Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning #313

Transcript

00:00:00 Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster.

00:00:03 And if you gaze into the abyss,

00:00:05 the abyss gazes also into you.

00:00:08 But I would say, bring it on.

00:00:13 If you gaze into the abyss long enough,

00:00:15 you see the light, not the darkness.

00:00:18 Are you sure about that?

00:00:20 I’m betting my life on it.

00:00:24 The following is a conversation with Jordan Peterson,

00:00:27 an influential psychologist, lecturer, podcast host,

00:00:30 and author of Maps of Meaning, 12 Rules for Life,

00:00:34 and Beyond Order.

00:00:37 This is the Lex Readman podcast.

00:00:39 To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:00:41 in the description.

00:00:43 And now, dear friends, here’s Jordan Peterson.

00:00:48 Dostoevsky wrote in The Idiot,

00:00:50 spoken through the character of Prince Mishkin,

00:00:52 that beauty will save the world.

00:00:55 Solzhenitsyn actually mentioned this in his Nobel Prize

00:00:58 acceptance speech.

00:01:00 What do you think Dostoevsky meant by that?

00:01:02 Was he right?

00:01:04 Well, I guess it’s the divine that saves the world,

00:01:10 let’s say, you could say that by definition.

00:01:13 And then you might say, well, are there pointers

00:01:16 to that which will save the world,

00:01:18 or that which eternally saves the world?

00:01:20 And the answer to that, in all likelihood, is yes.

00:01:23 And that’s maybe truth, and love, and justice,

00:01:27 and the classical virtues, beauty, perhaps,

00:01:31 in some sense, foremost among them.

00:01:34 That’s a difficult case to make, but definitely a pointer.

00:01:37 Which direction is the arrow pointing?

00:01:39 Well, the arrow’s pointing up.

00:01:40 No, I think that that which it points to

00:01:43 is what beauty points to.

00:01:45 It transcends beauty.

00:01:46 It’s more than beauty.

00:01:47 And that speaks to the divine.

00:01:49 It points to the divine.

00:01:51 Yeah, and I would say, again, by definition,

00:01:53 because we could define the divine in some real sense.

00:01:56 So one way of defining the divine is,

00:01:59 what is divine to you is your most fundamental axiom.

00:02:03 And you might say, well, I don’t have a fundamental axiom.

00:02:06 And I would say, that’s fine,

00:02:07 but then you’re just confused,

00:02:09 because you have a bunch of contradictory axioms.

00:02:11 And you might say, well, I have no axioms at all.

00:02:14 And then I’d say, well, you’re just epistemologically

00:02:16 ignorant beyond comprehension, if you think that,

00:02:19 because that’s just not true at all.

00:02:20 So you don’t think a human being can exist

00:02:22 within contradictions?

00:02:24 Well, yeah, we have to exist within contradiction.

00:02:26 But when the contradictions make themselves manifest,

00:02:29 say in confusion with regard to direction,

00:02:33 then the consequence of that technically is anxiety,

00:02:37 and frustration, and disappointment,

00:02:39 and all sorts of other negative emotions.

00:02:41 But the cardinal negative emotion,

00:02:43 signifying multiple pathways forward, is anxiety.

00:02:48 It’s an entropy signal.

00:02:51 But you don’t think that kind of entropy signal

00:02:53 can be channeled into beauty, into love?

00:02:58 Why does beauty and love have to be clear, ordered, simple?

00:03:04 Well, I would say it probably doesn’t have to be,

00:03:09 it can’t be reduced to clarity and simplicity.

00:03:13 Because when it’s optimally structured,

00:03:15 it’s a balance between order and chaos, not order itself.

00:03:20 If it’s too ordered, if music is too ordered,

00:03:23 it’s not acceptable.

00:03:25 It sounds like a drum machine, it’s too repetitive,

00:03:27 it’s too predictable.

00:03:29 It has to have, well, it has to have some fire in it,

00:03:34 along with the structure.

00:03:36 I was in Miami doing a seminar on Exodus

00:03:40 with a number of scholars, and this is a beauty discussion.

00:03:45 When Moses first encounters the burning bush,

00:03:48 it’s not a conflagration that demands attention,

00:03:52 it’s something that catches his attention.

00:03:55 It’s a phenomena, and that means to shine forth.

00:03:57 And Moses has to stop and attend to it, and he does.

00:04:01 And he sees this fire that doesn’t consume the tree.

00:04:05 And the tree, the tree is a structure, right?

00:04:07 It’s a tree like structure, it’s a branching structure,

00:04:10 it’s a hierarchical structure.

00:04:12 It’s a self similar structure, it’s a fractal structure.

00:04:15 And it’s the tree of life,

00:04:17 and it’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

00:04:19 And the fire in it is the transformation

00:04:23 that’s always occurring within every structure.

00:04:25 And the fact that the fire doesn’t consume the bush

00:04:28 in that representation is an indication

00:04:32 of the balance of transformation with structure.

00:04:34 And that balance is presented as God,

00:04:37 and what attracts Moses to it in some sense is the beauty.

00:04:42 Now it’s the novelty and all that,

00:04:43 but like a painting is like a burning bush,

00:04:46 that’s a good way of thinking about it, a great painting.

00:04:48 It’s too much for people often.

00:04:51 My house was, and will soon be again,

00:04:55 completely covered with paintings inside.

00:04:58 And it was hard on people to come in there

00:05:01 because, well, my mother, for example, say,

00:05:04 well, why would you wanna live in a museum?

00:05:07 And I’d think, well, I would rather live in a museum

00:05:09 than anywhere else in some real sense,

00:05:10 but beauty is daunting, it scares people.

00:05:15 They’re terrified of buying art, for example,

00:05:17 because their taste is on display,

00:05:18 and they should be terrified

00:05:19 because generally people have terrible taste.

00:05:22 Now, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t foster it

00:05:24 and develop it, but, and you know,

00:05:26 when you put your taste on display,

00:05:28 it really exposes you.

00:05:30 Even to yourself as you walk past it every day.

00:05:34 Absolutely. This is who I am.

00:05:36 Yeah, well, and look how mundane that is,

00:05:38 and look how trite it is, and look at how cliched it is,

00:05:41 and look at how sterile or too ordered it is, or too chaotic.

00:05:45 Or how quickly you start to take it for granted

00:05:47 because you’ve seen it so many times.

00:05:48 Well, if it’s a real piece of art, that doesn’t happen.

00:05:51 You notice the little details.

00:05:53 The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

00:05:55 I mean, there are images, religious images in particular,

00:05:59 so we could call them deep images,

00:06:02 that people have been unpacking for 4,000 years

00:06:07 and still haven’t, I’ll give you an example.

00:06:09 This is a terrible example.

00:06:12 So, I did a lecture series on Genesis,

00:06:15 and I got a lot of it unpacked, but by no means all of it.

00:06:21 When God kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden,

00:06:25 he puts cherubim with flaming swords at the gate

00:06:28 to stop human beings from reentering paradise.

00:06:31 I thought, what the hell does that mean, cherubim,

00:06:34 and why do they have flaming swords?

00:06:35 I don’t get that. What is that exactly?

00:06:38 And then I found out from Matthew Pagel,

00:06:41 who wrote a great book on symbolism in Genesis,

00:06:44 that cherubim are the supporting monsters of God.

00:06:48 It’s a very complicated idea,

00:06:50 and that they are partly a representation of that

00:06:53 which is difficult to fit into conceptual systems.

00:06:57 They’ve also got an angelic or demonic aspect.

00:07:00 Take your pick.

00:07:02 Why do they have flaming swords?

00:07:04 Well, a sword is a symbol of judgment and the separation

00:07:11 of the wheat from the chaff.

00:07:13 You use a sword to cut away, to cut away, and to carve.

00:07:18 And a flaming sword is not only that which carves,

00:07:21 it’s that which burns.

00:07:23 And what does it carve away and burn?

00:07:25 Well, you want to get into paradise?

00:07:28 It carves away everything about you that isn’t perfect.

00:07:32 And so what does that mean?

00:07:34 Okay, well, here’s part of what it means.

00:07:35 This is a terrible thing.

00:07:37 So you could say that the entire Christian narrative

00:07:41 is embedded in that image.

00:07:43 Why?

00:07:45 Well, let’s say that flaming swords are a symbol of death.

00:07:48 That seems pretty obvious.

00:07:50 Let’s say further that they’re a symbol of apocalypse and hell.

00:07:56 That doesn’t seem completely unreasonable.

00:07:59 So here’s an idea.

00:08:02 Not only do you have to face death,

00:08:04 you have to face death and hell before you can get to paradise.

00:08:09 Hellish judgment and all that’s embedded in that image.

00:08:13 And a piece of art with an image like that

00:08:16 has all that information in it.

00:08:18 And it shines forth in some fundamental sense.

00:08:22 It reaches into the back tendrils of your mind

00:08:25 at levels you can’t even comprehend and grips you.

00:08:29 I mean, that’s why people go to museums and gaze at paintings

00:08:32 they don’t understand.

00:08:33 And that’s why they’ll pay what’s the most expensive objects

00:08:36 in the world.

00:08:37 If it’s not carbon fiber racing yachts,

00:08:39 it’s definitely classic paintings.

00:08:42 It’s high level technological implements or it’s classic art.

00:08:47 Well, why are those things so expensive?

00:08:48 Why do we build temples to house the images?

00:08:51 Even secular people go to museums.

00:08:54 I’m secular.

00:08:55 Well, are you in a museum?

00:08:56 Yes.

00:08:57 Are you looking at art?

00:08:58 Yes.

00:08:59 Well, what makes you think you’re secular then?

00:09:03 It’s arguable that the thing many, many centuries from now

00:09:07 that will remain of all of human civilization will be our art.

00:09:11 Not even the words.

00:09:12 Well, a book has remained a very long time, right?

00:09:16 The biblical writings have.

00:09:17 Not that long.

00:09:18 A few millennia.

00:09:19 That’s right.

00:09:21 But that’s in the full arc of living organisms,

00:09:24 perhaps will not be.

00:09:25 Well, we have images that are, we

00:09:27 have artistic images that are at least 50,000 years old,

00:09:30 right, that have survived.

00:09:32 And some of those are, they’re already

00:09:35 profound in their symbolism.

00:09:36 By we, do you mean humans?

00:09:38 Yeah, we found them.

00:09:39 And they’ve lasted, they’ve lasted that long.

00:09:44 And so, and then think about Europe.

00:09:48 Secular people all over the world

00:09:49 make pilgrimages to Europe.

00:09:51 Well, why?

00:09:53 Because of the beauty.

00:09:55 Obviously, I mean, that’s self evident.

00:09:58 And it’s partly because there are things

00:10:00 in Europe that are so beautiful.

00:10:02 They take your breath away, right?

00:10:03 They make your hair stand on end.

00:10:04 They fill you with a sense of awe.

00:10:07 And we need to see those things.

00:10:10 It’s not optional.

00:10:11 We need to see those things.

00:10:13 The cathedrals.

00:10:13 I was in a cathedral in Vienna, and it was terribly beautiful.

00:10:17 Terribly beautiful.

00:10:18 Well, it was terribly beautiful.

00:10:20 Is beauty painful for you?

00:10:21 Is that the highest form of beauty?

00:10:24 It really challenges you?

00:10:25 Oh, definitely.

00:10:27 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:27 I got a good analysis of the statue of David.

00:10:29 Michelangelo says, you could be far more than you are.

00:10:33 That’s what that statue says.

00:10:35 And this cathedral, we went down into the under structure of it.

00:10:41 And there were three floors of bones from the plague.

00:10:46 And there they all are.

00:10:47 And then that cathedral is on top of it.

00:10:50 It’s no joke to go visit a place like that.

00:10:53 No, it rattles you to the core.

00:10:56 And our religious systems have become propositionally dubious.

00:11:03 But there’s no arguing with the architecture,

00:11:05 although modern architects like to,

00:11:07 with their sterility and their giant middle fingers erected

00:11:10 everywhere.

00:11:12 But beauty is a terrible pointer to God.

00:11:16 And a secular person will say, well, I don’t believe in God.

00:11:19 It’s like, have it your way.

00:11:22 You got it.

00:11:23 You cannot move forward into the unforeseen horizon

00:11:26 of the future except on faith.

00:11:29 And you might say, well, I have no faith.

00:11:31 It’s like, well, good luck with the future then.

00:11:33 Because what are you then, nihilistic and hopeless

00:11:36 and anxiety ridden?

00:11:38 And if not, well, something’s guiding you forward.

00:11:40 It’s faith in something or multiple things,

00:11:43 which just makes you a polytheist,

00:11:45 which I wouldn’t recommend.

00:11:48 Well, let me ask you one short lived biological meat

00:11:52 bag to another.

00:11:54 Who is God then?

00:11:58 Let’s try to sneak up to this question

00:12:00 if it’s at all possible.

00:12:01 Is it possible to even talk about this?

00:12:04 Well, it better be.

00:12:05 Because otherwise, there’s no communicating about it.

00:12:08 It has to be something that can be brought down to Earth.

00:12:12 Well, we might be too dumb to bring it down.

00:12:14 It’s not just ignorant.

00:12:16 It’s also sinful because there’s not knowing.

00:12:20 And then there’s wanting to know or refusing to know.

00:12:24 And so you might say, well, could you

00:12:26 extract God from a description of the objective world?

00:12:30 Is God just the ultimate unity of the natural reality?

00:12:36 And I would say, well, in a sense,

00:12:39 there’s some truth in that, but not exactly.

00:12:41 Because God in the highest sense is the spirit

00:12:45 that you must emulate in order to thrive.

00:12:49 How’s that for a biological definition?

00:12:51 Spirit is a pattern, the spirit that you must

00:12:54 emulate in order to thrive.

00:12:56 So it’s a kind of, in one sense, when we say the human spirit,

00:13:01 it’s that.

00:13:02 It’s an animating principle.

00:13:04 Yeah, it’s a meta.

00:13:05 It’s a pattern.

00:13:06 And you might say, well, what’s the pattern?

00:13:08 Well, I can tell you that to some degree.

00:13:11 Imagine that like your grip by beauty,

00:13:14 you’re gripped by admiration.

00:13:17 And you can just notice this.

00:13:19 This isn’t propositional.

00:13:20 You have to notice it.

00:13:21 It’s like, oh, turns out I admire that person.

00:13:26 So what does that mean?

00:13:28 Well, it means I would like to be like him or her.

00:13:31 That’s what admiration means.

00:13:32 It means there’s something about the way

00:13:35 they are that compels imitation, another instinct,

00:13:40 or inspires respect or awe even.

00:13:44 What is that that grips you?

00:13:46 Well, I don’t know.

00:13:49 Well, let’s say, OK, fine.

00:13:51 But it grips you.

00:13:52 And you want to be like that.

00:13:53 Kids hero worship, for example.

00:13:55 So do adults, for that matter, unless they

00:13:56 become entirely cynical.

00:13:58 I worship quite a few heroes.

00:14:00 Well, there you go.

00:14:01 Yes, well, there you go.

00:14:03 And there’s no, that worship, that celebration and proclivity

00:14:07 to imitate is worship.

00:14:08 That’s what worship means most fundamentally.

00:14:11 Now, imagine you took the set of all admirable people

00:14:16 and you extracted out AI learning.

00:14:18 You extracted out the central features

00:14:20 of what constitutes admirable.

00:14:23 And then you did that repeatedly until you purified it

00:14:25 to what was most admirable.

00:14:29 That’s as good as you’re going to get in terms

00:14:33 of a representation of God.

00:14:35 And you might say, well, I don’t believe in that.

00:14:37 It’s like, well, what do you mean?

00:14:40 It’s not a set of propositional facts.

00:14:43 It’s not a scientific theory about the structure

00:14:46 of the objective world.

00:14:47 And then I could say something about that, too,

00:14:49 because I’ve been thinking about this a lot,

00:14:50 especially since talking to Richard Dawkins.

00:14:53 It’s like, OK, the postmodernist types,

00:14:57 going back way before Derrida and Foucault,

00:14:59 maybe back to Nietzsche, who I admire greatly, by the way.

00:15:04 He says, God is dead.

00:15:06 It’s like, OK.

00:15:07 But Nietzsche said, God is dead, and we have killed him,

00:15:10 and we’ll not find enough water to wash away all the blood.

00:15:12 So that was Nietzsche.

00:15:14 He’s no fool.

00:15:15 He’s got away with words.

00:15:16 He certainly does.

00:15:17 And so then you think, OK, well, we killed the transcendent.

00:15:22 Well, what does that mean for science?

00:15:24 Well, it frees it up, because all that nonsense about a deity

00:15:28 is just the idiot superstition that

00:15:30 stops the scientific process from moving forward.

00:15:35 That’s basically the new atheist claim, something like that.

00:15:38 It’s like, wait a second.

00:15:40 Do you believe in the transcendent

00:15:42 if you’re a scientist?

00:15:44 And the answer is, well, not only do you believe in it,

00:15:47 you believe in it more than anything else.

00:15:49 Because if you’re a scientist, you

00:15:51 believe in what objects to your theory

00:15:56 more than you believe in your theory.

00:15:58 Now, we’ve got to think that through very carefully.

00:16:00 So your theory describes the world.

00:16:01 And as far as you’re concerned, your description of the world

00:16:05 is the world.

00:16:07 But because you’re a scientist, you think, well,

00:16:09 even though that’s my description of the world

00:16:11 and that’s what I believe, there’s

00:16:14 something beyond what I believe.

00:16:17 And that’s the object.

00:16:18 And so I’m going to throw my theory against the object

00:16:20 and see where it’ll break.

00:16:21 And then I’m going to use the evidence of the break

00:16:25 as a source of new information to revitalize my theory.

00:16:28 So as a scientist, you have to posit

00:16:30 the existence of the ontological transcendent

00:16:33 before you can move forward at all.

00:16:36 But more, you have to posit that contact

00:16:40 with the ontological transcendent,

00:16:43 annoying though it is because it upsets your apple cart,

00:16:46 is exactly what will, in fact, set you free.

00:16:49 So then you accept the proposition

00:16:51 that there is a transcendent reality

00:16:54 and that contact with that transcendent reality

00:16:58 is redemptive in the most fundamental sense.

00:17:00 Because if it wasn’t, well, why would you

00:17:02 bother making contact with it?

00:17:03 Is it going to make everything worse or better?

00:17:06 Why does the contact with the transcendent

00:17:10 set you free as a scientist?

00:17:11 Because you assume that, you assume,

00:17:13 I mean, freedom in the most fundamental sense.

00:17:15 It’s like, well, freedom from want,

00:17:17 freedom from disease, freedom from ignorance, right?

00:17:21 That it informs you.

00:17:22 So it’s the lie of science.

00:17:24 It is definitely that.

00:17:27 Yeah, it’s the direction, let’s say,

00:17:30 the directionality of science.

00:17:31 That’s a narrative direction, not a scientific direction.

00:17:34 And then the question is, what is the narrative?

00:17:36 Well, it posits a transcendent reality.

00:17:38 It posits that the transcendent reality is corrective.

00:17:41 It posits that our knowledge structures

00:17:43 should be regarded with humility.

00:17:46 It posits that you should bow down

00:17:48 in the face of the transcendent evidence.

00:17:51 And you have to take a vow.

00:17:53 You know this as a scientist.

00:17:54 You have to take a vow to follow that path if you’re

00:17:56 going to be a real scientist.

00:17:57 Like, the truth, no matter what, and that

00:18:01 means you posit the truth as a redemptive force.

00:18:05 Well, what does redemptive mean?

00:18:06 Well, why bother with science?

00:18:07 Well, so people don’t starve.

00:18:09 So people can move about more effectively.

00:18:11 So life can be more abundant, right?

00:18:12 So it’s all ensconced within an underlying ethic.

00:18:16 So the reason I was saying that while we were talking

00:18:19 about belief in God, it’s like, this

00:18:21 is a very complicated topic, right?

00:18:23 Do you believe in a transcendent reality?

00:18:25 See, OK, now let’s say you buy the argument I just

00:18:28 made on the natural front.

00:18:30 You say, yeah, yeah, that’s just nature.

00:18:33 That’s not God.

00:18:35 And then I’d say, well, what makes you think

00:18:37 you know what nature is?

00:18:39 Like, see, the problem with that argument

00:18:41 is that it already presumes a materialist,

00:18:45 a reductionist, materialist, objective view

00:18:48 of what constitutes nature.

00:18:50 But if you’re a scientist, you’re going to think,

00:18:52 well, in the final analysis, I don’t know what nature is.

00:18:54 I certainly don’t know its origin or destination point.

00:18:58 I don’t know its teleology.

00:19:00 I’m really ignorant about nature.

00:19:02 And so when I say it’s nothing but nature,

00:19:05 I shouldn’t mean it’s nothing but what

00:19:07 I understand nature to be.

00:19:10 So I could say, will we have a fully reductionist account

00:19:13 of cognitive processes?

00:19:16 And the answer to that is yes.

00:19:17 But by the time we do that, our understanding of matter

00:19:20 will have transformed so much that what

00:19:22 we think of as reductionists now won’t look anything like what

00:19:25 we think of reductionism now.

00:19:27 Matter isn’t dead dust.

00:19:30 I don’t know what it is.

00:19:32 I have no idea what it is.

00:19:34 Matter is what matters.

00:19:35 There is a definition.

00:19:37 That’s a very weird definition.

00:19:39 But the notion that we have, you know,

00:19:42 that if you’re a reductionist, a materialist reductionist,

00:19:44 that you can reduce the complexity of what

00:19:47 is to your assumptions about the nature of matter,

00:19:51 that’s not a scientific proposition.

00:19:53 Your specific limited human assumptions of this century,

00:19:56 of this week, that so in some sense,

00:20:01 without God in this complicated big definition

00:20:06 we’re talking about, there’s no humility.

00:20:10 Or it’s less likely to be, or rather science

00:20:16 can err in taking a trajectory away from humility.

00:20:20 Well.

00:20:21 Without something much more powerful

00:20:23 than an individual human.

00:20:26 Yeah, well then and we know, you know,

00:20:27 the Frankenstein story comes out of that instantly.

00:20:30 And that’s a good story for the current times.

00:20:33 It’s like you’re playing around with making new life.

00:20:38 You bloody well better make sure you have your arrows pointed up.

00:20:43 And it’s interesting because you said science has an ethic to it.

00:20:49 I think it’s embedded in an ethic.

00:20:51 Well, there’s a, you know, science is a big word.

00:20:55 And it includes a lot of disciplines

00:20:57 that have different traditions.

00:20:58 So biology, chemistry, genetics, physics,

00:21:04 those are very different communities.

00:21:06 And I think biology, especially when

00:21:09 you get closer and closer to medicine and to the human body,

00:21:12 does have a very serious, first of all,

00:21:14 has a history with Nazi Germany of being abused

00:21:16 and all those kinds of things.

00:21:18 But it has a history of taking this stuff seriously.

00:21:21 What doesn’t have a history of taking this stuff seriously

00:21:23 is robotics and artificial intelligence,

00:21:25 which is really interesting.

00:21:27 Because you don’t, you know, you called me a scientist.

00:21:32 And I would like to wear that label proudly,

00:21:34 but often people don’t think of computer science as a science.

00:21:38 But nevertheless, it will be, I think,

00:21:41 the science of one of the major scientific fields

00:21:44 of the 21st century.

00:21:46 And you should take that very seriously.

00:21:48 Oftentimes when people build robots or AI systems,

00:21:52 they think of them as toys to tinker with.

00:21:57 Oh, isn’t this cool?

00:21:59 And I feel this too.

00:22:00 Isn’t this cool?

00:22:01 It is cool.

00:22:02 But, you know, at a certain moment you might,

00:22:05 isn’t this nuclear explosion cool?

00:22:09 Because it is.

00:22:10 Or birth control pill cool.

00:22:12 It’s like, or transistor cool.

00:22:14 Yeah.

00:22:15 Well, the other thing too, and this is a weird problem

00:22:19 in some sense, the robotics engineer types,

00:22:22 they’re thing people, right?

00:22:23 I mean, the big classes of interest

00:22:25 are interest in things versus interest in people.

00:22:28 Some of my best friends are thing people.

00:22:30 Yeah, right.

00:22:31 And thing people are very, very clear, logical thinkers.

00:22:36 And they’re very outcome oriented and practical.

00:22:41 Now, and that’s all good.

00:22:43 That makes the machinery and keeps it functioning.

00:22:45 But there’s a human side of the equation.

00:22:49 And you get the extreme thing people,

00:22:52 and you think, yeah, well, what about the human here?

00:22:55 And when we’re talking about, we’ve

00:22:58 been talking about the necessity of having

00:23:00 a technological enterprise embedded in an ethic.

00:23:03 And you can ignore that, like most of the time, right?

00:23:06 You can ignore the overall ethic in some sense

00:23:09 when you’re toying around with your toys.

00:23:11 But when you’re building an artificial intelligence,

00:23:14 it’s like, well, that’s not a toy.

00:23:19 That might be.

00:23:20 Toy becomes the monster very quickly.

00:23:22 Yeah, yes, yes.

00:23:23 And this is a whole new kind of monster.

00:23:26 And maybe it’s already here.

00:23:33 Yes, and you notice how many of those things

00:23:35 you can no longer turn off.

00:23:38 And what is it with you engineers and your inability

00:23:41 to put off switches on things now?

00:23:44 It’s like, I have to hold this for five seconds for it

00:23:47 to shut off.

00:23:48 Or I can’t figure it.

00:23:48 I just want to shut it off.

00:23:50 Click, off.

00:23:51 Well, what is it with you humans that

00:23:53 don’t put off switches on other humans?

00:23:56 Because there’s a magic to the thing that you notice.

00:23:59 And it hurts for both you and perhaps one day the thing

00:24:03 itself to turn it off.

00:24:05 And so you have to be very careful as an engineer

00:24:08 adding off switches to things.

00:24:11 I think it’s a feature, not a bug, the off switch.

00:24:14 The off switch gives a deadline to us humans,

00:24:17 to systems of existence.

00:24:19 It makes you, you know, death is the thing that really

00:24:23 brings clarity to life.

00:24:25 And I do think.

00:24:27 Hence the flaming swords.

00:24:28 The flaming sword.

00:24:29 I do like your view of the flame, the bush,

00:24:33 and perhaps the sword as a thing of transformation.

00:24:36 It’s also a transformation that kind of consumes

00:24:40 the thing in the process.

00:24:41 Well, it depends on how much of the thing is chaff.

00:24:44 You know, this is why you can’t touch the Ark of the Covenant,

00:24:47 for example.

00:24:48 And this is why people can have very bad psychedelic trips.

00:24:52 It’s like if you’re 95% dead wood

00:24:54 and you get too close to the flame,

00:24:57 the 5% that’s left might not be able to make it.

00:25:03 So you think it’s all chaff.

00:25:04 But I think there is some aspect of destruction

00:25:06 that is the old Bukowski line of do what you love

00:25:12 and let it kill you.

00:25:13 Don’t you think that destruction is part of?

00:25:16 That’s humility.

00:25:18 That’s humility.

00:25:19 You bet.

00:25:19 You bet.

00:25:20 You bet.

00:25:20 It’s like invite in the judgment.

00:25:23 Invite in the judgment because maybe you

00:25:24 can die a little bit instead of dying completely.

00:25:27 I think it’s Alfred North Whitehead.

00:25:30 We can let our ideas die instead of us.

00:25:33 We can have these partial personalities

00:25:35 that we can burn off.

00:25:37 And we can let them go before they become tyrannical pharaohs

00:25:41 and we lose everything.

00:25:43 And so, yeah, there’s this optimal bite of death.

00:25:46 And who knows what it would mean to optimize that?

00:25:49 Like what if it was possible that if you died enough

00:25:52 all the time that you could continue to live?

00:25:56 And the thing is we already know that biologically

00:25:58 because if you don’t die properly all the time,

00:26:02 well, it’s cancerous outgrowths and it’s

00:26:05 a very fine balance between productivity

00:26:09 on the biological front and the culling of that, right?

00:26:14 Life is a real balance between growth and death.

00:26:17 And so what would happen if you got that balance right?

00:26:20 Well, we kind of know, right?

00:26:21 Because if you live your life properly, so to speak,

00:26:26 and you’re humble enough to let your stupidity die

00:26:28 before it takes you out, you will live longer.

00:26:32 That’s just a fact.

00:26:34 Well, but then what’s the ultimate extension of that?

00:26:37 And the answer is we don’t know.

00:26:38 We have no idea.

00:26:40 Well, let me ask you a difficult question because.

00:26:42 As opposed to the easy ones that you’ve been asking so far.

00:26:45 Well, Dostoevsky is always just a warm up.

00:26:50 So if death every single day is the way

00:26:54 to progress through life, you have become quite famous.

00:26:58 Death and hell.

00:27:00 Death and hell.

00:27:00 Yeah, yeah.

00:27:01 Because you don’t want to forget the hell part.

00:27:04 Do you worry that your fame traps you into the person

00:27:10 that you were before?

00:27:12 Yeah, well, Elvis became an Elvis impersonator

00:27:15 by the time he died.

00:27:16 Yeah, do you fear that you have become a Jordan Peterson

00:27:19 impersonator?

00:27:20 Do you fear of, in some part, becoming the famous suit

00:27:25 wearing brilliant Jordan Peterson, the certainty in the pursuit

00:27:31 of truth, always right?

00:27:34 I think I worry about it more than anything else.

00:27:36 I hope.

00:27:38 I hope I do.

00:27:39 I better.

00:27:39 Has fame, to some degree, when you look at yourself

00:27:43 in the mirror, in the quiet of your mind, has it corrupted you?

00:27:47 No doubt, in some regard.

00:27:50 I mean, it’s a very difficult thing

00:27:51 to avoid because things change around you.

00:27:57 People are much more likely to do what you ask, for example.

00:28:01 And so that’s a danger because one

00:28:03 of the things that keeps you dying properly

00:28:05 is that people push back against you optimally.

00:28:08 This is why so many celebrities spiral out of control,

00:28:11 especially the tyrannical types that, say, run countries.

00:28:15 Everyone around them stops saying,

00:28:17 yeah, you’re deviating a little bit there.

00:28:20 They laugh at all their jokes.

00:28:21 They open all their doors.

00:28:22 They always want something from them.

00:28:25 The red carpet’s always rolled out.

00:28:27 It’s like, well, you think, wouldn’t that be lovely?

00:28:29 It’s, well, not if the red carpet is rolled out to you

00:28:34 while you’re on your way to perdition.

00:28:36 That’s not a good deal.

00:28:37 You just get there more efficiently.

00:28:40 And so one of the things that I’ve tried to learn to manage

00:28:43 is to have people around me all the time who are critics, who

00:28:48 are saying, yeah, I could have done that better.

00:28:50 And you’re a little too harsh there.

00:28:52 And you’re alienating people unnecessarily there.

00:28:55 And you should have done some more background work there.

00:28:58 And I think the responsibility attendant upon that

00:29:02 increases as your influence increases.

00:29:04 And as your influence increases, then that

00:29:08 becomes a lot of responsibility.

00:29:12 So and then maybe have an off day.

00:29:14 And well, here’s an example.

00:29:17 I’ve been writing some columns lately

00:29:19 about things that perturb me, like the forthcoming famine,

00:29:24 for example.

00:29:25 And it’s hard to take those problems on.

00:29:30 It’s difficult to take those problems on in a serious

00:29:34 manner, and it’s frightening.

00:29:35 And it would be easier just to go up to the cottage

00:29:37 with my wife and go out on the lake and watch the sunset.

00:29:40 And so I’m tempted to draw on anger as a motivating energy

00:29:48 to help me overcome the resistance to doing this.

00:29:52 But then that makes me more harsh and judgmental

00:29:54 in my tone when I’m reading such things, for example,

00:29:57 on YouTube than might be optimal.

00:30:00 Now, I’ve had debates with people about that

00:30:03 because I have friends who say, no,

00:30:05 if you’re calling out the environmentalists, globalists

00:30:10 who are harassing the Dutch farmers,

00:30:12 then a little anger is just the ticket.

00:30:15 But then others say, well, you don’t want to be too harsh

00:30:18 because you alienate people who would otherwise listen to you.

00:30:22 It’s like, that’s a hard balance to get right.

00:30:24 But also maybe anger hardens your mind

00:30:28 to where you don’t notice the subtle quiet beauty

00:30:31 of the world, the quiet love that’s always there

00:30:34 that permeates everything.

00:30:36 Sometimes you can become deeply cynical about the world

00:30:38 if it’s the Nietzsche thing.

00:30:41 Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster.

00:30:45 And if you gaze into the abyss,

00:30:47 the abyss gazes also into you.

00:30:50 But I would say, bring it on.

00:30:56 Right, because I also say knowing

00:30:58 that he’s absolutely right.

00:30:59 But if you gaze into the abyss long enough,

00:31:03 you see the light, not the darkness.

00:31:06 Are you sure about that?

00:31:08 I’m betting my life on it.

00:31:10 Yeah, that’s a heck of a bet.

00:31:12 Well, that’s.

00:31:12 Because it might distort your mind to where all you see.

00:31:17 Is abyss.

00:31:18 Is abyss, is the evil in this world.

00:31:21 Well, then I would say you haven’t looked long enough.

00:31:24 You know, that’s back to the.

00:31:25 You just eliminated.

00:31:26 The swords, the flaming swords.

00:31:28 It’s like, so I said the whole story of Christ

00:31:31 was prefigured in that image.

00:31:33 It’s like the story of Christ psychologically

00:31:36 is radical acceptance of the worst possible tragedy.

00:31:40 That’s what it means, that’s what the crucifix means.

00:31:42 Psychologically, it’s like gaze upon that

00:31:45 which you are most afraid of.

00:31:46 But that story doesn’t end there.

00:31:48 Because in the story, Christ goes through death into hell.

00:31:53 So death isn’t enough.

00:31:55 The abyss, the abyss of innocent death

00:31:57 is not sufficient to produce redemption.

00:32:00 It has to be a voluntary journey to hell.

00:32:03 And maybe that’s true for everyone.

00:32:06 And that’s like, there is no more terrifying idea than that,

00:32:09 by definition.

00:32:10 And so then, well, do you gaze upon that?

00:32:13 Well, who knows?

00:32:17 Who knows?

00:32:18 How often do you gaze upon death, your own?

00:32:22 How often do you remember, remind yourself

00:32:26 that this ride ends?

00:32:27 Personally?

00:32:28 Personally.

00:32:29 All the time.

00:32:30 Because you, as a deep thinker and a philosopher,

00:32:33 it’s easy to start philosophizing

00:32:36 and forgetting that you’re,

00:32:39 you might die today.

00:32:40 The angel of death sits on every word.

00:32:43 How’s that?

00:32:45 How often do you actually consciously?

00:32:48 All the time.

00:32:49 Notice the angel?

00:32:50 All the time.

00:32:53 I think it’s one of the things that made me peculiar.

00:32:57 When I was in graduate school, you know,

00:32:59 I thought about, I was, I had the thought of death

00:33:03 in my mind all the time.

00:33:05 And I noticed that many of the people that I was with,

00:33:07 these were people I admired, fine.

00:33:09 That wasn’t part of their character,

00:33:12 but it was definitely part of mine.

00:33:13 I’d wake up every morning, this happened for years,

00:33:17 think, time’s short, get at it.

00:33:19 Time’s short, get at it.

00:33:21 There’s things to do.

00:33:23 And so that was always, it’s still there.

00:33:25 And it’s still there with, I would say,

00:33:27 and it’s unbearable in some sense.

00:33:30 Are you afraid of it?

00:33:31 Like what’s your relationship?

00:33:32 Yeah.

00:33:33 You know, I was ready to die a year ago and not casually.

00:33:40 I had people I loved, you know.

00:33:47 So no, I’m not very worried about me,

00:33:49 but I’m very worried about making a mistake.

00:33:52 Yeah.

00:33:53 I heard Elon Musk talk about that a couple of months ago.

00:33:55 It was really a striking moment.

00:33:57 Someone asked him about death and he said just offhand

00:34:00 and then went on with the conversation.

00:34:02 He said, I’d be a relief.

00:34:03 And then he went on with the conversation.

00:34:06 And I thought, well, you know,

00:34:09 he’s got a lot of weight on his shoulders.

00:34:11 I’m sure that part of him thinks

00:34:14 I’d be easier just if this wasn’t here at all.

00:34:18 Now he said it offhand,

00:34:19 but it was a telling moment in my estimation.

00:34:21 So for him, that’s a why live question.

00:34:26 The exhaustion of life, if you call it life is suffering,

00:34:30 but the hardship.

00:34:32 I’m more afraid of hell than death.

00:34:36 You’re afraid of the thing that follows?

00:34:40 I don’t know if it follows or if it’s always here.

00:34:44 And I think we’re gonna find out.

00:34:47 What’s the connection between death and hell?

00:34:50 I don’t know.

00:34:53 I don’t know.

00:34:54 I don’t know.

00:34:55 Is there something that needs to be done before you arrive?

00:34:58 You’re more likely to die terribly

00:35:00 if you live in a manner that brings you to hell.

00:35:03 That’s one connection.

00:35:04 And terribly is a very deep kind of concept.

00:35:08 Okay.

00:35:09 Yeah, yeah.

00:35:13 And that’s the definition, by the way.

00:35:16 What do you make of Elon Musk?

00:35:17 You’ve spoken about him a bit.

00:35:19 You met him.

00:35:20 I’m struck with admiration.

00:35:22 That’s what I make of him.

00:35:23 And I always think of that as a primary.

00:35:26 Well, it’s like, do you find this comedian funny?

00:35:29 It’s like, well, I laugh at him.

00:35:31 You know what I mean?

00:35:32 It’s not propositional again.

00:35:34 And so I would,

00:35:36 there are things I would like to ask Mr. Musk about.

00:35:41 The Mars venture.

00:35:42 I don’t know what he’s up to there.

00:35:44 It strikes me as absurd in the most fundamental sense

00:35:47 because I think, well, it’d be easier

00:35:49 just to build an outpost in the Antarctica or in the desert.

00:35:52 Well, how much of the human endeavor is absurd?

00:35:54 Well, that’s what it needs to say.

00:35:56 Great men are seldom credited with their stupidity.

00:35:59 Who the hell knows what Musk is up to?

00:36:01 I mean, obviously he’s building rockets.

00:36:03 Now he’s motivated because he wants to build

00:36:06 a platform for life on Mars.

00:36:08 Is that a good idea?

00:36:11 Who am I to say?

00:36:13 He’s building the rockets, man.

00:36:14 But I’d like to ask him about it.

00:36:16 I would like to see that conversation.

00:36:19 I do think that having talked to him quite a bit offline,

00:36:24 I think these, several of his ideas like Mars,

00:36:29 like humans becoming a multi planetary species

00:36:31 could be one of the things that human civilization

00:36:35 looks back at as, duh, I can’t believe

00:36:39 he is one of the few people that was really pushing

00:36:42 this idea because it’s the obvious thing

00:36:45 for society, for life to survive.

00:36:48 Yeah, well, it isn’t obvious to me

00:36:49 that I’m in any position to evaluate Elon Musk.

00:36:52 Like I would like to talk to him

00:36:53 and find out what he’s up to and why,

00:36:55 but I mean, he’s an impossible person.

00:36:58 What he’s done is impossible, all of it.

00:37:01 It’s like he built an electric car that works.

00:37:03 Now, does it work completely and will it replace gas cars

00:37:06 or should it?

00:37:07 I don’t know, but if we’re gonna build electric cars,

00:37:10 he seems to be the best at that by a lot.

00:37:14 And he more or less did that, people carp about him,

00:37:16 but he more or less did that by himself.

00:37:18 I know he’s very good at distributing responsibility

00:37:21 and all of that, but he’s the spearhead.

00:37:23 And then that was pretty hard.

00:37:25 And then he built a rocket at like one 10th

00:37:28 the price of NASA rockets.

00:37:30 And then he shot his car out into space.

00:37:33 That’s pretty hard.

00:37:34 And then he’s building this boring company,

00:37:38 more or less as a, what would you call it?

00:37:41 It’s sort of, it’s this whimsical joke in some sense,

00:37:44 but it’s not a joke.

00:37:46 He’s amazing.

00:37:47 And Neuralink delving into the depths of the mind.

00:37:51 And Starlink.

00:37:52 It’s like, go Elon, as far as I’m concerned.

00:37:55 And then he puts his finger on things so oddly.

00:37:58 The problem is underpopulation.

00:38:01 It’s like, I think so too.

00:38:02 I think it’s a terrible problem that we’re,

00:38:05 the West for example, is no longer at replacement

00:38:09 with regard to birth rate.

00:38:10 It means we’ve abandoned the Virgin and the child

00:38:13 in a most fundamental sense.

00:38:14 It’s a bloody catastrophe.

00:38:16 And Musk, he sees it clear as can be.

00:38:19 It’s like, wow, and where everyone else is running around

00:38:22 going, oh, there’s too many people.

00:38:24 It’s like, nope, got that.

00:38:26 Not only, see, I’ve learned that there are falsehoods

00:38:30 and lies and there are antitruths.

00:38:33 And an antitruth is something that’s so preposterous

00:38:36 that you couldn’t make a claim

00:38:39 that’s more opposite to the truth.

00:38:42 And the claim that there are too many people

00:38:44 on the planet is an antitruth.

00:38:46 So, you know, people say, well, you have to accept

00:38:50 limits to growth and et cetera.

00:38:52 It’s like, I have to accept the limits

00:38:56 that you’re going to impose on me

00:38:58 because you’re frightened of the future.

00:39:00 That’s your theory, isn’t it?

00:39:02 Okay.

00:39:04 Well, it’s an idea.

00:39:05 It could be a right idea.

00:39:07 It could be a wrong idea.

00:39:08 I don’t think antitruth.

00:39:11 Here, I’ll tell you why it’s the wrong idea, I think.

00:39:13 So imagine that there’s an emergency, dragon.

00:39:17 There’s a dragon.

00:39:19 Someone comes and says, there’s a dragon.

00:39:21 I’m the guy to deal with it.

00:39:23 That’s what the environmentalists say,

00:39:25 the radical types who push limits to growth.

00:39:28 Then I look at them and I think, okay,

00:39:31 is that dragon real or not?

00:39:34 That’s one question.

00:39:35 Well, is the…

00:39:36 I ask that question of myself every time

00:39:38 when I spend time alone.

00:39:39 Is the apocalypse looming on the environmental front?

00:39:42 Yes or no? I’ll just leave that aside for the time being.

00:39:45 I think you can make a case both ways

00:39:47 for a bunch of different reasons.

00:39:49 And it’s not a trivial concern.

00:39:51 And we’ve overfished the oceans terribly.

00:39:54 And there are environmental issues that are looming large.

00:39:58 Whether climate change is the cardinal one or not

00:40:00 is a whole different question, but we won’t get into that.

00:40:03 That’s not the issue.

00:40:04 You’re clamoring about a dragon.

00:40:07 Okay.

00:40:08 Why should I listen to you?

00:40:10 Well, let’s see how you’re reacting to the dragon.

00:40:13 First of all, you’re scared stiff and in a state of panic.

00:40:17 That might indicate you’re not the man for the job.

00:40:20 Second, you’re willing to use compulsion

00:40:24 to harness other people to fight the dragon for you.

00:40:27 So now not only are you terrified,

00:40:30 you’re a terrified tyrant.

00:40:32 So then I would say, well, then you’re not the Moses

00:40:34 that we need to lead us out of this particular exodus.

00:40:38 And maybe that’s a neurological explanation.

00:40:41 It’s like, if you’re so afraid of what you’re facing

00:40:45 that you’re terrified into paralysis and nihilism

00:40:47 and that you’re willing to use tyrannical compulsion

00:40:50 to get your way, you are not the right leader for the time.

00:40:54 So then I like someone like Bjorn Lomborg

00:40:56 or Matt Ridley or Marion Toopy.

00:40:59 And they say, well, look,

00:41:00 we’ve got our environmental problems.

00:41:03 And maybe you could make a case

00:41:06 that there’s a Malthusian element in some situations,

00:41:11 but fundamentally the track record of the human race

00:41:14 is that we learn very fast and faster all the time

00:41:18 to do more with less, and we’ve got this.

00:41:23 And I think, yes, to that idea.

00:41:27 And I think about it in a fundamental way.

00:41:32 It’s like, I trust Lomborg, I trust Toopy,

00:41:36 trust Matt Ridley.

00:41:38 They’ve thought about these things deeply.

00:41:40 They’re not just saying,

00:41:40 oh, the environment doesn’t matter,

00:41:42 whatever the environment is.

00:41:45 You know, the environment, I don’t even know what that is.

00:41:47 That’s everything, the environment.

00:41:49 I’m concerned about the environment.

00:41:51 It’s like, which is, how is that different

00:41:55 than saying I’m worried about everything?

00:41:57 How are those statements different semantically?

00:42:00 Well, yeah, the environment, it could be,

00:42:02 I’m worried about human society.

00:42:04 A lot of these complex systems are difficult to talk about

00:42:07 because there’s so much involved for sure.

00:42:09 Yeah, everything.

00:42:10 And then these models,

00:42:12 because people have gone after me

00:42:14 because I don’t buy the climate models.

00:42:15 Well, I think about the climate models

00:42:18 as extended into the economic models

00:42:21 because the climate model is,

00:42:23 well, there’s gonna be a certain degree of heating,

00:42:25 let’s say by 2100.

00:42:27 It’s like, okay, some of that might be human generated.

00:42:30 Some of it’s a consequence of warming after the ice age.

00:42:33 This has happened before, but fair enough.

00:42:36 Let’s take your presumption.

00:42:38 Although there are multiple presumptions

00:42:40 and any error in your model multiplies as time extends,

00:42:44 but have it your way.

00:42:46 Okay, now we’re gonna extend the climate model,

00:42:48 so to speak, into the economic model.

00:42:50 So I just did an analysis of a paper by Deloitte,

00:42:55 third biggest company in the US,

00:42:59 300,000 employees, major league consultants.

00:43:01 They just produced a report in May.

00:43:03 I wrote an article for it in the Telegraph,

00:43:05 which I’m gonna release this week on my YouTube channel.

00:43:08 Said, well, if we get the climate problem

00:43:12 under control economically,

00:43:14 because that’s where the models are now being generated

00:43:17 on the economic front.

00:43:18 So now we have to model the environment, that’s climate,

00:43:21 and we have to model the economy,

00:43:23 and then we have to model their joint interaction,

00:43:26 and then we have to predict 100 years into the future,

00:43:29 and then we have to put a dollar value on that,

00:43:32 and then we have to claim that we can do that,

00:43:35 which we can’t, and then this is our conclusion.

00:43:40 We’re going to go through a difficult period of privation,

00:43:43 because if we don’t accept limits to growth,

00:43:45 there’s gonna be a catastrophe,

00:43:47 50 years in the future or thereabouts.

00:43:49 And so to avert that catastrophe,

00:43:52 we are going to make people poorer now.

00:43:55 How much poorer?

00:43:56 Well, not a lot compared to how much richer

00:43:58 they’re going to be, but definitely,

00:44:01 and they say this in their own models,

00:44:03 definitely poorer, definitely poorer

00:44:06 than they would be if we just left them the hell alone.

00:44:09 And so then I think, okay, poorer, eh?

00:44:14 Who?

00:44:15 Well, let’s look at it biologically.

00:44:17 Got a hierarchy, right, of stability and security.

00:44:22 That’s a hierarchy or one type.

00:44:25 You stress a hierarchy like that, a social hierarchy.

00:44:27 So there’s birds in an environment,

00:44:30 and an avian flu comes in,

00:44:32 and then you look at the birds in the social hierarchy,

00:44:34 and the low ranking birds have the worst nests.

00:44:38 So they’re most exposed to wind and rain and sun

00:44:40 and farthest from food supplies

00:44:42 and most exposed to predators.

00:44:44 And so those birds are stressed,

00:44:45 which is what happens to you at the bottom of a hierarchy.

00:44:47 You’re more stressed because your life is more uncertain.

00:44:51 You’re more stressed.

00:44:51 Your immunological function is compromised

00:44:53 because of that.

00:44:55 You’re sacrificing the future for the present.

00:44:58 An avian flu comes in,

00:44:59 and the birds die from the bottom up.

00:45:01 That happens in every epidemic.

00:45:03 You die from the bottom up.

00:45:06 Okay, so they say when the aristocracy catches a cold,

00:45:10 the working class dies of pneumonia.

00:45:13 All right, so now we’re gonna make people poorer.

00:45:16 Okay, who?

00:45:18 Well, we know who we make poor when we make people poorer.

00:45:22 We make those who are barely hanging on poorer.

00:45:27 And what does that mean?

00:45:28 It means they die.

00:45:30 And so what the Deloitte consultants are basically saying

00:45:34 is, well, you know, it’s kind of unfortunate,

00:45:39 but according to our models,

00:45:41 a lot of poor people are gonna have to die

00:45:44 so that a lot more poor people don’t die in the future.

00:45:47 It’s like, okay, hold on a sec.

00:45:49 Which of those two things am I supposed to regard

00:45:51 with certainty?

00:45:52 The hypothetical poor people

00:45:54 that you’re gonna hypothetically save 100 years from now,

00:45:57 or the actual poor people

00:46:00 that you are actually going to kill in the next 10 years?

00:46:05 Well, I’m gonna cast my lot with the actual poor people

00:46:07 that you’re actually going to kill.

00:46:11 And so, and then I think further,

00:46:13 it’s like, well, okay, the Deloitte consultants,

00:46:16 have you actually modeled the world?

00:46:18 Or is this a big advertising shtick

00:46:20 designed to attract your corporate clients

00:46:22 with demonstration that you’re so intelligent

00:46:24 that you can actually model the entire ecosystem

00:46:27 of the world, including the economic system,

00:46:30 and predict it 100 years forward?

00:46:32 And isn’t there a bit of a moral hazard

00:46:34 in making a claim like that?

00:46:36 Just like just a trifle, especially when…

00:46:39 So I talked to Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Yon last week.

00:46:42 I accepted the UN estimates of starvation this coming year.

00:46:47 150 million people will suffer food insecurity.

00:46:51 Food insecurity.

00:46:53 Yeah, food insecurity, that’s the bloody buzzword.

00:46:57 Famine.

00:46:58 Well, Michael Yon thought 1.2 billion,

00:47:02 and then that it’ll spiral because he said,

00:47:05 what happens in a famine is that the governments go nuts,

00:47:08 crazy, the governments destabilize,

00:47:12 and then they appropriate the food from the farmers.

00:47:16 Then the farmers don’t have any money.

00:47:18 Then they can’t grow crops.

00:47:20 And I think, yeah, that’s exactly what they do.

00:47:22 That’s exactly what would happen.

00:47:24 And so Yon told me 1.2 billion,

00:47:28 and then Bjorn Lomborg said the same thing.

00:47:30 I didn’t even ask him.

00:47:31 He just made it as an offhand comment.

00:47:35 So…

00:47:36 Let me ask you about the famine of the 30s.

00:47:40 Yeah.

00:47:41 Do you think…

00:47:42 In the Ukraine?

00:47:43 In the Ukraine.

00:47:44 Oh, yeah.

00:47:45 Fun, fun, fun.

00:47:45 Similar, a lot of the things you mentioned

00:47:48 in the last few sentences kind of echo

00:47:51 to that part of human history.

00:47:53 The hole in the door.

00:47:55 Do you…

00:47:56 No one knows about.

00:47:58 Well, now I’ve just spent four weeks in Ukraine.

00:48:01 Oh, yeah.

00:48:02 There’s different parts of the world that still,

00:48:04 even if they don’t know, they know.

00:48:07 Yeah, right.

00:48:08 They feel.

00:48:09 They feel history runs in the blood.

00:48:12 The Dutch knew, in some sense.

00:48:14 They had a famine at the end of World War II.

00:48:16 And part of the reason the Dutch farmers

00:48:18 are so unbelievably efficient and productive

00:48:21 is that the Dutch swore at the end of World War II

00:48:23 that that was not going to happen again.

00:48:26 And then they had to scrape land out of the ocean

00:48:29 because Holland, that’s quite a country.

00:48:31 It shouldn’t even exist.

00:48:32 The fact that it’s the world’s number two exporter.

00:48:35 You know that?

00:48:36 It’s the world’s number two exporter

00:48:37 of agricultural products, Holland.

00:48:39 It’s like, I don’t think it’s as big as Massachusetts.

00:48:43 It’s this little tiny place.

00:48:44 It shouldn’t even exist.

00:48:46 And they want to put, here’s the plan.

00:48:49 Let’s put 30% of the farmers out of business.

00:48:52 While the broader ecosystem of agricultural production

00:48:55 in Holland is 6% of their GDP.

00:48:58 Now these centralizing politicians think,

00:49:01 tell me if I’m stupid about this.

00:49:03 Take an industry, you knock it back by fiat by 30%.

00:49:12 Now it runs on like a 3% profit margin.

00:49:15 Now you’re going to kill 30% of it.

00:49:18 How are you not going to bring the whole thing down?

00:49:20 The whole farming ecosystem down?

00:49:22 How are you not going to impoverish the transport systems?

00:49:27 How are you not going to demolish the grocery stores?

00:49:30 You can’t take something like that and pare it back

00:49:33 by fiat by 30% and not kill it.

00:49:37 I can’t see how you can do that.

00:49:39 I mean, look what we did with the COVID lockdowns.

00:49:41 We broke the supply chains.

00:49:43 We tried buying something lately.

00:49:46 You can’t, and wait, and aren’t the Chinese threatening

00:49:49 Taiwan at the moment?

00:49:50 What are we going to do without chips?

00:49:53 So I don’t know what these people are thinking.

00:49:56 And then I think, okay, what are they thinking?

00:49:58 Well, the Deloitte people are thinking,

00:49:59 aren’t we smart and shouldn’t we be hired

00:50:01 by our corporate employers?

00:50:02 It’s like, okay, too bad about the poor.

00:50:06 What are the environmentalists thinking?

00:50:09 We love the planet.

00:50:11 It’s like, do you?

00:50:12 We love the poor.

00:50:13 Do you?

00:50:14 Okay, let’s pit the planet against the poor.

00:50:17 Who wins?

00:50:17 The planet.

00:50:18 Okay, you don’t love the poor that much.

00:50:21 Do you love the planet or do you hate capitalism?

00:50:24 Let’s pit those two things against each other.

00:50:27 Oh, well, it turns out we actually hate capitalism.

00:50:29 How can we tell?

00:50:31 Because you’re willing to break it.

00:50:33 And you know what’s going to happen.

00:50:34 So what’s going to happen in Sri Lanka

00:50:35 with these 20 million people who now have nothing to eat?

00:50:39 Are they going to eat all the animals?

00:50:40 Are they going to burn all the firewood?

00:50:42 They’re stockpiling firewood in Germany.

00:50:45 It’s like, so is your environmental globalist utopia

00:50:49 going to kill the poor and destroy the planet?

00:50:51 And that’s okay, because we’ll wipe out capitalism.

00:50:54 It’s like, okay.

00:50:55 Yeah, the dragon and the fear of the dragon

00:50:57 drives ideologies, some of which can build a better world,

00:51:01 some of which can destroy that world.

00:51:03 Now, what do you think of that theory about trustworthiness?

00:51:07 If the dragon that you’re facing

00:51:09 turns you into a terrified tyrant,

00:51:12 you’re not the man for the job.

00:51:14 Is that a good theory?

00:51:15 It’s an interesting theory.

00:51:16 Let me use that theory to challenge,

00:51:18 because what does terror look like?

00:51:20 Let me table the turns, turn the tables on you.

00:51:27 You are terrified, afraid, concerned about the dragon

00:51:37 of something we can call communism, Marxism.

00:51:43 Am I terrified of it?

00:51:45 Well, okay, okay.

00:51:46 I’m not terrified enough to be a tyrant.

00:51:47 Your theories had two components.

00:51:48 Yeah?

00:51:49 I’m not paralyzed.

00:51:51 Had a dragon.

00:51:52 Yeah, I’m not paralyzed, and I don’t wanna be a tyrant.

00:51:55 The tyrant part, I think, is missing with you.

00:51:59 But you are very concerned.

00:52:00 The intensity of your feeling

00:52:05 does not give much space,

00:52:08 actually, at least in your public persona,

00:52:11 for sitting quietly with the dragon

00:52:13 and sipping on a couple of beers

00:52:15 and thinking about this thing.

00:52:16 The intensity of your anger,

00:52:20 concern about certain things you’re seeing in society,

00:52:24 is that going to drive you off the path

00:52:27 that ultimately takes us to a better world?

00:52:29 That’s a good question.

00:52:30 I mean, I’m trying to get that right.

00:52:33 So we’ve kind of come to a cultural conclusion

00:52:36 about the Nazis.

00:52:38 Do you get to be angry about the Nazis?

00:52:40 Seems the answer to that is yes.

00:52:42 Well, actually, let me push back here.

00:52:47 I also don’t trust people who are angry about the Nazis.

00:52:51 I mean the actual Nazis.

00:52:53 Well, as you know, there’s a lot of people in the world

00:53:00 that use actual Nazis to mean a lot of things.

00:53:04 I know, I know.

00:53:05 One of them is very important to me.

00:53:07 Me, for example.

00:53:08 Well, yes.

00:53:09 He’s a Nazi, or magical super Nazi, as it turns out.

00:53:13 I think they actually sort of steel man

00:53:15 all their perspectives.

00:53:16 I think a lot of people that call you a Nazi mean it.

00:53:20 Yeah.

00:53:23 I’m aware of that.

00:53:24 There’s an important thing there though,

00:53:26 because I went to the front in Ukraine,

00:53:29 and a lot of the people that lost their home

00:53:35 or they’re kind of, that got to interact a lot

00:53:38 with the Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian people

00:53:40 that interact with the Russian soldiers,

00:53:42 they reported that the Russian soldiers

00:53:46 really believe they’re saving the people of Ukraine

00:53:52 in these local villages from the Nazis.

00:53:55 I understand, yeah.

00:53:56 So to them, it’s not just that the Ukrainian government has

00:54:00 or Ukraine has some Nazis, it’s like it has been,

00:54:05 the idea is that the Nazis have taken over Ukraine

00:54:08 and we need to free them.

00:54:09 This is the belief.

00:54:11 So this, again, Nazi is still a dragon that lives.

00:54:15 Yeah.

00:54:16 And it’s used by people because it’s safe

00:54:18 to sit next to that dragon

00:54:20 and spread any kind of ideology you want.

00:54:22 So I just wanted to kind of say that we have agreed

00:54:27 on this particular dragon,

00:54:31 but I still don’t trust anybody who uses that one.

00:54:34 Yeah, but we have issues with boundaries, right?

00:54:36 No, no, it’s, so this is a very complicated problem, right?

00:54:40 So Rene Girard believed that it was a human proclivity

00:54:45 to demonize a scapegoat and then drive it out

00:54:47 of the village.

00:54:48 And I’ve thought about that a lot.

00:54:50 We need a place to put Satan.

00:54:53 Seriously, this is a serious issue.

00:54:55 Should he be inside the village or outside?

00:54:58 Well, maybe he should be inside you, right?

00:55:02 That’s the fundamental essence of the Christian doctrine.

00:55:05 It’s like, Satan is best fought

00:55:08 on the battleground of your soul.

00:55:12 And that’s, that’s right.

00:55:16 It’s right.

00:55:17 Can you actually put words to the kind of dragon

00:55:19 that you’re fighting?

00:55:20 Is it communism?

00:55:22 It’s the spirit of Cain.

00:55:24 Yeah.

00:55:26 Can you elaborate what the spirit of Cain is?

00:55:30 So after Adam and Eve are thrown out of paradise

00:55:36 for becoming self conscious,

00:55:37 or when they become self conscious,

00:55:40 they’re destined to work.

00:55:42 And the reason for that, as far as I can tell,

00:55:44 is that to become self conscious

00:55:47 is to become aware of the future.

00:55:49 It’s to become aware of death.

00:55:51 That certainly happens in the Adam and Eve story,

00:55:53 to have the scales fall from your eyes.

00:55:56 And then the consequence of that

00:55:58 is that you now have to labor to prevent

00:56:01 the catastrophes of the future.

00:56:03 That’s work.

00:56:04 Work is sacrifice.

00:56:06 Sacrifice of the present to the future.

00:56:08 It’s delay of gratification, it’s maturity.

00:56:12 It’s sacrifice to something as well,

00:56:15 and in the spirit of something.

00:56:17 Okay, so now Adam and Eve have two children, Cain and Abel.

00:56:22 So those are the first two people in history.

00:56:25 Because the Garden of Eden doesn’t count.

00:56:28 And they’re the first two people

00:56:29 who are born rather than created.

00:56:31 So they’re the first two people.

00:56:32 And that’s a hell of a story,

00:56:33 because it’s a story of fratricidal murder

00:56:36 that degenerates into genocide, flood, and tyranny.

00:56:40 So that’s fun for the opening salvo of the story, let’s say.

00:56:45 And Abel and Cain both make sacrifices.

00:56:48 And for some reason, Abel’s sacrifice is please God.

00:56:52 It’s not exactly clear why.

00:56:54 And Cain’s don’t.

00:56:56 Now, there’s an implication in the text

00:57:00 that it’s because Cain’s sacrifices are true,

00:57:03 are second rate.

00:57:05 God says that Abel brings the finest

00:57:07 to the sacrificial altar.

00:57:09 He doesn’t say that about Cain.

00:57:11 So you could imagine that Cain is sacrificing away,

00:57:13 but he’s holding something in reserve.

00:57:16 He’s not all in, he’s not bringing his best to the table.

00:57:19 He’s not offering his best to God.

00:57:22 And so Abel thrives like mad.

00:57:25 And everyone loves him.

00:57:26 And he gets exactly what he needs and wants,

00:57:28 exactly when he needs and wants it.

00:57:30 He’s favored of God.

00:57:32 And Cain is bearing this terrible burden forward

00:57:36 and working, and his sacrifices are rejected.

00:57:40 So he gets resentful, really resentful.

00:57:45 Enough resentful enough to call God out

00:57:49 and say something like,

00:57:51 this is quite the creation you’ve got going here.

00:57:55 I’m breaking myself in half

00:57:57 and nothing good’s coming my way.

00:58:00 What the hell’s up with that?

00:58:01 And then there’s Abel, the sun shining on him every day.

00:58:04 How dare you?

00:58:06 It’s like, okay.

00:58:07 But this is God that Cain’s talking to.

00:58:10 And so God says what Cain least wants to hear,

00:58:14 which is what God usually says to people.

00:58:17 He says, look to your own devices.

00:58:21 You’re not making the sacrifices you should.

00:58:24 And you know it.

00:58:25 And then he says something even worse.

00:58:27 He says, sin crouches at your door

00:58:31 like a sexually aroused predatory animal.

00:58:35 And you’ve invited it in to have your way,

00:58:39 to have its way with you.

00:58:41 And so he basically says,

00:58:42 you have allowed your resentment to preoccupy yourself.

00:58:47 And now you’re brooding upon it

00:58:49 and generating something creative, new and awful,

00:58:52 possessed by the spirit of resentment.

00:58:56 And that’s why you’re in the miserable state you’re in.

00:58:59 So then Cain leaves, his countenance falls,

00:59:03 as you might expect, and Cain leaves.

00:59:04 And he’s so incensed by this because God has said,

00:59:07 look, your problems are of your own making.

00:59:11 And not only that, you invited them in.

00:59:13 And not only that, you engaged in this creatively.

00:59:16 And not only that, you’re blaming it on me.

00:59:18 And not only that, that’s making you jealous of Abel,

00:59:21 who’s your actual idol and goal.

00:59:23 And Cain, instead of changing, kills Abel, right?

00:59:29 And then Cain’s descendants are the first people

00:59:31 who make weapons of war.

00:59:35 And so that’s, okay, you wanna know what I think?

00:59:39 That’s the eternal story of mankind.

00:59:42 And it’s playing out right now,

00:59:44 except at a thousand times the rate.

00:59:47 Can I present to you a difficult truth?

00:59:52 Perhaps not a truth, but a thought I have,

00:59:56 that it is not always easy to know

00:59:59 which among us are the Cain.

01:00:01 That’s for sure.

01:00:03 And resentment, it is possible to imagine you

01:00:10 as the person who has a resentment

01:00:13 towards a particular worldview that you really worry about.

01:00:19 Yeah, well, I talked to a good friend of mine last week

01:00:22 about that publicly, we’ll release it.

01:00:25 So I said, well, do I have a particular animus

01:00:27 against the left, let’s say?

01:00:30 It’s like, well, probably.

01:00:32 Okay, why?

01:00:33 Well, first of all, I’m a university professor.

01:00:38 It’s not like the universities are threatened by the right.

01:00:41 They’re threatened by the left, 100%.

01:00:45 And they’re not just threatened a little bit,

01:00:47 they’re threatened a lot.

01:00:48 And that threat made it impossible

01:00:50 for me to continue in my profession the way I was.

01:00:53 And it cost me my clinical practice too.

01:00:55 And that’s not over yet because I have 10 lawsuits

01:00:58 against me out right now from the College of Psychologists

01:01:02 because they’ve allowed anyone to complain about me

01:01:05 anywhere in the world for any reason,

01:01:07 and have the choice to follow that up with an investigation,

01:01:11 which is a punishment in and of itself, and are doing so.

01:01:15 And then I’ve been tortured nearly to death multiple times

01:01:19 by bad actors on the left.

01:01:21 Now I’ve had my fair share of radical right wingers

01:01:25 being unhappy with what I’ve said,

01:01:27 but personally, that’s been the left the whole time.

01:01:32 Not only me, but my family, put my family at risk

01:01:35 in a big way and constantly, like not once or twice,

01:01:39 because many people get canceled once or twice.

01:01:43 But I’ve been canceled like 40 times.

01:01:46 And I know like 200 people now who’ve been canceled.

01:01:49 And I can tell you without doubt,

01:01:53 that it is one of the worst experiences of their life.

01:01:56 And that’s if it only happens once.

01:01:58 And so, and then I also know that the communists killed

01:02:04 100 million people in the 20th century,

01:02:07 that the intellectuals excused them for it nonstop

01:02:10 and still haven’t quit, that almost no one knows about it,

01:02:14 and that the specter of resentful Marxism

01:02:17 is back in full force.

01:02:19 And so do I have a bit of an animus against that?

01:02:22 Yes.

01:02:22 Does it go too far?

01:02:26 I don’t know.

01:02:27 I’m trying to figure that out.

01:02:28 The story you just told, it seems nearly impossible

01:02:33 for you, an intellectual powerhouse,

01:02:35 not to have a tremendous amount of resentment.

01:02:38 Well.

01:02:39 And this is the, so let me challenge you.

01:02:41 Yeah, go right ahead, man.

01:02:42 Let me challenge you.

01:02:43 Can you steal, man, the case that the prime minister

01:02:50 of this country, Trudeau, wants the best for this country

01:02:55 and actually might do good things for this country

01:02:58 as an intellectual challenge?

01:03:00 Sure.

01:03:02 He seems to get along well with his wife.

01:03:04 He has some kids.

01:03:07 There’s no sexual scandals.

01:03:08 And he’s in a position where that could easily be the case.

01:03:11 He seems to have done some good things

01:03:13 on the oceanic management front.

01:03:15 He’s put a fair bit of Canada’s oceans

01:03:18 into marine protected areas,

01:03:19 and that might be his most fundamental legacy, if it’s real.

01:03:23 I’ve been trying to get information

01:03:24 about the actual reality of the protection,

01:03:27 and I haven’t been able to do that.

01:03:29 But that’s a good thing.

01:03:30 So sorry, the family thing is, there’s some aspect of.

01:03:32 It speaks to his character.

01:03:33 This is a character.

01:03:34 There is some aspect to him that makes him a good man

01:03:38 in that sense.

01:03:39 There’s the evidence there.

01:03:41 He’s not a Jeffrey Epstein profligate on the sexual front,

01:03:44 so that’s something.

01:03:45 And his wife, they seem to have a real marriage,

01:03:48 and he has kids, so good for him.

01:03:51 That’s a good start, by the way, for a leader.

01:03:54 Yeah, right.

01:03:55 To be a good man.

01:03:55 Well, then I also thought, okay,

01:03:57 well, after the Liberals had brought in

01:04:00 a Harvard intellectual who was a Canadian

01:04:02 to be their last leader, he didn’t work out,

01:04:06 and then they’re flailing about for a leader,

01:04:08 and the Liberals in Canada are pretty good

01:04:10 at maintaining power and leadership,

01:04:14 and have been the dominant governing party in Canada

01:04:17 for a long time.

01:04:18 And so they went to Justin and said,

01:04:21 well, you know, it’s you or a Conservative,

01:04:24 and you can imagine that’s not a positive specter

01:04:28 for someone who’s on the left, or even a Liberal,

01:04:32 especially, and Trudeau’s quite a bit on the left.

01:04:35 And they said, we need you to run.

01:04:37 And then I thought, okay, well,

01:04:39 the answer to that should have been no,

01:04:41 because Trudeau, Justin, has no training for this,

01:04:45 no experience.

01:04:46 He’s not, he’s a part time drama teacher, fundamentally.

01:04:50 He hadn’t run a business.

01:04:51 He just didn’t know enough to be Prime Minister.

01:04:54 But then I’m trying to put myself in his position, eh?

01:04:56 So it’s like, okay, I don’t know enough, but I’m young,

01:04:59 and we don’t want the Conservatives,

01:05:01 and they had had a run, a 10 year run,

01:05:03 so maybe it was time for a new government.

01:05:05 I could, maybe I could grow into this man.

01:05:08 Maybe I could surround myself with good people,

01:05:10 and I could learn humbly, and I could become

01:05:16 the person I’m now pretending to be,

01:05:17 which we all have to do as we move forward, right?

01:05:20 And so then I thought, okay,

01:05:23 I think you made a mistake there,

01:05:24 because you ran only on your father’s name,

01:05:28 and you didn’t have the background,

01:05:29 but let’s give the devil his due,

01:05:31 and say that’s no problem.

01:05:33 Okay, so now what do you do?

01:05:35 Well, you get elected, and your first act is

01:05:38 to make the cabinet 50% women,

01:05:42 despite the fact that only 25% of the elected members

01:05:46 are female.

01:05:47 It’s like, okay, you just have your talent pool.

01:05:50 That was a really bad move for your first move.

01:05:53 Can I ask you about that?

01:05:55 Do you think, where does that move come from?

01:05:58 Deep somewhere in the heart?

01:06:00 Or is it trying to listen to the social forces

01:06:05 of the moment, and try to ride those ways towards

01:06:09 maybe greater and greater popularity?

01:06:12 By after thinking it through.

01:06:14 It’s like, no, you just have your talent pool

01:06:16 for cabinet positions.

01:06:18 That’s what you did.

01:06:19 There’s enough cabinet positions.

01:06:22 You know, you could argue that each of them met threshold.

01:06:24 It’s like, there’s a big difference

01:06:26 between threshold and excellent.

01:06:27 So you don’t think that came from a place of compassion?

01:06:31 I don’t care if it did.

01:06:31 I don’t regard compassion as a virtue.

01:06:34 Compassion is a reflex, not a virtue.

01:06:36 You don’t think?

01:06:37 Judicious compassion is a virtue.

01:06:39 Wait, wait a minute, wait a minute.

01:06:40 Compassion can come deep from the human heart

01:06:44 and the human mind, I think.

01:06:46 Are we talking about the same kind of compassion?

01:06:48 Yes.

01:06:49 Trying to understand the suffering in the world.

01:06:50 Treating adults like infants is not virtuous.

01:06:53 I see.

01:06:53 Well, compassion isn’t treating adults like infants.

01:06:58 I mean, those are just terms.

01:06:59 Are you sure?

01:07:01 Whatever the term is, maybe love is maybe the better word.

01:07:03 Edible compassion is.

01:07:05 I mean, I suppose I’m speaking to love.

01:07:08 You don’t think those ideas came from concern?

01:07:11 Love is a blend of compassion and encouragement and truth.

01:07:18 Love is complicated, man.

01:07:20 Yeah, it has a lot of good things in it, yes.

01:07:22 If I love you, is it compassion

01:07:24 or encouragement you want from me?

01:07:26 Yeah, the dance.

01:07:27 Love is definitely a dance of two humans, ultimately,

01:07:30 that leads to the growth of both, yes.

01:07:32 Well, that’s the thing.

01:07:33 The growth element is crucial.

01:07:35 Because the growth element, to foster the growth element,

01:07:38 that requires judgment.

01:07:41 Compassion and judgment, well, even,

01:07:43 and have been conceptualized this way forever,

01:07:45 two hands of God, mercy and justice.

01:07:48 They have to operate in tandem, right?

01:07:50 And mercy is flawed as you are, you’re acceptable.

01:07:58 It’s like, well, do you want that?

01:07:59 Do you want your flaws to be acceptable?

01:08:02 And the answer to that is no.

01:08:03 It’s like, well, that’s where the judgment comes in.

01:08:05 It’s like, but you could be better.

01:08:07 You could be more than you are.

01:08:09 And that’s the maternal and the paternal

01:08:11 in some fundamental sense.

01:08:12 And there has to be a active exchange of information

01:08:18 between those two poles.

01:08:20 So even if Trudeau was motivated by compassion,

01:08:23 and it’s like, yeah, just how loving are you, first of all?

01:08:27 No, it was a really bad decision.

01:08:29 And then he’s expressed contempt for monetary policy.

01:08:32 I’m not interested in monetary policy.

01:08:34 It’s like, okay, but you’re a prime minister.

01:08:40 And he’s expressed admiration

01:08:41 for the Chinese Communist Party,

01:08:43 because they can be very efficient

01:08:46 in their pursuit of environmental goals.

01:08:48 It’s like, oh yeah, efficiency, eh?

01:08:52 The efficiency of the tyranny in the service of your terror.

01:08:57 And so, and I’ve watched him repeatedly

01:08:59 and I’ve listened to him a lot.

01:09:00 And I’ve tried to do that clinically

01:09:03 and with some degree of dispassion.

01:09:05 And that’s hard too, because his father, Pierre,

01:09:09 devastated the West in 1982 with the national energy policy.

01:09:15 And Trudeau is doing exactly the same thing again.

01:09:18 And so as a westerner as well,

01:09:20 I have an inbuilt animus and one that’s well deserved,

01:09:24 because central Canada,

01:09:26 especially the glittery literati elite types

01:09:30 in the Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto triangle

01:09:34 have exploited the West and expressed contempt for the West

01:09:40 far too much for far too long.

01:09:42 And that’s accelerating at the moment, for example,

01:09:45 with Trudeau’s recent attack on the Canadian farmers.

01:09:48 He’s an enemy of the oil and gas industry.

01:09:52 It’s an utter and absolute bloody catastrophe.

01:09:54 And look what’s happened in Europe,

01:09:56 at least in partial consequence.

01:09:58 And he’s no friend to the farmers.

01:10:01 So I’ve tried to steel man him.

01:10:04 I try to put myself in the position of the people

01:10:06 that I’m criticizing.

01:10:08 I think he’s a narcissist.

01:10:11 Do you think there’s a degree to which power changed him?

01:10:14 If you’re not suited for the position,

01:10:17 if you’re not the man for the position,

01:10:18 you can be absolutely 100% sure

01:10:21 that the power will corrupt you.

01:10:23 How could it not?

01:10:24 I mean, at the least, if you don’t have the chops

01:10:27 for the job, you have to devalue the job

01:10:30 to the point where you can feel comfortable inhabiting it.

01:10:35 So yes, I think that it’s corrupted him.

01:10:37 And I mean, look at him doubling down.

01:10:39 We wear masks in flights into Canada.

01:10:43 We have to fill out an arrive can bureaucratic form

01:10:46 on our phones because a passport isn’t good enough.

01:10:49 We can’t get a passport.

01:10:51 What if you’re 85 and you don’t know

01:10:53 how to use a smartphone?

01:10:54 Oh, well, too bad for you.

01:10:58 It’s like, yes, it’s corrupted him.

01:11:01 Would you talk to him?

01:11:04 If you were to sit down and talk with him

01:11:05 and he wanted to talk,

01:11:07 would you and what kind of things would you talk about,

01:11:13 perhaps on your podcast?

01:11:14 I don’t think I’ve ever said no to talking to anyone.

01:11:18 So, which is, you know.

01:11:20 Would you, would that be a first

01:11:22 or would you make that conversation?

01:11:24 Do you believe in the power of those kinds of contexts?

01:11:27 No, if he was willing to talk to me,

01:11:30 I’d talk because I’d like to ask him.

01:11:31 I have lots of things I’d like to ask him about.

01:11:33 I mean, I’ve had political types in Canada

01:11:35 on my podcast and tried to ask them questions.

01:11:39 So, I’d like to know.

01:11:41 You know, maybe I’ve got a big part of him wrong.

01:11:44 And I probably do, but my observation has been

01:11:49 that every chance he had to retreat

01:11:51 from his pharaonic position, let’s say, he doubled down.

01:11:55 And these, our parliament is not running for the next year.

01:12:01 It’s still zoom in.

01:12:03 It’s still COVID lockdown parliament.

01:12:06 For the next year, it’s already been fatally compromised,

01:12:11 perhaps, by the lockdowns for the last couple of years.

01:12:16 And this is parliament we’re talking about.

01:12:19 Yeah, there’s a kind of paralysis, fear driven paralysis

01:12:24 that also, in part, some of the most brilliant people

01:12:27 I know are lost in this paralysis.

01:12:30 I don’t think people have signed a word to it,

01:12:32 but it’s almost like a fear of this unknown thing

01:12:35 that lurks in the shadows.

01:12:36 And that, unfortunately, that fear is leveraged by people

01:12:44 that, you know, who are in academic circles,

01:12:47 who are in faculty or students,

01:12:48 and so on, or more in administration.

01:12:50 And they start to use that fear,

01:12:52 which makes me quite uncomfortable.

01:12:55 It does lend people in the positions of power

01:13:00 who are not good at handling that power

01:13:02 to become slowly, day by day, a little bit more corrupt.

01:13:07 I was really trying to figure out, you know,

01:13:09 the last two weeks, thinking this through.

01:13:10 It’s like, how do you know?

01:13:13 Let’s say someone asked me a question

01:13:15 in the YouTube comments, said,

01:13:16 why can I trust your advice on the environmental front?

01:13:22 And I thought, that’s a really good question.

01:13:25 Okay, let’s see if we can figure out the principles

01:13:29 by which the advice would be trustworthy.

01:13:31 Okay, how do you know it’s not trustworthy?

01:13:34 Well, one potential response to that would be

01:13:40 the claims are not in accordance with the facts,

01:13:43 but, you know, facts are tricky things

01:13:44 and it depends on where you look for them.

01:13:46 So that’s a tough one to get right because,

01:13:49 for example, Lomberg’s fundamental critics

01:13:51 argue about his facts, not just his interpretation of them.

01:13:56 So that can’t be an unerring guide.

01:13:57 And so I thought, well, the facts exactly doesn’t work

01:14:01 because when it’s about everything, there’s too many facts.

01:14:05 So then how do you determine if someone’s a trustworthy guide

01:14:08 in the face of the apocalyptic unknown?

01:14:11 Because that’s really the question.

01:14:13 And the answer is they’re not terrified tyrants.

01:14:18 I think that’s the answer.

01:14:20 Now, maybe that’s wrong.

01:14:21 If someone has a better answer.

01:14:22 How do you know if they’re a terrified tyrant?

01:14:24 Because they are willing to use compulsion on other people.

01:14:27 When they could use goodwill.

01:14:29 Like the farmers in Canada objected.

01:14:32 They said, look, we have every economic reason

01:14:36 to use as little fertilizer as we can.

01:14:39 Cause it’s expensive.

01:14:40 We have satellite maps of where we put the fertilizer.

01:14:44 We have cut our fertilizer use so substantially

01:14:48 in the last 40 years, you can’t believe it.

01:14:50 And we grow way more food.

01:14:52 We’re already breaking ourselves in half.

01:14:54 And if you know farmers,

01:14:56 especially the ones who still survive,

01:14:57 you think those people don’t know what they’re doing.

01:15:00 It’s like, yeah, they’re pretty damn sophisticated man.

01:15:04 Like way more sophisticated than our prime minister.

01:15:08 And now you tell them, no, it’s a 30% reduction.

01:15:11 And we don’t care how much food you’re growing.

01:15:13 So it’s not a reduction that’s dependent

01:15:18 on amount of food produced per unit of fertilizer used,

01:15:21 which would be at least you could imagine it.

01:15:24 So, okay, so you’re producing this much food

01:15:27 and you use this much fertilizer.

01:15:28 So you’re hyper efficient.

01:15:30 Maybe we take the 10% of farmers

01:15:32 who are the least efficient in that metric.

01:15:35 And we say to them,

01:15:36 you have to get as efficient as the average farmer.

01:15:39 And then they say, well, look, you know,

01:15:41 our situation’s different.

01:15:42 We’re in a more Northern climb, the soil’s weaker.

01:15:46 You know, you obviously have to bargain with that,

01:15:48 but at least you reward them for their productivity.

01:15:52 Well, it’s like, well, Holland isn’t gonna have beef.

01:15:55 Well, where are they gonna get it?

01:15:56 Well, you don’t need it.

01:15:58 It’s like, oh, I see.

01:15:58 You get to tell me what I can eat now, do you?

01:16:01 Really?

01:16:02 Okay.

01:16:03 And Holland is gonna import food from where

01:16:07 that’s more efficient on the fertilizer front.

01:16:11 There’s no one more efficient than Holland.

01:16:13 And same with Canada.

01:16:15 And like, isn’t this gonna make food prices more expensive?

01:16:19 And doesn’t that mean that hungry people die?

01:16:23 Cause that is what it means.

01:16:24 And so.

01:16:25 Ultimately, poor people pay the price

01:16:27 of these kinds of policies.

01:16:29 Not known, not ultimately.

01:16:33 Now.

01:16:34 Today.

01:16:35 Today.

01:16:36 That’s a crucial distinction because they say,

01:16:37 well, ultimately the poor will benefit.

01:16:40 Yeah, except the dead ones.

01:16:42 Yes.

01:16:43 Today.

01:16:43 Today, right.

01:16:45 It seems like the story of war to,

01:16:48 is a time when the poor people suffer

01:16:52 from the decision made by the powerful, the rich,

01:16:56 the political elite.

01:16:59 Yeah.

01:17:00 Let me ask you about the war in Ukraine.

01:17:03 Oh yeah.

01:17:04 I got into plenty of trouble about that too.

01:17:07 You’re, you’re just a man in a suit

01:17:12 talking on microphones and writing brilliant articles.

01:17:16 There’s also people dying, fighting.

01:17:20 It’s their land, it’s their country, it’s their history.

01:17:23 This is true for both Russia and Ukraine.

01:17:26 It’s people trying to ask, they have many dragons

01:17:30 and they’re asking themselves a question,

01:17:32 who are we?

01:17:33 What is this?

01:17:35 What is the future of this nation?

01:17:37 We thought we are a great nation.

01:17:41 And I think both countries say this.

01:17:44 And they say, well, how do we become the great nation

01:17:48 we thought we are?

01:17:50 Yeah.

01:17:50 And so what, first of all, you got in trouble.

01:17:55 What’s the dynamics of the trouble?

01:17:58 And is there something you regret saying?

01:18:01 No, no, I thought about it a lot.

01:18:03 I laid out four reasons for the war.

01:18:06 And then I was criticized in the Atlantic

01:18:08 for the argument was reduced to one reason,

01:18:12 which was a caricature of the reason.

01:18:15 I gave a variety of reasons why the war happened.

01:18:18 Mismanagement on the part of the West in relationship

01:18:21 to Russia and foreign policy over the last,

01:18:24 since the wall fell.

01:18:26 It’s understandable because it’s extremely complex.

01:18:30 Hyper reliance on Russia as a cardinal source of energy

01:18:34 provision for Europe in the wake of idiot environmental

01:18:37 globalist utopianism.

01:18:41 The expansionist tendencies of Russia

01:18:46 that are analogous in some sense to the Soviet Union empire

01:18:50 building.

01:18:51 And then the last one, which is the one I got in trouble for,

01:18:53 which is Putin’s belief or willingness

01:18:58 to manipulate his people into believing

01:19:01 that Russia is a salvific force in the face

01:19:04 of idiot Western wokeism.

01:19:06 And that’s the one I got in trouble for.

01:19:08 It’s like, while you’re justifying Putin,

01:19:10 it’s like, it’s not only the Russians

01:19:14 that think the West has lost its mind.

01:19:17 The Eastern Europeans think so too.

01:19:19 And do I know that?

01:19:20 It’s like, well, I went to 15 Eastern European countries

01:19:24 this spring.

01:19:26 And I talked to 300 political and cultural leaders.

01:19:29 And you might say, well, they were all conservatives.

01:19:32 It’s like, actually, no, they weren’t.

01:19:35 Most of them were conservatives.

01:19:37 Because it turns out that they’re

01:19:38 more willing to talk to me.

01:19:39 But a good chunk of them were liberals

01:19:42 by any stretch of the imagination.

01:19:46 And a fair number of them were canceled progressives.

01:19:49 Well, because you’re very concerned

01:19:51 about the culture wars that perhaps

01:19:55 are a signal of a possible bad future for this country

01:20:02 and for this part of the world, that reason stands out.

01:20:06 And do you, sort of looking back at four reasons,

01:20:13 think it deserves to have a place in one of the four?

01:20:16 Oh, absolutely.

01:20:17 Because it is, you know.

01:20:20 Well, the four was bifurcated.

01:20:22 Because I said, look, Putin might believe this.

01:20:24 And I actually think he does.

01:20:25 Because I read a bunch of Putin speeches.

01:20:27 And I have been reading them for 15 years.

01:20:29 And my sense of people generally,

01:20:31 and this was true of Hitler, it’s like,

01:20:33 what did Hitler believe?

01:20:35 Well, did you read what he wrote?

01:20:37 He just did what he said he was going to do.

01:20:40 And you might think, well, some people are so tricky,

01:20:42 they have a whole body of elaborated speech

01:20:47 that’s completely separate from their personality.

01:20:49 And their personality is pursuing a different agenda.

01:20:52 And this whole body of speech is nothing but affront.

01:20:57 It’s like, good luck finding someone that sophisticated.

01:21:00 First of all, if you say things long enough,

01:21:01 you’re going to believe them.

01:21:02 That’s a really interesting and fascinating and important

01:21:05 point.

01:21:05 Even if you start out as a lie, as a propaganda,

01:21:09 I think Hitler is an example of somebody

01:21:12 that I think really quickly you start

01:21:14 to believe the propaganda.

01:21:16 Well, you’ve thought a lot about AI systems.

01:21:19 It’s like, don’t you become what you practice?

01:21:22 And the answer to that is, well, absolutely.

01:21:24 We even know the neurology.

01:21:26 It’s like when you first formulate a concept,

01:21:28 huge swaths of your cortex are lit up, so to speak.

01:21:32 But as you practice that, first of all,

01:21:34 the right hemisphere stops participating.

01:21:36 And then the left participates less and less

01:21:40 until you build specialized machinery for exactly

01:21:43 that conceptual frame.

01:21:45 And then you start to see it, not just think it.

01:21:49 And so if you’re telling the same lies over and over,

01:21:52 who do you think you’re fooling?

01:21:53 Think, well, I can withstand my own lies,

01:21:56 not if they’re effective lies.

01:21:58 And if they’re effective enough to fool millions of people,

01:22:02 and then they reflect them back to you,

01:22:04 what makes you think you’re going

01:22:06 to be able to withstand that?

01:22:08 You aren’t.

01:22:08 And so I do think Putin believes, to the degree

01:22:12 that he believes anything, I do believe

01:22:15 that he thinks of himself as a bulwark for Christendom

01:22:20 against the degeneration of the West.

01:22:23 And that’s that third way that Dugin and Putin

01:22:26 have been talking about, the philosopher Alexander Dugin

01:22:29 and Putin for 15 years.

01:22:31 Now, what that is is very amorphous.

01:22:34 Solzhenitsyn thought the Russians

01:22:36 would have to return to the incremental development

01:22:40 of Orthodox Christianity to escape from the communist trap.

01:22:44 And to some degree, that’s happened in Russia

01:22:46 because there’s been a return to Orthodox Christianity.

01:22:49 Now, you could say, yeah, but the Orthodox church

01:22:51 has just been coopted by the state.

01:22:53 And I would say there’s some evidence for that.

01:22:55 I’ve heard, for example, that the Metropolitan owns,

01:23:01 now I don’t know if this is true,

01:23:03 owns $5 billion worth of personal property.

01:23:06 And I would say there’s a bit of a moral hazard in that.

01:23:09 And it’s possible that the Orthodox church

01:23:11 has been coopted.

01:23:12 But there has been somewhat of an Orthodox revival in Russia.

01:23:16 And I don’t think that’s all bad.

01:23:18 Now, even if Putin doesn’t believe any of this,

01:23:21 if he’s just a psychopathic manipulator,

01:23:24 and unfortunately, I don’t think that’s true.

01:23:29 I’ve read his speeches.

01:23:30 It doesn’t look like it to me.

01:23:32 And he is by no means the worst Russian leader

01:23:34 of the last 100 years.

01:23:37 Well, there’s quite a selection there.

01:23:39 There certainly is.

01:23:41 And I say that knowing that.

01:23:45 Even if he doesn’t believe it, he’s convinced his people

01:23:49 that it’s true.

01:23:51 And so we’re stuck with the claim in either case.

01:23:57 And that’s the point I was trying to make in the article.

01:23:59 Sometimes I’m troubled by people that explain things.

01:24:05 And a lot of people have reached out to me, experts,

01:24:09 telling me how I should feel, what

01:24:12 I should think about Ukraine.

01:24:14 Oh, you naive Lex, you’re so naive.

01:24:18 Here’s how it really is.

01:24:20 But then I get to see people that lost their home.

01:24:24 I get to see people on the Russian side who believe

01:24:27 they’re, I genuinely think that there’s some degree to which

01:24:31 they have love in their heart.

01:24:33 They see themselves as heroes saving a land from Nazis.

01:24:38 How else would you motivate young men to go fight?

01:24:41 It’s just, it’s these humans destroying not only their homes,

01:24:47 but creating generational hate, destroying

01:24:50 the possibility of love towards each other.

01:24:52 They’re basically creating hate.

01:24:54 What I’ve heard a lot of is on February 24 of this year,

01:24:59 hate was born at a scale that region has not seen.

01:25:04 Hate towards not Vladimir Putin, hate towards not

01:25:07 the soldiers in Russia, but hate towards all Russians.

01:25:12 Hate that will last generations.

01:25:15 And then you can see just the pain there.

01:25:23 And then when all these experts talk about agriculture,

01:25:32 and energy, and geopolitics, and yeah,

01:25:35 maybe like what you say with fighting

01:25:39 the ideologies of the woke and so on,

01:25:41 I just feel like it’s missing something deep,

01:25:45 that war is not fought about any of those things.

01:25:52 War is started, and war is averted based on human beings,

01:25:56 based on humanity.

01:25:58 Here’s another ugly thought, since we

01:26:01 haven’t had enough so far.

01:26:05 We locked everything down for COVID.

01:26:08 How much face to face communication

01:26:10 was there between the West and Vladimir Putin?

01:26:12 How about none?

01:26:14 How about that was the wrong amount,

01:26:16 especially given that Europe was completely dependent on Putin

01:26:19 for its energy supplies?

01:26:21 Well, not completely, but you know what I mean.

01:26:23 Materially and significantly.

01:26:26 Maybe he had to go talk to him once every six months.

01:26:28 Maybe he’s in a bit of a bubble.

01:26:30 Probably.

01:26:31 And not just an information bubble,

01:26:34 how all these experts tell me about.

01:26:36 Yeah, no, a human bubble.

01:26:39 Look, one of the things I’ve really learned,

01:26:41 there’s a real emphasis on hospitality

01:26:43 in the Old Testament.

01:26:45 I just brought all these scholars together

01:26:46 to talk about Exodus.

01:26:48 Hey, I have this security team with me,

01:26:50 and they’re tough military guys.

01:26:53 But they’re on board for this mission, let’s say.

01:26:57 And so they went out of their way

01:26:58 to be hospitable to my academic guests.

01:27:01 They laid out nice platters of meat and cheese and crackers.

01:27:04 They spent all day preparing this house

01:27:06 I had rented so that we could have a hospitable time

01:27:09 with these scholars.

01:27:09 Most of whom I didn’t know well,

01:27:11 but who said they would come and spend eight days

01:27:13 talking about this book with me.

01:27:15 We rented some jet skis.

01:27:16 We had a nice house.

01:27:18 We had fun.

01:27:19 And we got to know each other.

01:27:21 And we got to trust each other

01:27:22 because we could see that we could have some fun

01:27:24 and that we could let our hair down a bit.

01:27:26 We didn’t have to be on guard.

01:27:27 And that made the talks way deeper.

01:27:30 And then we found out we couldn’t get through Exodus

01:27:33 in eight days.

01:27:34 And so I had proposed very early on

01:27:37 that we’re gonna double the length.

01:27:38 And so I pulled eight people out of their lives

01:27:41 for eight days.

01:27:42 That’s not an easy thing to do.

01:27:44 It’s also quite expensive.

01:27:46 And the Daily Wire Plus people picked all that up.

01:27:49 And they said, right.

01:27:50 They said, yes, right away.

01:27:51 So we’d love to do this again.

01:27:53 Well, why?

01:27:54 Well, partly because it was intellectually,

01:27:57 it was unbelievably engaging.

01:27:58 I learned so much.

01:27:59 It’ll take me like a year to digest it

01:28:01 if I can ever digest it.

01:28:04 But they had a really good time.

01:28:08 And so when they were offered that combination

01:28:11 of intellectual challenge, let’s say in hospitality,

01:28:14 it was a no brainer.

01:28:15 They just said, every one of them said,

01:28:17 if I can do it in any way, I will definitely be there.

01:28:20 And this, I went to Washington a bunch of times

01:28:24 and the culture of hospitality has broken down

01:28:26 in Washington.

01:28:28 40% of congressmen sleep in their offices.

01:28:31 They don’t have apartments.

01:28:33 Their family isn’t there with them.

01:28:35 They don’t have social occasions with their fellow Democrats

01:28:39 or Republicans, much less across the table.

01:28:43 And so, and I tried to have some meetings in Washington

01:28:46 that were bilateral a couple of times,

01:28:48 get young Republican congressmen

01:28:50 and Democrats together to talk.

01:28:52 And as soon as they talk, they think,

01:28:54 oh, it was so interesting.

01:28:55 Cause one of the lunches was about 15 people,

01:28:59 half Democrats and half Republicans.

01:29:01 And all I’d asked them to do was just spend three minutes

01:29:03 talking about why you decided to become a congressman,

01:29:06 which is not a job I would take, by the way.

01:29:09 You spend 25 hours a week fundraising on the telephone.

01:29:12 Your family isn’t there with you.

01:29:14 You have to run for reelection every two years.

01:29:17 You’re beholden to the party apparatus, right?

01:29:20 You’re vilified constantly.

01:29:22 This is not, you know, people think,

01:29:25 well, this is a job for the privileged.

01:29:26 It’s like, yeah, you go and run for Congress

01:29:29 and find out how much fun it is

01:29:30 and put your family on the line

01:29:32 and then have to beg for your job every two years

01:29:34 while your enemies, the worst of your enemies

01:29:37 and the worst of your friends

01:29:38 are viciously hen pecking you.

01:29:41 And so anyways, we had them all sit around the table

01:29:43 and said, okay, just say why you ran for Congress.

01:29:47 It was so cool, especially for a Canadian,

01:29:49 cause you Americans, you’re so bloody theatrical.

01:29:51 It’s such something to watch.

01:29:54 It was like, Mr. Smith goes to Washington

01:29:56 for every one of them.

01:29:56 It’s like, well, this country has given us so much,

01:29:59 where our families have been so,

01:30:02 we’ve benefited so much from our time here.

01:30:05 We think this is a wonderful country.

01:30:06 We really felt that we should give back.

01:30:09 And the next one would talk.

01:30:10 And it was like exactly the same story.

01:30:12 And then it didn’t matter

01:30:13 if they were Republican or Democrat,

01:30:14 you couldn’t tell the difference.

01:30:15 No one could.

01:30:16 And was it genuine?

01:30:17 It’s like, well, are you genuine?

01:30:20 You think these people are worse than you?

01:30:23 First of all, they’re not.

01:30:25 Second of all, they’re probably better.

01:30:27 All things considered,

01:30:29 it’s not that easy to become a Congressman.

01:30:31 And I’m sure there’s some bad apples in the bunch,

01:30:34 but by and large,

01:30:35 you walk away from your meetings with these people

01:30:37 and you think, pretty impressive.

01:30:42 They really are giving a part of themselves

01:30:44 in the name of service.

01:30:45 Maybe over time, they become cynical

01:30:48 and become jaded and worn down by the whole system.

01:30:52 But I think a lot of it.

01:30:54 Could you imagine that?

01:30:55 Is healed, I think.

01:30:58 And I don’t think I’m, well, I’m in part naive,

01:31:01 but not fully,

01:31:02 that a lot of it is healed

01:31:03 through the power of conversation,

01:31:05 just basic social interaction.

01:31:08 I do think that the effects of this pandemic.

01:31:11 Especially by listening.

01:31:13 Listen, just sitting there.

01:31:15 And it doesn’t have to be talking about the actual issue.

01:31:17 It’s actually humor and all those kinds of things

01:31:21 about personal struggles,

01:31:23 all those kinds of things that remind you

01:31:26 that you’re all just humans.

01:31:29 Well, the great leaders that I’ve met,

01:31:31 and I’ve met some now,

01:31:33 they go listen to their constituents.

01:31:36 It’s not a policy discussion.

01:31:37 It’s not an ideology discussion.

01:31:38 They go say, okay, what’s your life like?

01:31:42 And what are your problems?

01:31:43 And tell me about them.

01:31:45 And then they listen and then they’re struck by them.

01:31:47 And then they gather up all that misery

01:31:49 and they bring it to the congressional office

01:31:52 or to the parliament.

01:31:53 And they think, here’s what the people are crying out for.

01:31:57 And the good leaders, that’s a leader.

01:32:00 Leader listens.

01:32:02 So I talked to Jimmy Carr about comedy.

01:32:06 And he’s sold out stages worldwide on a tour, being funny.

01:32:13 That’s hard.

01:32:14 He said, comedy is the most standup comedy,

01:32:18 which is what I do in some real sense.

01:32:20 It’s a thing I do that it’s most akin

01:32:23 to what I’m doing on my book tours, I would say.

01:32:25 It’s the closest analog.

01:32:27 He said, it’s the most dialogical enterprise.

01:32:29 And I thought, well, why, what do you mean?

01:32:32 Cause see, it’s just the monologue.

01:32:34 And it’s a prepared monologue.

01:32:36 I mean, you have to interact dynamically with the audience

01:32:39 while you’re telling your jokes

01:32:40 and you gotta get the timing right,

01:32:42 but you have a body of jokes.

01:32:44 He said, well, here’s how you prepare the jokes.

01:32:47 And I’ve been told this by other comedians.

01:32:49 You go to 50 clubs before you go on your tour

01:32:52 and you got some new material and you think it’s funny.

01:32:55 And you go into a club and you lay out your new material

01:32:58 and people laugh at some of it.

01:33:01 And you pay attention to what they laugh at

01:33:04 and what they don’t laugh at.

01:33:06 So you subject yourself to the judgment of the crowd

01:33:09 and you get rid of everything that isn’t funny.

01:33:11 And if you do that enough, even if you’re not that funny,

01:33:14 the crowd will tell you what’s funny.

01:33:17 So you can imagine, imagine you do 50 shows

01:33:20 and each is an hour long

01:33:21 and you collect two minutes of humor from each show.

01:33:24 So you throw away 90, you throw away two hours,

01:33:27 more than 98% of it, collect two minutes per show.

01:33:32 So you’re not very funny at all.

01:33:34 You’re like funny 2% of the time.

01:33:35 You aggregate that, man, you’re a scream.

01:33:38 So that’s what a leader does is,

01:33:41 that is what a leader does is goes out

01:33:43 and he aggregates the misery, you know, and the hopes.

01:33:46 And then I do think that’s revivify

01:33:49 to someone who would otherwise be cynical and jaded

01:33:52 because then the person can say to themselves,

01:33:54 despite the inadequacies of the system and my inadequacies,

01:33:58 I’m gathering up the misery and the hope

01:34:02 and I’m bringing it forward where it can be redressed.

01:34:06 Giving it a voice.

01:34:07 Yeah, that’s right, giving it a voice.

01:34:09 Can you actually take me through a day

01:34:10 because this is fascinating, through your comedy tour.

01:34:14 What does a day in the life of Jordan Peterson look like?

01:34:20 Which is this very interesting day.

01:34:22 Let’s look at the day when you have to speak.

01:34:25 Preparing your mind,

01:34:27 thinking of what you’re going to talk about,

01:34:30 preparing yourself physically and mentally

01:34:33 to interact with the crowd through the actual speaking,

01:34:37 how do you adjust what you’re thinking through

01:34:39 and how do you come down from that?

01:34:41 So you can start all again as a limited biological system.

01:34:47 Well, I’m usually up by seven

01:34:52 and ready to go by 7.30 or eight.

01:34:56 Coffee?

01:34:57 No, steak and water.

01:35:00 How many times a day steak?

01:35:02 All, that’s all I eat.

01:35:03 How many times?

01:35:05 Three or four, depending on the day.

01:35:07 Steak and water.

01:35:08 Steak and sparkling water.

01:35:09 Yeah, so monastic asceticism, man.

01:35:12 Well, I did the proper, I usually just once a day,

01:35:16 I did the proper Jordan Peterson last night

01:35:18 and just ate two steaks.

01:35:19 And how was that?

01:35:20 It was wonderful.

01:35:22 Yeah, well, if you have to only eat one thing,

01:35:25 you know, could be worse.

01:35:27 So anyways, I’m ready to go at eight

01:35:28 because we’re generally moving.

01:35:31 What does moving mean?

01:35:32 Flying. You’re constantly.

01:35:33 Flying somewhere.

01:35:35 Okay.

01:35:36 And we usually use private flights now

01:35:38 because the commercial airlines aren’t reliable enough

01:35:41 and you cannot not make a venue, right?

01:35:44 So that’s rule number one on a tour.

01:35:47 You make the show.

01:35:50 So everything, and then number rule number two

01:35:52 is anybody who causes any trouble on the tour is gone

01:35:56 because there is zero room for error.

01:35:59 Now, no, there’s zero room for unnecessary,

01:36:04 unaddressed error.

01:36:05 So there’s gonna be errors.

01:36:06 The guys I have around me now, if they make a mistake,

01:36:10 they fix it right away.

01:36:12 So, and that’s great.

01:36:13 There’s a lot of people relying on you to be there.

01:36:15 So you have to be there.

01:36:16 Yeah, like 4,000 people typically.

01:36:19 So then I’m on the plane and I usually write or often

01:36:28 because there’s no internet on the plane

01:36:31 and that’s a good use of time.

01:36:32 So I’m writing a new book.

01:36:33 So I write on the plane.

01:36:34 Typing or handwriting?

01:36:36 Typing, yeah, typing.

01:36:38 And then we land and we go to,

01:36:43 it’s usually early afternoon by then we go to a hotel.

01:36:47 It’s usually a nice hotel.

01:36:48 It’s not corporate.

01:36:49 I don’t really like corporate hotels.

01:36:51 My secretary and one of my logistics guys

01:36:54 has got quite good at picking kind of adventurous hotels,

01:36:59 boutique hotels are usually in the old parts of the city,

01:37:01 especially in Europe, somewhere interesting.

01:37:03 And so we go there and then lunch usually.

01:37:08 And sometimes that’s an air fryer and a steak

01:37:11 in the hotel room.

01:37:12 And I leave a trail of air fryers behind me

01:37:14 all across the world.

01:37:15 And then Tammy and I usually go out and have a walk

01:37:20 or something and take a look at the city.

01:37:22 And then I have a rest for like an hour and a half

01:37:25 or an hour, half an hour.

01:37:26 Like a nap?

01:37:27 Yeah, nap.

01:37:27 I have to sleep for 20 minutes.

01:37:29 And that’s about all I can sleep,

01:37:30 but I need to do that in the late afternoon.

01:37:31 That refreshes your mind.

01:37:32 Yeah, that gives me, that wakes me up again for the evening.

01:37:36 And then Tam has to sleep longer.

01:37:38 She’s still recovering from her illness.

01:37:40 And so she has to sleep longer in the afternoon

01:37:42 and that’s absolutely necessary for both of us

01:37:44 or things start to get frayed.

01:37:46 And so then we go to the venue

01:37:50 and then I usually sit for an hour.

01:37:54 If I’m gonna lecture, I’ve been doing a lot of Q and A’s

01:37:56 and that’s a little easier.

01:37:57 But if I’m gonna lecture, I have to sit for an hour.

01:38:01 And then I think, okay, what question am I trying

01:38:06 to investigate?

01:38:07 I have to have that, that’s the point.

01:38:09 What mystery am I trying to unravel?

01:38:13 It’s usually associated with one of the rules in my book

01:38:15 because technically it’s a book tour,

01:38:17 but each of those rules is an investigation into an ethic.

01:38:21 And each of them points to a deeper sort of mystery

01:38:24 in some sense.

01:38:25 And there’s no end to the amount that can be explored.

01:38:28 And so I have the question,

01:38:30 my question might be something like put your house

01:38:36 in perfect order before you criticize the world.

01:38:38 Okay, what does that mean exactly?

01:38:40 What does house mean?

01:38:42 What does put mean, that active verb?

01:38:46 What is perfect in order mean?

01:38:48 Why before you criticize the world?

01:38:51 What does it mean to criticize?

01:38:52 What does it mean to criticize the world?

01:38:54 How can you do that properly or improperly?

01:38:56 So I start to think about how to decompose the question.

01:38:59 And you start to think which of these decompositions

01:39:02 are important to really dig into?

01:39:03 Yeah, well, then they’ll strike me.

01:39:05 It’s like, okay, there’s something there

01:39:06 that I’ve been maybe noodling around on

01:39:09 that I would like to investigate further.

01:39:11 Then I think, okay, how can I approach this problem?

01:39:13 I think, well, I have this story that I know,

01:39:16 I have this story and I have this story,

01:39:17 but I haven’t juxtaposed them before.

01:39:19 And there’s gonna be some interesting interaction

01:39:21 in the juxtaposition.

01:39:23 So I have the question

01:39:24 and I kind of have a framework of interpretation.

01:39:27 And then I have some potential narrative places I can go.

01:39:31 And then I think, okay, I can go juggle that

01:39:33 and see what happens.

01:39:35 And so then what I wanna do is concentrate on that process

01:39:38 while attending to the audience

01:39:40 to make sure that the words are landing

01:39:42 and then see if I can delve into it deeply enough

01:39:45 so that a narrative emerges spontaneously with an ending.

01:39:50 Now, I’m sure you’ve experienced this in podcasts, right?

01:39:53 Maybe I’m wrong, but my experience has been

01:39:56 if I fall into the conversation

01:39:58 and we know about the timeframe,

01:40:00 there’ll be a natural narrative arc.

01:40:03 And then, so you’ll kind of know when the midpoint is

01:40:06 and you’ll kind of see when you’re reaching a conclusion.

01:40:08 And then if you really pay attention,

01:40:09 you can see that’s a good place to stop.

01:40:12 And it’s kind of, you come to a point

01:40:15 and you have to be alert and patient to see that.

01:40:20 And you have to be willing to be satisfied

01:40:22 with where you’ve got to.

01:40:24 But if you do that, and then it’s like a comedian

01:40:26 making the punchline work.

01:40:28 It’s like, I’ve got all these balls in the air

01:40:32 and they’re going somewhere

01:40:33 and this is how they come together.

01:40:36 And people love that, right?

01:40:37 They say, oh, this and this and this and this and this.

01:40:40 Whack, together.

01:40:42 And that’s an insight.

01:40:43 And it is very much like a punchline.

01:40:45 Well, that’s interesting because your mind actually,

01:40:48 so I’m a fan of your podcast too.

01:40:49 And you are always driving towards that.

01:40:53 I would say for me in a podcast conversation,

01:40:57 there’s often a kind of Alice in Wonderland

01:41:00 type of exploration.

01:41:02 Down the rabbit hole, man.

01:41:03 And then you just, a new thing pops up,

01:41:06 the more absurd, the wilder, the better.

01:41:08 Conversations with Elon are like this.

01:41:10 It’s like, actually the more you drive towards an arc,

01:41:14 the more uncomfortable you start to get

01:41:16 in a fun, absurd conversation because,

01:41:19 oh, I’m now one of the normies.

01:41:22 No, I don’t want that.

01:41:23 I wanna be, I want the rabbit.

01:41:25 I want the crazy because it makes it more fun.

01:41:29 But somehow throughout it, there is wisdom

01:41:33 that you try to grasp at such that there is a thread.

01:41:37 Well, that’s the thing, man.

01:41:38 You’re following the thread, eh?

01:41:40 Yeah, the thread’s the, well, that’s right.

01:41:42 That’s what we’re trying to do, that thread.

01:41:45 That thread is the proper balance

01:41:47 between structure and spontaneity.

01:41:49 And it manifests itself as the instinct of meaning.

01:41:52 And that’s the logos in the dialogos.

01:41:54 And it really is the logos.

01:41:55 And God only knows what that means.

01:41:58 You know, I mean, the biblical claim

01:42:00 is that logos is the fundamental principle of reality.

01:42:03 And I think that’s true.

01:42:05 I actually think that’s true

01:42:07 because I think that that meaning that guides you,

01:42:10 well, here’s a way of thinking about it.

01:42:11 I’ve been writing about this recently.

01:42:14 What’s real matter?

01:42:17 It’s like, okay, that’s one answer.

01:42:19 What’s real?

01:42:20 What matters is real.

01:42:22 Because that’s how you act.

01:42:24 Okay, so that’s different than matter.

01:42:26 It’s like, okay, what’s the most real of what matters?

01:42:31 How about pain?

01:42:33 Why is it the most real?

01:42:35 Try arguing it away.

01:42:38 Good luck.

01:42:40 So pain is the fundamental reality.

01:42:43 All right.

01:42:44 Well, that’s rough.

01:42:46 Doesn’t that lead to nihilism and hopelessness?

01:42:50 Yeah, doesn’t it lead to a philosophy

01:42:53 that’s antithetical towards being

01:42:55 the most fundamental reality is pain?

01:42:58 Yes.

01:42:59 Is there anything more fundamental than pain?

01:43:03 Love.

01:43:06 Really?

01:43:08 If you’re in pain,

01:43:13 love and truth,

01:43:14 that’s what you got.

01:43:17 And you know,

01:43:24 if they’re more powerful than pain,

01:43:26 maybe they’re the most real things.

01:43:31 When you think about reality, what is real?

01:43:33 That is the most real thing.

01:43:36 Well, it’s a tough one, right?

01:43:37 Because you have to,

01:43:39 because if you’re a scientist, a materialist,

01:43:41 think, well, the matter is the most real.

01:43:44 It’s like, well, you don’t know what the matter is.

01:43:47 Yeah.

01:43:48 And so, and then when push comes to shove,

01:43:49 and it will, you’ll find out what’s most real.

01:43:53 Yeah.

01:43:54 I feel like this is missing,

01:43:59 the physical reality is missing some of the things.

01:44:03 So of course pain has a biological component

01:44:05 and all those kinds of things,

01:44:06 but it’s missing something deep about the human condition

01:44:10 that at least the modern science is not able to describe,

01:44:15 but it is reaching towards that.

01:44:17 Yeah, it is.

01:44:18 And it’s the reason, one way to describe it

01:44:21 as you’re describing is the reason it’s reaching it

01:44:23 is because underneath of science is this assumption

01:44:27 that there’s a deep.

01:44:30 Logos.

01:44:31 Thing to this whole thing we’re trying to do.

01:44:34 Well, you know, there’s two traditions, right?

01:44:36 In some sense, there’s two logos traditions.

01:44:39 There’s the Greek rational enlightenment tradition.

01:44:44 That’s a logos tradition.

01:44:45 And it insists that there’s a logos in nature

01:44:48 and that science is the way to approach it.

01:44:50 And then there’s a Judeo Christian logos,

01:44:52 which is more embodied and more spiritual.

01:44:55 And I would say the West is actually an attempt

01:44:57 to unite those two.

01:44:59 And it’s the proper attempt to unite those two

01:45:02 because they need to be united.

01:45:04 And I see the union coming in your terms.

01:45:07 You know, I talked to friends to wall, for example

01:45:09 about the animating principle of chimpanzee sovereignty.

01:45:13 And that’s pretty close biologically.

01:45:15 Is it power?

01:45:16 Cause that’s the claim even from the biologists often

01:45:19 the most dominant chimp has the best reproductive success.

01:45:23 It’s like, oh yeah, dominant.

01:45:26 Hey, you mean using compulsion?

01:45:28 Okay, let’s look.

01:45:29 Are the chimps who use compulsion the most successful?

01:45:34 And the answer is sporadically and rarely.

01:45:39 And for short, well, that’s sporadically

01:45:41 for short periods of time.

01:45:43 Why?

01:45:44 Because they meet an unpleasant end.

01:45:47 The subordinates over whom they exercise arbitrary control

01:45:52 wait for a weak moment and then tear them into shreds, right?

01:45:56 Every dictators terror and for good reason.

01:46:00 And the wall has showed that the alpha chimps,

01:46:03 the males who do have preferential mating access often

01:46:07 are often and reliably the best peacemakers

01:46:12 and the most reciprocal.

01:46:14 And so even among chimps, the principle of sovereignty

01:46:16 is something like iterative, iterated reciprocity.

01:46:23 And that’s a way better principle than power.

01:46:26 And it’s something like I’ve been thinking

01:46:28 what’s the antithesis of the spirit of power.

01:46:31 I think it’s the spirit of play.

01:46:35 And I don’t know what you think about that,

01:46:37 but when you have a good podcast conversation,

01:46:39 you already described it in some sense as play.

01:46:41 It’s like, there’s a structure, right?

01:46:43 Cause it’s an ordered conversation,

01:46:45 but you want there to be play in the system.

01:46:48 And if you get that right, then it’s really engaging.

01:46:51 And then it seems to have its own narrative arc.

01:46:54 I’m not trying to impose that even though

01:46:56 that’s another thing I don’t do.

01:46:58 I didn’t come to this conversation at all thinking,

01:47:01 here’s what I want out of a conversation

01:47:03 with Lex Friedman, like instrumentally.

01:47:06 I thought, I’ll go talk to Lex.

01:47:08 Why?

01:47:10 I like his podcasts.

01:47:13 He’s doing something right.

01:47:14 I don’t know what it is.

01:47:15 He asks interesting questions.

01:47:17 I’ll go have a conversation with him.

01:47:19 Where’s it gonna go?

01:47:22 Wherever it goes.

01:47:24 Embracing the spirit of play.

01:47:26 So what you have this, when you’re lecturing,

01:47:30 you’re going in front of the crowd,

01:47:32 you thought of a question, you get on the stage.

01:47:36 First of all, are you nervous at all?

01:47:39 I’m very nervous when I’m sitting down,

01:47:43 thinking through the structure initially,

01:47:46 which is why my wife and I have been doing Q and As

01:47:49 and that’s easier on me.

01:47:50 It’s the way comedians are nervous.

01:47:54 Like Joe Rogan just did his special this weekend.

01:47:59 And so he now has to sit nervously like a comedian does,

01:48:03 which is like, I have no material now.

01:48:07 Right.

01:48:07 I have to start from scratch.

01:48:08 When I was doing the lectures constantly

01:48:10 instead of the Q and As,

01:48:13 basically what I was doing was writing

01:48:15 a whole book chapter every night.

01:48:17 And now that’s a bit of an exaggeration

01:48:20 because I would return to themes that I had developed,

01:48:22 but it’s not really an exaggeration

01:48:24 because I didn’t ever just go over wrote material ever.

01:48:30 So it’s very demanding and that part’s nerve wracking

01:48:34 because I sit down, it’s an hour before the show

01:48:36 and I think, can I do this?

01:48:41 And the answer is, well, you did it a thousand times,

01:48:45 but that’s not this time.

01:48:46 It’s like, can I come up with a question?

01:48:49 Can I think through the structure?

01:48:51 Can I pull off the spontaneous narrative?

01:48:56 Can I pull it together?

01:48:57 And the answer is, I don’t know.

01:49:00 And so then I get it together in my mind, I think,

01:49:02 and that’s hard.

01:49:03 It takes effort and it’s nerve wracking.

01:49:06 Okay, I got it.

01:49:07 But then there’s the moment you go out on stage

01:49:09 and you think, well, I know I had it, but can I do it?

01:49:13 No notes.

01:49:15 And then the question is,

01:49:16 well, you’re gonna find out while you do it.

01:49:18 And so then I go out on stage and I don’t talk

01:49:22 to the audience, I talk to one person at a time.

01:49:27 And you can talk to one person,

01:49:29 cause you know how to do that.

01:49:30 So I talk to a person and not too long

01:49:32 cause I don’t wanna make them too nervous

01:49:33 and then someone else and someone else.

01:49:35 And then I’m in contact with the audience

01:49:37 and then I can tell if the words are landing

01:49:41 and I listen, it’s like, are they rustling around?

01:49:44 Are they dead quiet?

01:49:46 Cause you want dead quiet.

01:49:47 You’re, oh, I see.

01:49:49 That’s what focus sounds like.

01:49:52 You’re in it together then.

01:49:53 You bet.

01:49:54 Well, and I also, here’s a good rule

01:49:55 if you’re learning to speak publicly,

01:49:57 I never say a word till everyone is 100% quiet.

01:50:04 And that’s, it’s a great way to start a talk

01:50:06 because you’re setting the frame,

01:50:08 and if the frame is we’ll all talk while you’re talking,

01:50:11 the message is, well, you can talk.

01:50:14 This is a place where everybody can talk.

01:50:16 It’s like, no, it’s not.

01:50:17 This is a place where people paid to hear me talk.

01:50:21 So I’m not gonna talk till everyone’s listening.

01:50:24 And so then you get that stillness

01:50:26 and then you just wait

01:50:28 cause that stillness turns into an expectation.

01:50:30 And then it comes, turns into a kind of nervous expectations

01:50:34 like what the hell is he doing?

01:50:35 It’s not manipulative.

01:50:37 It’s a sense of timing.

01:50:38 It’s like just when that’s right,

01:50:40 you think, okay, now it’s time to start.

01:50:42 Well, the interesting thing about that nervous expectation

01:50:46 is from an audience perspective, we’re in it together.

01:50:49 Yeah.

01:50:50 I mean, there is into that silence,

01:50:51 there’s a togetherness to it.

01:50:53 Of course, it’s the union of everyone’s attention.

01:50:55 Yeah.

01:50:56 Yeah, and that’s a great thing.

01:50:58 I mean, you love that at a concert when everyone,

01:51:00 it’s not silence then,

01:51:01 but when everyone’s attention is unified

01:51:03 and everyone’s moving in unison,

01:51:05 it’s like we’re all worshiping the same thing, right?

01:51:09 And that would be the point of the conversation,

01:51:11 the point of the lecture.

01:51:13 And the worship is the direction of attention towards it.

01:51:16 And it’s union, it’s communion

01:51:18 because everyone’s doing it at the same time.

01:51:20 And so, I mean, there’s not much difference

01:51:23 between a lecture theater and a church in that regard, right?

01:51:25 It’s the same fundamental layout and structure.

01:51:28 And they’re very integrally associated with one another.

01:51:30 One really grew out of the other,

01:51:32 the lecture theater grew out of the church.

01:51:34 So it’s perfectly reasonable

01:51:36 to be thinking about it in those terms.

01:51:38 And so, and then, okay, so after the lecture,

01:51:42 we play a piece of music that is a piece of music

01:51:45 that I’ve been producing with some musicians

01:51:47 for a couple of books I’m gonna release in the fall.

01:51:51 Terrible books, ABC of childhood tragedy,

01:51:53 they’re called dark, dark books,

01:51:58 dark and comical books, terrible books,

01:52:03 heartbreaking illustrations.

01:52:06 We’ve set them to music.

01:52:07 And so we play a piece from that.

01:52:09 And then afterwards, I usually meet about 150 people

01:52:13 to have photographs.

01:52:14 And so each of those is a little.

01:52:17 Is there a little sparkle of human connection?

01:52:20 A lot, a lot, it’s very intense.

01:52:24 10 seconds with every person you think,

01:52:27 how can 10 seconds be intense?

01:52:28 It’s like, pay enough attention.

01:52:31 It gets intense real quick.

01:52:33 Does it break your heart to say goodbye so many times?

01:52:36 It’s like being in a wedding lineup,

01:52:39 at a wedding that you wanna be at.

01:52:41 And everybody’s dressed up.

01:52:42 And that’s so weird,

01:52:43 because I bought these expensive suits

01:52:45 when I went on tour and it broke my heart

01:52:47 because I spent so much money on them.

01:52:48 I thought, God, that’s completely unconscionable.

01:52:51 I thought, no way, man, I’m in this 100%.

01:52:55 And so I’m gonna dress with respect.

01:52:58 And like 60% of the audience comes in

01:53:04 two or three piece suits.

01:53:05 They’re all dressed up.

01:53:07 Then there’s this line to greet me

01:53:09 and they’re all happy to see me.

01:53:11 That’s not so hard to take.

01:53:13 You know, although it is in a sense, right?

01:53:15 Because normal interactions are pretty shallow.

01:53:19 And you think, I don’t want shallow interactions.

01:53:21 It’s like, yes, you do most of the time.

01:53:22 Yeah, it’s intense.

01:53:24 It’s very intense.

01:53:25 And I don’t know if you have.

01:53:26 But you’ve had a taste of this, no doubt,

01:53:28 because people recognize you.

01:53:29 Yeah, but I also have,

01:53:31 when a person recognizes me and they come with the love

01:53:34 and they’re often brilliant people,

01:53:37 one of the thoughts I have to deal with,

01:53:39 one of the dragons in my own mind is, you know,

01:53:43 thinking that I don’t deserve that kind of attention.

01:53:45 And so.

01:53:46 Well, you probably don’t.

01:53:48 Right.

01:53:49 But maybe you could.

01:53:50 So it’s a burden in that I have to step up

01:53:53 to be the kind of person that deserves that,

01:53:56 not deserves that, but in part deserves

01:53:58 that kind of attention.

01:53:59 And that’s like, holy shit.

01:54:01 It’s crucially important too,

01:54:02 because if someone comes up to you in an airport

01:54:05 and they know who you are and they’re brave enough

01:54:08 to admire you or who you are attempting to be

01:54:11 and you make a mistake, they will never forget it.

01:54:16 So it’s a high stakes enterprise.

01:54:19 And the flip side of that, especially with young people,

01:54:23 a few words you can say can change the direction

01:54:25 of their life.

01:54:26 One way or another.

01:54:28 And so I really have to watch this too in airports

01:54:30 because I do not like airports.

01:54:31 I do not like the creeping totalitarianism in airports.

01:54:34 They’ve always bothered me.

01:54:36 They really bother me.

01:54:38 And I’m an unpleasant travel companion

01:54:40 for my wife sometimes because of that.

01:54:42 Although I think we’ve worked that out.

01:54:43 Thank God, cause we’re doing a lot of traveling.

01:54:46 But most of the security guards and the border personnel,

01:54:50 all those people, they know me.

01:54:52 And as a general rule, they’re positively predisposed to me.

01:54:55 And so if I’m peevish or irritable,

01:54:57 then well, that’s not good.

01:55:00 It’s not good.

01:55:02 And so that’s a tight rope to walk to

01:55:03 because I do not like that creeping totalitarianism.

01:55:07 But by the same token, if you’re just one of the crowd,

01:55:12 just, sometimes it’s good just to be one of the crowd

01:55:16 and then you’re a little irritable

01:55:18 and people can just brush that off.

01:55:19 But if you’re someone they have dared to open their heart to,

01:55:24 cause that’s what admiration is, and then you betray that,

01:55:30 then that’s a real, they’ll never forget it.

01:55:34 And then they’ll tell everyone too.

01:55:36 So it takes a lot of alertness.

01:55:39 And so Tammy and our life has got complicated

01:55:41 because in Toronto, for example,

01:55:43 we can’t really just go for a walk.

01:55:46 It’s always a high drama production

01:55:49 cause always people come up and they have some

01:55:52 heart rending story to tell.

01:55:55 And I’m not being cynical about that.

01:55:57 Yes.

01:55:58 It’s a hard thing to bear because people don’t do that.

01:56:02 They don’t just open themselves up to you like that

01:56:04 and share the tragedy of their life.

01:56:09 But that’s an everyday occurrence.

01:56:11 And so when we go up to our cottage,

01:56:13 which is out of the city, it’s a relief,

01:56:17 because as wonderful as that is,

01:56:21 like it’s a weird, I have a weird life

01:56:23 because everywhere I go, it’s very weird.

01:56:25 It’s like I’m surrounded by old friends

01:56:28 because I walk down the street in any city now virtually

01:56:31 and people say, hello, Dr. Peterson, so nice to see you.

01:56:34 Or they say better things than that.

01:56:36 Very rarely bad things.

01:56:38 One experience in 5,000, maybe very rare,

01:56:42 although you don’t forget those either,

01:56:44 but it’s very strange.

01:56:48 So.

01:56:48 And there’s an intimacy, they know you well.

01:56:50 And because they leap into,

01:56:55 they avoid the small talk often.

01:56:57 They leap into familiarity.

01:56:58 It really is like it’s an old friend

01:57:00 and it feels like that.

01:57:01 For me personally, the experiences, the goodbye hurts

01:57:06 because there’s a sense

01:57:09 where you’re never gonna see that friend again.

01:57:11 Right.

01:57:12 Yeah, that’s a strange thing, eh?

01:57:14 So to me, a lot of it just feels like goodbyes.

01:57:19 Mm hmm.

01:57:20 It is.

01:57:22 You’re right about that.

01:57:23 And I mean, that’s, I suppose, in some sense,

01:57:26 part of the pain of opening yourself up to people

01:57:29 because they also, Tammy has been struck particularly.

01:57:33 She said, I really never knew what men were like.

01:57:35 I said, well, what do you mean?

01:57:36 She said, I cannot believe how polite the men are

01:57:41 when they come and talk to you

01:57:42 because it’s always the same.

01:57:43 The pattern’s very similar.

01:57:45 The person comes up, they’re mostly men,

01:57:47 not always, but mostly.

01:57:49 And they’re tentative and they’re very polite,

01:57:51 very, very polite.

01:57:53 And they say, I hope I’m not bothering you.

01:57:55 Do you mind, you know, do you mind that I say

01:57:57 that they’re not bothering me?

01:58:00 And I’m doing everything I can to not be the guy

01:58:03 who’s bothered by that.

01:58:04 It’s like, who do you think you are?

01:58:05 Yeah, yes.

01:58:07 You’re the guy that what is famous and now is above that?

01:58:12 Yeah.

01:58:13 You don’t wanna be that guy.

01:58:15 So you wanna be grateful all the time

01:58:17 when people open up like that.

01:58:20 And so you gotta be alert and on point

01:58:23 to do that properly, like right away.

01:58:25 Because for you, it’s five seconds or 10 seconds

01:58:28 or 20 seconds, whatever it is.

01:58:30 But for them, they’ve opened up.

01:58:33 And so you can really nail them if you’re foolish.

01:58:37 After the 150 people, how do you come down from that?

01:58:40 How do you find yourself again?

01:58:44 Well, that was when I got caught in Twitter traps,

01:58:48 cause I’m so burnt out by then from the talk

01:58:52 and the audience interactions and the whole day.

01:58:56 Cause it’s a new city, it’s a new hotel,

01:58:58 it’s a new 5,000 people, it’s a new book chapter,

01:59:02 it’s a whole new horizon of ideas.

01:59:04 And it’s off to another city the next day.

01:59:06 I’m so burnt out by then that I’m not as good

01:59:10 at controlling my impulses as I might be.

01:59:13 And Twitter was a real catastrophe for that

01:59:15 cause it would hook me and then I couldn’t,

01:59:17 like I used to, when I was working on my book a lot,

01:59:20 I used to call Tammy and say, look,

01:59:22 you have to come and get me, I can’t stop.

01:59:25 I can’t stop, I got tired and then I kind of,

01:59:28 cause it’s part of a kind of hypomanic focus.

01:59:31 I couldn’t quit, it’s like, oh no, I’m still writing.

01:59:34 I need to get away from this, but I couldn’t stop.

01:59:37 And so it’s better to read something, a book.

01:59:44 Fiction, nonfiction.

01:59:46 Fiction, Stephen King.

01:59:48 I was reading a lot of Stephen King

01:59:50 when I was on tour last time, that was good.

01:59:52 I like Stephen King a lot.

01:59:53 It’s a great narrative.

01:59:54 Great, and great characterization, you know?

01:59:57 So, and there’s a familiarity about Stephen King’s

02:00:02 writing too that it’s, he writes about people you know.

02:00:05 And so I really found that a relief.

02:00:08 And so that was useful.

02:00:10 And that in order to tolerate this, let’s say,

02:00:12 or to be able to sustain it,

02:00:15 well, let’s take a lot of negotiation

02:00:16 on the part of Tammy and I,

02:00:17 because she’s dragged into this and, you know,

02:00:21 her life is part of this, whatever this is.

02:00:25 And she’s had to find her way and has, for example,

02:00:29 now she has a different hotel room than me when we travel.

02:00:32 And she found that she didn’t want to be on the tour

02:00:35 this spring, and I was ill again for part of it.

02:00:37 And that made it complicated,

02:00:39 but she went away back home and she came back

02:00:42 and she said, and she was nervous about,

02:00:43 she said, I think I need my own room.

02:00:45 And part of me was not happy with that.

02:00:47 It’s like, what do you mean you need your,

02:00:48 like, are we not married anymore?

02:00:50 It’s like, you need your own room?

02:00:52 And she said, well, you know, I can’t,

02:00:54 she has to do exercises because she was really sick

02:00:57 and she has to keep herself in shape.

02:00:59 And she has to have some time to do that.

02:01:02 She does a lot of prayer and meditation

02:01:03 and she needs the time.

02:01:04 And she has her own podcast, which is going quite well.

02:01:06 And she needs the time and I trust her.

02:01:09 And she said, well, I need this in order to continue.

02:01:12 And I thought, well, okay,

02:01:15 if you need this in order to continue, yes.

02:01:19 Because she went away and didn’t say, well,

02:01:20 I don’t want to be on the tour.

02:01:22 I don’t want to do this anymore.

02:01:23 She went away and prayed, let’s say,

02:01:25 how can I continue to do this?

02:01:28 And that was the answer.

02:01:30 And so she has her own hotel room.

02:01:32 And that was a really good decision on her part.

02:01:36 And she’s very good and getting better all the time

02:01:39 at figuring out what has to happen for her

02:01:43 to make this sustainable.

02:01:45 And all that’s been is a plus

02:01:48 because I don’t want to travel without her.

02:01:51 And I don’t want her life to be miserable.

02:01:53 And I want her to be fully on board.

02:01:55 And so she has to be properly selfish.

02:01:58 Like everyone does in a relationship.

02:02:00 And you have to, not just that,

02:02:02 this is a weird thing that you’re doing.

02:02:05 And you have to, both you and her have to figure out

02:02:08 how to manage this very intense intellectual,

02:02:13 social journey.

02:02:13 Well, there’s another element to it too

02:02:15 that I didn’t tell you about.

02:02:16 So that was a typical day, but it’s missing a big component

02:02:19 because usually we also have a dinner

02:02:22 with like 30 cultural representatives, I suppose,

02:02:26 10 to 30 from each country.

02:02:28 Cause I have a network of people who have networks

02:02:32 who are setting me up with key decision makers

02:02:35 in each country.

02:02:37 And so then we have like an hour and a half of that.

02:02:39 Now, sometimes that’s on a day when I don’t have a talk,

02:02:42 but sometimes the talks are back to back.

02:02:44 And so she also has to manage that and to be gracious.

02:02:49 And then people are showing us exciting things

02:02:51 and tours in the cities and which is all,

02:02:53 like it’s a surf fight of wonderful.

02:02:56 Yes, exactly.

02:02:57 But it’s still, yeah, you have to be there for it.

02:03:00 You have to be present for it mentally.

02:03:02 Yeah.

02:03:02 As a curious mind, as an intellectual mind.

02:03:04 How do you get to sleep?

02:03:07 Fortunately, that is almost never a problem.

02:03:11 Even when I was unbelievably ill for about three years.

02:03:17 I thought about that a lot too, you know,

02:03:18 that I didn’t do a really good job of explaining that

02:03:21 while I was ill because it appeared in some sense

02:03:24 that the reason I was ill was because I was taking

02:03:26 benzodiazepines, but that isn’t why I was ill.

02:03:30 And then I took them and very low dose.

02:03:33 And I took that for a long time and it helped

02:03:36 whatever was wrong with me.

02:03:37 And it looks like it was an allergy

02:03:39 or maybe multiple allergies.

02:03:42 And then that stopped working.

02:03:45 And so I took a little bit more for about a month

02:03:47 and that made it way worse.

02:03:48 And so then I cut back a lot and then,

02:03:52 then things really got out of hand.

02:03:54 So.

02:03:55 So there was a deeper thing in the Benzo.

02:03:57 Oh yeah.

02:03:58 What can you put words to?

02:04:00 Well, I had a lot of immune, well, my daughter,

02:04:02 as everyone knows, has a very reactive immune system.

02:04:06 And Tammy has three immunological conditions,

02:04:09 each of them quite serious.

02:04:11 And I had psoriasis and peripheral uveitis,

02:04:14 which is an autoimmune condition and alopecia areata

02:04:17 and chronic gum disease, all of which appeared

02:04:21 to be allergy related.

02:04:22 And so Michaela seems to have got all of that.

02:04:25 And so that, and that I think was at the bottom of,

02:04:28 cause I also had this proclivity to depression

02:04:30 that was part of my family history.

02:04:32 But I think that was all immunological

02:04:34 as far as I can tell.

02:04:35 So one of the things that’s happened to me,

02:04:37 I always noticed I really couldn’t breathe.

02:04:40 Like I could breathe about one fifth

02:04:42 as much as I sometimes could.

02:04:46 And so I was always short of breath.

02:04:48 And it looks like what that was perhaps was

02:04:53 I was always on the border of an anaphylactic reaction,

02:04:56 which is not pleasant.

02:04:58 And that’s hypersympathetic activation,

02:05:01 no parasympathetic activation.

02:05:03 I couldn’t relax at all.

02:05:05 That’s an immunological response.

02:05:07 Allergic response, yeah.

02:05:09 So anyways, that was what seemed,

02:05:11 now this, I don’t like to talk about this much

02:05:14 cause it’s so bloody radical

02:05:15 and I don’t like to propagate it,

02:05:17 but this diet seems to have stopped all of that.

02:05:19 I don’t have psoriasis, all of the patches have gone.

02:05:22 My gum disease, which is incurable,

02:05:25 I had multiple surgeries to deal with it,

02:05:27 is completely gone, took three years.

02:05:30 My right eye, which was quite cloudy,

02:05:32 it’s cleared up completely.

02:05:35 What else has changed?

02:05:36 Well, I lost 50 pounds and like instantly kept it off.

02:05:41 I should mention that I too am not a deep investigator

02:05:45 of nutritional science.

02:05:47 I have my skepticism towards the degree

02:05:49 to which it is currently as a science.

02:05:51 Cause like a lot of complex systems is full of mystery

02:05:55 and full of profiteers,

02:05:57 the people that profit of different kinds of diets.

02:06:00 But I should say for me personally,

02:06:02 it does seem that I feel by far the best

02:06:05 when I eat only meat.

02:06:06 It’s very interesting.

02:06:07 And I discovered that a long time ago.

02:06:10 First of all.

02:06:10 How did you discover it?

02:06:12 So by, the discovery went like this.

02:06:15 I started listening to ultra marathon runners

02:06:17 about 15 years ago.

02:06:20 And they started talking about fat adapted running.

02:06:27 So I first discovered that I don’t have to run super fast

02:06:31 to enjoy running.

02:06:32 And in fact, I really enjoy running at a slower pace.

02:06:36 So that was like step one.

02:06:37 It’s like, oh, okay.

02:06:38 If I maintain something called the math rule,

02:06:42 which is the pretty low heart rate.

02:06:45 If I maintain that you can actually get pretty fast

02:06:47 while maintaining a pretty slow average speed in general.

02:06:50 Anyway, they fuel themselves on low carb diets.

02:06:55 So I got into that.

02:06:57 On top of that, I also, they also fast often.

02:07:00 So I discovered how incredible my mind feels when fasted.

02:07:05 You know, people call it intermittent fasting, but.

02:07:08 Well, that’s an optimization of death because you’re,

02:07:11 when you fast, your body, logically and obviously,

02:07:16 if you think about it biologically is,

02:07:18 well, what is your body scavenge first?

02:07:20 Well, damaged tissue.

02:07:24 So the, and I know the literature on fasting

02:07:27 to some degree, and it’s very compelling literature.

02:07:30 If you starve dogs down, I think it’s 20% below rats too,

02:07:35 below their optimal body weight, they live 30% longer.

02:07:38 That’s a lot, 30%, like it’s like 30%, yeah, 30%.

02:07:43 Well, there is aspect to a lot of these things

02:07:46 that make me nervous because I always feel like

02:07:48 there’s no free lunch that I’m gonna pay for it somehow.

02:07:51 But there’s a focus that I am able to attain when I fast,

02:07:55 especially when I eat once a day.

02:07:57 My mind is almost like nervously focused.

02:08:01 It’s almost like an anxiety, but a positive one

02:08:04 or one that I can channel into just like an excitement.

02:08:07 You know, I wonder how much of that’s associated with,

02:08:10 well, imagine that that signifies lack of food,

02:08:13 which not that hard to imagine.

02:08:16 Well, maybe you should be a lot more alert

02:08:17 in that situation, right?

02:08:19 Biologically speaking, because you’re in hunting mode,

02:08:22 let’s say, you know, not desperate, but in hunting mode.

02:08:26 And God only knows maybe human beings

02:08:29 should be in hunting mode all the time.

02:08:31 Often, but we don’t know that.

02:08:32 So I wonder if it has a stress on the system

02:08:37 that long term causes the system to get sick.

02:08:39 It doesn’t look like it.

02:08:41 It seems in the case of fasting, not.

02:08:43 And then on top of that, I discovered that

02:08:46 the thing I enjoy, I just don’t enjoy eating fat as much.

02:08:52 So I love eating meat when you talk about low carb diet.

02:08:55 So I just discovered through that process,

02:08:57 if somewhat fatty meat, but just meat,

02:09:00 I just feel a lot of the things

02:09:03 that make me feel weird about food,

02:09:05 like a little groggy or like full or just whatever,

02:09:11 the aspects of food that I don’t enjoy,

02:09:14 they’re not there with meat.

02:09:15 And I’m still able to enjoy company.

02:09:18 And when I eat once a day and eat meat,

02:09:22 I said, at least in Texas,

02:09:24 you could still have all the merriment of,

02:09:27 you have dinner with friends.

02:09:28 Now, I don’t do the, you have a very serious thing

02:09:33 that there’s health benefits

02:09:37 that you are very serious about.

02:09:39 For me, I can still drink whiskey.

02:09:41 I’ll still do the things that add a little bit of spice

02:09:46 into the thing.

02:09:47 Now, when you completely remove the spice,

02:09:49 it does become more difficult.

02:09:52 Yeah, it’s more difficult socially.

02:09:53 And Tammy seems to only be able to eat lamb,

02:09:56 although she might be able to eat non aged beef.

02:09:58 And that makes traveling complicated too, right?

02:10:02 Because, well, for obvious reasons,

02:10:04 it’s like, really, that’s all you can eat?

02:10:08 Yeah, well, celeries.

02:10:09 And maybe that’s a form of craziness, but.

02:10:12 If we can return to actually the thing

02:10:13 you were talking about,

02:10:15 when you were thinking about a question before the lecture.

02:10:18 Let me ask you about thinking in general.

02:10:22 This is something maybe that you and Jim Keller

02:10:25 think a lot about is thinking how to think.

02:10:29 How do you think through an idea?

02:10:32 Well, first of all, I think, okay,

02:10:36 that’s a really good question.

02:10:38 We tried to work that out with this essay app

02:10:40 that my son and I have developed,

02:10:41 because if you’re gonna write,

02:10:42 the first question is, well, what should I write about?

02:10:45 What’s the name of the app?

02:10:46 Essay.app.

02:10:48 And, well, the first question is, well, what bugs you?

02:10:53 What’s bugging you?

02:10:54 This is such a cool thing.

02:10:56 It’s like, where is my destiny?

02:10:59 Well, what bothers you?

02:11:00 Well, that’s where your destiny is.

02:11:02 Your destiny is to be found in what bothers you.

02:11:04 Why did those things bother you?

02:11:07 There’s a lot of things you could be bothered by.

02:11:09 Like a million things, man.

02:11:11 But some things grip you.

02:11:13 They bug you.

02:11:14 And they might make you resentful and bitter,

02:11:16 because they bug you so much.

02:11:17 Like, they’re your things, man.

02:11:20 They’ve got you.

02:11:21 So then I look for a question

02:11:23 that I would like the answer to,

02:11:25 that I don’t, and I would really like the answer to it,

02:11:29 so I don’t assume I already have the answer,

02:11:32 because I would actually really like to have the answer.

02:11:35 So if I could get a better answer, great.

02:11:39 And so that’s the first thing.

02:11:40 And that’s like a prayer.

02:11:41 It’s like, okay, here’s a mystery.

02:11:45 I would like to delve into it further.

02:11:49 Well, so that’s humility.

02:11:51 It’s like, here’s a mystery,

02:11:52 which means I don’t know.

02:11:54 I would like to delve into it further,

02:11:55 which means I don’t know enough already.

02:11:58 And then comes the revelation.

02:12:01 It’s like, well, what’s a revelation?

02:12:04 Well, if you ask yourself a question, it’s a real question.

02:12:08 Do you get an answer or not?

02:12:10 And the answer is, well, yeah,

02:12:11 thoughts start to appear in your head.

02:12:14 So…

02:12:14 From somewhere.

02:12:15 That’s right, from somewhere.

02:12:16 Where do they come from?

02:12:17 Do you have a sense?

02:12:19 Depends on what you’re aiming at.

02:12:21 Depends on the question.

02:12:23 No, no, it does to some degree.

02:12:26 It depends on your intent.

02:12:29 So imagine that your intent is to make things better.

02:12:33 Then maybe they come from the place

02:12:35 that’s designed to make things better.

02:12:37 Maybe your intent is to make things worse.

02:12:39 Then they come from hell.

02:12:42 And you think, not really.

02:12:43 It’s like, you’re so sure about that, are you?

02:12:45 Is your intent conscious?

02:12:47 Like, are you able to introspect with the intent?

02:12:49 Conscious and habitual, right?

02:12:51 Because as you practise something consciously,

02:12:54 it becomes habitual.

02:12:55 But it’s conscious.

02:12:56 It’s like when I sit down before I do a lecture,

02:12:59 I think, okay, what’s the goal here?

02:13:01 To do the best job I can.

02:13:04 To what end?

02:13:05 Well, people are coming here not for political issues.

02:13:08 They’re coming here because they’re trying

02:13:09 to make their lives better.

02:13:11 Okay, so what are we doing?

02:13:13 We’re conducting a joint investigation

02:13:14 into the nature of that which makes life better.

02:13:17 Okay, what’s my role?

02:13:18 To do as good a job about that as possible.

02:13:21 What state of mind do I have to be in?

02:13:23 Am I annoyed about the theatre?

02:13:25 Or am I clued in and thrilled that 4,000 people

02:13:30 have showed up at substantial expense and trouble

02:13:33 to come and listen to me talk?

02:13:35 And if I’m not in that state of mind,

02:13:36 I think, well, maybe I need something to eat

02:13:38 or maybe I need to talk to someone

02:13:39 because ingratitude is no place to start.

02:13:44 It’s like, I should be thrilled to be there, obviously.

02:13:48 And so that orientation has to be there.

02:13:50 And then I, is it conscious?

02:13:51 All this is conscious.

02:13:52 What am I serving?

02:13:53 The highest good I can conceptualize.

02:13:55 What is that?

02:13:56 I have some sense, but I don’t know it

02:13:58 in the final analysis, which is why the investigation

02:14:01 is being conducted.

02:14:02 Who’s doing it?

02:14:03 Me, whoever I’m communing with, and the audience.

02:14:07 And so I try to get myself and I chase everybody away

02:14:11 for that, it’s like I have to do that by myself.

02:14:13 Are you writing stuff down?

02:14:14 Yes, at that point, I just make point notes.

02:14:19 And it’s usually about maybe 30 notes.

02:14:21 But then I, on stage, I never refer to them.

02:14:24 And I often don’t even use the structure that I laid out.

02:14:27 Kind of an interesting thing.

02:14:29 From where do powerful phrases come from?

02:14:31 Do you have a, do you try to encapsulate an idea

02:14:35 into a sentence or two?

02:14:38 Well, when I talk, and I’ve practiced this since,

02:14:42 consciously, since 1985, I try to feel

02:14:48 and see if the words are stepping stones

02:14:52 or foundation stones, right?

02:14:53 It’s like, is this solid?

02:14:55 Is this word solid?

02:14:56 Is this phrase solid?

02:14:57 Is this sentence solid?

02:14:59 It’s a real sense of fundamental foundation

02:15:04 under each word.

02:15:05 And I suppose people ask me if I pray.

02:15:08 And I would say, I pray before every word.

02:15:14 Well, when you’re asking questions,

02:15:16 like you’re very clear headed and present

02:15:21 in your ability to ask questions and inquire.

02:15:25 So how do you do that?

02:15:27 So first of all, I’m worried that my mind

02:15:32 easily gets trapped when I step on a word

02:15:39 and I know it’s unstable.

02:15:42 You kind of realize that you don’t really know

02:15:45 the definitions of many words you use.

02:15:47 And that can be debilitating.

02:15:52 So I kind of try to be more carefree about the words I use.

02:15:57 Because otherwise you get trapped.

02:15:59 You don’t want to be obsessional.

02:16:00 Like literally, my mind halfway through the sentence

02:16:04 will think, well, what does the word sentence mean?

02:16:08 Right, right, right.

02:16:09 Well, you know, neurologically.

02:16:10 And then everything else just explodes.

02:16:12 Your big picture idea explodes

02:16:14 and you lost yourself in the minutiae.

02:16:17 Well, neurologically, there’s a production center

02:16:21 and an editing center.

02:16:23 And those can be separately affected by strokes.

02:16:27 And so often when people are writing or talking,

02:16:30 they try to activate both at the same time.

02:16:33 And that’s, so people will try to write an essay

02:16:35 and get every sentence right in the first draft.

02:16:37 That’s a big mistake.

02:16:38 And so then you might say, well,

02:16:40 how can you be careful with your words, but carefree?

02:16:42 And the answer is orient yourself properly, right?

02:16:46 While in the conversation we’re having,

02:16:48 you have an orientation structure.

02:16:50 You want to be prepared.

02:16:52 You want to be attentive.

02:16:53 Then you want to have an interesting conversation.

02:16:56 And you want to have the kind of interesting conversation

02:16:58 that other people want to listen to.

02:17:01 That will be good for them in some manner.

02:17:04 Okay, so that’s pretty good frame.

02:17:06 And then you kind of scour your heart

02:17:09 and you think, is that really what you want?

02:17:10 Are you after fame or after notoriety?

02:17:12 Are you after money?

02:17:14 I’m not saying any of those things are necessarily bad,

02:17:17 but they’re not optimal,

02:17:20 especially if you’re not willing to admit them, right?

02:17:22 And so they can contaminate you.

02:17:24 So you want to be decontaminated.

02:17:26 So you have the right trip, let’s say.

02:17:29 And so you have to put yourself,

02:17:31 that’s a meditative practice.

02:17:33 You have to put yourself in the right receptive position

02:17:36 with the right goal in mind.

02:17:38 Then you can,

02:17:41 and I think you can get better and better at this,

02:17:43 then you can trust what’s going to happen.

02:17:47 You know, so for example, before I came here,

02:17:50 I mean, I presume you have a reason

02:17:52 for doing the podcast with me.

02:17:55 What’s the reason?

02:17:59 I mean, we wanted to talk for a long time.

02:18:03 So the reason has evolved.

02:18:07 One of the reasons is I’ve listened to you

02:18:12 for quite a long time.

02:18:13 So you’ve become a one way friend

02:18:15 and I have many one way friends.

02:18:17 Some of my best friends don’t even know I exist.

02:18:21 So I’m a big fan of podcasts and audio books.

02:18:24 Actually, most of my friends are dead.

02:18:26 Yeah, right.

02:18:28 The writers.

02:18:28 The definition of a reader.

02:18:32 It’s a lot of dead, great dead friends.

02:18:34 So I wanted to meet this one way friend, I suppose,

02:18:37 and have a conversation.

02:18:39 And then there’s this kind of puzzle

02:18:42 that I’ve been longing to solve.

02:18:44 The same reason I went to Ukraine

02:18:46 of asking this question of myself, who am I?

02:18:50 And what was this part of the world?

02:18:52 What is this thing that happened in the 20th century?

02:18:56 That I lost so much of my family there

02:18:59 and I feel so much of my family is defined by that place.

02:19:03 Now that place includes the Soviet Union

02:19:06 and it includes Russia and Ukraine.

02:19:09 It includes Nazi Germany,

02:19:11 includes these big powerful leaders

02:19:14 and huge millions of people that were lost in the beauty,

02:19:19 the power of the dream, but were also the torture

02:19:25 that was forced onto them

02:19:28 through different governmental institutions.

02:19:32 And you are somebody that seemed from some angle

02:19:36 to also be drawn to try to understand what was that.

02:19:41 And not in some sort of historical sense,

02:19:43 but in a deeply psychological human sense.

02:19:46 What is that?

02:19:47 What is that, will it repeat again?

02:19:49 In what way is it repeating again?

02:19:51 And how can we stop it?

02:19:53 And how can we stop it?

02:19:54 And so. That’s the crucial issue.

02:19:55 I felt I wanted to, from a very different backgrounds,

02:20:01 pull at the thread of that curiosity.

02:20:04 You know, I’m an engineer, you’re a psychologist,

02:20:08 both lost in that curiosity and both wear suits.

02:20:12 And a talk with various levels of eloquence

02:20:18 about sort of the shadows that these,

02:20:23 that history casts on us.

02:20:28 And so that was one.

02:20:30 And also the psychology,

02:20:31 I wanted to be a psychiatrist for a long time.

02:20:33 I was fascinated by the human mind

02:20:38 until I discovered artificial intelligence,

02:20:41 the fact that I could program and make a robot move.

02:20:44 And until I discovered that magic,

02:20:47 I thought I wanted to understand the human mind

02:20:50 by being psychiatrist, by talking to people,

02:20:52 by to talk therapy, psychotherapy.

02:20:55 So now you’ve got the best of both worlds

02:20:56 because you get to talk to people and you get build robots.

02:20:59 Yeah, I mean, but the dream ultimately is the robot.

02:21:03 That I felt like by building the thing,

02:21:05 can you start to try to understand it.

02:21:08 That’s one way.

02:21:09 I mean, we all have different skills and proclivities.

02:21:12 So like my particular one is, has to do with,

02:21:20 I learned by building.

02:21:22 I think through a thing by building it.

02:21:25 And programming is a wonderful thing

02:21:27 because it allows you to like build a little toy example.

02:21:30 So in the same way you can do a little thought experiment,

02:21:33 programming allows you to create a thought experiment

02:21:35 in action, it can move, it can live, it can,

02:21:38 and then you can ask questions of it.

02:21:40 So all of those, because of my interest in Freud and Young,

02:21:46 you’re also in different ways,

02:21:49 have delved deeply into humanity, the human psyche

02:21:56 through the perspective of those psychologists.

02:22:00 So for all those reasons, I thought our paths were crossed.

02:22:04 Yeah, so that’s quite a frame for a discussion, right?

02:22:07 You had all sorts of reasons, and then you think,

02:22:09 well, are you just letting the conversation

02:22:12 go where it will?

02:22:13 It’s like, well, not exactly.

02:22:15 You spent all this time,

02:22:17 it’s not like this came about by accident,

02:22:19 this conversation, you spent all this time framing it.

02:22:22 And so all of that provides the implicit substructure

02:22:26 for the play in the conversation.

02:22:28 And if you have that implicit, here’s another way,

02:22:31 this is very much worth knowing is,

02:22:34 if you get the implicit structure of perception right,

02:22:36 everything becomes a game.

02:22:40 And not only that, a game you wanna play,

02:22:42 and maybe in the final analysis,

02:22:44 a game you’d wanna play forever.

02:22:47 So that’s obviously a distant beckoning ideal,

02:22:52 but we know only games need rules, or there’s no play.

02:22:58 Is there advice you can give, now that we know the frame,

02:23:03 to give to me, Lex, about how to do this podcast better,

02:23:09 how to think about this world,

02:23:17 how to be a good engineer,

02:23:20 how to be a good human being, from what you know about me.

02:23:25 Take your preoccupation with suffering seriously.

02:23:28 It’s a serious business, right?

02:23:32 And that’s part of that,

02:23:34 to circle back to the beginning, let’s say,

02:23:37 that’s that willingness to gaze into the abyss,

02:23:39 which is obviously what you were doing

02:23:40 when you went to Ukraine.

02:23:42 It’s like, it’s gazing into the abyss that makes you better.

02:23:47 The thing is, and this is maybe where Nietzsche’s ideas,

02:23:51 not as differentiated as it became,

02:23:54 sometimes your gaze can be forcefully directed

02:23:57 towards the abyss, and then you’re traumatized.

02:24:01 If it’s involuntary and accidental, it can kill you.

02:24:05 The more it’s voluntary, the more transformative it is.

02:24:11 And that’s part of that idea about facing death and hell.

02:24:14 It’s like, can you tolerate death and hell?

02:24:18 And the answer is, this terrible answer is,

02:24:21 yes, to the degree that you’re willing to do it voluntarily.

02:24:27 And then you might ask, well,

02:24:29 why should I have to subject myself to death and hell?

02:24:33 I’m innocent.

02:24:35 And then the answer to that is,

02:24:40 even the innocent must be voluntarily sacrificed

02:24:43 to the highest good.

02:24:44 Even the innocent must be voluntarily sacrificed to the highest good.

02:24:54 That’s such an interesting distinction.

02:24:58 Voluntary suffering.

02:24:59 Voluntary, yeah, yeah.

02:25:01 Well, that’s why the central Christian doctrine is,

02:25:04 pick up your cross and follow me.

02:25:08 And I’m speaking, not in religious terms saying that,

02:25:11 I’m just speaking as a psychologist.

02:25:13 It’s like one of the things we’ve learned

02:25:15 in the last 100 years is voluntary exposure to that

02:25:19 which freezes and terrifies you

02:25:22 in measured proportions is curative.

02:25:26 So a form of, at least in part,

02:25:30 involuntary suffering is depression.

02:25:34 Do you have advice for people on how to find a way out?

02:25:40 You’re a man who has suffered in this way.

02:25:43 Perhaps continue to suffer in this way.

02:25:46 How do you find a way out?

02:25:51 The first thing I do as a clinician,

02:25:53 if someone comes to me and says they’re depressed

02:25:55 is ask myself a question.

02:25:58 Well, what does this person mean by that?

02:26:00 So I have to find out like,

02:26:02 because maybe they’re not depressed,

02:26:03 maybe they’re hyper anxious,

02:26:05 or maybe they’re obsessional.

02:26:06 Like there’s various forms of powerful negative emotion.

02:26:10 So they need to be differentiated.

02:26:12 But then the next question you have to ask is,

02:26:14 well, are you depressed?

02:26:16 Or do you have a terrible life?

02:26:19 Or is it some combination of the two?

02:26:21 So if you’re depressed, as far as I can tell,

02:26:26 you don’t have a terrible life.

02:26:29 You have friends, you have family,

02:26:30 you have an intimate relationship,

02:26:32 you have a job or a career,

02:26:33 you’re about as educated as you should be

02:26:35 given your intelligence,

02:26:36 use your time outside of work wisely,

02:26:39 you’re not beholden to alcohol or other temptations.

02:26:44 You’re engaged in the community in some fundamental sense,

02:26:47 and all that’s working.

02:26:49 Now, if you have all that and you’re feeling really awful,

02:26:52 you’re either ill or you’re depressed.

02:26:54 And so then sometimes there’s a biochemical route

02:26:57 to that treatment of that.

02:26:59 My experience has been as a clinician is if you’re depressed,

02:27:02 but you have a life and you take an antidepressant,

02:27:05 it will probably help you a lot.

02:27:07 Now, maybe you’re not depressed.

02:27:09 Exactly, you just have a terrible life.

02:27:12 What does that look like?

02:27:15 You have no relationship, your family’s a mess,

02:27:19 you’ve got no friends, you’ve got no plan, you’ve got no job.

02:27:23 You use your time outside of work

02:27:25 not only badly but destructively.

02:27:27 You have a drug or alcohol habit

02:27:29 or some other vice, pornography addiction.

02:27:33 You’re completely unengaged in the surrounding community.

02:27:36 You have no scaffolding whatsoever to support you

02:27:40 in your current mode of being or you move forward.

02:27:43 And then as a therapist, well, you do two things.

02:27:47 Well, if it’s depression per se,

02:27:50 well, like I said, there’s sometimes a biochemical route,

02:27:52 a nutritional route, there’s ways that can be addressed.

02:27:55 It’s probably physiological if you’re, at least in part,

02:27:58 if you’re depressed, but you have an okay life.

02:28:00 Sometimes it’s conceptual.

02:28:03 You can turn to dreams sometimes to help people.

02:28:05 Cause dreams contain the seeds of the potential future.

02:28:09 And if your person is a real good dreamer

02:28:11 and you can analyze dreams, that can be really helpful.

02:28:13 But that seems to be only true for more creative people.

02:28:16 And for the people who just have a terrible life,

02:28:18 it’s like, okay, you have a terrible life.

02:28:22 Well, let’s pick a front.

02:28:26 How about you need a friend?

02:28:29 Like one sort of friend.

02:28:32 Do you know how to shake hands and introduce yourself?

02:28:36 I’ll have the person show me.

02:28:38 So let’s do it for a sec.

02:28:40 So it’s like this, hi, I’m Jordan, right?

02:28:45 And people don’t know how to do that.

02:28:46 And then they can’t even get the ball rolling.

02:28:49 For the listener, Jordan just gave me a firm handshake.

02:28:51 Yeah, as opposed to a dead fish, you know?

02:28:54 And there’s these elementary social skills

02:28:56 that hypothetically, if you were well cared for,

02:28:59 you learned when you were like three

02:29:02 and sometimes people have, I had lots of clients

02:29:06 to whom no one ever paid any attention.

02:29:09 And they needed like 10,000 hours of attention.

02:29:12 And some of that was just listening

02:29:14 because they had 10,000 hours of conversations

02:29:17 they never had with anyone.

02:29:19 And they were all tangled up in their head.

02:29:21 And they had to just, one client in particular,

02:29:24 I worked with this person for 15 years.

02:29:28 And what she wanted from me

02:29:33 was for me just to shut the hell up for 50 minutes.

02:29:36 It was very hard for me.

02:29:38 And to just tell me what had happened to her.

02:29:42 And then what happened at the end of the conversation,

02:29:44 then I could discuss a bit with her.

02:29:48 And then as we progressed through the years,

02:29:50 the amount of time that we spent in discussion

02:29:52 increased in proportion in the sessions

02:29:55 until by the time we stopped seeing each other,

02:29:58 when my clinical practice collapsed,

02:30:02 we were talking about 80% of the time.

02:30:06 But she literally,

02:30:07 she’d never been attended to properly ever.

02:30:09 And so she was an uncarved block in the Taoist sense, right?

02:30:13 She hadn’t been subjected to those flaming swords

02:30:16 that separated the wheat from the chaff.

02:30:19 And so you can do that in therapy.

02:30:22 If you’re listening and you’re depressed,

02:30:25 I would say if you can’t find a therapist,

02:30:28 and that’s getting harder and harder

02:30:29 because it’s actually become illegal to be a therapist now

02:30:32 because you have to agree with your clients,

02:30:34 which is a terrible thing to do with them.

02:30:37 Just like it’s terrible just to arbitrarily oppose them.

02:30:40 You could do the self authoring program online

02:30:44 because it helps you write an autobiography.

02:30:46 And so if you have memories

02:30:48 that are more than 18 months old

02:30:49 that bother you when you think them up,

02:30:51 part of you is locked inside that.

02:30:54 An undeveloped part of you is still trapped in that.

02:30:59 That’s a metaphorical way of thinking about,

02:31:01 that’s why it still has emotional significance.

02:31:04 So you can write about your past experiences,

02:31:06 but I would say wait for at least 18 months

02:31:08 if something bad has happened to you.

02:31:10 Because otherwise you just hurt yourself again

02:31:12 by encountering it.

02:31:14 You can bring yourself up to date with an autobiography.

02:31:16 There’s an analysis of faults and virtues,

02:31:18 that’s the present authoring.

02:31:20 And then there’s a guided writing exercise

02:31:23 that helps you make a future plan.

02:31:25 That’s young men who do that could go to college,

02:31:30 young men who do that, 90 minutes,

02:31:32 just the future authoring, 90 minutes,

02:31:34 they’re 50% less likely to drop out.

02:31:37 That’s all it takes.

02:31:38 So sometimes depression is this heavy cloud

02:31:43 that makes it hard to even make a single step towards it.

02:31:46 Or you said isolate, make a friend.

02:31:48 Oh man, sometimes the first step is extremely difficult.

02:31:52 Oh my God, sometimes it’s way worse than that.

02:31:54 Like I had clients who were so depressed

02:31:57 they literally couldn’t get out of bed.

02:31:59 So what’s their first step?

02:32:01 It’s like, can you sit up once today?

02:32:05 No.

02:32:07 Can you prop yourself up on your elbows once today?

02:32:10 Like you just, you scale back the dragon

02:32:14 till you find one that’s conquerable

02:32:16 that moves you forward.

02:32:18 There’s a rubric for life.

02:32:19 Scale back the dragons till you find one conquerable

02:32:23 and it’ll give you a little bit of goal.

02:32:25 Commensurate with the struggle.

02:32:27 But the plus side of that,

02:32:29 cause that’s, you think that God, that’s depressing.

02:32:31 You mean I have to start by sitting up?

02:32:35 Well you do if you can’t sit up.

02:32:37 But the plus side of that is

02:32:39 it’s the Pareto distribution issue

02:32:40 is that aggregates exponentially increase

02:32:45 and failures do too by the way.

02:32:47 But aggregates exponentially increase.

02:32:50 So once you start the ball rolling

02:32:51 it can get zipping along pretty good.

02:32:53 This person that I talked about

02:32:56 was incapable of sitting with me in a cafe

02:33:00 when we first met just talking

02:33:02 even though I was her therapist.

02:33:04 But by the end she was doing standup comedy.

02:33:08 So, you know, it took years,

02:33:10 but still most people won’t do standup comedy.

02:33:14 That’s quite the bloody achievement.

02:33:15 She would read her poetry on stage too.

02:33:20 So for someone who was petrified into paralysis

02:33:23 by social anxiety and who had to start very small,

02:33:29 it was a hell of an accomplishment.

02:33:31 Yeah, it all starts with one step.

02:33:33 Do you have advice for young people in high school?

02:33:38 You’ve given, a lot of people look up to you

02:33:40 for advice, for strength,

02:33:42 for strength to search for themselves, to find themselves.

02:33:47 Take on some responsibility.

02:33:50 Do something for other people.

02:33:53 You’re doing something for yourself while you’re doing that

02:33:55 even if you don’t know it, for sure.

02:33:57 Cause you’re a community across time.

02:34:00 Find something to serve.

02:34:02 Somebody to help.

02:34:03 Someone to help, a job to, find a job,

02:34:06 do your best with the customers.

02:34:08 Don’t be above your job.

02:34:10 You’re gonna get an entry level job when you’re a kid

02:34:12 or what else would you want?

02:34:14 You wanna be the boss?

02:34:15 What do you know?

02:34:16 You don’t know anything.

02:34:17 You could be the boss of your job.

02:34:20 You know, if you’re working in a grocery store

02:34:22 or you’re working in a convenience store,

02:34:23 assuming you’re not working for terrified tyrants,

02:34:26 you can be nice to the customers.

02:34:28 You can develop your social skills.

02:34:30 You can learn how to handle boss employee relationship.

02:34:34 You can be there 15 minutes early and leave 15 minutes late.

02:34:37 Like you can learn in an entry level job, man.

02:34:40 And I’ll tell you, if you take an entry level job

02:34:42 and you learn and it’s a reasonably decent place,

02:34:45 you will not be in an entry level job for long

02:34:48 because everyone who’s competent

02:34:50 is desperate for competent people.

02:34:52 And if you go and show yourself as competent,

02:34:54 there’ll be a trial period.

02:34:55 But if you go show yourself as competent,

02:34:57 all sorts of doors you didn’t even know were there

02:34:59 will start opening like mad.

02:35:01 So you strive for competence, for craftsmanship.

02:35:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, for discipline, you know, I mean,

02:35:08 I said in one of the chapters,

02:35:11 my books is focused on putting your house in order.

02:35:14 It’s like, well, how do you start?

02:35:15 Make your bed.

02:35:18 You know, it actually took me quite a long time in my life

02:35:21 before I made my bed regularly in the morning.

02:35:23 Most of my life was pretty good order,

02:35:25 but that was one thing I didn’t have in order.

02:35:27 My clothes in my closet as well, all that’s in order.

02:35:31 Not all of it, I’m cleaning out some drawers right now,

02:35:33 but look around and see what bugs you in your room.

02:35:37 Just look.

02:35:39 It’s like, okay, I’m in my room.

02:35:40 Do I like this room?

02:35:41 No, it bugs me.

02:35:43 Okay, why?

02:35:44 Well, the paint’s peeling there and it’s dusty there

02:35:47 and the carpet’s dirty and that corner’s kind of ugly

02:35:50 and the light there isn’t very good.

02:35:52 And my clothes closet’s a mess,

02:35:54 so I don’t even like to open it.

02:35:56 Okay, that’s a lot of problems.

02:35:59 That sucks.

02:36:00 That’s a lot of opportunity.

02:36:02 Pick something and fix it.

02:36:04 Something that bugs you.

02:36:05 Yeah, but not too much.

02:36:07 So the rule is pick something you know would make,

02:36:11 pick a problem, pick a solution to it

02:36:14 that you know would help, that you could do,

02:36:18 that you would do.

02:36:20 So you have to negotiate with yourself.

02:36:22 It’s like, well, I won’t clean up this room.

02:36:23 How do you know?

02:36:24 I’ve been in here for 10 years and I’ve never cleaned it up.

02:36:27 It’s like, well, obviously that’s too big a dragon for you.

02:36:29 Would you clean one drawer?

02:36:32 Find out.

02:36:34 And so imagine now you wanna be happy

02:36:35 when you open that drawer and you think,

02:36:37 well, that’s stupid.

02:36:37 It’s like, is it?

02:36:40 Maybe it’s your sock drawer,

02:36:41 which I cleaned up in my room the other day.

02:36:43 By the way, you’re gonna open that every morning.

02:36:47 That’s like 30 seconds of your life every day.

02:36:50 Okay, so that’s three minutes a week.

02:36:54 That’s 12 minutes a month.

02:36:57 That’s two hours a year.

02:36:59 So maybe your life is made out of,

02:37:01 you’ve got 16 hours a day.

02:37:02 Let’s figure this out.

02:37:03 Five, 12 in an hour, 12 in an hour, 144 in 12 hours.

02:37:09 Yeah, let’s say 200, 205 minute chunks.

02:37:12 That’s your life.

02:37:12 Ladies and gentlemen, Jordan Peterson did just some math

02:37:15 how many five minute chunks there are in a day.

02:37:17 And I’m pretty sure it’s pretty accurate.

02:37:19 It’s approximately right.

02:37:20 So you got 205 minute chunks and they repeat.

02:37:24 A lot of them repeat.

02:37:26 So if you get every one of those right,

02:37:28 they’re trivial, right, who cares

02:37:29 what my sock drawer looks like.

02:37:30 It’s like, fair enough, man, but that’s your life.

02:37:33 The things you repeat every day, the mundane things.

02:37:36 Think I could get all those mundane things right.

02:37:39 That’s the game rules.

02:37:40 It’s like now all the mundane is in place.

02:37:43 Now you can play because all the mundane is in place.

02:37:45 And this is actually true.

02:37:47 So with children, imagine you want your children to play.

02:37:51 Well, play is very fragile neurologically.

02:37:53 Any competing motivation or emotion will suppress play.

02:37:57 So everything has to be in order.

02:38:00 Everything has to be a walled garden

02:38:02 before the children will play.

02:38:04 That’s a good way of thinking about it.

02:38:05 So you put everything in order and you think,

02:38:07 oh my God, now I’m tyrannized by this order.

02:38:09 It’s like, no, you aren’t, not if it’s voluntary.

02:38:12 And then the order is the precondition for the freedom.

02:38:15 And so then all of a sudden

02:38:16 you get all these things in order.

02:38:17 It’s like, oh, look at this.

02:38:19 I’ve got some room to play here.

02:38:21 And then maybe you’re not depressed.

02:38:24 Now it’s often not that simple.

02:38:26 You know, it’s not that simple.

02:38:28 Try putting your room in order, perfect order.

02:38:31 That’s hard.

02:38:31 I mean, it’s a really powerful way

02:38:33 to think about those five minute chunks.

02:38:34 Just get one of them right in a day.

02:38:36 Yeah, well, if you do that for 200 days,

02:38:39 your life is in order.

02:38:41 You know, I thought I did that with my clients a lot.

02:38:43 So a lot of them would come home from work,

02:38:45 the guys, and their wives would meet them at the door

02:38:47 and it’d be a fight right away.

02:38:49 You know, and it’s a clash there

02:38:51 because he comes home and he’s tired and hungry.

02:38:53 He’s worked all day and he’s hoping that, you know,

02:38:55 he gets welcomed when he comes back to the home,

02:38:57 but then the wife is at home

02:38:59 and she’s been with the kids all day

02:39:01 and she’s tired and hungry and she’s hoping

02:39:02 that when he comes home, he’ll show her some appreciation

02:39:04 for what’s happened today.

02:39:05 And then they clash and then they both have problems

02:39:08 to discuss because they’ve had their troubles

02:39:09 during the day.

02:39:10 And so then every time they get together,

02:39:13 they’re not like it’s a bit of a fight for 20 minutes

02:39:16 and then the whole evening is screwed.

02:39:18 And so then you think, okay, here’s the deal.

02:39:23 It’s knock and the door will open.

02:39:24 Okay, you get to pick what happens when you come home,

02:39:28 but you have to figure out what it is.

02:39:30 So now this is the deal.

02:39:31 You treat yourself properly.

02:39:33 You imagine coming home

02:39:35 and it goes the way you want and need it to go.

02:39:38 Okay, what does that look like?

02:39:41 You get to have it, but you have to know what it is.

02:39:44 What does it look like?

02:39:45 And you think, okay, I want to come home.

02:39:48 I want to be happy about coming home.

02:39:49 I come home, I open the door.

02:39:53 I say, hello, honey, I’m home.

02:39:56 My wife says, hi, it’s so nice to hear your voice.

02:39:58 She comes up, she says, hi, dear.

02:40:02 She gives you a hug.

02:40:03 She says, how was your day?

02:40:05 And you say, well, we’ll sit and talk about that.

02:40:07 How was your day?

02:40:08 Well, we’ll sit and talk about that.

02:40:10 Do you need something to eat?

02:40:12 Probably, let’s go sit and talk about our day.

02:40:16 It’s like, that sounds pretty good.

02:40:18 Okay, that sounds pretty good.

02:40:19 Might not be perfect,

02:40:20 but sounds a hell of a lot better

02:40:21 than what we’re doing now.

02:40:23 So how about we go talk to,

02:40:26 we’ll go talk to your wife and say,

02:40:28 okay, this is what’s happening when I come home.

02:40:31 I would like it to be better.

02:40:32 What would you like to have happened

02:40:35 if you could have what you wanted?

02:40:37 And so she sits down and she thinks,

02:40:39 okay, if he comes home, what do I want to have happen?

02:40:41 And then now you got two visions and you say,

02:40:44 well, what would you like?

02:40:45 And you listen and she says, what would you like?

02:40:48 And you tell her, and then you think,

02:40:50 okay, now how can we bring these visions together?

02:40:53 So not only do we both get what we want,

02:40:55 but because we’ve brought them together,

02:40:57 we even get more than we want.

02:40:58 Well, who wouldn’t agree to that

02:40:59 unless they were aiming down.

02:41:01 And that’s so exciting.

02:41:02 It’s not a compromise.

02:41:04 It’s a union of ideals that even makes a better ideal.

02:41:08 And then you get to come home.

02:41:09 And then there’s another rule that goes along with that,

02:41:12 which is, please, dear, have the grace

02:41:16 to allow me to do this stupidly and badly

02:41:19 while I learn at least 20 times.

02:41:23 And I’ll give you the same leeway,

02:41:25 and then we’ll practice stupidly for 20 times

02:41:28 and we’ll talk about it.

02:41:30 And then maybe we’ll get it right

02:41:31 for the next 10,000 times, right?

02:41:35 And you can do that with your whole life.

02:41:37 And you can do that with your kids

02:41:39 and you can do that with your family.

02:41:40 Like it’s not easy, but you can do it.

02:41:42 It’s a lot easier than the alternative.

02:41:44 Let me ask for some dating advice from Jordan Peterson.

02:41:47 How do you find on that topic the love of your life?

02:41:52 That’s a good question.

02:41:54 I was asked that multiple times on my tour,

02:41:58 three times in a row, in fact,

02:41:59 because we ask people to use this Slido gadget.

02:42:03 That’s a popular question?

02:42:05 To vary.

02:42:06 It always came up to the top.

02:42:07 And I got asked that three times in a row

02:42:10 and I didn’t have a good answer.

02:42:11 And then I thought, why don’t I have a good answer?

02:42:16 I thought, oh, I know why.

02:42:17 Cause that’s a stupid question.

02:42:19 So why?

02:42:24 Why?

02:42:25 Because it’s putting the cart before the horse.

02:42:27 Here’s the right question.

02:42:31 How do I make myself into the perfect date?

02:42:34 You answer that question

02:42:36 and you will not have any problem

02:42:37 answering the previous question.

02:42:39 It’s like, what do I want in a partner?

02:42:44 If I offered everything I could to a partner

02:42:46 who would I be?

02:42:47 You work on that.

02:42:49 Ask that question.

02:42:49 Just ask.

02:42:50 Just ask yourself, okay.

02:42:52 I have to be the person that women would want.

02:42:59 Okay, what do they want?

02:43:02 Clean.

02:43:03 That’s not a bad start.

02:43:07 Reasonably good physical shape.

02:43:11 So healthy, productive,

02:43:16 generous, honest,

02:43:19 willing to delay gratification.

02:43:21 So you dance with a woman.

02:43:22 It’s like, what’s she doing?

02:43:23 What are you two doing?

02:43:24 Well, it’s a pattern.

02:43:26 There’s patterns happening around you.

02:43:28 That’s the music, patterns, patterns of being.

02:43:30 That’s the music.

02:43:31 Now, can you align yourself

02:43:32 with the patterns of being gracefully?

02:43:35 That’s what she’s checking out.

02:43:37 And then can you do that with her?

02:43:41 And then can you do that in a playful

02:43:43 and attentive manner and keep your bloody hands

02:43:46 to yourself for at least a minute?

02:43:49 And so can you dance in a playful manner?

02:43:52 It’s like, you can go through this in your imagination

02:43:55 and you know, you’ll know, you know.

02:43:58 And then you think, well, how far am I from those things?

02:44:00 And the answer is usually, man,

02:44:01 it’s pretty horrible abyss separating you from that ideal.

02:44:06 But the harder you work on offering other people

02:44:11 what they need and want,

02:44:13 the more people will line up to play with you.

02:44:16 And so it’s the wrong question.

02:44:18 It’s like, how can I be the best partner possible?

02:44:21 And then you think, well, if I do that,

02:44:22 people will just take advantage of me.

02:44:25 And that’s the non naive objection, right?

02:44:28 Because the naive person is saying, well, I’ll be good

02:44:30 and everyone will treat me right.

02:44:31 It’s like the cynic says, no, I’ll be good

02:44:34 and someone will take me out.

02:44:38 And then you think, well,

02:44:39 what do you do about that objection?

02:44:42 And the answer is, well, you factor that in.

02:44:45 And that’s why you’re supposed to be, what is it?

02:44:48 As soft as a dove and as wise as a serpent.

02:44:51 It’s like, I know you’re full of snakes.

02:44:54 I know it.

02:44:55 Maybe I know it more than you do, but we’ll play anyways.

02:45:00 And that’s the risk anyway.

02:45:02 That’s right, voluntarily, right?

02:45:04 It’s like, and what’s so cool about that

02:45:06 is that even though the person you’re dealing with

02:45:08 is full of snakes, if you offer your hand in trust

02:45:13 and it’s real, you will evoke the best in them.

02:45:16 And that’s true even, I’ve dealt with people

02:45:18 who are pretty damn criminal and pretty psychopathic

02:45:25 and sometimes dangerously so.

02:45:28 And you tread very lightly

02:45:30 when you’re dealing with someone like that,

02:45:31 especially if they’re intoxicated.

02:45:33 And even then your best bet is that alert trust.

02:45:42 It’s the only, it’s the fact that the only thing I know

02:45:45 that I had one client who was a paranoid,

02:45:49 he was paranoid psychopath.

02:45:51 That’s a bad combination.

02:45:52 He was a bad guy, man.

02:45:54 He had like four restraining orders on him

02:45:57 and restraining orders don’t work on the sort of people

02:46:00 that you put restraining orders on.

02:46:02 And he used to be harassed now and then by a bureaucrat

02:46:06 in a bank with delusions of power.

02:46:10 And he would say to them, he used to kind of act this out

02:46:13 to me when I was talking to him.

02:46:14 He’d say, I’m going to be your worst nightmare.

02:46:20 And he meant it and he would do it.

02:46:23 He had this obsessional psychopathic vengeance

02:46:27 that was just like right there, paranoid to the hilt

02:46:31 and paranoid people are hyper acute.

02:46:34 So they’re watching you for any sign of deceit

02:46:38 or manipulation and they’re really good at it.

02:46:41 Cause like they’re 100%, that’s what paranoia is.

02:46:44 It’s 100% focus on that.

02:46:47 And even under those circumstances,

02:46:49 if you step carefully enough, you can,

02:46:54 maybe you can avoid the ax.

02:46:57 That’s a good thing to know if you ever meet someone

02:46:59 truly dangerous.

02:47:01 Absolutely.

02:47:02 I believe in that, that being fragile, nevertheless,

02:47:06 taking that leap of trust towards another person,

02:47:09 even when they’re dangerous,

02:47:10 especially when they’re dangerous.

02:47:12 If you care, if there’s something there in those hills

02:47:16 you want to find, then that’s probably the only way

02:47:20 you’re going to find is taking that risk.

02:47:23 I have to ask you about Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn.

02:47:28 Let’s speak to this very point.

02:47:30 There’s so many layers to this book.

02:47:31 We could talk about it forever.

02:47:33 I’m sure in many ways we are talking about it forever.

02:47:38 But there is sort of one of the themes captured

02:47:41 in the few ways that was described to the book

02:47:43 is that line between good and evil

02:47:45 that runs through every human being.

02:47:48 As he writes, the line dividing good and evil

02:47:52 cuts through the heart of every human being.

02:47:55 During the life of any heart,

02:47:57 this line keeps changing place.

02:47:59 Sometimes it is squeezed one way to exuberant evil,

02:48:03 and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space

02:48:06 for good to flourish.

02:48:07 One and the same human being is, at various ages,

02:48:10 under various circumstances,

02:48:12 a totally different human being.

02:48:15 At times he’s close to being a devil,

02:48:17 at times the sainthood.

02:48:20 But his name doesn’t change,

02:48:22 and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.

02:48:26 What do you think about this line?

02:48:27 What do you think about this thing

02:48:29 where we talked about if you give somebody a chance,

02:48:31 you actually bring out the best in them?

02:48:33 What do you think about this other aspect

02:48:36 that throughout time that line shifts inside each person

02:48:41 and you get to define that shift?

02:48:43 What do you think about this line?

02:48:45 Are we all capable of evil?

02:48:48 Well, you know, the cosmic drama,

02:48:50 that’s Satan versus Christ.

02:48:53 It’s like, well, who’s that about?

02:48:55 If it’s not about you?

02:48:59 I’m speaking just as a psychologist

02:49:01 or as a literary critic.

02:49:03 Those are characters, at least they’re that.

02:49:06 Well, are they human characters?

02:49:08 Well, obviously.

02:49:10 Well, are they archetypal human characters?

02:49:13 Yes.

02:49:14 What does that mean cosmically and ontologically?

02:49:18 I don’t know.

02:49:19 Like, is the world a story?

02:49:22 Maybe.

02:49:23 But the way stories are often told

02:49:24 is the characters embody a stable.

02:49:27 Those are unsophisticated, not great literature though.

02:49:30 It’s very rare in great literature.

02:49:32 What you have in great literature generally

02:49:33 is the internal drama, right?

02:49:35 And as the literature becomes more pop, I would say,

02:49:40 the characters are more unitary.

02:49:42 So there’s a real bad guy and he’s all bad

02:49:44 and there’s a real good guy and he’s all good.

02:49:47 And that’s not as interesting.

02:49:49 It’s not as sophisticated.

02:49:51 When you reach Dostoevskian heights in literary representation

02:49:55 or Shakespearean heights, you can identify with the villain.

02:50:01 And that’s when literature really reaches its pinnacle

02:50:05 in some sense.

02:50:06 And also the characters change throughout.

02:50:08 They shift throughout.

02:50:09 They’re unpredictable throughout.

02:50:11 Taking the speaking of Russian more seriously recently.

02:50:14 And I’ve gotten to talk to translators of Dostoevsk and Tolstoy

02:50:17 and Cherkov and those kinds of folks.

02:50:22 And you get the, one of the mistakes that translators made

02:50:25 with Dostoevsky for the longest time

02:50:28 is they would, quote unquote, fix the chaotic mess

02:50:33 that is Dostoevsky because there was a sense

02:50:37 like he was too rushed in his writing.

02:50:39 It seemed like there was tangents

02:50:41 that had nothing to do with anything.

02:50:43 The characters were unpredictable and not inconsistent.

02:50:46 There’s parts of phrases that seem to be incomplete,

02:50:49 that kind of stuff.

02:50:50 And what they realize that is, that’s not,

02:50:53 that’s actually crafted that way.

02:50:55 It’s not, it’s like editing James Joyce,

02:50:58 like Finnegan’s Wake or something

02:51:00 because it doesn’t make any sense.

02:51:01 They realize that that is the magic of it.

02:51:03 That captures the humanity of these characters,

02:51:05 that they are unpredictable.

02:51:07 They change throughout time.

02:51:08 There’s a bunch of contradictions.

02:51:11 On which point I gotta ask, is there a case to be made

02:51:13 that Brothers Karamazov is the greatest book I’ve ever written?

02:51:17 Yeah, there is a case to be made for that.

02:51:20 I don’t know, is it better than Crime and Punishment?

02:51:23 Yes, yeah.

02:51:23 You think so?

02:51:24 Why do you, I’m not arguing with it.

02:51:26 Why do you think that?

02:51:28 Well, every book is a person.

02:51:30 Some of my best friends are inside that book.

02:51:32 Yeah, it’s an amazing book.

02:51:34 I mean, there’s no doubt about it.

02:51:35 I think it’s, some books are defined

02:51:39 by your personal relationship with them.

02:51:41 That one was definitive, and I almost graduated to that one

02:51:44 because for the longest time,

02:51:46 The Idiot was my favorite book of all,

02:51:51 because I identified with the ideas

02:51:53 represented by Prince Mishkin.

02:51:55 I also identified.

02:51:56 Ah, that’s interesting.

02:51:58 To Prince Mishkin as a human being.

02:52:00 The holy fool.

02:52:01 The fool, yeah, because the world kind of,

02:52:04 my whole life still kind of sees me,

02:52:07 saw me in my perception.

02:52:08 My narrow perception is kind of the fool.

02:52:12 And I, different from the interpretation

02:52:17 that a lot of people take of this book,

02:52:19 I see him as a kind of hero to be.

02:52:22 Oh, definitely.

02:52:23 To be a naive, quote unquote, fool,

02:52:26 but really just a naive optimist,

02:52:29 and naive in the best possible way.

02:52:31 I do believe that.

02:52:33 That’s childlike?

02:52:34 Yeah, childlike is a better.

02:52:36 So naive is usually seen as.

02:52:38 That’s childish, naive.

02:52:39 Yeah, but childlike.

02:52:42 That’s why no one enters the kingdom of heaven

02:52:45 unless they become like a child.

02:52:48 That’s Prince Mishkin.

02:52:49 Dostoevsky knew that.

02:52:50 So that’s why he liked The Idiot.

02:52:52 That’s so interesting.

02:52:53 See, I think I like Crime and Punishment

02:52:55 because while you identified with Mishkin,

02:52:57 I think I identified more with Raskolnikov

02:52:59 because I was tempted by a Luciferian intellect,

02:53:02 you know, in a manner very similar

02:53:06 to the manner he was tempted.

02:53:07 But I mean, I think you can make a case

02:53:10 that the Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky’s

02:53:13 crowning achievement.

02:53:15 Well.

02:53:15 And that’s something, man.

02:53:16 He ruined literature for me.

02:53:20 Because everything else just felt insipid afterwards.

02:53:22 Not everything.

02:53:24 Not everything.

02:53:25 I found some books that in my experience

02:53:29 hit that pinnacle.

02:53:31 The Master and Margarita.

02:53:34 That’s a deadly book.

02:53:35 I’ve read that I think four times,

02:53:36 and I still, there’s still, it’s unbelievably deep.

02:53:41 There’s a Nikos Kazantzakis, a Greek writer.

02:53:44 Some of his books are,

02:53:46 his writing is amazing as well.

02:53:48 Did you ever connect with the literary,

02:53:50 like existentialist Camus or people like Hermann Hesse

02:53:55 or even Kafka?

02:53:59 Did you ever connect with those?

02:54:00 To the same degree?

02:54:01 Yeah, to the same.

02:54:02 Enough to be an influence.

02:54:03 You know, you have to be deaf in some fundamental sense

02:54:07 not to encounters a great dead friend and fail to learn.

02:54:12 No, and I mean, I tried to separate the wheat

02:54:14 from the chaff when I read.

02:54:16 You know, and I read all the great clinicians,

02:54:18 all of them, perhaps not.

02:54:21 Those who are foremost in the pantheon.

02:54:24 And I tried to pull out what I could,

02:54:25 and that was a lot.

02:54:26 I learned a lot from Freud.

02:54:28 I learned a lot from Rogers.

02:54:30 And I learned a lot from, well,

02:54:31 from Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.

02:54:32 I’m gonna do a course on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche

02:54:35 for this Peterson Academy.

02:54:36 This is coming up in January.

02:54:38 Oh, that’ll be them together.

02:54:40 I’m really looking forward to it.

02:54:40 You’re weaving, I mean.

02:54:43 I hadn’t thought about doing them together.

02:54:44 Oh.

02:54:45 That’d be fun.

02:54:46 That’s a good idea.

02:54:47 That’d be a good idea.

02:54:48 Well, there’s an interesting.

02:54:50 I’m gonna steal that idea.

02:54:51 I don’t know.

02:54:52 You often weave them together really masterfully

02:54:54 because there is religious in the broad sense

02:54:59 of that word, themes throughout the writing.

02:55:02 Throughout the writing of both.

02:55:03 Yeah, well, there’s uncanny parallelisms

02:55:05 in their writing and their lives.

02:55:07 So, and Dostoevsky’s deeper than Nietzsche,

02:55:12 but that’s because he was a writer of fiction.

02:55:15 Nietzsche is almost a character in a Dostoevsky book.

02:55:18 He is definitely that.

02:55:19 He is definitely that, yes.

02:55:22 And apparently Nietzsche knew more about Dostoevsky

02:55:24 than people had thought.

02:55:25 There’s been some recent scholarship on that grounds.

02:55:27 Dostoevsky didn’t know anything about Nietzsche

02:55:29 as far as I know.

02:55:30 I could be wrong about that.

02:55:32 But the thing that Dostoevsky had over Nietzsche

02:55:35 is Nietzsche had to make things propositional

02:55:37 in some real sense, cause he was a philosopher.

02:55:39 And it’s hard to propositionalize things

02:55:42 that are outside your ken, but you can characterize them.

02:55:46 And so in the Brothers Karamazov,

02:55:49 Ivan is a more developed character than Eleosha.

02:55:54 In the explicit sense, he can make better arguments.

02:55:58 But Eleosha wins, like Mishkin, because he’s the better man.

02:56:02 And Dostoevsky can show that in the actions.

02:56:06 He can’t render it entirely propositional,

02:56:08 but that’s probably because what’s good

02:56:10 can’t be rendered entirely propositional.

02:56:12 And so Dostoevsky had that edge over Nietzsche.

02:56:14 He said, well, Ivan is this brilliant rationalist,

02:56:17 atheist, materialist, and puts forward an argument

02:56:21 on that front that’s still unparalleled

02:56:23 as far as I’m concerned.

02:56:25 And overwhelms Eleosha, who cannot respond

02:56:27 but Eleosha’s still the better man.

02:56:30 So, which is very interesting, you know, that.

02:56:33 You know, the funny thing about those two characters

02:56:35 is you, Jordan Peterson, seem to be somebody

02:56:39 that at least in part embodies both.

02:56:42 Because you are one of the intellectuals of our time,

02:56:45 rigorous in thought, but also are able

02:56:49 to have that kind of, what would you describe?

02:56:52 If you remove the religiosity of Eleosha,

02:56:55 there’s a, what’s a good word?

02:56:59 Love towards the world.

02:57:00 Spirit of encouragement.

02:57:02 Yes.

02:57:04 Which one?

02:57:05 Yeah, well, it’s, you know, one of the things

02:57:06 I did learn, perhaps, from looking into the abyss

02:57:10 to the degree that I have had to, or was willing to,

02:57:16 was that at some level you have to make

02:57:17 a fundamental statement of faith.

02:57:20 When God creates the world, after each day,

02:57:23 He says, He saw that it was good.

02:57:26 You think, well, is it good?

02:57:28 It’s like, well, there’s a tough question.

02:57:29 I mean, you know, do you want to bring a child

02:57:31 into a world such as this, which is a fundamental question

02:57:35 of whether or not it’s good.

02:57:38 It’s an act of faith to declare that it’s good

02:57:41 because the evidence is ambivalent.

02:57:44 And so then you think, okay, well,

02:57:47 am I gonna act as if it’s good?

02:57:49 And what would happen if I did?

02:57:51 And maybe the answer to that is, I think this is the answer.

02:58:02 The more you act out the proposition that it’s good,

02:58:06 the better it gets.

02:58:09 And so that’s it.

02:58:10 Dostoevsky said, this is something else.

02:58:13 Every man is not only responsible for everything he does,

02:58:16 but for everything everyone else does.

02:58:18 It’s like, what is that profound, or are you just insane?

02:58:23 Then you think, is what you receive back proportionate

02:58:28 to what you deliver?

02:58:30 And the answer to that might be yes.

02:58:32 That’s a terrifying idea, man.

02:58:34 And it’s certainly, you can see that it’s true in some sense

02:58:37 because people certainly respond to you in kind

02:58:42 with how you treat them.

02:58:43 That’s certainly the case.

02:58:44 I mean, it’s terrifying and it’s exciting.

02:58:48 Yeah, right.

02:58:49 But that’s an adventure, isn’t it?

02:58:51 You, yeah, you create the world by the way you live it.

02:58:59 The world you experience is defined by the way

02:59:02 you live that world.

02:59:03 And that’s really interesting.

02:59:05 And then taken as a collective,

02:59:06 we create the world together in that way.

02:59:09 What do you think is the meaning of it all?

02:59:11 What’s the meaning of life, Jordan Peterson?

02:59:13 You’ve, we’ve defined it many, many times

02:59:16 throughout this conversation.

02:59:16 It’s the adventure along the route, man.

02:59:20 And I would say, where’s that adventure to be found?

02:59:24 In faith?

02:59:26 What’s the faith?

02:59:27 The highest value is love and truth is its handmaiden.

02:59:33 That’s a statement of faith, right?

02:59:34 Because you can’t tell.

02:59:37 You have to act it out to see if it’s true.

02:59:40 Yeah.

02:59:41 If it’s true. Yeah.

02:59:43 And so you can’t even find out without,

02:59:46 and that’s so peculiar.

02:59:47 You have to make the commitment a priori.

02:59:50 Yeah. It’s like a marriage.

02:59:51 It’s the same thing.

02:59:53 It’s like, well, is this the person for me?

02:59:56 Oh, that’s the wrong question.

02:59:59 How do I find out if this is the person for me?

03:00:02 By binding myself to them.

03:00:07 Well, maybe the same thing is true of life, right?

03:00:09 You bind yourself to it.

03:00:10 And the tighter you bind yourself to it,

03:00:12 the more you find out what it is.

03:00:14 And that’s like a radical embrace.

03:00:17 And it’s a really radical embrace.

03:00:19 That’s the crucifix symbol.

03:00:20 And more than that, because like I said,

03:00:22 the full passion story isn’t death.

03:00:26 It isn’t even unjust death.

03:00:28 It isn’t even unjust death

03:00:30 and the crucifixion of the innocent,

03:00:33 which is really getting pretty bad.

03:00:35 It’s unjust, torturous, innocent death,

03:00:42 attendant upon betrayal and tyranny, followed by hell.

03:00:47 Well, that’s a hell of a thing to radically embrace.

03:00:50 It’s like, bring it on.

03:00:53 I think a lot of people put truth as the highest ideal

03:00:57 and think they can get to that ideal

03:01:02 while living in a place of cynicism

03:01:05 and ultimately escape from life

03:01:07 and hiding from life, afraid of life.

03:01:10 And it’s beautifully put that love

03:01:13 is the highest ideal to reach for and truth is.

03:01:18 It’s handmade.

03:01:19 I thought about that for a long time, right?

03:01:21 This hierarchy of ideal.

03:01:22 And the thing about truth, that bitter truth,

03:01:25 let’s say, that cynical truth,

03:01:26 is it can break the shackles of naivety.

03:01:31 And actually a burnt cynicism

03:01:34 is a moral improvement over a blind naivety.

03:01:39 Even though one is in some ways positive,

03:01:42 but only because it’s protected.

03:01:44 And the other is bitter and dark, but still better.

03:01:48 But you’re not done at that point.

03:01:49 You’re just barely started.

03:01:51 It’s like, you’re cynical?

03:01:53 You’re not cynical enough.

03:01:55 It’s like, how cynical are you?

03:01:57 Are you, I’m an Auschwitz prison guard level of cynical?

03:02:01 Because you have to be,

03:02:03 you have to go down pretty deep into the weeds

03:02:05 before you find that part of you.

03:02:07 But you can find it if you want.

03:02:09 And then you think, well, I want to stop this.

03:02:13 Well, that was the question you posed.

03:02:14 In some sense, you’re obsessed with,

03:02:15 say, what happened on these mass scale catastrophes

03:02:19 in the communist countries.

03:02:21 It’s like, well, millions of people participated.

03:02:24 So you could have, and maybe you would have enjoyed it.

03:02:28 So what part of that is you?

03:02:30 And you can find it if you want.

03:02:33 Yeah, it’s all there.

03:02:35 The prisoner, the interrogator, the Judas.

03:02:40 Pontius Pilate.

03:02:41 All of it.

03:02:42 All of it, yeah.

03:02:43 And all of it is inside us.

03:02:45 Yeah.

03:02:46 And you just have to look.

03:02:48 And once you do, maybe eventually you can find the love.

03:02:51 Jordan, you’re an incredible human being.

03:02:53 I’m deeply honored you would talk to me.

03:02:56 Thank you for being a truth seeker in this world.

03:02:59 And thank you for the love.

03:03:01 Hey, thanks for the invitation, man.

03:03:04 Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:03:06 with Jordan Peterson.

03:03:07 To support this podcast,

03:03:08 please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:03:11 And now let me leave you with some words

03:03:13 from Friedrich Nietzsche.

03:03:15 You must have chaos within you

03:03:17 to give birth to a dancing star.

03:03:20 Thank you for listening and hope to see you

03:03:23 next time.