EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,016 words- 0:00 – 2:17
Zero-gravity sex jokes to start: propulsion, pregnancy, and artificial gravity
- LFLex Fridman
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- SPSpeaker
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) So, Jamie, what was your question? (laughs)
- SPSpeaker
(laughs) It was to Lex, but it was really, like... 'Cause he, I wouldn't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hardcore science question.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Based on physics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- SPSpeaker
In theory, if you were in space-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
... and you maybe ejaculated, is it possible that the ejaculate would propel you backwards? Like, send you, you know, like, is it propulsion? Is there enough p- power in there to propel you?
- LFLex Fridman
There's only one way to find out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because you need to say-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it depends on how long you hold it in for, right?
- SPSpeaker
Right. But you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, if you didn't jerk off for, like, four months and then you had, like, the mother load.
- SPSpeaker
Just don't have... You need something to go one way so you go the other way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And Lex had an answer, but I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the answer?
- LFLex Fridman
Well-
- SPSpeaker
Well, he had a thought, I guess.
- JRJoe Rogan
What if you blow out at the same time? (blows)
- SPSpeaker
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SPSpeaker
I, I think that in space, the, the, like, the biodynamics of the liquids is different. It's, I, I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I think there's, it's actually difficult to have sex in space and to get people pregnant in space. That's what I read.
- 2:17 – 3:29
Mars colony reality check: death scenarios, schooling, and inevitable cult dynamics
- JRJoe Rogan
Bro, the first people that make that trip, ooh.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, Jamie was saying he wants to go.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SPSpeaker
I don't know about, I mean, on a, that trip, but-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
... a trip.
- JRJoe Rogan
You go eventually?
- SPSpeaker
Why not?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, dude, why? What if you die out there?
- SPSpeaker
Okay, you're gonna die.
- LFLex Fridman
Everybody dies, so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but you don't wanna die that way, dude.
- SPSpeaker
If you get to decide one way to die, that's not a, one of the worst ways.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, it's the worst way. You're gonna die in space, running outta air.
- SPSpeaker
You don't know how it's gonna happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
What about-
- SPSpeaker
Could be on reentry.
- JRJoe Rogan
You could get... Yeah, you could just cook instantly.
- SPSpeaker
Could be on the way up.
- JRJoe Rogan
You get hit by, uh, a micro meteorite.
- SPSpeaker
Could be while you're asleep up there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Could be.
- LFLex Fridman
Imagine standing on Mars looking back at Earth.
- JRJoe Rogan
Going, "What the fuck did I do?"
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. "Why did I do this?"
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, and then having kids on Mars and then-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh, those poor kids.
- LFLex Fridman
... teaching them, "We came from there."
- JRJoe Rogan
You think homeschooling's bad.
- 3:29 – 5:34
Elon Musk’s kids → Genghis Khan: how history reframes conquerors
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, they're gonna say, like, "Listen, if Elon is their man, Elon wants to procreate every chance he can."
- LFLex Fridman
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many kids does he have now? Allegedly.
- LFLex Fridman
Double digits.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, we don't even know how many.
- SPSpeaker
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause they think he's got secret kids.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) "They think." Who's they?
- JRJoe Rogan
They.
- SPSpeaker
They keep count.
- JRJoe Rogan
The fucking people that run the world.
- LFLex Fridman
Is there a Wikipedia page on this? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
There probably is.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
He's probably got secret kids.
- SPSpeaker
Secret kids.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. When you have, like, what does he have, like, $300-plus billion?
- LFLex Fridman
Dan Carlin.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can, you can have a few ladies here or there.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
All over the place-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... having kids. There's a lot of ladies who just wanna have kids, they don't want a guy around.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, there's a, there's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially when they get a little older.
- LFLex Fridman
There's a castle in the South of France with a, like, a harem just of my kids.
- JRJoe Rogan
Waiting for them.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Just waiting for daddy to-
- 5:34 – 10:37
Genghis Khan’s rules, fear tactics, and the rape vs. harem argument
- LFLex Fridman
Well, (laughs) I think, uh, I think, actually, Dan Carlin makes a really good point. How long do you wait until, you know, that you could tell these kinds of stories about Hitler? I think that's an example he uses.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, yes, that's what he uses.
- LFLex Fridman
But, you know, you wanna be historically accurate here, and J- Genghis Khan, there's a lot of different perspectives, including opening up trade and including what was the protocol based on what she was doing, the murdering. So, it was very clear before the invasion, he always said, "You can, uh, surrender and then we would..."... uh, not murder anybody. You just have to, uh, follow the law. And the law was very, very sort of clear. And it's, it- it is basically enforcing a law of the land, so free trade, free practice of religion, and you have to pay taxes instead of to your, to your king, you have to pay taxes to the Mongol Empire.
- JRJoe Rogan
But did they really say, "We won't kill anyone"?
- LFLex Fridman
Yes, 100%. That- that's... They followed that, and this is very well-documented.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- LFLex Fridman
Yes. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So everybody could've just laid down and 10% of the world's population wouldn't be dead?
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- LFLex Fridman
So, so the- the nuance there is that sometimes they killed the upper classes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Well, you know, didn't they kill the royals by, like, crushing them to death?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I guess.
- JRJoe Rogan
They'd have lunch over them.
- LFLex Fridman
They were... L- listen, this is a, a different time, but they were brutal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
If they, if they... 'Cause they want to, uh... They use fear as part of the, the military tactics, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So they want people to be terrified, and they want people to talk about how terrifying the Mongol Empire is so that they forfeit more easily.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Like, you know, there- there's, there's a lot of aspects of it... Not, not to say that, uh, Genghis Khan is a feminist, but there's a lot of progressive aspects. Like he put a lot of women in positions of power. He gave a lot of rights to, to women. This is a very strange perspective for me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but he did a lot of raping.
- LFLex Fridman
Nope. There's not-
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- LFLex Fridman
His kids is... I mean, it's f-
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean, "Nope"?
- LFLex Fridman
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
When he, when he would conquer these places, he would take women.
- LFLex Fridman
In the, in the harem.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they would become his new wives.
- 10:37 – 12:12
From ancient war to modern war: Ukraine casualty math and battlefield asymmetry
- LFLex Fridman
It's, it's, I think, become less and less brutal over time, and people document this. Uh, so war, the number of people as percent of the population killed is less and less.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, but what about-
- LFLex Fridman
There's more laws.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Ukraine and Russia? Like, how many people have died, all told, between the two? It's gotta be close to a million.
- LFLex Fridman
It's, uh, over a million casualties, which includes death and, um, injuries. And the estimates vary, but I think a, a good estimate is over 400,000 total, maybe over 500,000-
- JRJoe Rogan
On both sides?
- LFLex Fridman
On both sides. And the dead on the Ukraine side is probably one-third or one-fourth of the total dead.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- LFLex Fridman
So much more on the Russian-
- JRJoe Rogan
So three-quarters of them on the Russian side?
- LFLex Fridman
On the Russian side.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you, what do you attribute that to?
- LFLex Fridman
I think there's military scholars that understand this really well. I think, in general, the invading force loses more people than the defending force. That's one aspect. Of course, the Ukrainian military will say it's about the effectiveness of the, the Ukrainian military.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And also one of the other things they say is that the, the medical capabilities. So the medics are really strong on the Ukrainian side, which is also tragic because you're able to save lives, but you do have the, the injuries, the pain of war, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... that, uh, the veterans have to go through.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
So they're able to save lives more effectively also.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
But there is a big characteristic of, uh, the invading force usually loses more people.
- 12:12 – 17:04
Lex in Ukraine: personal roots, WWII family history, and the emotional weight of place
- JRJoe Rogan
What was it like, um, going over there and interviewing Zelenskyy?
- LFLex Fridman
So, I should say I- I went to Ukraine twice after February 24th, 2022 invasion. And, uh, maybe it's good for me to also say where I come from because it's surreal to be there for me.
- SPSpeaker
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, both my parents are from Ukraine, from, from Kyiv and Kharkiv. These are towns in Ukraine, cities in Ukraine. Um, I've been there many times. I myself was born in Tajikistan, speaking of, uh, Genghis Khan.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And, uh, I lived there in Tajikistan. And- and by the way, I'm regretting (laughs) defending Genghis Khan in this conversation for fun, so-
- SPSpeaker
You didn't really defend.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. I- I- I wanna be sort of say that over and over again, war is hell. And, uh, it's- I'm almost at tension between how much Roman Empire, Caesar, and these folks are venerated, and Genghis Khan is seen as this barbarian that was just destroying and raping and so on. They were all horrible, vicious warmongers.
- SPSpeaker
All of 'em.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Anyway, uh, uh, Tajikistan and I lived for a time in Kyiv and I lived for a time in Moscow. I have family in Ukraine, I have family in Russia. And so, um, and I should say in World War II, uh, a lot of my family was slaughtered in, uh, Babi Yar, which is a ravine in, um, Kyiv, where they gathered people around, the Nazis, and they just put them in this ravine and just shot them and then put another layer of humans, told them to get naked and face down, lay face down, and slaughtered and slaughtered like this. It's mass, mass, mass graves, mass slaughter. And, uh, my grandfather fought the Nazis. He's a machine gunner, which he's one of the few that survives, which is, uh, the reason I'm here, that they basically tried to hold off the- the Nazi armada. Um, and that, the s- the surreal aspect of all this is it's the same land, you know. I- I just still remember the song, uh, 22 июня, ровно в 4 часа, Київ в імперії нам об'являє, що началась война. It's 22nd of June, uh, the bomb- bombing at- at- at 4:00 AM the bombing- bombing of Kyiv began. So this is in 1941, June 22nd. Just imagine, speaking of Genghis Khan, complete surprise. Just the Nazi armada, just like, just coming, the b- o- Operation Barbarossa, this massive military force invading your land as- as Kyiv and as these, the greatest, the biggest battles of all time were in this land. The Battle of Kyiv, the- the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow, s- we're talking about hundreds of thousand, millions of people just slaughtering each other. And- and the way Hitler, of course, approached the battle and so did Stalin is nobody surrenders. It's, there's no, uh, it's all in slaughter. It doesn't matter if it's winter, it doesn't matter if there's no guns, it doesn't matter, it's just ev- victory or death on both sides. And so it's just brutal war. And so this is the land, right? This is-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And I have, you know for a lot of people in this land, this history is part of them, it's- it's part, uh, it's part of their blood. They- they remember these struggles, they remember this- this political, this geopolitical, this military, this social, this- this is real. This is like imagine the e- it's 'cause recent, imagine the United States living maybe a few decades after the Civil War. You remember, you-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
You remember the- the- the f- you know, you have relatives that died, you have, you remember the real (laughs) the real hatred, the real tensions, the real- the real battles. So yeah, it was, uh, it was surreal to be back there and to try to do what I was doing, which is, um, to push for peace. Since there's probably a lot to say, uh, about this war, I should say that I interviewed Vladimir Zel- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and I will be traveling to Russia to interview Vladimir Putin. Uh, and I, the, (laughs) I'm aware of the risks, I accept the risks and the goal, the mission is to just push for peace, to do my small part in pushing for peace. And that's what I was trying to do in this conversation. And it re- it required just a huge amount of preparation.
- 17:04 – 19:42
Lex’s peace framework: three missed moments and why ‘now’ matters
- LFLex Fridman
For people who don't know, maybe I'll lay out w- where there was opportunities for peace. So since the beginning of the war, February 24th, 2022, I think there was three moments to make peace. Uh, from the perspective of Ukraine, you want to make peace, uh, from strength, so when you're in a position of strength. The first time to make peace was, uh, March and April of 2022, uh, when the Ukrainian forces were able to successfully defend the north, defend Kyiv. There was this h- huge optimism, uh, this belief that we're, we pushed back this gigantic Russian military. That's a place for leverage and the confidence both of the US funding, the European militaries, and the Ukrainian military that we can win this. This is when you make peace, when there is, um, when there is a perception in the reality of strength. The second time was in the fall of 2022, when, uh, there was a successful counteroffensive by the Ukrainian forces that recaptured, uh, Kharkiv and Kherson, this is, um, the south and the east of Ukraine, and there was this real sense...... that we could, uh, that the Ukrainian forces can defeat the Russian forces. Huge optimism. Uh, a lot of pressure from the US to, to make peace then. This is the strength and perhaps the weakness of, uh, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who I do th- think is a historic figure and a great leader-
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- LFLex Fridman
... is that he, one, deeply emotionally feels the suffering of the people and the loss that war creates. And he single-handedly has to unite the nation and carry the will of a people and the morale of a people. He has to lift the morale of a people. And that kind of man struggles to make peace, because he understa- he, he wants justice, not peace. And so from a position of strength there, he wants to go further, recapture all of the land that he sees belongs to Ukraine. But that's exactly when you make peace. And so his very strength, the man that stayed in Kiev that said, you know, "Fuck you. We're not going to, uh... We're going to win this," that kind of man that lifted a whole nation, that united a whole nation, that man i- is also struggled to make peace. And so the third time to make peace
- 19:42 – 29:44
Trump, leverage, and the case for in-person diplomacy with mutual respect
- LFLex Fridman
after a- after all of that, the Russian military regrouped and has been, um, uh, capturing land gradually. And so the, the third time to make peace is now. Uh, the Trump administration, there's a momentum. They want to make peace. He want, he- he's a, a great deal maker. He wants to end wars in all parts of the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he's made the deal in Gaza now.
- LFLex Fridman
Made the deal in Gaza, and that's a super complicated situation too, because they made a ceasefire deal with the hostages. But like, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't, but isn't it amazing that the Biden administrated... Biden administration had two years, couldn't get anything done, and the Trump kids had done it in a day? He was saying that he was gonna be able to do that, and everybody dismissed it.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. And I, I think there's a, a political battle now taking credit for who made the ceasefire, which I think is silly. It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course you're gonna have that.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Biden is the president.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
He's still the president for another few days.
- LFLex Fridman
The, the, the point is with Donald Trump, there's a real will and a momentum to make peace. There's a respect. There's a fear. There's, you know, uh, whatever you think about Donald Trump, he is this person that world leaders respect in, in the full meaning of the word respect, not like admire, but fear. Uh, I think both Zelenskyy and Putin fear Donald Trump, and that's a great person to then make peace, because he has the leverage. All of them believe, Putin and Zelenskyy, that Trump can do some crazy shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he probably would, but he doesn't want to.
- LFLex Fridman
Right, he doesn't want to.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is the one difference.
- LFLex Fridman
And, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a v- very unique position that he's in where they're afraid of him, but yet he wants peace.
- LFLex Fridman
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- LFLex Fridman
And so this is the time. And if you don't make peace now, what's going to happen is the funding from US and the support from US is going to dwindle gradually. And, uh, Putin is willing and able to just wait and to let the war continue for months and for years. And meanwhile, people are dying every single day.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Thousands of people. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
What's horrible about this war too is there's GoPro footage.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a lot of cellphone footage. There's a lot of GoPro foot- I've watched too much of it unfortunately. (sighs) But it's, uh, it's rough, man. It's, it's a horrible war, and it's a war that's so confusing over here for, especially to the uninitiated, for the people that are just like kind of reading the newspaper and getting a, a s- sort of a cursory understanding of what happened. Russia invaded. Why? You know, what did they do? And then you, you got to get into the whole US backed coup in 2014. And then you have to think about NATO and the agreement that was made, the fall of, um, uh, you know, when, um, the wall came down in Berlin, the agreement that NATO would not push forth and move closer to Russia, which they violated over and over and over again. The whole thing is so complicated, uh, that it takes forever just to sort of get an understanding of the pieces that are involved. Forget about like who's responsible for what, but just like how many different things are happening, you know, simultaneously that are, that are forcing Putin's hand, now Zelenskyy's hand. And it's just... To be on this side of the world watching it take place, it's almost unbelievable. It's so hard to believe that Russia and Ukraine, uh, which were both a part of the Soviet Union just not that long ago, well, during my lifetime, now they're at war.
- LFLex Fridman
And I should say that I believe... So how do you handle situations like this? I believe US actually gave not enough money to Ukraine. They should have given more money, hit really hard, and then make peace. This is the point. A month or two after the start of the war, you can learn the same kind of lesson with Iraq and Afghanistan, that there's no reason those, uh, those in- invasions, those military operations-
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no other way? There's no other way than just give money? Give money and, and hit hard? There's no other way? What about, what about-
- LFLex Fridman
Well, a- avoid it. Avoid it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, what about-
- LFLex Fridman
Avoid it.
- JRJoe Rogan
... have NATO back out?
- 29:44 – 33:41
Zelenskyy interview logistics: language, interpreters, and wartime leadership style
- LFLex Fridman
For the metaphor, yeah. It's part of the reason I wanted to talk to President Zelenskyy in Russian, which I speak fluently, and he speaks fluent... It's hi- it's his primary language. Uh, for people who t- seem to misunderstand this on the internet, he spoke Russian his whole life, that's his main language. He sp- he speaks it with his wife, with his whole staff, with all of this. This, this is his language. Uh, it's just that now the Ukrainian language has become a symbol of independence, so they're fighting for their independence, for their sovereignty. I understand it, but you know, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
So he spoke with you in Ukrainian?
- LFLex Fridman
He kept going back and forth, but yeah, most of the powerful things were said in Ukrainian, so I'm listening to an interpreter through a shitty headset. The interpreter's not...... forgive me, said the interpreter was not very good. He's delayed. There's noise.
- JRJoe Rogan
God, but wouldn't it make more sense if he spoke to you in a language that you understand?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. This, we really tried. But this is a man, once again, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
He's a, he's the leader of a nation in a time of war and he's not stylistically who he is. Like, he's all in. This is like a Braveheart type character.
- JRJoe Rogan
Playoffs. We're talking about playoffs? You bet we are. Get in on the action with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Scoring touchdowns is key to winning the playoffs, and you can score big by betting on them at DraftKings, the number one place to bet touchdowns. Ready to place your bet? Try betting on something simple like a player to score six. Go to DraftKings Sportsbook app and make your pick. New DraftKings customers can bet five bucks to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code ROGAN. That's code ROGAN for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks. Only on DraftKings Sportsbook. The crown is yours.
- SPSpeaker
Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY 467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino & Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co/audio.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is so crazy, because he started his career as a comedian.
- LFLex Fridman
Right, right. I mean, there's ... You never know, (sighs) you never know who the, who the leaders are that step up. I think, you know, a lot of people sort of say that it's trivial that he stayed in Kiev when the, the Russian military invaded. To me, it's not trivial, trivial at all. I think that's a truly heroic act. To stay when you know, when nobody knows what's going to happen and, uh, all the experts are saying Kiev is going to be taken. To stay as a leader in that same place where you were the night before, like working, and not flee when everybody, the CIA, everybody's telling you to flee. To stay there like a bad motherfucker and actually go outside and film yourself speaking to the nation that, "We're going to s- win this. We're going to hold strong." That's a, that's an insane thing to do, and maybe it does require, like ... It's a Trump level insanity, right? It's similar to me to the Trump standing up when there's still bullets flying and saying, "Fight, fight, fight," right? That's a ... Where's that come from? I don't know. But most people don't have that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
And it's nice when we s- it was refreshing. Uh, it was refreshing when you see that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Like, "Holy fuck, yes. We want that guy."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And he really united a nation. You know, the, the nation was fractured. He was actually not popular at all up to that war, because, uh, he, the policies he was trying were not working.
- 33:41 – 40:38
Corruption, martial law, censorship: what democracy looks like during war
- JRJoe Rogan
What policies specifically?
- LFLex Fridman
So his, uh ... (laughs) So the stuff that was working, I don't know the internals of the, uh, Ukrainian politics that well. But, uh, so he won in 2019 based on his desire to fight corruption and to modernize, uh, Ukrainian digital system, which he did very successfully. It's actually super interesting. You can, um ... They have a c- app called Diia which your passport, all your identifications, all app- app-ified, which I don't understand why they, U-, United States doesn't have that. You can, like, update your license. You can get your license, uh, like instantly. Th- so it's like, um, the 21st century version of what government should work, um, like. The reason they did that is it's a way to fight corruption. It's a way, like you, if ... Whenever you have paperwork, there's, uh, a place for corruption to seep in. So he was very serious about fighting corruption. And that's the other thing is there is corruption in Ukraine. There's not as much as people perceive and it's, but it's a serious problem, especially with the w-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it less now than before?
- LFLex Fridman
What I, oh, I, see I, I want, I want to be careful here because I don't th- like it's very difficult to know. The perception, there's a serious concern about corruption. In a time of war there's always going to be more corruption. United States spent $9 trillion on the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East. After 9/11, on that part of the world they spent $9 trillion and it's growing. Do you think all that money ... You've had a lot of guests on this program talking about how that money was used. There's a lot of shady shit that happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- LFLex Fridman
W-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
War breeds corruption.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
This is one of the reasons you should be concerned about the military-industrial complex is 'cause it, that money's just not used well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, but, th- that's all ... That's a discussion ... The reality of corruption in Ukraine is it should be dealt with after you make peace. All of the problems, the, the elections were suspended too, the ideas of de- uh, democracy. There is censorship in Ukraine now. All of those ideas cannot be ... All of those things cannot be fixed until the war is ended. The reason there is censorship now in Ukraine is because it's, it's, uh, it's a war. Like you can't ... Uh, the ideas of democracy, in part, have to be suspended during a war to effectively fight that war. This is, uh, this is the whole idea of martial law. The United States has this. You, you don't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
You don't fuck around. You have to win the war. When your land is invaded (laughs) you, you have to every, uh, everybody has to be focused on this. The problem is it's a slippery slope. When, uh, all the media channels are being controlled-... and the, the president and everybody's so invested in, quote unquote, "winning the war," then where are the critical voices that say, "We need peace?" Right? They're all- they're coming from the outside, but you need that. The, the thing is, it's, it's a really complicated tension, right? You don't... During the war, with martial law, you do want to suspend elections, potentially. It's- it's a really difficult trade-off. The United States has the same thing. If we were to be invaded, I don't know by h- by who. This is not ... You know, if Canada (laughs) invaded, I don't wanna make a joke out of this, but there's going to be a mar- (laughs) yeah. A- or-
- JRJoe Rogan
Have a quick fight.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
But (laughs) , like, there, there would be a martial law-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... where elections would be delayed or suspended and so on. So all those criticisms, all those concerns can, can only be dealt with once you make peace.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And in terms of cor- in terms of corruption, just my ... there's a lot of people that know Zelensky well, and, uh, this has been my impression having met him. There ... I don't think he, and I have not heard anybody that knows him well say that he's personally corrupt, and this is really important. Like he himself is not personally corrupt, and he's f- and he legitimately is fighting corruption. Now, he's in a system that has corruption. Uh, Russia has corruption. It's really difficult to weed out corruption, but he legitimately, at least to me that's really important, that he as a single human being and the people really close around him, like really close, that cir- corruption starts to seep in, of course-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... when you, uh, go further out. But in, in that direct human being, that he is not personally corrupt. He, uh, like financially speaking, he singularly believes in the idea of Ukraine as a s- as a sovereign nation and he's willing to die for that idea. That is his strength, and that is also his weakness when it's time to make peace.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you are preparing to do something like this and you are, you know, you're doing your research, you're, you're getting ready to go do it, what i- what are your concerns, other than your own physical safety, of course? But like, what, what do you, what is your, like ultimately, what's your concerns or what are your goals when you're setting out to do this? 'Cause this is very different than any other kind of podcast interview. It's, um, it's ... There's no other format really where a world leader in the middle of a, a huge international conflict is gonna sit down for three hours and, uh, talk to an American scientist, which is weird too, right? It's like, "Why are you doing it?" You know what I mean? Like why, this guy who works in AI just decides he's gonna start a podcast, the podcast becomes very successful, and then all of a sudden he's like, "I'd like to talk to everybody. I'd like to go over and talk to Zelensky and talk to Putin," and everybody's like, "Why you?" (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"So what the fuck are you doing?" So you get a lot of that.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then unfortunately for you, you read the comments, so you get sucked into all that negativity.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot to say there. First of all, on the comments side, I always have a little Joe Rogan on my show saying, "Don't read the comments."
- 40:38 – 54:15
The internet’s propaganda machine: bots, outrage, and why comments rot your brain
- LFLex Fridman
But online, and this is something we talked about offline a little bit, there, there's just, like, these, like, swarms of people that are like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Not even necessarily people.
- LFLex Fridman
That's, I, I, I don't wanna sort of go too far in that tor- territory assuming that anybody who criticized me is a bot.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- LFLex Fridman
But, but there is a s-
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm not saying that, but there's a, there's an-
- LFLex Fridman
There's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
... enormous element of that that's real. Whether it's bots or whether it's hired people, paid propagandists, the, the conversation is not a pure conversation between people expressing their ideas. There's a lot of propaganda online, and it's very confusing (clears throat) to try to discern what the percentage is. You know, we've talked about this a bunch of times on the podcast, but there was a former FBI analyst who estimated that it's, on Twitter alone, this is before the purchase, he believed it was around 80%. So 80% fake accounts, 80% not just propaganda, like government propaganda, but m- most certainly corporations are hiring people to do similar things. I'm sure, um, there's companies that will do that for public figures, actors, you know, people that are involved in conflict. You know, this is part of the Blake Lively, um, dispute, is that she is accusing that Justin Baldoni actor of, uh, an organized attack on her, which is probably what it feels like anyway when you're involved in something on social media. You're like, "Oh my god, this is organized, where they're attacking you." But (smacks lips) th- it's, uh, it's a very confusing landscape. And ideally what we would want with social media is different i- people, informed and non- uninformed, but at least expressing their ideas on things and exchanging information back and forth and talking. It's not the whole story, though. There's a lot of other players involved that are not real.... there's, uh, th- there's AI, for sure. There's, uh, there's definitely large language models that are involved in this back and forth with, you know, automation and, you know, they look out for certain code words and these, these accounts attack certain ideas. So it's hard to know, like, what the actual will of the people is.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I, I mean, it's definitely true. And I've seen a lot of evidence of this, that there's Ukrainian bot farms and Russian bot farms.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you spoke to Elon about this?
- LFLex Fridman
About bot farms?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, because, like, he knows a lot more now, of course, right? Because there was the big concern when he was buying Twitter, they were trying to say there was 5%, it was only 5% bots. And they were doing that on an extremely low sample size, they were doing it off of 100 people. So they got 100 people, and out of those 100 people, five of them, they determined were bots, and so they went with 5%, which is just ridiculous. You know, you're dealing with... How many people are on Twitter every day? Like, what's the total Twitter audience? It's not as big as Facebook, right? Facebook is-
- LFLex Fridman
Nice.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 3.2 billion worldwide, which is unbelievable.
- LFLex Fridman
I think X has, uh, a smaller number, but very influential-
- JRJoe Rogan
Very.
- LFLex Fridman
... and very active, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Very active, very influential. 245 daily active, um, what is the total amount of accounts on it, though? 'Cause, you know, there's daily active and then there's just people that just read them. There's a lot of people that just read. 541.56 million monthly active users. So, again, that's active users. So, um, total users, what's the total users? See, it's all active. I want to know accounts.
- NANarrator
That's the only, I don't, uh... They delete accounts all the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Yeah, they definitely do. So they must have some sort of a system where they weed out bots and, you know, there's a lot of concern right now on Twitter about censorship. You know, this is, I'm... I try to stay out of Twitter as much as I can, honestly, 'cause I think it's bad for your mental health. I really do. I think people just barking at each other all day is not good to absorb. I want to absorb real people that I interact with. I want to... I mean, I try to pay attention to the news, I try to, uh, pay attention to whatever controversial ideas are out there and try to see what I think. But I don't think it's good to, to dive into social media all day. I think it's uniquely bad. And I think so many people are involved in it and they don't realize that they're, they're poisoning their brain, just like they would poison their body if they were eating junk food all day. I think it's genuinely bad for you.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I mean, y- and you and I, uh, and, and also in a particular, you know, doing a podcast, and we're also very different human beings. I would say your psychologic- your psychological fortitude is, is, uh, pretty strong. Like, and I, I'm more, I wear my heart on my sleeve maybe a little bit more, and when if I, like... Shit gets to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And, and, you know, when you try to put compassion out there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... in the world the way, uh, in the way I did, especially with this conversation with Zelenskyy, the attacks, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
You just have to recognize who the kind of people that are doing that are.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, those are just really weak people, really weak-
- 54:15 – 1:07:36
Piers Morgan panel clip: tattoo outrage, shouting formats, and misinfo dynamics
- LFLex Fridman
This is, this is the clip?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, this is it. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Okay, hold on. Let me, uh ... This is wonderful. Watch this. The two people on the far right of the screen, the lady in the pink jacket and the dude with the beard, they're fucked.
- SPSpeaker
... they got cooked. (laughs)
- SPSpeaker
... thing you could accuse Pete of is being too alert and energetic. I found it overwhelming actually while I was there, tired, trying to dust the sand out of my eyes.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
But, uh, you, you suggest that the graduate of Princeton and Harvard, who for decades has been in the US military, served his country honorably, uh, that he's somehow unqualified to work, uh, at the Pentagon. Uh, uh, the, the most egregious, uh, accusation you make against him though is that he's an extremist because he has a tattoo. Could you tell us what the tattoo is?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, the tattoos, uh, specifically-
- SPSpeaker
I can.
- SPSpeaker
... I did not make the, the allegation that he's an extremist. It was actually-
- SPSpeaker
You repeated the allegation.
- SPSpeaker
... his, uh, fellow colleague-
- SPSpeaker
So what's the tattoo?
- SPSpeaker
... who called him as an insider threat.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, right. So what's the tattoo?
- SPSpeaker
I, I can tell you. It says "Those..."
- SPSpeaker
It was his fellow colleague.
- SPSpeaker
Hold on, hang on. Let, let Wajahat answer because he-
- SPSpeaker
It says, it says "Pillaged cult."
- SPSpeaker
Wajahat had raised... You raised it... Hang on.
- SPSpeaker
So I'm just asking simple questions, Joe.
- SPSpeaker
Wajahat raised the tattoo. But Wajahat, it's a fair question.
- SPSpeaker
It was his colleague. It was his colleague. I mentioned the facts.
- SPSpeaker
What is this tattoo that you're so upset about?
- SPSpeaker
It was his colleague... Wait, wait, wait. Two things.
- SPSpeaker
Wajahat, hang on. Wha- wha- simple question. What is this tattoo that you're so upset about?
- SPSpeaker
I wasn't the one upset about it. I was talking about his fellow colleague. This is exactly what I said, his fellow colleague-
- SPSpeaker
Do you know what it was?
- SPSpeaker
... in the US Army called him out as a potential insider threat-
- SPSpeaker
Well, what is the tattoo?
- 1:07:36 – 1:14:50
Owning mistakes: corrections, apologies, and Lex revisits Genghis Khan with deeper nuance
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm. And also, uh, says to be clear, he did not write it himself, he published it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- LFLex Fridman
That's what this is, it says, "In short, Hegseth did not publish..." I'll put, put it up on the screen. It says, "He did not or did publish such a column while he held the role of publisher-"
- JRJoe Rogan
He did not write it himself?
- LFLex Fridman
He did not write it. It was written by someone else.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. So he just published someone's opinions. Okay, that's very different.
- LFLex Fridman
That's very different.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's very, very, very different. Sh- she said he said that. That's not what he said at all. That... See that right there-
- LFLex Fridman
I'm just so exhausted by this.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's exhausting.
- LFLex Fridman
Both, like with the thing about Trump, with both sides, eh...
- JRJoe Rogan
Th- but that right there is crazy because I-
- LFLex Fridman
I-
- JRJoe Rogan
... my opinion of him shifted briefly when I was loo- You know, I was watching Daniel Negreanu, you know, the great poker player?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was on Tim Pool's show.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they were talking about his shift in political ideologies and then a lot of it came from when they were accusing Trump of saying that thing that Obama repeated falsely during the campaign, was that he was talking about, um, white nationalists and neo-Nazis and saying there's very fine people on both sides. And Negreanu had heard that, he had heard the clip where Trump said it, where it was edited. He had never seen the full thing. And then once he saw the full thing, he was like, "What the fuck?" And it immediately made him realize, like, "Oh my God, they're lying. They're lying." And then he talked about how Obama repeated... This is years after Daniel had known it was false. Obama repeating it at the campaign speeches, and then Obama's sitting right next to Trump and they're joking around with each other.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Hey, pal, I know you're a neo-Nazi lover, you fucking rascal. (laughs) How'd you win?" Like it's so... (laughs) But just what that lady did on that show, and then when we find out that Hegseth didn't actually write that, he just published it, you know, and he published it in college as a 20-year-old or whatever he was.
- LFLex Fridman
I, I think there should be also room for that lady to then change her, her mind and apologize-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... 'cause a lot of us parrot, a lot of us parrot, including probably you and I, Joe-
- JRJoe Rogan
Never.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
How dare you?
- LFLex Fridman
Parrot bullshit we see online.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, of course.
- LFLex Fridman
And then we should give each other room to like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- 1:14:50 – 1:36:49
From Mongols to modern brutality: survival, law, and why ‘monstrous times’ create monsters
- LFLex Fridman
And it's insane. Yeah, insanely formidable army. Insanely formidable. But here's som- something to take into consideration when we're saying, uh, about, like, how Genghis Khan's gene were, genes were spread. E- b- b- but just right off the bat, it's all awful, all horrible. I wish no one ever got killed by anybody ever. It's all awful. All war is hell. All of it, all's hell. There was so much of it going on throughout human history that women would... There was a survival mechanism in accepting this conqueror as your new husband when he slaughtered your husband, is the only way your genes passed on. So, these women were able... I mean, even if they said they fell in love with him, you know, even if they did marry him, even if they were happy to marry him, there was, like, al- almost an evolutionary requirement because we slaughtered each other so much that if you wanted your genes to pass on, you had to accept the slaughterer of your former mate. And then in modern-day society, we would call that rape.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
But it's, it's a, it's, uh, we have to use different words for that time-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
... because there is rape where as, like, violent, rape as part of war, as part of a mechanism of terror.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think even as just part of society up until, like, a few thousand years ago or even a few hundred years ago, I think human beings, you know, like... I've had a bunch of friends who've served overseas and the stories they tell from Afghanistan, especially with the child raping, is fucking bone-curdling. Like, you, you kee- blood-curdling, just, like, you just wanna leave the room when they're talking. You don't even wanna hear this. You don't wanna think that this is happening and it's happening right now because it's an old culture. It's an old culture and it's separate from the rest of the world. It's very remote, very difficult to access. You have warlords and herders who are living in these nomadic tribes to this day, not much different than when Alexander the Great conquered it.
- LFLex Fridman
So, I sh- I should say that Genghis Khan, from everything I understand was, was not progressive, but he was very pragmatic. This is why he-
- JRJoe Rogan
Allowed all religions.
- LFLex Fridman
... allows all religions.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
Which is, Thomas Jefferson, I should say, r- deeply admired Genghis Khan for this, the freedom of religion.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And he didn't just say freedom of religion, it's freedom of an individual to practice any religion they want, which is a, f- it's like individualism. It's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
It's a really revolutionary badass idea for that time, for that place.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he was wec- he recognized strength and the v- the value of accepting strength and taking... And there's strength in unity, there's strength in community. If people can worship whatever they want, but all be united under one banner-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is, it's better than dividing everybody. But-
- LFLex Fridman
Like, in the feminist thing that I mentioned, he would put women in power. Why?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
Is he a feminist? No. He understood that women are able to ru- Men conquer better, in his perspective, and women rule better because they keep a stable society.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
So, he would do, he would, uh, marry the, a woman to the king of the place and then send the king off to fight-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... the ruler to fight, knowing for sure he's going to die. But the woman is now ruling and then there's a lot of, like, uh, progressive things about, like, they were allowed to show their face, especially in the, in the Persian lands where they conquered, like, they're allowed to wear these fancy, uh, headdresses and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... which is, you know, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
So they could floss a little.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Chicks got excited about that.
Episode duration: 3:21:19
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode I94u4_Wb82E
