Joe Rogan Experience #1537 - Lex Fridman

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. LFLex Fridman0:02

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. (rock music)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Hello, Rex.

   4. LFLex Fridman0:13

      Hey, Joe.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Before we get started-

   6. LFLex Fridman0:15

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      ... how about that Calder Wall guy that I just played for you? How crazy is it that he was 21 when he made that song?

   8. LFLex Fridman0:21

      Is he close to 21 right now?

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      He's 25 now.

   10. LFLex Fridman0:23

       Yeah. He sounds like Johnny c- like later Johnny Cash.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       Like Johnny Cash when he did Hurt.

   12. LFLex Fridman0:28

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       You know?

   14. LFLex Fridman0:29

       Some, like a pain.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       Yeah.

   16. LFLex Fridman0:31

       A depth, a richness to his voice. So badass.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       It's weird. Like how do you, how do you get that at 21?

   18. LFLex Fridman0:38

       I d- he (laughs) I went to see him at like 14. He probably developed early, probably went through some shit in his life.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       Oh, he-

   20. LFLex Fridman0:46

       There's gotta be some whiskey in that story somewhere.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Oh, yeah.

   22. LFLex Fridman0:50

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:50

       He had to go through some real shit to have that, that voice and that, that just the m- just the, the sensibility, just the mindset of those songs. You know, that Kate McKinnon song, like Jesus Christ. You have to listen to the whole song. It's crazy. And it's-

   24. LFLex Fridman1:06

       It's ... Yeah, one of the things I hope like with your Spotify thing is that, uh, you'll be able to play songs when you-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       We want to, but it's weird. It's like they, they've left open ... They're, they're trying to figure it out, right? All this stuff is basically there's a lot of work in progress. They're trying to figure it out.

   26. LFLex Fridman1:23

       Listen, my dream ... Here, Spotify, if you're listening, my dream as a, as a, as a little boy-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       (laughs)

   28. LFLex Fridman1:28

       ... is to play Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix on the Joe Rogan Experience.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:33

       Oh, I would love that.

   30. LFLex Fridman1:33

       And not, not be like nervous about it being like taken down or something-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      two cables that you have to connect the two of them together. If you only connect one, it doesn't work. Well, that's how it is with standup. You have to have an audience. It's one of those art forms that you, you need to have a, a reaction. The people have to be there. You feed off of them. You, you, you create comedy with them. And in a lot of ways, one of the things that s- that Trump does outside of these speeches and get everybody excited about things, he's doing standup. He tells jokes. He talks shit. He, he, he gets laughs. Like, they were saying, like, there was an interview with one of the, uh, one of the debates. "You've said terrible things about women. You've called women pigs. You've called them this." And then he goes, "Wait, wait, wait, only Rosie O'Donnell."

   2. Yeah.

   3. He says this, and the audience goes crazy and laughs.

   4. Yeah.

   5. They're told to not respond. They're told to not respond.

   6. Yeah.

   7. The audience are told not to laugh.

   8. They can't help it.

   9. N- they can't help it. He just nailed it. He fucking nailed it.

   10. Yeah.

   11. And it's like a comic.

   12. Old comic.

   13. And i- I don't know if he's the same guy as he was back then, just honestly, just being honest, the same way I would talk about a fighter. Like, s- Father Time wins-

   14. Yeah.

   15. ... every time.

   16. If you listen to interviews with Donald Trump maybe from the '90s, he, um, is a different guy.

   17. Yes.

   18. He's, he's mu- yeah, like, sharper, I mean, less-

   19. He was smoother.

   20. ... I don't wanna be ageist, but-

   21. Yes.

   22. ... like, you're sh-

   23. He's not ageist.

   24. But-

   25. It's just reality. I mean, no one gets better when they're 100. It's not like... The guy's 100, and all of a sudden, he runs faster. He talks better. He's re- he's reading more and writing more. He sees better. No, we're dying. We're all-

   26. Yeah.

   27. ... dying slowly. Okay? And I don't know what kinda pressure the, being the president is, but I can only imagine. It's almost unmanageable, and he's-

   28. Yeah.

   29. ... managed it better than anybody I've ever seen. But the reality is, it's still pressure. You're still, it's still... Father Time wears on you. The w- the w- the wa- the river beats down the rocks and smoothes them out. There's no way around it. It just, it is what it is. So whether or not he's still got that kinda timing, that's a, that's a real question. But if him and Biden get into a, a debate situation, and he hits Biden with a couple of zingers like that, I mean, I, I, I don't, um-

   30. Well, so how do you think Biden might get out of the debates, or-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah, I don't see…

   1. LFLex Fridman30:00

      leader that, uh, took the country into, uh, used nationalism to take the country into a dark place in the '30s. Those are two different stories. I don't think we're going to have ever something, hopefully, uh, any atrocity like the Holocaust. But it's possible that the pain that people feel will be taken ...... uh, we would be taken advantage of by a charismatic leader to, um, to take us, to take steps back, not- not forward. And that- that's a, that's a real worry. That's a real-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:32

      Yeah, I don't see that leader on the horizon, but I, the- the other problem is, even a positive leader, the way politics work in America, everyone is so accustomed to people chopping people down. So much so that one of the things that's weird about Kamala Harris being with Joe Biden is that, you know, she was- she was talking, like, terrible things about him during the primaries. I mean, when she was running against him in the primaries, she said horrible things about him and then when they brought it up on The Colbert Show, she was like, "It was a debate."

   3. LFLex Fridman31:07

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:07

      "It was a debate." Like, is that what a debate is? Like, by- by any means necessary, you'll distort your own views of a person in order to diminish that person so that you can succeed and they fail? Or, do you really mean that, and that's why you said it in the debate and you're willing to compromise whatever your ethics or you morals or whatever your perceptions of this person are because you want to be vice president? It's one or the other. Either one's not good, and I think it speaks to the, just the standard way that people debate and that people run for president in this country. It's about tearing the other people down. It's not about what you can do, what you want to do, what's your vision. It's about how bad that other person's going to do at the job, how bad that other person has done at the job, who- what a terrible person they are, what- what's- let's distort their character.

   5. LFLex Fridman31:56

      Yeah, so turning into a game, a rap battle. I mean, my worry is that we're going to get in, uh, 2024 or 2028, uh, Donald Trump Jr. versus, like, AOC. So you basically take, like, the most entertaining Instagram accounts or whatever-

   6. JRJoe Rogan32:14

      (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman32:14

      ... and the most divisive ones, who's gonna have the best memes of tearing each other down? It'll become a reality show.

   8. JRJoe Rogan32:20

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman32:20

      And of course the media would love that because it- it makes, uh, it- it, uh, it draws more eyes because we generally are drawn to controversy, to drama, and funny drama. Like this kind of shallow, derisive kind of conversation, basically trolls on both sides-

   10. JRJoe Rogan32:39

       Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman32:39

       ... we're drawn to that, as opposed to the Andrew Yang type folks who are like, "Let's all get along-

   12. JRJoe Rogan32:44

       Yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman32:45

       ... and let's hear some ideas."

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:46

       (coughs) That's why he's so refreshing, right?

   15. LFLex Fridman32:48

       Yeah, exactly.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:49

       And also, you know, he's an entrepreneur. He's a, it's a different kind of human being that is running to the race. He's not a career politician. He's a guy who genuinely thinks he can help.

   17. LFLex Fridman33:00

       Yeah. And young-

   18. JRJoe Rogan33:01

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman33:02

       Young. There's something to that, just that fresh energy.

   20. JRJoe Rogan33:04

       100%. Not compromised, too. Not compromised by that- that fucked up system. When you deal with someone like Joe- Joe Biden, who's a 50-year politician, like my God, like you're so- it's so entangled, you're so encrusted into that.

   21. LFLex Fridman33:17

       He probably doesn't even... He- he hasn't... He's almost unable to think original thoughts at this time because he's just been in the system for so long, he can't like sit back and Elon Musk style think from first principles, like-

   22. JRJoe Rogan33:33

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman33:33

       ... "Okay, here's a new problem. What are the ways we've been doing it previously? It hasn't worked. How can we do it differently? Let's all cut the bullshit. Look, I know there's a bunch of like, uh, ties, lobbyists, money interests. Let's put all that aside. How do we... Like, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to- we're supposed to represent the people. We're supposed to do something great for this country. How do we do that?" And- and fire, again this is a destructive, uh, creative destruction. Fire everybody who's has the entrenched old school assumptions that, uh, haven't worked. Fire everybody and hire new energy and-

   24. JRJoe Rogan34:15

       Well, you'd have to revamp the system too. So it's, there's so much to do. (laughs)

   25. LFLex Fridman34:20

       Well this is the time to do it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan34:21

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman34:21

       I mean, and there's a hunger for that.

   28. JRJoe Rogan34:23

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman34:23

       I- I think there's a hunger for populists that wants to revamp the system.

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:27

       Just a matter of whether or not they'd actually be able to do it. I mean, there's so many checks and balances in place to sort of prevent that from happening because they're- they're worried about someone doing it for the wrong reasons.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   But the thing is,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      right? It's close. Whatever it is, is like not Earth, but it's close, and the things that live there are not, they're not human, but they're close. Like, you could kinda see that. It's good enough. It's close enough, like the animals and all the weird creatures in the jungle in, in the Avatar movie.

   2. LFLex Fridman45:18

      But the thing is, most likely, life would be not close-

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:22

      Right, most likely.

   4. LFLex Fridman45:23

      ... on other planets. It'd be ... That's the, with, uh, I, I, I told you about, um, uh, David Fravor, who I, uh-

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      Yeah.

   6. LFLex Fridman45:30

      ... uh, talked to recently. By the way, thank you for ... I renamed, um, my podcast to just my name.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      Yeah.

   8. LFLex Fridman45:37

      Lex Fridman. Uh, when I heard you tell that to Joey, uh, Joey Diaz.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:40

      Yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman45:41

       Sadly, people should go listen to Joey's last ... He did a, he recorded his last Church of What's Happening Now episode.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:48

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman45:48

       So, you suggested to him that he should do some new thing totally and just name it after himself, and I was like, "Why the fuck am I have some silly name like Artificial Intelligence? Just, just name it, like, The Joe Rogan Experience."

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:01

       (laughs) Yeah.

   14. LFLex Fridman46:01

       Just, I, I named Lex Fridman Podcast.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:03

       Yeah.

   16. LFLex Fridman46:03

       So, anyway, I talked to David for four hours, um ... Yeah. Why'd I bring that up? Because I-

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:08

       David Fravor, you were talking-

   18. LFLex Fridman46:09

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:10

       Let, let's, let's explain who David Fravor was.

   20. LFLex Fridman46:12

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:12

       He's a, uh, um, fighter jet pilot for the navy, and, uh, he discovered a UFO off the coast of San Diego that, when they tracked it, went from 60,000 feet to one feet in a second or less. They don't know how fast it went because it's, you know, the blip of a radar. But the thing traveled in an, an insane way that defies all of our understanding of propulsion, all of our understanding of physics. And this thing also actively was blocking their tracking systems, which is an act of war. If it, you know, with the Soviet Union or China was doing that, that's technically an act of war. So, this thing was doing something that showed that it, it was intelligently aware of the fact that they are using tracking devices to try to lock in on it, and it behaved and moved in a way that defies all of our understandings of propulsion systems. It didn't give off any heat signature, and, uh, the people from the navy that he was communicating with saying, "Yeah, we see these every now and again. We don't know what the fuck they are."

   22. LFLex Fridman47:16

       So, the, the thing I was gonna say, there's a lot of interesting things to say about this, but, so, j- just this im- I just remembered that it felt like, from that entire experience, that because it didn't have a Chinese or a Russian flag on it, whatever he saw, is we tend to, just the entire system, is doesn't want to acknowledge it. Like, you, you just, you don't know what to do with it, so they actually, most of, uh, like, when you return back to the ship, and there's a bunch of pilots that, uh, put, you know, that saw it, there's, there's a lot of people that witnessed it and then there's also the video. You know, the majority of the people didn't know what to do with it. They just went on with their day like nothing happened. Uh, you know, they kind of made fun of each other, whatever-

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:58

       Mm-hmm.

   24. LFLex Fridman47:58

       ... for, you know, uh, f- "Yeah, y- yeah, sure, bro. You saw aliens." But, like, they didn't, they didn't know how to comprehend it. That, that's what I meant, like, if we encounter life from elsewhere in the universe, we think we would be, uh, as a population, excited, but it feels like, just like with bo- Bigfoot, we want, we're excited by the mystery when they're like, when they're just outta reach.

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:24

       Mm-hmm.

   26. LFLex Fridman48:24

       But when they're like am- among us (laughs) , they're, just, there's so many mysteries and incredible things among us that-... we just kinda take them for granted.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:34

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman48:34

       And we j- we don't even, um... Or ignore them, actually. Even worse, we ignore them.

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:38

       We get used to things.

   30. LFLex Fridman48:39

       And that, that was the weird thing. The, the biggest mystery to me about, uh, what David Fravor saw and a lot... And then also with the, the other videos in 2014? Something like that. The Go Fast.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      not nuclear. Like, we're w- but we're involved in a- in a skirmish with another country, but it do- we don't use all our weapons. Like, if we approached war the way people approached war in, you know, the- the Middle Ages, w- we would just nuke the fuck out of everybody that talks shit, right?

   2. LFLex Fridman1:00:21

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

      Anybody, anybody... What- what did China just say? Wouldn't they just, like, fucking launch those missiles?

   4. LFLex Fridman1:00:25

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

      Fuck those people.

   6. LFLex Fridman1:00:26

      Instead of Twitter-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:26

      Right.

   8. LFLex Fridman1:00:27

      ... it'd be nukes. Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:28

      Exactly. So, we're already in this place where we don't use our best stuff. We're already... So, if we had something th- that made us fly better and fly faster, the real question is, yeah, how much would that change the world? I don't know, I don't know how much it would. If we got in control of some UFO and were able to get to China quicker, would... How much of a difference would that make?... in terms of, like, the way they responded to our military. We're in this position now where there's multiple countries ha- that have the ability to destroy other countries. There's, uh, Y- Iran has some sort of a nuclear program. Pakistan has a nuclear program. Uh, India has a nuclear program. You know, of course, the United States, Russia, China. There's many countries that have the ability to fucking wipe out huge numbers of the population (snaps fingers) like that. Just launch. Just one crazy, psychotic leader who just decides to just, "Listen, we're gonna fucking make our mark here. Everybody together on one, two, three, go." Boom. (imitates explosion)

   10. LFLex Fridman1:01:33

       Look, that's, uh, that's, I mean, that's-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:34

       Terrifying.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:01:34

       ... such a difficult, it's, you talked to Snowden, it's such a difficult ethical question. Like, if I actually had that information, I tend to lean a little bit on the side of, it's the duty of every American to leak that information, to take it and make it public. But I, I understand that takes a huge risk of destroying the world because, uh, evil people can get their hands on that information. That's the que- that's the Bob Lazar question, right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:59

       Well, wasn't that Oppenheimer's dilemma? I mean, when Oppen- Oppenheimer, who was a, you know, a very peaceful man, created the most destructive, or helped create the most destructive invention the world's ever known. It's a conundrum, right? Like, but doing so, did he prevent a lot of other death because Germany would have gotten it or Japan would have gotten it, and they would have used it on Europe. They would have used it on the United States. Is that possible? That's, uh, that's the argument, right? That there's a race going on, that people understand that splitting the atom, and is- is possible, that nuclear weapons are feasible, and whoever gets them first is gonna have a massive advantage. We got them first and therefore, you know, we became the preeminent superpower. But what if we didn't? What if Oppenheimer was a dummy? You know, what if there was a bunch of knuckleheads working for the United States and the Russians and the Germans and the Japanese were all working together and they came up with something far better? Obviously, the Russians were against the, uh, the Germans at, in that war, but I mean, eh, eh, eh, fit together any superpowers at the time. If they got together with their scientists and they figured out a nuclear bomb first and just dropped it on San Francisco, what, how much would the world be different now?

   14. LFLex Fridman1:03:13

       Yeah, I mean, and- and Russia, I mean, Stalin is a complicated figure.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:03:17

       Yes.

   16. LFLex Fridman1:03:17

       So he was on the side of the United States at the time.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:03:20

       But evil as fuck.

   18. LFLex Fridman1:03:22

       But evil, um, evil.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:03:24

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman1:03:24

       And if he had nuclear weapons, it's a whole nother discussion.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:03:27

       Yes.

   22. LFLex Fridman1:03:28

       (sighs) And, uh, it's- it's actually quite surprising to me that we got out of the 20th century a- alive. (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:03:36

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman1:03:36

       So from a perspective of, of Oppenheimer, you know, I think he probably wondered if we're going to destroy ourselves within the next decade no matter what happens. When you have w- when you have weapons that can destroy all of civilization, especially now with hydrogen bombs-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:03:53

       Mm-hmm.

   26. LFLex Fridman1:03:54

       ... it's, um, it's complicated to talk about anything like alien technology because-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:58

       Yeah. Well, I think that's probably, I mean, if I was an alien and I was paying attention to earth, that's probably why I would visit.

   28. LFLex Fridman1:04:08

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:08

       I'd be like, these chimps are in this weird stage of evolution where they're still chimps, they're still behaving like territorial apes, but now they have nuclear technology. They have this very crude version of the, literally the power of the sun.

   30. LFLex Fridman1:04:26

       Well, that's what ... Okay, so here's another hypothesis. They saw these destructive weapons and so they actually, uh, in Roswell, uh, plant- or whatever it is-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:57

   (laughs) …

   1. LFLex Fridman1:15:00

      I, I might be getting the exact rule wrong for the game of life, but when you, when you only... Each cell only looks at its neighbors. And when a certain number of neighbors is alive, I think it's three, then you continue being black, you continue being alive.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:14

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman1:15:14

      Otherwise, you die. It's a live die. And all... You're just a single cell sitting there, and you live and die based on your neighbors.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:20

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:15:20

      Okay, this is dumb. I mean, it's very simple. You think, what can be, uh, created from that? And you can create everything in the known universe from that. So, like, people have created computers from that, from a, a Turing machine. Like, the patterns that emerge, you can create all these kinds of fractals. You think, like, it would create some kind of repeatable regular pattern or something like that. It would be something dumb, but it can create these, like, like, the, the, it, it... Uh, one, one really important thing is the cell just knows about itself. It doesn't move. It just knows about itself. But when you zoom out and you look at the result from the system, it looks like there's objects running around. Like, the individual cells aren't running around, but it looks like the objects are running around. You can have messengers. You can have what are called spaceships, which are these mechanisms that use the cells and, and move around. Like, if you have any gifs or videos of it, like, there's stuff that moves. And it seems like it's intelligent objects that communicate with each other and all of that emerges. And you can see it... Like, if you just think about it a little bit, like, you have to remind yourself that... See, like, this animation right there, it looks like there's a moving object. Like, it looks... So I think these are called glider guns or something like that, where they shoot off objects of different kinds. And like, you think... But the individual cell knows nothing about anything except itself and its nearest neighbors. And as a result, you can nevertheless have arbitrary complexity, objects of arbitrary size that move around, that live and die, like, that, uh, c- li- like I said, uh, do any kind of computation in the world. It makes you realize that it's possible that this universe is just some simple dumb rules on a scale of 10 to the 120. Like, an ant colony just, that just scaled, uh, like, an insanely, to an arbitrary degree. And then we're just the re- we're like these clueless apes there, just the result of that. We're not able to perceive at all the, uh, the, you know, much, much smaller level, the simplicity that's happening. To us, all of this seems... Like, it, it all does... It seems complicated to us. Like, this table seems like it's wood, you know. We don't perceive the atoms. We don't perceive the quantum mechanics. We don't perceive whether it's string theory or something like Wolfram is saying. Like, these objects that are interacting at a microscop- fo- far smaller than a microscopic level, but it might be that there are really simple rules that just create all of this. It seems complicated to us, but the... It's something that's, I think, is nice to appreciate for people from all walks of life, how much complexity be created from simplicity, from simple rules, how much richness, beauty just could be created from simple rules.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:18:21

      Isn't it also really interesting that everything tends to move towards greater and greater complexity?

   7. LFLex Fridman1:18:28

      Well, n- uh, so this is, I think, really important, and it's surprising. In general, the second law of ther- thermodynamics says that everything becomes more cha- chaotic. So it's not complex, it becomes more boring, the heat death of the universe, that, uh, everything moves apart, everything becomes random.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:18:48

      Eventually.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:18:48

      Eventually. But the thing is that there's pockets of complexity, and, uh, that these pockets keep getting created of some interesting stuff.

Episode duration: 3:01:22