Lex Fridman PodcastDestiny: Politics, Free Speech, Controversy, Sex, War, and Relationships | Lex Fridman Podcast #337
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,476 words- 0:00 – 3:06
Introduction
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
If you have a democratic style of governance, you are entrusting people with one of the most awesome and radical of responsibilities, and that's saying that you're going to pick the people that are gonna make some of the hardest decisions on all of human history. If you're gonna trust people to vote correctly, you have to be able to trust them to have open and honest dialogue with each other. Whether that's Nazis or KKK people or whoever talking, um, you have to believe that your people are going to be able to rise above and make the correct determinations when they hear these types of speeches. And if you're so worried that somebody's gonna hear a certain political figure and they're gonna be completely radicalized instantly, then what that tells me is that you don't have enough faith in humans for democracy to be a viable institution. Which is fine, you can be anti-democratic, but you, I don't think you can be pro-democracy and anti-free speech.
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Steven Bonnell, also known online as Destiny. He's a video game streamer and political commentator, one of the early pioneers of both live streaming in general and live streamed political debate and discourse. Politically, he is a progressive, identifying as either left or far left depending on your perspective. There are many reasons I wanted to talk to Steven. First, I just talked to Ben Shapiro, and many people have told me that Steven is the Ben Shapiro of the left in terms of political perspective and exceptional debate skills. Second reason is he skillfully defends some nuanced non-standard views. At the same time, being pro-establishment, pro-institutions, and pro-Biden, while also being pro-capitalism and pro-free speech. Third reason is he has been there at the beginning and throughout the meteoric rise of the video game live streaming community. In some mainstream circles, this community is not taken seriously. Perhaps because of its demographic distribution skewing young, or perhaps because of the sometimes harsh style of communication. But I think this community should be taken seriously and shown respect. Millions of young minds tune into live streams like Destiny's to question and to try to understand what is going on with the world, often exploring challenging, even controversial ideas. The language is sometimes harsher and the humor sometimes meaner than I would prefer, but I, Grandpa Lex, put on my rain boots and went into the beautiful chaotic muck of online discourse, and have so far survived to tell the tale with a smile and even more love in my heart than before. On top of all this, we were lucky to have Melina Goranson, a popular streamer and world traveler, join us at the end of the conversation. You can check out her channel on twitch.tv/melina, and you can check out Steven's channel on youtube.com/destiny. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Destiny.
- 3:06 – 19:28
Politics and debates
- LFLex Fridman
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I don't know if you watched me watching your EA interview?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Thank you so much for...
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I'm so curious. When you're navigating a conversation like that, are you, how intentional is the thought process between like building rapport and pushing and, and giving a little and letting like...
- LFLex Fridman
Zero.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Zero?
- LFLex Fridman
Zero intention. I was watching, and thank you so much. It was very kind for you to review that conversation. It meant a lot that you were complementary in parts on the technical aspects of the conversation. But no, zero, and I'm actually deliberately, uh, trying to avoid, I think you've called it debate brain-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Uh-huh.
- LFLex Fridman
... which is just another flavor of thinking about, like the meta-conversation, trying to optimize how should this conversation go. Because I feel like the more you do that, the better you get at that, the less human connection you have. Like the less genuinely you're actually sitting there in the moment and listening to the person. You're more like calculating what's the right thing to say versus like feeling what is, uh, what is that person feeling right now? What are, what are they thinking? That's what I'm trying to do is like putting myself in their mind and thinking, "What does the world look like to them? What does the world feel like to them?" And so from that, I truly try to listen. Now, I'm also learning, especially 'cause Rogan and others have been giving me shit for not pushing back.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
It's good sometimes to say from a place of care for the other human being to say, "Stop. What did you just say?"
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
"I don't think that's represents who you are and what you really mean." Or maybe if it does at that time represents who they are, I could see a better, a better world if they grow into a different direction and try to point that direction out to them.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
There's a really complicated dance between letting somebody share their full story versus letting somebody like essentially, I guess, like proselytize your audience. (laughs) And it's like, okay, hold on, let's take a minute here. But yeah, I used to be, four or five years ago, it was attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, whatever you said. And now I'm leaning way more towards the like, okay, well, tell me how you feel about everything and then we'll go from there. So, a lot of people like my new approach. Some older fans who are watching, they're like, "Why are you letting this guy just ramble on? You know he said like five or six wrong things and you're only gonna call him out on two of them?" And it's like, it's just different styles of conversation, but yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you do a lot of research beforehand too?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Depending on the conversation, yeah. So if we're gonna talk like vaccines and stuff, yeah, that's a ton of reading and stuff that I never thought I'd know going into it. Um, if it's a more personal like political philosophy conversation, there's not as much you can prepare for, just it truly depends on the conversation.
- LFLex Fridman
How much are you actually listening to the other person?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I'm always listening. I think you have to listen 'cause as soon as you stop listening, the quality of everything falls apart. The connection disappears. The quality of the conversation disappears. But my natural inclination is to just be way more aggressive than normal, so I have to constantly remind myself, I guess you would call it a meta-conversation where you're like, "Okay, he's probably saying this because of that or we'll let him go here and then we'll stop later." But, um, yeah, 'cause my, my preferred style of conversation is like, I'm gonna talk and the second I say something you disagree with, then let's...... iron it out, right? Like I, like, I think in, like, syllogisms. Like, okay, here's premise A, good, okay. Premise B, okay, and then conclusion. And then as long as we're both deductively sound, we're not crazy, no psychosis, then we're gonna agree on everything. Um, whereas other people like to... Most people think in stories, like narratives, like a whole, there's a whole, like, narrative and the individual facts don't matter as much 'cause they'll pick and choose what they want and it's really hard 'cause everybody thinks negative so I have to function in that world. But it's, uh, frustrating for me sometimes. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Well, I- I've seen, uh, you had a lot of excellent debates. One of them I just recently last night watched is, uh, on systemic racism and it's the first time I've seen you completely lose your shit. (laughs)
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Oh, shoot. Who was that against?
- LFLex Fridman
I'm not sure exactly, but you were just very frustrated inside. Not lose your shit, but you were frustrated constantly because of the thing, "Let's lay out one, two, three." And every time you try to lay it out, it would falter. I think it had to do with sort of, can you use data to make an argument or do you need to use a study that does an interpretation of that data? And then there's, like, this tension between, I think this is a behavioral economist that you were talking to and the point is, you do this kind of nice layout that the whole point of behavioral economics, it says there's more to it than just the data. You have to give it context and, like, do the rich, rigorous interpretation in the context of the full human story. And then there was like a dance back and forth, sometimes you use data, sometimes not, and you were getting really frustrated-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... and shutting down. And so that felt like a failure mode. I've seen Sam Harris have similar sticking points, like if we can't agree on the terminology, we can't go on. To me, I feel like, uh, I'm- I'm sort of the, the Wittgenstein perspective is like, I think if you get stuck on any one thing, you're just not gonna make progress. You have to... Part of the conversation has to be about, uh, doing a good dance together-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... versus being dogmatically stuck on the path to truth.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I think the true challenge is identifying what of those sticking points are important versus what is not important. So like if I'm having an argument with somebody about like Jewish representation in media, they might, it might be like a big conversation and they might say a couple things, like, "I think Jewish people, you know, they tend to help their own," or whatever. And it's like, "Uh, okay." But like, for the purpose of the conversation, we can keep moving. But if they casually drop like, you know, "Yeah, and I think that's why the Holocaust numbers were blown up from like 100,000 to 6 million and that's..." And it's like, "Okay, well hold on, wait, wait. If you think this, we have to stop here because this is gonna be..." It's not just a language game in this part. If you really believe this fact, then the whole rest of the conversation is gonna be informed by that belief, you know?
- LFLex Fridman
And it has to be something that doesn't bother you personally. You have to step outside your own ego. So Holocaust denial is somebody that would bother a lot of people.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And there's some things just, just observing you, I feel like when you get really good at conversation, you can become a stickler to, um... You might have your favorite terms that it really bothers you if people don't agree on those terms.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Oh, yeah. Begs the question, you mean raising the question. Yeah, I usually just want... If people, people say stuff, I just let it slide, yeah.
- 19:28 – 32:37
War in Ukraine
- LFLex Fridman
the Ukraine topic. One question is, what role does US play in this war? Could they have done something to avoid the war? Uh, did they have a role to play in forcing Vladimir Putin's hand? Do they have a role to play in, um, deescalating the war towards a peace agreement and the opposite? If it does escalate, uh, towards something like the use of a tactical nuclear weapon, are they to blame? Are, are we to blame?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Oh, man. Somebody sent me an email a while ago with great words. Um, there's a specific way to navigate a conversation where you can kind of, like, contribute to a negative event, but you're not really the one responsible for it. Um, like the classic example is a woman goes out late at night, gets a little bit too drunk, and then something happens. And it's like, while there might have been steps she could have taken to mitigate the risk, it's not her fault of what happened because the, um, responsibility rests on the, on the agent making the choice, right? There's a chooser at some point that is choosing to do wrong or evil. I don't believe in any of the arguments that say the United States has contributed to Russia's position on Ukraine or the actions that they've taken on Ukraine. Um, there are several arguments that some people, uh, some even political scholars are, are, are putting out there to say that the United States is to blame, but I find them completely unconvincing. I think that when you ask the question of like, what is the United States' role or what has our role been, I think it's really important for us, I don't think we even agree as a country on what our role should be, which I think is a hard one because you've got this kind of, there's this growing populist movement in the United States. It might be the far left and the far right. And I think populists tend to have this kind of isolationist view of the world where the United States should just be our own thing, we shouldn't be telling anybody what to do, we shouldn't be the world police. And then kind of more in these, like, center left, center right positions and then across a lot of Europe you've got, well, okay, the United States is kind of like the big kid on the block, like, we're looking to them for guidance and leadership on situations like what's going on in Ukraine. So, in so far as, uh, the original question was like, what, what is, like, the United States' responsibility? I think we have a responsibility to ensure the relative, like, freedom, prosperity, and stability across Europe. I think that defending Ukraine's sovereignty and right to their borders is a part of that, and I don't believe that prior to the invasion in 2022, I don't think the United States was contributing to Russia invading that country. Um, I know there are arguments given that, like, the expansion of NATO, you know, has, has... Something that's been threatening to Russia, but the Baltics joined and Russia didn't do anything about it. The invasion to Crimea was very clearly a response to the revolution in 2014. The invasion on the borders is clearly a response to, um, Ukraine winning that, uh, civil war in the southeast and the Donbas and Russia becoming more aggressive. I don't think that you can blame any of that on, on NATO expansion. There's no NATO countries that are threatening Russia or invading Russia.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think there is a nuclear threat? Do you think about this, do you worry about this, that there is a threat of a, a tactical nuclear weapon being dropped?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I think that possibility exists either way, and I think the responsibility for that is on Russia because it's, it, it can't, it just can't be the case that if you have nukes, you're allowed to invade countries and take their land. Because if anything, I think that that down the road also increased, increases the potential for nuclear problems in the future, right? Because at that point, either every single country has to acquire their own nuclear weapons 'cause if you don't, Russia's gonna mess with you, or every single country has to join NATO, and now what? We're back at square zero, ground zero, square one where people are like, "Oh, well, look. All these countries joining NATO is aggressive towards Russia." Like, what are you gonna do?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, you've mentioned that, um, there's a complicated calculus going on with the countries that have, uh, that have nuclear weapons.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And what's our responsibility? Are you allowed to do anything you want to countries that don't have nuclear weapons? That's a really tricky discussion.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
For sure.
- LFLex Fridman
Because what is US supposed to do if Russia drops a tactical nuclear weapon? There's a set of options.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
None of which are good.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And it's such a tricky moment right now because, uh, the things that Biden and other public figures say I feel like has a significant impact on the way this game turns out 'cause I think mutually assured destruction is partially a game of words.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Like, I, well, I mean, I believe in the power of conversation, of leaders talking to each other. I feel like you have to have an, a balance between threat and compromise and, like-... empathy for the needs, the geopolitical, the economic needs of a nation, um, but also sort of respect and represent your own interests.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
So, it's, it's a tricky one. Like, how do you play the, how do you play the hand?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
It reminds me of, um, I don't know if you've ever heard in, like, evolutionary psych or evolutionary biology, there are things called tit-for-tat strategies. It kind of reminds me of that, where it's like if, like, uh, there- there are a whole bunch of these little biological mechanisms where creatures will develop, like, socializing, like tit-for-tat. If you do something bad to me, I'm gonna do something bad for you, and then more complicated schemes will come out where it'll be like tit, tit-for-tat, or it's like you can make one mistake and then I'm gonna get you if you do a second one, or it could be tit, tit, tit-for-tat, or there could be tit-for-tat, tat-for... There's, like, all these, like, back and forths where creatures kind of optimize themselves and, um... Yeah, I think something the United States did really well in terms of that kind of conversational strategy, and I approved of this in the beginning, was Biden was very clear about setting out, like, the exact level of US involvement for the war. We're not gonna do a no-fly zone, there's not gonna be US troops on the ground in Ukraine, but we are gonna send a whole bunch of money and a whole bunch of arms and a whole bunch of intel to them. And I thought he did a good job at laying out, like, the limitation of the US involvement while opening as much as we could in the ways that we could help. But the, um... Yeah, that looming threat of some sort of tactical nuclear weapon, I think on the table right now is like, it's gonna be the annihilation of, like, Russian sea forces and everything, but, w- you know, what happens if it continues to escalate? I, that's like a world that nobody wants to, (laughs) nobody wants to be in. Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So, we talked about difficult conversations. And again, thank you so much for reviewing the Ye conversation. Let me ask you about Putin.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
Speaking of difficult conversations, so if you sit down, if I sit down with somebody like Vladimir Putin or Volodymyr Zelenskyy, what's the right way to have that conversation?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Oh, man.
- LFLex Fridman
We can talk about that one or we could talk about somebody more well-understood through history, like some, like Stalin or Hitler, somebody like that.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
Maybe that's an easier example to illustrate how to handle extremely difficult conversations.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah, I mean, I can handle really difficult conversations between, like, two people. Um, leaders of countries though, you're, there's so much that you are representing in that conversation. I guess the thing that would be interesting to me would be like, what is Volodymyr Putin's interest? Like, what is the genuine interest that he has in the conflict? 'Cause I think finding out, like, what is your buy-in or what is your, like, what is the driving force keeping you here is probably the most important thing. Um, I think for Zelenskyy, I think it's a, it's quite a bit more simpler 'cause he's, he's on the defense, so it's defending his country and his people. Um, for Putin, I've heard all sorts of things. Uh, you know, Dugin has his writings on, uh, you know, like the East versus the West, the collapse of the West in the face of like all of the liberalism and the weird LGBT stuff that they criticize. You've got the desire to, like, return to this, like, former Soviet Union-esque thing. You've got Putin's quotes that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster, you know, of 20th century. And I guess figuring out, like, what is Putin after? I'm not actually sure. I don't know the answer to that question. I know a lot of people write about it, but yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, there's a lot of answers to that question. There's a lot of answers that he can give to that question, so say I sit down with him for three hours and talk about it. I think this is a really interesting distinction because you do do difficult conversations in the space of ideas.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
But also in your stream you have, I mean, there's a bunch of drama going on. There's, there's... The human psychology is laid out-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- 32:37 – 35:46
Trans athletics
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
- LFLex Fridman
So, on this particular topic of trans issues-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... is that the reason you were banned from Twitch?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
(laughs) I'm not sure. I don't know.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
They just said hate speech, but I don't use, like, slurs or anything. So, it's hard to know exactly.
- LFLex Fridman
So, I think you made the claim that trans women shouldn't compete with cis women in, uh, women's athletics.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
Can you make this case, and can you steel-man the case against it? I think in your community, there's a lot of trans folks who love you, and there's a lot who hate you.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And so if you can walk the tightrope of this conversation to try to steel-man both sides.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
One of the argumentative strategies I say is that, like, anytime you have a conversation, you should be able to argue both sides better than anybody else.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
You know? So, um, for the, for the my side, the genuine belief side, um, it feels like, overwhelmingly, all of the data is showing that trans, we'll say trans women, uh, even after, I think, three years on some sort of, like, HRT or, you know, estrogen, uh, stuff, they're still maintaining these advantages from their male puberty over cisgender women. And if that is the case, if we are gonna draw these distinctions around our sports between women and men, it feels unfair to have a category inside the women's sports that are maintaining advantages that are coming from a male puberty, um, regardless of the amount of time they've spent on, uh, hormone replacement therapy. So, that, that would be my argument on that side.
- LFLex Fridman
So, it's unfair from a performance enhancement aspect. So, the same way we ban performance, performance-enhancing drugs-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... that involve increasing of test- testosterone, in that same way, it would be unfair.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Essentially, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So, what's the case, uh, against?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
The c- yeah. The, so the case in favor of them competing together is that realistically, there's not gonna be a trans sports category. Uh, realistically, trans women aren't gonna be competitive with cis men because they've gone through these huge, uh, you know, like, hormone changes by the medication they're taking. And that when we look at how sports are kind of done anyway, there's a whole bunch of biological differences between people within sports categories that are determining their placement in the professional world. So, for instance, um, somebody like me is probably never gonna go far in the NBA because I'm not tall enough. Uh, I think the average height in the NBA, I want-
- LFLex Fridman
Don't doubt yourself, Steven.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Don't doubt myself, yeah. I want to say it's, like, 6'6" or something. They're huge people. Um, or, you know, you look at, like, Michael Phelps is a classic example of a guy whose torso is, like, so long. His body is built for swimming.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
And I think there are some trans people that will look at that, or somebody advocating for this position, they'll look at that and they'll go, "Okay, realistically, the way that Michael Phelps' body, um, processes lactic acid, the shape, physiologically, of his body is gonna put him in a level of competition that so many men are never gonna reach just because of biology." How is it fair that you can have these biological outliers competing in these categories, but then when we come to, like, sports categories with trans and cis women, you're gonna take trans women and say that they can't compete against cis women? Can't you also just say that they have some level of biological difference there? Like, is it really gonna be that great of a difference than what Michael Phelps has versus the average swimmer, or an NBA player has versus, like, the average-height male?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- 35:46 – 48:29
AI
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think we're gonna get into some tricky ethical territory as we start to be able to, uh, through biology and genetics, modify the human body?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Absolutely.
- LFLex Fridman
It's gonna-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I feel like those things are coming sooner than, uh, we wanted them to. Uh, the, uh ... Oh, man, do the A- have you seen the AI art?
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
That's a-
- LFLex Fridman
Of course. I'm an AI person. (laughs)
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Oh, okay then. Yeah, yeah. That's AI. That's always been like a, "What's gonna happen when, uh, when robots can do art better than humans, LOL?" Like, "Well, we'll see you in 20 years, in 20 years, in 20 years." And now, you have AI art winning competitions. And it's funny because-... robots are essentially-
- LFLex Fridman
There's a robot behind you, by the way.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
A robot behind me. Ro- oh, nice. Um...
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Robots are really good at-
- LFLex Fridman
Careful what you say.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah. Oh, God, I'll be careful. Um, that's not like one of the Chinese ones with a gun on it, right? Oh, okay.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh... (laughs)
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Hopefully not.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, well, we'll see, depending on what you say, yeah.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
(laughs) Okay. Robots are really good at showing the limitations of the human mind in categories that we didn't believe we were limited before. And I think that humans have this idea, intrinsically, that we have like some type of, like, innovative creative drive that is just outside of the bounds of physical understanding.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
And, with a sophisticated enough program, we see that maybe that's not actually true, and that's a really scary thing, philosophically, to deal with, because we feel like we're very special, right? We, we own the planet. We make computers. And the idea that you can start to get these robots that can do things, that it's like, "Okay, you can do math, fine. Okay, you can do calculation base, fine. But you can't do art. That's the human stuff."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
And then when they start to do that, it's like, "Oh, shoot."
- LFLex Fridman
And that terrifies you a little bit? Like, uh, uh, losing... the human species losing control of our dominance-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Um...
- LFLex Fridman
... over this earth?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I don't think it's necessarily losing control of our dominance. I, I mean, I guess like a Skynet thing could come in at some point, but I think it, I think it more, it, it, it brings us to this really fundamental level of like, what does it mean to be human? What is it that we're good at? Um, what should we be doing with technology? We never really ask that question in the Western world. It's always the technology is like normative, in that technology equals good, and more technology equals better. That's been like the default assumption. In fact, if you ask a lot of people, "How do you know if civilization has progressed over the past 100 or 200 years?" They don't say, "We have better relationships. We, um, you know, have, uh, longer marriages, we blah, blah, blah." They'll say, "Technology has improved. We've got crazy phones, we've got crazy computers." And, um, the idea that more technology might be bad has never even crossed somebody's mind, unless it's used for like a really bad thing, so...
- LFLex Fridman
Well, it's interesting. We kind of think, as more and more automation is happening, we're going to get more and more meaning from things like being artists-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... and doing creative pursuits, and here's like, oh shit, if, if the art, if the creative pursuits are also being automated, then what are we gonna gain meaning from? What are-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah.
- 48:29 – 1:08:40
Lowest point in Destiny's life
- LFLex Fridman
let's (laughs) let's return to your low point.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Oh yeah. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, you started playing video games, that was a lucky break.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
You, uh, you did text-based ones, that was a lucky break 'cause you'd gotten to be pretty good at learning. And then you started thinking about going to college and so on. What happened next?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
I mean, I went to like a prep school, so y- you kinda have to go to college after, that's like the point, right? I, I was also a millennial. They, all of us had to go to college, that's always what they told us, so... Um, my life was kind of, uh, it was, it's hard to describe. I didn't really think much of the future. I was just kind of enjoying the day-to-day 'cause everything in my life was pretty weird. Uh, both my parents had moved to Florida by the time I was 16, 17. I was living with my grandma, I was working. I had a girlfriend, moved out, uh, we got a place, did college. Uh, by the time I got into college, I had transitioned from working at McDonald's to I was like, uh, working in a casino restaurant basically. And I was really good at that job. So high level of patience for drunk people and insane people. And I was doing music in school 'cause I've really grown to love music. And my kind of thought processes was, my thought process was, "I can do music as a hobby, I guess, unless I get really good and maybe I can make money with that. But otherwise, I love music. I'm okay going to school for music, getting good at it and then just doing that on the side." And then my main job would kind of be this career I was building at the casino. And basically, the trying to balance personal life plus graveyard shift, six to eight hour weeks at a casino and then a full-time music degree was not possible for me. And eventually, I had to drop school after I think it was like three years. And after I dropped school, to maintain my casino job, um, after a few months, I got fired from my casino job. So I'd essentially just thrown away like the past like three or four years of my life (laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
Why'd you get fired from the casino job? I heard there's a story behind that.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah, there's a story. Basically, I was just really dumb when it came to understanding corporate politics. And I, this is funny 'cause the same attitude kind of followed me into the streaming world. My thought process has kind of always been, um, that like as long as I'm really good at what I do, I should be untouchable. If I'm really good, you can't do anything to me. I don't have to play any dumb games or whatever. And at the casino, I think I was the youngest, it was an originally shift lead then supervisor position at the casino. And when I started to get my own shifts, there were problems that I would run into on graveyard shift because of carryover from the swing shift. I remember one of these problems was underneath the soda machine, they weren't cleaning it properly and fruit flies were showing up. And I, my, the manager came in one morning and she was like, "Uh, hey, what's going on with the machine?" And I told her, I was like, "Listen, I can't do, I can't take everything from swing shift and do everything at grave shift. I can't do this. They need to figure out their stuff better or I need more employees. It's not possible for me."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
And she's like, "Well, did you tell anybody else?" I was like, "Yeah, I complained to the supervisor on the swing shift all the time." And she told me, "If you're not getting the answer that you like, then it's your responsibility to email the next person up." I was like, "Oh, okay. That's interesting." And some months went on and I ran into more problems because on graveyard, here's how... I don't know if it's everywhere, but morning shift is the easiest and that's when you're the most overstaffed because that's when all the VPs are in and that's when all the managers are there and everybody blah, blah, blah. Swing shift is the most challenging. That's where your highest flow of customers is. You're also decently staffed there, but there's a lot of stuff going on. And graveyard, nobody cares at all about you. They don't give you any employees. You might get swamped, you might not. Who cares? Make sure it's clean for day shift. That's the only thing that matters.
- LFLex Fridman
A quick question-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... first as a clarification. So-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... this is a 24 hour-
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
24 hour diner, yeah, inside the casino, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So it's a dine in a casino.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, by the way, I had an amazing moment at a dine in a casino recently. It's a special place. A dine in a casino is a place of magic.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
There's a lot of-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
... I don't know if I'd say magic, but there's a lot of other worldly stuff going on. For sure.
- LFLex Fridman
There's characters, there's... And, uh, the, I had an interaction with a waitress that was the sweetest waitress in the world. And I was just like, I don't know, made me feel less alone in this cruel world of ours.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, so graveyard begins when?
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
For me, my shift was 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM or sometimes I get called in early, so it'd be 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM or-
- LFLex Fridman
So that's, uh, no love for that shift.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
No, especially not trying to do school at the same time. Absolutely not. Um, but yeah, basically long story short, I ran into a problem with my sup- where I didn't have enough employees on my shift. VPs were coming in, in the morning they're saying like, "Hey, the diner's kind of dirty." And I'm like, "You've cut all my employees past 4:00 AM." Like on some nights I'm literally cooking and doing front of house, like all on my own, like I can't do this. And, uh, my manager Pam told me, "Well, you got to figure it out." And so I remembered her advice, so I emailed the VP of food and beverage and I CC'd her and I said, "I'm not getting the help I need in my restaurant." Now, I didn't know at the time that I was basically completely throwing her under the bus because of that email. But I, I, retroactively when I look back on things, or retrospectively, I see that was the moment that I got like marked for deletion. And I didn't really understand it, even though I, I'd heard terminology before, papering somebody out the door. But after that point, I started to get written up for like a lot of little random things, like I'll come... Like, I'd missed one day of work in my three years at the casino and I started to get written up for like showing up like one or two minutes late. I was like, "That's kind of weird." I don't know, that's whatever. Um, or written up for random ways about filing paperwork. And then eventually there came a situation with another employee where they were... It's complicated, it has to do with like call-out stuff, but basically they wanted to come, or they wanted to call out and I told them if they called out, they were gonna get fired because they were at like 10 points, they were at nine points and 10 points is firing blah, blah, blah. Pam told me, uh, "You can tell her that she's gonna get a point, but you can't tell her she's gonna get fired." I don't know what that meant. And then I told her that, "If you call out, you're gonna get, you know, you're fucked. You're gonna get fired, uh, or you're gonna be at 10 points." And then I got called in early, like three days later and Pam was like, uh, "You inappropriately communicated with an employee because you said the F word in a text message." And I'm like, "Really? There's no shot." And she's like, "Well, you also tried to fire the employee." And I was like, "No, I told her she was gonna get 10 points." She's like, "Well, you used the F word." I'm like, "Th- this is insane." And, uh, I didn't... Just 'cause I was such a, such a high performing employee, I was like, "There's no way I'm getting fired."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
And then I did, and I was like, "Yeah." Cashed out my 401k and moped for like three months 'cause I had thrown away school for this casino job. And then I got fired from this job that like, yeah, nobody believed I got fired. It was just insane, yeah.
- 1:08:40 – 1:45:02
Hate speech and language
- S(Steven Bonnell (Destiny)
Episode duration: 4:15:33
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