Joe Rogan Experience #1696 - Lex Fridman

1. 0:00 – 1:21

   Robots in a box: Boston Dynamics, PR friction, and why Lex cares about touch

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Hey, um, I saw that box that you have in your, uh, Instagram. Is that a robot?

   4. LFLex Fridman0:17

      Yeah, it's a robot.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      That's what it said, "Consciousness not included." I'm like, "Oh-

   6. LFLex Fridman0:20

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      ... I see what you're doing here."

   8. LFLex Fridman0:21

      What's in the box?

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      What's in the box, man?

   10. LFLex Fridman0:24

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       What's in the box?

   12. LFLex Fridman0:24

       That's a great movie, by the way.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       It's a great movie.

   14. LFLex Fridman0:26

       Uh-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       It's a dark movie.

   16. LFLex Fridman0:28

       Yeah. No, it's a, it's a legged robot, and I've been involved with those a lot recently and I'm going to explore... (inhales) I was gonna bring it here, but I thought this is the, the wrong, uh, the other robot I have is the wrong atmosphere.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       Is it a Boston Dynamics one?

   18. LFLex Fridman0:43

       So I had a lot of... Um, I've been closely working with Boston Dynamics, and, um, how do I put it? I put a lot of my love into what they're doing for a few years. I love the engineers there. We're close. We like each other. Uh, let me-

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       But, I hear a but coming.

   20. LFLex Fridman0:59

       Let me politely say that, um, you know, they're also a company that are trying to make money. And so there's a marketing team, there's PR, and they were starting getting in the way of engineers. And whenever marketing people get in the way of engineering, I'm out. And so there's a lot of robotics companies... It was kind of heartbreaking for me because how much I love that company.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       In what way did they get in the way?

2. 1:21 – 5:43

   Human–robot interaction: predicting people, safety, and the ‘dance’ of companionship

   1. LFLex Fridman1:21

      So, uh, very specifically, I'm interested in the problem of human-robot interaction, where there's this, uh, beautiful dance between a human and a robot the same way you have a dog that you love playing with. There's a magic there, like, I don't know, there's an excitement, uh, when Marshall looks at you and looks away and then looks at you again, and like, just that excitement, I wanna understand how we can engineer that into our AI systems. So that's called human-robot interaction. From a perspective of Boston Dynamics, they want a machine that doesn't have anything, anything to do with humans. They want a machine that like, uh, um, patrols a factory looking for anything dangerous or like, uh, does surveillance on a factory floor or helps in dangerous environments where humans... It's too dangerous for humans so you want a robot to do the work. So that you want always there to be a distance between a human and a robot. For me, I'm interested in exploring when human and robot are close together, and I think that's actually really important to understand for safety as well. So robots should be able to detect and predict the movement of humans really well in order to avoid hurting them accidentally. Like that's a robotics AI problem.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:33

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman2:34

      Y- you know, it's, uh, predicting the movement of pedestrians, predicting the movement of h- humans, whether it's the human body or the human hand on the factory floor. You have to understand, uh, the mind of humans. They don't move like, uh, billiard balls. They have, they move in unpredictable, complicated ways or rather predict- predictable but complicated ways. And that's the problem of human-robot interaction I think is beautiful. Not very many people are, are really studying it carefully, and I wanted to study it carefully. Uh, one of the things I did, in... You always learn this mistake the hard way, is I asked for permission on everything. Um, you know, the right way to do it is just to do it and apologize later. So-

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:19

      Permission for like what kind of actions?

   5. LFLex Fridman3:21

      Uh, so permission for the kind of things I wanted to do. So-

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:24

      Right.

   7. LFLex Fridman3:24

      ... I asked for permission to, on video, touch Spot.

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:28

      Touch it?

   9. LFLex Fridman3:29

      Yeah, like, like as a human. So, so, uh, I wanted Spot to understand when a human touches it or not, and using only vision, uh, only camera sensor-

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:38

       Right. Because there's no sensors that can detect touch, right?

   11. LFLex Fridman3:40

       There's no... Right. So to have a sense where you... I mean, (laughs) the, where gestures and touch can be part of the communication between the robot and the human. T- telling them, uh, the Boston Dynamics folks that made them very nervous.

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:56

       (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman3:56

       They know I know what I'm doing, but they also know I, I, I'm starting to give less and less fucks. And they get nervous about that 'cause, uh, they see the positivity. I, I, I love people. I love robots. I wanna show the positive stuff. I want to inspire and educate the world. But they're like, "Is there some evil thing he's gonna do?" (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan4:16

       (laughs) What do they think you're gonna do?

   15. LFLex Fridman4:17

       Well, it's like they only have stuff to lose, is... from their perspec-... Okay. From my perspective, I c- I'm, I love Boston Dynamics. I wanna show off some awesome stuff.

   16. JRJoe Rogan4:26

       Right.

   17. LFLex Fridman4:26

       They're probably one of the greatest engineering feats in the space of robotics ever, which is, uh, both Atlas, the, the bipedal robot, and, uh, Spot, the legged robots. I, I don't know. From my perspective, it's a win-win. From their perspective, they got nervous. This is why-

   18. JRJoe Rogan4:43

       Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't understand why they would get nervous about touching the robot. That doesn't make any sense to me.

   19. LFLex Fridman4:50

       Because they're a business, they're trying to sell a lot of robots-

   20. JRJoe Rogan4:53

       Right.

   21. LFLex Fridman4:53

       ... to companies that have zero interest in touching. I think the future of their robot requires them to understand what it's like for a, uh, robot to be close to a human being.

   22. JRJoe Rogan5:06

       So you're looking at it in terms of like a consumer product?

   23. LFLex Fridman5:10

       Consume-... It's like a, in the gray area between industry and consumer.

   24. JRJoe Rogan5:15

       Mm-hmm.

   25. LFLex Fridman5:15

       So like, you know, uh, a factory worker is a kind of consumer. So like more and more, I think Boston Dynamics need to pivot that way in order to be a successful, profitable business. They were currently purchased by, I think Hyundai, like a large company. So they're, I think, trying to justify their worth, all that kinda stuff.

   26. JRJoe Rogan5:34

       Mm-hmm.

   27. LFLex Fridman5:34

       I'm not sure how businesses work. All I know is when marketing people get in the way of great engineering, you run into problems.

   28. JRJoe Rogan5:40

       So-

   29. LFLex Fridman5:41

       This is why, sorry to interrupt-

   30. JRJoe Rogan5:42

       Please, I interrupt you.

3. 5:43 – 9:04

   Tesla’s culture: engineering-first marketing, Elon’s persona, and meme-driven brand power

   1. LFLex Fridman5:43

      ... why Tesla i- I'm a huge fan of what Elon is doing. He's not let- letting marketing get in the way of great engineering. There, there's no, there's very little marketing people at Tesla, and most of the ones that do marketing... First of all, Elon does great marketing on his Twitter, but also the Tesla Twitter is run really well marketing-wise. They understand that to highlight...... uh, the brilliance of a particular product, you have to highlight the engineering, you have to highlight the design, and that means you don't want to get in the way of the engineers and the designers.

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:16

      Well, here's the best example of that. There's zero advertisements for Tesla-

   3. LFLex Fridman6:20

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:20

      ... and it's the number one selling car in America. There you go.

   5. LFLex Fridman6:25

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:25

      It's just brilliantly made, that's all you need to know. I mean, they, everyone knows. You drive it, you're like, "Holy shit." Y- you see it, it's wild, you see the giant screen and you, you realize that it can move that fast with no sound. It's, it's pretty phenomenal stuff. When you consider the fact that the most ... I mean, think about most cars that are sold in America. You're inundated with advertisement, you know, whether it's Cadillac or, you know, Ford or, you know, whatever. There, there's constant ads. They make great cars, don't get me wrong, but Tesla doesn't have any ads and they sell more than anybody, which is pretty incredible.

   7. LFLex Fridman7:03

      Create a product that people love and it's word of mouth from there.

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:06

      I think it's also connected to Elon too. I don't think he would be as successful if it wasn't connected to such a bizarre Tony Stark type character, 'cause he's such a unique cultural ... He's like a, he's an iconic figure. He's, it's not, he's not a normal human, you know? It's like he's our super genius.

   9. LFLex Fridman7:26

      Well, it's interesting to analyze 'em, right? Like, are all the memes about Doge useful or are they, are they productive or counterproductive?

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:36

       (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman7:36

       Like, is the humor help advertise SpaceX and Tesla or does it destroy them? Is the, uh, funding secured 4/20 help or hurt? Does him smoking weed in, on your show and then saying, "Oops," uh, does that help or hurt? I don't know. But it seems-

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:54

       It does not hurt.

   13. LFLex Fridman7:55

       Yeah, it feels like it helps. And then-

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:57

       How could it help? I mean, how could it hurt if the company is doing so well? Like, you, you're telling me it'd be doing even better? That sounds crazy.

   15. LFLex Fridman8:04

       Well, a lot of most CEOs would say yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:07

       They're wrong.

   17. LFLex Fridman8:08

       Right. That's what I ... The sense is they're wrong, but that means you have to rethink the way you run companies. You have to be more open, you have to have more fun, you have to be more crazy.

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:17

       But you have to be Elon Musk, see, that's the thing. You can't just get another person to do it that way.

   19. LFLex Fridman8:22

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       You have to be that guy.

   21. LFLex Fridman8:23

       Being crazy is not enough. (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan8:24

       Well, this whole thing is his ef- uh, ef- his love of Space Balls.

   23. LFLex Fridman8:30

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:30

       Right?

   25. LFLex Fridman8:30

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:31

       I mean, that's the re-

   27. LFLex Fridman8:31

       He's genuine.

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:31

       Yeah, genuine love of Space Balls. The reason why he created the flamethrower, not a flamethrower. The reason why he created, uh, the new, uh, model S and called it the Plaid. This is all Space Ball stuff. He even changed the shape of his rocket to look more like Space Balls.

   29. LFLex Fridman8:48

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:49

       I mean, it doesn't even make sense.
4. 9:04 – 13:27

   Autopilot and the AI “data engine”: vision-only driving, Dojo, and rapid iteration

   1. LFLex Fridman9:04

      ... in all spaces of leadership. Like, the, I see in politics, like, I don't know, Andrew Yang, somebody like that, somebody who's, doesn't look like the past. And Elon Musk certainly doesn't look like the past in terms of CEOs. By the way, I know you're not a huge fan of autopilot or don't use it very often, but they, they have, uh, 'cause I wanna squeeze in AI a little bit. (laughs) They have, uh, autonomy day in a few days, uh, Tesla does, and they're going to, um, they've been doing ... I don't know if you've been paying attention, but they've been doing a lot of interesting stuff on the, like, uh, semi-autonomous, autonomous driving side. So, one of the crazy things they're doing that I never thought would be possible is to use vision only for their FSD, for their autopilot. Meaning cameras only. Talking about breaking with the ways of the past. So, in the past, you always have radar or if, if you have more, quote unquote, "reliable sensors" for emergency situations, for, um, for like, uh, emergency breaking. So here, Tesla is using only cameras, so only vision. The logic there is our roads are all designed for human eyes, therefore you should be able to drive with only visual information. The problem is, with rain, with fog, with all those conditions, with night, h- how are you going to be able to do it? And the fact that they're doing so, uh, m- much more successful than I would expect is, is quite incredible from an AI perspective. And they're just going full steam ahead there with, uh, something called Dojo, which is, um ... I don't know how, if you know how this whole process works, but they, they're basically deploying a version of autopilot software to a fleet of vehicles. Those cars are driving, sometime by human, sometime by AI, and then whenever AI runs into trouble, that's the little data point that then is sent back to the mothership, and then it retrains the system, and the system gets smarter and smarter, and then redeploys a smarter version. So there's this loop. They call it the data engine. This loop, it sounds maybe trivial, but it's one of the first large-scale implementation of an AI system in the world that does this kind of loop. So it's not ... Oftentimes, when you deploy these kinds of system, you deploy them and the time between versions is, like, years, you have to basically buy a new smartphone, something like that. Here, the time between new versions is every week. I think every Friday they're releasing a new version, something like that. Which is a, um, y- you know, it's a revolutionary idea. It sounds ridiculously simple, but it's revolutionary in that as opposed to deploying a perfect system, you deploy a system that's not perfect and then it improves over time and converges towards something that's safer than human drivers. That's fascinating. And then the Dojo computer is they're building their own huge system that's doing the training. So, to train neural networks or AI systems you have to have specialized hardware. So Elon ... This is another really interesting lesson for companies, especially car companies.... as opposed to outsourcing the work to other companies, you do it all in-house. So, if you look at the history of Tesla, they've, uh, at first, it was distributed, uh, across other suppliers and so on. But they're doing more and more and more in-house. I think that the dream is you have a single factory, like here, the giga in, in Austin, Texas, where the input is raw materials and the output is a finished car. And they're doing the same thing with the AI. They want to, they don't wanna use, uh, GPUs and computers from somebody else. They wanna have that in-house. So, the whole thing is like this, this organism that takes in raw materials and produces intelligent vehicles.

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:55

      I love that he called it Dojo.

   3. LFLex Fridman12:57

      Dojo, yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan12:58

      Yeah.

   5. LFLex Fridman12:58

      The guy has, um, has a knack for names.

   6. JRJoe Rogan13:01

      Yeah.

   7. LFLex Fridman13:01

      Some of them are ridiculous, but that's the point.

   8. JRJoe Rogan13:03

      (laughs) What's the most ridiculous one?

   9. LFLex Fridman13:06

      Uh, so a lot of references, uh, to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

   10. JRJoe Rogan13:11

       Yeah?

   11. LFLex Fridman13:12

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:12

       Like what?

   13. LFLex Fridman13:13

       Um, I'm trying to think. The, the naming of the ships, uh, of the, um, the ships that catch the rockets. I'm blanking on their names. It's like, um, I Love You Too, or something like that.

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:26

       (laughs)

5. 13:27 – 18:11

   Reading, writing rituals, and the case for deep immersion in books

   1. LFLex Fridman13:27

      (laughs) It's, it's, uh, references to all of these sci-fi books, which, by the way, I've been, like, tormented by people on the internet to read more sci-fi. Unfortunately, I've-

   2. JRJoe Rogan13:35

      How do you have the time?

   3. LFLex Fridman13:37

      You make... Oh, speaking of which ...

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:39

      You're doing, like, a book a, a day for-

   5. LFLex Fridman13:41

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan13:41

      Yeah.

   7. LFLex Fridman13:41

      Andrew Huberman is coming into town and he is, uh, he's doing this thing that, like, I don't know, it's like Stephen King-style thing, where he's just locking himself in a room and writing. He has to finish his, he's working on a book, some like science-related book. Uh, he's a brilliant guy. So, he's just gonna sit there and write.

   8. JRJoe Rogan14:00

      Is that how King does it? He locks himself in a room?

   9. LFLex Fridman14:02

      Well, it's all great writers, right? They go to, like, some weird, uh, ritual of like, you know, f- every f- like every morning for four hours, they go into a cabin with a typewriter. Like, they all have a ritual. Like, a routine. Writers are insane. I think it's like, that's the hardest ... I guess you do the same thing for comedy. Like, you don't have to do many hours of it, but it can be torture, which is why many people avoid it. You have to, you have to go in front of a blank sheet of paper or some version of that, and you have to, and you have to write, and it's like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan14:31

       It's not torture. It is not torture. It's the, it is a, it's procrastination, that people have this issue with, uh, getting things started.

   11. LFLex Fridman14:40

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan14:40

       It's, it, it literally is just training the mind. It's training the mind to, to, like, that's how you get things done. I mean-

   13. LFLex Fridman14:47

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan14:47

       ... literally, it's all it is. It's just-

   15. LFLex Fridman14:49

       But you're not, you're not letting yourself, you're (laughs) you're somebody that just destroys yourself on the treadmill and the kettlebells. So, you're, you're not allowing yourself to not get started at something difficult. You just dive in.

   16. JRJoe Rogan14:59

       Yeah, but that's, yeah, it's, it's just a, it's, it's just ... You have to have, like, real clear boundaries what you'll tolerate from yourself.

   17. LFLex Fridman15:10

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:10

       And if you don't, then you'll just procrastinate till the end of time. And I know a lot of guys who do that. Like, Louis C.K. has an interesting approach to comedy writing. He doesn't, he doesn't have a wifi connection on the laptop that he uses that he writes on.

   19. LFLex Fridman15:23

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:23

       So, so when he writes, he has to just write. He can't just go, "Oh, let me look at porn. Oh, let me look at this and let me look at that." That's a real problem with people, where they just find things to do other than, you know, other than, um, the actual work itself. Like, if you had a typewriter, but the prob- you know, typewriters are whack. You know, it's, it's, it's probably okay, but, um, w- then you gotta reprint it. Like, uh, how are you gonna put it on a computer? Like, what are you gonna do? But I know guys who write on a typewriter-

   21. LFLex Fridman15:53

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:53

       ... because they don't want to fuck with anything electronic, where they have this, you know, this, uh, potential for, um, distraction. I know guys who write longhand for that reason too. They just have a notebook and they write it out on notepaper.

   23. LFLex Fridman16:07

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:07

       But then again, like, what if you lose your notebook, you know?

   25. LFLex Fridman16:11

       Yeah. I still write letters. But when you look at somebody like Huberman, there's hundreds, if not thousands, of references. So yes-

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       Yes.

   27. LFLex Fridman16:16

       ... he kinda-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Of course.

   29. LFLex Fridman16:17

       ... unfortunately-

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       Different, different sort of writing.
6. 18:11 – 26:17

   Afghanistan’s collapse: vivid footage, withdrawal failures, and the limits of intervention

   1. JRJoe Rogan18:11

      I watched, uh, Restrepo last night because of what's going on in Afghanistan. Do you, do you know Restrepo, Sebastian Junger's, uh, film on Afghanistan?

   2. LFLex Fridman18:21

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:21

      Just sort of, um-... just to put it in perspective, like what's going on over there now. And, um, the, it's, you know, I mean, books are amazing for putting things into perspective. But there's something about a documentary, especially a boots-on-the-ground documentary by a journalist like Sebastian Junger, and in Afghanistan while Afghanistan is falling to the Taliban. So it feels so... It's so intense when you're watching it and you see, you know, guys in the beginning of the film that wind up dying. And it's, uh, it... For- first of all, I, I forgot, like I think you, you have a sense of what they mean when they talk about these mountainous r- areas, this mountainous terrain that's impossible really to control 'cause it's very difficult to traverse, very difficult to get around. I don't think you really understand it until you watch that film, until you really see the mountains and you're like, "Oh, God. Like how is anybody ever going to control this area?"

   4. LFLex Fridman19:23

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan19:23

      Like, no wonder why the Soviets failed, no wonder why we failed, no wonder why, you know, the people that live there, they, they just... They're living in an incredibly difficult environment in terms of like just getting around.

   6. LFLex Fridman19:41

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember some statistics about like 99% of people in Afghanistan, Afghanistan. Now I sound like Bryan Callen (laughs) .

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:50

      Afghanistan.

   8. LFLex Fridman19:51

      (laughs) Uh, uh, Iran, Iran. Yeah, I never know how to say it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:57

      Yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman19:57

       Uh, I remember like 99% of them didn't know 9/11 happened. So, like they're completely disconnected from the world, even-

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:05

       That's so crazy.

   12. LFLex Fridman20:06

       ... that they, e- even things that seem relevant to, uh-

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:10

       Did you watch the videos today of people trying to climb aboard planes and falling to their deaths? The planes are taking off. These guys are hanging on to the landing gear, and as the landing gear pulls up, they're falling to their death.

   14. LFLex Fridman20:21

       Trying to save themselves?

   15. JRJoe Rogan20:22

       Yes, trying to leave with the Americans. It's fucking crazy. Just the chaos at the airport is cr- You, you haven't seen any of this stuff?

   16. LFLex Fridman20:31

       No, I haven't seen... I, I, I actually have not been paying attention to what's happening in Afghanistan.

   17. JRJoe Rogan20:34

       Jamie, show him some of the, the videos 'cause it's, it's heartbreaking.

   18. NANarrator20:38

       There's one. This is like-

   19. JRJoe Rogan20:41

       Yeah, these are people just literally-

   20. LFLex Fridman20:42

       Oh, no.

   21. JRJoe Rogan20:42

       ... climbing all over these ladders, doing whatever they can, trying to force themself onto these planes. And, but the really fucked one is like look, these guys hanging on the landing gear. Watch this. Like falling to his death. It's fucked.

   22. LFLex Fridman21:01

       Wow.

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:02

       Yeah. And look at this. I mean, fucking crazy. All these guys trying to stop the plane so that they can get on board. I mean, this is just a tremendous failure. It's so heartbreaking.

   24. LFLex Fridman21:20

       Yeah, but what do you do?

   25. JRJoe Rogan21:21

       (exhales deeply) What could be done differently, right? That's the real question. Like could have, uh, could they have designed, uh, a better withdrawal plan that scaled over time where they gave, uh, uh, particularly the people that helped the American military over there, that they're very vulnerable right now, and they're in, they're in a lot of trouble. Could they have protected them better? Could they have done something? Could they have designed a plan? That's what most people who are criticizing this believe, the people that actually understand what's going on over there, they think this idea of pulling out immediately.

   26. LFLex Fridman21:58

       Yeah. But half the world is living under authoritarian regimes. So the question is, how do you help those people? How do you help... You had a, a nice sophisticated, deep historical conversation with Andrew Scholtes about North Korea, but outs-

   27. JRJoe Rogan22:12

       Are you being sarcastic?

   28. LFLex Fridman22:14

       Yeah, there's a little bit of sarcasm there.

   29. JRJoe Rogan22:16

       (laughs)

   30. LFLex Fridman22:16

       I lo- I lo- I love him. He's hilarious. I'm, I'm just joking.
7. 26:17 – 28:09

   North Korea, China, and nukes: why atrocities persist and war becomes unthinkable

   1. JRJoe Rogan26:17

      Well, if that's the case, then why aren't we invading North Korea? If Wynona Park and all these different people that have escaped from North Korea are telling the truth, th- there's a holocaust going on there right now. I mean, they're, they're literally starving their people. They're putting their people in concentration camps. They're having children born in concentration camps for the crimes of their grandparents. And their children will also be born in these camps, in these prison camps. Um, they're starving their people. They execute them for, you know, almost no reason. They do whatever they want to them. They have full and total, complete control over them.

   2. LFLex Fridman26:52

      Well, the dark answer and the reason is because there's no way to do anything about North Korea without also doing something about China.

   3. JRJoe Rogan27:02

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman27:03

      And that's, that's why we turn a blind eye to North Korea, because, um, I mean, that's would, uh, deeply ... I mean, a war with North Korea, or invasion of North Korea, is an invasion of China.

   5. JRJoe Rogan27:17

      Well, also North Korea has nuclear weapons, right? The nuclear weapon thing really has changed the idea of war, because when ... It's, it's kind of amazing that no one's dropped a bomb since 1947. Isn't it?

   6. LFLex Fridman27:31

      Yeah, it's amazing. It gives me hope for-

   7. JRJoe Rogan27:34

      Yeah. (laughs)

   8. LFLex Fridman27:34

      ... humanity. Like, we're not so crazy that-

   9. JRJoe Rogan27:37

      Right.

   10. LFLex Fridman27:37

       ... we're going to just blow each other up.

   11. JRJoe Rogan27:39

       Right.

   12. LFLex Fridman27:40

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan27:40

       Yeah. It is amazing. Right? I mean, that's, it's one of the most amazing things about people.

   14. LFLex Fridman27:46

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan27:47

       That we have the ultimate weapon and we've n- we haven't used it in decades. And everybody has one.

   16. LFLex Fridman27:53

       There's a lot of terrorists in this world and it, it's amazing to me they haven't done anything much more destructive than 9/11.

   17. JRJoe Rogan28:01

       Yeah.

   18. LFLex Fridman28:01

       Like, just-

   19. JRJoe Rogan28:02

       Like a nuke. Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman28:03

       With nuke, but even less than that. Like orchestrated, orchestrated attacks.

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:09

       Yeah.

8. 28:09 – 40:40

   QAnon and internet narrative warfare: loneliness, misfits, and one-person influence

   1. LFLex Fridman28:09

      You, you, you sent me the QAnon documentary, that's an orchestrated, uh, attack.

   2. JRJoe Rogan28:13

      Did you watch it?

   3. LFLex Fridman28:14

      But that's in ... Yeah, I, I started (laughs) .

   4. JRJoe Rogan28:16

      Shh. I'm only on episode two. They-

   5. NANarrator28:18

      Oh.

   6. JRJoe Rogan28:18

      I cannot recogni- recommend it enough.

   7. NANarrator28:20

      The one on H- the one on HBO?

   8. JRJoe Rogan28:20

      Yes.

   9. NANarrator28:21

      You finally started it?

   10. JRJoe Rogan28:21

       Yes.

   11. NANarrator28:22

       That's good. Oh, yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman28:22

       It is so good. I love it.

   13. JRJoe Rogan28:24

       It's incredible, right?

   14. NANarrator28:24

       Yeah, yeah, it's good.

   15. JRJoe Rogan28:25

       Yeah, I'm on-

   16. NANarrator28:26

       Fun.

   17. JRJoe Rogan28:26

       I'm, I'm only on it, I finished episode two, I'm moving to episode three. It's so fucked, 'cause ... I'm trying to be kind here.

   18. NANarrator28:35

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan28:36

       Misfits need love, too.

   20. NANarrator28:39

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:39

       And, and misfits need a purpose. And that is what I got out of that documentary, at least the first two episodes. I mean, free speech, also. You know, the family that runs, uh, 8chan in, uh, the Philippines.

   22. NANarrator28:51

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:52

       Like, their commitment to free speech and to let people just do whatever the fuck they wanna do, like, i- in many ways, I, I agree and see their point. But the, um ... And not, not even but. What I, what I'm seeing in the documentary, though, these people that are into QAnon, the people that were following the drops, the people that were deeply invested in believing that this was some person who ... I don't, I ... Maybe they resolve this later on in the series, I don't know.

   24. NANarrator29:26

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan29:26

       After two. Do they ever resolve it?

   26. LFLex Fridman29:28

       Who the person is?

   27. NANarrator29:29

       I haven't finished it either myself, to be honest with you, so ...

   28. JRJoe Rogan29:30

       Oh.

   29. LFLex Fridman29:30

       Who the person is?

   30. JRJoe Rogan29:31

       Yeah, who actually Q is.
9. 40:40 – 56:02

   CIA drug trafficking, cartel logistics, and the ethics of the war on drugs

   1. JRJoe Rogan40:40

      And, uh, another thing wa-... like, that whole Q clearance thing. Another film that I watched recently was Collapse with Michael Ruppert.

   2. LFLex Fridman40:53

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan40:53

      Do you know who Michael Ruppert is?

   4. LFLex Fridman40:54

      No.

   5. JRJoe Rogan40:55

      Michael Ruppert was a friend of mine. He killed himself a few years back and he, he's been on the pod... He'd been on the podcast a couple of times. The last time I saw him, he gave me a large jar of mushrooms.

   6. LFLex Fridman41:05

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan41:05

      He's a very interesting guy. And he worked for the Los Angeles D- Police Department in the Narcotics Division and he exposed the CIA selling drugs in South Central Los Angeles. And he did it on... I think it was on C-SPAN. And he did it at, like, a city council meeting or some, some, some big public meeting. It's a wild spee-... Have you ever seen it, Jamie?

   8. NANarrator41:31

      Yeah, we played it. Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan41:32

      Yeah, we played it. Um, I could send it to you if you want. I have it saved in my phone. But I, uh... In the film, he says, and this was like... At the same time I'm watching this documentary, I just... I was thinking about him, you know, just randomly thinking about him. And this is... This film collapsed and it was all about peak oil and the collapse of civilization. And it was a few years back. I wanna say the film was, like, probably 2008 or some shit. 2009? And, um, some of his predictions were accurate and some of his predictions were not. And, but the, the peak oil thing is definitely not correct because they've, they've s- subsequently found a lot of oil in other places. But in the film, he's talking about how he has Q level cl- Q level clearance. Like, it is a thing. Like, Q level clearance is a thing. And he had it from when... at the time he was young because his father was involved i- in some intelligence business. But this is him. Pl- play this so-

   10. NANarrator42:34

       This is- and Watchtower. I have Watchtower documents heavily redacted by the agency. I was personally exposed to CIA operations and recruited by CIA personnel who attempted to recruit me in the late '70s to become involved in protecting agency drug operations in this country. I have been trying to get this out for 18 years and I have the evidence. My question for you is very specific, sir.If, in the course of the IG's investigations and Fred Hitz's work, you come across evidence of severely criminal activity-

   11. NANarrator43:04

       Let him speak into the mic.

   12. NANarrator43:05

       ... and it's classified, will you use that classification to hide the criminal activity, or will you tell the American people the truth?

   13. NANarrator43:12

       (applause) (cheers)

   14. LFLex Fridman43:17

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan43:17

       I think we missed the beginning of it where he said that he personally witnessed the CIA selling drugs. But-

   16. NANarrator43:23

       All right, do you wanna hear the response first-

   17. LFLex Fridman43:24

       This is, uh, 1996.

   18. NANarrator43:26

       ... from Congressman Julian Dixon and then from the rest of the panel? (cheers)

   19. JRJoe Rogan43:27

       ... allegations of CIA involvement in drug trafficking. It's tu- it tu- all turned out to be 100% true.

   20. LFLex Fridman43:32

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan43:33

       I mean, this is, uh, how Freeway Ricky Ross, the original, real Rick Ross, made millions and millions and millions of dollars. He thought he was just an awesome drug dealer. Well, he was an awesome drug dealer that was working with the CIA, unbeknownst to him. Like, they were allowing him to sell drugs so that they could profit off of it so they could funnel the money into the war with the, the Contras and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

   22. LFLex Fridman43:54

       And this was when Clinton was president.

   23. JRJoe Rogan43:57

       Yes. No, it was when Reagan was president that it was all going down.

   24. LFLex Fridman44:00

       No, no, not, not then. This.

   25. JRJoe Rogan44:00

       But this was when Clinton was president that he was o- on television talking about it. Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman44:04

       By the way, uh, th- there's not often... I'm a big fan of JRE, but it's not often when I do a podcast interview, uh, that's talking Roger Reeves, where I'm thinking, "I wish I wasn't doing this interview, and I wish I was listening to this on, on, on your show." Uh, Roger Reed is the, the drug trafficker.

   27. JRJoe Rogan44:21

       Yes.

   28. LFLex Fridman44:21

       That guy's incredible. You need to, you need to talk to him or somebody like him. Because-

   29. JRJoe Rogan44:25

       I would definitely talk to him.

   30. LFLex Fridman44:27

       He's, uh, just... It's like a... F- first of all, Jorge Ochoa who, with Pablo Escobar together, created the Medellín cartel, is out of... Th- this is crazy to me. He's out of prison. He's living in, uh, Medellín. I don't know how these guys just-
10. 56:02 – 59:47

    Anarchy, laws vs. actions, and celebrating weirdos (Malice, Dillon, and Austin’s gravity)

    1. LFLex Fridman56:02

       Yeah. Uh, this, this gets into that, uh, Michael Malice anarchy question.

    2. JRJoe Rogan56:06

       Yes.

    3. LFLex Fridman56:07

       Is, is then, do you, uh, do you, should you even have an army to prot- a police force to protect?

    4. JRJoe Rogan56:12

       Michael goes so deep with this stuff.

    5. LFLex Fridman56:13

       He goes, he says, like, "Give,"

    6. JRJoe Rogan56:14

       (laughs)

    7. LFLex Fridman56:15

       "... don't. Everything should be legal. There should not be rules at all."

    8. JRJoe Rogan56:18

       Does he have a gun?

    9. LFLex Fridman56:20

       (laughs) It's, he's in New York. He doesn't have a gun. He doesn't even know how to-

    10. JRJoe Rogan56:23

        He lives here now?

    11. LFLex Fridman56:24

        He is, not only is he, well, he, doesn't officially live here. Yeah, I think he moves here September 1st. Not only does he live here, but he's, like, gonna move, like, next door to me.

    12. JRJoe Rogan56:32

        Yay.

    13. LFLex Fridman56:34

        (laughs)

    14. JRJoe Rogan56:34

        Good. I like it.

    15. LFLex Fridman56:37

        (laughs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan56:37

        You two together are hilarious, by the way.

    17. LFLex Fridman56:38

        I, I, I don't, I don't even know what that... Yeah, that's-

    18. JRJoe Rogan56:41

        He's a little shit stirrer, that guy.

    19. LFLex Fridman56:42

        Yeah, he is. And he's brilliant at it.

    20. JRJoe Rogan56:44

        (laughs) Yes.

    21. LFLex Fridman56:44

        And he's also just, like, one of the most well-read-

    22. JRJoe Rogan56:47

        Yes.

    23. LFLex Fridman56:47

        ... one of the most brilliant people I've ever talked to, which is hilarious because he has all of these, uh, sometimes literally masks that he can put on and take off. It's like the most masterful troll I've ever, uh, encountered in my life.

    24. JRJoe Rogan57:00

        He's spent a lot of time on the internet and he, he knows how to stir some shit.

    25. LFLex Fridman57:03

        (laughs)

    26. JRJoe Rogan57:03

        (laughs)

    27. LFLex Fridman57:04

        He's usually classy about it. But-

    28. JRJoe Rogan57:06

        Yes, he's great. I love him. I think he's, I think he's amazing. But, you know, he's, uh, and also, I don't know anybody like him.

    29. LFLex Fridman57:13

        Yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan57:14

        You know, just one-
11. 59:47 – 1:08:45

    Language and culture: why Russian feels more emotional, and what censorship does to art

    1. JRJoe Rogan59:47

       If you had to make a judgment between the two languages, which language do you think allows you to express yourself more eloquently?

    2. LFLex Fridman59:55

       Well, so, uh, 100% (laughs) Russian is, um... Now, I'm biased a little bit, but I think Russian is a language that is, uh, more effective at communicating, uh, feeling, uh, emotion, suffering. The, the way the language has evolved because it went through the 20th century, through, through the wars, through the atrocities, through all of that, I think there's something to that where the language carries the burden of the people, the, the suffering of the people with it. Like, uh, the, the American experiment is a different trajectory that resulted in different, um, language. And I would say American language is much more simplistic. So it, um, you can't fuck with the words as much. The, the, the way the Russian language works, you can adjust the words to completely change the meaning. Plus swearing is an art form in Russia. Um, like, Russians swear a lot more. Obviously not Khabib, but, uh, in generally speaking, Russians swear a lot more than Americans.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

       Really?

    4. LFLex Fridman1:01:05

       And swearing is a much richer part of the language.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       So are Russians like American comedians?

    6. LFLex Fridman1:01:11

       Basically.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

       Really?

    8. LFLex Fridman1:01:12

       So, so what you, you, you, you find when people suffer, when you go through the war, when you go through poverty, um-... more people become comedians because humor is a way to escape-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:01:24

       Oh.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:01:25

        ... pain. Just not, we're not talking about professional comedians. We're talking about-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

        Right.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:01:28

        ... you get some vodka, you get a guitar, and you're just shooting the shit.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:32

        Right.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:01:32

        There's much more of that energy because there's nothing else to do. And then the laughter is one of the, uh, only ways to deal with the absurdity of the government taking everything away from you, all those kinds of things. And so, there's a h- natural humor to the language. There's a natural ability to, like, between the lines to communicate pain. That's why you have all the... There's poets. There's, uh, Dostoevsky, e- even, even shooting w- way farther back, Tolstoy. So there, there's a history of literature being used to communicate that pain. I think Russian language is, is better at doing that. But there's also kind of a, general... Culturally speaking, there's an inclination to romanticize things, like to be kind of philosophical. I think that has to do with, um, the early education system in Russia under the Soviet Union, especially, was such that everybody was forced to read really heavy literature early on, like way early on. And, and also do some, like, math. Like the, the, the level of education in Russia in the first five years, um, the first eight years, leading up to 10 is just, like, an order of magnitude more intense than it is in America. Where America catches up is the college. America dominates the world in university education. But in terms of high school, uh, middle school, elementary school, American education is very soft. It, it doesn't really challenge people. It doesn't really push them. The Russian education system, you, you read, I mean, you read all that stuff. You read Tolstoy, you read Dostoevsky. Not only that, but you had to memorize hundreds of poems. You had to, um... There's a strictness to it where, like, you had to learn, uh, at least when I was coming up, handwriting and you can't make a single mistake. So, there's an emphasis on perfection. I think China has a similar kind of thing. Like, this w- like, you're afraid. The way I'm afraid when I go to a hard training session for jiu-jitsu, like beforehand, like fear, I was afraid going to school because there's an expectation of excellence. There's an expectation of perfection. If you suck, you're not going to... Like, everybody looks down on you. And if you are excellent, everybody celebrates you, and that creates a huge amount of pressure. But when, uh, a lot of the population does that, there's just an intellectual nature to everybody. The athletes, just everybody. The plumber, everybody in the (laughs) in the population is all of a sudden philosophical. And that, like, uh, the Saitia brothers, uh, that are, sort of made Dagestan and Russian wrestling famous, um, they're poetic. Uh, just, there's just a poetry, there's a romanticism, there's philosophy in the way people s- uh, people spoke. And I think that's connected to the language, but I'm not sure it's like the chicken or the egg. Um, I don't know if just the language is being used in this way or the language enables that kind of communication. That does make me wonder, because I know English and Russian, how much I'm losing that I can't speak Chinese or Japanese or p- or Portuguese.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:04:45

        Mm.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:04:46

        Like, how much of the culture am I missing that I'll never get a chance to truly deeply experience?

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:04:51

        Yeah, I would imagine that if you could understand Mandarin, if you could speak Mandarin and get an understanding of how the government communicates with the people, how the government controls people in China, like what they allow, what kind of conversations they allow, I would lo- You know, d- d- I'm sure you saw the, um, John Cena video where he was-

    18. LFLex Fridman1:05:14

        Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:05:14

        ... apologizing to China.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:05:15

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:05:16

        I would love to hear, like, these billionaires that are apologizing to China after, you know, China... Like Jack Ma.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:05:23

        Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:05:23

        Like, you know that guy? They disappeared him for, like, four months.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:05:25

        Yeah.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:05:25

        And then he came back and he was happy to be alive and, you know, they took billions of dollars from his company, devalued it, did a lot of weird shit, right? What did he do? He criticize the government in some way?

    26. LFLex Fridman1:05:38

        I don't even know if he cri- Did he criticize?

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:05:40

        I believe he did.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:05:40

        Okay.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:05:40

        I believe that was his, uh, his fatal flaw. And, uh, many people thought he was dead 'cause they've done that before. There, there, there have been billionaires before that stepped out of line and they, they vanished forever. And either they're in a jail somewhere or w- who the fuck knows. But it's fascinating 'cause they have this weird combination of capitalism and a dictatorship.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:06:05

        But the censorship there and the surveillance, that's a perfect atmosphere for brilliant writing to emerge in the shadows, right?
12. 1:08:45 – 1:30:18

    COVID policy and trust collapse: vaccines, passports, ivermectin, and data integrity

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:08:45

       And the overwhelming control that they have over the population is very different than what we, we tolerate currently. My concern over here is that we're moving towards some sort of social credit score, you know, and I think that's, uh, one of the big concerns that people have with vaccine passports and things along those lines, that it's a slippery slope-

    2. LFLex Fridman1:09:04

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:09:04

       ... and to inviting this kind of, uh, control over the population and to make it, to normalize it-

    4. LFLex Fridman1:09:13

       Yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:09:13

       ... and to make it, you, you go from that to this and make it so that they have access to your whereabouts and because, you know, they need to track you for COVID-19 or COVID-23 or whatever the fuck it is when they ramp things up and make them even more intrusive than we have, we can get closer to what they have in China and it's fucking dangerous.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:09:36

       Yeah. It's terrifying because, uh, and pe- people have, for the most part, or are losing trust in, uh, our institutions and governments and being able to use something like a vaccine passport data to help us as opposed to limit our freedoms. And that's really disappointing because things like vaccine passports might be effective if it was done by, like, competent institutions. But, uh, right now, um, I would definitely be against something like that.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:10:07

       Well, the problem with it is you can still transmit it and you can still catch it. So if it was a vaccine passport for polio, okay, or the measles, okay. But you're talking about a vaccine passport that does not preve-... You're talking about a vaccine rather that does not prevent you from catching this disease, nor does it prevent you from spreading it.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:10:24

       Yeah, but-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:10:24

       So it doesn't make any sense.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:10:25

        ... the effectiveness of the vaccine is in that it, uh, significantly lowers your probability of dying. So that's the, the pro for the vaccine, right? Like that (laughs) that's a really important thing about the vaccine.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:10:39

        In the short term.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:10:40

        In the short... And the, everything about the long term we don't know.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:10:43

        We don't know. Yeah.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:10:44

        I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, that's the discussion with ivermectin is like, what do we know about the long... Nothing. Uh, w- it's been used for a long time, but we still don't have a good understanding of long term positive or negative effects of ivermectin. We don't have a good understanding of positive and negative long term effects of mRNA vaccines.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:11:04

        But they have other things for therapeutics, like Regeneron, the monoclonal antibodies that show, uh, incredible effectiveness. There's other things that they do that, you know, help people when they have the disease.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:11:15

        But the... As far as I understand, I mean, the data on vaccines, it's like you, you have a set of solutions and the question is which one has the best ratio of, uh, uh, benefits to risks? It seems to me that the vaccine has the, is the best benefit to risk ratio. So in, in terms of... I mean, it's very confusing to me that we're, like, not opening schools and still behaving in certain parts of the United States like we're on lockdown even though there's vaccines. So, like that, that's really confusing to me because from my understanding, taking the vaccine significantly lowers your risk of death or go, uh, ending up in a hospital. So if, if anyone who wants to take the vaccine or is at risk, um, or wants to lower their risk of dying will take the vaccine. Everyone else accepts the risk of dying, great. Open up the society. I don't understand why, uh, it's not completely open now. So, like, you have full freedom. There's more than enough vaccines to take the vaccine. There's, uh, vaccines available, uh, to, uh, to be vaccinated and from that point, it's on you to decide what are the risks you're willing to accept.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:12:29

        Well, there's a lot of issues, right? There's, uh, certain companies who want to force people to be vaccinated and then there's-

    18. LFLex Fridman1:12:37

        Yeah. That's a, that's a problem.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:12:38

        ... there's the issues of side effects of vaccines and whether or not they're fully understood and es- p- particularly long term and whether or not they've been fully reported. And there's... And then also there's a lack of responsibility. The vaccine, uh, manufacturers don't have any responsibility in terms of, uh, what does or does not happen to someone once, you know, they can't be sued.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:12:59

        Yeah. So the problem is the source of information for the effectiveness of va- vaccines and the risks are coming from centralized institutions that have completely lost trust of the public.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:13:13

        Yeah.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:13:13

        So it's like, uh, you know... (laughs)

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:13:16

        Well, have you ever Googled like the, the lawsuits that are involved in the, the judgments against the very companies that have built these vaccines? It's, uh, some stunning-

    24. LFLex Fridman1:13:27

        Oh, like, uh, oh, against the companies? Yeah.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:13:28

        Yeah. Some stunning corruption in the past and some horrible cases where they've shown to withhold evidence that-... you know, evidence and studies, and there's- it's just people don't trust pharmaceutical companies.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:13:43

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:13:43

        And they haven't for a long time.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:13:44

        And now there's a lot of money to be made to get people vaccinated-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:13:48

        That's an understatement.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:13:48

        ... and to make that public policy, right?

Episode duration: 3:31:19