The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #2269 - Bret Weinstein
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,025 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- BWBret Weinstein
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) What's up? Good to see you, my friend.
- BWBret Weinstein
Great to see you, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wild times.
- BWBret Weinstein
A- almost unbelievable.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. The last time you were here, we were really worried about what was gonna happen, and now it seems like we're in a completely different timeline.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah. I, I have to say, in addition to being just overarchingly worried about what was gonna happen to the republic and to, uh, the globe, I was personally worried about what would happen to people like you and me if we lost.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Yeah. Probably wouldn't be so good for business. (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
They probably would've cracked down.
- BWBret Weinstein
There's that. But I, I must say, on my darker days, I had, I had concerns even beyond that and, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
And you probably should.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, in light of what we now know. You know, it's, um ... This US aid thing that's going on, you know, Mike Pence has been on that like a pit bull, and, uh, I've been following him on X, and he's gonna come back on here and kinda explain everything. But he explained it the last time he was here, and I don't think I really grasped it until Elon's six wizards ... (laughs) They brought in some young wizards to go in there and go over the books, and they are just finding crazy shit. It's cra- ... And it's so interesting. I was listening to, uh, a left-wing podcast today. I like to mix it up, you know, I listen to all kinds of different stuff, and, and it was like I was listening to a different world. Like, they weren't even talking about all of this corruption and all this obvious b- buying of influence. Instead, they were talking about aid overseas and how people are gonna starve, and like-
- BWBret Weinstein
Uh, it's mind-boggling and there's also ... I have to say, I'm just f- I'm upset at the general pattern of a failure to recognize how right those of us who hypothesized that there was a racket that had overtaken our entire governance structure, we turn out to be absolutely right about this, and no one's gonna mention it. That, that's mind-blowing to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very strange that the media is ignoring it, especially the left-wing media. It's just too big of a win for the right, and so they're just ignoring it, and then they're just highlighting the good things that USA did, which I'm sure they probably did, probably had to do some good things to, like, at least justify its existence while it's-
- BWBret Weinstein
To, uh ... As a cover story? I'm not even sure. M- maybe it doesn't change anything. Obviously, this was a mechanism used to funnel money to all sorts of things that we didn't vote on, that don't make sense in light of our Constitutional structure, and, uh, I'm ... You know, I obviously have concerns like everybody else about where this train takes us, but seeing that structure broken up is ... It's a huge relief.
- JRJoe Rogan
They gave $27 million to the George Soros prosecutor fund, so our own government is funding this left-wing lunatic who is hiring the most insane prosecutors, who are letting people out of jail who commit violent crimes.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that's, that's exactly how this racket worked, is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... that the ability to tax the American public and then effectively get us to pay for being propagandized, for being surveilled, that, that's the game. And, um, I don't know what era we currently live in. Obviously, there's a lot that's confusing about what the Trump administration is up to, but I, I don't think any reasonable person could be unhappy that we are exiting that era.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm gonna read off some of the things that this guy Kenn Cota the Great on Twitter, uh, l- listed, and this is off the Jesse Water Show. Uh, US aid, uh, $20 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, $2 million for Moroccan pottery classes, $11 million to tell Vietnam to stop burning trash, $27 million to give gift bags to illegals. $27 million. Um, $330 million to help Afghanis grow crops. (laughs) Crops.
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(tuts) I wonder what those crops are?
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What's their biggest crop, Brett?
- BWBret Weinstein
Uh, it's gonna be the poppy seeds for bagels, I'm thinking.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's opium! $300 million, oh, $200 million, uh, on an unused Afghani dam, $250 million on an unused Afghani road. This is wild! I mean, some of this stuff is really, really crazy.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, yes, and, you know, USA ID is of course riddled through whatever international madness it is that caused us to open our southern border and facilitate an invasion through the Darien Gap. So, you know, seeing that structure laid bare is ... It, it, it almost feels like it can't be real. Like-
- 15:00 – 30:00
Yes. The problem is…
- JRJoe Rogan
monitor every dollar going to every NGO, exposing intricate funding webs that traditional tech couldn't detect. So an example, Black Voters Matter fund's $4 million distribution network was invisible until Quantu mapping revealed dozens of subsidiary organizations. The unprecedented mapping reveals a presi- previously hidden web of financial relationships. And that's what it's really all about, and-
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes. The problem is I, you know, sometimes when I see like a list of preposterous scientific projects that have gotten big grants.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
I read it and I think, I, some of, they all sound preposterous, but I don't know. Some of these things are likely to have had a good explanation, and it just is not apparent in the sound bite. And some of them are every bit as preposterous as, as they seem. And so I can't look at a map like that and say what I would expect if the system was healthy. So I'm, I'm cautious about it. I, I don't think the system was healthy. I think the system was a racket from one end to the other. And I've been saying that we've been living in the era of malignant governance where there's basically no element of this you couldn't turn off and make us better. But we have to be suspicious also of our understanding of how a properly functioning system would graph in some- something like that, um, so that we don't, we don't overrun the train station when we get there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And I, I will just say, I was, I was talking to a friend of mine who runs an Alaska native corporation, which I don't know if we've talked about Alaska native corporations before, but this is a, um, a corporation. The, it, it competes for federal contracts. It has some advantages in the competition for federal contracts, and all of the profits go to Alaska natives. And it is finding itself in a very difficult to navigate battle because of all of the successes of Doge. So the Alaska Native Corporation is utilizing something called the 8A program. The 8A program is a program that gives advantages to disadvantaged people. And at some point, that ability to use the 8A program was granted to Alaska native corporations. Well, the 8A program is now under attack by some large corporations, federal contractors who do not like competition from things like Alaska native corporations. And it is being portrayed as if it was based on race, which it isn't.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
Anybody can use it. It's not a race-based program, but because people are in a mood to dismantle all of this left wing solution-making corruption, the, these mega corporations are finding it easy to target the 8A program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- BWBret Weinstein
And they are persuading members of Congress that, uh, it doesn't belong. And this is gonna be, uh, a tragic loss if this program, which works well, is dismantled in the fervor to go after all of the stuff that should never have been.
- JRJoe Rogan
What does this program do exactly?
- BWBret Weinstein
It provides a mechanism for disadvantaged people to compete for grants. It's really not race-based. Anybody, you know...
- JRJoe Rogan
So what'd you just have to live in Alaska?
- BWBret Weinstein
No, it d- no, no. So there are two separate things. Alaska native corporations are for Alaskan natives.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
When you say Alaska natives, you mean people who live in Alaska, or-
- BWBret Weinstein
No, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Inuits?
- BWBret Weinstein
I mean, uh, Arctic peoples.
- JRJoe Rogan
Arctic people.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
So the original people of Alaska before we bought it for 50 bucks from the Russians.
- BWBret Weinstein
Exa- exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
We bought it for 50 bucks from the Russians. And then the ... after the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, the US government realized that it could not afford to give the natives of Alaska sovereign land rights because it was going to need to do things like put a pipeline to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Got it.
- BWBret Weinstein
... transport oil. So instead of giving them reservations and sovereign land rights, it gave them, uh, some abilities to compete for federal contracts, uh, as Alaska native corporations.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- BWBret Weinstein
So it's an interesting program that does a lot of good, but its connection to the 8A program now has the good that it does in jeopardy. And I don't know how many stories there are like that, but we need to be careful that our excitement about watching all of this nonsense torn apart, uh, doesn't cause us to tear apart things that actually are functioning well and don't suffer from the, the defects of the DEI madness.
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- JRJoe Rogan
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- JRJoe Rogan
Well, how do we get money out of governments? See, that's the problem, right, is money gets involved in government, especially enormous amounts of money, and then they have influence. And then you have senators and congressmen and different elected representatives that don't do the will of the people. They do the will of the people that paid them enormous amounts of money. And this is a real problem, because if it was just, the, the only way you could win was you had to do s- for the will of the people, if, if you had to literally do things that were better for the people, the people realize you're doing a great job and they keep electing you.
- BWBret Weinstein
(smacks lips) Well, let's be honest about what the conservatives had right from the get-go. There are problems that only competition solves. There are other problems that competition in something like a market is not well-positioned to solve, but there are certain problems that there's just, there's no second best. It's only competition that works. And so when we talk about, well, (smacks lips) you know, what are we going to do for fact-checking? We're going to abandon the idea of fact-checking. What you want is a vibrant, independent journalist sector in which people who spot the story early-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
... and people who articulate the story in the most intuitive and accurate way out-compete those who do a worse job, so that over time what we get is journalism that you can't, uh, fool.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that it reveals to us which government programs actually work. Even if they don't sound reasonable at first glance, here's what's really going on behind the scenes in this program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right? And then journalism that exposes any kind of fraud. And I, I don't know about you, but as, as I was watching confirmation hearings, m- my sense was that the Elizabeth Warrens and the Bernie Sanders were dinosaurs who do not understand that the Earth has just been hit from outer space and that they don't live in the world that they are so used to.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
That their corruption was immediately apparent, and they're not used to that. They're used to having a whole phony journalistic layer that covers for them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that layer is gone, and the American public is awake, and it's angry, and rightfully so. And now, it looks at Bernie Sanders, who, you know, I remember the first time you and I spoke, you and I had both been Sanders supporters.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
And now to see that same guy going after Bobby Kennedy, and, you know, the feeble excuse, "Well, what if Bobby Kennedy becomes the head of HHS and, uh, people don't have access to prescription drugs?" And it's like, dude, I just lived through COVID. It's not obvious to me that they wouldn't get healthier if they didn't have access to prescription drugs. Do you realize how corrupt those companies are and how nonsensical their science is, the science that says that you actually get better if you take a statin based on some metric in your chart? Right? So, I'm not arguing that there aren't good pharmaceuticals. There undoubtedly are. But what's the net effect of our pharmaceutical-obsessed medical culture? It's not obvious to me that it's positive. I think it may well be negative. And so anyway, again, I, I see Bernie Sanders, and I see him reading from a script that is no longer relevant to the movie we're watching.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, and this is not saying that there aren't some pharmaceutical drugs that are amazing. The problem is they're not all amazing, and they sell them all like they're amazing.
- BWBret Weinstein
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the problem. Some of them are great. Like, Viagra's fantastic. Like, it's really good stuff. (laughs) There's a bunch of stuff like that that really works. There's a bunch of drugs that really help people. There's a bunch of drugs that brilliant scientists have developed that definitely help people live longer and live healthier lives. But also, they're in the pr- business of selling medicine, selling pharmaceutical drugs, and so there's a lot of stuff that they sell that is not good, not good for you, overall net negative. When you look at the, the amount of drugs they get pulled, they get endorsed and then supported by the FDA and then they have to pull them? Wasn't it like 30%? Something in the range?
- BWBret Weinstein
Um, yes, and that is the tip of the iceberg. We do not have, just as we don't have a journalistic layer that exposes people in Congress who are lying to us and aspects of the government that are corrupt, we don't have a university system that can properly do science and can be relied on to tell us what the impact of a drug or a food additive is. Right? The whole system is missing in action. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. The whole system is paid for by the pharmaceutical drug companies. They pay for tests, they pay for studies, they support organizations that are supposed to be regulating them. The, the whole thing is bananas.
- BWBret Weinstein
Everything that is supposed to evaluate something like safety or efficacy or analyze net effects, anything like that, has been captured by the PR wing. And so the consumer is in no position to, to navigate a world like that. I mean, and w- we know that this encompasses everything. You know? How many people's doctors are pharma-skeptical?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right? Your doctor should be very pharma-skeptical. "I don't know that this drug is actually a benefit to you." But no, the, the doctors have become pushers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Because they've been compromised. And, and also, I mean, that's l- literally the system that they're created from. Like, they're, they, they're sent out into the hospitals immediately with that. And it just, it's so difficult for a doctor to step outside of the system and be independent. When they do, they get attacked. Like, how many doctors lost their licenses because they were trying to prescribe ivermectin to people who, who had COVID?
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah, almost all of the doctors who were any good found themselves chased out of a job or were, w-... jeopardy to their license or slandered in, in the media. And, you know, my, (laughs) I'm sure you're in the same position. Those are, frankly, the only doctors I trust at this point-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... were the ones who were willing to pay a price to tell me the truth.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah. My doctor, uh, that I know out here w- won a case, but, th- they were about to lose their license.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
That was huge. That…
- BWBret Weinstein
That was an organic unity movement, and it took advantage of the fact that, you know, Maha had already catalyzed as, uh, as Kennedy and Trump had gotten together. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
That was huge. That was a huge part of it, because Kennedy had so many supporters. Even in, in many states, he was, like, bordering, like, 25, 30%, which is really crazy for an independent. And when he went over to Trump, and then all those people were like, "Oh my God, I have hope now." People who were vaccine-injured, people who were very skeptical about certain pharmaceutical drugs that may have caused them harm, people who knew Bobby's history of being an environmental attorney and all the, the amazing work that he did then, those people got on board with the Trump administration. And I think that was huge. And now, with Tulsi, I think that's huge as well. I think, you know, when, when Elon took over Doge, that was like the, the final avenger. Like, having that team together as such a unique team, where you have prominent former Democrats. Former, e- eight-time Democrat Con- E- for eight years, Democratic Comer- Congresswoman, who also served overseas in a med- in a medical unit twice. Like, this is... Y- you've got an extraordinary group of human beings.
- BWBret Weinstein
Extraordinary group of human beings, all of whom, I think, took very real risks.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
At the very least, with their reputations.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, Tulsi got put on a terrorist watch list.
- BWBret Weinstein
Of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is fucking crazy.
- BWBret Weinstein
And it was a gamble. Each of these people, you know, Kennedy, Musk, Tulsi, they knew that they were taking that risk, and it was clear that they were motivated by patriotism. That they actually... I mean, this is what a soldier does, right? You know that you're taking risks for something that matters more than you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BWBret Weinstein
And, you know, to watch Elon do it, I think, also was just remarkable. Because of course in Elon's position, he could, he could have done, you know, what Zuckerberg does. Right? And he could have played it safe and kept his options open and done what he was told-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
... and then, you know, apologize for it later, sort of. Right? That wasn't what Musk did. He actually had the courage of his convictions, A, as many people have noted. His liberation of X set the stage for this election to even happen. That there wasn't anything you could put over on us that we couldn't unpack and, you know, crowdsource a better interpretation of on X. And even if most people weren't on X, it was enough that they- their narrative engine just didn't work.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you look at a viral post on X, a viral post about something that's very important, like, that has to do with USAID, you will see seven million, eight million views, 10 million views. There is nothing equivalent like that to mainstream media. There's nothing even close. There's nothing even close. Maybe a very viral YouTube clip. But these are every day, all day long, there's posts that have seven million, five million, three million. And people are reposting them as well and sharing them and, and taking the information and posting them, you know, w- without credit. There's a lot of that going on. So, this- the actual amount of the information that gets out is far more than it would have ever happened without Elon taking over Twitter. It prob- it, it's probably changed the course of our civilization in a way that nothing else could have done.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes, and I think it's a little bit deceptive because its size doesn't quite explain its impact. But it's a little bit like the higher reasoning centers of the brain. Like, there's a collective consciousness in which we figure out what we think is true, and it's been downstream of this amazing propaganda engine.... well, we're now learning to spot the propaganda and to understand what it really means and to figure out what it's cloaking. And a lot of that is happening on Twitter because it can, and it's actually forcing, you know, Facebook to come around. Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
Which, of course, you know, I- I usually say that zero is a special number, meaning in a world with no social media platforms where you can speak freely and reason with others, there's no pressure to start doing that. But once you have one, any social media platform that doesn't allow you to speak free- freely is at a competitive disadvantage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
And so, you know, Elon freeing X actually liberated the others, and they're beginning to move in the right direction, which, frankly, is part of why this era just feels different.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's, it's very interesting times. And then on top of that, we're being invaded by UFOs, so it's all happening at the same time.
- BWBret Weinstein
I have not noticed that.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) I, I w-
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you watching NewsNation? What's wrong with you?
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
You're so not informed.
- BWBret Weinstein
I- I am, uh, not informed. I am, I'm waiting for some sort of compelling evidence that something extraterrestrial is going on.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm talking to everybody, and the more people I talk to, the less I know.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Hm. …
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
Not that that's what this is, but it's a potential explanation for what some of it is.
- BWBret Weinstein
It's in the right neighborhood, at least.
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
I'll find that video then.
- BWBret Weinstein
So, let's just say, first of all, this is where I would want a robust university system and a robust journalistic system to dig, because there's a lot you need to know that you could figure out, that would tell us whether or not what we're looking at are really distant craft moves at- moving at tremendous speeds, or it's an optical illusion. Let me just give you an example you'll, you'll probably haven't-
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
This is 10 years old.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- BWBret Weinstein
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they can do it in patterns like this in the air?
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
This is what they could do a long time ago with-
- BWBret Weinstein
Aliens, what they're showing on YouTube.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, so they're making a butterfly out of plasma bulbs in the air.
- BWBret Weinstein
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or plasma balls.
- BWBret Weinstein
That's pretty good.
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
I've seen a few other things like this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Pretty wild.
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
And pretty silent.
- JRJoe Rogan
What? Oh my God.
- BWBret Weinstein
That's pretty good.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's insane.
- BWBret Weinstein
Oh my god. Now make a Tic Tac.
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
This is 13 years old.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, a 3D display in midair using lasma- laser plasma technology. So, i- if you were somewhere and you encountered these things, you would absolutely think these are alien craft from another dimension that's come here to communicate with you?
- BWBret Weinstein
And imagine that you saw that...... outside.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
You wouldn't necessarily know how far away the object was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- BWBret Weinstein
... and therefore, you wouldn't necessarily know how fast it was moving. You'd, you'd misjudge it.
- 1:15:00 – 1:27:20
I used to think…
- BWBret Weinstein
to the AI competition. I'm conflicted about it. I don't think there's anything we can do to regulate AI competition that doesn't make matters worse. I'm very concerned about the outgrowth of this transformative technology. I think even the most mundane disruptions that will come from it, things like, uh, disruptions to the, the job market, are going to be a profound challenge to our society and we're going to have to come up with an approach that allows us, uh, to, to tolerate the disruption.
- JRJoe Rogan
I used to think the approach was universal basic income, but now I'm conflicted 'cause now I, I just take into account human nature. (sighs) And, you know, unfortunately, I don't think it's good for people to just give them free money. Even though you need to. Even though you need to, I think it's, uh, it's ultimately bad for them to be dependent upon it, and that's what scares me about automation and AI in general, that if it does get to the point where there's so many people that are displaced from the job market that we have to provide them, like, a real meaningful wage, and what incentives do they have to break free from that system? And do they just decide to live inside the means of whatever that is forever, and does that limit the growth and potential that those people possess? 'Cause people really don't accomplish anything unless they're driven or unless they have to. Right? That's, that's what really gets people going. That's why it's so difficult for people that were trust fund babies to ever get anything going. I mean, we all know the trust fund kids that are just... They do s- do drugs, and party, and they're materialists, and th- they're really lost. That's really common. Like, more common than not, right? Very difficult to, to navigate that water. So, what, what would we do to incentivize people to do things? Like, to, to, to have this healthy, thriving, artistic, creative, innovative economy that we have right now? Like, how does that continue if so many people are displaced from the job market? Or is there a way where you can say, "You know what? We are so concerned about basic g- goods, needs, food, shelter, things like..." If you just provide people with the basics so nobody ever has to worry about food or shelter, would it organically arise that some people would compete outside of that, and then say, "Now that I have basic food and shelter, let me pursue my dreams. Let me do what I want to do. Let me provide... Uh, let me create a business that AI can't make. Let me make, you know, fine cabinetry. Let me, let me do... Let me paint. Let me do things that's gonna provide a real value that, uh, you know, I can get money from, that it can be an actual viable business."? And maybe the way to incentivize people to do that is to never take away their universal basic income so it's not like welfare, where it... One of the things... Like, my family was on welfare when we were young, and when they got off welfare it was, like, a nice thing to know that, like, th- we're providing for ourselves now. You know? And... But you have to do that. You have to break off the system, and then you don't get the checks anymore. But what if the people just keep getting universal basic income and you'll, uh... And we just rewire the way we think about food and shelter? We think about food and shelter as just something that everybody should have. Not, like, uh, tons of money, not exposable- indispensable income where you can... Disposable income where you can just buy fucking junk food and garbage and, and do cocaine all day. But have enough where you can live, and then have people pursue a life that is more meaningful. But you don't have to give people incentives. They have to be, somehow or another, either personally motivated to do that, uh, encouraged by the culture to do that. It has to be something where people develop this desire to do more. Well, let's talk about the ultimate source of this problem. Our ancestors, our hunter-gatherer ancestors, even our farming ancestors, lived in a world where the world itself provided the incentive structure. Right? If you didn't work hard enough as a hunter-gatherer, it manifested as hunger and jeopardy.
- BWBret Weinstein
... so people were naturally incentivized to invest in the right kind of stuff. And the right kind of stuff is hard work in some cases, where, you know, you pursue the materials that make your hut better, that procure more food for your family. Or it could be insight, where you figure out some way to do something better, so you make more with what you've already figured out how to get. That's a very natural structure. And it's what we neurologically are built for. The economy has some of that characteristic. The economy rewards hard work somewhat, and it rewards ins- insight somewhat. But it also rewards, uh, cheating, and it rewards lots of unproductive behavior that actually destroys wealth but creates a profit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Stock market. (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah. For example, it, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... rewards gambling, it rewards-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
... uh, interference competition, all, all sorts of stuff, you know? Destroying wealth is actually a big part of our economy. And the way the mythology of free market capitalism works, you're getting paid for producing stuff that enhances us all. But what fraction of the economy is actually dedicated to activities that destroy wealth, you know? The production of porn, for example. In my opinion, that is highly likely to destroy vastly more wealth than it, than it produces. But it's a very rich industry for a reason. So, what I'm getting at is we have a new problem with the AI component. Maybe it's taken the magnitude of the problem that we had, and it's multiplied it by 10. But it's not a new problem. We are still trying to figure out what to do with the fact that you're taking an animal out of the habitat that properly inherently incentivizes it, and putting it into an environment in which the incentives aren't really well built. And I agree with you. Whatever sympathy I may have had for the idea of universal basic income is gone, because I do think it would produce, at best, a kind of learned helplessness-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BWBret Weinstein
... that's unproductive.
- JRJoe Rogan
A dependency.
- BWBret Weinstein
So, what-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's scary.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right. So, what we really want is a system in which whatever the new opportunities are going to be in the world where AI is available everywhere and very sophisticated, we want people to figure out how to leverage it on our behalf. And mind you, we could have the same conversation before the worldwide web, and we could talk about, well, what's it gonna be like when you can source information-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
... from anywhere? What kinds of opportunities is that going to create, and can we incentivize people to figure out what those opportunities are? Yada, yada, yada. So, the AI version is the s- it's the same problem, but at a different order of magnitude. So, I don't know what the solution is about how you create that proper incentive structure, but we are going to be living in a world in which meaning and wealth are of a fundamentally different nature. And what we want is for people to have the tools and the incentive to explore that world productively, so that when they do it well, they end up economically enhanced, and when they do it poorly, they suffer a challenge, so that they are naturally led by that world to find stuff that creates wealth for all of us.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
That's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, maybe it starts with the education system. Maybe we have to incentivize people to pursue their dreams instead of just to try to find a job. 'Cause that, this is the way the education system is scheduled now, or is, is, uh, set up now. It's basically, you go back to the Rockefellers, right? This is, you're basically trying to make factory workers. You're trying to make people that obey. The earlier you can get them into school, the better, 'cause the more you can indoctrinate them into the way the system works. You get them accustomed. You get these f- kids that are filled with fucking energy and they're excited about the world. They just want to play all the time, and you make them just sit down all day. And when they don't, you, you say, "That little fellow's got ADD. He's not paying attention. We need to give him some Ritalin. The little fucker is just sitting there jacked out of his mind on Ritalin now." You know? And this is what we've done. And instead of having an education system that educates people that way, have an education system that excites people about learning things they're actually interested in.
- BWBret Weinstein
Hell yeah. But again, this is an, another version where it's not like AI is a bad fit for the education system. It certainly is. But the education system has been garbage. My whole life existed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... with an education system that was almost totally worthless, and in some cases, was counterproductive, which is, I think, why some of us folks with learning disabilities actually turn out to have an advantage. It's not that there's something good about having a learning disability, but if it breaks your relationship to school, so school has less of an easy time programming you to be a cog-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... then you at least retain the potential to be something other than a cog.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't think I had a learning disability, but I was a l- latchkey kid, right? So, I didn't have a lot of guidance when I was young, and I wasn't used to people telling me what to do, and I didn't enjoy it. And also, I had a lot of energy. And it was very difficult for me to pay attention to boring things by uninspired teachers. But then again, every now and then, I'd have an inspired teacher, and I'd go, "Okay, maybe I'm not stupid. Like, maybe I'm just bored," you know? And then I'd get really interested in something, and then I'd learn a lot about it, and then I'd be able to, like, tell people about it. I'd talk to my friends, be, "You know what I learned today?" And then we'd have these conversations about it. But like, okay, it's not that I'm not curious or interested, it's that I'm not being inspired.Now, why is that? Is it because I'm 10, you know, and you know, this... 'cause it's hard to be inspired by things when you're 10 'cause you're just a little fucking dork and you're running around reading comic books and paying attention to other things, and you don't really care about math or you don't care about history. What, what is it? But whatever it is, the system's not working for you. You have to find some sort of inspiration outside of it. And I've been educated almost entirely outside of schools. Almost all of what I know, I know from books that I read because I was interested or I listened to audiobooks, or I listened to podcasts, or I had conversations with people like you. That's how I learn things. And it wasn't that I wasn't interested. It wasn't that I wasn't smart. It was that I was not inspired. I... I had other... Uh, I didn't know that I wasn't a loser until I got really good at other things. And I'm like, "I can get good at things. Okay, so if I can get good at things, it's not that I'm a loser." It's just like, I can't work a job. I can't just show up every day and do something that's not exciting to me. But that doesn't mean I'm useless. It just means I'm useless for that. I don't have the personality to just sit there and go over paperwork. It doesn't... I can't. I'll go crazy. But that go crazy part is also what lets you have the courage or the, the motivation to go and try a path that seems unlikely for success, and to have the courage to say, "Well, some people succeed. Why don't I fucking try it?" And just, "I can't do this. Fuck it. Let's give it a go." And then, that's how you become a standup comedian, you know? (laughs) Nobody thinks, nobody thinks it's a good path. Like, out of 100 standup comedians that do open mic night, maybe one, maybe one will have some sort of a career in comedy.
Episode duration: 2:37:36
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