Steve Hsu - Intelligence, Embryo Selection, & The Future of Humanity

(instrumental music plays) The, the big future AI in the, in the singularity looks back and says, "Hey, who gets the most credit for this genomics revolution that happened in the early 21st century?" That AI's gonna find these papers on the archive in which we prove-

(laughs)

... this was possible.

What advice did Richard Feynman give you about picking up girls?

(laughs) It, it's very funny because most wokest people today hate this stuff, but most progressives, like Margaret Sanger or you know (laughs) well, in some sense, forebearers of today's wokest, in the early 20th century, they were all what we would call today eugenicists.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Steve Hsu. Steve, thanks for coming on the podcast. I'm excited about this.

Hey, it's my pleasure. I'm excited too. And I, I just wanna say, I've, I've listened to some of your earlier interviews and thought you were very insightful, which is why I was really excited to have a conversation with you.

That means a lot for me to hear, uh, hear you say because I'm a big fan of your podcast. My first question is, what advice did Richard Feynman give you about picking up girls?

(laughs) Wow. Um, so one day in the spring of my senior year, I was walking across campus, and I see Feynman coming toward me. And we knew each other from various things. And it's a small campus, (clears throat) and I was a physics major, and he was my hero, so I guess I had known him since probably freshman year. Um, so he sees me, and, uh, you know, he's got this... I don't know if it's Long... I guess it's a Long Island or it's, it's some kind of New York borough accent, and he says, uh, "Hey, Hsu." This is how he says my name. "Hey, Hsu." And I'm like, "Hi, Professor Feynman." And, uh, so we start talking. And he says to me, um, "Wow, you're kind of a big guy." And I was a lot bigger then 'cause I played on the... I was a linebacker on the Caltech football team, so I was about almost 200 pounds. Uh, I'm a little... just over six feet tall. And, um, so I was pretty, like, a gym rat at that time. And so he's like... I was much bigger than him obviously. He's like, "Wow, you're a big guy, Steve. Uh, I gotta ask you something." And Feynman was born in, like, 1918, so he, he's not really, like, from the modern era. Like, he was, he was, uh... I guess he was going through graduate school when, uh, the Second World War started. And so, to him, the whole concept of a health club, a gym, was like totally... you know, he couldn't understand it. And, um, that was the era... This was the '80s, so that was the era when Gold's Gym was, like, becoming a world w- a national franchise, and so there were gyms all over the place, 24 Hour Fitness and stuff like this. So he didn't know what it was, and he's a very interesting guy. So he, he... his suspicion... He says to me, "What do you guys do there? Is that... Is it just a thing to meet chicks, to meet girls, or do you guys actually tr-... is it really for training? Do you guys really go there to get buff, uh, to get big?" You know, and, and so I started explaining to him. I said, "Yes, uh, you know, people are there to get big, but people are all- also checking out the girls, and there is a lot of stuff happening, (laughs) you know, at the, at the health club or in the weight room." And so, you know, he grills me on this for a long time. And one of the famous things about Feynman is that he, he has this laser-like focus so if there's something he really doesn't understand and he wants to get to the bottom of it, he will just focus in on you and just start questioning you and get to the bottom of it. That's the way his brain works. So he did that to me (laughs) for, like, I don't know how long. We were talking about lifting weights and, uh, everything 'cause he didn't know anything about it. And, um, at the end, he says to me, "Wow, Steve, I really appreciate that, you know. Uh, let me, you know, l- let me, let me give you some good advice." And, um, so then he starts telling me, uh, about how to pick up girls and... which I guess he... you know, he's a (laughs) kind of an expert on.