The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #1203 - Eric Weinstein
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,245 words- 0:00 – 5:32
Staying sane in a polarized culture: disagreeability and first principles
- JRJoe Rogan
And we're live. Are you, you gonna update the, the people out there?
- EWEric Weinstein
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you shut your phone off?
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you're professional.
- EWEric Weinstein
Try.
- JRJoe Rogan
How are you, sir? Good to see you.
- EWEric Weinstein
I'm doing well.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's going on?
- EWEric Weinstein
Um, everything. It's all pretty weird out there.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is very weird out there. We were just talking about how weird it is out there, um, before the podcast, about how it just seems like it's very difficult to keep together during these times, and to, to ha- to keep a reasonable position, and to handle all of the pressure of all the people that get upset at anything you do, left or right, in the middle, centrist. You're too centrist, you're too left, you're too right. You're unreasonable, you're too reasonable, you're too nice, you're not nice enough.
- EWEric Weinstein
Wow. Suddenly, I feel like I'm in a marriage.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
(sniffs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
Doesn't it seem like that, though?
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah. It does. I think that this is why dis- ... This is the era for disagreeability. If you're not easily swayed, um, because you're somehow, uh, insensitive enough that you just wanna keep, uh, to first principles, whatever it is that you believe, that seems to be the best hedge against getting swept up in the madness of others.
- JRJoe Rogan
How so?
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, um, I guess I ... When I go metacognitive, I look at my yearning for group belonging, and then I also watch my inability to belong to groups that say crazy things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
And so, those are, those are two conflicting feelings. I think sometimes when people look at me, they say, "Wow, you're really contrarian, and you have an easy time standing up to, you know, the conventional wisdom." And I don't think it's, it's, it's that true. I just think when those two things fight inside me, uh, dialectically, the disagreeability is so strong because it's protecting a comprehensive view of the world. And so, since everything already kinda fits together fairly well, I would say I'm l- much ... It's much harder to sway me because the number of things I would have to move cognitively to accommodate a wrong idea-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- EWEric Weinstein
... is, is quite large.
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems unnecessary, but it also seems like it ... We should be able to disagree on things, and you should be able to point out, with reasonable courtesy, that there's something wrong with someone's idea and it not become a big personal thing. But oftentimes, that's not the case.
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, so a lot of the things, I think, that we're, we're exploring are what I would think of as heuristics. They're sort of rules of thumb that work fairly well within some domain of definition. And we've gotten so many of these conflicting rules ... I mean, the rules of thumb themselves conflict. So for example, "He who hesitates is lost," uh, conflicts with, um, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," or something like that. Uh, sorry-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- EWEric Weinstein
... no ... Um, it's, uh ... Well, I, I forget. You know, the, there's the cautionary, um, a- aphorism and then there's the be bold a- aphorism. And so, we don't have a good way of sorting out conflicts that occur at the heuristic level. And then you also have heuristics, uh, meant for social cohesion conflicting with ground truths. So, this is why biology is always controversial, because biology is a science that tells us many of the things that we wish were true are just (laughs) not true. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- EWEric Weinstein
I always think about Ben Shapiro's, "Facts don't care about your feelings." Well, biology cares about your feelings. It just laughs at them and stomps on them and makes them, uh, you know, feel very sad.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it also tries to explain your feelings too.
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, it ... Right, exactly.
- 5:32 – 9:25
Virtue signaling vs. vice signaling: why “honest” flaws build trust
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, then what ... Here's a question for us. Why is vice signaling so much more powerful than virtue signaling?
- JRJoe Rogan
Vice signaling, like a person who admits their problems, like an alcoholic who steps up and says, "I've got a real issue."
- EWEric Weinstein
Could be that way, or it could be sort of Dan Bilzerian-type vice signaling.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
Like, "You wanna know what I'm into? I'm into hot chicks, weed, and guns, and making"-
- JRJoe Rogan
And a lot of money.
- EWEric Weinstein
... "tons, tons of money, and showing it off."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, he's super honest.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, that's one of the reasons, and you ... He's bulletproof in that regard. Like, you can't fuck with him. Like, you can't say, "Hey, look at you, you're just a playboy." He'd be like, "Yep."Yeah, I like girls.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah, it works.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, um, what else?
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, I'm nice. Like, he's a nice guy. Talk to Dan Bilzerian, he's friendly. He's not a bad guy.
- EWEric Weinstein
No, I mean, he, he, you know, he had a, he had this post which was, uh, he was, I think, offering a hand to a woman up a stair and it said, uh, "Come with me, I'll ruin your life, but it'll be fun."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
You know? And it, it was just like... It's so disarming.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
And I think that this is also partially, you know, a secret to your success, which is that you're a, a nice guy, you're really into fighting, um, you're, you know, you, you, you hunt elk, you're clear about which ones you're gonna kill, which ones you won't, based on the reproductive cycle. You're, you're promoting all sorts of things that people don't wanna talk about, to a fairly conscious level, and it's produced, um, an incredible level of trust in an era where all of the virtue signaling gives way. I mean, if you scratch any person, uh, enough below the surface, you're gonna see that they're really warning you about themselves. And so the people who are the most sort of self-critical, and, and this is like, you know, I think I brought this up recently, uh, on Twitter, about meta-honesty, where there was a, in the Castro in San Francisco, there was a, a bar restaurant that was advertising, uh, free food, naked servers, plus false advertising.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
And, you know, it was just fun and playful, and as a result, uh, you know, you had an instant desire to, to eat there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
... and to trust them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
And so I think that in this world of virtue signaling, vice signaling is really the growth industry, and that's, that's what's working for good people, because they are m- more in touch and, you know, they are gonna lie to you and they're gonna do all the self-interested things, but they're not going to surprise you quite as much.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, in the case of Dan Bilzerian, I really don't think he's gonna lie to you. I don't think that's what he's doing. I think what he's doing is living like a guy who's got $100 million and happens to be 35 years old and likes to bang hot chicks and fly around in private jets and live in some rid- have you seen that fucking house that he's got? He just bought some crazy house in, like, Bel Air, I guess with that weed money. Jesus. He's got some- it looks like it probably cost $100 million or something ridiculous like that. It's a fucking insane house. But that's what he likes.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? The guy drives... Likes to drive around Ferraris and d- and... But he's a nice guy, so it's like, well, what, where, what's, what's wrong with this picture? What's wrong with this picture is he's doing things that oth- Look at this. This is his house. What in the f- holy fuck is that? Does he have a golf course on his roof? What is that?
- GUGuest
I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is a fucking ridiculous house. Look at this fucking place. He gives his address out?
- 9:25 – 17:04
Adversity and the “unforgiving”: why hardship forges real community
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, but this is the thing about the, uh, the relationship with the unforgiving. This is partially why I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
... your UFC and jujitsu life, is that when you have a relationship with the unforgiving, you can say, "You know, that guy, that guy doesn't really know what he's doing," but then you're, you're in the ring, you know? You're the man in the arena and, and you find out very quickly whether or not the trash talking, you know, paid off or it didn't. And I think that many people have no relationship with the unforgiving.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- EWEric Weinstein
Like, you'll take them out on a hike into, you know, the, the, let's say the Trinity Wilderness and then two hours in they'll just sit down and say, "I wanna go home."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
And you're thinking like, "Okay, you're, you're signaling something, but there's, there's no car service and there's... We're not calling a helicopter."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
You know, it just...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
There, there is this... If you live in the social layer, you're surprised by the existence of the unforgiving, but...
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh. Well... (sighs) On one, on one hand I wanna support people's ability to do whatever the fuck they want. On one hand I wanna support someone's ability to sit in front of a computer and whether you're working or you're writing code or you're writing a script or you're just, uh, fucking playing video games.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I wanna support your ability to do whatever you want to do.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you, if you have the means, if you're not, you know, if your family's not starving, this is what you enjoy doing, why do I care? But a- as a person who's experienced a fair amount of adversity, especially self-imposed adversity-
- EWEric Weinstein
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... I would, I would tell you that you would benefit from it. I've benefited from it and I think you'd benefit from it too. You don't wanna be that guy that two hours into the hike says, "I wanna go home." You don't wanna be that guy.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You wanna be that person that just says, "Well, this is what we're doing and I'm gonna figure out how to do this, and I'm gonna show character, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna be proud of myself at the end of this. I mean, I might have to walk for six hours and when it's all over my legs might be shaky and I might have to sit down, but that Gatorade's gonna taste so good. It's gonna be like the greatest Gatorade of all time 'cause you're dr- gonna drink it, you'll be like, 'Ah, I earned the shit out of this.'"
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"You're gonna feel it." And I think we learn about ourselves through especially self... Well, any kind of adversity. You know, look, I'm coming off of, uh, being evacuated from the fires, which was, uh, for me, not that difficult. You know, um, I'm not poor, I got a hotel, I brought my family to the hotel, we got safe, got my dog to the, to the podcast studio and everybody was all right. You know, but for those firefighters, I mean, 12-hour shifts battling the blaze, for people who lost their homes. Some of them tried to save it. There was a story about a guy in Malibu that climbed on top of his roof with a hose and tried to fight off the fire and he got severe burns and he's in the hospital and... I mean, it's raining ash and, and, and, and these chunks of, of fucking fire on people, these embers, they're falling from the sky and this guy's trying to save his house. I mean, that guy literally went through the fires. He'll be a different person after this.
- EWEric Weinstein
No question. Um, we've been in something of a reality drought. The number of people who have...... very little relationship to reality. I mean, y- you know, I used to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and you'd, you'd come in from, uh, Boston and there would be this sign that said, "Fresh killed chicken." Like, n- n- no bones about it, man. Fresh killed chicken. But, like, Chicken McNuggets? Nobody quite knows what- what it, what part of the chicken is a McNugget, right? It's just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
... some abstraction that comes to you. And so, I think we've gotten very divorced. There are all these layers of indirection between us and the world, and when a fire happens, it's so overwhelming. I mean, we were just choking on the, the SF smoke, uh, in the Bay area. There's, it, it, it just, it gets real after having been unreal for a very long time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's unavoidable. It makes you, it makes you buck up. Like, you gotta get outta there. Like, we got evacuated Thursday at 2:30 in the morning. We, we were looking up, we were like, "We gotta get the fuck outta here." Like, it, I don't give a shit what you leave behind. Just go. Keep your body and go. Everything else, it's, it's either replaceable or you don't really need it that much anyway. Just fucking get outta there. And when you see that fire raging over those hills and helicopters are dropping water on it, and then another house explodes 'cause the gas line gets hit, it's just, you, you ... I saw that. You see that, you go, "Oh." There's, there's not enough people in the world to save you. There's not enough fucking firefighters or cops, there's too many houses, there's too many people, and a bunch of these houses are gonna go. You gotta get the fuck outta there. And, um, but there's a certain ... I was with, uh, a bunch of my friends from my neighborhood, and my friend Tom Segura and his wife. We all stayed at the same hotel.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And we felt, we f- there was like a, a tangible sense of community.
- EWEric Weinstein
Well this is, and that, I'm, I love this point. Let's imagine you go for a wedding and they house you with your third cousins. People you barely know. If you're lucky enough that the sewage system breaks and, like, stuff is leaking out of the ceiling and you guys all have to do heroic, crazy stuff to save the house, you're gonna be closer to your third cousin than you are, you know, to your uncle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 17:04 – 20:47
Teasing, bonding, and emotional intelligence: when ‘bullying’ builds intimacy
- EWEric Weinstein
emphasis on care and feelings, is that often men need to give each other shit in order to form very deep bonds.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
If I can't tease you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
... and if I don't know where the line is, like there is this line which is like, "Dude, that was way too far."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
We all know that those lines exist, and we, we sometimes have to go up to them and sometimes we have to experiment by going over them. But if somebody says, "I don't like the way you're talking. That seems very insensitive." And my, my response is, "Well, you're gonna keep me from forming a deep bond with that person. You just don't know that that's how we do it."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, they're shielding. They- they're putting up their shield.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And often is d- you know, to project a certain image to you. They, they, they, they, they wanna be taken seriously. They want some respect. They can't deal with you goofing on them.
- EWEric Weinstein
That's true, and goofing can go wrong.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
But I, but I think that one of the things that I've been fascinated by is where did all this madness come from? And I, increasingly, am, am wondering whether it comes from social and emotional learning that started to be taught in schools around emotional intelligence. So this whole idea of EQ I think had a lot to it. But not all the bugs were worked out, because a lot of things that kind of are in the neighborhood of bullying might be actually intimacy building.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right? And so if, if something turns into some super disgusting, deadly hazing ritual, we all say, "What the hell are you people doing?" But on the other hand, if it's sort of-... three clicks back from that line, and it's, you know, there was mild discomfort, we, we humiliated each other a little bit-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
... and now we're friends for life, um, then, you know, the fear of the hazing ritual gone wrong may actually stop people from ever actually making the really deep bonds to last a lifetime.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, isn't it like everything else? Some people are good at things and some people suck at it.
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So some people are good at being silly with their friends and some people go too far. I mean, you, you experience that. Like, I've had friends who experienced that, where they do a podcast and on the podcast they fuck with each other.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they'll have someone come up to them that they don't even know right off the street and immediately say something like ruthlessly insulting to them. And they're like, "What the fuck?"
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And they're like, "Yeah, man. You do that shit on your podcast all the time." It's like, "Okay, you're doing it wrong. I don't know you. We're not friends. We're not bonding here. You're walking up and saying something mean, calling someone a fatso or-"
- EWEric Weinstein
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's like they're just not good at it, and oftentimes that's a ... some sort of a sign of social intelligence, a lack of social intelligence, a lack of ... I mean, who knows what's going on in their home? There might, might just be bad information-
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... from parents and they're, they're growing up in this environment of, uh, just r- very low level social skills.
- EWEric Weinstein
And now what we're doing is ... I mean, I think that, that you're, you're spot on. We're now going to try to readjust everyone around our weakest players.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 20:47 – 22:58
Attention, identity claims, and titrated negative feedback
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, and there was a picture that I put up on my Instagram a couple weeks ago of this guy. He had this crazy makeup on and he had this ridiculous description of himself, like non-binary, queer, that also identifies as a Muslim, and he was talking about quantum physics, that quantum physics got, uh, g- helped him appreciate his queerness. And I looked at that and I said, "Okay, maybe, or maybe you're just fucking crying out for attention." And all I wrote was, uh, "Makes sense. Definitely doesn't seem crazy."
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And people got mad at me for that, for something so obvious. I looked, I just peered into the fucking deep dungeon that is the comment section for a moment, and I saw people like, "You would think that the people that are most susceptible to suicide, you would leave them alone, but your cruelty is ... You know, you're exposing your cruelty." Like, listen, that's silly. That guy needs better friends. Your friends are gonna tell you you're silly.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You got crazy makeup o- ... Have you seen this guy?
- EWEric Weinstein
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have a photo? Look at this. "I'm British-Iraqi, gay, non-binary, and also identify as Muslim." Listen, you need too much goddamn attention.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying you're a bad person, you should kill yourself, you shouldn't be queer. Be whatever you wanna be. But if you're going that hard-
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that hard to define yourself.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, that is needy as shit. That's fucking annoying.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah, but your, but your point-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
Your point is that you have to titrate the negative feedback.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right? And so what you did was you gave him a small dose in saying, "Look, cor- you might wanna course correct a little bit."
- JRJoe Rogan
But-
- EWEric Weinstein
The idea that there's any course correction, that you're not sitting there celebrating this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the thing.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you're supposed to celebrate it.
- EWEric Weinstein
I'm supposed to celebrate so many things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, you know what? You can celebrate it. That's okay. But you shouldn't get mad if I go, "Oh, that might be a little nuts," 'cause it's obviously a little nuts. It's a little nuts to paint your face with glitter. It's a little nuts. It's a little nuts. If that was just a regular person who's like, "Hi, I work at JC Penney. My name is Wendy and this is what I like to wear on my face." Like, okay, that ... Wendy's a crazy bitch. Look at Wendy. Go look at Wendy. Look at her face. What is she doing? I don't know, man. She got fucking crazy glitter and her hair's 15 different colors. Y- Yeah, and nothing wrong-
- 22:58 – 29:34
Signals in fashion: makeup aversion, high heels, and ‘shared deception’
- EWEric Weinstein
No, but, but, okay, look, look, but l- look at it this way. I have this weird thing which I th- sometimes is called machilophobia, the fear of cosmetics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- EWEric Weinstein
Oh, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Lips? What kind?
- EWEric Weinstein
(sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Eyeshadow? Like smoking, smoking eyeshadow?
- EWEric Weinstein
Oh. Oh, ugh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- EWEric Weinstein
No, it's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
What about fake eyelashes?
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, this is the thing is, is that sometimes it looks somewhat normal and then suddenly it doesn't integrate and the person just looks like they've got crazy stuff stuck to their head.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ooh. Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
And, and you're just like, "You've got s- crazy stuff stuck to you." Well, that's how I perceive it. Now, here's the question. I can't be in touch ... Like, it can't be, "Eric's got a problem with machilophobia." It has to be-
- JRJoe Rogan
That ... I've never heard that word. It's freaking me out.
- EWEric Weinstein
It has to be-
- JRJoe Rogan
Machilophobia.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah. It has to be, "Eric can't accept people who wear makeup."
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah-ha.
- EWEric Weinstein
And it ... And my question would be, from first principles, how do you tell who to have sympathy with? Because this has been somewhat debilitating for me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah, sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's been a real issue, like you've struggled with it?
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Strug- well, have you struggled with the feeling or struggled with the fact that you have the feeling?
- EWEric Weinstein
Look, everybody actually experience ... If you remember Tammy Faye Bakker from We-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right? So she was famous for freaking people out because she had no concept of how much, uh, how many-
- JRJoe Rogan
Makeup is too much.
- EWEric Weinstein
Is too much.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 29:34 – 33:43
Violence realism and martial arts: preparation, risk, and why ties are dangerous
- JRJoe Rogan
Someone could kill you pretty easily with a tie. Like, if someone has a tie on, and I grab ahold of their tie-
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... boy, unless you're a lot bigger than me, I might kill you. Got ahold of your tie, tie's a hard thing to shake loose. It's really strong. Like, you could... Uh, you... A good s- tie is not gonna rip.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Someone gets ahold of your tie at the knot-
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and just twists and holds onto you, all they have to do is hold onto you, grab an arm, and just gr- wrap their legs around you and hold onto that tie, you're a dead man. You're dead. You're, you're giving them a weapon-
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to kill you all the time.
- EWEric Weinstein
All right, you've convinced me. No more ties.
- JRJoe Rogan
I just... The... Grab that and just fucking twist. You don't have much time, man. You, you don't have much time to get this arm off your neck and get-
- EWEric Weinstein
This is such a UFC spin on it.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're gonna have to figure out... It's a jujitsu spin.
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause UFC, you don't wear clothes. But the-
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
To be able to grab ahold of someone's clothing, like... Like, a person with a leather jacket, if you're talking shit and-
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you have a leather jacket on, you're with a guy who knows judo-
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you are beyond fucked. You don't... Yo- this, this guy might as well have cannons coming out of his body. Like, you're, you're doomed.
- EWEric Weinstein
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're 100% doomed. He's gonna grab that leather jacket, and basically it has handles. And he's gonna throw you up in the air, and he's gonna hit you with the world.... the whole world (slaps table) is below.
- EWEric Weinstein
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he's gonna drive you into the world and you're so fucked and you don't even realize it.
- EWEric Weinstein
Joe, how often do you end up in fist fights?
- JRJoe Rogan
Never.
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Never, man. I, I don't, I don't wanna have nothing to do with that. I just get away. I would never wanna get in a fist fight.
- EWEric Weinstein
No, I know-
- 33:43 – 35:52
Jiu-jitsu as high-dimensional chess—and the problem of explaining expertise
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, the jujitsu world, I think you would... There's, there's two different worlds, right?
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's the MMA world, which incorporates all the different martial arts, and then there's the jujitsu world. And the jujitsu world, I think you would find-
- EWEric Weinstein
Would geek out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You would love it because it's basically, well, to call it chess is not quite fair.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because it's more complex than chess. There's much more going on.
- EWEric Weinstein
The degrees of freedom are so high.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's also easier to win if someone's better than chess 'cause like even if someone is fairly competent in chess, it'll take a few moves to beat them. In jujitsu, if someone's fairly competent and the other one is a master, he'll probably crush you very quickly.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the, when you watch two really high level guys trying to set each other up, it's this crazy rolling exercise in leverage and position and then-
- EWEric Weinstein
Oh, I saw this.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the knowledge of moves.
- EWEric Weinstein
That Eddie Bravo versus, uh, Royler Gracie.
- JRJoe Rogan
Royler Gracie.
- EWEric Weinstein
Oh, crap.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Crazy. Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
It's hard to even know what's going on.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's crazy if you don't know. It's one of my more difficult challenges of being in s- uh, a commentator, is when the fight goes to the ground, explaining to people watching at home, "What he wants to do right now is get his right leg over his arm, and as soon as he does that, now that arm is stuck, he's in trouble right now."
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, and like to try to explain that to people so they can follow along and go, "Oh, I see, I see." And, "He's gonna grab that, he's gonna arch his back," (claps) and he tapped. And people go, "Oh." And it gets people really excited about jujitsu 'cause they see that and they go, "Oh, this is like, really complicated. Like, he's got, there's like a dance he's doing and the other guy's trying to resist the dance."
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, the first time I saw the Gracie breakdown of particular fights where they've c- committed to memory every move-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Yes.
- EWEric Weinstein
And it's like replaying the great games of like morphy or capablanca-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
... and chess. And you're just thinking, "Wow." That, okay, there's the evergreen game, there's the immortal game. And that, that to me is fascinating. But it's actually more interesting to me in the UFC arena because of the fact that that's only a component and that it's the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- EWEric Weinstein
... it's... What I didn't understand was how much we could get close to unrestricted fighting and still have people fairly dependably survive with minimal obvious disfig- disfigurement. There is disfigurement?
- 35:52 – 42:29
Fighter health: weight cutting as ‘sanctioned cheating’ and the real danger
- JRJoe Rogan
We could even... Well, there is some. We could even be safer if we eliminated weight cutting. The weight cutting is the number one health issue in the sport, in my opinion.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Number two is the brain damage and the impact and the, you know, broken bones and things along those lines. But then number one is weight cutting because it's so unnecessary. It's such a, such an issue that needs to be addressed 'cause these guys wanna compete at the highest weight possible so they can... Do you know how it works?
- EWEric Weinstein
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. Say if you were gonna compete in the 170 pound division but you actually weighed 190.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
What you would do is you would wait until you had followed a pretty strict diet, keep your body weight and your fat at a certain level, and then when it comes-
- EWEric Weinstein
Radically.
- JRJoe Rogan
... down to a few days before, you would dehydrate yourself pretty radically.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then rehydrate yourself scientifically using the cr- there's a b- bunch of guys like George Lockhart, guys who are experts in this, and then they'll give you the exact right amount of nutrients, right amount of potassium and zinc, and they wanna replenish all of your electrolytes and get you in a perfect balance but you're still compromised. And if you don't have a guy like a George Lockhart or someone who's a real expert in nutrition and understands biology and can get you back into that position, you're most likely gonna compete compromised, but you can accept that significant compromising because you're gonna be a bigger person than the person you're fighting. But the also th- like...... in, in boxing in particular, the vast majority of deaths have occurred in the lighter weight divisions. And a lot of it is not just because of the head trauma, but because it's head trauma to someone who's dehydrated.
- EWEric Weinstein
That's interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's like, it's, uh, it's, it sucks. And it's, it's contrary to what martial arts are supposed to be about. Martial art's supposed to be about skill for skill, it's not supposed to be about cheating. And the, uh, the cheating thing is like, uh, you're dehydrating yourself, it's like sanctioned cheating. You're saying you're 170 pounds, but you're, like if you say the, "The 170-pound champion," and get on the scale, he's 193. What the fuck's going on? What the fuck's going on? This isn't 170 pounds, right?
- EWEric Weinstein
But how frustrating if I want to meet you in a different class. Like, I've wanted to fight you my whole life, but we're, we're really separated.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you can lose weight the right way.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look, if somebody wants to compete at 170 pounds, in my humble opinion, they should actually weigh 170 pounds. My friend, Cam Hanes, is a ultra-marathon runner.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, one of the things that he does when he gets ready for ultra-marathons is he loses body weight. But he doesn't have any body weight to lose, so he'll, he'll burn 3000 calories and eat 2000 calories, and that's how he loses weight. He lets his body eat itself.
- EWEric Weinstein
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So he gets down to the 160s, and that's when he runs these gigantic long races, like 240 miles. But it, I know he's done this. You can do this. Like, you don't have to dehydrate yourself, but they choose to dehydrate themselves because they replenish and then they get much bigger when they get inside the octagon. When he's 165, he's actually 165. That's just what he weighs-
- EWEric Weinstein
Got it.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and that's, uh, the best way to run 240 miles. So he does it through discipline. But these guys that are doing it, and it's not their fault, because it's already been established, it's a part of the sport, it's been there for years and years and years, and it's, uh, it's sanctioned cheating, and everybody does it. And it's the worst part of the sport because it's really damaging to your kidneys.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Terrible for your organs. Your, your body starts to shut down when you do it too often. Your body doesn't wanna lose weight anymore, so it starts to really hold onto that water. And guys fall asleep and pass out and bang their heads off walls and fights get canceled. Like, pro, like, championship level fights get canceled 'cause guys black out and crack their head off the wall. And this is, this has happened in the, in the UFC before. It's just super, super unnecessary and unfortunate. And part of it is because there's not enough weight classes. There's like, you know, there's 155, then there's 170. The difference between 155 and 170 is not just 15 pounds. 'Cause if you actually weigh 155 and this guy's dropping down to 170, that motherfucker could be 190 plus.
- EWEric Weinstein
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he's just figuring out a way to cut weight to get down to there. And that happens all the time. So you're, you're dealing with, you know, it could be 25, 30 pounds difference between you two guys if you're, if you actually weigh what the weight class is when you get into the octagon. So people are forced to drop weight, they're forced to go lower. If they wanna compete at a world-class level, they're forced to take this extra risk. And it could be mitigated, it could, uh, it could all be stopped by hydration tests, the, the, the UFC could step in, all the athletic commissions could step in and say, "Enough is enough. You're gonna fight at what you weigh, and we're gonna give you more weight classes so you can figure out what's the weight for you to be best at." And I hope it doesn't take someone dying before they figure this out. 'Cause it's one of those things that people have done, like circumcision, they've done it forever so they just keep doing it. But if they just started doing it tomorrow, people would be like, "Why did you cut that baby's dick?"
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"Are you fucking crazy?" "Well, I've always cut babies' dicks. I've been cutting babies' dicks for years."
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- 42:29 – 50:29
Physics communication breakdown: ‘the universe is expanding’ and Big Bang honesty
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
... maybe, but like, when people say the universe is expanding-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
... what the fuck does that mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, it's going somewhere.
- EWEric Weinstein
Like, every smart, every smart person says-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
... into what?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
You know? Like, uh, it's the universe, what is it expanding into?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
And...
- JRJoe Rogan
Where's it going?
- EWEric Weinstein
Right. And what...
- JRJoe Rogan
How could it?
- EWEric Weinstein
It doesn't make any sense-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- EWEric Weinstein
... because the l- the linguistics of the universe is expanding isn't really what the m- what...
- JRJoe Rogan
So you're saying the matter in the universe is moving outwards? Is that what the universe is expanding means?
- EWEric Weinstein
No, no, no. What it means is, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
The infinite universe is getting more infiniter?
- EWEric Weinstein
N- no. So the pr- first of all is that they, they t- did you say that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Infiniter. (laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I was trying to be silly.
- EWEric Weinstein
The sativa's kicking in.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
Um, so if you think about this bottle-
- 50:29 – 1:05:06
Gauge theory via visuals: Hopf fibration, reference levels, and Escher staircases
- EWEric Weinstein
There is a very confusing visual image of the fundamental unit that you need to appreciate what gauge symmetry is all about. And, uh, I had Jamie load it up, um, under the tab called Planet Hopf. And this is gonna be-
- JRJoe Rogan
H-O-P-F?
- EWEric Weinstein
Eh, H-O-P-F.
- JRJoe Rogan
What the fuck am I looking at?
- EWEric Weinstein
You are looking at the most important object in the universe.
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- EWEric Weinstein
'Cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
That looks like some, uh, trippy screensaver on your laptop.
- EWEric Weinstein
Take another puff, my friend-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
... because it's worth it. Uh, this is, what you're looking at is a principal fiber bundle.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's, uh-
- EWEric Weinstein
And it is the only-
- JRJoe Rogan
... the Earth. Those are the continents I'm looking at.
- EWEric Weinstein
Well, that's, yeah, that's the cool part about it, which is this is very confusing to figure out what you're looking at, but it's finite. In other words, it, if we stay, uh, for an hour or two on this and we actually answer all your questions, you will actually know what a principal bundle is, and you will know the arena in which gauge theory exists.
- JRJoe Rogan
For folks at home that are just listening and they, well, "What the fuck are these guys talking about?" What is the name of this video, Jamie?
- GUGuest
It's not a video. It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not a video.
- GUGuest
It's a small file on a page. I typed in Planet Hopf, and it was the first thing that showed up on math.toronto.edu.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, so-
- GUGuest
It's the extended thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Planet H-O-P-F-
- GUGuest
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for anybody who wants to look at this, if you're just listening and you have no idea why I'm freaking out. So-
- EWEric Weinstein
And this, this was done by, uh, a friend of mine named Dror Bar-Natan. I actually coded the same thing up. Um, strangely enough, didn't do, uh, uh, as brilliant a job of coloring it. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
This looks amazing, by the way.
- EWEric Weinstein
So, okay, what you're looking at is a two-dimensional sphere that is the surface of the Earth where an extra circle is included at every point on the surface of that sphere, which you're now visualizing, and that extra circle, which would be called the fiber, um, when you take the totality of all of those circles together, one for each point on the surface of the sphere, they create something called a three-sphere. That is all the points that are one unit o- of distance away from the origin in four-dimensional space. So that three-dimensional sphere is the analog of a two-dimensional sphere sitting in three-dimensional space. So think about a caramel apple. If you've ever made caramel apples, you get a disc of caramel, and you wrap it around the sphere that is the apple surface, right? So this is the three-dimensional version of caramel wrapped around the three-dimensional, uh, sphere sitting in four-dimensional space.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
Now-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you understand any of this, Jamie?
- 1:05:06 – 1:24:50
Spinors and the 720° world: Dirac, stability of matter, and hidden structure
- EWEric Weinstein
... there's, you know ... One of the most important things in the world is this thing called a spinner. Like the electrons and the protons correspond to things called spinners. And the average person has no idea that spinners exist. What's more, spinners have a property that, when I tell it to you linguistically, won't make any sense. (knock on door) All right. I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
Good. Let's do this with coffee.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hit me with it.
- EWEric Weinstein
Okay. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Once more?
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah. Thank you, sir. Perfect.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
All right. Now here's the problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
Hold your cup. No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sorry.
- EWEric Weinstein
From the bottom.
- JRJoe Rogan
All right.
- EWEric Weinstein
And here's the first challenge. Without spilling it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
... I want you, and without readjusting your grip on the bottom of your cup, I want you to turn your cup 360 degrees. No, no, no. Uh, sorry. Turn ... Your, your fingers should not change on the cup.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- EWEric Weinstein
Turn the cup 360 degrees without spilling it and try to take a sip. Okay. That, that didn't work.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- EWEric Weinstein
Now, without coming back-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- EWEric Weinstein
... how would you take a sip?
- JRJoe Rogan
If I got it all the way around that way?
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah. (slurping) Mr. Jujitsu man.
- JRJoe Rogan
I would have to, uh ... I would have to help myself.
- EWEric Weinstein
Yeah, no, no. You're gonna do it. All right. You ready?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- EWEric Weinstein
Okay. Here we go.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. Are you gonna-
Episode duration: 3:51:46
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode X9JLij1obHY
