are made

00:44:19.340 in the image

00:44:19.760 of,

00:44:19.980 and we are

00:44:20.440 doing another

00:44:21.400 version of

00:44:21.960 that,

00:44:22.160 and how does

00:44:22.580 that not end

00:44:23.440 up in

00:44:23.840 narcissistic

00:44:24.380 inflationism?

00:44:26.000 That's a great

00:44:26.460 question,

00:44:26.980 but that's also

00:44:27.600 the first question

00:44:28.460 that's dealt

00:44:28.980 with,

00:44:29.640 one of the

00:44:30.180 first questions

00:44:30.820 that's dealt

00:44:31.400 with in the

00:44:32.400 opening chapters

00:44:33.160 of Genesis,

00:44:34.600 because God

00:44:36.000 lays down

00:44:36.840 an injunction

00:44:37.560 to Adam

00:44:38.140 and Eve,

00:44:38.600 which is a

00:44:39.000 very specific

00:44:39.580 injunction.

00:44:40.680 He says,

00:44:41.400 you're,

00:44:42.940 he basically

00:44:43.600 tells the

00:44:44.620 first two

00:44:45.180 human beings

00:44:45.880 that they

00:44:46.260 have full

00:44:47.260 freedom in

00:44:48.200 the garden

00:44:49.060 to interact

00:44:50.600 with everything

00:44:51.620 that's there,

00:44:52.300 to name it,

00:44:53.120 to steward

00:44:54.440 it,

00:44:54.960 to utilize

00:44:55.620 it,

00:44:56.640 but they're

00:44:57.220 not to

00:44:57.840 eat of the

00:44:59.000 fruit of the

00:45:00.220 tree of the

00:45:00.740 knowledge of

00:45:01.200 good and evil,

00:45:02.000 and what that

00:45:02.820 means is that

00:45:03.700 they're to

00:45:04.620 abide by the

00:45:05.720 implicit moral

00:45:06.580 order and

00:45:07.240 not pridefully

00:45:08.480 replace it,

00:45:09.920 and that's

00:45:10.300 exactly,

00:45:10.920 see,

00:45:11.180 this is the

00:45:11.640 mistake Nietzsche

00:45:12.340 made,

00:45:12.720 because Nietzsche's

00:45:14.480 medicament for

00:45:16.360 the death of

00:45:16.980 God was that

00:45:17.600 human beings

00:45:18.180 would have to

00:45:18.640 create their

00:45:19.100 own values,

00:45:19.900 and that's

00:45:20.480 the one thing

00:45:21.200 that God

00:45:21.740 tells Adam

00:45:22.380 and Eve

00:45:22.680 they're not

00:45:23.220 to do

00:45:23.740 in the

00:45:24.340 garden.

00:45:25.160 The notion

00:45:25.740 is it's

00:45:26.220 fairly

00:45:26.520 straightforward,

00:45:27.280 and this

00:45:27.600 is something

00:45:28.020 that Sam

00:45:28.560 Harris has

00:45:29.560 some appreciation

00:45:30.300 for,

00:45:30.700 although not

00:45:31.180 religiously,

00:45:31.840 is that there

00:45:32.320 is an

00:45:32.660 implicit moral

00:45:33.500 order,

00:45:34.520 and that

00:45:34.920 has to be

00:45:35.520 followed,

00:45:36.080 it can't

00:45:36.440 be replaced

00:45:37.060 by the

00:45:38.120 presumptions of

00:45:38.840 human beings.

00:45:39.600 That's partly

00:45:40.180 what Eve does

00:45:40.960 when she sins,

00:45:41.900 is attempt to

00:45:42.640 do that.

00:45:43.240 But you know

00:45:44.260 Elaine Pagel's

00:45:44.940 work and her

00:45:45.740 translations of

00:45:46.940 the Nag Hammadi

00:45:47.560 scrolls and the

00:45:48.360 Gnostic Gospels

00:45:49.060 won the National

00:45:49.700 Book Award,

00:45:50.300 right?

00:45:50.420 I mean,

00:45:50.560 that book

00:45:51.000 blew my mind

00:45:52.180 when I read it

00:45:52.720 in grad school,

00:45:53.680 because at that

00:45:54.820 very moment

00:45:55.480 in the Genesis

00:45:56.020 story,

00:45:57.020 right,

00:45:57.300 in one of the

00:45:57.920 apocryphal

00:45:58.420 Gospels,

00:45:59.620 at the moment

00:46:00.560 that Yahweh

00:46:01.200 is bowing up

00:46:01.960 on Adam and Eve

00:46:02.700 and saying,

00:46:03.380 and who

00:46:03.820 allowed you to

00:46:04.840 eat from the

00:46:05.300 fruit of the

00:46:05.660 tree of good

00:46:06.080 and evil,

00:46:06.780 right?

00:46:07.220 That exact

00:46:08.120 moment in

00:46:09.420 Booms Sophia,

00:46:11.560 right,

00:46:12.180 the mother of

00:46:13.320 all this,

00:46:13.660 and who made

00:46:14.520 you a

00:46:15.040 Yaldavad,

00:46:15.900 demiurge,

00:46:17.200 pulse maker,

00:46:17.760 and why are

00:46:19.060 you flexing

00:46:20.400 on your

00:46:21.060 children?

00:46:21.480 Yeah,

00:46:21.720 well,

00:46:21.880 that's the

00:46:22.260 Gnostic

00:46:22.540 interpretation,

00:46:23.760 you know,

00:46:23.940 and I would

00:46:24.340 say that's

00:46:24.860 actually,

00:46:25.840 as far as

00:46:26.380 I'm concerned,

00:46:27.040 that's part

00:46:27.480 of the flaw

00:46:28.020 in Padgel's

00:46:28.700 work,

00:46:29.180 is that

00:46:29.560 proclivity

00:46:30.980 towards

00:46:31.440 Gnosticism,

00:46:32.360 because there's

00:46:33.440 a reason that

00:46:34.380 that original

00:46:35.760 demiurge,

00:46:36.560 let's say,

00:46:37.100 lays down the

00:46:37.760 law,

00:46:38.140 and the reason

00:46:38.660 for that is

00:46:39.160 that there is

00:46:39.760 an implicit

00:46:40.560 moral order,

00:46:41.360 and,

00:46:41.900 you know,

00:46:42.180 you touch on

00:46:42.860 that in your

00:46:43.340 book,

00:46:43.720 in one part

00:46:44.380 in particular,

00:46:44.920 when you talk

00:46:45.600 about the

00:46:47.000 infinite game.

00:46:48.300 Yes.

00:46:48.560 This is another

00:46:49.100 way of conceptualizing

00:46:52.100 the implicit

00:46:52.700 moral order,

00:46:53.740 let's say,

00:46:54.240 is that,

00:46:55.380 and,

00:46:56.660 so,

00:46:57.960 for example,

00:46:59.000 if you and I

00:47:00.020 only interact

00:47:00.640 once,

00:47:01.980 and I have

00:47:02.540 the chance

00:47:03.000 to take advantage

00:47:03.860 of you,

00:47:04.480 for me,

00:47:07.860 there is,

00:47:08.440 you could argue

00:47:09.080 in a sense

00:47:09.700 that there's

00:47:10.100 every reason

00:47:10.600 for me to do

00:47:11.220 that,

00:47:11.680 but,

00:47:12.220 and so that

00:47:12.940 in any one-off

00:47:14.340 interaction,

00:47:15.480 you could say

00:47:16.120 that the

00:47:16.500 appropriate default

00:47:17.420 position,

00:47:18.060 if you're cold

00:47:18.740 and calculating

00:47:19.680 about it,

00:47:20.300 is to take

00:47:20.940 advantage of

00:47:21.560 your advantage,

00:47:23.380 to,

00:47:23.640 to utilize

00:47:24.500 power and

00:47:25.160 compulsion.

00:47:25.760 Game theory

00:47:26.140 when I want.

00:47:26.620 Yeah,

00:47:26.860 exactly,

00:47:27.300 okay,

00:47:27.560 but you know

00:47:28.140 perfectly well

00:47:28.840 that that rule

00:47:30.020 doesn't apply

00:47:30.700 to iterated games,

00:47:32.600 so we're going

00:47:33.140 to interact

00:47:33.820 with each other

00:47:34.480 repeatedly,

00:47:35.520 especially when

00:47:36.260 that's open-ended.

00:47:37.460 What you get

00:47:38.240 in that situation

00:47:39.220 is the emergence

00:47:39.980 of a whole

00:47:40.500 different set

00:47:41.080 of,

00:47:41.360 of the guiding

00:47:43.020 principles that

00:47:43.860 allow the

00:47:44.360 interactions to

00:47:45.100 continue.

00:47:45.400 So the notion

00:47:46.080 would be...

00:47:46.860 Yeah,

00:47:47.000 to keep playing

00:47:47.480 the game

00:47:47.740 for as long

00:47:48.060 as possible

00:47:48.460 and include

00:47:48.880 as many

00:47:49.200 players as

00:47:49.680 possible.

00:47:50.000 Right,

00:47:50.260 and to have

00:47:51.700 all the players

00:47:52.460 actually playing,

00:47:54.060 which means that

00:47:54.780 they can't be

00:47:55.380 subject to

00:47:55.900 compulsion or

00:47:56.480 force,

00:47:56.860 because one

00:47:57.320 of the things

00:47:57.780 Jock Panksepp,

00:47:58.660 for example,

00:47:59.220 has documented,

00:47:59.960 and he's done

00:48:00.380 the best work

00:48:01.220 by a large

00:48:01.820 margin on the

00:48:02.920 neurobiology of

00:48:03.820 play,

00:48:04.920 Panksepp has

00:48:05.780 showed quite

00:48:06.240 clearly that

00:48:06.940 that state of

00:48:07.960 play,

00:48:08.660 which is a

00:48:09.120 highly desirable

00:48:09.820 state and an

00:48:10.560 expansive state,

00:48:11.540 is also

00:48:11.900 relatively,

00:48:12.640 it's relatively

00:48:15.140 fragile in

00:48:16.320 that it can

00:48:17.240 be disrupted

00:48:17.900 by the

00:48:18.440 emergence of

00:48:19.020 any other

00:48:19.700 motivational state.

00:48:21.520 And so...

00:48:21.980 And the outcome

00:48:22.880 has to be

00:48:23.280 uncertain for

00:48:24.460 it to be fun,

00:48:25.360 right, for it

00:48:25.720 to actually be a

00:48:26.340 game and not

00:48:26.980 just a beat

00:48:27.420 down.

00:48:28.480 It has to be

00:48:29.200 uncertain and

00:48:29.900 there's more than

00:48:31.340 just uncertainty,

00:48:32.420 it has to be

00:48:33.320 uncertain,

00:48:34.880 and the

00:48:36.220 consequence of

00:48:37.380 playing the game

00:48:38.020 has to be the

00:48:38.800 expansion of

00:48:39.660 skill, not only

00:48:40.980 at that game,

00:48:41.720 but in

00:48:42.400 associated games,

00:48:44.020 right, which is

00:48:44.640 why if you're

00:48:45.560 picking someone

00:48:46.920 to play with,

00:48:47.960 you don't pick

00:48:48.540 someone that you

00:48:49.140 can just easily

00:48:49.840 defeat, which,

00:48:51.320 you know, if

00:48:51.700 victory or power

00:48:53.180 was the name of

00:48:53.960 the game, you'd

00:48:54.560 pick someone you

00:48:55.180 could defeat.

00:48:55.460 Or like, you

00:48:55.900 know, kids playing

00:48:56.600 basketball or touch

00:48:57.580 football, right,

00:48:58.160 when the big

00:48:58.600 brothers, you

00:48:59.160 know, enroll the

00:49:00.500 younger brothers

00:49:01.100 and they get their

00:49:01.580 butts kicked, and

00:49:02.160 they're like, all

00:49:02.500 right, it's three

00:49:02.920 on five, or okay,

00:49:03.780 we'll spot you

00:49:04.360 21 points, or

00:49:05.220 whatever it will

00:49:05.720 be to make the

00:49:06.620 outcome uncertain,

00:49:08.320 right?

00:49:08.600 Well, uncertain and

00:49:09.940 challenging.

00:49:10.420 Yeah, so we can

00:49:11.700 all play full out

00:49:12.500 and not know how

00:49:13.320 it's going to

00:49:13.680 turn out.

00:49:14.200 Yes, because you

00:49:15.920 want that to be a

00:49:16.980 consequence of the

00:49:17.820 game, and it's

00:49:19.300 very interesting to

00:49:20.420 see, and it's very

00:49:21.240 interesting to think

00:49:22.040 through the fact

00:49:22.760 that if children

00:49:24.700 have a choice, if

00:49:25.780 they're even

00:49:26.520 remotely well

00:49:27.640 socialized, they'll

00:49:29.120 pick a fair and

00:49:30.840 challenging game

00:49:31.920 over certain

00:49:33.460 victory.

00:49:34.200 Yes.

00:49:34.540 Well, as far as

00:49:35.280 I'm concerned, that

00:49:36.100 mere fact alone

00:49:37.160 does irreparable

00:49:39.980 damage to the

00:49:40.780 hypothesis that the

00:49:41.960 fundamental motivating

00:49:42.940 force in human

00:49:44.880 endeavor is power,

00:49:46.060 because if it was

00:49:46.640 power, you'd pick the

00:49:47.620 easy victory every

00:49:48.480 time.

00:49:49.160 Like, why wouldn't

00:49:49.900 you?

00:49:50.460 Because anybody that

00:49:51.440 you can crush is in

00:49:52.540 your control.

00:49:53.500 That isn't how, that's

00:49:54.640 not a game.

00:49:55.300 No one wants to play

00:49:56.080 that game, not even

00:49:57.380 the victor, unless

00:49:58.280 they're narcissistically

00:50:00.100 psychopathic and

00:50:01.040 immature.

00:50:01.380 And so, it's so

00:50:03.520 interesting, because

00:50:04.420 in a free choice

00:50:05.440 situation, children

00:50:07.100 and adults as well

00:50:08.160 will pick a game of

00:50:09.660 optimized challenge

00:50:10.680 over a game of

00:50:11.460 certain victory.

00:50:12.260 And I think that

00:50:13.120 you can expand on

00:50:16.480 that.

00:50:17.040 You make that a

00:50:17.700 general principle of

00:50:18.620 motivation.

00:50:19.220 This is exactly the

00:50:20.260 choice that Abraham

00:50:21.040 makes.

00:50:21.740 Our two golden

00:50:22.420 retrievers do that.

00:50:23.120 We have a young

00:50:23.580 puppy who's giant,

00:50:24.720 90 pounds, and his

00:50:26.480 big sister, who's

00:50:27.700 only 60 pounds, and

00:50:29.000 he started being a

00:50:30.140 bully, and she

00:50:31.000 stopped playing.

00:50:31.740 Right, right, right.

00:50:32.140 And then now, all

00:50:33.140 he ever does is flop

00:50:34.120 over and play the

00:50:35.740 submissive to her, so

00:50:37.140 they get to play.

00:50:37.980 Right.

00:50:38.260 So they've evened it

00:50:38.940 out.

00:50:39.540 Right, right, right,

00:50:40.400 right, exactly.

00:50:41.180 And you can see that,

00:50:42.960 as Panksepp showed,

00:50:44.600 mammals in general seem

00:50:45.800 to have a specialized

00:50:46.680 play circuit, and it

00:50:48.220 is regulated by

00:50:49.220 precisely that.

00:50:50.060 So one of the things

00:50:50.780 he demonstrated, which

00:50:51.780 was Nobel Prize

00:50:53.640 worthy, as far as

00:50:54.720 I'm concerned, because

00:50:55.560 it was a remarkable

00:50:56.580 discovery, was that

00:50:57.780 if you pair

00:50:59.320 juvenile male rats

00:51:00.860 together in repeated

00:51:01.800 bouts, the

00:51:03.060 dominant rat, so

00:51:04.700 that would be the

00:51:05.260 one that has a 10%

00:51:06.420 weight advantage,

00:51:07.440 because that's enough

00:51:08.180 to allow a rat to

00:51:10.960 reliably pin its

00:51:12.340 opponent, which is

00:51:13.220 what they like to do

00:51:14.020 in their wrestling

00:51:14.680 bouts.

00:51:15.400 If the larger rat

00:51:17.560 doesn't let the

00:51:18.460 smaller rat win at

00:51:19.720 least one-third of

00:51:20.560 the time, the smaller

00:51:21.520 rat stops inviting

00:51:22.760 the play bout.

00:51:24.380 And so, I mean,

00:51:25.440 people didn't

00:51:25.940 understand the

00:51:26.540 significance of that.

00:51:27.580 The significance of

00:51:28.480 that is that there's

00:51:29.260 an implicit morality

00:51:30.440 that emerges in

00:51:32.220 consequence of

00:51:33.100 repeated voluntary

00:51:33.960 play.

00:51:34.860 That's a major

00:51:35.880 leak discovery, and

00:51:38.020 that's part of that

00:51:38.620 implicit moral order.

00:51:39.920 Say that sentence

00:51:40.680 again, please.

00:51:41.680 That there's a

00:51:43.640 morality that

00:51:45.220 emerges in

00:51:46.400 consequence of

00:51:47.500 iterated voluntary

00:51:48.640 play, and it's

00:51:50.020 patterned.

00:51:50.920 So this also makes

00:51:52.600 completely short

00:51:53.680 shrift of any

00:51:54.420 arguments about

00:51:55.080 something approximating

00:51:56.220 moral relativism.

00:51:57.140 It's like, no,

00:51:58.760 wrong.

00:51:59.740 Why?

00:52:00.420 Because the

00:52:01.460 constraints that

00:52:02.720 exist in the

00:52:04.860 domain of

00:52:05.740 desirable, repeated,

00:52:08.380 iterated play

00:52:09.260 are, it's a very

00:52:11.240 narrow, it's a

00:52:12.000 straight, narrow

00:52:12.660 path.

00:52:13.200 It's a very

00:52:13.760 difficult path to

00:52:14.700 traverse.

00:52:15.420 This is what you're

00:52:16.180 trying to teach kids

00:52:17.040 when you socialize

00:52:18.000 them between the

00:52:18.620 ages of two and

00:52:19.380 four.

00:52:19.920 Because at two,

00:52:21.540 they're still

00:52:22.040 basically narrowly

00:52:24.680 egocentric.

00:52:25.480 Impulsive,

00:52:25.800 irate-based.

00:52:26.620 Yeah.

00:52:27.040 They want, they

00:52:28.100 want what they,

00:52:29.800 they want, whatever

00:52:31.040 it is they want to

00:52:32.180 be granted now,

00:52:34.200 regardless of

00:52:35.000 consequences for

00:52:35.900 themselves and the

00:52:36.640 future or other

00:52:37.200 people.

00:52:38.220 That's fun.

00:52:39.200 Maria Montessori

00:52:39.960 mapped that.

00:52:40.660 It goes from

00:52:41.440 individual, you

00:52:42.200 know, basically

00:52:42.540 acquisitive play to

00:52:43.600 then parallel play.

00:52:44.620 We'll be doing our

00:52:45.060 things beside each

00:52:45.700 other.

00:52:45.820 Right.

00:52:46.280 Collaborative play.

00:52:47.600 And then ultimately

00:52:48.020 potentially to

00:52:49.060 competitive play.

00:52:50.100 Right?

00:52:50.220 Like once we've got

00:52:50.800 collaboration now.

00:52:51.540 Which is still

00:52:51.600 collaborative.

00:52:52.220 Exactly.

00:52:52.460 Because you have

00:52:53.280 to abide by the

00:52:54.140 rules.

00:52:54.460 Let's up the ante.

00:52:55.560 Right?

00:52:55.900 Let's up the ante and

00:52:56.520 make this more fun.

00:52:58.000 Right.

00:52:58.540 Exactly.

00:52:59.080 Right.

00:52:59.340 So that's actually,

00:53:00.380 that competitive play

00:53:01.660 is actually an

00:53:02.300 intensification of

00:53:03.600 cooperative play.

00:53:04.500 Right?

00:53:04.740 Because you set out

00:53:05.540 the rules.

00:53:06.160 Are you suggesting

00:53:06.840 that just baked into

00:53:08.420 would take your

00:53:09.000 pick, it could be

00:53:09.700 mammalian, it could

00:53:10.660 be primate, whatever,

00:53:11.600 but some level of

00:53:12.460 our existence, there

00:53:13.960 is an implicit desire

00:53:15.600 for fairness, for

00:53:18.640 reciprocity, and for

00:53:20.620 some other, what you

00:53:21.580 would be calling in

00:53:22.440 this instance a

00:53:23.120 moral direction.

00:53:24.580 It is the moral

00:53:25.220 direction.

00:53:26.420 I mean, you see

00:53:27.240 that, you see that

00:53:28.480 in conversation.

00:53:30.300 I mean, because what

00:53:31.080 happens in a

00:53:31.780 conversation is that

00:53:32.780 each person makes an

00:53:33.800 offering, and the

00:53:35.980 goal of the offering

00:53:37.060 is mutual expansion

00:53:38.620 of apprehension, but

00:53:40.100 also desire to

00:53:41.240 continue the

00:53:41.800 interaction.

00:53:42.780 Well, that's, that's

00:53:43.740 very tightly bounded.

00:53:45.120 So I can give you an

00:53:46.360 example of that.

00:53:47.300 So we ran a seminar,

00:53:48.760 this works with any

00:53:49.680 seminar.

00:53:50.100 You only need, in a

00:53:51.960 seminar, you only need

00:53:52.860 one person who's playing

00:53:53.760 a power game to bring

00:53:54.660 the seminar to a halt.

00:53:55.820 Yes.

00:53:56.220 Right?

00:53:56.580 So you have a very...

00:53:57.960 Tie it in the punch

00:53:58.540 bowl, man.

00:53:59.120 It only takes one.

00:54:00.400 Absolutely.

00:54:01.000 Absolutely.

00:54:01.660 So the rule for a

00:54:03.300 seminar should be, well,

00:54:04.740 here's the question we're

00:54:05.800 trying to address, and

00:54:07.600 then you offer your

00:54:09.920 suggestions as to a

00:54:11.560 solution, and I listen,

00:54:12.700 and I offer mine, and

00:54:13.680 we allow those ideas to

00:54:15.680 wrestle with one another,

00:54:17.280 hopefully aiming at

00:54:18.460 something like a

00:54:19.080 synthesis, and you're

00:54:20.360 not doing that because

00:54:21.440 you want to appear

00:54:22.420 smart or dominant, you're

00:54:23.820 not doing it for some

00:54:24.880 reason other than the

00:54:27.340 direction of the

00:54:28.060 conversation, and

00:54:28.980 everybody in the circle

00:54:30.320 is playing that same

00:54:31.300 game, and then you get

00:54:32.100 an incredibly productive

00:54:33.860 conversation.

00:54:35.020 That's a logos-centered

00:54:36.920 conversation.

00:54:38.140 So you know that...

00:54:38.820 Emergent logos.

00:54:39.900 Exactly.

00:54:40.260 Truth in word.

00:54:42.120 Well, and it's

00:54:42.920 redemptive truth, you

00:54:44.080 know, Christ said in the

00:54:45.400 Gospels, that wherever two

00:54:47.300 or more were gathered in

00:54:48.520 his name, he was there.

00:54:50.580 Well, that's what that

00:54:51.420 means, and all the valid

00:54:55.300 members of the

00:54:56.140 psychotherapeutic community

00:54:57.540 understand this, even from

00:54:58.940 a scientific perspective,

00:55:00.120 because one of the things

00:55:01.260 Carl Rogers probably did more

00:55:03.060 to detail this than any

00:55:04.260 other great therapist, his

00:55:06.620 notion, and Freud's as

00:55:07.900 well, was that untrammeled

00:55:11.940 communication oriented

00:55:14.540 towards something like

00:55:16.580 improvement was redemptive,

00:55:19.800 and it was healing, and

00:55:20.680 that's exactly right.

00:55:21.860 Charles Lim did work at

00:55:23.020 Hopkins on MRIs with jazz

00:55:24.760 musicians, Keith Sawyer's

00:55:25.980 done stuff at UNC, Chapel

00:55:28.020 Hill on Group Flow.

00:55:29.860 Attention men who still

00:55:31.020 believe in the American

00:55:31.820 dream.

00:55:32.460 In a world gone mad, the

00:55:33.520 Precision 5 from Jeremy's

00:55:34.800 Razor stands as a beacon of

00:55:36.240 sanity.

00:55:36.560 Five Blades of Superior

00:55:38.020 Engineering offers a shave as

00:55:39.700 unshakable as your faith at

00:55:41.100 the nation's best days still

00:55:42.380 lie ahead.

00:55:43.240 Experience an exceptionally

00:55:44.200 smooth, remarkably close

00:55:45.540 shave, and a testament to

00:55:46.700 the fact that merit still

00:55:47.860 matters.

00:55:48.500 Stop giving your money to

00:55:49.420 woke corporations that hate

00:55:50.520 you.

00:55:51.060 Get Jeremy's Razor's

00:55:51.980 Precision 5 instead.

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00:55:53.980 jeremysrazors.com,

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00:55:56.440 Amazon Prime.

00:55:59.160 Right, and the emergence of

00:56:00.900 something that can only be

00:56:02.420 presenced as we gather.

00:56:03.660 Right, right.

00:56:04.280 Well, you see musicians doing

00:56:05.460 that all the time.

00:56:06.200 For sure.

00:56:06.680 Jazz, Steph Curry, basketball,

00:56:08.300 you know, comebacks, you know,

00:56:09.440 Patriots in the Super Bowl.

00:56:10.520 There are those emergent

00:56:11.520 moments where there is a

00:56:12.740 co-creative emergence that

00:56:14.060 supersedes anything that

00:56:14.920 anybody else is singularly

00:56:16.740 brought to the table.

00:56:17.900 Right, right, right.

00:56:18.820 And your point is that you can

00:56:20.060 mark that

00:56:20.680 electrophysiologically.

00:56:22.620 Well, that it has

00:56:23.920 neurophysiological correlates,

00:56:25.600 for sure.

00:56:26.840 Chickens and eggs, TBD.

00:56:28.900 Yeah, sure.

00:56:29.480 And that, and the

00:56:30.920 interesting way, this was one

00:56:31.860 of Keith Sawyer's students,

00:56:34.040 but they then went to prove

00:56:34.960 that, you know, let's say a,

00:56:36.640 the autotelic nature, the

00:56:37.760 self-driving motivational

00:56:38.980 nature of these things, you

00:56:40.440 get like, you know, a hundred

00:56:41.600 points if you do it by

00:56:42.560 yourself, but you get 300

00:56:44.420 points if you do it in

00:56:45.380 conjunction with others.

00:56:46.300 It is three times more

00:56:48.060 rewarding to co-create that

00:56:50.360 experience than it is to have

00:56:51.340 it in isolation.

00:56:52.180 Yeah, well, that's

00:56:54.200 probably, that's probably an

00:56:55.860 indication of something like

00:56:57.340 the relative payoff, because

00:57:00.020 it's definitely the case, this

00:57:02.320 is partly, too, why the

00:57:04.020 injunction to love your

00:57:05.020 enemies is necessary, because

00:57:07.000 the biggest payoff you're going

00:57:08.960 to get from a genuine

00:57:10.320 discussion is one that you

00:57:12.380 have with someone whose views

00:57:13.660 are maximally different than

00:57:15.280 your own, but who is playing

00:57:17.080 an honest communicative game.

00:57:19.220 Yes.

00:57:19.580 You know, and so why is that

00:57:20.800 an enemy?

00:57:21.240 Well, you tend to presume

00:57:24.420 that anybody who varies in

00:57:26.300 their fundamental presumptions

00:57:27.480 from you is on the other

00:57:28.660 side of the fence, but they're

00:57:30.120 also the people that have the

00:57:31.240 most to offer if they're

00:57:32.280 playing a straight game.

00:57:33.700 Yes.

00:57:33.960 And so...

00:57:35.220 Well, can we try that?

00:57:36.940 Well, hopefully we're doing

00:57:37.960 that at least as much as we

00:57:39.220 can.

00:57:39.820 Yeah.

00:57:40.440 Well, I was thinking about

00:57:41.220 that, you know, because it

00:57:41.780 was a fair amount of travel.

00:57:42.680 I came down out of the

00:57:43.400 mountains yesterday, you

00:57:44.620 know, it's a bit of a

00:57:45.680 pilgrimage to come up here.

00:57:46.820 Yes.

00:57:46.980 I was thinking of every

00:57:48.500 person who's ever asked me

00:57:50.440 about your work, my

00:57:51.640 thoughts on it, me

00:57:52.740 tracking it, us getting to

00:57:53.820 see you when I was with

00:57:54.580 Adrian Grenier and when you

00:57:55.920 came to Austin and getting

00:57:56.880 to see...

00:57:57.280 That was a crazy experience,

00:57:58.420 by the way.

00:57:58.740 Even just walking to that

00:57:59.900 stadium at UT, the throngs of

00:58:03.520 people convening on that

00:58:04.800 stadium and the way everyone

00:58:06.720 was holding themselves, the

00:58:08.380 way they were walking down the

00:58:09.280 streets, stopping together,

00:58:10.720 there were so many couples.

00:58:12.940 There were men...

00:58:13.480 All the young men were

00:58:14.420 wearing blazers.

00:58:15.220 The women were wearing

00:58:16.060 floral long skirts.

00:58:17.220 I said, what the hell is

00:58:18.100 going on here?

00:58:18.760 Is this double scheduled

00:58:20.480 with prom?

00:58:21.500 Is graduation happening?

00:58:23.000 I literally had that vibe.

00:58:25.460 And the last time I had been

00:58:27.080 to that stadium and seen

00:58:29.260 anything like that, just that

00:58:30.920 amount of kind of magnetic

00:58:32.760 draw was when John Mayer and

00:58:34.120 the Grateful Dead had played

00:58:35.060 there.

00:58:36.080 So I was like, what on earth

00:58:37.520 is about to happen?

00:58:38.660 And we went to the stadium and

00:58:40.420 you launched into a very

00:58:42.380 professorial opening.

00:58:44.720 It was Nietzsche, it was Jung,

00:58:46.100 it was all these things.

00:58:47.080 And I could sense the kind of

00:58:48.160 Texas crowd not necessarily

00:58:50.340 having their footing.

00:58:52.020 And it wasn't until you

00:58:53.400 shifted into the Cain and

00:58:54.440 Abel story that you could

00:58:55.480 feel a palpable drop.

00:58:58.200 And all of these wonderful

00:58:59.480 Texans who had been

00:59:00.360 gathered were like, oh, it's

00:59:01.760 Sunday school.

00:59:02.640 We're going to get a Bible

00:59:03.600 story.

00:59:04.760 Right, right, right.

00:59:05.960 And so speaking of the

00:59:07.680 infinite game, which if

00:59:08.440 anybody's curious, that's

00:59:09.520 James Koss' concept of finite

00:59:11.520 and infinite games.

00:59:12.480 Finite games are win-lose,

00:59:13.580 right, and have a victor and

00:59:15.780 a victim.

00:59:16.960 And infinite games are win-win,

00:59:19.080 right.

00:59:19.500 Friendship is an infinite game.

00:59:21.180 For sure.

00:59:22.340 And, you know, and I'm sure

00:59:24.840 you've seen the study on like

00:59:25.880 dark triad folks on both sides

00:59:27.560 of the political spectrum,

00:59:28.660 right, that fundamentally

00:59:30.000 anybody in the moderate

00:59:31.280 middle, the sort of 90%

00:59:33.000 middle, don't test, don't

00:59:34.900 score for dark triad,

00:59:37.060 narcissism, Machiavellianism,

00:59:38.960 sociopathy, or

00:59:39.760 authoritarianism.

00:59:41.100 Sadism.

00:59:41.540 I know they've added that

00:59:42.900 one.

00:59:43.220 You bet they had to add it

00:59:44.380 because it was lurking at the

00:59:45.720 edges.

00:59:46.300 Totally.

00:59:46.760 Just the idea, you get off on

00:59:48.000 doing those shitty things.

00:59:49.600 But that 5% on the far left

00:59:51.640 and 5% on the far right do

00:59:53.540 score off the charts for

00:59:54.540 those.

00:59:55.080 Yeah.

00:59:55.400 And then you map that with

00:59:56.900 Tristan Harris's research,

00:59:58.440 right, the Center for Humane

00:59:59.260 Tech, those guys, that 90% of

01:00:01.640 all social media is governed by

01:00:03.700 10% of posters.

01:00:05.340 Yeah.

01:00:05.500 So you break those, that 10% in

01:00:06.880 half, and you've got the dark

01:00:08.160 triad folks, the 5% of 5%,

01:00:10.100 posting 90% of what we see and

01:00:12.700 believe each other are about.

01:00:14.660 Absolutely.

01:00:15.260 So there's no...

01:00:15.640 Well, that's a much better way of

01:00:17.280 construing the political landscape

01:00:18.680 than the political manner of

01:00:21.240 construal.

01:00:21.960 Right.

01:00:22.040 Like, a large part of the

01:00:24.680 pathology of the culture war is

01:00:26.760 actually the parasitic predators

01:00:29.260 on the edges, what would you say?

01:00:31.340 With massive amplification,

01:00:32.660 algorithmic amplification.

01:00:34.000 Yeah.

01:00:34.240 And the protection of anonymity.

01:00:36.400 Right.

01:00:36.680 And it's really bad.

01:00:38.080 And so you've got Silicon Valley

01:00:39.260 business interests amplifying it

01:00:40.880 algorithmically to sell ads.

01:00:42.440 Yeah.

01:00:42.700 But you've also got bad

01:00:43.940 international actors.

01:00:45.100 Oh, yeah.

01:00:45.440 You've got North Korea, Iran,

01:00:47.100 Russia, China.

01:00:47.820 Right?

01:00:48.000 Oh, yeah.

01:00:48.580 It's unbelievable.

01:00:48.820 Russia and China, all looking to

01:00:50.360 crack the edifice of this liberal

01:00:53.000 democratic experiment.

01:00:54.760 Yeah.

01:00:55.340 Yeah, enabling the psychopaths,

01:00:57.140 that's a good way to do it.

01:00:58.240 Right?

01:00:58.460 Yeah, you bet.

01:00:59.360 So the risk I'd like to take

01:01:03.180 and ask you, which is my experience

01:01:05.400 is, is that you are taking a stand

01:01:08.160 for the most deeply Western

01:01:11.400 traditional expression of the

01:01:13.860 infinite game.

01:01:14.640 And you're saying, don't throw

01:01:16.240 babies out with bathwater.

01:01:17.440 There's something profoundly

01:01:18.840 valuable here in both the

01:01:20.300 Judeo-Christian spiritual

01:01:21.920 tradition, theological

01:01:22.780 tradition, as well as the

01:01:24.840 emergence of Western

01:01:25.680 liberalism.

01:01:26.680 Yeah.

01:01:27.120 Right?

01:01:27.400 Because that's your whole

01:01:28.500 hyper-allergic reaction to

01:01:30.640 Stalinism.

01:01:31.580 Right?

01:01:32.320 You're saying there's something

01:01:33.160 precious here.

01:01:33.800 And it is under threat from all

01:01:34.880 sides.

01:01:35.720 It's under threat from precisely

01:01:37.360 the actors that you describe.

01:01:39.000 And you're taking a stand for

01:01:39.980 the infinite game, but you are

01:01:41.880 becoming a weaponized

01:01:44.000 battering ram for Christian

01:01:46.160 ethnic nationalists playing the

01:01:47.440 finite game.

01:01:48.720 So can you, never mind the woke

01:01:52.500 social justice folks, they can't

01:01:53.960 organize their way out of the

01:01:54.940 goddamn paperback.

01:01:55.820 I, in this, at this moment, they

01:01:58.560 are not actually a threat.

01:01:59.560 They're a pain in the ass, but

01:02:00.700 they're not a threat.

01:02:03.140 Militant Christian ethno

01:02:04.300 nationalism being inflamed by

01:02:08.000 Putin, right?

01:02:09.900 KGB stewed, continuation of the

01:02:12.180 Stalin lineage being undermined and

01:02:14.160 eroded by Christianity.

01:02:15.160 Like, if you could police your own

01:02:19.560 side of the culture war more and

01:02:22.340 call those folks up to truly

01:02:25.260 Christian values, not weaponized

01:02:28.380 ethno-nationalism, then you would

01:02:31.360 unlock something in the culture war

01:02:33.860 debates that we're not getting when

01:02:35.820 you get positioned via audience

01:02:37.680 capture and echo chambers as just

01:02:40.200 beating on the world.

01:02:41.900 People have tried to throw me in with

01:02:43.900 that lot fairly regularly over the

01:02:46.140 last 10 years, and it hasn't been

01:02:47.660 very successful.

01:02:49.140 I mean, I would say a lot of the

01:02:51.160 activity on that front right now has

01:02:53.320 been coming out of, what would you

01:02:57.180 say, the Nick Fuentes crowd online and

01:03:00.280 all the people who are associated with

01:03:02.000 that, you know, absolutely pathological

01:03:04.440 movement.

01:03:05.660 And tenant media, right?

01:03:06.980 They've just gone.

01:03:07.500 Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, so what does

01:03:11.580 that imply?

01:03:14.160 Well, it implies that the pharisaic

01:03:16.920 danger is always with us, which is

01:03:18.780 that the highest possible virtues can

01:03:23.680 be weaponized by the worst possible

01:03:25.340 actors.

01:03:25.880 In fact, that's exactly what they'll

01:03:27.280 do.

01:03:27.600 I mean, one of the things you see, for

01:03:28.960 example, with the dark tetrad types

01:03:31.380 is that one of their employees is

01:03:35.480 victimization.

01:03:37.700 Yes, either I'm special or I'm

01:03:40.260 vulnerable or I'm righteous or then

01:03:41.960 I'm vindictive.

01:03:42.780 Like, it's a cascade.

01:03:44.040 Yeah, yeah, but they're extremely

01:03:45.640 good at, they're extremely good by

01:03:47.740 temperament at playing the victim

01:03:49.180 card.

01:03:49.820 Yes.

01:03:50.220 And so that's, and it's an

01:03:52.580 extraordinarily effective ploy when

01:03:54.360 you're dealing with conscientious

01:03:55.740 people because you can make them feel

01:03:57.260 guilty or agreeable people because you

01:04:00.320 can make them feel sorry for you.

01:04:01.820 And so that kind of covers the

01:04:02.920 political spectrum.

01:04:03.640 The psychopaths capture the

01:04:05.420 liberals with agreeableness and they

01:04:07.860 capture the conservatives with

01:04:09.460 conscientiousness because they tell

01:04:11.280 the conservatives, well, you know,

01:04:12.840 you're more racist, you're more

01:04:14.460 prejudiced, you're more sexist than

01:04:16.760 you should be.

01:04:17.620 And they try to guilt them into

01:04:19.720 that.

01:04:20.180 They use guilt.

01:04:21.140 Yeah.

01:04:21.520 They use empathy for the left and

01:04:23.620 they use guilt for the right.

01:04:24.660 Oh, and the agreeableness is on the

01:04:25.780 part of the audience.

01:04:26.620 Like, I play the victim, so I'm

01:04:28.200 agreeable, so I'm going to try and

01:04:29.140 help you.

01:04:30.200 Absolutely.

01:04:30.600 Absolutely.

01:04:30.780 Absolutely.

01:04:31.380 And it's particularly easy to capture

01:04:33.720 women in that matter because they tend

01:04:35.800 to be more agreeable.

01:04:36.880 So they're much more susceptible to

01:04:38.980 victimization ploys.

01:04:41.200 And it's not surprising, I mean, because

01:04:42.860 women are in a very complicated

01:04:44.880 situation because when they have

01:04:48.000 infants, at least for the first eight

01:04:49.760 months of the infant's life, they have

01:04:52.280 to be 100% empathic.

01:04:54.520 And so you have to be able to do that.

01:04:57.800 Now, the problem with having an

01:05:00.280 orientation to the world that's

01:05:01.920 fundamentally predicated on empathy is

01:05:03.880 that the psychopaths can game it.

01:05:05.960 And I mean, that is the fundamental

01:05:07.140 problem.

01:05:07.600 This is also why we know, for example,

01:05:10.100 that young women are much more

01:05:11.800 susceptible to the blandishments of

01:05:13.500 the dark tetrad types because they can

01:05:15.660 be manipulated in consequence of their

01:05:17.460 empathy and they don't have the

01:05:18.960 worldly experience to tell the

01:05:21.200 difference between people who are in

01:05:22.560 trouble and people who use claims

01:05:24.580 that they're in trouble to do

01:05:25.880 nothing but manipulate.

01:05:26.800 And this is a massive, like, the

01:05:29.380 problem that you laid out of the dark

01:05:32.460 tetrad actors, let's say, on both

01:05:34.060 sides of the spectrum, this is a

01:05:36.540 civilization-challenging problem.

01:05:38.940 It's not some side effect of the

01:05:40.520 culture wars.

01:05:41.280 It's like whenever society is in a

01:05:44.880 situation where the dark tetrad types

01:05:46.980 get the upper hand, everything is

01:05:49.280 gone.

01:05:49.840 They demolish everything.

01:05:51.040 Arthur Brooks wrote about this, I

01:05:52.160 think, in The Atlantic a few months

01:05:53.620 ago.

01:05:53.800 But it was sort of one in 14.

01:05:55.200 One in 14 people are testing that

01:05:57.320 way.

01:05:57.480 So if you've got just a group of 30,

01:05:59.040 you've got two in that crowd that are

01:06:01.460 likely to be playing that game.

01:06:02.560 Yeah, well, it's a continuum, right?

01:06:03.320 And given the social norms these days,

01:06:05.480 let's just say sort of educated, you

01:06:07.320 know, knowledge worker economy types,

01:06:09.580 right?

01:06:09.920 We're all trained in nonviolent

01:06:11.260 communication.

01:06:12.080 Everybody's voice has an opinion.

01:06:13.220 There's no bad ideas, right?

01:06:14.460 There's a very flat, egalitarian sort

01:06:18.020 of social space.

01:06:19.600 Right, there's no intervening

01:06:21.320 hierarchies.

01:06:22.160 So to actually call that early and

01:06:24.020 stop it, when a dark tetrad person is

01:06:27.480 playing those gambits, you seem like the

01:06:29.860 asshole authoritarian.

01:06:31.320 Yeah, right.

01:06:31.860 But it's going to be like, no, no, not

01:06:32.960 my first rodeo.

01:06:33.780 I've seen this before and we're nipping

01:06:35.400 this in the bud because, like you said,

01:06:36.660 it only takes one person in the

01:06:37.780 seminar to queer the deal.

01:06:39.780 So I watched Mark Zuckerberg at

01:06:42.120 Congress and, you know, he's a kind of

01:06:43.680 a convenient whipping boy, let's say,

01:06:45.720 for the conservatives.

01:06:46.720 And, you know, no doubt he's made his

01:06:49.360 errors and some of those he's publicly

01:06:51.120 admitted, although I have some sympathy

01:06:52.660 for him because my suspicions are that

01:06:54.800 the typical person, including the typical

01:06:57.020 corporate magnet, when they're approached

01:07:00.760 by high order governmental agencies and

01:07:03.380 asked to comply because of reasons of

01:07:06.000 national security, especially five years

01:07:07.920 ago, would have listened.

01:07:08.780 You know, you might think you're the one

01:07:10.700 person who would have withstood that

01:07:12.080 pressure, but it's like, I don't think

01:07:13.860 so.

01:07:14.520 And asking Mark to do that, I think that's

01:07:17.680 too much to ask for someone, especially

01:07:19.300 under those circumstances, because he

01:07:21.560 didn't understand the full extent of his

01:07:24.560 social media enterprise or how to regulate

01:07:26.360 it.

01:07:26.580 And he certainly didn't understand that he

01:07:28.660 was being asked to do corrupt things by a

01:07:30.740 government that was hellbent on a certain

01:07:32.680 form of censorship.

01:07:34.120 Having said all that, it's not like we know

01:07:36.620 how to deal with this.

01:07:37.600 We have these new communication technologies,

01:07:40.540 Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and X, and

01:07:44.360 the narcissistic psychopaths have free reign, and

01:07:48.520 that's abetted by their anonymity and by the

01:07:50.600 algorithmic expansion of their troublemaking.

01:07:53.960 But it's not like anyone knows what to do about

01:07:55.940 that, right?

01:07:56.480 Because when you tilt towards control, well, then

01:07:59.740 you have the problem of the suppression of free

01:08:02.100 speech, which is a real problem.

01:08:03.920 Like, that's not trivial.

01:08:04.880 And if you just let there be a free-for-all, well, then

01:08:07.440 the bad actors have a disproportionate effect.

01:08:11.720 And we don't know what to do about that.

01:08:13.420 Like, one of the things I've thought through, for what

01:08:15.860 it's worth, is that I think it's a big mistake to put

01:08:18.640 the anonymous people with the real people.

01:08:21.720 Do you mean like trolls or just faceless accounts?

01:08:24.180 Like Boston trolls?

01:08:25.020 I think that social media networks should separate the

01:08:28.620 faceless accounts from the verified identities.

01:08:31.120 Well, it blows out millions of years of primate

01:08:33.660 reciprocity and tribal.

01:08:34.640 Well, that's, yes, and that actually turns out to be

01:08:37.240 quite a problem, right?

01:08:38.740 If I can't hold you accountable in any matter for

01:08:40.880 what you do, all that does is get...

01:08:43.580 Or even just to say it to my face.

01:08:46.100 Right, right.

01:08:47.160 Well, people are much more civilized face-to-face for

01:08:49.600 exactly those reasons.

01:08:50.640 All those mechanisms kick in.

01:08:51.980 I mean, we know, we know perfectly well, this is actually

01:08:55.160 valid social psychological research.

01:08:57.100 If you anonymize ordinary people, the worst sides of

01:09:01.200 their character come forward.

01:09:02.920 And like a lot of what regulates us is that implicit

01:09:06.020 requirements signified even by facial expression in

01:09:10.260 face-to-face contact that's indicative of the desire

01:09:13.040 for reciprocity.

01:09:14.320 There have been studies on that with dating apps, right?

01:09:16.040 That people are ghosting and doing all sorts of

01:09:17.980 atrocious behaviors to each other on Tinder because

01:09:20.220 it's a random dating pool of data points.

01:09:24.160 In the past, I went on a date with you because you were

01:09:27.480 my best friend's sister or I met at church or there was

01:09:29.980 something in our neighborhood or region and relational

01:09:32.320 networks and I didn't want to pee in that pool.

01:09:34.760 Yes, precisely.

01:09:36.440 Versus just swipe for another one.

01:09:37.860 Well, it's also the case, you see, we also overestimate the

01:09:41.000 degree to which moral control is internalized.

01:09:44.400 You know, we like to think that...

01:09:45.660 Which is back to Nietzsche.

01:09:46.260 We like to think that if we're good people, it's because we

01:09:50.120 control ourselves.

01:09:51.120 It's like, that's not right, really.

01:09:53.960 It's more subtle than that.

01:09:55.420 There's some of that that's correct in that people do have a

01:09:57.960 conscience and sometimes abide by it.

01:09:59.780 But the reason that the typical good person is good is because

01:10:05.080 they're socialized enough to be socially acceptable or even

01:10:08.980 desirable.

01:10:09.500 And what that means is that a ring of people surround them

01:10:13.780 constantly.

01:10:15.220 And that means they can outsource the problem of the regulation

01:10:18.380 of their behavior to the crowd.

01:10:20.840 So, for example, while you and I are talking...

01:10:22.620 The superego.

01:10:23.420 But it's an extra...

01:10:24.540 Instead of the superego, because while I'm talking to you, for

01:10:28.040 example, I'm watching your eyes, I'm watching your face, you're

01:10:31.060 signaling to me constantly whether you're still engaged in the

01:10:34.880 conversation, whether you're thinking of something else, if we're

01:10:37.420 turn-taking properly, and if I'm attentive and you're there, then I

01:10:42.720 can use those moment-to-moment operations or observations to

01:10:46.240 regulate my behavior.

01:10:47.480 That's not internal, right?

01:10:49.580 It's a dynamic that's playing out between us.

01:10:52.140 And much of the manner...

01:10:55.140 With mirror neurons and micro-muscles of the face and affect and

01:10:57.900 posture and vagal tone and a thousand things.

01:11:00.160 All of that, right?

01:11:01.020 It's deeply mirrored, right?

01:11:02.780 And so, the upshot of that is that I don't have to undertake a

01:11:07.500 tremendous amount of the complex problem of regulating my own

01:11:11.260 behavior as long as people can stand having me around.

01:11:15.320 Because they'll do that for me.

01:11:17.160 And all I have to do is pay attention.

01:11:19.220 And so, we do outsource a lot of moral regulation to the community.

01:11:24.600 And that's fine.

01:11:26.580 But what it does imply is that...

01:11:29.320 So, you're suggesting that's sort of Vygotsky and scaffolding of our good

01:11:33.260 behavior is each other?

01:11:35.520 Well, it's also partly the demand...

01:11:37.280 Of course.

01:11:37.900 It's partly the demand for the continuation, let's say, of the infinite game.

01:11:42.840 You know?

01:11:43.200 I mean, if I have a friend and I'm a kid and I'm playing one-on-one

01:11:48.280 basketball with him, you could say that each basketball bout is a finite game in that I

01:11:53.820 could win it or lose it.

01:11:55.220 But the friendship, at least in part, could be a sequence of those games.

01:12:00.020 And the rule for a sequence is something more like, well, try being a good sport and

01:12:04.620 fun to play with.

01:12:06.120 Which is...

01:12:06.560 Well, that's way different than win, right?

01:12:09.320 It includes winning because if we're going to play, I would like you to try to win because...

01:12:13.680 Part of being a good sport is playing full out.

01:12:15.600 Exactly.

01:12:16.140 Exactly.

01:12:16.620 In a fair game.

01:12:17.260 In a fair game.

01:12:18.100 And the fair part of it is a nod to that higher order morality that's part of, say, an infinite

01:12:23.060 game rather than a finite game.

01:12:25.020 But all of that's embedded and embodied in all of our social communicative practices all

01:12:30.940 the time.

01:12:31.640 The psychopathic types and the narcissistic types, they just use that to manipulate, right?

01:12:37.020 They're not using it to play a finite game or to play an infinite game.

01:12:41.180 And this is interesting, too.

01:12:42.400 They use which bit?

01:12:44.140 Well, whatever information they derive from the social interaction, they just put to their

01:12:48.440 own self-serving purposes, right?

01:12:49.980 They're just using it to facilitate manipulation.

01:12:52.740 And you might ask, and this is a perfectly good question, well, why not do that?

01:12:57.680 This is why people like Andrew Tate are attractive, let's say, to the incel crowd.

01:13:01.560 It's like, if I can manipulate you and I can get what I want, then why the hell shouldn't

01:13:07.360 I do it?

01:13:08.500 That's just will to power 101.

01:13:11.720 Precisely.

01:13:12.200 Why shouldn't I take advantage of that?

01:13:13.660 Why shouldn't I lie and cheat and steal if it means I get my way?

01:13:17.880 Well, part of the answer to that is, well, that might work momentarily, but you're also

01:13:23.260 playing an infinite game with yourself.

01:13:25.620 And we know perfectly well that the typical outcome of the psychopathic pattern of interaction

01:13:31.380 is negative for the psychopath himself.

01:13:35.080 They're incapable of learning from experience, for example.

01:13:37.860 So they repeat their errors.

01:13:39.020 They don't modify their own behavior.

01:13:41.300 And so if you're a psychopath and a narcissist and Machiavellian, you can optimize certain

01:13:47.140 forms of short-term return, but it's a really bad medium to long-term game.

01:13:52.940 So even if you don't include other people in the purview of your moral sentiment.

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01:15:37.440 If you're a psychopath, you dispense with your future self.

01:15:40.760 That's why so many of them end up in prison.

01:15:42.520 Well, okay, so you probably know these stats, Stone Cold, but right, so large numbers of

01:15:46.140 psychopaths end up in prison, but then also, what, one in three 14,000 CEOs or at least

01:15:50.520 I doubt that, but yeah, no, I don't believe that.

01:15:54.060 I don't believe that.

01:15:54.880 I think that's overblown, and I think there's a lot of implicit leftist, anti-capitalist

01:15:59.900 idiocy in those studies.

01:16:01.400 That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of Machiavellian people, some of whom occupy positions of power.

01:16:08.520 But the problem is, it's not a, to become, you know this, you know this, to become successful

01:16:14.640 in any enterprise that iterates.

01:16:16.680 You can't screw people over.

01:16:19.000 Not very well, because they remember, and people have evolved modules for remembering

01:16:23.320 cheaters.

01:16:23.920 Like, we're very good at remembering cheaters.

01:16:25.840 And so, most people who are engaged in reciprocal, complex reciprocal social interactions can't

01:16:33.100 be psychopathic because they get caught.

01:16:35.960 So, now...

01:16:36.960 Can I ask you a question on the capitalist thing that you just mentioned?

01:16:39.320 Yeah.

01:16:40.020 Because I've heard you say a couple of things in, I don't know, however long the last couple

01:16:44.280 of years.

01:16:45.040 One was, I think it might have been in your conversation with Elon, talking about any sort

01:16:50.140 of neo-Malthusian, we've got too many people question, right?

01:16:54.560 And that being sort of what you were describing as sociopathic.

01:16:57.380 And then something along the lines of capitalism and individual achievement attainment, right?

01:17:03.860 Being a noble and virtuous good, right?

01:17:06.360 And therefore, you know, high net worth CEOs, billionaires, et cetera, should be valorized,

01:17:11.780 you know, not kneecapped, right?

01:17:14.000 Which, in my reading of you, I took to be sort of against tallest poppy gets whacked socialism,

01:17:22.000 right?

01:17:22.280 You're saying, hey, you have to preserve space and valorize humanity.

01:17:26.380 Humanity, we can't hate ourselves, right?

01:17:28.660 That on the population question.

01:17:30.000 And if there is somebody who is ingenious, creative, you know, bringing value to society,

01:17:34.860 they shouldn't be kneecapped or, you know, regressive taxation, et cetera.

01:17:38.340 No, you should put them in positions where you can exploit them.

01:17:40.420 No, I'm serious.

01:17:41.640 This is the reason for meritocracy in places like Harvard, you know, because the reverse

01:17:46.800 view is, well, everybody deserves a chance, let's say.

01:17:51.160 And look, it's not like there's nothing to be said about that.

01:17:55.080 But it isn't that we're awarding positions at Harvard because we're benefiting the people

01:18:02.460 who get the positions.

01:18:03.780 That happens.

01:18:05.000 That's not the reason.

01:18:06.440 The reason we pick the smartest and most competent possible people we can to educate deeply is

01:18:12.540 so that everybody else can benefit from their ability.

01:18:16.360 That's the reason.

01:18:17.380 And the reason for meritocracy isn't to reward the meritocratic.

01:18:21.180 That's necessary because otherwise they'll stop being productive.

01:18:25.240 But, you know, you know, there's a Pareto distribution in terms of productivity.

01:18:29.760 And the Pareto distribution is a vicious game.

01:18:32.600 The square root of the number of people in an endeavor do half the work.

01:18:36.540 So if you have 10,000 employees doing one thing, 100 of them do half the work.

01:18:41.100 It's like you want to reward those 100 because the whole 10,000 and then beyond depend on them.

01:18:49.160 And so you need to tilt society in the direction of rewarding the kind of behavior that's a broad benefit.

01:18:56.640 Now, it's going to benefit the individuals as well.

01:18:59.120 Yes.

01:18:59.300 So can I pose to you a thought experiment if you want to hear your answer?

01:19:02.900 Okay.

01:19:03.360 So in hearing that, right, fundamentally like pro-free market, pro-individual accumulation of wealth,

01:19:09.500 and pro kind of a progressive expansion of humanity, population, et cetera.

01:19:15.740 But let's just wind back the clock way back machine to like 1970.

01:19:19.220 And because that's a good inflection point or like, you know, 70 to 73, you've got Friedman doctrine, right?

01:19:25.680 That's when Friedman first rights, sole responsibility of corporations is shareholder profit.

01:19:31.680 That's when you've got Club of Rome saying, hey, we can't, you know, infinite growth on a finite planet.

01:19:37.200 We're going to cook this thing, right?

01:19:38.900 You get Paul Ehrlich's population bomb, right?

01:19:41.540 You get those famous bets.

01:19:42.740 You get, so you basically get those two arguments.

01:19:44.480 You get, are we, are there too many of us and, or is there too much of a lopsided distribution of profits and wealth?

01:19:51.580 Yeah.

01:19:52.060 Right?

01:19:52.620 Now, at that time, when those arguments were, they weren't, they weren't new at the time, but let's just say they were distilled at that time.

01:19:59.300 You had a 30 to 1 CEO to average worker pay ratio.

01:20:04.060 Now it's over 300.

01:20:05.840 Yeah.

01:20:06.360 Right?

01:20:06.760 So that's a big difference.

01:20:07.920 That's a 10X.

01:20:08.580 That's an order of magnitude change.

01:20:10.240 Is that argument still true?

01:20:11.720 And if so, for how much longer?

01:20:12.980 And when you and I were born, there were half the humans on this earth, right?

01:20:19.780 And that was a question that was, again, that was, that, that was the Ehrlich stuff.

01:20:22.460 That was the Club of Rome stuff.

01:20:23.540 We since had the green revolution and most economists would agree that 4 billion of us, pretty much half of the world's population is only here because of synthetic NPK fertilizers, glyphosate, Roundup, you know, basically just industrial chemical, petrochemical, you know, hyperproduction of food stuff.

01:20:40.660 So if it was true in 1970s, and I, and I, because philosophically I'm aligned with you, right?

01:20:46.800 That whole kneecapping, weak affirmative action, tall as poppy stuff, right?

01:20:52.580 And spiteful taking from those who have thrived or succeeded, that's kind of Ayn Rand 101, right?

01:20:59.940 But it was true in 1970, but the landscape was massively changed.

01:21:03.820 When and how or if do we ever need to update those arguments and revise them in light of current events and growth curves?

01:21:11.220 Well, I would say the answer to the problem of hyper-privilege on the economic side, there's a gospel's answer to that, which is from, much will be asked from those to whom much has been given.

01:21:28.220 But that's trickle, that George W. H. W. said that, right?

01:21:31.000 Trickle down economics feels a lot like getting pissed on.

01:21:33.000 Well, I'm not, I'm not speaking even of it from an economic perspective.

01:21:37.720 I'm, I'm saying that the problem of unequal distribution of opportunity and wealth is a pervasive and universal problem.

01:21:48.480 It's not attributable, first of all, to capitalism, which makes Marx, for example, a weak critic of the Pareto distribution problem.

01:21:57.480 Because the Pareto distribution problem characterizes all sorts of systems that have nothing to do with capitalism.

01:22:02.380 So, so you can't attribute the accumulation of wealth per se or privilege for that matter to capitalism.

01:22:10.180 That's, that's a dead argument.

01:22:11.940 That doesn't mean that the accumulation of goods in the hands of fewer and fewer people isn't a problem.

01:22:17.960 It's a major problem.

01:22:19.220 The question is how you address it.

01:22:22.060 Now, it doesn't appear to me at all that you can address it using something like left-wing economic, a left-wing economic approach, not in its more radical phases.

01:22:31.260 No, but techno-philanthropy sucks too, right?

01:22:33.100 The Gates Foundation, malaria nets in Africa are all getting used to fish in Lake Tanganyika, you know, and polluting.

01:22:37.980 Well, it's hard to do good.

01:22:39.260 It's hard, right?

01:22:40.240 That's part of the, that's part of the problem that it's actually very hard to do good, you know.

01:22:43.760 And, and it's, I suppose, it's also the part of the problem of the conundrum of wealth is once you accrue wealth and you want to do good with it, does that mean that you know how to do good?

01:22:54.300 And the answer is no, it's really difficult.

01:22:57.160 Well, and just, just because you got lucky with PCs in the 90s, does that, does that mean you can solve wealth hunger or, or, or epidemiological challenges or anything else, right?

01:23:04.580 That there's a, there's a removal.

01:23:06.680 Right, well, that's the problem with gigantism, right?

01:23:09.040 You're trying to operate your experiments on too broad a scale.

01:23:12.600 Well, and it's also the problem of unintended consequences, as you pointed out, you know, the use of malaria nets to fish, for example, which no one predicted.

01:23:21.360 And, you know, the way that we've, what we've evolved to deal with those sorts of problems is something like small scale experiments designed to determine the consequences of a given course of action before they're ramped up into huge sociological experiments.

01:23:36.020 I mean, it's, it's, it was a dawning realization in the social science community, probably started in the 1930s, and it never got to be as pervasive as it should have been, that whenever you implement any policy whatsoever, experimentally or socially, you have to build in an evaluation element to make sure that your stupid intervention does only what you hoped it would, and not a bunch of other things, many of which are counterproductive.

01:23:59.540 It's a huge problem, but it's not reducible, let's say, to the problem of billionaires per se, because the other advantage of having a multitude of extremely wealthy people is that you have massive pools of capital that can be implemented for all sorts of technological reasons, and you also have a diversity of, what would you say, sources of power, which is a good check against authoritarianism on the political side.

01:24:27.040 And so, but I do think the fundamental solution to that problem is, it's an ethical solution and not an economic solution, is that if you're fortunate enough to be hyper-intelligent, for example, or hyper-wealthy, you better understand that what comes along with that is a moral burden that's equivalent to the virtue, and that if you don't bear that, you're going to be a, not only a destructive force in the world, but also a destructive force for yourself.

01:24:53.620 You don't, there's no free lunch, even if you're rich.

01:24:56.960 Well, that's an interesting thing, because what I feel you're doing here is you're merging, right, a free market, almost Randian, right, the alphas get to alpha, with what we started with, with your higher order code, or implicate moral law.

01:25:13.380 So, rather than just saying a free market sorts it all out and has its own implicit, you know, logic, right, and those at the top deserve to be, you're saying, hey.

01:25:22.180 It's not sufficient.

01:25:23.200 Yeah, you're seeing, now you're bringing in, right, the Judeo-Christian.

01:25:26.080 I think the scientific game has to be embedded in the Judeo-Christian game, let's say, but so does the free market game.

01:25:32.140 You know, and people like Adam Smith knew this, and the Scottish liberals, for that matter, their basic argument was something like, given the presuppositions of a stable Judeo-Christian culture and the ethics that go along with that, then the liberal free market, the free market enterprise is possible.

01:25:50.480 It's like, and the more libertarian types, they take the second half of that and dispense with the first, and that's not going to work.

01:25:58.480 You need that underlying ethical scaffold, and it's likely because it's related, as we already pointed out, to something approximating the biological foundations of psychological stability and growth and the associated sociological interactions that emerge out of that.

01:26:16.880 You can't dispense with that.

01:26:18.640 Well, let's talk about this, because my curiosity, it feels like, and you're writing a new book right now, right?

01:26:25.180 Yes, it's coming out in November.

01:26:27.040 Oh, so really soon.

01:26:28.060 Yeah, very soon, yeah.

01:26:29.040 What is the name?

01:26:29.580 We Who Wrestle with God, it's called, and it deals with many of the issues that we're talking about at the moment, including that Abrahamic story, let's say.

01:26:38.040 Well, I'm super curious, because you were describing the Abrahamic story, but that also has echoes with Jonah, right?

01:26:42.940 Go do a hard thing, go save the people of Nineveh.

01:26:45.080 It has the echoes with...

01:26:45.840 Even if you don't want to.

01:26:46.960 Even if you don't want to, and now come on...

01:26:48.300 And you hate them.

01:26:49.120 And out come on...

01:26:49.920 And they deserve it.

01:26:50.760 Right, and put down your nets and go be fishers of men in the Sea of Galilee in the New Testament.

01:26:55.360 To me, that's the real gut punch one, right?

01:26:57.700 Which is, at what point do any of us set aside a thing?

01:27:00.400 Yeah, well, it's a more appropriate means of feeding the multitude, right?

01:27:04.360 I mean, that's part of the underlying narrative meaning of that particular element of the story.

01:27:10.440 If you're a fisherman, you feed people, and that's a noble enterprise.

01:27:14.320 But if you entice people into the proper ethical relationship with one another, you feed everyone, right?

01:27:21.720 And that's part of a reflection of the fact that what makes a society wealthy, even in the free market domain, let's say, is the underlying ethos of something like iterable reciprocity.

01:27:38.340 It's the precondition for wealth.

01:27:40.700 And so, Christ transposes the fisherman.

01:27:43.420 He says, well, you're playing a very useful social role, but there's a meta role that you could play that would do what you do, but more effectively, and a bunch of other things at the same time.

01:27:53.560 That's akin, for example, to his suggestion that the intelligent and wise, wealthy individual would sell everything to obtain the pearl of great price, right?

01:28:04.640 Because there's one thing to know that's so valuable that everything else pales in comparison.

01:28:09.580 That's also relevant to the discussion of what to do with wealth.

01:28:13.420 You know, I mean, if you're a billionaire and you're a self-centered hedonist, it's like, well, first of all, you're going to be a very damaging social force, but it's going to tear you into pieces in a manner that you could hardly even imagine.

01:28:27.340 Because you don't get to misuse a gift without paying a vicious price for it.

01:28:33.860 You see this with very intelligent people when they go down the Luciferian rabbit hole.

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01:29:53.400 You know, they're gifted with their IQ of 145, and they start to worship their own intelligence.

01:29:59.300 It's like...

01:29:59.720 Well, what did you ask or hope for Elon?

01:30:03.360 Because he's obviously got probably as much power as anybody in the human species.

01:30:07.480 Well, what you hope for Elon is that his moral compass is functional, and that he listens to it the same way that Jonah eventually listened to his conscience, and that he understands.

01:30:17.560 And, you know, my conversation with Elon, I felt quite positive about who he was.

01:30:23.300 I've met him three or four times, and every time I meet him, I'm more solidly convinced that he's doing what he can to aim up.

01:30:32.380 And thank God for that.

01:30:33.620 Now, does that mean that it's without error?

01:30:36.840 Well, that's a bit much to ask, that's for sure.

01:30:39.380 But I was also very interested in how he reconciled his existential catastrophe, his crisis, when he was an adolescent, because he said he turned to the attractions of infinite exploration.

01:30:53.060 And that's one variant of the infinite game.

01:30:57.460 You know, and there's a faith, there's a faith in that, there's a deep faith that's implicit in that, that I think people like Richard Dawkins share.

01:31:05.100 So, Musk believes that the cosmos has a logos, that it's intelligible, that it's possible that that logos is intelligible to the human psyche, that that pursuit is noble, and that undertaken properly, that pursuit is of wide, it's of broad ethical benefit, both psychologically and socially.

01:31:24.220 And that's, that's, is that arguably your thesis statement as well?

01:31:28.700 Yeah, definitely, definitely.

01:31:30.680 When that's part of the underlying faith, you might say, and it's a kind of courage that the created order is fundamentally good.

01:31:40.820 I just, that's a, that's why it's an element of faith, that.

01:31:44.340 Fundamentally good.

01:31:45.620 Fundamentally good, yeah, fundamentally good.

01:31:47.800 Yeah.

01:31:48.600 Yeah, this is one of the propositions that's put forth very strongly in the story of Job.

01:31:55.060 I mean, Job is visited by unimaginable and undeserved catastrophe.

01:31:59.140 So, that's who he is.

01:32:00.220 He's the man who's been visited by undeserved catastrophe.

01:32:02.600 And Job's response is, no matter what happens to me, it's incumbent on me not to lose faith in myself, fundamentally, even though I may be error prone, but fundamentally, and not to lose faith in the spirit that gave rise to the created order.

01:32:17.680 Is that my ignorance may shield me from realization of the good towards which everything is progressing, but it's incumbent on me, no matter how much I suffer, not to fall prey to that kind of undermining doubt.

01:32:31.140 And that's, I think that's noble and functional and appropriate.

01:32:38.020 And why is God being so cruel to Job?

01:32:42.820 God only knows.

01:32:44.740 Well, right, but I mean, this is what I find fascinating about this story in particular is that the exegesis of that tale is that there are two distinct authors through several centuries.

01:32:54.600 And the first version of the Job story doesn't include Satan.

01:32:58.140 Uh-huh.

01:32:58.400 Right, it is whimsical and arbitrary Yahweh.

01:33:01.460 Uh-huh.

01:33:01.980 Right, and then author too is like, well, that's a bit of a plot problem.

01:33:05.540 We've got the problem of evil.

01:33:06.420 Well, look, I think part of the problem is…

01:33:08.140 Add Satan as a plot device.

01:33:10.180 Old Testament's not pointy horns and Beelzebub, right?

01:33:13.000 Old Testament is Satan, the opposer.

01:33:15.000 He's just the friction.

01:33:16.880 Yeah, adversary.

01:33:17.840 Right, the adversary.

01:33:18.680 Yeah, well, I think part of it, I think there's two parts to that.

01:33:22.740 One is that it isn't obvious to me at all that you should evaluate the goodness of being in relationship to the dimensions of pleasure and pain.

01:33:31.380 And the reason for that is that there are many catastrophic pleasures and there are many beneficial pains.

01:33:38.120 And so you can't reduce, you can't use the hedonic dimension as the grounds for evaluation.

01:33:45.660 So that's the…

01:33:46.540 So whatever, when you're talking about the goodness or lack thereof of being, you can't reduce that to emotional state, partly because the emotions aren't reliable guides to the medium and long run.

01:33:56.640 And as you know perfectly well, because you have to forego immediate pleasure frequently in order to gain what's worth gaining in the long run.

01:34:07.840 So the hedonic dimension of evaluation is the wrong dimension.

01:34:13.200 Well, that feels like that's anchored to evolutionary impulse, indifferent evolutionary amoral impulse, right?

01:34:17.980 And most wisdom traditions do differentiate.

01:34:21.620 If you're just seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, you're basically just a monkey with clothes.

01:34:24.940 Yeah, right, right, right.

01:34:25.800 That's right.

01:34:26.200 To be twice-born, to be anthropos, to go…

01:34:28.760 Subcortical.

01:34:29.540 Right, like any of those things, to be a sort of reborn or true human, you need to transcend that in some way.

01:34:37.420 Yeah, well, that's part of maturation.

01:34:39.460 It's the replacement of those more instinctive and immediate desires and wants with something that's more sociologically oriented, that's growth-oriented, that's long-term, that's iterable, that's infinite, possibly, and that's mature.

01:34:56.200 And the point of mature socialization is to replace those demands for immediate gratification, let's say, with something that's much more comprehensive and also upward expanding, right?

01:35:12.880 It's like the definition of civilization in its proper sense.

01:35:15.860 This brings us back to that Blaise Pascal's God-shaped hole in our hearts.

01:35:49.360 It's like, you know, I don't want to sleep no more to Burning Man, like just contemporary expressions of semi-religiosity.

01:35:54.000 She writes in the New York Times, and she's been writing about a turn towards orthodoxy and how more and more people are going back, not just back to church where they might have gone as kids, they're like seeking out Eastern Orthodox, they're seeking out like pre-Vatican Latin Mass.

01:36:08.400 There was even an article in the Texas Monthly on, what do they call them, the orthobros, and there's a whole set of, and again, this is curious, but alt-right podcaster bros, right, like infiltrating an Armenian Orthodox church in Houston.

01:36:27.060 Let's do this, because we're running out of time on the YouTube side.

01:36:31.760 Let's save exactly that discussion for the additional half an hour on Daily Wire.

01:36:37.060 We can talk about that compensatory rebirth of, well, not only the religious spirit, let's say, but the more orthodox religious spirit, and we can take that apart.

01:36:46.700 So let's do that.

01:36:47.620 So everybody who's watching and listening, you can join us on the Daily Wire side for the continuation of this conversation, and that's what we'll delve into.

01:36:55.640 Well, we've noticed, and we talked a little bit about, Jamie and I talked a little bit about this before the podcast, that there have been noticeable public conversions, even from the atheist adjacent types like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Neil Ferguson in recent years, Russell Brandt for that matter, and that is emblematic of something deeper that's shifting.

01:37:19.200 And so we can talk about that in more detail on the Daily Wire side.

01:37:22.340 So join us for that.

01:37:23.340 Thank you very much for, well, at least the first part of this conversation, and we'll continue momentarily.

01:37:30.560 Thank you, everybody, for watching and listening today.

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485. The Rebirth of God： Pathology and Promise ｜ Jamie Wheal

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