Jesse Michels - "Eric Weinstein Reveals UFO Physics!" (October 4, 2021)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTIO-xAP0Dw
Channel: Jesse Michels
Published: 2021-10-04
Duration: 44:27
Extraction: complete English auto-generated YouTube captions retrieved with youtube_transcript.py --timestamps, 2026-08-28
Fidelity note: automated captions preserve source timing but may contain recognition and speaker-attribution errors.
Analytical page: ../../sources/eric-weinstein-uap-claims

[00:00:00.080] But here's the thing, Jesse.
[00:00:02.560] I don't really care about the inner
[00:00:04.160] person.
[00:00:04.799] Buckle up and brace for impact because
[00:00:06.799] our next guest is cultural commentator,
[00:00:09.120] mathematician, and brain masseuse Eric
[00:00:11.200] Weinstein.
[00:00:12.320] Hello. You ready to get some burgers?
[00:00:14.240] Morning. How you doing?
[00:00:15.679] If the ideas in GU are wrong, then
[00:00:18.000] they're just wrong.
[00:00:18.880] When I first met Eric, it was 3 years
[00:00:20.880] ago, and he had just started a movement
[00:00:22.560] called the intellectual dark web. The
[00:00:24.560] movement is not as ominous as it sounds.
[00:00:26.720] In fact, it's just a bunch of
[00:00:28.160] pro-reason, pro-democracy centrist
[00:00:30.400] intellectuals. Other members of the
[00:00:32.160] group included Joe Rogan, Jordan
[00:00:34.000] Peterson, Sam Harris, and last but not
[00:00:36.000] least, Eric's brother, Brett Weinstein,
[00:00:38.160] badass evolutionary biologist,
[00:00:40.160] perennially on YouTube's most wanted
[00:00:42.239] list. So, I thought more people should
[00:00:44.160] be aware of Eric and his ideas. Thus
[00:00:46.559] began a year and a half of meounding him
[00:00:48.640] to start a podcast, an effort that
[00:00:50.480] eventually became The Portal.
[00:00:51.840] Hello and welcome. You found the portal.
[00:00:53.840] my brought my producer Jesse Michaels
[00:00:56.160] here. I was a pain in the ass to this
[00:00:58.239] guy. I did not return his phone calls.
[00:01:00.239] I'd get messages from you that would be
[00:01:02.079] like, "Well, it's 3 days later and you
[00:01:03.840] still don't have a podcast."
[00:01:05.840] The way I describe Eric to people who
[00:01:07.680] might not know who he is is if Stephven
[00:01:09.840] Hawking and Christopher Hitchens had a
[00:01:11.920] baby while listening to a whole lot of
[00:01:13.680] love by Led Zeppelin.
[00:01:14.960] You need cooling. Eric is a complete
[00:01:17.840] polymath. He knows multiple languages.
[00:01:20.080] He plays multiple instruments. He can go
[00:01:21.920] toe-to-toe with the top physicists in
[00:01:23.759] the country. His brain is a rare
[00:01:25.520] mutation.
[00:01:26.159] What is an American tradition?
[00:01:27.439] What is it?
[00:01:28.159] Something a baby boomer did twice.
[00:01:34.799] All night long.
[00:01:35.840] We discuss Eric's theory of everything
[00:01:37.520] in physics, the institutional and
[00:01:39.439] economic headwinds facing young people
[00:01:41.360] in this country, artificial general
[00:01:43.360] intelligence, and even UFOs. What was
[00:01:46.399] that? Please enjoy this special long-
[00:01:48.640] form interview with the love of my work
[00:01:50.720] life, the bane of my existence, and this
[00:01:52.960] week's American Alchemist, Eric
[00:01:54.799] Weinstein.
[00:02:01.119] So, let's just get right into it. It's a
[00:02:02.799] very strange time that we're living in.
[00:02:05.520] Yeah, I was just trying to measure that
[00:02:06.880] actually. How strange? This morning,
[00:02:08.879] let's give people a little history. So
[00:02:12.160] gain of function research is basically
[00:02:14.879] creating trying to look around the
[00:02:17.040] corner on maybe what the next pathogen
[00:02:19.280] or virus will be. Creating it in an
[00:02:21.520] artificial lab setting so that you can
[00:02:24.160] then come up with the cure. Obama
[00:02:26.560] actually sunsets it because he thinks
[00:02:28.640] that it's too dangerous. Fouchi kind of
[00:02:31.920] takes advantage of the chaos of the
[00:02:34.400] Trump administration and restarts the
[00:02:36.560] gain of function funding that the NIH is
[00:02:39.440] doing in 2017.
[00:02:42.000] And we're now giving money to the Wuhan
[00:02:44.080] Institute of Viology, which is a lab
[00:02:46.560] with a poor safety record. A lot of what
[00:02:48.959] this has to do with is bowarfare being
[00:02:51.840] something that we're uncomfortable with
[00:02:53.280] about uh you know just the way it's like
[00:02:55.200] doing chemical weapons research. You
[00:02:56.879] have to do the research in a defensive
[00:02:58.800] capacity. Everything has a dual role. My
[00:03:01.680] point is is that you're listening to
[00:03:02.959] Colonel Jessup.
[00:03:03.920] You snotty little bastard.
[00:03:06.000] You may find my existence repugnant, but
[00:03:08.000] you want me on that wall. You want me on
[00:03:10.159] that post,
[00:03:10.879] right?
[00:03:11.280] And the fact that you can't stomach what
[00:03:13.280] it is, like you may have an idea that
[00:03:15.360] it's really important that we be good uh
[00:03:18.080] kind stewards of the planet. But you
[00:03:19.680] want your burger, don't you? And
[00:03:21.599] somebody's got to kill that cow and uh
[00:03:24.480] and take the organs out and serve it up
[00:03:26.400] so you can pretend that that little
[00:03:27.599] piece of protein
[00:03:29.120] uh you know came from a protein factory,
[00:03:30.959] which it didn't.
[00:03:31.840] Yeah.
[00:03:32.720] Well, that's what Anthony Fouchy thinks.
[00:03:34.480] It's like
[00:03:36.159] for whatever reason, I'm the guy that
[00:03:38.159] you've put in this position to handle
[00:03:39.760] this really terrible portfolio of things
[00:03:42.239] we're not supposed to be doing, but we
[00:03:43.599] have to be doing.
[00:03:44.560] Not gain of function.
[00:03:46.640] But if you think about it, we we do this
[00:03:48.239] with our military. We tell the military
[00:03:49.760] what it can and cannot do and then we
[00:03:51.440] find out that it uses contractors
[00:03:52.959] because they may not be covered under
[00:03:54.879] what you can ask the military to do. For
[00:03:56.799] example, you might put your secrets
[00:03:59.200] inside of an aerospace company because
[00:04:01.920] you don't want to hold them inside of
[00:04:03.120] government because inside of government
[00:04:04.720] they're vulnerable.
[00:04:05.519] Lawyer requests and
[00:04:06.959] likewise tyranny of censorship. You want
[00:04:09.840] that done through private corporations
[00:04:11.599] because the government uh is under all
[00:04:13.920] sorts of requirements not to do that.
[00:04:15.760] Mhm.
[00:04:16.400] So when people say things like, "Well,
[00:04:18.000] it's a private company. It can do
[00:04:19.359] whatever it wants." Well, not really.
[00:04:22.079] Um, you know, you ever tried to produce
[00:04:24.320] food and not say what the ingredient
[00:04:25.919] list is? Uh, it's pretty tough to sell
[00:04:28.479] food,
[00:04:28.960] right?
[00:04:29.600] Right. Okay. Why don't I know what the
[00:04:31.919] ingredient list is in the algorithms
[00:04:33.360] that mutate my conversations?
[00:04:36.800] I can't see a thing. And at some level,
[00:04:39.360] we farmed out tyranny to private
[00:04:41.360] companies.
[00:04:42.400] Let's talk about what CO exposed. Um, as
[00:04:45.680] far as the dynamic between the US and
[00:04:47.919] China for a second. So, very broadly and
[00:04:50.800] crudely speaking, we've moved away from
[00:04:53.199] a manufacturing economy towards more of
[00:04:55.840] a kind of service-based economy and
[00:04:58.080] we've become dependent on supply chains
[00:05:00.639] abroad for all sorts of essential goods
[00:05:03.520] and services. We basically outsourced
[00:05:06.000] our sort of self-sufficiency and so what
[00:05:08.960] do we do? It feels like we've done
[00:05:10.240] nothing as far as
[00:05:11.840] we don't exist. I think you're thinking
[00:05:13.440] too small. Okay.
[00:05:14.960] I don't think when you say the US and
[00:05:16.800] China that you're talking about two
[00:05:18.479] countries. You're talking about a
[00:05:19.600] country that exists, which is China,
[00:05:21.680] and a country that has existed in the
[00:05:23.600] past that does not exist now. And that
[00:05:26.560] what happened in World War II is that we
[00:05:28.479] had such a coherence that it took a very
[00:05:31.919] long time for the decay function to
[00:05:34.240] eradicate the ability of that country to
[00:05:37.039] do things. And now we've gotten to that
[00:05:38.560] point where we're looking for a disaster
[00:05:41.440] to call us into being a country again.
[00:05:43.520] That's right. And our elites are
[00:05:45.199] inherently trans.
[00:05:46.320] Sorry, we don't have any.
[00:05:48.240] Okay.
[00:05:48.960] So, the elites aren't.
[00:05:50.560] Yep.
[00:05:51.120] Sitting in an elite chair does not make
[00:05:53.039] you elite any more than sitting in a
[00:05:54.800] pilot seat in a plane gives you the
[00:05:56.720] ability to fly it. Somebody once asked
[00:05:58.880] George Burns, "Do you play the violin?"
[00:06:00.880] He says, "I don't know. I never tried."
[00:06:02.800] You want an elite surgeon for your
[00:06:04.800] child's heart operation.
[00:06:06.240] Sure.
[00:06:06.639] You want elite commandos to go in and
[00:06:08.960] take the bad guys out without hurting
[00:06:10.639] anybody else. Mhm.
[00:06:12.800] But we don't want an elite anywhere else
[00:06:14.240] cuz we keep hearing about the elite, the
[00:06:15.600] elite, the elite. Well, they aren't.
[00:06:17.039] Mhm. Is it safe to say that Wall Street,
[00:06:21.440] consulting, and big tech are all good
[00:06:24.160] examples where the incentives around
[00:06:27.360] protecting America,
[00:06:29.440] those are after self-enrichment. You've
[00:06:32.479] picked three really interesting, weird
[00:06:34.319] examples because these are like the only
[00:06:36.880] places where smart college graduates can
[00:06:40.319] reliably go to earn six figures if
[00:06:43.039] they're willing to work themselves to a
[00:06:44.479] crisp.
[00:06:45.600] And you're that's the only way to not
[00:06:47.919] have debt basically is to do one of
[00:06:49.440] those three things.
[00:06:50.160] Well, you didn't mention porn or
[00:06:51.600] cannabis.
[00:06:52.960] Those are also possible new creators.
[00:06:55.280] Well, look, I I I did this program with
[00:06:58.160] uh Sugar Baby University, and I tried to
[00:07:00.479] shock the boomers and say, "You do
[00:07:02.880] realize that you're selling your your
[00:07:04.479] daughters into gray area prostitution
[00:07:06.800] through sugar dating?"
[00:07:09.360] And they don't even hear it.
[00:07:12.479] They, you know, you ask your kids going
[00:07:14.720] to college campuses, how many people do,
[00:07:17.680] you know, are sugaring in order to make
[00:07:20.160] sure that they graduate without debt?
[00:07:22.080] And it's an open secret among the kids.
[00:07:26.080] It's just
[00:07:29.759] there's not much of anything left,
[00:07:31.759] Jesse. What we're doing is we're
[00:07:34.000] watching the decay of things that were
[00:07:36.240] built by previous generations and we're
[00:07:38.960] not excited to get up off the couch.
[00:07:42.560] Is there any way to reboot any of these
[00:07:46.080] institutions?
[00:07:46.960] Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.
[00:07:48.000] How do we do that?
[00:07:49.440] Well, first of all, you have to pick
[00:07:50.960] one. We don't know which one. We don't
[00:07:52.880] know how.
[00:07:53.599] Yeah. But assume that you could take
[00:07:55.360] back one and you gave it the ability to
[00:07:57.520] say no. It'd be very easy, for example,
[00:07:59.919] to endow a university to just insulate
[00:08:03.520] it.
[00:08:04.400] We're going to take the most dangerous
[00:08:06.800] safe thinkers.
[00:08:07.919] Yeah.
[00:08:08.639] Who actually have new ideas that are
[00:08:10.319] reasonable and not mean-spirited, and
[00:08:12.560] we're going to make sure that they're
[00:08:14.319] not subject to to market forces so they
[00:08:16.240] can do whatever they want and we protect
[00:08:17.680] them. But you have individuals who are
[00:08:20.160] still not dead.
[00:08:21.440] That's a great segue into
[00:08:23.840] You've attempted to almost do the
[00:08:26.000] impossible, which is to coalesce these
[00:08:29.039] sort of atomized truthteller gadflies
[00:08:32.719] where sometimes small disagreements
[00:08:35.360] between them make it hard to kind of
[00:08:37.519] create a coherent unit. And I think if
[00:08:40.000] if I were to create one sort of pin for
[00:08:43.279] all of it, you might be it. How do you
[00:08:46.160] do that?
[00:08:46.800] We try it.
[00:08:48.959] It works vaguely,
[00:08:51.440] but you need brick and mortar and you
[00:08:53.360] need people who are empowered and you
[00:08:55.680] need people with stakes in the game. I
[00:08:57.279] mean, it's just I get very bored of
[00:09:00.000] saying this because it doesn't do good
[00:09:02.080] things for me. Yes, I am trying to
[00:09:04.320] coalesce people. But let's be honest,
[00:09:07.839] nobody wants to put FU money into people
[00:09:11.360] who actually say FU. You're not
[00:09:13.360] comfortable with actual heroes.
[00:09:14.800] I think that's right. I mean your line
[00:09:16.080] on it is Charles Lindberg was our last
[00:09:18.800] hero.
[00:09:19.680] Well, he was a a scoundrel.
[00:09:21.920] He was a scoundrel. He was a scoundrel.
[00:09:23.200] Didn't like our people.
[00:09:24.640] He did not. But the point was he was a
[00:09:27.440] national hero
[00:09:28.880] who had the power to lead the country
[00:09:31.680] out of a war orientation and say this is
[00:09:34.240] a Jewish British problem. America first.
[00:09:38.000] And the idea that an individual would
[00:09:40.240] amass that kind of power was something I
[00:09:42.160] think that we the government we official
[00:09:44.640] learned. we can't have anymore. And
[00:09:46.240] it feels like there's a general malaise
[00:09:48.160] among my generation and Gen Z to some
[00:09:51.839] extent. Millennials own 4.8% of the
[00:09:54.480] wealth in this country. Look at a city
[00:09:56.320] like LA.
[00:09:57.839] Real wages
[00:09:59.680] have basically stagnated, maybe risen
[00:10:02.800] slightly, and then cost of living has 20
[00:10:05.440] to 30xed. If you just look at, you know,
[00:10:07.279] take like real estate or something like
[00:10:08.560] that. Yeah. Doesn't [ __ ] make any
[00:10:10.240] sense anymore. You guys need to fall in
[00:10:13.600] love with each other and get each other
[00:10:15.680] pregnant and deal with the
[00:10:17.760] responsibility of the consequences of
[00:10:19.519] that those actions. And you're not
[00:10:21.760] equipped.
[00:10:22.480] Yeah.
[00:10:22.959] And as as I'm fond of saying, I love you
[00:10:25.839] guys not as much as I love Gen Z. Gen Z
[00:10:28.560] is my children,
[00:10:29.839] right?
[00:10:30.640] So you guys are my audience, but Gen Z
[00:10:32.640] is my kids. So I love you, but not as
[00:10:35.360] much as Gen Z.
[00:10:38.480] Your parents don't love you as much as I
[00:10:40.959] love you guys. And that's what kills me.
[00:10:44.520] [Music]
[00:10:55.680] All of that is basically algorithmic.
[00:10:58.079] And it's the algorithms that break your
[00:10:59.760] heart. You don't realize that Paco Bell
[00:11:03.440] is emotional
[00:11:05.200] because it's not even music. It's math.
[00:11:10.800] So, the reason that it's your parents'
[00:11:12.320] wedding song
[00:11:14.240] is that your parents wanted people to
[00:11:16.560] feel. So, they chose an algorithm.
[00:11:19.600] Talk about boomer neglect.
[00:11:21.680] Who understands these people? No one.
[00:11:24.720] You had to go through what they went
[00:11:27.279] through
[00:11:28.800] to understand their crazy mindset. And I
[00:11:31.760] and I don't mean to say that
[00:11:33.120] individually
[00:11:35.120] we don't have lovely relationships with
[00:11:36.800] them. We do. But they went through
[00:11:39.120] something. What what did they go?
[00:11:41.040] Because it I mean it feels like in some
[00:11:44.000] sense they went through nothing. They
[00:11:45.440] benefited from massive growth post World
[00:11:48.160] War II. You know 46 through 64 is the
[00:11:51.760] rough sort of range. And so that I feel
[00:11:55.519] like creates all sorts of weird
[00:11:56.800] psychological dynamics where you're
[00:11:58.640] given if you were to buy real estate
[00:12:00.720] between the you know 50s and the 80s and
[00:12:03.440] like on the coasts.
[00:12:05.120] Yeah.
[00:12:05.760] The amount of wealth you acrew just
[00:12:07.600] through that
[00:12:08.480] right. Our whole story is off one. The
[00:12:11.920] greatest generation, which supposedly
[00:12:13.440] won World War II by fighting the Germans
[00:12:15.760] handtoh hand and blah blah blah, always
[00:12:18.399] ignores that the Soviets did a ton and
[00:12:20.720] the physicists finished it off in in
[00:12:22.800] Japan, you know. So yeah, we took
[00:12:25.200] casualties and people went through
[00:12:27.040] things and they saw things, but we
[00:12:29.519] didn't go through Stalenrad, you know.
[00:12:31.920] So first of all you have this problem
[00:12:33.760] that a lot of gis came back home as the
[00:12:35.839] conquering heroes who didn't see the
[00:12:39.839] kind of action let's say that the
[00:12:41.200] Soviets saw. Then you have the silent
[00:12:43.519] generation that follows the greatest
[00:12:46.000] generation which actually you know Joe
[00:12:48.160] Biden comes from that generation. We've
[00:12:49.920] gone backwards from boomers into the
[00:12:51.600] silence now. Um and they sort of grow up
[00:12:55.920] with this postworld war II prosperity
[00:12:57.839] that they can't get to work. So Joe
[00:12:59.519] Biden begins as a 29-year-old senator in
[00:13:02.000] 1972.
[00:13:03.440] Yeah.
[00:13:04.079] Right. And then the boomers are like
[00:13:06.160] after this and they're set to be the
[00:13:09.040] first generation that can't get the
[00:13:11.200] American dream to work.
[00:13:13.920] And because of the culture of personal
[00:13:15.680] responsibility, the idea of just failing
[00:13:18.079] at the American dream doesn't it's like
[00:13:20.800] not an option.
[00:13:23.120] So China becomes the source of the
[00:13:25.360] American dream. Right.
[00:13:26.480] It's really the Chinese dream of getting
[00:13:29.600] wealthy Americans to sell things off to
[00:13:32.240] China so that they can pretend to live
[00:13:33.920] better than their parents
[00:13:35.920] in a weird way. So then what's Gen X? We
[00:13:39.040] we're we're the jetwash generation. We
[00:13:42.560] follow the boomers and the silence. We
[00:13:45.279] get a chance to see the world that they
[00:13:47.760] sort of saw. We're the last ones who
[00:13:50.399] have any vision of, you know, functional
[00:13:52.880] like journalism. I remember functional
[00:13:54.800] journalism from when I was five in
[00:13:56.480] Vietnam.
[00:13:58.320] Um, and we we grow up in a 75 year peace
[00:14:04.079] bubble,
[00:14:05.600] you know, so we don't know reality.
[00:14:07.360] Yeah.
[00:14:08.240] You guys know less about reality because
[00:14:09.920] you didn't even see the tail end,
[00:14:12.000] right,
[00:14:12.480] of functional society.
[00:14:16.000] And Gen Z is looking at all of us and
[00:14:18.560] saying, "Are you all just effing crazy?"
[00:14:20.959] Yeah. So if if something close to 40% of
[00:14:24.560] the wealth that millennials hold is in
[00:14:26.880] one set of hands of a guy who's on a
[00:14:29.360] hydrooil with an American flag for July
[00:14:32.240] 4th saying, "Hey, we've got a terrible
[00:14:34.560] labor shortage. Please give me all the
[00:14:36.079] visas so I don't actually have to pay my
[00:14:37.839] workers."
[00:14:38.480] Yeah.
[00:14:40.880] No.
[00:14:42.240] Right.
[00:14:42.720] You can't do that.
[00:14:43.920] Right.
[00:14:44.480] Because that's an advertisement for
[00:14:46.240] redistribution of wealth. If you want an
[00:14:48.639] unequal society as I do
[00:14:51.920] where different levels of ability and
[00:14:53.839] different levels of drive and risk
[00:14:55.839] management are rewarded at different
[00:14:58.160] levels, it can't be this dumb. This is
[00:15:02.000] an argument for communism. Our current
[00:15:04.639] capitalism is an argument for communism.
[00:15:08.320] We need a capitalism that is an argument
[00:15:10.880] for capitalism.
[00:15:12.720] Is there a point at which if you're, you
[00:15:15.839] know, a burgeoning tech entrepreneur and
[00:15:19.199] you start to scale and you start to make
[00:15:20.880] money and you start to connect with
[00:15:22.800] people at high levels of society, you
[00:15:25.440] just sort of become co-opted and all of
[00:15:28.000] your ideas go out the window.
[00:15:30.079] Well, nobody plans for what success is
[00:15:35.440] going to do to them.
[00:15:37.760] We talked about this earlier on the car
[00:15:39.440] ride over. It's sort of a sila and
[00:15:41.760] kuribbdus a young person has to face and
[00:15:44.399] on the one hand it's work on scholarly
[00:15:47.120] academic things but don't get any
[00:15:49.680] support you can't really do too many
[00:15:51.440] interesting things or it's you know go
[00:15:54.959] into commercial activity try to make as
[00:15:57.279] much money as possible but lose the plot
[00:15:59.519] what are you doing
[00:16:01.440] I'm attempting to marry
[00:16:03.199] confuse them
[00:16:04.000] the two I know and it's uh very it's a
[00:16:07.360] tightroppe act and I don't know if I'm
[00:16:08.720] going to pull it off
[00:16:09.360] that's why I'm
[00:16:10.399] Thank you, Eric.
[00:16:11.199] No, because this is an amazing idea. If
[00:16:14.320] you can not get sucked in to doing cool
[00:16:17.199] stuff that gets you clicks, and keep in
[00:16:18.880] mind, you're going to get captured by
[00:16:20.160] your audience. If you can fuse these two
[00:16:23.279] things, then you can potentially do
[00:16:26.160] something financial that creates the
[00:16:28.399] monetary input to allow you to do
[00:16:30.560] something scholarly that allows you to
[00:16:32.800] gain insight to inform your ability to
[00:16:35.120] make more money. If you can get that
[00:16:36.480] figure eight thing going,
[00:16:37.759] yeah,
[00:16:38.320] that's the holy grail.
[00:16:39.839] Let's talk about another example of this
[00:16:42.000] in Elon Musk. I think you both have the
[00:16:45.519] same premise, but then come to almost
[00:16:48.240] vastly different conclusions as to what
[00:16:50.399] to do about that premise. He seems to
[00:16:53.680] think that we need to get off this earth
[00:16:55.920] with physical rockets.
[00:16:58.079] No, no. He thinks that we need to get
[00:16:59.920] off this earth.
[00:17:00.880] Mhm.
[00:17:01.360] Let's start there.
[00:17:02.399] Yes. Same premise.
[00:17:04.079] The same premise.
[00:17:06.160] We don't know if he thinks that it's
[00:17:07.439] with rockets or rockets is the best he
[00:17:09.439] can do. If you believe that humans have
[00:17:11.919] to diversify because a single planetary
[00:17:14.559] surface effectively creates one
[00:17:16.319] synchronized experiment, you'd have to
[00:17:19.120] ask how many different ways are there of
[00:17:21.199] getting off of this planet. And there's
[00:17:23.600] getting off with the chemistry and
[00:17:25.280] physics that we know, which is rockets.
[00:17:28.000] And we know that that's good enough for
[00:17:29.360] the moon and marginally it may be good
[00:17:31.840] enough for Mars. super tough to imagine
[00:17:34.559] that working, but okay, you can imagine
[00:17:37.200] a space station or two. You can even go
[00:17:38.960] crazier and imagine Titan around Saturn.
[00:17:42.559] But Elon's a physics guy. He's he's got
[00:17:44.720] a physics background.
[00:17:48.240] The other great option is to say
[00:17:51.280] Einstein
[00:17:53.039] recovered Newton in a limit. You may be
[00:17:56.400] able to evade
[00:17:58.480] faster than light problems because
[00:18:01.679] faster than light is about spaceime.
[00:18:03.600] That's an Einsteinian concept.
[00:18:07.600] GU is intended
[00:18:10.160] to
[00:18:11.840] say here are some extra parameters that
[00:18:14.320] you've never had access to that can
[00:18:16.640] recover relativity theory.
[00:18:18.799] So relativity might live within
[00:18:20.799] something broader.
[00:18:22.000] Right. Well, and in GU, you can say
[00:18:24.799] exactly where it lives.
[00:18:26.559] Now, that's an insanely exciting
[00:18:28.720] prospect. And you went on Joe Rogan and
[00:18:32.000] presented this to the world.
[00:18:34.080] This is all very hard for the average
[00:18:36.559] person to follow. But I think it's not
[00:18:38.000] about person.
[00:18:39.120] I understand that. But I'm saying I
[00:18:40.559] think it would be incredibly valuable
[00:18:42.480] just release it for the average for to
[00:18:44.960] everybody. Yeah. And this is my cursory
[00:18:47.280] understanding, but it's like it feels
[00:18:49.280] like there are what, like five people on
[00:18:50.960] Earth or something who could even try to
[00:18:53.440] like read this stuff. Maybe there are no
[00:18:55.200] people on Earth. I don't know.
[00:18:57.039] How How do you get this stuff out?
[00:19:00.480] People don't understand what I did or
[00:19:02.320] why I did it because it's it's different
[00:19:04.480] enough and it was weird enough that they
[00:19:06.400] didn't grasp it. It wasn't about
[00:19:08.000] teaching Joe Rogan physics inside of a
[00:19:10.480] show.
[00:19:12.559] It's about the fact that
[00:19:16.400] there is no way now to go back
[00:19:19.760] and take that theory
[00:19:23.600] away because there's a record of when it
[00:19:26.720] happened.
[00:19:28.320] And the reason that Joe Rogan's program
[00:19:30.799] is so important is it has so many
[00:19:32.160] eyeballs on it. So, I think that there's
[00:19:33.520] a famous scene in one of the Mission
[00:19:35.039] Impossible movies where Tom Cruz has to
[00:19:38.160] meet with people who want him dead and
[00:19:40.240] he chooses to meet in a public square
[00:19:42.720] and he's got the only copy of the
[00:19:44.720] information inside of his head so that
[00:19:46.720] killing him will destroy the
[00:19:48.480] information.
[00:19:50.320] Right? In in essence, that's the sort of
[00:19:52.559] a problem academics has become so
[00:19:54.720] poisonous, so focused on enforcing the
[00:19:58.720] rules that nobody can afford to think
[00:20:01.600] you in order to get things right, you
[00:20:03.520] have to get things wrong.
[00:20:05.039] And we won't allow people to get things
[00:20:06.720] wrong unless it's part of a program
[00:20:08.799] that's been blessed.
[00:20:11.200] So that was a timestamped, ubiquitously
[00:20:14.320] seen.
[00:20:15.200] That was the point of it. People didn't
[00:20:16.640] understand it. The other thing is is
[00:20:18.160] that um there are no protections inside
[00:20:21.520] of science for taking somebody else's
[00:20:24.880] work and putting another person's name
[00:20:26.400] on it
[00:20:27.679] and this was a good protection.
[00:20:29.360] Well, and I put something saying that I
[00:20:31.600] choose to be an entertainer
[00:20:33.360] rather than a scientist and therefore it
[00:20:35.120] has copyright protection. So where do we
[00:20:37.840] go from here on GU in terms of
[00:20:40.400] somebody
[00:20:41.760] is going to have to actually grasp
[00:20:46.080] the ideas inside of GU.
[00:20:49.280] But here's the thing, Jesse. I don't
[00:20:52.000] really care about the inner person.
[00:20:54.880] I I want a nice life. I want my family
[00:20:57.120] left alone,
[00:20:58.799] right? And I want to be insulated so I
[00:21:00.960] don't need to worry every day.
[00:21:03.520] But it's the ideas. If the ideas in GU
[00:21:06.559] are wrong, then they're just wrong.
[00:21:10.240] If the GU ideas are right, but they're
[00:21:13.360] small errors, as there have been every
[00:21:15.280] time anybody's accomplished anything in
[00:21:17.679] this kind of a way,
[00:21:19.280] yeah,
[00:21:19.679] fine.
[00:21:20.400] Yeah,
[00:21:20.799] not a big deal. Let's fix some errors.
[00:21:23.520] But people have this these like weird
[00:21:25.440] things that they want to do. They want
[00:21:26.640] to turn this into drama. So for example,
[00:21:29.840] Einstein and Hilbert
[00:21:33.440] supposedly, you know, Hilbert almost
[00:21:35.600] scooped Einstein, but Einstein pulled it
[00:21:37.760] out of the No, nothing like this
[00:21:39.440] remotely happened. Einstein and Grossman
[00:21:43.200] were on general relativity. Hilbert did
[00:21:45.679] something. Even if Hilbert had gotten
[00:21:47.200] there first, it wouldn't have mattered.
[00:21:48.480] The ideas were from Einstein.
[00:21:50.960] We want to create moronic horse races
[00:21:54.400] because it's exciting.
[00:21:57.039] You have like eight different frames.
[00:21:58.799] Like you can go Yeah. You could talk to
[00:22:01.440] a biologist, you can talk to a
[00:22:04.000] physicist, you can talk math. Uh you're
[00:22:07.200] a cultural commentator. And so, you
[00:22:10.799] know, I might have annoyed the [ __ ] out
[00:22:12.159] of you in the process of trying to get
[00:22:14.880] you to start the portal.
[00:22:16.240] That just No, come on. The issue was I
[00:22:19.120] didn't want to become famous.
[00:22:20.559] Yeah. I wanted my ideas to become famous
[00:22:22.880] and I wanted to be the owner of those
[00:22:24.640] ideas. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't
[00:22:28.880] know that the problem isn't getting the
[00:22:33.360] ideas out there. You can get the ideas
[00:22:35.280] out there. The problem now is that the
[00:22:38.320] ideas are like seeds that need to find
[00:22:40.720] soil and rain and the proper
[00:22:43.200] temperature. And we we don't have that
[00:22:45.120] at the moment. We we have a world in
[00:22:47.039] which um you can teach a person to fish.
[00:22:51.520] You're not even giving them fish. You
[00:22:52.720] can teach them to fish and they will
[00:22:54.000] starve for lack of like they won't
[00:22:57.200] understand that when you're gone they
[00:22:58.640] have to go fish.
[00:23:00.320] We don't have culture that's proper.
[00:23:02.159] Like it's really important to understand
[00:23:04.880] how counterintuitive the the US where we
[00:23:07.600] live is as an intellectual system. We
[00:23:11.280] expect you to not take advantage of all
[00:23:14.480] of the freedoms that we give you. The
[00:23:17.120] purpose of freedom is not understood by
[00:23:20.080] people. And I I often compare it to
[00:23:21.679] thing like freedom, potential, and
[00:23:24.159] sperm.
[00:23:25.120] You're not supposed to use all of it.
[00:23:28.640] Yeah.
[00:23:29.120] Right. So, you have potential. You could
[00:23:30.559] do anything in your life, but you're not
[00:23:31.679] going to both become an opera singer and
[00:23:33.679] a Formula 1 driver
[00:23:36.240] uh and a nutrient uh company CEO and
[00:23:41.520] etc., etc., etc. You're not going to get
[00:23:42.960] to do everything. Every life is about
[00:23:45.200] the foregoing
[00:23:47.440] of opportunity.
[00:23:48.559] There's something about the hard choice
[00:23:50.720] thing that seems lost on my generation.
[00:23:53.840] We seem to all have an illusion of
[00:23:55.440] omnipossibility.
[00:23:56.720] Well, and that's what that's all you've
[00:23:58.640] been given. You've been given your
[00:24:00.159] future because you're not being given
[00:24:01.600] your present.
[00:24:02.960] And the future that you're being given
[00:24:04.880] is largely elucer,
[00:24:06.880] right?
[00:24:07.360] And that thing is making me crazy
[00:24:09.919] because I would rather deal you guys in
[00:24:13.120] on a future that's real. My favorite
[00:24:15.600] tweet that I let off recently was
[00:24:17.840] something about for all of you who
[00:24:19.679] decided to have a kid during I have to
[00:24:21.360] be careful not to tear up on camera, but
[00:24:23.679] people started sending me ultrasounds
[00:24:25.440] like we've got two in the in the oven
[00:24:27.840] and you know we have to thank you for
[00:24:29.600] telling us to have kids and I realized
[00:24:31.600] nobody's yelling at you guys get
[00:24:34.320] married, have the babies. Yes, it's all
[00:24:36.880] it all sucks. You don't have the money.
[00:24:40.400] Don't waste your fertility windows.
[00:24:42.320] Don't waste your ability to to to form
[00:24:44.480] families. Yes, it's tough and there is
[00:24:47.200] divorce and things go wrong and people
[00:24:48.880] come to hate each other. But you know
[00:24:50.080] what? A lot of those dysfunctional
[00:24:52.000] families
[00:24:55.200] are still families. Family is barely
[00:24:58.080] doable. But it is barely doable.
[00:25:01.039] And quite honestly, I want to see you
[00:25:03.520] guys delt. And you know, for me, the um
[00:25:10.960] I think that the thing I like least
[00:25:13.360] about being famous is having a family
[00:25:16.320] because you can't protect your there's
[00:25:18.799] so many psychopaths in the world. And it
[00:25:21.279] doesn't mean that there's like tens of
[00:25:23.279] thousands of psychopaths. But it just
[00:25:25.360] takes a small amount of psychopathy to
[00:25:27.360] get you to really come to look at this
[00:25:30.080] fame question differently. I think it's
[00:25:33.679] very interesting to think about media as
[00:25:36.559] sort of not a loss leader. Maybe it's a
[00:25:38.640] loss leader, maybe it's it's break even,
[00:25:40.880] but um you're creating a lighthouse for
[00:25:44.159] really young high agency people. And
[00:25:47.039] then you invest in them and venture
[00:25:49.279] economics might be riskier, but they're
[00:25:52.000] a whole lot better than ads and the
[00:25:56.000] BuzzFeed model. And so is the media
[00:25:58.880] company of the future actually
[00:26:01.600] media as kind of the the front and then
[00:26:04.480] the back end is investing.
[00:26:06.880] Well, that's the funnel theory. And you
[00:26:09.440] know, my belief about this was there's
[00:26:12.400] clearly a rollup play where you take the
[00:26:15.120] people that people want to listen to and
[00:26:16.720] you put them inside a container and then
[00:26:18.400] you let the rest of the system hate on
[00:26:20.080] it. And it's not Fox News because it's
[00:26:22.080] not conservative. It's an easy play. I
[00:26:24.799] don't know why it doesn't happen. I
[00:26:26.880] don't understand where we are. I just
[00:26:29.679] don't know the people who want to do it.
[00:26:31.919] We should do it.
[00:26:32.799] Let's do it.
[00:26:33.600] Okay. I want to talk about UFOs. A
[00:26:36.960] subject which if I brought this up with
[00:26:39.200] you three years ago, you probably would
[00:26:41.840] have said Jesse, shut the hell up.
[00:26:43.679] Well, you did try to bring it up. What
[00:26:45.039] did happen?
[00:26:45.760] You said Jesse, shut the hell up.
[00:26:47.679] Yeah, except I didn't use the word hell.
[00:26:49.279] No, you didn't. But you you know I think
[00:26:52.480] reasonably
[00:26:53.840] you were like this is wacky and crazy
[00:26:56.880] and
[00:26:57.440] it's dumb.
[00:26:58.080] It's dumb.
[00:26:58.720] It's incredibly dumb. The idea that you
[00:27:01.120] would have phenomena
[00:27:02.480] Mhm.
[00:27:03.039] that can only be seen by special people
[00:27:05.039] and that there's no good video of it and
[00:27:07.200] we have a world full of smartphones.
[00:27:08.799] We've got video of absolutely everything
[00:27:10.960] is completely stupid and insane.
[00:27:13.200] Yeah.
[00:27:13.679] And I was wrong.
[00:27:15.600] What's changed since?
[00:27:18.480] Nine pages came out from the Pentagon.
[00:27:21.440] Six of which are relevant. Three, I
[00:27:23.440] think, you know, it's like a a cover and
[00:27:25.279] a back page. I don't know what it is.
[00:27:27.679] And it's very clear in that report that
[00:27:30.240] that report was meant to be as dull as
[00:27:32.640] is humanly possible about the most
[00:27:34.400] exciting thing that you could possibly
[00:27:35.840] imagine, which is that either we're
[00:27:37.919] engaged in an incredible psychological
[00:27:40.080] operation coming out of the Pentagon
[00:27:44.000] or some people inside the Pentagon
[00:27:46.320] believe with near certainty that we've
[00:27:48.640] been contacted and observed by extra
[00:27:52.080] extraterrestrials
[00:27:54.240] uh visiting Earth. That's pretty insane.
[00:27:58.480] And what's really crazy is that the data
[00:28:00.960] is locked up. You just said we talked
[00:28:03.440] about the government is not attracting
[00:28:05.120] our best and brightest scientists. Why
[00:28:08.240] are the top physicists in the country?
[00:28:11.039] Why are the top astronomers in the
[00:28:12.799] country not looking at
[00:28:15.279] nobody that I know
[00:28:18.399] who's very good at physics or
[00:28:20.720] astrophysics or astronomy or anything
[00:28:23.279] knows what the hell's going on.
[00:28:26.480] And
[00:28:30.159] I've never seen anything remotely like
[00:28:32.080] this, Jesse. I thought you were
[00:28:33.440] completely wrong. This is a situation
[00:28:36.240] where you would not come off of this
[00:28:38.000] point. And I was convinced that you were
[00:28:41.120] brain damaged on this one issue. No, I
[00:28:43.600] really was.
[00:28:44.480] It's fair.
[00:28:45.440] And you were right. I was wrong.
[00:28:47.600] I appreciate that.
[00:28:50.240] I don't understand it. It doesn't really
[00:28:52.720] The key thing is whatever is going on is
[00:28:54.720] non-Capernac.
[00:28:56.480] We're not in a situation we all have
[00:28:58.320] equal access to the same thing. Either
[00:29:02.000] it's a scop and almost nobody has
[00:29:04.960] information about it or there's
[00:29:08.080] something out there that fits this
[00:29:10.640] paradigm that is not trying to be
[00:29:13.919] noticed. And I've given the example of
[00:29:15.520] North Sentinel Island where India
[00:29:18.240] manages North Sentinel Island but
[00:29:20.159] doesn't land there. And in such a
[00:29:21.919] circumstance, there would be a fermy
[00:29:24.399] paradox among the natives of North
[00:29:26.159] Sentinel Island. Why why don't we see
[00:29:28.000] anybody almost ever,
[00:29:29.360] right?
[00:29:29.679] And the answer is, well, you're sort of
[00:29:31.840] owned and you're being protected from
[00:29:34.480] anybody landing on your shores. Now, if
[00:29:37.200] that's what's going on,
[00:29:40.159] that's astounding.
[00:29:41.120] That's astounding.
[00:29:42.720] On the other hand, if human if humanity
[00:29:44.480] has a future, and I'm right, so I'm
[00:29:47.120] happy to give you your due, but give me
[00:29:48.640] mine.
[00:29:50.240] We we have a future because we got off
[00:29:52.240] this planet and we diversified.
[00:29:54.240] Now, if we got off this planet and
[00:29:56.480] diversified and that's how we survive,
[00:29:58.799] then it means anyone else out there
[00:30:01.360] could come here.
[00:30:03.120] And not with rockets. We're pretty sure
[00:30:04.559] that they're not on the moon and they're
[00:30:06.080] not on Mars in secret colonies, I would
[00:30:09.039] imagine.
[00:30:09.520] Do you have a sense on the genetic
[00:30:12.080] stuff? It feels like a lot of people are
[00:30:15.440] just waiting for the data to come in and
[00:30:17.360] they talk a lot about biioinformatics
[00:30:19.440] and as long as we it's just a big sort
[00:30:21.919] of pattern matching issue and as long as
[00:30:23.600] we have you know uh genetic sequences
[00:30:27.279] and we're matching them with phenotypes
[00:30:29.200] and we get this big harmonized database
[00:30:31.360] right now it's a exist in a bunch of
[00:30:33.200] silos you know you have BGI UK bio bank
[00:30:36.240] whatever we just put them all together
[00:30:38.159] and then we know exactly the genetic
[00:30:40.399] code I tend to think that's not the
[00:30:43.200] case. It's not just a data collection
[00:30:45.120] problem. Do you have sort of an opinion
[00:30:47.039] on that?
[00:30:47.520] It's very interesting what's going on
[00:30:48.720] with machine learning on something like
[00:30:50.399] protein folding where if you manage to
[00:30:52.960] attack something with machine learning,
[00:30:55.600] you don't always understand why you were
[00:30:57.679] able to solve what your machine was able
[00:30:59.760] to solve. It's very hard to interpret a
[00:31:02.880] successful neural net,
[00:31:06.000] right? Yes. What did it find? What did
[00:31:07.760] it understand?
[00:31:08.720] Black box
[00:31:09.679] somewhat. Maybe we'll get to the point
[00:31:11.360] where you can inspect the black box. I
[00:31:13.200] don't know.
[00:31:14.480] But one thing you can say is that okay,
[00:31:17.200] if you can get better at protein folding
[00:31:19.039] using some sort of a deep learning
[00:31:21.440] system,
[00:31:22.720] then there's probably something there
[00:31:24.480] that can be understood analytically.
[00:31:27.039] Um, so I'm excited about some of the
[00:31:31.200] data science, but people are really
[00:31:34.240] looking for data science to replace
[00:31:36.320] thinking.
[00:31:37.039] Totally. Same. And it's very interesting
[00:31:40.000] because the old issue with artificial
[00:31:43.200] intelligence was trying to get something
[00:31:45.600] to be intelligent. The dirty little
[00:31:48.960] secret is intelligence was needed for
[00:31:51.440] almost nothing. So with mere deep
[00:31:53.519] learning, you were able to do all sorts
[00:31:55.519] of things that we previously thought may
[00:31:57.200] have required intelligence.
[00:31:58.720] Yes. I think a line I have on AI is it's
[00:32:02.880] like the Daff Puck song. Uh harder,
[00:32:05.039] better, faster, stronger. And that's all
[00:32:06.960] it can do. It can do what humans can do.
[00:32:10.159] And sometimes it's harder, better,
[00:32:11.600] faster, stronger. Sometimes it's not
[00:32:13.039] even as good as as humans. But that is
[00:32:16.960] different than innovation. Brute force
[00:32:18.799] is different than innovation. Whenever I
[00:32:20.320] see a startup that says we're resting on
[00:32:22.399] some data set or AI to create
[00:32:25.519] innovation,
[00:32:27.519] I'm always fairly skeptical of it just
[00:32:29.919] being sort of a data collection problem.
[00:32:31.600] I think real innovation is interdomain
[00:32:34.720] knowledge and consilience. GU for you is
[00:32:38.320] interdommain knowledge. And so I I don't
[00:32:41.200] think a AI is very good at that right
[00:32:42.960] now.
[00:32:43.279] You know, it's it's not a morality play.
[00:32:45.360] You see, we'd like I I love the romance
[00:32:51.039] of science where Jim Watson and Francis
[00:32:54.960] Crick are able to figure this thing out
[00:32:56.720] that Lionus Pauling cannot. And
[00:33:00.559] that's one thing,
[00:33:02.880] but sometimes you can easily imagine
[00:33:05.039] that
[00:33:06.880] the problem wasn't what you thought it
[00:33:08.240] was. It was much easier or you could
[00:33:10.480] prove that it's it's undecidable or
[00:33:12.640] something like this. So, you have to
[00:33:14.640] sort of not overlay what is true with
[00:33:17.679] what is meaningful.
[00:33:20.799] It would be great if human intelligence
[00:33:22.640] had a place going forward for the rest
[00:33:25.120] of eternity, but I I think that you'll
[00:33:26.880] get to the point where the songs that
[00:33:28.640] you love are written by computers and
[00:33:32.559] it's going to flip you out. And then the
[00:33:34.240] question is going to be, well, do you
[00:33:35.440] start caring less and less about music
[00:33:37.200] the way we care less and less about
[00:33:38.799] chess?
[00:33:40.000] Um, you know, what does it really mean
[00:33:42.159] if two chess machines go at it? Do we do
[00:33:44.399] we really want to play through this as
[00:33:45.840] if this is speaking to the human soul? I
[00:33:48.880] don't know about that. I do think that
[00:33:52.720] none of this really matters. We have a
[00:33:54.320] very brief window to to save ourselves.
[00:33:58.080] And the way out is super romantic. It's
[00:34:01.519] beautiful,
[00:34:03.840] but we're not motivated. It's like
[00:34:06.159] nobody wants to follow David Gogggins.
[00:34:08.079] Nobody wants to follow Jaco Willink.
[00:34:09.599] Those guys want to get up at 4 4 in the
[00:34:12.399] morning and start training. And I don't
[00:34:15.760] see that on on behalf of our scientific
[00:34:18.320] community. And I don't think the
[00:34:21.280] machines at least can search while
[00:34:23.119] everybody else uh you know pops an
[00:34:26.800] edible and
[00:34:27.919] right
[00:34:28.560] watches Netflix.
[00:34:29.679] Maybe AI which is one of the few areas
[00:34:32.879] where people say things are accelerating
[00:34:36.240] is actually just a form of learned
[00:34:38.399] helplessness and outsourcing our agency.
[00:34:41.119] I think it is. I think that at some
[00:34:43.280] level um
[00:34:45.919] we're going to find that it's not good
[00:34:47.599] enough to know whether things are true
[00:34:49.040] or that something can do them. We're
[00:34:50.560] going to want to know why things are
[00:34:52.480] true. And I think
[00:34:55.839] I think that that's part of the game is
[00:34:57.599] what what if we can actually predict
[00:34:59.119] protein folding fairly well, but nobody
[00:35:01.920] has any idea of how we're able to do
[00:35:04.240] that. How much is that going to actually
[00:35:07.920] hold us back? And so I I do think that
[00:35:09.760] we're going to get to a point where
[00:35:10.960] we've learned some things
[00:35:13.359] and we're now angry that we don't know
[00:35:15.440] why the things that we know how to do,
[00:35:18.079] we we just don't know why. We know how.
[00:35:20.880] And I I think that that kind of ruthless
[00:35:23.040] pragmatism
[00:35:26.240] eventually will cause itself its own
[00:35:28.800] problem. We'll be too powerful with too
[00:35:31.200] little wisdom. We're going to have all
[00:35:33.119] sorts of things that we know how to do
[00:35:35.440] that we're going to have unintended
[00:35:36.640] consequences of because we don't know
[00:35:38.480] how it's working.
[00:35:39.680] We don't understand the bedrock
[00:35:41.599] foundation.
[00:35:43.200] I agree with you, sir.
[00:35:45.200] Okay, let's go eat.
[00:35:46.560] Let's go eat.
[00:35:52.640] What kind of cheese for your
[00:35:53.760] cheeseburger?
[00:35:54.560] Uh, it's American cheese.
[00:35:56.160] Can I get a hamburger with lettuce only?
[00:36:01.760] It's going to be 151 17 first day.
[00:36:04.160] Thanks. But you going paleo.
[00:36:08.000] You got a lettuce wrap.
[00:36:10.240] Right.
[00:36:11.119] I don't know what I got.
[00:36:15.440] Here's something I've been thinking
[00:36:16.400] about recently. An ironic effect of
[00:36:19.200] Snowden is there are all these
[00:36:21.520] revelations.
[00:36:23.040] You had Prism, Buller Run, Heartbeat.
[00:36:26.160] The NSA has a back door into everything
[00:36:28.320] was the revelation.
[00:36:30.480] and then we can't we didn't do anything
[00:36:31.920] about it. And think about the panopticon
[00:36:35.680] effect that that ends up having on an
[00:36:37.760] individual where it's like we know that
[00:36:40.720] they can hear and listen to everything
[00:36:42.480] that we do and say and it's indexed and
[00:36:44.560] searchable
[00:36:46.560] and then you also we're not really doing
[00:36:48.560] anything about it. The halfsed mirror
[00:36:52.079] only works if the people behind the half
[00:36:56.400] silvered mirror rarely if ever intrude
[00:37:00.240] into your life in a distinct
[00:37:03.359] identifiable fashion.
[00:37:05.839] So
[00:37:07.359] I think that the new thing that we
[00:37:08.880] believe is different. I think that the
[00:37:10.720] new thing that we believe is yes they're
[00:37:14.079] watching us but for some reason they
[00:37:15.839] can't afford to let us know what they
[00:37:17.760] know.
[00:37:19.440] So most of the information they have is
[00:37:21.440] useless
[00:37:23.040] because you'd be crazy to sacrifice the
[00:37:25.200] whole program to go after somebody with
[00:37:29.200] an unpaid library fine.
[00:37:35.119] What are you excited about? Like crazily
[00:37:37.119] excited about that doesn't involve
[00:37:38.640] money?
[00:37:41.599] I think there are certain anomalies and
[00:37:45.440] uh I'm not excited about those things in
[00:37:47.839] their current form, but I want to I want
[00:37:50.160] to do them in more rigorous ways. So
[00:37:51.920] like the UFO thing like stuff stuff like
[00:37:53.920] that.
[00:37:54.480] Make 12 figures just to be safe.
[00:37:56.960] 12 figures.
[00:37:57.920] Yeah,
[00:37:58.960] we can put that back there.
[00:38:01.920] First of all,
[00:38:03.359] my friend,
[00:38:04.320] yeah, there's a way in which growing up
[00:38:07.680] in Los Angeles,
[00:38:09.839] the primary association is that home is
[00:38:13.040] alienation.
[00:38:15.280] In some sense, I don't feel like I'm
[00:38:17.119] home unless I'm in a place of of
[00:38:19.839] alienation. Sort of like I've likened it
[00:38:22.000] to growing up in a Durico painting,
[00:38:24.560] some industrial landscape where you've
[00:38:26.480] abandoned everything. There's a child
[00:38:27.920] with a hoop
[00:38:29.200] running down the street. There's
[00:38:31.040] nothing. And for me, in a weird way, the
[00:38:33.200] the Doors are are maybe the
[00:38:35.119] quintessential LA band. Of course, you
[00:38:37.040] had the Birds and all that kind of
[00:38:38.079] stuff.
[00:38:38.400] Yeah. Speaking of The Doors and Great
[00:38:41.440] Music, you know, I live in Laurel
[00:38:43.520] Canyon.
[00:38:44.800] It's a pretty amazing music history
[00:38:46.480] there. Are you aware of it?
[00:38:48.240] Some of it. I mean, I I I definitely go
[00:38:52.640] to the store where the creatures meet
[00:38:54.160] and uh I'm familiar with the romance of
[00:38:57.359] Wonderland Avenue and Carol King's
[00:39:00.240] Tapestry has been a place of pilgrimage
[00:39:03.200] for myself and my daughter where she
[00:39:05.359] wrote it. Uh Laurel Canyon and Tanga
[00:39:08.240] Canyon are to the extent that LA has
[00:39:11.119] spiritual energy, probably the two
[00:39:12.800] places that have the strongest spiritual
[00:39:14.800] energy.
[00:39:15.520] It was such a weird place, too. I mean,
[00:39:18.480] I know Jim Morrison's dad,
[00:39:21.599] Rear Admiral Steven Morrison was in the
[00:39:24.640] Navy and in charge of the Gulf of Talin.
[00:39:27.119] Yeah.
[00:39:27.599] Really crazy.
[00:39:30.000] That's a very strange one. Um, and as
[00:39:33.680] you point out, Lookout Mountain is a CIA
[00:39:36.560] facility in Laurel Canyon and the whole
[00:39:39.119] history of drugs and the government and
[00:39:41.440] Vietnam and espionage and all this kind
[00:39:43.359] of stuff. Very hard to sort out.
[00:39:45.040] It's hard to sort out. Very weird. There
[00:39:46.720] are all these sort of anomalous bizarre
[00:39:48.320] facts. It feels like LA was a crazy
[00:39:50.560] place in the 80s. It was dangerous. It
[00:39:52.320] was exciting. Now it feels like a weird
[00:39:56.400] Instagram hologram thing. You go to Boa
[00:39:58.560] Steakhouse and there are tick tockers
[00:40:00.000] everywhere. Saddle ranch.
[00:40:02.240] Feels like a weird
[00:40:03.040] Every place is over.
[00:40:04.480] Okay.
[00:40:06.079] And I mean that.
[00:40:07.040] That's
[00:40:08.240] You can't move to New York and say it's
[00:40:10.800] happening in New York. It's going down
[00:40:12.400] in Austin.
[00:40:14.720] No. No. You're not getting it, man.
[00:40:16.079] We're going to move to the Black Rock
[00:40:17.359] Desert. Burn Burning Man's Burning Man's
[00:40:19.440] going to be 365.
[00:40:21.359] None of that's true. No place is
[00:40:24.160] happening. There are things that are
[00:40:26.160] happening, but they're happening between
[00:40:27.920] people.
[00:40:30.000] Sometimes they're happening between
[00:40:31.119] people who have never actually met in
[00:40:32.400] person. But I've always thought that
[00:40:33.760] secretly this was an incredibly
[00:40:35.359] intellectual
[00:40:37.040] town.
[00:40:38.320] Yeah, I think it's both. I think there
[00:40:39.839] are many LA's and that lack of identity
[00:40:44.240] as frustrating as it can be to deal with
[00:40:46.720] makes me hopeful towards creating a
[00:40:50.000] laurel canyon
[00:40:52.000] of tech science out there ideas
[00:40:56.480] and cool [ __ ] I detect a spark of
[00:40:59.680] inspiration. I think in a weird way
[00:41:04.480] I've come back after 37 years away. I
[00:41:08.079] was conceived in Laurel Canyon. I was
[00:41:09.920] born in what is now the Church of
[00:41:11.280] Scientology. It used to be Cedars of
[00:41:13.200] Lebanon.
[00:41:13.760] That's amazing.
[00:41:14.640] And I ran away from this place at 16 so
[00:41:18.480] hard and so fast. I never thought I
[00:41:20.400] would be back.
[00:41:22.079] Um, and I explored the world and I lived
[00:41:24.240] in places that I needed to. I went back
[00:41:26.079] to Philadelphia, which was my family's
[00:41:28.560] ancestral seat to the extent that you
[00:41:30.240] can claim something as immigrants in the
[00:41:32.480] US. went to Boston, which I thought was
[00:41:34.560] the center of academics and science.
[00:41:38.240] Moved to New York, which was hot for
[00:41:40.000] hedge funds, at least it could support
[00:41:41.520] creativity and rulebreaking. Moved out
[00:41:44.240] to San Francisco to do tech. Went to
[00:41:47.520] Jerusalem and for two years because it's
[00:41:50.000] the
[00:41:51.680] belly button of the universe.
[00:41:54.640] And I think I came back to LA not quite
[00:41:57.599] sure why I was here anymore. What I'
[00:41:59.920] what I think I've
[00:42:02.000] put together is it's not happening
[00:42:04.319] anywhere.
[00:42:06.079] It's happening wherever you happen to be
[00:42:08.240] and wherever you can make it happen. And
[00:42:11.119] there's no point in in city chasing,
[00:42:13.680] right? Like, you know, something is
[00:42:16.319] pulling me towards Austin. Somebody else
[00:42:18.079] is saying, "Come to Montana. Come to
[00:42:20.240] Miami."
[00:42:22.079] And I think at this late stage in the
[00:42:24.000] game, I'm actually back home. I'm from
[00:42:27.839] this place. My son is the fifth
[00:42:30.240] generation now of Los Anelenos in our
[00:42:32.880] family, which effectively never
[00:42:34.400] happened.
[00:42:35.040] Yeah.
[00:42:36.000] And you know, whether it's the the flood
[00:42:39.280] from the the dam that burst in
[00:42:43.119] Baldwin Hills or whether it's the 71
[00:42:46.720] earthquake or the Bair fire,
[00:42:50.079] you know, in some sense there was
[00:42:51.119] somebody from my family here for all of
[00:42:53.040] those things.
[00:42:55.200] And
[00:42:56.880] you know what I said to Brad Eastston
[00:42:58.319] Ellis is LA is this weird town where
[00:43:00.720] everybody has lived here because if
[00:43:02.240] you've consumed media, so much of it is
[00:43:05.280] shot in Los Angeles
[00:43:07.599] that you actually have a feel for this
[00:43:09.280] place whether you live here or not.
[00:43:10.880] Yeah. And even though it sort of feels
[00:43:13.200] vapid and and random and pointless at
[00:43:15.920] times, I think about
[00:43:20.800] maybe it's magic is is that it's it's
[00:43:23.520] several different things. It's an oil
[00:43:25.200] field. We live on an oil field. It's an
[00:43:27.839] aerospace place. It's like the home of
[00:43:30.079] the rain corporation.
[00:43:32.640] It's not really clear that it's just an
[00:43:34.480] entertainment entertainment. Yeah, once
[00:43:36.960] upon a time maybe that was really really
[00:43:38.800] dominant.
[00:43:40.319] But in a certain sense
[00:43:43.440] it's just a big canvas and maybe maybe a
[00:43:47.280] laurel canyon of heterodoxy
[00:43:50.319] for different things for science for uh
[00:43:53.920] future pointed culture that isn't
[00:43:55.520] necessarily
[00:43:57.119] so easy to to pin down to popular music.
[00:43:59.520] May maybe it's time and maybe it can be
[00:44:01.280] done here. But uh but I think I'm home.
[00:44:05.839] I I can't follow that. Eric, thank you
[00:44:07.920] for doing this, man. That was beautiful.
[00:44:09.520] Let's Let's end on that note.
[00:44:11.359] Jesse, thanks for a great day.
[00:44:12.480] I love you, man.
[00:44:13.200] You, too, man.
[00:44:15.850] [Music]