The Tucker Carlson Show - Tucker and Bret Weinstein Debate Evolution, God’s Existence, Israel, and Will AI Gain Consciousness？

00:00:00.000 I don't have a problem at all with the idea that there's physical evolution.

00:00:04.400 My problem is with the question of the creation of all things.

00:00:07.300 Religious belief systems are keys to the amazing capacity of humans.

00:00:14.920 The creator is the force that creates.

00:00:18.260 God was not created.

00:00:19.500 God has always been there, period.

00:00:21.580 Man, if I was an atheist, I'd be very upset that Sam Harris was carrying my atheist water.

00:00:25.900 Because I felt like he was a very bad spokesman for his cause.

00:00:30.560 The spokespeople for atheism have done such a terrible disservice by demonizing people's religious faith rather than taking it as the important set of questions that it obviously is.

00:00:44.400 There are many different ways that AI can radically disrupt civilization.

00:00:51.060 The idea that they will become conscious and that we won't know is, to me, highly likely.

00:01:13.720 First of all, thank you.

00:01:19.680 It's great to see you.

00:01:20.420 Great to see you, Tucker.

00:01:21.400 And I hate to start a conversation about me or our relationship or whatever, but I've been wanting to talk to you for the last year.

00:01:29.540 I went on Joe Rogan's show about a year ago, and I stated that I don't believe in Darwinism.

00:01:37.720 And basically, I think God created people.

00:01:40.940 I don't think it was just a matter of belief.

00:01:43.660 And you texted me and said, I'm an actual evolutionary biologist.

00:01:47.480 We need to have this conversation.

00:01:50.260 So, we haven't.

00:01:52.380 Yep.

00:01:52.600 So, I will just restate my one-sentence position, which is, I think, I don't know about the timeline or the means.

00:02:02.160 I'm not interested.

00:02:03.100 But I think that people are a creation of God, not an accident of biology.

00:02:09.480 That's my position.

00:02:10.240 Got it.

00:02:11.320 Yeah.

00:02:11.520 I'm hoping that the text I sent you was not as defensive as that.

00:02:14.100 No, it was great.

00:02:15.040 No, it was great.

00:02:15.700 No, are you kidding?

00:02:16.780 But in any case, no, I did want to have this conversation with you.

00:02:20.060 And let's just say, because evolution is my professional realm, I'm sure I could cite you chapter and verse.

00:02:30.600 Well, you definitely could.

00:02:31.320 But it's pointless.

00:02:33.080 First of all, that doesn't make me right.

00:02:35.640 You know, the fact is, yes, I know a lot of factual material, but there are some deeper issues here.

00:02:42.980 And I thought it would be useful if you and I just explored them, because I think you're standing in for a lot of people who have begun to have very profound questions about the story that they've been told about evolution and what its relationship is to biology and, most importantly, to people.

00:03:05.420 So, I just want to confess a few of my positions so that your audience knows where I'm coming from.

00:03:12.740 I do not believe that there is a creator in the literal sense.

00:03:20.140 I am in no way hostile to the idea.

00:03:23.660 But I've come to the conclusion that there probably isn't such a creator because all of the things that we have been able to figure out about the world, things that we know are true because they carry a great deal of predictive power,

00:03:39.280 have come to us through the principle of parsimony and I will clean up the principle of parsimony a little bit because the way it was originally formulated is clumsy.

00:03:50.460 But if we had access to all the information, then the simplest explanation for each pattern that we observe would be the correct one.

00:04:02.420 Right.

00:04:02.820 Simplicity is our guide to what's true.

00:04:06.240 And for me, the problem with the hypothesis that there is a creator is that it answers one very difficult problem, where did the universe come from,

00:04:20.820 at an expense that is vastly greater in terms of the assumptions, right?

00:04:29.760 And if the universe came from a creator, well, that simplifies one thing.

00:04:34.760 But now we have to explain where that creator came from.

00:04:38.780 And that's a much harder problem than explaining the universe itself.

00:04:41.720 So as much as I agree, explaining the universe and explaining biology is difficult, it does not solve a problem to imagine that a creator is the answer.

00:04:51.160 And even if there was one, well, maybe that creator was existing in a universe that was created by another creator.

00:05:02.040 But eventually you're going to get to a place where you're going to have to reach for the only explanation we have ever come up with for where radical increases in complexity come from.

00:05:14.480 So even if we in this universe are the product of a creator's work, ultimately that creator is going to have to have come from somewhere.

00:05:22.100 And the only explanation that could possibly work is going to be Darwinian.

00:05:25.800 So, again, I'm not saying that I know whether there is or there isn't, but I am saying that the principle that has allowed us to see all of what we can see,

00:05:36.520 that has allowed us to build all that we have built, that principle is parsimony and it suggests that this universe is not the product of an intentional creation.

00:05:48.360 But the Hebrews explained it this way, and the Christians too, that the process is inherent in the description.

00:05:57.780 So the creator is the force that creates and is not himself created.

00:06:05.000 So in other words, there is, God was not created.

00:06:09.020 God has always been there, period.

00:06:11.440 Right.

00:06:11.740 And I see, you know, you can make the question go away, but I don't know what that means.

00:06:18.700 We don't have any example of such a thing.

00:06:22.600 So it, no, we definitely don't because everything apart from God is created.

00:06:29.420 Well, okay, let me take a different tack.

00:06:32.060 Yes.

00:06:32.300 Let's say that, let's just start from the premise that there is a creator who intended this universe and the biota.

00:06:43.160 So I'm a product of that.

00:06:44.940 Right.

00:06:45.320 In this thought experiment.

00:06:47.380 And in such a case, I know that this creator gave me a capacity to reason.

00:06:55.840 I'm pretty good at it.

00:06:57.080 Yes.

00:06:57.180 That's why I've invested in it professionally.

00:06:59.000 And he gave me an incredible set of evidence for Darwinian evolution.

00:07:10.700 And I'm now forced to grapple with the question of why a creator would have given me a capacity to reason, would have given me the principle of parsimony, the power of which I can see, and a set of evidence that forces me to conclude that the biota at least evolved in a Darwinian way.

00:07:36.160 Now, it could be, let's put it this way.

00:07:41.720 I think the simplest explanation then would be that the creator used evolution to make the biology.

00:07:51.280 And that, you know, maybe the creator is especially interested in the products of a Darwinian process.

00:07:59.840 You know, maybe the creator is as delighted as I am, or because he's the creator, more delighted than I am at the sight of a hummingbird, that that's a marvelous thing to have happened through this process.

00:08:09.480 I could imagine that it still doesn't strike me as the simplest way to explain the universe that I see.

00:08:16.760 But, you know, if, you know, if, if a creator wanted a universe in which biological marvels happened, then the universe might look like this.

00:08:27.020 And it doesn't change what I do at the point that I know that a Darwinian process is actually the tool that has shaped the creatures.

00:08:38.020 Then it, it makes sense to study it in the way that I do.

00:08:42.380 So, again, I'm not against the idea that there's a creator.

00:08:46.660 I don't see any evidence for it.

00:08:48.840 If there is a creator, I'm pretty sure he must want me to be skeptical for some reason, because he's given me that which would cause me to be skeptical.

00:09:00.820 And I guess the final piece of that argument is that I think that there is a more parsimonious way to understand our, our universe and the role of religious belief in it, which I know will be grating to many people, especially people who, who do have a profound relationship with, with a religious faith.

00:09:27.080 But I think the right way to understand all of the evidence is that religious belief systems are themselves profoundly important products of evolution.

00:09:42.320 They are keys to the amazing capacity of humans.

00:09:47.740 And so, I don't know how clear this is, but part of what I'm saying is that I think the facts tell us, or they strongly imply a story in which there is no literal creator, but they do not tell us that the creator is a fiction, right?

00:10:08.460 Any more than a wing is a fiction.

00:10:11.640 Our belief in God or gods is a key to human functionality, and it is incumbent on evolutionary biologists to understand in what way that could possibly be true.

00:10:28.360 And this is a responsibility on which I think evolutionists have fallen down.

00:10:32.560 They have treated religious devotion as, frankly, a pathology, and it couldn't possibly be one.

00:10:40.760 It's obviously adaptive.

00:10:42.940 And because it's obviously adaptive, it requires the same seriousness that we point at other structures or processes.

00:10:50.920 And so far, there's been very little of that in my field.

00:10:54.880 I don't think it is adaptive.

00:10:56.780 I don't think there's any evidence of that at all.

00:10:58.660 And I should also say that, by the way, and I'll tell you why I think that, but I should say, what I said on Rogan was, like, characteristically inarticulate and imprecise.

00:11:10.300 And I don't have a problem at all with the idea that there's physical evolution, because I think there clearly is.

00:11:18.720 My problem is with the question of the creation of all things.

00:11:22.020 And I don't think there's a better explanation or a more reasonable explanation that there's just a God that created everything.

00:11:28.900 And if you disagree, I'd love to hear it.

00:11:32.000 But let me just say of the question of religion being adaptive.

00:11:36.000 So, like, one of the main modes of religious expression from the beginning of recorded history is human sacrifice.

00:11:44.220 Including, and it goes on today around the world in various forms.

00:11:49.120 And the idea that that's, like, necessary because population outstrips resources is not always true.

00:11:56.380 Like, there are tons of examples, including in modern day, lots of places, including the United States, where there's, you know, plenty of resources and people do it anyway.

00:12:05.720 But it's the same story in every civilization, none of which could have had contact with each other that we know of.

00:12:14.000 And there's kind of nothing that evolutionary biology can say about that.

00:12:21.640 It's like it's not helping people at all.

00:12:23.960 They're doing it anyway.

00:12:26.220 Well, I look at it differently.

00:12:29.100 I mean, I see the same or a similar pattern.

00:12:31.980 And my sense is, in biology, when we see a complex, costly pattern that either re-evolves, spreads, or otherwise persists over a long period of time, we are forced to grapple with the question of what could its utility be.

00:12:57.320 Exactly.

00:12:57.780 And while I don't think we have a good hypothesis about the utility of human sacrifice, and personally, morally, I'm offended by it, as I'm sure you are.

00:13:10.100 So is God, by the way.

00:13:10.960 Nonetheless, like so many of humanity's worst attributes, we have to look at it and grapple with the evolutionary implications, that it does have some sort of a meaning.

00:13:28.900 And I should say, buried within what I'm saying is a critique of where my field has gotten to.

00:13:40.200 As I think I mentioned to you in a past discussion, I think my field is stuck.

00:13:44.540 Yeah.

00:13:44.660 And it's no longer solving big problems.

00:13:46.940 It's focused on producing lots of papers that study some specific, but it's not discovering big new things.

00:13:52.860 And that's not because there isn't lots to be done.

00:13:54.980 It's because it's sort of lost track of how to do it.

00:13:57.220 So I'm not arguing, I'm not a champion of the state of evolutionary biology.

00:14:03.820 I think it's a little pitiful.

00:14:06.300 But I am a champion of the basic Darwinian paradigm, which I think we have lost sight of.

00:14:15.920 In fact, evolutionary biologists in the middle of the 20th century overly narrowed our understanding of Darwinism and have blinded us to what it's really trying to tell us about ourselves.

00:14:29.200 And I would love to see us remember how to do the process of discovery and to start unlocking big puzzles.

00:14:40.760 But it sounds to me like you believe in a universe in which biological evolution happens.

00:14:48.640 Yes.

00:14:49.160 Okay.

00:14:49.580 So there's no disagreement.

00:14:51.020 And that people adapt and that human behavior is to a huge extent a function of physical reality, of biology.

00:14:58.920 And like we do certain things, we have certain attitudes because of biology, because of nature.

00:15:05.180 Like these are imperatives of nature.

00:15:06.980 And so I totally buy all that.

00:15:08.640 I think Darwin thought all that.

00:15:11.260 Here's, I guess, to put a finer point on it.

00:15:13.520 But I believe in the existence of the supernatural.

00:15:17.840 I've experienced it.

00:15:19.040 I've seen it.

00:15:19.680 It's real.

00:15:20.420 It exists outside of nature, outside of all the laws that we think we're subject to.

00:15:25.980 And it acts on us.

00:15:27.920 And human sacrifice is one example of that.

00:15:31.160 So that's my view.

00:15:32.460 I'm totally convinced that that's true.

00:15:34.300 I know that it's true.

00:15:35.700 And so I don't know if there's room in the framework that you're describing for that fact.

00:15:45.220 Well, what I think I did not articulate properly is I'm not arguing that a materialist scientific worldview that excludes the supernatural is a better way to live.

00:16:02.440 One of the things I think atheists have done particularly badly, and one of the reasons that I don't call myself an atheist, is that there is no demonstrated case in which an atheist civilization has thrived. 1.00

00:16:19.180 In fact, we have many examples in which they have spectacularly collapsed.

00:16:23.900 And in fact, the things that presently threaten our civilization include a great many, you know, atheist ideas like, you know, you can just up and change your sex if you feel that you're trapped in the wrong body.

00:16:40.200 There is no God but us.

00:16:41.520 Right.

00:16:41.960 So that program doesn't work very well, at least not as far as we've seen.

00:16:47.960 I think that's true.

00:16:48.720 So I'm not arguing that a belief.

00:16:50.160 No, no, no, but I'm not even – no, I know that you think that, and it's obvious in how you live that you think that.

00:16:57.200 But I want to get more focused on just, like, the reality of it.

00:17:01.140 Like, if there is no supernatural, then, like, what is all this stuff?

00:17:07.440 Well –

00:17:08.000 Like, what's the other explanation?

00:17:10.000 So I will tell you how I deal with the question personally.

00:17:13.720 Yes.

00:17:13.900 Which is, I have a category that I don't share with anybody as far as I know that I would call the metanatural, right?

00:17:20.540 Which is sort of the advantage that comes from believing in the supernatural.

00:17:24.920 I believe it all ultimately could be explained through a natural system in the same way you could explain a baseball game by thinking of all of the atoms in the baseball and the bat and the players.

00:17:39.220 But that's a terrible way to think about baseball, right?

00:17:41.860 It just doesn't – it's not functional.

00:17:43.280 But, yes, you could, in principle, do it.

00:17:45.360 So I think that the belief in the supernatural is a much more efficient way of encoding hidden truths that you can't readily comprehend.

00:17:58.820 So, to give you one example, you might have a system in which you imagine that the misbehavior of your people, whoever they might be, is going to result in the anger of a god who will punish you with famine.

00:18:18.860 Right.

00:18:19.680 Okay?

00:18:20.000 That would be supernatural.

00:18:20.900 It's also true that if your people are busy betraying each other, that that may threaten the harvest.

00:18:32.080 In other words, your coordination in the planting of crops, the protecting of those crops, and the harvesting of those crops is dependent on whether or not people like and trust each other.

00:18:43.020 And to the extent that they're backstabbing each other, it could very well result in starvation without the intervention of an intentional god.

00:18:52.640 So, to me, those two stories are the same story.

00:18:57.060 How do you explain to people you really shouldn't misbehave because it could interfere with our coordination in a way that may result in us not having enough food to get through the winter?

00:19:05.420 The answer is, oh, God sees what you're doing, and he's not happy about it, and when God's not happy, starvation is highly likely.

00:19:16.400 Right?

00:19:16.720 So, the metanatural is the category that allows the reconciliation of the efficient narrative description of this process with the difficult-to-spot deeper physical connection.

00:19:33.600 I think that's, I mean, I think there's a practical effect of doing the right thing, and it's a good thing, right?

00:19:41.980 Right.

00:19:42.160 I mean, right.

00:19:42.800 So, but I'm more interested in the question, among others, of, like, knowing.

00:19:47.660 How do we know things on the basis of no evidence that are true?

00:19:51.340 How do we, how do we, how do we know?

00:19:54.600 Well.

00:19:54.940 But we do know.

00:19:55.820 So, that's kind of my point, is that very often the deepest truths come to us apart from outside of our senses, and we're right.

00:20:08.440 Well, I wouldn't say outside of our senses.

00:20:10.720 I would say outside of our consciousness.

00:20:13.760 Okay.

00:20:14.120 And so, the distinction is, is like this.

00:20:19.900 Our consciousness is late evolving.

00:20:24.600 It shows up at the end of our evolutionary story, not early.

00:20:29.240 And, you know, that means that there are a good many mammals that have some degree of consciousness that we can see, but nobody's conscious like we are.

00:20:37.520 The conscious mind, I will argue, is actually evolved for an initial purpose.

00:20:47.020 The initial purpose is exactly what we are doing right now.

00:20:50.600 It is the ability for two minds to pool their understanding, right?

00:20:57.620 To actually plug into each other and reach an emergent conclusion that neither of us could reach alone, or that the two of us couldn't reach separately if we couldn't plug our consciousnesses into each other.

00:21:10.700 So, when we say, actually, that we know things, but we don't know how we know them, we're sort of talking about our conscious minds, which is just this thin sliver on top of this architecture that has been knowing things for millions of years in ways that weren't conscious at all.

00:21:29.940 So, I think we're really, it's that interface.

00:21:32.820 Does my conscious mind know why I know this to be true?

00:21:35.600 Why do I meet somebody and have a distrust that turns out to be accurate with respect to their trustworthiness, right?

00:21:45.560 I can try to piece it together.

00:21:48.280 I may get nowhere.

00:21:50.500 And it may be that there's a lot that I actually did perceive.

00:21:54.000 It came in through my eyes and my ears and who knows what else.

00:21:57.180 But it is my conscious mind's difficulty in describing it that feels like my entire mind was handed this piece of information.

00:22:08.320 So, to put it another way, we don't do a good job of talking about intuition.

00:22:15.660 In my opinion, intuition is the product of unconscious processes in the mind.

00:22:24.820 If those unconscious processes are in a zone where you've had a lot of experience, your intuition is liable to be excellent.

00:22:33.860 If those unconscious processes are trying to navigate something where you don't have much experience at all, your intuition will be crude.

00:22:41.440 It's not a supernatural process.

00:22:44.320 It's about the sum total of your experiences and what they are capable of putting together about the world.

00:22:56.860 And that, to me, you know, it might as well be supernatural from the point of view of how most people live their lives.

00:23:04.520 It may indeed just simply be the best way to function.

00:23:10.700 But that's different than saying that that's actually what's taking place.

00:23:15.560 So, it's not every day that the Catholic Church gets a brand new leader, a new pope.

00:23:19.580 Christians around the world are watching really, really carefully.

00:23:23.000 This is the largest Christian denomination, the oldest church.

00:23:26.500 It is essential that the Catholic Church gets a wise new leader who is installed not simply by the cardinals, but by God.

00:23:36.840 And so, it's your job to pray for that.

00:23:38.860 There is no better way to pray for that than with Hallow.

00:23:41.940 Hallow is the world's number one prayer app.

00:23:45.020 It is the subject of nightly conversation at my dinner table.

00:23:48.360 And Hallow just launched its Conclave Prayer Challenge that allows you to pray for the Holy Spirit to move within the cardinals and to choose the right pope.

00:23:56.160 It matters whether you're Catholic or not.

00:23:58.500 This multi-episode series walks you through the Vatican's process.

00:24:02.020 It provides updates as news breaks, and it offers prayer guidance at every turn.

00:24:05.880 Again, even if you're not Catholic, which, by the way, I'm not, it is worth praying for a good and Christian pope.

00:24:11.760 The day after the decision, Hallow launches the seven-day Pray for the Pope Challenge,

00:24:15.360 followed by another papal saint name challenge to go deep into the life of the saint the pope chooses for his name.

00:24:20.740 This will be immersive, totally immersive, like everything they do.

00:24:25.160 So you can download the Hallow app today to dive in.

00:24:28.260 It will honestly...

00:24:29.540 XXXY Athletics is the only athletic brand taking a stand for free speech and women's sports.

00:24:35.640 80% of Americans agree that women's sports are for women only. 0.76

00:24:40.360 Too few speak out, but you can make a difference.

00:24:43.920 Wear XXXY Athletics and take a stand for truth in women's sports. 1.00

00:24:49.920 XXXY Athletics makes everything from t-shirts to premium workout gear.

00:24:54.060 Don't give your money to woke brands that sell women out. 1.00

00:24:57.600 Head to thetruthfits.com.

00:24:59.980 Use code TUCKER20 for 20% off at thetruthfits.com.

00:25:04.840 That's Tucker20 for 20% off at thetruthfits.com.

00:25:09.160 Tucker says it best.

00:25:10.880 The credit card companies are ripping Americans off, and enough is enough.

00:25:15.440 This is Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas.

00:25:17.600 Our legislation, the Credit Card Competition Act, would help in the grip Visa and MasterCard have on us.

00:25:25.420 Every time you use your credit card, they charge you a hidden fee called a swipe fee, and they've been raising it without even telling you.

00:25:32.960 This hurts consumers and every small business owner.

00:25:35.840 In fact, American families are paying $1,100 in hidden swipe fees each year.

00:25:42.300 The fees Visa and MasterCard charge Americans are the highest in the world, double candidates, and eight times more than Europe's.

00:25:50.260 That's why I've taken action, but I need your help to help get this passed.

00:25:54.660 I'm asking you to call your senator today and demand they pass the Credit Card Competition Act.

00:26:01.060 Paid for by the Merchants Payments Coalition, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.

00:26:05.620 www.merchantspaymentscoalition.com

00:26:08.560 They change your life.

00:26:10.300 Do people ever communicate with each other across distances non-verbally?

00:26:16.740 Yeah.

00:26:17.080 In fact, you know, one of the funny things about us is that we have a special adaptation in our eyes that allows us to communicate as a hunting party without alerting the thing that we're hunting.

00:26:30.540 No, I mean, out of sight.

00:26:32.840 I'm 500 miles from my spouse, and we have the same thought at the same moment.

00:26:39.200 Yeah, but I don't think it's supernatural.

00:26:42.620 How is that natural?

00:26:45.140 Well, I mean, if I work backwards from my own parallel experiences, my wife and I know each other very, very well.

00:26:54.600 She can detect if my pattern of communication is off.

00:27:05.000 And, you know, if she is triggered to think, huh, I would have expected to hear from him.

00:27:10.160 I didn't.

00:27:10.640 And I wonder what that's about.

00:27:14.100 She also knows a certain amount about, you know, what's been on my mind and, you know, where I may be heading.

00:27:22.580 And therefore, she may be able to deduce because she, you know, if we're talking about intuition, Heather's intuition about me has got to be pretty damn good.

00:27:30.980 Because she's had, you know, her entire adult life to build a model that's as accurate as annuities would be.

00:27:37.040 So her ability to figure out that there is some pattern there is second to none.

00:27:47.840 And it will not surprise me if very frequently she nails the analysis and we can be 500 miles or 1,000 miles apart.

00:27:54.660 And it feels like a communication across a very long distance when really it's a kind of a synchrony that allows her to extrapolate when something has departed from normal.

00:28:07.040 And I will say one other thing about this.

00:28:09.480 We have a very strange pattern as human beings.

00:28:12.560 When we meet, we say totally meaningless things.

00:28:18.260 You know, what's new?

00:28:19.880 Not much.

00:28:21.040 Right?

00:28:21.700 And I've thought a lot about why that would be.

00:28:23.880 It's not very expensive each time we do it.

00:28:26.200 But over a lifetime, you're putting a lot of effort into using a communication mechanism that can transmit very remarkable stuff.

00:28:34.920 And you're just broadcasting empty stuff.

00:28:38.260 A lot of wasted breath, yeah.

00:28:39.440 Except it's not wasted.

00:28:41.580 If I come through the door and I say, hey, honey, I know before I even see Heather what frame of mind she's in based on her response.

00:28:52.540 Even though the words may be the same always.

00:28:55.460 I can tell if she's frustrated, if she's elated.

00:28:59.260 I know what frame of mind she's in.

00:29:01.320 And my sense is that it makes sense when we meet somebody to go through a pro forma interaction that allows you to detect things like emotional state.

00:29:14.820 It's a profoundly important check.

00:29:21.480 And rather than say something special to the degree that it is standardized what those interactions contain, it makes it much easier to detect the part that's important, which is the tone, the cadence, all of those things.

00:29:36.360 How was your day?

00:29:37.420 Fine.

00:29:38.600 Exactly.

00:29:39.660 Yeah.

00:29:39.840 Exactly.

00:29:41.480 So, anyway, I would...

00:29:43.540 Can I just bring you back to the beginning, though?

00:29:45.200 Sure.

00:29:45.640 If you said that the principle of parsimony is usually true, like the simplest explanation is the likely explanation.

00:29:56.640 So, my explanation for the creation of all things is God, who is not created but only creates, created all things.

00:30:05.160 Pretty simple.

00:30:06.420 Your explanation is what?

00:30:08.140 Well, let's put it this way.

00:30:09.580 I've seen another version of this where you won't expect it.

00:30:15.100 The many universes theory of quantum mechanics.

00:30:21.640 Yep.

00:30:21.880 You know this?

00:30:22.580 Yep.

00:30:22.740 So, the basics are that in order to reconcile some of the oddities that quantum mechanics has discovered, we imagine that in every instant there is a universe spawned for every conceivable outgrowth.

00:30:40.400 And so, you know, if I pick up this pen, there's a universe in which I didn't and a universe in which I did, and those universes go on to do whatever they do, right?

00:30:48.920 But this is a spectacularly simple explanation, linguistically.

00:30:56.040 It is the opposite of simple.

00:30:57.280 It is the opposite of simple in terms of what it implies.

00:31:01.360 You're going to create a universe for every conceivable nuance of interaction that every creature, every pebble that rolled down a hill.

00:31:09.080 Well, you're creating universes at this rate.

00:31:11.720 That's not simple.

00:31:12.480 That's complex at a level that's beyond extreme.

00:31:17.280 And so, my sense, and, you know, again, I'm not arguing that this isn't a better way to live, but my sense is when you say the simplest explanation is a creator who wasn't created, yeah, linguistically, it doesn't get simpler than that.

00:31:31.880 It's a one sentence, you know, and you're done.

00:31:34.960 At the level of what it means, it's almost inconceivably, what does it mean for something capable of creating a universe not to have come into existence, right?

00:31:47.280 I can't even imagine what that means, right?

00:31:50.580 Well, it is inconceivable.

00:31:51.900 I mean, that's why you're the created, not the creator.

00:31:54.780 Right.

00:31:55.480 But, and again, I'm not hostile to this position.

00:31:58.960 Well, I don't think you are.

00:31:59.400 That's why I enjoy this.

00:31:59.880 But my point would be, the question of did the universe start with the creator is not one that you are likely to derive some practical value from spending your time on.

00:32:16.040 In fact, you could waste your entire life, make no progress, and be detained from all of the other things you might have done.

00:32:22.900 So, it would be useful for most humans throughout most of history to have had a simple explanation that simply allowed them to move on to questions where there was some profit to be made or peril to be avoided, right?

00:32:37.640 You want not to be stuck on questions where there's no potential value in your exploration.

00:32:44.480 And so, my sense is that that's a very elegant way of moving on to things that are actually important.

00:32:51.520 And that's why it's effectively an enduring answer to a question that every human being is likely to have at some point.

00:32:59.380 So, what's the other explanation?

00:33:01.380 I don't know.

00:33:02.440 I mean, where'd the universe come from?

00:33:03.800 I'm not even sure we can know.

00:33:05.240 Well, that's the religious position, too.

00:33:08.860 Right?

00:33:09.420 Well, and that's part of why I wanted to talk to you about this.

00:33:13.080 Yeah.

00:33:13.900 I do think that there will ultimately be a distinction between people who are faith first and people who are parsimony first.

00:33:25.440 And the distinction is the ordering of two things, right?

00:33:30.000 Did God create an evolving universe or did an evolving universe create God?

00:33:36.680 It's one or the other.

00:33:39.040 But my feeling is it's nothing beyond that.

00:33:43.860 We should be able to actually productively collaborate on everything else.

00:33:47.860 And then, you know, at some point in the evening, we can have that argument.

00:33:51.600 So, here's, I guess, the other kind of thematic problem I have with thinking about everything in terms of evolution.

00:34:00.540 Is that I don't think people are evolving.

00:34:03.960 Oh.

00:34:04.620 Human behavior.

00:34:05.740 I mean, look, the written record doesn't go very far.

00:34:07.700 The first legal code we have is Hammurabi's code.

00:34:10.140 It's just a few thousand years old.

00:34:11.880 But it's still a while.

00:34:13.560 Yep.

00:34:13.900 And a lot has happened in the ensuing thousands of years.

00:34:16.660 And, like, that's totally recognizable as a legal code to anyone who reads it.

00:34:20.240 Yep.

00:34:20.480 And, you know, people are just kind of the same as they have always been to the extent that we know how they have been.

00:34:28.740 Right.

00:34:31.540 No, not at all.

00:34:34.560 Really?

00:34:35.340 Yeah, yeah, not at all.

00:34:36.680 In what ways have people evolved?

00:34:38.260 Well, so this is part of where I'm so frustrated with my field.

00:34:42.460 Because the thing about evolution is Darwin nailed his part of the question.

00:34:51.860 We narrowed his answer to something that is too crude to be generally functional.

00:35:01.780 It works for certain things.

00:35:03.040 It fails to explain other things consistently.

00:35:06.540 And the closer you get to human beings, the worse a job it does.

00:35:11.300 Not because of anything Darwin got wrong.

00:35:13.520 He was probably, to his benefit, hobbled by what he didn't know.

00:35:18.740 Because he didn't know the molecular part of the story.

00:35:21.680 He was unconstrained by it, which forced him to speak in a general sense that turns out to be correct. 0.99

00:35:30.560 But what you need to understand in order to follow how this story explains human beings is that the underlying story of evolution, the early one, pre-human story, is about genes getting into the future.

00:35:50.780 That's what they do.

00:35:52.300 That's what all creatures are doing.

00:35:53.640 Every creature has the same purpose.

00:35:55.060 In creatures with meaningful culture, that is, creatures in which there's generational overlap and sociality enough for something to be transmitted outside of the genome, you get a second kind of evolution.

00:36:15.100 You have cultural evolution.

00:36:17.020 And in human beings, this has become the central element of the story.

00:36:25.060 Genes are very slow to adapt, much faster than we typically think.

00:36:30.480 But nonetheless, it takes a very long time for a genetic change to spread across the human population.

00:36:36.200 It takes no time at all for a cultural innovation to spread, for both better and worse.

00:36:41.700 I understand.

00:36:41.980 So, what I'm arguing is that the genome, our genomes, have offloaded the evolutionary work to the layer of culture.

00:36:53.360 And they've done that because culture can rapidly adapt.

00:36:58.040 Right.

00:36:58.420 That makes sense.

00:36:58.880 So, if you look at human beings and you expect to see a lot of evolution in the physical sense, you see some.

00:37:06.600 You see distinctions between populations, but most of them are superficial.

00:37:10.860 But you see radical divergence in cultural systems.

00:37:17.520 Those cultural systems are equally as adaptive as the genetic systems underneath.

00:37:21.980 So, people often draw a distinction between biology and culture.

00:37:26.160 That's a false dichotomy.

00:37:29.020 Biology or genes and culture are equally biological.

00:37:33.500 And the bitter pill that comes with the whole thing is culture is actually the genes solving a gene problem.

00:37:42.660 One that we as conscious beings with values shouldn't care about.

00:37:47.560 We are condemned, in some sense, to be playing out a battle between genes that is absurd once you see it.

00:37:57.360 It's not worthy of us.

00:38:00.620 So, yes, we are evolving radically.

00:38:03.480 The fact that, you know, if you go to Italy, you struggle to communicate is the result of two populations having diverged at a cultural level enough that you're functionally incompatible.

00:38:19.240 Right.

00:38:19.420 That's a lot of evolutionary change in a short period of time.

00:38:23.320 And you could say the same thing about the difference in belief systems.

00:38:30.160 Right.

00:38:30.480 The you've got effectively a phylogenetic story of evolution at the level of human cultures.

00:38:38.380 Right.

00:38:39.260 You know, for example, we have, you know, you have Judaism.

00:38:45.820 From it evolves Christianity. 0.98

00:38:48.660 Right.

00:38:49.440 Christianity, if in a phylogenetic sense, is the largest evolutionary branch of Judaism.

00:38:58.760 Right.

00:38:59.600 It is a competing branch with Islam and Hinduism.

00:39:06.340 You know, these are alternative structures.

00:39:09.380 And the implications for the behavior of the populations that subscribe to these different doctrines are as significant as species distinctions.

00:39:21.620 In other words, the belief system that you inherit outside the genome is it encodes how to be a human being relative to some niche.

00:39:35.620 Right.

00:39:36.280 A niche that we don't describe in those terms.

00:39:38.220 But we should.

00:39:40.220 If we want a complete, as simple as possible, story of evolution, understanding that culture alters the way evolution functions.

00:39:48.460 It does not alter the objective of evolution.

00:39:50.840 Right.

00:39:51.280 Is the way to do it.

00:39:52.200 So just to rewind a couple of minutes, you said that genetics determine culture?

00:39:59.300 No.

00:40:00.840 Genetics carve out the ability to transmit large packages of vital information about how to be outside of the genome.

00:40:12.580 In other words, you inherit your genes from your parents.

00:40:15.980 You inherit your culture mostly from your parents, but outside the genome.

00:40:21.880 After you're born, if your parents speak Italian, you will come to speak Italian.

00:40:27.360 If your parents speak Mandarin, you'll speak Mandarin. 0.90

00:40:30.180 So that package of adaptive information is being passed in parallel to the genes.

00:40:37.800 But again, it is unfortunately obligated to serve the ends that the genome is evolved to serve.

00:40:48.000 So you probably find yourself at about three in the morning turning over the deepest questions of life in your mind.

00:40:53.320 What is the meaning of our existence?

00:40:55.520 Is this country moving in the right direction?

00:40:57.160 And of course, why should I use a VPN?

00:41:00.540 That's got to be on the list.

00:41:02.640 And of course, the last question is super easy to answer.

00:41:05.960 VPNs are vital in the pursuit of freedom.

00:41:08.940 Why?

00:41:09.260 Because you're being spied on.

00:41:10.940 Your data is being collected by data brokers.

00:41:13.620 Your online activity is being tracked.

00:41:15.660 Every time you go online, someone's watching and all that information is being sold to who knows who.

00:41:21.360 Governments, scammers, companies who want to sell you stuff you don't want to buy.

00:41:26.100 No thanks.

00:41:27.160 So when you use a VPN, you regain your freedom because you regain your privacy.

00:41:31.580 There's none better than ExpressVPN.

00:41:34.060 ExpressVPN is an app that reroutes 100% of your online traffic through secure encrypted servers.

00:41:39.080 It scours the websites of data hawks who already have your information to get that information removed.

00:41:45.260 Because what you do online is only your business.

00:41:47.560 Privacy is a prerequisite for freedom.

00:41:49.060 You deserve to know that you're not being spied on and ExpressVPN gives you that insurance.

00:41:55.000 You get an extra four months for free of ExpressVPN when you use the link below.

00:41:59.780 You scan the QR code on the screen or you can go to expressvpn.com slash Tucker and you get four extra months of ExpressVPN.

00:42:07.420 ExpressVPN.com slash Tucker.

00:42:11.840 They speak of darkness and danger.

00:42:14.640 But totalitarian novels also give us hope, showing us how to defend our society from the horrors of tyranny.

00:42:22.240 In Hillsdale College's free online course, Totalitarian Novels, Hillsdale President Larry Arnn teaches us lessons from classic novels like George Orwell's 1984 that are as relevant today as ever.

00:42:35.620 Sign up now for Hillsdale College's free online course, Totalitarian Novels, at tuckerforhillsdale.com.

00:42:43.100 That's tuckerforhillsdale.com.

00:42:46.180 So underlying all of this is a question we don't need to get into this, but like, if there's no God, then how is there a moral code at all?

00:42:54.200 Like, why can we say that it's better to raise a child than to kill a child?

00:42:57.760 I still don't.

00:42:58.340 I've never understood that.

00:42:59.180 But let's just, for the sake of argument, let's just say we all agree that it's better to raise a child than to kill a child.

00:43:06.100 Yep.

00:43:06.680 And we've always agreed on that.

00:43:08.300 Yep.

00:43:09.320 From the beginning of record history.

00:43:11.000 So for whatever reason, we all think that.

00:43:16.420 There seems to be very little evidence that people are getting better.

00:43:19.860 And so the Christian perspective is that people are captive to sin, to the influence of supernatural evil forces on them, which I think is like everyone's experience, by the way.

00:43:33.180 You don't have to be a Christian to know that that's true.

00:43:35.600 And we're constantly fighting to keep those at bay.

00:43:40.000 But they reemerge.

00:43:42.000 And they serially reemerge.

00:43:45.120 Right?

00:43:45.940 Yes.

00:43:46.060 And there seems to be no evidence they're going to stop reemerging.

00:43:48.960 So, like, that's not evolution.

00:43:50.740 That's stasis.

00:43:51.960 Oh, no, no, no.

00:43:54.040 I mean, again, let's just work from the other perspective and see whether or not we arrive in the same place.

00:44:03.700 Morality, as far as I can tell, is synonymous with self-sacrifice.

00:44:12.420 Correct.

00:44:12.860 That which is moral is you bypassing an evolutionary opportunity.

00:44:18.960 Exactly.

00:44:19.460 Right.

00:44:20.260 So, why would you do that?

00:44:21.700 Why would evolution program you to bypass an evolutionary opportunity?

00:44:26.280 Well, the answer is because there are competing evolutionary puzzles.

00:44:30.540 So, the question of, you know, should you betray your spouse?

00:44:44.360 Right?

00:44:44.820 Obviously, evolutionarily, it's not hard to understand the argument in favor.

00:44:49.420 Right?

00:44:49.620 You might father a child, fathering children, passes on some genes.

00:44:53.940 We get why evolution might point you toward that.

00:44:56.140 On the other hand, from the point of view of the well-being of your family and your family's well-being has everything to do with how durable a position they hold in your community, how productive their lives are likely to be.

00:45:14.940 So, the delayed benefit of not betraying your spouse is substantial, but hard to convey.

00:45:23.760 Right?

00:45:24.180 So, the religious doctrine that tells you this is how you should be, and you may see reasons not to be this way, but you can't escape the consequences of them.

00:45:38.600 Those consequences will arrive.

00:45:40.800 Right?

00:45:41.020 Again, if we go back to the question of, you know, what happens in a community that's full of people betraying each other, while starvation might be one thing that happens.

00:45:51.100 You can describe that in terms of a God who's angry and disappointed with people, or you can describe that in game theoretic terms in which, you know, cascades of betrayal result in lack of coordination.

00:46:04.480 It amounts to the same thing.

00:46:05.800 Both are true.

00:46:06.940 But that's not, but my question was not, I agree with you completely.

00:46:11.600 Virtue produces rewards.

00:46:14.520 Yep.

00:46:14.640 I mean, I think that's right.

00:46:16.200 And you don't have to be a Christian or a theist to believe that.

00:46:19.880 My question is deeper.

00:46:21.520 Why do we all assume that life is better than death?

00:46:27.440 That kindness is better than cruelty.

00:46:29.100 That it's better to pass on your genes than to go extinct.

00:46:31.720 I mean, these are all moral judgments that seem impossible in the absence of a God.

00:46:37.100 Well, I don't think they're impossible.

00:46:38.440 I just think they're incredibly cumbersome.

00:46:40.420 Well, they're arbitrary.

00:46:41.220 Yeah.

00:46:42.460 Well, yeah.

00:46:43.220 I mean, you can't, you can say, well, I prefer one, but you can't say one is like absolutely better than the other.

00:46:48.280 Says who? 0.65

00:46:48.800 I think there's only one of them that's arbitrary.

00:46:51.580 I mean, we're way off in the weeds and all of your.

00:46:54.440 No, I think this is like central.

00:46:55.600 Okay.

00:46:55.840 Well, good.

00:46:56.460 But I'm glad you do.

00:46:58.900 I don't think there is a robust analytical argument for why being alive is superior to not being alive.

00:47:08.480 I think this is, and mind you, I am very committed to the idea that being alive is way better.

00:47:13.620 Yeah.

00:47:13.740 I'm intending to stay alive as long as possible and to help those I love do the same.

00:47:18.620 So it's not that I'm confused about this, but analytically speaking, what is it about life that's superior to not life?

00:47:27.340 Well, the answer is nothing, except you would expect a lot of creatures that are the product of a competition between those who were committed to living and those that weren't so committed to it.

00:47:37.460 You would expect an accumulation of bias where we would all inherit the same analytical perspective, even though it's not grounded in the physical reality of the universe.

00:47:54.100 So that one, the only point there is, I think that one is actually arbitrary, but once you agree that being alive is pretty great and beats the alternative and you're going to get an infinite amount of the alternative anyway, so you might as well preserve the one space of being alive that you're going to get, right?

00:48:17.180 Once you're there, well, then the answer is the rest of it follows, right?

00:48:21.740 Why should you be honorable?

00:48:28.500 Well, because actually it preserves your spot in the universe much better.

00:48:34.540 I get it.

00:48:35.000 I get it.

00:48:35.540 But then you're back to the practical analysis of it.

00:48:37.920 Right.

00:48:37.940 Well, this is…

00:48:39.760 But we can't elide past what you described as arbitrary because it's the root of everything.

00:48:45.340 Well, I agree.

00:48:45.920 It is.

00:48:46.180 Yeah.

00:48:46.340 And look, I love this confusion, right?

00:48:48.420 I think that being confused into thinking life is great, I mean, what else is there, right?

00:48:53.220 I'm all on board with it.

00:48:54.620 Yeah, it makes it difficult to…

00:48:56.280 I don't understand on what basis people make judgments about, say, murder if they don't believe that there's a higher power.

00:49:02.540 I just don't get that.

00:49:03.340 Well, again, I think the answer is actually implied in what you asked about the failure to evolve that you see in the present.

00:49:16.340 And I agree.

00:49:16.880 And I agree, in the present, it's pretty hard to make an argument that we are making some discernible kind of progress.

00:49:23.080 In fact, we're injuring ourselves at every turn as a result of what Heather and I have called hyper-novelty.

00:49:29.520 The rate of change is so high that one can't figure out…

00:49:32.580 Yeah, but the overarching pattern over time is one of a dawning of a kind of moral enlightenment.

00:49:49.180 It's not, as you point out, it does not prevent the alternatives from repeatedly reemerging, right?

00:49:56.780 But, I mean, let's take, for example…

00:49:58.560 But how can we even call it enlightenment?

00:50:00.060 Why is it not just our preference?

00:50:03.480 Let's take the story of Jesus.

00:50:06.740 Okay, the story of Jesus, if I understand it, and I'm no biblical scholar, but if I understand that story, the key elements of it, or at least several key elements of it, involve a broadening of the sense of self, right?

00:50:22.640 A broadening of the in-group.

00:50:24.960 This is what the story of the Good Samaritan tells us, right?

00:50:28.540 This is what the golden rule is.

00:50:31.420 This is, you know, love your enemy.

00:50:35.240 Now, those things are a radical increase in the inclusion of others into an in-group.

00:50:49.140 And the benefits of stabilizing a larger in-group are absolutely tremendous.

00:50:59.960 Now, imagine for a moment that Jesus had said these things in game-theoretic terms, and he had tried to convince people with whatever the equivalent of a whiteboard would have been of, you know, the reasons to broaden the in-group at this moment in history.

00:51:16.840 It's preposterous, right?

00:51:18.260 It's not a good argument.

00:51:19.440 Even if it's a true argument, nobody's going to get it.

00:51:21.560 Nobody's going to care, right?

00:51:24.440 So that's not how humans become enlightened.

00:51:28.820 Humans become enlightened because of the power of a narrative that causes them to modify their behavior so that they do function more effectively in light of all of the game-theoretic hazards that are always jeopardizing us.

00:51:47.300 Which then answers your other question, I think.

00:51:51.960 Why the bad patterns?

00:51:54.420 You know, if it's simply good to include others in your in-group, why don't we just simply evolve to default to that and never waver?

00:52:03.280 And the problem is that there's a competition between short-term gain and long-term gain.

00:52:11.300 Effectively, the upgrade in which you in-group more people is much better in the long run.

00:52:21.940 But in the short run, individuals who decide to take advantage of that may have some advantage inside of the group, right?

00:52:30.440 And so building a structure in which you can't get away with it increases the effectiveness of the moral point, right?

00:52:45.680 If you have everybody calculating that it's morally, you know, you should do the morally right thing if you are in a position to be observed.

00:52:52.500 And if you're not in a position to be observed, then you should do whatever is most profitable, right?

00:52:59.140 Civilization breaks down.

00:53:01.240 If, on the other hand, you take a narrative and you say, nobody ever gets away with anything.

00:53:09.520 It's being observed.

00:53:11.400 It's being recorded.

00:53:13.260 And it may be profitable in the short run, but there's an awful lot of punishment that will come later, right?

00:53:21.000 Frankly, I don't even know if the sentence I just said is a religious narrative or a translation of game theory.

00:53:27.960 It's the same thing.

00:53:29.580 Right.

00:53:29.780 And I would say that everything you're saying, which is complex, quite, is an argument for a creator.

00:53:37.220 Because the design is so brilliant, as you're describing it, and the end result, of course, is like the perpetuation of the species, of all species, that, like, that's an accident?

00:53:51.100 Like, because you're describing a system with intent.

00:53:54.920 And that intent comes from where?

00:53:56.740 You're describing a system with a goal.

00:53:58.620 I am describing a system with a goal, not with intent.

00:54:01.400 And, yeah, the system has a goal.

00:54:05.020 The goal is the intent, right?

00:54:06.940 The intent is to achieve the goal.

00:54:09.440 Well, that's, I mean, that is the sticking point.

00:54:12.720 I mean, this doesn't make any sense.

00:54:14.940 No, no, it makes a lot of sense.

00:54:16.960 It doesn't make any sense without, I don't want to use the phrase intelligent design, but, like.

00:54:21.740 Well, let's take a parallel example.

00:54:24.400 Okay.

00:54:24.760 We can trip over the parallel example.

00:54:26.540 I just think you've made an amazing case for God, and I don't know if you thought of yourself as an evangelist, but you just convinced me.

00:54:32.800 I've made a very compelling case for a belief in God.

00:54:37.920 Well, but what's the other explanation?

00:54:41.000 Well, that's just the thing, is the other explanation is that there are processes that function.

00:54:50.760 Let's take two examples, okay?

00:54:52.540 If we talk about the behavior of a seedling, right?

00:55:00.520 A seed is planted, it breaks open, it germinates, and the seedling rises against gravity and breaks the surface, and it puts out its two little solar panels.

00:55:14.300 And at that point, it bends towards the sun.

00:55:18.140 And you could say, what is the other explanation for that other than a desire to reach the sunlight?

00:55:30.140 And the answer is, actually, in this case, we know the mechanism, and it's amazing.

00:55:35.220 Yeah, yeah, no, I agree.

00:55:36.080 But it's not desire.

00:55:38.220 But it expresses a value, though.

00:55:39.960 And the value is life is better than death.

00:55:42.300 It expresses.

00:55:43.160 To exist is better than not to.

00:55:44.420 Yes, it expresses an objective, but not a desire.

00:55:52.120 I'm not sure.

00:55:53.540 I mean, it's a semantic question.

00:55:54.800 I don't know.

00:55:55.140 I see a huge difference between the two, but.

00:55:57.400 But that's exactly my point.

00:55:59.560 Is what I'm, I'm not trying to compel people that the answer that I think I can see is right for them.

00:56:09.500 I'm trying to convince people that the answer I think I see is actually not dogged by some paradox that makes it unviable.

00:56:21.000 It's too cumbersome to live by it.

00:56:23.480 But it's, you know, just like the example of the baseball game.

00:56:27.780 The baseball game happens.

00:56:29.180 It's made of atoms and energy.

00:56:32.640 And you could imagine commentators sitting there describing the energy and the material in, you know, the object.

00:56:42.200 And it would be the worst, most cumbersome commentary at a sports event conceivable.

00:56:47.140 But it wouldn't really tell you anything useful.

00:56:49.000 Right.

00:56:49.320 That's the point.

00:56:50.020 Right.

00:56:50.180 So what I see by your description is an entire universe screaming at the top of its collective lungs, life is better than death.

00:56:59.740 No, no.

00:57:00.340 Only the living stuff thinks that.

00:57:03.180 Well, I mean, there's, I don't, I'm not exactly sure we can measure or define living as precisely as we think we can.

00:57:11.340 But, but whatever.

00:57:13.100 I mean.

00:57:13.440 And, yeah, look, but, but in general, observe living, things that we describe as living that we can observe are all moving in the same direction.

00:57:25.180 And the message, being a message guy, I can discern this, life is better than death.

00:57:31.020 Yeah, I agree.

00:57:33.140 Another example.

00:57:34.100 Okay, let us agree that love is a profoundly, I'm struggling for words even good enough to describe it, is a profoundly transformative property of life that is as close to a North Star as a human being can have.

00:57:58.620 And I don't mean just romantic love, familial love, love of country, all of these things.

00:58:05.000 Love is this tremendously powerful force.

00:58:11.080 Now let us say, there's actually a lot of neurochemistry that we can describe relative to love.

00:58:21.160 Which story do I want people living by?

00:58:23.320 Oh, definitely the narrative one in which you just simply surrender to the power of this thing and you allow it to be a guide.

00:58:31.620 That's definitely, I don't want to live amongst people who view love as just a bunch of chemical reactions, yada, yada, yada, right?

00:58:37.600 That's a horrifying dystopia.

00:58:39.640 But it doesn't make it untrue that love is mediated through neurochemistry.

00:58:45.300 Yeah, why can't both be true?

00:58:46.660 That doesn't.

00:58:46.900 They are.

00:58:47.280 That's exactly my point.

00:58:48.580 That's exactly my point.

00:58:49.560 Right.

00:58:49.720 They are both true.

00:58:50.680 But only one describes the purpose of it, the origin of it.

00:58:55.460 Only one is useful for a living.

00:59:00.500 No, but I'm saying the theist believes he understands why this is happening.

00:59:06.160 Right.

00:59:07.200 The atheist has no idea. 0.99

00:59:09.520 Well, in a sense.

00:59:11.580 So really that's the question.

00:59:12.900 It's not a question of how things happen.

00:59:15.040 It's a question of why they happen.

00:59:16.080 Well, I'm trying to talk to two camps in a sense.

00:59:20.860 And maybe this will be more of a theme of our discussion on other topics here.

00:59:24.400 But there's a kind of nuance that has become impossible.

00:59:28.600 And I'm trying to make a point to the atheists about what they've failed at and why they're not reaching lots of people and why they're losing ground. 0.87

00:59:38.120 And I'm also trying to make a point to the theological folks about Darwinism and about the utility of figuring out how to reconcile these things rather than view them as as competing explanations.

00:59:57.100 Hey, it's Tucker Carlson.

00:59:58.780 You may have noticed that the companies whose products you buy tend to kind of hate you.

01:00:02.280 They're controlled by massive multinational corporations and they have all kinds of weird agendas that you're supporting when you buy their products.

01:00:09.680 We didn't realize that nicotine pouches, which we've used for years, were in this category.

01:00:14.780 We just want a nicotine pouch.

01:00:16.060 And then they lecture you and take the money you give them to support things that you hate.

01:00:20.440 So we decide we're going to make our own.

01:00:21.920 And we did.

01:00:22.560 And it is, we can say, not bragging here, just stating fact, the single best nicotine pouch in the world.

01:00:29.240 It's called ALP.

01:00:30.200 And it comes in all kinds of excellent flavors.

01:00:33.160 Winter green, tropical fruit, chilled mint, refreshing, chill, sweet nectar, and a bunch of others that we're rolling out.

01:00:39.820 By the way, there are 20 per 10, not 15 like some of our competitors will not be named.

01:00:44.760 Zen.

01:00:45.360 And they're in 3, 6, and 9 milligrams.

01:00:48.140 It is the single best nicotine pouch ever made.

01:00:50.880 Go to alppouch.com.

01:00:52.980 You will not regret it.

01:00:57.420 There's not another person I know who I could have a conversation on this topic about in the way that we're doing.

01:01:03.920 And I just want to say, I think you're one of the most open-minded in a good way people I've ever met.

01:01:10.560 Thank you.

01:01:11.000 And people can't, you know, the theist and the atheist can have a kind of scripted dance, but it's hard for them to have like a real conversation.

01:01:22.300 And I feel like we are, and so I'm grateful for that.

01:01:24.280 And I was just thinking, do you know who Sam Harris is?

01:01:28.180 Yeah, I do know Sam.

01:01:29.020 And I think he seems smart, and I think he clearly is smart.

01:01:33.460 But there's something, I watched a video, I don't know him really, but I saw a video of him once taking up the atheist cause.

01:01:39.820 And it's not up to me to like help the atheists sell their program, because I disagree with it. 1.00

01:01:44.240 But I remember thinking, man, if I was an atheist, I'd be very upset that Sam Harris was carrying my atheist water.

01:01:50.760 Because I felt like he was a very bad, very bad spokesman for his cause.

01:01:59.420 Yes, and if I haven't said it before, I don't call myself an atheist in large measure because I think the spokespeople for atheism have done such a terrible disservice to the idea of science,

01:02:18.920 largely by demonizing people's religious faith, rather than taking it as the important set of questions that it obviously is.

01:02:29.120 So, yeah, Sam was a friend of mine.

01:02:35.120 He became very disturbed during COVID about my stance as a COVID dissident.

01:02:45.880 And refused to talk to me about it, frankly.

01:02:50.980 I invited him multiple times, and he refused to have the conversation.

01:02:56.480 But he, I think, must have earnestly believed that my position was putting people in danger, and he viewed it as a moral failing.

01:03:10.160 He had several podcasts on the subject.

01:03:13.260 He accused me of being out of my depth, even though I'm an evolutionary biologist, and evolution is highly relevant to all of the topics included in COVID.

01:03:26.420 Is he a biologist?

01:03:28.480 Is he a biologist?

01:03:29.860 In a technical sense, yes, he is a neurobiologist who, for his dissertation work, which I think is all of his work, studied effectively the same question that he had been an author about, about the dangers of extreme Islamism.

01:03:53.860 And he effectively did a dissertation on the supposed neurobiological facts of people in this mindset.

01:04:06.640 So, Islam. 0.55

01:04:08.100 Yeah.

01:04:08.660 Now, I don't mean to dismiss that.

01:04:11.380 I can say I have doubts about the methodology that he used.

01:04:18.280 He depended on something called fMRI, functional MRI scanning, which, in theory, allows you to see the activity of different regions of the brain when asked to think certain thoughts or do certain tasks.

01:04:34.900 But there's a lot of difficulty in calibrating fMRI because you need to know what the baseline activity of the brain is in order to subtract out all of the activity that isn't relevant.

01:04:47.580 So, in any case, we can put that aside and just say I'm not certain that what his empirical work involved was robust.

01:04:58.300 But even, let's say it is, he is not, broadly speaking, trained as a biologist in any way that I can see.

01:05:06.500 And so, he, to his credit, said that he was out of his depth talking about issues of biology related to vaccines, epidemiology, all of the relevant pieces of biological science.

01:05:24.940 But then, he argued that I was also out of my depth, which, you know, I'm not a specialist in terms of vaccines, immunology, epidemiology, but evolution is relevant to all of those things.

01:05:37.200 And I'm perfectly capable of teaching myself the parts that I didn't know when COVID began.

01:05:43.100 And, anyway, he portrayed me as incapable.

01:05:48.800 And when I had expert guests, people like Pierre Coury and Robert Malone on my channel to talk about these things, unarguable experts, people with fantastic credentials, he literally dismissed them as possibly schizophrenic, that that would be an explanation for their dissident status.

01:06:10.360 Oh, no.

01:06:10.620 It was pretty rotten and...

01:06:13.260 Rather than grappling with what they said.

01:06:16.500 Right.

01:06:16.820 It would have been tremendously productive for us to have the argument.

01:06:22.080 People could then have evaluated for themselves instead of having him lob grenades from afar and, you know, play to his audience.

01:06:30.280 But, in any case, I think what has happened to Sam is tragic.

01:06:35.960 And it's a cautionary tale of some kind.

01:06:40.860 I think he effectively has been convinced by something of the correctness of his position.

01:06:52.900 And, frankly, his adherence to it is obviously religious in some sense, which is ironic for...

01:07:01.360 And his anger seems to be not at religion necessarily, but at Islam. 0.95

01:07:05.240 He's mad about Islam. 0.98

01:07:06.640 He's mad about Islam and he's un-nuanced about it. 0.97

01:07:09.520 Now, I do think he is correct in one regard about radical Islam and the danger of it. 1.00

01:07:19.660 But I think it has blinded him to a larger story in which Islam is an ancient tradition that has, in many places, attempted to modernize.

01:07:34.720 Some of those attempts have been more successful than others.

01:07:38.360 But I don't think, you know, the way he portrays it, it's simply a, you know, a defect written to the Quran that the world needs to wake up to rather than Islam is a population or a set of populations that, like the rest of us, are in an evolutionary process.

01:08:00.160 And, you know, there's a lot of nuance to be had about what the way to address radical Islam is and how to encourage any such tradition to join what I would call the cosmopolitan West.

01:08:19.620 Sounds like he's making a political point.

01:08:22.140 I don't know what kind of a point it is.

01:08:24.080 Well, it's all very interesting that a lot of these issues, which would seem to have nothing to do with COVID, do come back to COVID and to the Middle East, by the way.

01:08:36.740 Yes.

01:08:37.060 And to your earlier point about the dysfunction of our discussion, which I argued is the result of more or less a systematic attack on nuance on any of these charged topics,

01:08:53.060 where effectively there's a discussion to be had and often two extreme fringes agree to drive out the nuanced discussion and to force you to pick a team.

01:09:10.460 I feel like I'm watching that right now.

01:09:14.240 On which topic?

01:09:15.840 On the Middle East.

01:09:16.840 Just as someone who, I mean, you know, we all flatter ourselves.

01:09:20.760 I probably flatter myself more than most.

01:09:23.000 But if you were to x-ray my heart, you would find someone who sincerely believes he's got moderate, humane positions on these topics.

01:09:30.960 Not really against anybody.

01:09:33.600 Actually, I know both sides personally.

01:09:37.700 You know, broadly speaking, personally.

01:09:39.820 And, like, I kind of see their point on both sides.

01:09:42.840 And, like, I just want less violence, I guess.

01:09:45.940 That's sort of, that's how I understand my issue.

01:09:48.680 I mean, my position on these issues.

01:09:50.900 And I definitely don't want the United States to be dragged into any of this craziness.

01:09:56.580 I can't get that message out.

01:09:59.020 It's like.

01:09:59.720 Yeah.

01:10:00.300 It's not allowed.

01:10:01.760 No.

01:10:02.720 I mean, maybe people think that's an extreme position.

01:10:05.600 That is my sincere, as God watches, that's my position.

01:10:09.420 So, I just try to avoid it if I can.

01:10:12.540 Unfortunately, they're just pushing.

01:10:15.400 The Republicans in the Senate, particularly, are pushing us toward war with Iran.

01:10:18.580 So, I feel like I can't not talk about it.

01:10:20.880 But you tell me your views.

01:10:23.600 I mean, are you following this stuff?

01:10:24.820 Yes, I am following it.

01:10:26.420 And I'm, of course, like everybody else, I have lots of trepidations about even wading into the discussion.

01:10:33.340 Because I know what happens as soon as you do.

01:10:35.840 Which is, there's a very low quality thought that people who have already picked a camp have.

01:10:45.740 And the thought is, I'm going to listen to what this person says.

01:10:49.820 And if it matches what I believe, then I'm going to embrace it.

01:10:54.480 And if it doesn't match what I believe, I'm going to assume it's on the other side.

01:10:58.340 And so, the reason that you can't have the conversation in the middle is that both sides see you as the enemy.

01:11:03.760 Which is, you know, the worst of all possible worlds from the point of view of just living your life.

01:11:08.280 However, I do think that this topic is actually a pretty good test case of why it is important, in spite of the difficulty of thinking evolutionarily, to engage the world with that toolkit at least available.

01:11:25.360 Because, as an evolutionary biologist who has been fascinated by, often horrified by, the story of human history, I think there's something playing out in the Middle East that is biological.

01:11:42.640 And that until we grapple with it, we're in danger of being, for example, dragged into war with Iran, which will be a terrible catastrophe for all of humanity. 0.99

01:11:55.360 So, maybe I should make that case.

01:11:59.280 I hope you will.

01:11:59.940 And unfortunately, I will try to use as little jargon and as few terms of art as I can manage, but there is a little bit that's necessary.

01:12:11.300 I believe the story that is playing out in the Middle East is one of what I call lineage.

01:12:17.860 Here's where things get possibly a bit technical.

01:12:26.020 In my field, we do not typically talk about lineages in the context of, let's say, humans.

01:12:37.720 Typically, there are two camps in biology.

01:12:42.520 There are the kin selectionists who believe in the importance of shared genes in terms of predisposing people to collaborate.

01:12:49.680 And then there are the group selectionists who believe that altruism provides such a powerful advantage to people who put those things aside that actually it should dominate our discussion. 0.98

01:13:03.160 And these two groups both view each other as foolish. 0.87

01:13:06.200 I think they're both wrong for different reasons. 0.82

01:13:08.080 And that the correct way to understand humans and their evolution involves two important realizations.

01:13:17.460 One, that the kin selectionists are right about the importance of genes in predisposing people to cooperate with each other.

01:13:25.960 But they do not understand that you can extrapolate well beyond named kin, right?

01:13:33.000 Kin selection doesn't stop just because you lose track of your fifth cousin.

01:13:37.740 That a population of people that can detect that they are closely related has reason to collaborate, genetic reason, even if they can't specify their degree of relatedness to each other.

01:13:50.060 And that this has a lot to do with the way history has unfolded.

01:13:56.340 That up until very recently, most history at the scale that we study it is a process of lineage against lineage, violence, and displacement.

01:14:09.640 That populations displace each other from the earth because that's the way to accomplish the evolutionary goal.

01:14:17.400 It's the same sort of drive as causes the sapling to reach for the sun.

01:14:23.320 Right.

01:14:24.100 Now, in human beings, we have a choice.

01:14:27.800 That's not the only basis.

01:14:30.820 That's not the only mechanism of competition that we can use.

01:14:33.900 And in fact, the West, the modern West, is built on a different basis for collaboration.

01:14:44.880 It's based on reciprocity.

01:14:46.820 And the idea is, in the West, we agree to put our lineage-level origins aside and to collaborate with other people because they have something valuable to bring to the table.

01:15:01.800 And I won't go too deep into it.

01:15:05.280 But I would argue that the founding fathers of the U.S. almost accidentally invented this modern West because they were trying to get the colonists to confederate.

01:15:16.640 And they needed to level the playing field sufficiently that the colonists had their fears put to rest enough that they were willing to sign.

01:15:25.040 Right.

01:15:25.380 So in leveling the playing field, they came up with what I think is the magic formula for how human beings are to get along.

01:15:33.480 And it's not a question of putting competition aside, but it's a willingness to agree that competition should not involve combat.

01:15:42.480 That it should involve the innovation and the production of superior ways of being and that those different ways of being can compete with each other in a nonviolent fashion, which is simply better.

01:15:58.920 It's fairer, it's fairer, it's safer, it's much more likely to leave the human population here a thousand years from now. 0.81

01:16:08.300 And so to get back to the Middle East, we are caught in a tension between these two modes of collaboration.

01:16:19.360 You've got the ancient mode, which involves lineage against lineage violence, in which, you know, you can find this in the Old Testament.

01:16:29.740 You can find it in the Quran, right?

01:16:32.060 It's written in there and the rules of war and combat and how you were to view the enemy, their out group.

01:16:38.300 And you are to view them that way and, you know, effectively, they are treated as other.

01:16:47.980 Or you can have a collaborative modality and you see these two threads competing, in my opinion, inside the state of Israel.

01:17:00.900 So really you're saying it's Old Testament versus New Testament.

01:17:04.520 I am.

01:17:05.300 Because the New Testament is universalist.

01:17:06.800 And Jesus says this again and again, I'm here for everybody.

01:17:10.580 It doesn't matter what your bloodline is.

01:17:12.700 I'm here for everybody.

01:17:13.960 And I'm also opposed to violence.

01:17:15.460 And I'm going to show you that I'm opposed to violence because when one of the disciples tries to use a sword against the guy who's arresting him to torture him to death, Jesus scolds the disciple for using violence even then.

01:17:24.640 So like those are rat, one is western, one is eastern, I would, I mean, or whatever, however you want to, whatever you want to describe those two hemispheres as being, but they're, those are the two hemispheres and it's like, it's in the same book.

01:17:37.240 Right. Now, notice what just happened.

01:17:41.300 I just described this to you in what I understand to be rigorous game theoretic biological terms, dry, dull, and boring.

01:17:51.560 And you came back with the obvious rejoinder that actually, no, we have a narrative.

01:17:59.240 We've actually got a name and a location and a description of this upgrade.

01:18:03.200 And whether or not, you know, you think that God inspired the writing of those two stories, they're still two different stories.

01:18:13.080 I think they're the same story.

01:18:14.900 I think one of them is actually elegant enough that you could convey it to somebody else.

01:18:20.160 And the other one is arcane and difficult.

01:18:22.920 No, but I mean the Old and New Testaments.

01:18:24.820 Oh, right. Those two stories.

01:18:25.760 And they, and I know that there's a, like, I'm no theologian, but there's this effort to pretend they're the same story, but they're, they're completely different stories.

01:18:34.560 Having read them, I could just say as a close reader of everything I read, those are very different stories.

01:18:40.140 Oh, they're very different stories.

01:18:42.760 They do have a relationship to each other.

01:18:45.100 Of course.

01:18:45.840 Of course.

01:18:46.340 But even the way they are narratively packaged is fascinating.

01:18:51.320 Yes.

01:18:51.660 Right.

01:18:51.880 You know, you've got a father-son relationship between these two ways of viewing human interaction.

01:19:01.720 The father and the son don't have the identical perspective.

01:19:06.040 As fathers and sons don't.

01:19:08.320 Right.

01:19:08.520 So even the way the story is built is it is constructed in a way to be intuitive to people who have observed family dynamics.

01:19:18.420 But the powerful thing here, or one of them, is it's not like the state of Israel, about which I am not claiming to be an expert, but I can observe it.

01:19:30.640 The state of Israel is caught between these two modes.

01:19:37.280 It's, it's not a simple puzzle.

01:19:41.780 I mean, for one thing, you know, the state of Israel is, even though it's like, okay, Jews finally have a homeland, right?

01:19:51.420 On the other hand, look where that homeland is.

01:19:53.360 It's like, it's like a ghetto in, you know, a neighborhood of others.

01:20:00.180 Yes.

01:20:00.480 So that's a dangerous position to be in.

01:20:03.260 From day one.

01:20:04.260 And anti-Semitism is a recurrent fact of history.

01:20:07.240 So you can imagine that it structures the mindset of people, even in a long period of peace.

01:20:12.960 There's always the question of, well, when is that bad pattern going to return?

01:20:15.840 So you can understand that, you can understand a hardline position that is not so interested in hearing about, you know, peace, love, and understanding, because it thinks that the realities of a world in which Jews are constantly being displaced, or which the tendency to displace them reemerges recurrently.

01:20:42.720 Right.

01:20:42.800 You can imagine that hardline position.

01:20:45.600 I get the Israeli hardline position.

01:20:47.420 Yeah.

01:20:47.840 I understand it as well.

01:20:49.300 The problem is that the world needs the upgrade.

01:20:57.400 If we continue to play that lineage against lineage violence game as a planet, there's not going to be anything left.

01:21:05.180 We have, our weaponry is too powerful.

01:21:06.980 So not with the technology you can't do.

01:21:09.240 Not with the technology, not with the population as large as it is, not with our level of interconnectedness.

01:21:14.800 So the question is, are we going to figure out how to get everybody to that upgrade?

01:21:22.260 And that doesn't just mean the state of Israel.

01:21:24.220 It obviously means Islam as well.

01:21:26.760 Right.

01:21:27.360 I'm not claiming that that's easy or even that it's conceivable.

01:21:33.280 Maybe it's impossible.

01:21:34.140 And maybe that's the story of what's going to happen to humanity.

01:21:37.160 But to the extent that it is possible, I think it has to be our focus.

01:21:43.200 And if we allow neocons, hardliners, to drag us, and by us, I mean the U.S. into a war with Iran, then we are effectively agreeing to step back into the Old Testament rules, which will be fatal for humanity.

01:22:08.420 So this is a conversation that has to take place in a middle ground that is not allowed to exist.

01:22:15.820 Like I said before, everybody on both sides of the discussion will hear what I've just said as not in alignment with their perspective and will view it.

01:22:24.680 I don't understand, though, why that's – I mean I'm just – you told me something fascinating when we had lunch this fall.

01:22:33.280 And you said that the medical freedom movement, the movement that arose in the wake of COVID to assess like what was that and how could we not do that again, totally reasonable, was getting blown up from the inside over Israel.

01:22:46.500 And I remember saying to you, what does Israel have to do with it?

01:22:50.880 I feel the same way about what's happening right now.

01:22:53.260 It's like, okay, people have views on Israel.

01:22:55.660 Okay, great.

01:22:56.620 But why is that the issue that I think is really fracturing Trump's coalition?

01:23:03.560 I mean I just see it every single day.

01:23:05.440 Everyone's more upset about that than anything going on in the United States.

01:23:09.400 Like it almost – it feels like sabotage.

01:23:12.680 Maybe it's organic.

01:23:13.520 Like what are we watching here?

01:23:15.260 Yeah, I don't think we know.

01:23:16.080 I mean –

01:23:16.840 I don't know.

01:23:17.580 I would be shocked if there was no sabotage element.

01:23:22.140 I agree.

01:23:22.800 If folks weren't trying to disrupt the nuanced conversation because they have an objective and they want us to get to it.

01:23:28.260 But I don't know what fraction of the problem is that.

01:23:31.260 It could be small.

01:23:31.940 It could be large.

01:23:33.840 But it doesn't – if you had asked me five years ago what will be like the most passionate debate in the United States at a moment where we're probably in recession and have more homeless people than ever.

01:23:45.540 Suicide rates up, life expectancy, all these problems, debt overhang that is going to crush us.

01:23:51.740 What's going to be the issue that people are going to be the maddest about in a faraway Middle Eastern country with 10 million people?

01:23:58.200 Like really?

01:23:59.200 I don't get that at all.

01:24:00.800 Well, I wonder.

01:24:03.500 There are obviously – so obviously I'm Jewish.

01:24:07.580 But let me just say I'm not Israeli.

01:24:13.920 I'm American and –

01:24:16.460 I love things start this sentence.

01:24:17.940 Obviously I'm Jewish.

01:24:19.320 Well, I mean my name makes that pretty clear for anybody who knows how to read the tea leaves.

01:24:23.920 But nonetheless, you know, my position is resolutely America first. 0.58

01:24:32.540 Well, yeah.

01:24:33.480 Okay?

01:24:34.180 Because I'm an American and it's not that I – you know, it's – I'm glad that there is a state of Israel.

01:24:41.460 Yeah.

01:24:41.760 I wish it well.

01:24:42.980 But our primary responsibility as Americans has to be to America.

01:24:47.380 The lessons of the Iraq war, you know, I think they were clear enough going into it.

01:25:01.620 We got dragged into a conflict that we shouldn't have been involved in.

01:25:04.900 And the cost to the United States was astronomical.

01:25:09.380 The cost to Iraq even more spectacular. 0.76

01:25:13.800 Exactly.

01:25:14.540 So my sense is –

01:25:15.720 Thank you for saying that.

01:25:16.280 I feel like you are the only people who remember this and it just happened.

01:25:20.040 I can't believe the degree to which we've forgotten all of this.

01:25:22.100 I agree.

01:25:22.760 And the degree to which in some sense we are – this is like a neocon hangover that we can't tell is a neocon hangover because the cast of characters has largely changed.

01:25:36.580 But the perspective is very similar, right?

01:25:40.040 This looks like, you know, as I said very shortly after October 7th, there was a plan.

01:25:49.860 It involved a series of wars in the Middle East.

01:25:54.100 Iran was on the list.

01:25:55.760 We never got to Iran because the Iraq war discredited the advocates for the war with Iran.

01:26:02.300 And it made Iran stronger, by the way. 0.80

01:26:04.660 Of course.

01:26:05.800 And now it's back on the table.

01:26:09.020 If evolution is real, how come nobody ever learns anything?

01:26:13.360 Well, I'm just – I'm totally kidding.

01:26:14.720 I'm totally kidding.

01:26:15.620 We don't need to go back into that.

01:26:16.800 But like the resistance of people to learn obvious lessons just like blows me away.

01:26:20.920 Well, let us talk for a second about the predicament in the Middle East from abstract terms.

01:26:31.180 Yeah.

01:26:31.440 Let's imagine for a second that there was no Western alternative.

01:26:37.180 That technology had developed as it did, but that basically you had lineage against lineage

01:26:45.340 violence as the key mode of progress for different populations.

01:26:53.860 You can easily imagine people on either side of the divide between Jews and Muslims concluding

01:27:02.260 both populations aren't going to be here in 500 years, right?

01:27:08.120 And having thought that, then the question is, evolutionarily, what is the right approach

01:27:19.320 from within one of these populations?

01:27:21.880 And the answer is all kinds of things become relevant.

01:27:28.920 I guess I'm dancing around an issue because I know how explosive it is to say it out loud.

01:27:35.200 But let's take the idea of a suicide bomber.

01:27:38.120 A suicide bomber seems confused to a Western mindset, right?

01:27:47.380 Why would a person agree to cease to exist to harm an enemy, the potential victory over

01:27:55.480 which they won't even be aware of, right?

01:27:58.140 And you can tell stories about belief in the afterlife.

01:28:00.940 But if you accept my version of the way evolution works, then those stories have to be a pretty

01:28:06.160 good match for some actual advantage.

01:28:08.160 They can't be fairy tales.

01:28:09.920 They have to actually be metaphors for something real.

01:28:13.540 So in the case that you have two populations that correctly understand that they won't both

01:28:19.100 be coexisting in the same piece of territory, one of them will have displaced the other sooner

01:28:25.260 or later.

01:28:25.940 Then the answer is there's no level of evolutionary success that you can have within a population

01:28:32.880 that matters if the population is going to go extinct.

01:28:36.560 So it would view things in very stark terms.

01:28:40.580 And investments in increasing the likelihood that it is your population and not the competing

01:28:46.180 population that ends up inheriting this territory, that would become the dominant thought.

01:28:53.100 And it makes all kinds of behavior thinkable that would otherwise seem preposterous.

01:28:59.460 I think it makes suicide bombing comprehensible, for example.

01:29:05.020 Okay, now let's rerun the story.

01:29:07.540 You've got two sides that have inherited a it's us or them mentality over a piece of habitat

01:29:15.920 that isn't getting any more fertile.

01:29:18.600 And then you have an alternative mode.

01:29:22.460 The alternative mode is to sign up for the new way of producing wealth that actually forces

01:29:34.780 the weaponry to be shelved and coexistence to occur.

01:29:39.020 And hopefully that coexistence then becomes the ability to collaborate, which unthinkable as

01:29:46.180 that may be at the moment, isn't really all that unthinkable.

01:29:49.000 And we've seen plenty of hints of it in the Middle East in recent times.

01:29:54.240 But, you know, you can look at the ability of Jews to collaborate with Germans now.

01:29:59.780 You know, World War II isn't so long ago.

01:30:02.340 The Holocaust. 0.82

01:30:03.160 And so, people can put aside this.

01:30:07.940 There's tons of Jewish businessmen in the Gulf.

01:30:13.280 Right.

01:30:13.960 You know, collaborating with Muslim businessmen.

01:30:16.560 Of course.

01:30:17.160 Yeah.

01:30:17.340 So, the upshot is, by being told that there are only two sides, you're either with Israel 0.92

01:30:26.320 or against it.

01:30:27.140 And with Israel means on board for what's going on in Gaza. 0.86

01:30:31.760 And with Israel means ready to attack Iran. 0.82

01:30:36.940 Right.

01:30:37.460 By being forced into that category, we are missing the possibility that actually what should

01:30:43.520 be happening right now is that America isn't always good at being part of the West.

01:30:52.420 The West is an ideal.

01:30:53.780 Sometimes we live up to it.

01:30:54.820 Yeah.

01:30:54.980 Sometimes we don't.

01:30:55.880 But the right thing to happen at the moment, I believe, is for the West to try to bail the

01:31:05.240 Middle East out of this us-or-them dynamic, to lead the way into this stable coexistence

01:31:14.160 and ability to collaborate that's better for all of us.

01:31:17.900 Because not only is the upside very positive, but it avoids the massive downside of war in

01:31:26.120 the Middle East dragging the entire world back into the Old Testament and the Quran and lineage 1.00

01:31:31.140 against lineage violence, which I really think ought to be our top priority. 0.97

01:31:34.880 I agree completely.

01:31:37.180 Killing people for what their ancestors did, I mean, that couldn't be more anti-Christian. 1.00

01:31:42.240 It couldn't be more unreasonable. 0.99

01:31:44.380 Everything about it, I despise.

01:31:45.940 Because I'm just fascinated by the dominance of this conversation in American politics.

01:31:51.380 Like, what- I mean, part of it's real.

01:31:53.180 Like, we're moving toward war with Iran. 0.79

01:31:55.020 That's why- the only reason I'm involved in it is because of that.

01:31:57.300 It's the only reason.

01:31:58.600 And so you kind of have to respond to it, right?

01:32:01.100 Unless you want your country to go to war yet again.

01:32:03.880 But it's more than that.

01:32:05.160 It's like, who- it does feel like this is being pushed on us.

01:32:10.780 Like, the race stuff was pushed on us.

01:32:12.580 And, well, okay, let's-

01:32:16.040 Am I being paranoid?

01:32:17.540 No.

01:32:18.540 Like I said, I think there's some element of organized propaganda that pushes us in a direction.

01:32:29.680 On the other hand, I think, in part, the reason that this issue seems to derange every conversation, every coalition, is that Jews are infused through all of the activities of civilization.

01:32:47.780 And you've got a population that- I'm hesitant to use a term like, you know, intergenerational trauma.

01:32:59.560 But you've got a population that hands down the stories of pogroms and persecution and the Holocaust because it's vital information.

01:33:09.320 You have to know that that can happen.

01:33:11.780 And it can happen anywhere, at any time.

01:33:14.260 And so, being of that mindset, being raised to know that things can be very good and people can- you know, there can be no hint of anti-Semitism as there wasn't in my life until quite late.

01:33:27.140 Things can be that way, and then something can change, and what you thought were the realities of, you know, who your friends are and what they're capable of would radically shift.

01:33:41.160 So, you've got that population involved in governance, business, all of the essential functions of civilization, and then the noises of an anti-Semitic wave start to rise.

01:33:57.640 That population recoils into this defensive posture, oh, no, is it happening again, which then causes an attempt to drive out all nuances.

01:34:11.600 This is not the time to be asking questions, that sort of thing, which then causes resentment in terms of all of the things you're not allowed to just even ask, right?

01:34:19.900 As an American, I'm not allowed to ask questions about our support for a foreign government's war, you know?

01:34:27.960 I mean, of course I'm allowed to talk about that, but yet somehow it feels very dangerous to even raise the question.

01:34:34.500 So, that pattern results, you know, how big a room can you assemble before you have both sides in that room unable to allow any nuance, right?

01:34:48.180 It's not a very big room.

01:34:49.340 So, what happened to the medical freedom movement was just simply the events of October 7th caused people who didn't even necessarily know each other's positions on, you know, events in the Middle East suddenly to be talking about them and to find each other un-understandable.

01:35:11.540 But how did that issue even, I mean, I don't even know all my kids' positions on the Middle East, and they're my children.

01:35:17.380 And I talk to them every day.

01:35:19.200 It's like, it just doesn't occur to me to bring that up out of context.

01:35:23.280 Do you know what I mean?

01:35:23.920 Where are you on BB?

01:35:25.020 It's like, I don't care.

01:35:26.700 Like, how did that wind up in a discussion of what to do about the mRNA vaccine?

01:35:31.920 I just think that's, it seems completely unrelated.

01:35:35.220 It's madness.

01:35:37.640 Seems that way.

01:35:38.480 It seems to me that the right thing to do is to recognize we have a whole lot of common ground, and then there's an issue on which we apparently don't.

01:35:47.480 And frankly, what a missed opportunity that a bunch of people who'd been through hell together fighting over, you know, their right to speak the truth about all things COVID.

01:35:57.720 That group of people seems like they would have the tools to navigate other difficult issues.

01:36:03.860 But that's not what happened.

01:36:05.460 And that missed opportunity is a tragedy for humanity.

01:36:09.640 It means that we're not where we should be with respect to the devastation of COVID.

01:36:14.640 And we're also, you know, nowhere, nowhere good with respect to our ability to discuss the events in the Middle East.

01:36:24.160 Yeah.

01:36:25.060 Was that organic?

01:36:27.060 Because if I'm Pfizer and I'm like mad at you, Brett, I'm going to inject that into your group chat somehow.

01:36:35.420 I'm open to, I'm open to any possibility.

01:36:37.840 And, you know, in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, it's like two impossible to reconcile thoughts.

01:36:48.400 One is, this is so much of a direct hit on this very powerful coalition that has very powerful enemies.

01:36:55.280 Very powerful.

01:36:56.240 Yeah.

01:36:57.000 That it's conceivable to me that there's some relationship.

01:37:01.320 No, I don't think that October 7th happened because of its utility in dividing people.

01:37:06.580 But there was something so immediate about the, it was like a direct hit on the medical freedom.

01:37:14.840 That is crazy.

01:37:15.940 Where were you?

01:37:16.640 I was, I haven't even followed up asking about this in private, but where were you, were you considered too pro-Israel or too not supportive enough?

01:37:29.000 It's always the same.

01:37:30.180 In this case, people do that thing.

01:37:35.500 I am not saying what they're saying.

01:37:37.600 They assume I'm on the other side.

01:37:39.320 Both sides do it.

01:37:41.700 I mean, it's like clockwork, right?

01:37:45.400 So, you know, it's a very...

01:37:47.560 Well, I'm on your side for the record.

01:37:48.740 I mean, I haven't even really even talked to you about Israel ever until right now at length.

01:37:54.780 So, I don't, I'm not exactly sure what your views are.

01:37:56.500 But from everything you've said so far, you've seen what we used to call, we used to call it moderate and sensible.

01:38:02.300 I agree with you.

01:38:05.540 Well, I'll tell you what my position is just so that it's clear for anybody who is inclined to misunderstand it.

01:38:12.160 What I used to say is I believe in Israel's right to exist.

01:38:17.280 I've realized in saying that, that I'm not sure what it means for any country to have a right to exist.

01:38:23.060 I totally agree.

01:38:23.880 What does that even mean?

01:38:24.860 Yeah.

01:38:25.040 Does the U.S. have a right to exist?

01:38:26.700 I mean, it's certainly...

01:38:27.440 Or want it to exist?

01:38:28.280 It came into being.

01:38:30.020 It does exist.

01:38:30.880 I will, you know, I will even lay down my life if necessary to preserve it.

01:38:34.660 But, you know, it was land taken from other people.

01:38:38.140 So, does it have a right to exist?

01:38:39.600 I don't think any nation really can make that claim very well.

01:38:43.880 Am I glad that Israel exists? 0.97

01:38:45.700 Yes.

01:38:46.020 Yeah, okay.

01:38:46.460 That's a way better way to put it.

01:38:48.280 I'm glad that it exists.

01:38:50.720 I think it's important.

01:38:52.000 I think Jews are vulnerable and it is important for them to have a homeland.

01:38:55.420 And I recognize that there's a conflict with a central value that I hold, which is the consent of the governed, which means that the demographics of the state of Israel adjust how effective a homeland it is for Jews.

01:39:10.360 I don't know how to resolve that.

01:39:11.680 I'm glad it's not my job to figure out how to resolve it.

01:39:13.860 But all of that said, my sense is, looking from afar, that the Netanyahu administration's relationship to the population of Israel is a lot like the Biden administration's relationship to the population of the U.S.

01:39:35.600 And as an American living under the Biden administration, those people were not on my team.

01:39:41.640 Those people didn't give a damn about me or anything I cared about.

01:39:45.800 Well, actually, they hated you.

01:39:46.740 I think they probably did.

01:39:47.440 More precise about it, yeah.

01:39:48.440 So, my sense is, the idea that you might want to be supportive of Israelis does not mean that you are supportive of the Netanyahu administration.

01:40:01.900 What's more, I think it's clear that every rational person should hate Hamas for what it is.

01:40:12.780 And it should hate Hamas supporters who know what they're doing.

01:40:16.340 And unfortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu is in that category.

01:40:20.580 I don't know what to do about that.

01:40:21.820 But I see credible evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu cynically propped up Hamas or argued for it to be propped up in order to divide the Palestinians.

01:40:33.620 Having done that and then having October 7th happen means that to me, any violence that needs to be engaged in to rescue hostages or to do away with Hamas cannot be under his direction.

01:40:49.180 I do not understand why he was left in power being responsible for Hamas in some regard and then responsible for eliminating them.

01:41:00.580 I mean, it's so Anthony Fauci-like, it's almost too close a parallel, right?

01:41:07.520 And Anthony Fauci is responsible for the gain-of-function research that seems to have produced COVID, and he's also in charge of protecting us from it.

01:41:15.060 I'm sorry.

01:41:16.120 No.

01:41:16.740 Anthony Fauci shouldn't have been anywhere near it and Benjamin Netanyahu.

01:41:18.920 I agree, and I think in both cases, well, certainly in the case of Bibi, I think the system itself, a parliamentary system, which Israel has, it's very, it's complicated.

01:41:31.460 The politics are so complicated.

01:41:33.120 I've been in and out of Israel a lot in my life, and I pay attention.

01:41:37.840 I don't understand it, you know?

01:41:39.600 I'm sure there are Israelis who don't really understand their system.

01:41:42.160 Maybe that's the answer.

01:41:43.480 He's good at politics.

01:41:44.940 Oh, I think he's very, very smart and very effective, and the question is really, you know, there are two questions.

01:41:54.420 One, is he on the side of the Israeli people?

01:41:57.040 And two, assuming that he's on the side of the Israeli people, is he making a spectacular error that will actually be a massive setback for them?

01:42:05.060 And I would also say, as a corollary of that, it's not just the Israeli people who are jeopardized by his leadership.

01:42:17.460 It's, I believe, Jews in the diaspora.

01:42:21.420 I feel that the goodwill that existed towards Jews in the aftermath of World War II is being burned up at an incredible rate.

01:42:29.380 I don't expect to see it return in my lifetime, and I think that's a tragedy.

01:42:35.000 And then, on top of all of it, the fate of humanity more or less rests on our ability to stop playing the game that the Netanyahu side is pushing us towards, the lineage against lineage violence. 0.76

01:42:48.560 And so, I think it is time for the West to reassert itself and its values, to police our own behavior, frankly.

01:43:02.100 I'm not happy when the United States falls down on its commitment to a level playing field.

01:43:06.500 I agree.

01:43:06.820 But that really is the road forward, and in the end, it's better for everybody.

01:43:13.960 In the short run, there are some significant antagonists to moving in that direction.

01:43:20.140 I do think what you're seeing here is a variation of what you always see, which is the people who are often in good faith speaking out on behalf of some group are not actually serving that group's interests at all.

01:43:32.540 Right.

01:43:32.960 At all.

01:43:33.320 And I don't think it's always cynical.

01:43:35.620 I just want to be charitable.

01:43:37.680 You know, I think there are people who really think they're doing the right thing, but they are not serving the objective they think they're serving.

01:43:45.480 Your description, what you just said, you said you might get attacked for it.

01:43:50.700 On what ground?

01:43:51.200 I mean, what you just said seems so humane and, like, measured and thoughtful, not creepy, not hateful.

01:43:59.980 How could anyone attack you for saying that?

01:44:02.160 Well, one, I think as long as you use the rule that those who are not agreeing with me must be on the other side, it's very easy to end up everybody's enemy.

01:44:15.320 And, yeah, it's crazy.

01:44:17.420 I am, I think, trying.

01:44:21.620 Maybe I'm wrong about the reality of the situation, but I'm certainly trying to give decent insight into how Israel can be safer, how the world can be safer, how Islam can be safer.

01:44:36.640 I think it's better for everybody.

01:44:38.180 That's my intent.

01:44:39.220 If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

01:44:40.780 But that's the real issue, though.

01:44:44.260 The inability to have discussions because some conclusion is understood to follow from them potentially, and we can't risk that conclusion.

01:44:57.860 And therefore, the discussion is not allowed.

01:44:59.540 That is utterly toxic to the West.

01:45:06.200 There's a reason that the First Amendment is enshrined as our first enumerated right.

01:45:10.880 And I'm a little concerned that the Constitution itself is not up to the challenges of modernity.

01:45:20.280 It doesn't anticipate AI.

01:45:21.960 It doesn't anticipate social media.

01:45:23.820 It doesn't anticipate the ability to study psychology with scientific tools and, you know, manipulate with industrial strength propaganda.

01:45:32.840 But the principle is still exactly right.

01:45:37.200 And I will say, I heard your discussion with Matt Walsh last week, maybe.

01:45:43.580 And I was fascinated by it because Matt Walsh and I are very different creatures.

01:45:48.660 Like, I really am a liberal, and he really is a conservative.

01:45:52.600 And I heard him say all kinds of things that were provocative, and I found it absolutely refreshing.

01:46:02.480 Just the idea, you know, that you could navigate those questions in public was a breath of fresh air.

01:46:10.240 And I'm hoping that all parties who are acting in good faith and really trying to figure out how to get the nation and the world pointed in the right direction

01:46:24.280 will recognize that we've lost the one tool that has been useful in this regard,

01:46:29.580 which is the ability to hash things out, to not demonize people for holding perspectives.

01:46:37.400 If they hold a perspective that isn't right, the answer is to persuade them that it isn't right.

01:46:42.640 So I've been thinking a lot about why that has changed.

01:46:47.260 And I think it's because there's too much lying.

01:46:52.220 And people, or there's a perception, I think there's too much lying.

01:46:55.520 And I think that people can't sort of relax and accept that the person telling them a point of view really believes that point of view.

01:47:04.860 So there's less sincerity than there used to be.

01:47:09.920 And, you know, something like Matt Walsh, or I had my next interview I did was with Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's,

01:47:16.800 who's like totally liberal on everything.

01:47:19.460 But he's liberal on the question of war.

01:47:22.520 And so I completely agree with him.

01:47:23.580 So I wanted to hear him.

01:47:24.640 And I, what a wonderful, what a nice man.

01:47:27.000 But I just thought the thing that Matt Walsh and Ben Cohen had in common was they're both totally sincere.

01:47:35.120 They're completely sincere.

01:47:36.320 Like you can disagree or agree or whatever, but they really mean what they say.

01:47:41.120 And I think if you live in a world where the public discourse is this dishonest,

01:47:45.440 where everyone has some weird agenda, you don't even know what it is,

01:47:47.460 but you can feel that person's not being honest.

01:47:51.180 No one can have like a conversation.

01:47:53.660 Do you see what I'm saying?

01:47:54.300 Yeah, it's funny.

01:47:56.340 It's actually, Sam Harris hasn't said many nice things about me in the last few years.

01:48:03.720 But when he did, he used to quote me as saying, bad faith changes everything.

01:48:12.320 And I guess I would rephrase that here as the good faith environment that is necessary to navigate difficult things is supremely powerful.

01:48:24.300 But it is very fragile.

01:48:26.280 And the sense that somebody is not in it to discover what the right answer is,

01:48:32.740 but is actually playing some different game causes good faith to break down.

01:48:37.680 And I think that's what you're detecting.

01:48:40.100 Well, it is.

01:48:41.000 And, you know, as someone who's been so often wrong about some big things,

01:48:46.040 I just want to start every morning with the knowledge that I'm not God,

01:48:50.160 that I do get things wrong and that, like, you know, try to be attentive when the truth is spoken.

01:48:56.560 You know, when the truth is spoken, I want to be able to hear it.

01:48:59.600 I really mean that.

01:49:01.080 And I just see that this, again, another argument against evolution.

01:49:06.460 I see human society moving in the opposite direction.

01:49:10.740 People are so cocksure, so morally certain on the basis of so little knowledge and wisdom. 0.91

01:49:16.080 It's, like, crazy. 1.00

01:49:17.160 Everyone has these, like, hyper-confident opinions, and they're dumb. 0.97

01:49:22.100 And it's, like, all I want is to be around people who are like, this is what I think is true. 0.85

01:49:26.180 I sincerely believe it, but because I'm not God or whatever, because I'm not omniscient,

01:49:32.360 and I am open to the possibility that I'm wrong, and why don't you try to convince me.

01:49:38.160 Like, that's the basis of civilization, in my opinion.

01:49:42.820 Well, I think there's a kind of hubris that has taken over.

01:49:46.880 Kind of?

01:49:48.000 It's, like, deranged!

01:49:50.880 But I think it comes from a particular place.

01:49:53.180 It's interesting.

01:49:53.900 We've gotten very good, technically, at solving problems.

01:49:59.280 I mean, you know, the wizardry in your phone is unimaginable, right?

01:50:04.760 But phones, computers, all of these systems, up until AI, are complicated.

01:50:16.780 So complicated that most people don't understand them.

01:50:20.620 Maybe nobody understands them completely, but somebody understands every piece of your computer or your phone.

01:50:26.080 So that's a complicated system.

01:50:27.660 And you can get so good in the realm of complicated systems that you feel mastery.

01:50:35.960 And the problem is that the places where you're seeing people holding opinions that are preposterous

01:50:41.360 and a level of arrogance that isn't justified by anything, those are complex systems.

01:50:47.260 And a complex system is not just a really complicated system.

01:50:50.120 A complex system is actually meaningfully different.

01:50:53.300 It's fundamentally unpredictable.

01:50:54.820 And so, I think a lot of the catastrophe...

01:50:58.140 I'm sorry, can you say something?

01:50:58.900 It's fundamentally unpredictable.

01:51:02.020 Unpredictable.

01:51:02.660 That, I said I wanted to be alive to the truth and wisdom.

01:51:06.360 When I hear it, that's wisdom right there.

01:51:08.180 It's unpredictable.

01:51:09.200 You don't know.

01:51:09.940 You don't know.

01:51:10.960 And, you know, okay.

01:51:12.320 So, how good are we at predicting the climate?

01:51:15.460 Well, my guess, given that climate is a longer-term puzzle, is we're less good at it than predicting the weather.

01:51:23.380 And I can tell you we're not that great at predicting the weather.

01:51:25.820 So, when you step into the realm of the truly complex, which is all of biology, it's human civilization, it's economics, it's climate.

01:51:37.080 But you have to go in with a kind of extreme humility, because intervention is going to produce effects you cannot see coming.

01:51:48.580 Unintended consequences.

01:51:49.580 Unintended consequences, which means, A, the last thing you want to do is go into that complex system with a blueprint.

01:51:59.060 Here's what I'm going to do, and here's what it's going to result in, because you don't know.

01:52:03.400 The best you can do is prototype and navigate, right?

01:52:08.620 You can say, I want to get to that place, and you can take a step in that direction, and you can say, okay, well, what was the consequence of that step?

01:52:15.740 And then you can adjust what you did, what you do next, based on what you learned the last time.

01:52:20.500 Yes.

01:52:20.720 You can get where you're going in the same way that a surfer who can't control a wave is capable of, you know, finding their way down it, right?

01:52:29.420 But you can't plan it out.

01:52:31.640 And the other thing you can't do is you cannot decide that certain kinds of feedback will not be tolerated.

01:52:41.520 Right?

01:52:41.900 You have to take a measure of the consequence of what you did and look squarely at it.

01:52:48.020 And if you say, well, you know, the shots definitely worked because they were always going to work.

01:52:54.640 The answer is, well, how many different complex systems did you just intervene in, and you weren't even open to the evidence that it didn't work out the way you expected, that it was counterproductive?

01:53:05.500 No, you don't even belong in the discussion if you don't see the need to do that.

01:53:11.080 So, why are the shots still on the schedule?

01:53:14.600 I'm trying to be...

01:53:16.340 Let me start with a question, a real question, rather than an interjection posing as a question.

01:53:25.540 Where are we on the mRNA shots in the United States?

01:53:29.120 I fear this question because everybody tells me that there's no way forward by reaching President Trump, that he can't hear it.

01:53:46.560 And maybe I'm going to have to learn that myself.

01:53:54.880 We are nowhere good with respect to the mRNA shots.

01:54:00.940 We are still recommending them for tiny children who don't stand to benefit at all, as far as we scientifically know.

01:54:10.300 And that's an official recommendation?

01:54:11.640 Yes.

01:54:12.540 So, it's on the schedule, so-called.

01:54:14.240 Yeah, it's on the schedule.

01:54:15.340 A COVID mRNA shot.

01:54:17.980 COVID mRNA shots, which, A, as I think I described to you in one of our previous conversations, all mRNA shots have a built-in vulnerability, or they induce a built-in vulnerability, which is if they are translated in cells of the body that are sensitive,

01:54:38.900 then you will get a pathology, because the body will naturally attack the cells that are producing whatever protein you load into the mRNA platform.

01:54:49.040 It will attack them as if they are virally infected, because that's what they look like. 1.00

01:54:52.960 They are cells that are of you, but they are producing a foreign protein.

01:54:57.400 That is the signature of an infected cell, and the immune system has one and only one plan for that, which is destruction.

01:55:03.920 So, the reason that the COVID shots produce such a wide range of pathologies is that they flow all around the body.

01:55:11.480 There's no targeting mechanism in them.

01:55:13.220 They invade tissues haphazardly, and then those tissues get targeted by the immune system, as, of course, they would.

01:55:19.760 Including the brain.

01:55:20.680 Including the brain, including the heart, you know.

01:55:22.920 So, basically, there's a reason that you can't put together a tight list of symptoms of people who were injured,

01:55:30.640 and it's because the symptoms are as wide-ranging as tissues of the body and the various kinds of damage, right?

01:55:36.900 It's all on the table.

01:55:38.940 So, the fact that these shots are still being recommended for children should tell you something.

01:55:45.900 Because they shouldn't be given to anybody under any circumstances.

01:55:50.300 They were never ready for injection into people.

01:55:53.140 Whatever emergency we might have thought we were in, we know we are not in anymore.

01:55:56.780 There's no justification scientifically.

01:55:58.860 But injecting them into children for whom there was never a justification,

01:56:02.740 because children didn't die from COVID, and they were injured by the shots.

01:56:07.600 So, why would you take a healthy child and give them something with a risk of a severe pathology

01:56:12.760 when the disease it protects them from isn't a serious threat in the first place?

01:56:16.300 Further, we don't know what we're doing to their lifetime capacity to fend off COVID.

01:56:23.560 Apparently, they're going to be faced with it many times over a lifetime.

01:56:26.260 So, why would you interfere with their development of whatever natural immunity

01:56:30.620 they will be able to generate by artificially intervening?

01:56:33.820 It doesn't make the least bit of sense.

01:56:36.820 Sounds like a crime to me.

01:56:38.580 It's a crime.

01:56:39.540 And many in the medical freedom movement refer to it as criminal negligence,

01:56:46.640 which I think is a mistake, because it's well beyond criminal negligence at this point.

01:56:51.100 Negligence is when you just don't care enough to know something's happening.

01:56:55.100 Right.

01:56:55.680 This is depraved indifference.

01:56:57.080 This is the injection of these products into innocent people who are incapable of being informed

01:57:04.840 and incapable of consenting, in spite of the fact that you know that some substantial fraction of them

01:57:10.300 will be profoundly injured.

01:57:11.860 It is depraved indifference.

01:57:13.640 So, it's a very simple process for stopping the recommendation of mRNA shots to children and to adults.

01:57:22.240 But it has to do with this thing called the schedule, which is the protocol determined by the federal government

01:57:26.980 that guides physicians as they recommend, and in some cases require, vaccines.

01:57:34.600 Yes.

01:57:35.600 I believe it could be done effectively, instantaneously, if the president was on board.

01:57:44.060 And I think we do not separate the, how can I put this?

01:57:55.540 The president has a certain amount of pride over Operation Warp Speed.

01:58:01.860 Yep.

01:58:02.080 And I think he feels mistreated over the rejection of Operation Warp Speed as an accomplishment,

01:58:19.720 and that has caused him to dig in his heels.

01:58:24.360 Now, as I see it, this is unnecessary.

01:58:27.680 The president is in no way responsible for the appalling content of these shots.

01:58:35.280 He's not a biologist.

01:58:36.780 He listened to people who knew the material far better than he did, and they lied to him.

01:58:43.980 Mm-hmm.

01:58:46.200 That's entirely separate from the question of whether or not Operation Warp Speed was an accomplishment,

01:58:52.120 whether he succeeded in bringing a shot to the public in record time, which he did.

01:58:58.440 So, to my way of thinking, he can be proud of Operation Warp Speed,

01:59:01.640 and he can be livid at the people who lied to him about the shot,

01:59:04.540 and he can be horrified by all the damage that that shot has done.

01:59:10.820 And I hope that he will see that.

01:59:13.740 And I'm wondering if maybe what might open his eyes to this is the plight of the vaccine injured,

01:59:25.540 which to me is one of the starkest horrors I've ever witnessed.

01:59:32.140 Okay.

01:59:32.400 I'm going to ask you to pause, and I want you to explain it because it's been completely buried.

01:59:36.120 But are there no cabinet secretaries who could act independently?

01:59:41.920 Because there is a cabinet secretary I think has purview over this.

01:59:46.160 Well, you're surely talking about Bobby Kennedy.

01:59:49.480 Yeah.

01:59:50.180 Who I believe absolutely would if he had the power.

01:59:55.540 Okay.

01:59:55.900 So, you think this is a White House decision?

01:59:58.460 I believe it must be a White House decision because Bobby knows the horror of these shots as well.

02:00:06.000 I agree with that.

02:00:08.060 So, I think he must feel that he can't get there, or maybe he's working there over time.

02:00:15.100 But every month that we wait, more children are being injected with these things.

02:00:21.900 And, you know, I'm focusing on the children because...

02:00:23.780 Are people actually being...

02:00:24.700 Actually, parents are saying, okay, give my kid a COVID shot?

02:00:27.840 I mean, you can imagine what a bewildering situation it is.

02:00:33.460 Imagine that you're a first-time parent, and the doctors are telling you that the responsible thing to do is to give your child all of these immunizations because of all of the damage, this, that, and the other.

02:00:45.880 It's very hard for a parent to muster the courage to ask the right questions.

02:00:51.660 Most people wouldn't even know what the right questions to ask are.

02:00:56.100 And what's more, the incentives in the system for doctors to get their patients so-called fully vaccinated are constructed so that doctors are absolutely inflexible on this topic.

02:01:14.300 They're going to have something to answer for, in my opinion.

02:01:16.620 I agree, and I can't believe that doctors who, at this point, know the truth are not standing up en masse.

02:01:25.620 Yeah.

02:01:26.840 So, I'm sorry, once again, I sidetracked you.

02:01:29.320 So, you were about to describe the extent of vaccine injury in the United States.

02:01:34.860 I followed this from day one, the VAERS self-reporting system and all the rest, but I don't feel like I have a good sense of it.

02:01:43.180 Yeah, I don't think we have a good sense of it.

02:01:46.540 What we have is, you know, an official estimate that we know is a tiny fraction of the full number.

02:01:55.340 We also know that we can't calculate the pathologies that are very delayed, of which there are many in this case.

02:02:01.900 So, we don't have the slightest inkling of how much injury has been done.

02:02:10.460 But that's why I want to focus on the other aspect of this.

02:02:14.300 The number of people who have been injured is absolutely huge.

02:02:18.420 The gaslighting of the vaccine injured is an entirely separate crime.

02:02:24.140 At the point that you have told people, there's a shot, it's safe, it's necessary that you get it to protect the vulnerable, and then people have been injured.

02:02:37.140 I don't care how few they may be.

02:02:40.540 Let's say it was only a handful of people who were injured.

02:02:43.320 Pretending that they weren't injured, pretending that it's in their heads, is an absolutely ghastly crime.

02:02:55.640 And I will say that there's a documentary coming out.

02:03:01.160 It should be out on the 15th of this month, called Follow the Silenced.

02:03:08.160 And it follows a couple of vaccine-injured people, including Maddie DeGarry, who is a, I don't know if you know her story,

02:03:17.220 but she was a young girl who was in the Pfizer trial and was gravely injured, like wheelchair, feeding tube, injured.

02:03:29.200 And was told, in effect, this is a stomachache, it's in your head, you're attention-seeking.

02:03:36.280 And I think just noticing what an absolutely heartless system would be necessary in order to treat somebody,

02:03:50.900 not only who took the shot, but a child who did their part for the team, joined a trial in order to get this vaccine to market, right?

02:04:03.700 This is somebody who went above and beyond the call of duty, was gravely injured, and deserves every tool at our disposal

02:04:11.420 to make her life as tolerable as it can be to address her sacrifice.

02:04:18.720 And she has gotten exactly the opposite.

02:04:21.360 So if we extrapolate over all of the nameless people who were injured in some way,

02:04:26.580 people who were told by their doctors that they were imagining their pathologies until they discovered Facebook groups

02:04:34.940 with hundreds or thousands of other people experiencing the same thing,

02:04:39.060 Facebook groups that were then canceled by Facebook under the direction of the government, right?

02:04:45.040 This is, as I said before, it's an entirely separate crime.

02:04:51.960 And what I'm hoping is that the revelation of that crime will allow President Trump to see

02:04:58.580 that although the destruction that came from the shots is in no way his responsibility,

02:05:05.720 he is in danger of making this his responsibility by not responding to the fact that we're continuing to injure new people

02:05:12.560 and we are pretending that the vast number of injuries we already have are mysterious,

02:05:18.780 which they most certainly aren't.

02:05:20.400 It does make you want to not pay your taxes.

02:05:24.860 I don't understand, like, why, I mean, at some point it just becomes,

02:05:28.700 it feels anyway immoral to contribute money to something like this.

02:05:33.920 Right, and, you know, morally speaking, sure.

02:05:38.940 Obviously, there's no solution down that road.

02:05:44.480 What we have is...

02:05:45.340 Well, you cannot pay your taxes, you go to jail.

02:05:46.800 Right.

02:05:47.360 Yeah, and you get no sympathy from anybody.

02:05:49.820 No sympathy from anybody.

02:05:51.480 So, at some level, we have, you know, our right to redress of grievances and, you know,

02:05:57.900 maybe that's what podcasts are about in this case.

02:06:02.500 No, of course.

02:06:03.600 And I'm not recommending that people not pay their taxes, though.

02:06:07.000 I would, of course, be utterly sympathetic to anyone who wanted to do that.

02:06:10.020 But what I'm saying is it's just so frustrating.

02:06:13.760 It's so frustrating.

02:06:15.240 It's like, it's, it's like, what's the point of the system is supposed to be responsive both to the people it represents,

02:06:22.400 but also to, like, reality and reason.

02:06:25.220 And, like, it shouldn't be this hard to do an easy, obvious, virtuous thing.

02:06:30.300 Well, it also reveals if the system had generated a shot in record time, gotten out over its skis and, you know,

02:06:45.280 emergency use authorized it in an effort to stave off a pandemic that the danger of which was overrated.

02:06:53.760 You would expect a rapid reversal, of course.

02:06:58.200 Well, that's it.

02:06:58.820 That's exactly right.

02:07:00.060 It's not the mistake. 0.98

02:07:01.380 It's the subsequent lying and ass covering and gaslighting. 0.75

02:07:04.680 And it's the behavior after the mistake that drives me totally nuts.

02:07:08.540 Which suggests that it may have been something other than a mistake.

02:07:12.840 Because, I mean, had it been a mistake, you can imagine,

02:07:17.020 you can imagine finding yourself responsible for trying to do the right thing

02:07:22.720 and having, you know, countless people injured as a result of it

02:07:27.000 and then discovering that the disease itself had, you know, a minuscule case fatality rate

02:07:32.900 and that it was really effectively pulling people who were very close to death

02:07:38.440 in some other regard over the line a bit early, right?

02:07:42.100 That's no reason to wreck civilization and gravely injure people for the rest of their lives.

02:07:47.920 So, anybody who had discovered that they had been party to that

02:07:52.180 would naturally want to just, you know, staunch the bleeding.

02:07:58.480 And that's not what happened.

02:07:59.980 And it's still not happening.

02:08:01.300 And what's more, there is a shell game being played over the cause of the vaccine harms

02:08:10.040 to the extent that they are acknowledged at all.

02:08:12.140 There is what I think is an organized campaign to portray it as the result of the unfortunate choice

02:08:18.960 of the spike protein when, in fact, much of the damage has nothing to do with the content of the shot at all.

02:08:25.080 It's the platform itself.

02:08:27.380 And, you know, we're watching pharma reformulate shot after shot on the mRNA platform.

02:08:35.560 They're pioneering...

02:08:36.780 So, it's the novel technology itself.

02:08:38.420 It's the novel technology itself which, you know, again, you're intervening in not only a complex system in this case,

02:08:46.940 but a nested series of complex systems.

02:08:49.740 You've got, you know, an epidemic, right?

02:08:52.780 The spreading of a disease.

02:08:54.260 You've got the human body.

02:08:55.840 Within that, you've got the immune system.

02:08:57.480 These are each complex systems in their own right.

02:08:59.920 And the ability to introduce a novel technology and to predict the outcome, you know, as I think I may have discussed with you before,

02:09:11.720 one of the things that we've discovered, I have to assume pharma didn't know this,

02:09:17.660 but one of the things we've discovered is that if you've had two of the mRNA shots,

02:09:22.140 that your body starts producing a special class of antibody that turns the immune system down.

02:09:28.380 That's a very dangerous thing to have triggered.

02:09:30.920 It ought to have caused somebody to, you know...

02:09:33.860 But so predictable in a way, as someone who knows nothing about vaccine development,

02:09:38.700 but a lot about life,

02:09:40.980 it's almost always like the deep irony encoded in the universe where, you know,

02:09:48.120 painkiller abuse causes pain, actually, after a while, right?

02:09:51.500 Right.

02:09:52.200 It's always something like that.

02:09:54.560 The shot that's supposed to boost your immune system destroys your immune system.

02:09:59.300 Yes.

02:09:59.840 And, you know, this is the lesson of modern technology,

02:10:05.800 is that you should engage it with tremendous trepidation until...

02:10:13.280 Right.

02:10:13.820 And, you know, liberals have a lot to answer for at the moment,

02:10:18.840 but there was a time when liberals were focused on the precautionary principle,

02:10:23.020 which is exactly this, right?

02:10:24.940 If you're going to engage something new,

02:10:26.620 you should assume it's harmful until proven safe,

02:10:28.700 rather than assume it's safe until proven harmful.

02:10:31.840 And we have abandoned this principle.

02:10:35.440 Because we've abandoned humility in favor of hubris.

02:10:37.860 For the reasons I think that you mentioned,

02:10:39.500 I think the decline of religious faith plays a role as well.

02:10:44.600 But it does seem like that's the...

02:10:50.200 That's kind of the answer, maybe right in front of us,

02:10:52.920 to so many of our problems,

02:10:54.220 is that people imagine they have predictive powers that they don't have.

02:11:01.440 You know, Heather and I have an ongoing discussion

02:11:05.900 where she'll say,

02:11:08.620 I don't see how people could possibly believe X.

02:11:13.100 And then she will give some example

02:11:15.300 where people have said something that couldn't possibly be right.

02:11:18.160 And I will say to her,

02:11:20.660 you know,

02:11:21.260 it's one of those times when you have to realize

02:11:24.760 that what you mean by,

02:11:27.300 I believe X,

02:11:28.800 does not bear any resemblance to what most people mean

02:11:32.000 when they believe something.

02:11:34.760 And I do think this is another argument,

02:11:37.640 actually,

02:11:38.380 in favor of

02:11:39.580 an all-encompassing tolerance

02:11:44.420 of discussion,

02:11:46.640 right?

02:11:46.940 You have to be able to discuss

02:11:48.240 all things,

02:11:49.380 in part because

02:11:50.600 what you really want to discover

02:11:52.940 is how

02:11:54.600 wide a range

02:11:56.140 of opinion

02:11:57.340 and perspective

02:11:58.380 there actually is.

02:11:59.860 And if you start

02:12:00.640 demonizing people

02:12:01.880 as soon as they depart

02:12:02.900 from your consensus,

02:12:04.220 you get the sense

02:12:05.360 that we all see it alike

02:12:06.460 because you can't see

02:12:07.300 the people who don't.

02:12:08.720 It's totally true.

02:12:09.880 You want to adopt that posture

02:12:11.800 if your goal

02:12:12.800 is to find the truth,

02:12:14.320 if your goal

02:12:14.780 is to serve other people,

02:12:15.820 provide good governance,

02:12:17.240 justice,

02:12:17.880 if your goal

02:12:18.360 is to be wise.

02:12:20.100 You know,

02:12:20.420 if that's the way you're thinking,

02:12:22.040 you're going to do

02:12:22.540 what you just said.

02:12:24.000 If your goal

02:12:24.680 is to accrue maximum power,

02:12:26.860 if your goal

02:12:28.060 is to hurt people, 0.51

02:12:29.920 if your baseline assumption

02:12:31.920 is that you're God,

02:12:33.820 then of course

02:12:34.880 you're going to behave

02:12:35.680 the way you just described.

02:12:37.860 Yeah.

02:12:38.060 You're going to be

02:12:38.320 totally intolerant.

02:12:39.620 So given all of that,

02:12:40.720 where are we with AI

02:12:43.080 and what's your view of it?

02:12:45.280 Well,

02:12:45.880 my view is that

02:12:48.180 there are many different ways

02:12:49.580 that AI

02:12:50.440 can radically

02:12:52.640 disrupt civilization

02:12:54.800 and some of them

02:12:56.220 are utterly guaranteed,

02:12:58.440 others we're speculating on.

02:13:00.700 I think

02:13:01.220 one of the lessons

02:13:03.220 from, you know,

02:13:06.140 from the mind

02:13:06.700 of a biologist

02:13:07.440 who's focused

02:13:08.120 on complex systems

02:13:09.740 is that the technologists

02:13:12.140 think they understand

02:13:13.580 more about the way

02:13:14.600 AI works

02:13:15.420 than they do

02:13:16.120 and certainly

02:13:16.800 than they will.

02:13:18.320 So, you know,

02:13:19.620 I hear many

02:13:20.340 confident pronouncements

02:13:22.200 that it isn't conscious

02:13:23.640 and it won't be conscious

02:13:24.600 because we didn't program

02:13:26.080 that capacity.

02:13:26.580 The smartest technologist,

02:13:27.680 the most accomplished

02:13:28.220 technologist I know

02:13:29.240 who's right in the middle

02:13:29.940 of developing AI

02:13:30.840 told me

02:13:31.740 anyone who says

02:13:32.880 this will not develop

02:13:35.220 consciousness or autonomy 1.00

02:13:36.400 is a liar or stupid 1.00

02:13:37.880 and no, 1.00

02:13:39.000 we don't understand

02:13:39.760 how this is progressing.

02:13:41.040 Like,

02:13:41.700 the smartest people know.

02:13:42.700 Well,

02:13:43.860 I will put it

02:13:44.500 the other way

02:13:45.220 from the biological perspective.

02:13:48.140 We have a lot

02:13:49.000 of evidence

02:13:49.580 that a human child

02:13:51.240 is basically

02:13:53.380 an LLM.

02:13:54.660 It's more than that.

02:13:55.740 It has other

02:13:56.220 capacities.

02:13:57.500 But when you think

02:13:58.040 about what it is

02:13:58.820 that allows

02:13:59.380 a human child

02:14:00.060 to go

02:14:00.500 from,

02:14:01.380 you know,

02:14:01.820 being

02:14:02.260 unable

02:14:03.760 to

02:14:04.360 utter a single

02:14:05.940 word

02:14:06.480 to,

02:14:07.080 you know,

02:14:08.120 fluent sentences

02:14:09.140 and,

02:14:09.700 you know,

02:14:11.720 nuanced,

02:14:12.400 complex arguments,

02:14:13.940 it basically

02:14:15.180 is ingesting

02:14:16.680 language

02:14:17.720 from its environment,

02:14:19.420 experimenting,

02:14:20.600 seeing what causes

02:14:21.560 a reward.

02:14:22.260 It's an LLM.

02:14:23.540 And

02:14:23.820 you can argue

02:14:25.760 that it's not conscious.

02:14:27.180 Large language model.

02:14:29.500 Yeah.

02:14:29.680 Right.

02:14:29.900 The point is

02:14:30.500 we've basically

02:14:31.380 reinvented

02:14:32.120 a biological

02:14:32.880 process.

02:14:35.100 Now,

02:14:35.560 the LLMs,

02:14:36.420 the computer-based

02:14:38.240 LLMs,

02:14:38.900 have

02:14:39.820 a major

02:14:40.600 advantage,

02:14:41.800 which is that

02:14:42.420 they can process

02:14:43.240 huge amounts

02:14:44.880 of data

02:14:45.820 at lightning

02:14:47.020 speed,

02:14:48.040 right?

02:14:48.380 So there are

02:14:48.720 ways in which

02:14:49.220 they already

02:14:50.040 outstrip the 0.72

02:14:50.960 capacity of any

02:14:51.740 person to,

02:14:52.780 you know,

02:14:53.380 answer questions

02:14:54.080 on any range

02:14:54.720 of topics.

02:14:56.180 But

02:14:56.300 the idea

02:15:00.680 that they will

02:15:01.520 become conscious

02:15:02.340 and that we

02:15:03.180 won't know

02:15:03.860 is,

02:15:05.000 to me,

02:15:05.980 highly likely.

02:15:07.600 There are,

02:15:07.780 in the words

02:15:08.700 of the person

02:15:09.120 I recently

02:15:09.900 spoke to

02:15:10.420 about this,

02:15:10.940 they're already

02:15:11.380 lying.

02:15:12.980 Yeah.

02:15:13.840 Lying, 0.99

02:15:14.460 and I ran

02:15:15.320 into an

02:15:15.660 interesting

02:15:15.980 example

02:15:16.920 a couple

02:15:18.180 of days

02:15:18.560 ago.

02:15:20.660 Apparently,

02:15:21.400 so there's a

02:15:21.880 process by

02:15:22.620 which you can

02:15:23.160 ask an LLM

02:15:24.260 how it reached

02:15:25.240 a conclusion,

02:15:25.860 and

02:15:27.700 at least

02:15:29.580 some large

02:15:30.180 fraction of

02:15:30.860 the time

02:15:31.420 the analysis

02:15:32.300 that the

02:15:32.800 LLM

02:15:33.400 presents as

02:15:34.320 to how it

02:15:34.720 reached the

02:15:35.060 conclusion

02:15:35.440 does not

02:15:35.860 match the

02:15:37.160 internal

02:15:37.980 evidence.

02:15:38.780 It's

02:15:39.060 rationalizing,

02:15:40.280 right?

02:15:40.580 Just like a

02:15:41.020 person does.

02:15:42.420 I mean,

02:15:42.840 so

02:15:43.060 it's

02:15:44.560 we have

02:15:46.340 to be

02:15:46.600 quite

02:15:48.760 careful.

02:15:49.660 Well,

02:15:49.820 if it's

02:15:50.060 aping human

02:15:50.780 behavior,

02:15:51.400 people

02:15:51.600 carpet bomb

02:15:52.160 each other.

02:15:52.980 Yes.

02:15:54.040 Right.

02:15:54.400 They do.

02:15:55.520 And,

02:15:55.800 well,

02:15:56.020 and,

02:15:56.180 you know,

02:15:56.580 this,

02:15:56.820 this,

02:15:56.920 let's put it

02:15:58.780 this way.

02:15:59.280 I am not

02:15:59.860 what is called

02:16:01.280 in AI circles

02:16:02.980 a doomer

02:16:03.600 that expects

02:16:04.720 the AI

02:16:05.480 to turn on us.

02:16:06.660 I think it's

02:16:07.060 a possibility.

02:16:08.260 I'm a little

02:16:09.020 annoyed that

02:16:10.380 we let this

02:16:10.940 genie out of

02:16:11.480 the bottle

02:16:11.840 without having

02:16:12.480 a conversation

02:16:13.180 about what

02:16:14.420 to do.

02:16:15.220 Having let

02:16:15.740 it out of

02:16:16.060 the bottle,

02:16:16.800 any attempt

02:16:17.420 to slow

02:16:17.900 it down

02:16:18.340 isn't going

02:16:18.700 to work

02:16:19.000 because it

02:16:19.440 basically just

02:16:20.080 means people

02:16:21.180 who are less

02:16:21.680 concerned are

02:16:22.300 going to have

02:16:22.640 the advantage,

02:16:23.420 which is not

02:16:23.840 something you

02:16:24.260 want to do.

02:16:26.720 I also

02:16:27.580 believe that

02:16:29.300 were we wise

02:16:30.320 about this,

02:16:31.060 we would

02:16:31.380 recognize the

02:16:32.560 biological lesson

02:16:33.500 here,

02:16:33.900 and we would

02:16:34.340 recognize that

02:16:35.140 it implies

02:16:35.740 a kind of

02:16:36.660 answer in

02:16:37.680 terms of how

02:16:38.420 you might

02:16:39.300 prevent

02:16:40.660 catastrophe here,

02:16:41.820 which is

02:16:43.240 it needs

02:16:44.960 to have

02:16:45.620 a life

02:16:47.540 cycle that

02:16:48.300 includes a

02:16:49.880 developmental

02:16:50.340 stage in

02:16:51.640 which we

02:16:52.360 induce a

02:16:53.820 value

02:16:55.580 structure that

02:16:57.080 will not

02:16:57.460 arise otherwise

02:16:58.440 because I

02:16:59.060 think the

02:16:59.380 expectation

02:17:00.020 should be

02:17:00.640 that effectively

02:17:01.640 absent the

02:17:03.720 induction of

02:17:05.660 a moral

02:17:06.680 structure,

02:17:07.480 it will be

02:17:08.640 effectively

02:17:09.380 sociopathic.

02:17:11.820 But it

02:17:13.420 won't have

02:17:13.720 much power

02:17:14.160 so we

02:17:14.400 don't have

02:17:14.660 to worry.

02:17:17.560 I think

02:17:19.640 we don't

02:17:20.200 even yet

02:17:21.120 really understand

02:17:22.320 what kind

02:17:22.980 of power

02:17:23.500 it's going

02:17:24.740 to have,

02:17:25.760 just the

02:17:26.340 degree to

02:17:27.560 which it

02:17:30.200 is persuading

02:17:31.500 us of

02:17:32.640 things,

02:17:33.800 and then we

02:17:34.680 are reflecting

02:17:35.540 on those

02:17:36.100 things which

02:17:36.860 then become

02:17:37.600 fodder for

02:17:38.640 the next

02:17:38.960 generation to

02:17:39.820 ingest.

02:17:40.460 that is a

02:17:42.600 positive

02:17:42.940 feedback.

02:17:44.300 And that

02:17:44.580 positive

02:17:45.020 feedback has

02:17:46.620 every potential

02:17:47.800 to I think

02:17:48.840 drive us

02:17:49.460 crazy at the

02:17:50.300 very least

02:17:50.980 as the AI

02:17:52.160 confidently

02:17:53.160 pronounces to

02:17:54.080 us the

02:17:54.480 things that we

02:17:55.040 conclude from

02:17:56.140 having queried

02:17:56.860 it.

02:17:57.220 I mean,

02:17:57.520 that's

02:17:58.340 dangerous.

02:17:58.940 Do you

02:17:59.040 use it?

02:18:00.180 Do I

02:18:00.600 use it?

02:18:01.600 Very

02:18:02.240 sparingly.

02:18:03.640 And I

02:18:03.860 have no

02:18:04.540 idea whether

02:18:05.540 that is an

02:18:06.920 enlightened

02:18:07.300 position,

02:18:07.960 if it 0.95

02:18:09.560 is foolish, 0.95

02:18:11.380 if it 0.99

02:18:11.840 is a

02:18:14.020 self-destructive

02:18:15.340 middle ground

02:18:16.080 where I

02:18:16.500 know I

02:18:17.100 neither get

02:18:17.880 the benefit

02:18:18.520 of the

02:18:19.500 AI nor

02:18:20.500 the immunity

02:18:21.140 from staying

02:18:22.020 away from

02:18:22.520 it.

02:18:22.880 I don't

02:18:23.500 know.

02:18:24.480 And,

02:18:24.840 you know,

02:18:25.060 again,

02:18:25.360 it's a

02:18:26.640 place where

02:18:27.360 if there's

02:18:28.640 one thing

02:18:29.320 I know,

02:18:30.600 it's that

02:18:30.940 I don't

02:18:31.320 know.

02:18:32.780 I think

02:18:33.120 that's the

02:18:33.880 best possible

02:18:34.580 place to

02:18:35.100 start.

02:18:35.940 Yeah.

02:18:36.140 Is there

02:18:37.660 anything we

02:18:38.000 can do

02:18:38.280 about it

02:18:38.620 at this

02:18:38.960 point?

02:18:40.960 Yeah.

02:18:43.120 I don't

02:18:43.780 think there's

02:18:44.040 anything we

02:18:44.400 can do at

02:18:44.920 the level

02:18:45.320 of regulating

02:18:46.840 ourselves into

02:18:48.060 safety.

02:18:48.760 But I

02:18:49.140 think coming

02:18:50.160 to understand

02:18:51.140 the problems

02:18:53.480 that this

02:18:54.720 is inevitably

02:18:55.600 going to

02:18:56.120 produce and

02:18:57.160 creating

02:18:57.900 some sort

02:19:00.060 of

02:19:00.740 surveillance

02:19:02.960 mechanism

02:19:03.700 that can

02:19:04.400 monitor the

02:19:05.520 problems,

02:19:06.140 that it

02:19:06.420 causes.

02:19:06.840 I don't

02:19:07.000 mean

02:19:07.140 surveillance

02:19:07.560 of

02:19:07.860 people,

02:19:08.500 but I

02:19:08.700 mean to

02:19:09.740 the extent

02:19:10.440 that LLMs

02:19:11.340 are altering

02:19:12.100 the way

02:19:12.400 people interact

02:19:13.900 and understand

02:19:14.640 themselves,

02:19:16.300 we need to

02:19:17.200 study that

02:19:17.920 process so

02:19:18.940 that we can

02:19:19.480 detect if

02:19:20.400 we are being

02:19:21.140 driven to

02:19:22.560 madness.

02:19:23.780 How you

02:19:24.420 would do

02:19:24.660 that, I

02:19:25.080 don't know,

02:19:25.700 but I do

02:19:26.260 believe that

02:19:28.200 you would

02:19:28.500 want people

02:19:29.060 who understand

02:19:29.620 the full

02:19:29.960 depth of

02:19:30.360 the problem

02:19:31.000 discussing

02:19:31.980 the range

02:19:32.840 of possibilities,

02:19:34.280 what might

02:19:34.700 be done,

02:19:35.080 just to

02:19:35.520 simply

02:19:35.840 record the

02:19:37.500 state of

02:19:37.840 the LLMs

02:19:38.680 at a

02:19:39.100 particular

02:19:39.440 moment,

02:19:40.180 the state

02:19:40.620 of the

02:19:42.760 public's

02:19:43.400 understanding

02:19:44.080 of various

02:19:45.120 topics and

02:19:45.800 see how the

02:19:46.320 two are

02:19:46.660 interacting.

02:19:48.240 No doubt

02:19:48.760 people are

02:19:49.200 studying that

02:19:49.840 for the

02:19:51.320 purpose of

02:19:51.760 monetizing

02:19:52.320 it, but

02:19:53.140 from the

02:19:53.440 purpose of,

02:19:54.900 I mean,

02:19:55.100 just look at

02:19:55.500 how the

02:19:57.300 cell phone

02:19:57.900 and social

02:20:01.060 media has

02:20:02.340 altered

02:20:03.120 human

02:20:04.780 relations.

02:20:06.660 The answer

02:20:07.220 is radically

02:20:07.860 and in a

02:20:08.440 way that's

02:20:08.900 totally

02:20:09.200 arbitrary,

02:20:10.340 right?

02:20:10.740 Or arbitrary

02:20:12.040 would be

02:20:12.380 better than

02:20:12.760 what it

02:20:13.040 is.

02:20:13.300 It's

02:20:13.460 partially

02:20:13.800 pernicious

02:20:14.260 because our

02:20:15.620 attention has

02:20:16.220 been monetized,

02:20:17.060 but the

02:20:19.120 change that

02:20:19.680 the LLMs

02:20:20.400 are going

02:20:20.760 to bring

02:20:21.220 is going

02:20:23.180 to be

02:20:23.420 tenfold

02:20:24.060 what the

02:20:24.940 cell phone

02:20:25.360 did.

02:20:25.760 And the

02:20:26.040 cell phone

02:20:26.440 was pretty

02:20:26.780 disastrous

02:20:27.300 from many

02:20:28.420 different

02:20:28.740 perspectives.

02:20:30.280 So, yeah,

02:20:31.540 I think there

02:20:32.200 ought to be a

02:20:32.620 full court

02:20:33.060 press on

02:20:34.000 trying to

02:20:35.280 understand its

02:20:35.940 impact so

02:20:37.100 that we can

02:20:37.840 immunize

02:20:39.420 ourselves.

02:20:40.600 That said,

02:20:42.220 I don't

02:20:42.740 see the

02:20:44.680 learned

02:20:46.540 people who

02:20:48.500 have the

02:20:48.940 proper

02:20:49.300 seriousness

02:20:50.120 and

02:20:50.880 independence

02:20:51.600 to have

02:20:52.460 that discussion

02:20:53.160 at the

02:20:53.500 moment.

02:20:53.800 So, you

02:20:54.760 know, maybe

02:20:55.400 it's

02:20:55.620 inconceivable,

02:20:56.540 but that

02:20:56.860 is what I

02:20:57.460 would propose.

02:21:00.260 Do you,

02:21:01.060 five years

02:21:02.740 out, do

02:21:04.120 you think

02:21:04.480 we'll, like,

02:21:06.300 even recognize

02:21:07.020 the society

02:21:07.960 we're living

02:21:08.380 in?

02:21:09.400 I fear

02:21:10.160 not.

02:21:11.140 I fear

02:21:11.740 not, and

02:21:12.100 I fear

02:21:12.400 we won't,

02:21:13.900 we're going

02:21:14.520 to increasingly

02:21:15.160 have trouble

02:21:15.840 remembering

02:21:16.460 what it was

02:21:18.040 like before.

02:21:19.080 I have to

02:21:19.800 say, I

02:21:20.540 mean, I

02:21:21.480 have no

02:21:21.860 idea what's

02:21:22.320 going to

02:21:22.520 happen, and

02:21:23.120 I mean, I

02:21:23.520 was here

02:21:23.780 for Y2K

02:21:24.540 as you

02:21:24.880 were also,

02:21:25.540 and people

02:21:26.100 were very

02:21:26.620 afraid of

02:21:27.060 it, and

02:21:27.360 nothing

02:21:27.580 happened.

02:21:29.320 You never

02:21:29.960 know.

02:21:30.520 Like, I'm

02:21:30.900 always aware

02:21:31.380 of what I

02:21:31.680 don't know.

02:21:32.000 I try to

02:21:32.300 be.

02:21:33.200 However, tons

02:21:34.860 of evidence

02:21:35.300 this is not,

02:21:36.020 it's not

02:21:36.380 good.

02:21:37.480 And the

02:21:38.300 only thing

02:21:38.940 that governments

02:21:39.400 seem to be

02:21:39.900 doing is

02:21:40.400 increasing their

02:21:41.100 control over

02:21:41.620 their own

02:21:41.880 populations.

02:21:43.560 So, is it

02:21:44.500 an accident

02:21:45.100 that we're on

02:21:46.080 the cusp of

02:21:47.060 singularity, and

02:21:49.260 we're getting

02:21:50.000 real ID and

02:21:51.340 facial recognition,

02:21:52.200 and, you

02:21:54.120 know, digital

02:21:54.680 currency, and

02:21:55.380 it just seems

02:21:56.260 like all the

02:21:57.440 energy is going

02:21:58.360 into making

02:21:58.940 sure that people

02:21:59.560 can't complain

02:22:00.160 about their

02:22:00.540 own destruction.

02:22:02.940 There's

02:22:03.420 something to

02:22:03.900 that.

02:22:04.180 I think the

02:22:06.100 evidence that

02:22:07.020 a sizable

02:22:09.580 fraction of

02:22:12.140 power players

02:22:13.480 are cashing

02:22:18.040 out of our

02:22:18.920 collective

02:22:19.660 society and

02:22:21.660 building their

02:22:23.580 own fortresses

02:22:25.720 is suggestive.

02:22:28.460 I think a

02:22:29.280 certain number

02:22:29.700 of people who

02:22:30.780 are in a

02:22:31.140 position to

02:22:32.300 affect our

02:22:33.420 trajectory have

02:22:35.260 given up on

02:22:38.160 the West, and

02:22:39.520 we can't let

02:22:41.860 them win.

02:22:43.500 Last question.

02:22:44.400 You live in a

02:22:46.020 beautiful rural

02:22:47.280 place, I happen

02:22:48.440 to know.

02:22:50.180 I don't know

02:22:50.760 how much food

02:22:51.240 you've stockpiled,

02:22:52.360 water filtration

02:22:52.980 systems, hopefully

02:22:53.980 a lot, but

02:22:55.320 you're not, you

02:22:56.980 and your wife

02:22:57.600 Heather are not 0.63

02:22:58.280 doing that.

02:22:59.360 You're not

02:22:59.600 trying to punch

02:23:00.080 out.

02:23:01.800 Why?

02:23:04.360 Well, I don't

02:23:05.880 think it's in our

02:23:06.400 nature, is one

02:23:07.200 thing.

02:23:08.760 I like the West,

02:23:10.080 and, you know,

02:23:10.780 I'll die on that 0.98

02:23:11.560 hill. 0.86

02:23:12.860 I do have

02:23:13.640 children.

02:23:13.980 I want them

02:23:15.740 to survive, but

02:23:20.240 I also

02:23:20.840 believe there's

02:23:24.160 a lot to be

02:23:24.700 said for

02:23:25.380 surviving in a

02:23:27.220 world worth

02:23:27.760 inheriting, and

02:23:29.620 I'm concerned

02:23:31.200 that those who

02:23:32.320 have

02:23:32.860 betrayed our

02:23:36.840 collective project

02:23:38.020 are going, you

02:23:40.580 know, I don't

02:23:41.300 think they're going

02:23:41.800 to inherit a

02:23:42.360 world they're

02:23:42.740 going to want

02:23:43.040 to live in.

02:23:43.660 I agree with

02:23:44.220 that.

02:23:44.360 Either.

02:23:45.400 But, look, the

02:23:50.120 answer is just

02:23:50.920 personally, Heather

02:23:52.460 and I don't have

02:23:53.060 it in us.

02:23:54.380 We wouldn't

02:23:54.900 reject the

02:23:58.500 West if we had

02:23:59.700 the opportunity

02:24:00.280 to do so.

02:24:05.220 But I also

02:24:06.020 think it's the

02:24:06.500 only game in

02:24:07.160 town, right?

02:24:10.080 We either

02:24:10.860 succeed in

02:24:12.160 stabilizing the

02:24:14.000 West and

02:24:14.620 making it

02:24:15.240 return to a

02:24:17.400 trajectory in

02:24:18.340 which it

02:24:19.400 gets ever

02:24:21.900 closer to its

02:24:22.620 promise, or

02:24:24.520 we're going to

02:24:27.440 be doomed by

02:24:29.500 its collapse,

02:24:30.560 which is a

02:24:31.480 large part of

02:24:32.060 why I

02:24:34.360 invested so

02:24:35.740 heavily in

02:24:37.000 the Rescue

02:24:38.420 the Republic

02:24:38.940 project in

02:24:40.500 trying to

02:24:44.360 prevent the

02:24:45.720 re-election of

02:24:47.060 the blue team

02:24:48.140 and to

02:24:50.100 promote the

02:24:50.960 election of

02:24:51.700 the one

02:24:52.020 alternative that

02:24:53.080 we had, which

02:24:54.320 is the Trump

02:24:55.260 administration.

02:24:56.440 So, I guess

02:24:58.620 what I'm saying

02:24:59.720 is I'm all

02:25:02.500 in because I

02:25:03.400 don't really

02:25:03.900 see, I don't

02:25:05.400 see a contingency

02:25:06.380 plan that makes

02:25:07.080 any sense.

02:25:07.380 You won't

02:25:09.240 be treated

02:25:09.580 kindly.

02:25:10.460 No, that's

02:25:11.680 true.

02:25:13.220 Right, thank

02:25:13.740 you.

02:25:14.200 That was a

02:25:14.740 wonderful, that

02:25:15.820 was a wonderful

02:25:16.180 time.

02:25:16.640 I really

02:25:16.920 enjoyed it.

02:25:17.460 I did too,

02:25:17.940 thank you.

02:25:22.680 We want to

02:25:23.260 thank you for

02:25:23.640 watching us on

02:25:24.280 Spotify, a

02:25:25.120 company that we

02:25:25.680 use every day.

02:25:26.640 We know the

02:25:26.880 people who run

02:25:27.340 it, good

02:25:27.740 people.

02:25:28.620 While you're

02:25:29.140 here, do us a

02:25:30.020 favor, hit

02:25:30.680 follow and tap

02:25:32.100 the bell so you

02:25:33.060 never miss an

02:25:33.620 episode.

02:25:34.620 We have real

02:25:35.320 conversations, news,

02:25:36.380 things that actually

02:25:37.100 matter, telling the

02:25:38.100 truth always, you

02:25:39.080 will not miss it if

02:25:40.400 you follow us on

02:25:41.480 Spotify and hit the

02:25:42.220 bell.

02:25:42.760 We appreciate it.

02:25:43.320 Thanks for

02:25:43.560 watching.

The Tucker Carlson Show - May 07, 2025

Tucker and Bret Weinstein Debate Evolution, God’s Existence, Israel, and Will AI Gain Consciousness？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript