Joe Rogan Experience #1537 - Lex Fridman

1. 0:02 – 3:11

   Music deep cuts: Colter Wall, Johnny Cash vibes, and the dream of playing songs on Spotify

   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. 3:11 – 9:47

   Hendrix, Clapton, and the edge of genius: technique, drugs, and the cost of brilliance

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:11

      (sighs) I think there's like a, a, a disconnect that you almost have to have from the normal mind to create that kind of sound.

   2. LFLex Fridman3:19

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:19

      The- there's s- ... Like, like when you go to, um ... There's some, some Hendrix songs, like Voodoo Child is a great one, right? Uh, the, just the, the sound in that guitar is so ... He's so out there. He's so wild. You know, there's like a famous, uh, story where Eric Clapton first saw Stevie Ray Vaughan play and he was like, "What in the fuck am I doing?"

   4. LFLex Fridman3:44

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:44

      (laughs) Can you imagine (laughs) how good Eric Clapton is seeing, uh ... Did I say Stevie Ray Vaughan or J- Jimi Hendrix?

   6. LFLex Fridman3:50

      Jimi Hendrix.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:50

      I meant Jimi Hendrix. I meant Jimi Hendrix.

   8. LFLex Fridman3:51

      No, you said Jimi Hendrix.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:52

      Oh, did I? Okay.

   10. LFLex Fridman3:53

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:53

       But that, uh, Eric Clapton went and saw Jimi Hendrix play live and was ... You know, he was such a talent that everybody else was like, "What are we doing?" Like, "We ...

   12. LFLex Fridman4:05

       Yeah. The cool thing is, um, I mean, I don't know if you know, but they uh ... Eric Clapton is ... And Jimi Hendrix both play, um, a Fender Strat, so it's the same guitar.

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:13

       Mm.

   14. LFLex Fridman4:13

       So I can imagine ... And then Eric Clapton has this like warm, smooth tone, and I could just imagine Eric Clapton singing like, "How the fuck did he get that sound-"

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:23

       (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman4:23

       "... out of that thing? (laughs) How did you pull that off?"

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:26

       Well, he ... Still Eric Clapton has some amazing-

   18. LFLex Fridman4:29

       Oh, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:29

       ... fucking songs and amazing sound. I mean-

   20. LFLex Fridman4:32

       What's that-

   21. JRJoe Rogan4:32

       ... Layla?

   22. LFLex Fridman4:33

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:33

       That song Layla?

   24. LFLex Fridman4:34

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:34

       Goddamn, is that a good song.

   26. LFLex Fridman4:35

       Yeah. Uh, both acoustic and electric. He has an acoustic ver-

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:39

       Oh, really?

   28. LFLex Fridman4:40

       There was ... On ... MTV used to do this thing-

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:42

       Unplugged?

   30. LFLex Fridman4:42

       Unplugged.
3. 9:47 – 12:20

   From Tyson’s darkness to Trump’s timing: violence, comedy, and political spectacle

   1. LFLex Fridman9:47

      Well, the ... Your conversation with Mike Tyson actually symbolizes this in a really interesting way for me, because here you have, like, one of the greatest fighters ever who somehow found inner peace through the whole, like, w-

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:02

      Marijuana, yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman10:03

      marijuana thing. But just the way he was behaving just was positivity and just this good vibes putting them out there. And yet, he now, for at least brief moment in his life, rediscovered the darkness.

   4. JRJoe Rogan10:15

      (laughs)

   5. LFLex Fridman10:16

      Like, re- ... I was li- (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:18

      (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman10:18

      I was watching your podcast with him, and the moment when you said ... Like, you were, like, having another level chat. He just took you, like, a few levels up by saying, like, that, you know, when he thinks about hurting people, s- sometimes it's like-

   8. JRJoe Rogan10:32

      It's orgasmic.

   9. LFLex Fridman10:33

      It's orgasmic.

   10. JRJoe Rogan10:33

       Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman10:34

       And you- (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan10:35

       Heh.

   13. LFLex Fridman10:35

       You try to laugh it off, but there's, like, memes of ...

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:38

       (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman10:38

       He's, he's like, "No, I'm serious." (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:40

       Well, I mean, I, I was laughing. I mean, I wasn't really trying to laugh it off. I was laughing at the, the madness of it.

   17. LFLex Fridman10:46

       What did that make you f- By the way, Donald Trump retweeted th- that clip of that. I don't know what to make-

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:50

       (laughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman10:51

       ... the, the ... Politically, I don't know what the context of that ... (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:55

       (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman10:55

       (laughs) But he retweeted Mike Tyson-

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:56

       He-

   23. LFLex Fridman10:56

       ... saying it was, uh, erotic.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:59

       Trump's like an old comedian who just happens to be president. I mean-

   25. LFLex Fridman11:03

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan11:03

       Really. I mean, eh, the, the same kind of behavior that a comedian has. The timing, like his timing, like when ... With th- the thing about Hillary Clinton, "You'd be in jail."

   27. LFLex Fridman11:12

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:12

       Remember that?

   29. LFLex Fridman11:13

       No.

   30. JRJoe Rogan11:13

       The timing of that when, when they were doing a debate, and she, she said something-
4. 12:20 – 17:09

   Empty rooms, Zoom stand-up, and the internet’s undefeated meme machine

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:20

      Di- how do you say Donald Trump Junior's girlfriend's name? Kimberly... How do you say it?

   2. NANarrator12:26

      Like, Guilfoyle, I think. Or-

   3. JRJoe Rogan12:27

      Is that Guilfoyle?

   4. NANarrator12:28

      I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm guessing. I don't know.

   5. JRJoe Rogan12:29

      The way it's written is, like, why are we pretending that this is a, this is, like, the r- correct use of these letters? Because it's (laughs) -

   6. (laughs)

   7. ... you shouldn't put all those letters together like that. Like, fix that. Um, but there's a, a great video that someone put together, and I, I retweeted it, or reposted it, of her screaming this message to an empty room, and then there's a beaver on the top of a mountain.

   8. (laughs) Yeah, yeah. I saw it.

   9. Right (laughs) .

   10. NANarrator13:00

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:00

       Dude (laughs) , this is, this is the thing that happens.

   12. The internet is amazing.

   13. The internet's the best. It's undefeated.

   14. (laughs)

   15. There's a, there's a thing about doing stuff in, like, audiences, that, like, here it is (laughs) . Play this.

   16. NANarrator13:15

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan13:15

       Play this (laughs) 'cause it's so good.

   18. NANarrator13:17

       Your destiny. You are capable.

   19. NANarrator13:21

       Oh, this isn't the right one.

   20. NANarrator13:22

       You are-

   21. JRJoe Rogan13:22

       Oh, it's still just re- eh, find it on my Instagram. It's on my Instagram.

   22. NANarrator13:28

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan13:29

       (laughs) Uh, uh, but it's so funny because it's like, they're, people are doing standup these days, um, on Zoom.

   24. Yeah.

   25. And it's bad. Like, really good comics look terrible doing standup to no audience.

   26. No audience.

   27. Yeah, it's just not how comedy's supposed to be. They're, let's, it's like, it, i- i- i- it's like, you know how you have a battery, and you're charging a battery. You have to put something on the... Here, play it real quick.

   28. (laughs)

   29. (laughs) 'Cause it's so good.

   30. NANarrator13:56

       Leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American dream, the best is yet to come.
5. 17:09 – 20:56

   Debates, Biden’s strategy, and the hunger for inspiring leadership (Yang, Tulsi, and unity ideas)

   1. JRJoe Rogan17:09

      Well, so how do you think Biden might get out of the debates, or-

   2. He's gonna, he's gonna have to get out of the debates. I mean, if they're smart, if I was a Democratic strategist-

   3. (laughs)

   4. ... there's no fucking way I would let him debate.

   5. Yeah.

   6. Like, listen, we're winning because it, the only reason why people are winning, the only reason is 'cause they want Trump out of office. You could've... If, if Pete Buttigieg was in the position that Biden was in, it would be, uh, uh, I mean, he would have a much stronger, like, there's so many, m- much sm- stronger response from people. Right? Young person, speaks well. If Tulsi Gabbard-

   7. Oh.

   8. ... was in that position, dude, she could be president. I know that the Democrats, for whatever fucking reason, didn't want her to be. But if she got into those, that position, when she was debating, if she was debating with Trump, and people saw her and saw her record-

   9. Yeah.

   10. ... saw the fact that she served overseas twice, saw the fact that she's been a congresswoman for six years, saw how well she speaks, how honest she is-

   11. Yeah, and just the-

   12. ... she-

   13. ... integrity and the character that you can see in the way she carries herself.

   14. 100%.

   15. See, the, one of the big problems is the Democratic nomination process happened before-

   16. LFLex Fridman18:13

       ... Coronavirus.

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       Yeah.

   18. LFLex Fridman18:14

       So, like, we were in kind of a lag. The economy was doing well, b- you know, things are going just regular. And so you kind of, the, the boring, generic candidate won out. What we need now is a great, like, inspiring leader.

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman18:27

       Not somebody who is ... You know, Joe Biden's strategy currently is to just sit back and don't say anything and let T- Trump destroy himself. That's the whole-

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:36

       Well, every time he says something, he jumbles his words up and he fucks things up and he forgets where he is, and it's like ... You know, he's had multiple brain surgeries. More than-

   22. LFLex Fridman18:46

       I didn't know that.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       Yeah. Oh. I- uh, yeah, I can play you-

   24. LFLex Fridman18:49

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:49

       ... some shit. I mean, like, it's kinda crazy. Hey, Jamie, have I ever played you this one? I'm gonna, I'm gonna send this to you, Jamie. But (clears throat) the ... Look-

   26. LFLex Fridman18:58

       But the contrast with, like, Andrew Yang, I, I don't know if you listen to Andrew Yang these days, but he's f- ... Andrew's f- like, teeming with ideas-

   27. JRJoe Rogan19:06

       Yes.

   28. LFLex Fridman19:06

       ... with energy, with excitement, with a passion of different ways and things w- we can do. Ev- you know, f- that's what we need now, is a, an inspiring, uh, leader that unites. You know, uh, Brett Weinstein is on his, uh, big, as he talked about on your podcast, like, uniting, having basically a center left and a center right candidate just uniting the nation.

   29. JRJoe Rogan19:28

       (Sound effect) Yeah, I'm sending this to you right now, Jamie. Sorry.

   30. LFLex Fridman19:32

       Uh-oh.
6. 20:56 – 26:54

   Policing, jiu-jitsu for cops, and reform vs ‘defund’: training, accountability, and root causes

   1. LFLex Fridman20:56

      He basically has an idea for everything. The, the purple belt jiu-jitsu for co-

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:00

      Yes. Really.

   3. LFLex Fridman21:00

      Like, that i- that's, that's even more brilliant than UBI now in this divisive time of policing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan21:05

      Yes. Right.

   5. LFLex Fridman21:06

      Have every cop get a purple belt. (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan21:08

      Yeah, at least a purple belt.

   7. LFLex Fridman21:09

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan21:10

      Yeah. From l- a legit Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor.

   9. LFLex Fridman21:12

      Maybe blue belt, second stripe, like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan21:15

       (laughs) Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman21:15

       ... like, learn a triangle.

   12. JRJoe Rogan21:17

       (clears throat) Yeah, well, know how to defend yourself. I mean, there's so many ridiculous videos I was watching where there's a, a, a, a, an account I follow on Instagram called Police Posts and it's basically a police-oriented, uh, Instagram page. You know, it's like, four cops, uh, educating cops and, and talking about situations. And they show a lot of, like, situations where cops, uh, overestimate their ability to, to handle things physically and they get fucked up. And one of them today was this guy gets rolled over and beaten up and just doesn't know what he's doing.

   13. LFLex Fridman21:47

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan21:47

       And, you know, and that wouldn't happen if it, you were talking about someone that's a purple belt.

   15. LFLex Fridman21:51

       I, I heard ... I don't know if this is true, but I heard in some places like New York, uh, rear naked chokes are-

   16. JRJoe Rogan21:58

       They're illegal, yeah. Yeah.

   17. LFLex Fridman21:59

       ... legal now.

   18. JRJoe Rogan22:01

       (coughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman22:01

       Which is like-

   20. JRJoe Rogan22:02

       Ridiculous.

   21. LFLex Fridman22:02

       ... which, whi- which we should expand the jiu-jitsu, uh, training to the people in government too, because-

   22. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman22:08

       ... it doesn't make any sense. It's one of the most safe ways to pacify somebody.

   24. JRJoe Rogan22:14

       Well, I think a lot of it had to do with the Eric Garner situation, right? Where that guy got ... But the, the thing about the Eric Garner situation is they shoulda never fucked with that guy and they shoulda never, they shoulda never manhandled him in the first place. Forget about choking him, they should've left him alone.

   25. LFLex Fridman22:29

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan22:29

       All the guy was doing is hanging out in the corner selling loose cigarettes. Now, (clears throat) c- oh, I have a cough button. Hold on, let me try it. (coughs)

   27. LFLex Fridman22:38

       Did it work-

   28. JRJoe Rogan22:38

       Better.

   29. LFLex Fridman22:38

       ... Jamie?

   30. JRJoe Rogan22:39

       Yeah. Oh, the other mic's picked it up.
7. 26:54 – 30:32

   Economic pain, wealth disparity, and lessons from 1930s Germany: when suffering meets charisma

   1. LFLex Fridman26:54

      Yeah, this whole ... The sad thing about, uh, the way the stimulus is being distributed, at least my worry is that it creates a greater gap in wealth, wealth disparity, the, uh, versus a lesser one. So, all the problems you're mentioning, it's only going to make them worse.

   2. JRJoe Rogan27:11

      Mm.

   3. LFLex Fridman27:11

      So people who are not well off are gonna become worse.

   4. JRJoe Rogan27:15

      Yeah.

   5. LFLex Fridman27:15

      Uh, the opportunity for jobs is gonna be lesser.

   6. JRJoe Rogan27:18

      (clears throat)

   7. LFLex Fridman27:19

      The opportunities for people who are gonna lose their businesses, that means their dreams are broken, essentially. And the people who worked for the people who ran the businesses are gonna not have a job. And all of that creates a greater disparity, uh, within those communities, uh, greater desperation, and then desperation, I've been reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

   8. JRJoe Rogan27:43

      Mm-hmm.

   9. LFLex Fridman27:43

      Great book, I recommend it highly. It talks about the '30s and the rise of Hitler in Germany. And the pain, both economic and psychological, turns into this, like, dark energy that can be, uh, w- combined with a charismatic leader to go into a direction of hatred versus love and progress. And that's terrifying. I don't think we have a competent charismatic leader that would do that, uh, in a positive or negative direction. But I do hope a leader arises that, that uses that energy of pain, um, that ... To-

   10. JRJoe Rogan28:25

       In a positive way.

   11. LFLex Fridman28:25

       ... to do something good.

   12. JRJoe Rogan28:26

       Yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman28:26

       In a positive way.

   14. JRJoe Rogan28:27

       Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman28:27

       And we need that. Like, I think, I think people don't realize how much pain there is being experienced right now. Like, most people in real pain don't have a podcast, don't have a voice.

   16. JRJoe Rogan28:38

       Mm. Yeah.

   17. LFLex Fridman28:39

       And, like, they don't have a job. And everyone's kinda in this holding position. But the reality is, like, once the eco- economy opens up slowly and slowly, there's gonna be ... That, the, the remnants of the pain experience in this year is gonna be there. The people who have lost their savings, people who have lost their dreams, that materializes itself just like it did in Germany in, in bitterness and hatred. And that can create revolutions. That can create f- f-

   18. JRJoe Rogan29:10

       (clears throat)

   19. LFLex Fridman29:12

       ... unstoppable destructive forces, especially when combined with an ideologue. That's terrifying to me. Uh, people should definitely study ... There, there's this kinda this discussion of Hitler recently, you know, that everyone says either Obama is Hitler or Trump is Hitler. It's kinda-

   20. JRJoe Rogan29:29

       Who, who said Obama's Hitler?

   21. LFLex Fridman29:31

       Uh, when, well, when Obama was president. That was, uh-

   22. JRJoe Rogan29:33

       Really?

   23. LFLex Fridman29:34

       Yeah. Uh, th- because, uh ... (laughs) I mean- (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan29:38

       What the fuck?

   25. LFLex Fridman29:38

       Uh, peop- this is what people do. I mean, uh, you know, the, using the military-industrial complex to control the population, that kind of idea.

   26. JRJoe Rogan29:46

       (clears throat)

   27. LFLex Fridman29:46

       And, you know, that ... The thing is, you have to separate Hitler, the evil person that, uh, created the Holocaust, from the general evil charismatic 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-

8. 30:32 – 38:13

   Politics as a meme war: tearing down opponents, identity branding, and the reality-show future

   1. 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."

   2. LFLex Fridman31:07

      Yeah.

   3. 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.

   4. 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-

   5. JRJoe Rogan32:14

      (laughs)

   6. 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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan32:20

      Yeah.

   8. 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-

   9. JRJoe Rogan32:39

      Yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman32:39

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

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:44

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman32:45

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

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:46

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

   14. LFLex Fridman32:48

       Yeah, exactly.

   15. 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.

   16. LFLex Fridman33:00

       Yeah. And young-

   17. JRJoe Rogan33:01

       Yeah.

   18. LFLex Fridman33:02

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

   19. 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.

   20. 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-

   21. JRJoe Rogan33:33

       Yeah.

   22. 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-

   23. JRJoe Rogan34:15

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

   24. LFLex Fridman34:20

       Well this is the time to do it.

   25. JRJoe Rogan34:21

       Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman34:21

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

   27. JRJoe Rogan34:23

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman34:23

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

   29. 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.

   30. LFLex Fridman34:37

       Well that- what- if- if there's a positive view on the, our current president, Donald Trump, is he showed that, uh, you don't have to follow the rules.
9. 38:13 – 43:01

   Overpopulation, mating seasons, and predator vs prey ecology: nature’s balancing acts

   1. LFLex Fridman38:13

      I don't ... I can't ... I haven't looked into this carefully, but, uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan38:16

      Okay.

   3. LFLex Fridman38:16

      ... there's, uh, there seems to be a lot of debate about whether to worry about overpopulation or not. Like, I've, I've posted, um, these, like, projections of the, the population of when we're gonna reach, uh, 10, uh, trillion, uh, people, billion people. Uh, and there's a lotta debate of whether that is ... like we should be worried about it or not. The ... On the one side, the natural carrying capacity of Earth, people say that we have way more resources than we need. It's not to worry about. It's nothing to worry about.

   4. JRJoe Rogan38:48

      But it's about how those resources are allocated, right?

   5. LFLex Fridman38:50

      Right.

   6. JRJoe Rogan38:50

      It's like some places are very resource-poor, but they have high populations. And that's, that's a, a gigantic problem.

   7. LFLex Fridman38:56

      And most of the population growth in the 21st century will be in Africa, like if-

   8. JRJoe Rogan39:01

      Mm-hmm.

   9. LFLex Fridman39:01

      ... you look at the models. And Africa will have, I believe, more people than the rest of the world by, like, the end of the century if the-

   10. JRJoe Rogan39:09

       Wow.

   11. LFLex Fridman39:09

       ... population continues. Like this, the ... If you talk about large families, they're happening in Africa.

   12. JRJoe Rogan39:15

       The thing about Africa, though, is it actually can fit most-

   13. LFLex Fridman39:19

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan39:19

       ... of the world-

   15. LFLex Fridman39:20

       It's crazy.

   16. JRJoe Rogan39:20

       ... in it when you realize-

   17. LFLex Fridman39:20

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan39:20

       ... how big Africa is. I had no idea until we started doing this podcast and Jamie pulled up this image of, like, Europe and Asia and the United States and all these other countries stuffed into the continent of Africa. It's only then you realize how big Africa actually is. So it kinda makes sense.

   19. LFLex Fridman39:38

       Yeah, space-wise, but-

   20. JRJoe Rogan39:39

       Yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman39:39

       Yeah, but also resource-wise, they're ... I mean, um, there's a lotta people suffering in Africa. That's something that we kee- keep a blind eye to, but there's real suffering, poverty.

   22. JRJoe Rogan39:50

       It's interesting that some animals have mating seasons, you know? Like deer have mating seasons. They go into the rut in the fall and then the, the, the does are in estrus and they give out this scent and the bucks go crazy and they're chasing 'em all around, but they only do it once a year.

   23. LFLex Fridman40:07

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan40:08

       And then in the spring, they give birth to the, the new fawns. And this is like ... It's really common in the wild for animals to have a season.

   25. LFLex Fridman40:16

       Do chimps do m-

   26. JRJoe Rogan40:17

       No. No, no, no. (laughs)

   27. LFLex Fridman40:20

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan40:20

       Not our people.

   29. LFLex Fridman40:22

       I wonder if there's-

   30. JRJoe Rogan40:22

       No.
10. 43:01 – 48:58

    Searching for life, UFOs, and Fravor’s Tic Tac: why astonishing evidence doesn’t change daily life

    1. LFLex Fridman43:01

       You know what's amazing is, um, I talked to, uh, Sara Seager. There's this whole group of people that look for life. They, I don't know if you know what exoplanets are.

    2. JRJoe Rogan43:09

       Yeah.

    3. LFLex Fridman43:09

       Like ex- they look for life out there, you know, some people think that there's, uh, Jupiter, m- uh, uh, moon of Jupiter, uh, Europa-

    4. JRJoe Rogan43:18

       Yep. Mm-hmm.

    5. LFLex Fridman43:18

       ... has, has, has wi- uh, I mean, it's, uh, fascinating to think that there's life currently or at least recently on Mars, you know, that, and it's fascinating to think what the evolutionary process on those planets has resulted in.

    6. JRJoe Rogan43:32

       Yeah.

    7. LFLex Fridman43:32

       'Cause, and when we show up, I talked to somebody, I forget who. Oh, I think a biologist. The, the, the colleague, faculty outta MIT. Uh, he mentioned that, 'cause my worry would be if we encounter life on another planet, it, uh, they would, it would be destructive to us humans, like, or we to them. One or the other.

    8. JRJoe Rogan43:52

       Mm.

    9. LFLex Fridman43:53

       Like, because it's a t- entire, I mean, they, they can, uh, like, I th- you know, with this virus we're experiencing now, my natural thought, I don't know what I'm talking about with biology, but my natural thought would be like, when you touch that life, it might, uh, th- basically be a parasite, take advantage of you somehow.

    10. JRJoe Rogan44:09

        Sure.

    11. LFLex Fridman44:10

        But he said that likely it would be, there's a certain kind of distance that happens if there f- if it's far enough away in terms of the kind of energy it uses, the, the kind of environment it's adapted to, that it basically won't even notice humans. Like, it'll, it won't know how to take advantage of the resources we provide.

    12. JRJoe Rogan44:29

        Mm.

    13. LFLex Fridman44:30

        So, like, that- that's a hopeful message that we basically could study it safely, uh, without it

    14. JRJoe Rogan44:34

        (clicks tongue) But isn't that just like-

    15. LFLex Fridman44:35

        strong.

    16. JRJoe Rogan44:35

        ... purely speculative? 'Cause if it's in the Goldilocks zone and you have something-

    17. LFLex Fridman44:39

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan44:39

        ... that is also carbon-based biological life that is a se- similar temperature range that it exists in, it easily could eat us.

    19. LFLex Fridman44:47

        Yeah, depen- (laughs)

    20. JRJoe Rogan44:49

        You know?

    21. LFLex Fridman44:50

        Yeah, from, from inside, or we eat it.

    22. JRJoe Rogan44:51

        Like Pandorum on, in, uh, Avatar, that, that planet. That, I, I felt, I felt, always felt like that movie was so interesting because it's close, 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.

    23. LFLex Fridman45:18

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

    24. JRJoe Rogan45:22

        Right, most likely.

    25. 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-

    26. JRJoe Rogan45:29

        Yeah.

    27. LFLex Fridman45:30

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

    28. JRJoe Rogan45:37

        Yeah.

    29. LFLex Fridman45:37

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

    30. JRJoe Rogan45:40

        Yeah.
11. 48:58 – 1:05:43

    Disclosure and power: spoonfeeding the public vs weaponizing advanced tech (Oppenheimer parallels)

    1. JRJoe Rogan48:58

       Well, the big deal was when the Pentagon came out and said that they have recovered some vehicles that are not of this world.

    2. LFLex Fridman49:07

       (laughs)

    3. JRJoe Rogan49:07

       Now, they didn't expand on that. There hasn't been more conversation about that. But my... This is, uh, purely speculation. My speculation is they are slowly spoonfeeding us information to allow people to be more comfortable with the inevitable arrival of something. And if they believe that something's coming, they don't want it to happen all at once. You see what happens just with, with the pandemic. You see what happens with, uh, George Floyd. You see what happens with... A- anytime there's a big shock to our system and there's chaos in the streets, it's unmanageable. And if the UFOs came in the middle of something like that, like Jesus Christ. Like, who the fuck knows what would go down? If I was someone who was in a position of power, I would say, "Listen, this information's gonna get out. It's inevitable. So, why don't we let people know now? Just give them, just in words, say, 'We have recovered crafts that are not of this world.' Say something crazy like that. Let- print it in the New York Times, get it out there, and then slowly drip out more information. When they see these videos, they'll get more and more accustomed to it." And then eventually it'd be like masks. Like, you walk down the street, everybody has a mask on. You don't even think about it.

    4. LFLex Fridman50:16

       Yeah, but... Okay, so let me-

    5. JRJoe Rogan50:19

       You know what I'm saying?

    6. LFLex Fridman50:20

       T- yeah. I, I totally... And this is such a fascinating question. If the government is in possession of an alien spacecraft, what is the right way to, uh, release that information? To me-

    7. JRJoe Rogan50:32

       The real problem is if it, if it's more potent than any weapon that any, th- than any civilization has currently on this planet. So, if the United States is in control of this vehicle that is more potent and can do things that... Like, if you really do have something that can go from 60,000 feet to one foot in under a second, that... I mean, that's, that defies all of our understandings of speed, right? I mean, that's so fast. If you could do that an-

    8. LFLex Fridman51:00

       Well, uh, there's arguments, I guess, 'cause it could be human-created technology too that's just 15, 20, 30 years out, like the stealth bomber was developed, uh, secretly. So, what defies... It's our perception of its movement capabilities-

    9. JRJoe Rogan51:15

       Right.

    10. LFLex Fridman51:15

        ... is what defies. But there could be some tricks on perception that... I mean, that's the whole point with a stealth bomber is it's difficult to detect.

    11. JRJoe Rogan51:22

        Sure.

    12. LFLex Fridman51:23

        And so there could be same kind of tricks on perception, that you could just be playing, uh, different kinds of, uh, amazing secret human-created technology that, uh, is able to deceive the human eye.

    13. JRJoe Rogan51:35

        That's a good point. I mean, but the, the thing about it is they tracked it. It wasn't just that it was, uh, the human eye that saw this and it's deceptive. But also like the stealth bomber, you know? The way it's designed, it, it, it blocks radar. Or it, uh, radar doesn't catch onto it.

    14. LFLex Fridman51:49

        But-

    15. JRJoe Rogan51:49

        I think it is possible that some human-created technology that's so far advanced from anything that we're currently, uh, w- that we, that we currently understand, like in terms of like mainstream propulsion experts and, and fighter pilots like David Fravor and military people. It is possible that some civilization, one of the, one of the big civilizations on this planet, whether it's China or Russia, has come up with something that's, uh, above and beyond what everybody knows. But it's not likely.

    16. LFLex Fridman52:24

        But-

    17. JRJoe Rogan52:24

        It's not likely that they've made that much of a leap.

    18. LFLex Fridman52:26

        And your sense on the other side, if it's alien technology... See, I'm more optimistic. To me, as a scientist and engineer, and actually David Fravor says, says this too. In this time of pandemic, in this time of like just, just hard negative news everywhere, there would be nothing more inspiring than the government in an inspiring like Neil deGrasse Tyson way, coming out and saying, "We have..." Not releasing the videos like they did, which is... I don't know if you know, but they just put the videos on a website. Like, there's not, there's nothing. It's just videos. There's just like... With like some boring documents that describe like nothing. They're not inspiring. We're not talking about like Neil deGrasse Tyson or like Carl Sagan Cosmos style. Like, a beautiful, inspiring... What is more inspiring than an alien spacecraft? Look, here's a, there's a fascinating mystery here.

    19. JRJoe Rogan53:19

        Mm-hmm.

    20. LFLex Fridman53:19

        There's nothing more inspiring to us humans than that there is life out there, intelligent life out there.

    21. JRJoe Rogan53:25

        But how would you handle it? Like, let, let's imagine. Let's imagine you are the leader of the United States. And you find out, or the, you know, whatever, the head of the Navy military intelligence program. Whatever, whoever you are, you're a person that's in a position where you realize that this thing is from another world, and you have this responsibility to try to somehow or another publicize this.

    22. LFLex Fridman53:48

        Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan53:49

        Like, how-

    24. LFLex Fridman53:49

        I, I would, I would exac- I would, I would approach it 100% from the perspective of science. Here's a mystery. So, forget weapon. Like you're, you mentioned there's this in- inclination to think like, "How can I figure out a way to use this as a weapon to d- destroy Russia or China?" As, as opposed to seeing it like, like going to Mars, colonizing Mars, or going to the moon originally. There is some competitive element, but mostly it's a human pursuit of understanding, and human pursuit of overcoming our limited knowledge to sort of unlock mysteries of this universe. From a physics perspective, from an engineering perspective, I would release all the information I have. And, uh, release it in a way that gets the Neil deGrasse Tyson-... folks in the loop. So, it's- it's almost like an inspiring effort for us as a humanity to understand what the hell this thing is, versus, "Let's keep it secret and see if we can use it as a weapon."

    25. JRJoe Rogan54:55

        Well, I appreciate that you think that way because you're a scientist, and you- you're thinking about it in a very positive way to try to expand our education and our understanding of this- this thing, and maybe we could, you know, use it for good. But you gotta realize that anything that surpasses any and all technologies that we currently enjoy, in terms of fighter pilots and jets and military superiority, if there's something that- that just g- is above and beyond all... If everybody has a Model T and you have a Ferrari, or better yet, you have a Tesla, you have a Model S, and everybody's got a Model T, you- you are... This is... And you're in a race. Like, you have something that is so far above and beyond what everybody else has, it's not really a fair race. It's a joke. You'll dominate. If that ra- If you were in a... You have a Model T and the other person has a Tesla, and you're racing, and the winner gets to decide who has all the food, who gets all the women, who- who lives in the nice house, like, you're gonna win every fucking time, right? Now, if you have a UFO, if you have a- a spaceship that comes from another planet where they're a million years more advanced than us, they've had a million years of evolution and technological evolution dealing with elements that are common on their planet that- that- that have to be created in a- a particle collider here, and they only exist for a brief amount of time, if they have something like that that's powered by something that we can't even imagine, and you figure out how to use that here on Earth, you'll have technical superiority, technological superiority over every other civilization-

    26. LFLex Fridman56:27

        But, but here's the thing-

    27. JRJoe Rogan56:27

        ... every other country.

    28. LFLex Fridman56:29

        ... in that technological superiority... It's so funny, us chimps are, like, still talking about our village. We want our village-

    29. JRJoe Rogan56:36

        Yes. (laughs)

    30. LFLex Fridman56:36

        ... to be better than the next village. When there's an alien civilization-
12. 1:05:43 – 1:18:21

    Emergence and theories of everything: ants, Wolfram hypergraphs, Conway’s Game of Life

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:05:43

       A friend of mine told me this story that he saw two, um, m- mounds of fire ants.

    2. LFLex Fridman1:05:49

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:05:49

       And, uh, that he did this experiment where he took a bucket and he scooped up ants from one fire ant colony and scooped up ants from the other and then dumped them on the opposite colonies and watched them fight to the death.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:06:06

       (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:06:07

       And I was like, "Fuck, really?" He goes, "Yeah, they instantaneously knew that those ants were from the wrong colony and they just went to war."

    6. LFLex Fridman1:06:16

       And there's a, I don't know if you've ... There's a few good books on ants. They have, like, a collective intelligence.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:06:21

       Yeah.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:06:22

       'Cause we tend to think of individual ants.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:06:24

       Mm-hmm.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:06:24

        But somehow as an organism toge- they, together in the thousands of ants, millions of ants, there's somehow a collective emergence that, uh, a collective intelligence that emerges. Like, there's this whole, um, field of, uh, computer science called ant colony optimization. Like, if we just simulate nature-inspired optimization algorithms, they somehow figure out how to do stuff in a- in an emergent way.Don't really understand it. We don't have mathematics to deal with, like, when you have a bunch of s- a wh- when you have a bunch of distributed, uh, organisms (laughs) doing, doing s- dumb stuff, just looking at their neighbors, when you look at the system as a whole, intelligent stuff emerges.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:07:09

        Mm.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:07:09

        That's, that, um, there, there is a, I don't, do you know who Stephen Wolfram is-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:07:14

        No.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:07:14

        ... by any chance? Uh, well you know who Eric Weinstein is.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:07:17

        Yeah.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:07:18

        So there, uh, Eric Weinstein is, uh, out of the million intelligent thing he does, he's also a mathematical physicist, so he has, like a, that theory of e- everything that, uh, you've talked to him about, or he blew your mind with-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:07:31

        Mm.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:07:31

        ... geometric unity.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:07:33

        Yeah.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:07:33

        There's another guy, really brilliant guy, Stephen Wolfram, he's a physicist. He created, uh, Wolfram Alpha that like, everybody uses, uh, in high school for, uh, to do their homework in calculus.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:07:45

        There it is.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:07:47

        It's, uh, you can ask it a bunch of questions like, uh, "How much does Joe Rogan weigh?" or something like th- Like it has these, I don't know, I don't know if it can, I don't know if it knows about Joe Rogan, but it might and it'd be interesting.

    23. NANarrator1:07:58

        I'll ask, let's see.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:07:59

        Ah, see.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:07:59

        What'd he ask?

    26. LFLex Fridman1:07:59

        Anyways, it has like this huge knowledge base, uh, yeah, maybe it doesn't know individual people.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:08:07

        What does it say?

    28. NANarrator1:08:08

        Pretty close, but no. I mean-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:08:10

        What does it say?

    30. NANarrator1:08:11

        It just has like Google information.
13. 1:18:21 – 1:41:46

    Humanity as a technology-producing organism: acceleration, Neuralink, digitizing minds, and ‘retro’ aliens

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:18:21

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

    2. 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.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:18:48

       Eventually.

    4. 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