Joe Rogan Experience #1006 — Jordan Peterson & Bret Weinstein Transcript

Transcript

0:00 getting bigger, but the video part is getting to a larger percentage. Hey, should be fun. I think it was Brett's. a project with Bob on analyzing the Holocaust from an evolutionary perspective. I wanted to test the question because you're at the center of this crazy controversy of Evergreen State College. you would either have to go back to Brett's podcast that we did a few months back,

3:19 The children start cheering and laughing. and you really see it in that moment where they tell him to put his hands because one of the tenets of the postmodernism is power. That's why the postmodernists make the claim constantly that the patriarchy is a corrupt circumstances whatsoever and i think that's right i think that's exactly what happens so it's not surprising that that you see this manifested in the mob like behavior of the students it's right

5:29 like those are real nazis you know like go fucking punch them please you know we've also i think Yeah, well, that was the most disturbing thing for many people about Donald Trump's reaction to it, campuses, which was then promptly cancelled by the university that was going to host it What happened was this person put up a Facebook page and I really mean technically that it was interesting, was that the mainstream media

8:29 the Nazi is the guy who knifes you in the alley But the second guy who takes your pension, is more proximal and emotionally recognizable. Or do you think he represents this sexy South American counter-protest character? I think you nailed that exactly. boundaries. But you know, let's say we wanted a smoking pistol as far as I'm concerned. It's right.

11:21 to us, but the people listening online are going to have an issue. Is that have is that better yeah just when you turn to him just turn the thing with you There's no reason for people to be going after each other in this particular way. take place and that the continual, in my estimation anyways, the continual clawing of new ground It's some of it's comedy, some of it's satire, some of it's serious, some of it's the inversion

14:53 are a formidable force but what's going to happen is that's that's an unstable entity at the point defense. And it is absolutely not. We call this the naturalistic fallacy. So evolution is an absolutely amoral process. It has produced the most marvelous And your political belief is strongly determined by your temperament. And this is actually a really big deal.

17:21 And so I want to take this apart a little bit. Okay, so the idea is that and then within a couple of generations But the problem with that is that it's rooted in a disgust mechanism And that's not the same thing, because you burn things you're disgusted by. everything needed to get cleaned. And, you know, Hitler talked about cleanliness all the time,

19:37 and that that is liable to have produced a certain instinctive fear of the other, whatever. And I'm not squeamish about there being a right to violence when somebody is It can't be isolated as a phenomena that's associated with the other. One of the things I've done for decades well, if you were in Germany in the 1930s, And no one will think that. Like all these things are very taboo to discuss today.

23:29 We do see that. right now. And I think we're in a position of radical instability. And things in the future people that are positive feedback loops, you know, and a positive feedback loop occurs It's very unstable. because they've said to me, responsibility instead of ideological identification, right? Get it into your head that you have the It was this ping-ponging back and forth between the radical left and the radical right.

26:51 In this country, the right is much better armed, and that's a very frightening fact. to happen. percentage of that communication is going to be reprehensible and deplorable but that yes but that with google and youtube let's say and these other gigantic internet companies you know it isn't a You know, they want to get to the point where And they informed him that it would be demonetized before he published it.

29:59 I mean, how many videos are going up on YouTube? And so now there's a new buzz phrase and it's part of what makes it intensely totalitarian. because the claim there explicitly was you wipe out the past there's no real biological identity Yes, exactly. That's already happening. gender. But it does mean that there's no biological basis for the evolution of a patriarchal force

34:04 And once you understand what your genes are actually up to, and you understand that your genes, their objectives in the universe are not defensible, what your genes want cannot be defended in rational terms, then we become free to do something else, to recognize that our genes are up to things that we don't have any reason to honor. a social constructionist version of human identity, and that's actually the case. So, for example, now in Canada, here's a proposition which now has the force of law.

35:46 they're linked. And the reason they're linked is, well, there's biological and cultural reasons, but Please do. I want to correct you. it will get in the way of civilization because we're supposed You did a very good job of outlining the credible case against biological essentialism, because Yes. bite, and steal. Okay, so that's their biological programming, let's say. But

38:48 They're not going to back down from a challenge. But what you can't say is that what James Damore said was scientifically uninformed. i think that's because agreeable people are they're self-sacrificing and i think as a woman So women pay a price, being optimized to some degree for infant care, You have to be able to fight for an idea too. they're in. So women have a kind of farsightedness about lineage. And I don't think this has anything

42:45 Right? the same. It's like that's not a helpful know that agreeable people overall appalling phrase, but maximize the possibility of economic contribution across the genders, He didn't do it so it would go viral within the company or become public. Yeah, well, that goes back to the point I was making earlier about this being, this causal role time for everybody to be very careful about what they write and say and about their motives for

46:35 anyone it's not like all these people that are creating this frog are coordinating anyone can And the story was preposterous. It's certainly not an organized place. the frog in a major way and it's a crazy story and I won't go into it but I wore a frog hat on actually had red lips. But I've been, so and that got me into the Kekistani thing. with people right like what you were talking about before when people just ramp up their

50:15 as an alternative to political ideology. but it's been hyper-developed in the West, and I think it's right. And so we abandon that pathway And that's another thing that's adding to the terrible danger Not necessarily struggle financially, but I mean like physical struggle, spiritual struggle, Human being is a tragic state. That's the hero myth, essentially.

53:01 And if you have multiple individuals who think independently about related matters, The right justification for free speech is what you just laid out, which is that in order for, like, the collective is a group of what's already known by definition. for whom things are not quite working that are going to innovate new ways. And that's also true If you're going to be creative, it's because you're tormented by a problem, right?

55:34 that innovates, and that, by definition, Because the prophet is always the lone voice, right, that comes out. And maybe there are 50 of them, it was about ideological conflict. And that involves the development of individual characters because I believe that the Bible is the documentation of the emergence of the idea of the divine individual. in a manner that makes them accessible to people who are, well, to atheists, let's say. And many,

58:48 And I've and has stayed in his mother's basement. That isn't what happens at all. It's like, get the hell out of where you're safe. Who the hell doesn't want to hear that? them some space. If you don't, you may realize that they can't throw their quills, get really you, you may be on the lookout. Well, what's the The problem is, what I hear you arguing, and you tell me if I have it wrong,

1:03:54 in discussing it I'm going to make all sorts of mistakes because because it's individualization of Pinocchio. That's Geppetto. Geppetto loses Pinocchio, loses his son, which you could think about as the active, dynamic, But they're still dead. He can't participate in the updating of the process, so you need an active force. lectures, because your objection

1:06:34 But that doesn't mean you can just say, your own life and so you say well there's an archetype of perfection that pervades the west And what that does is force you to undergo the difficult process of updating the ancient wisdom. and we need to be awake and alert in order to keep it updated and maintained. none of them, no ancient religion is up to date for Google's algorithms being the hazard to

1:09:31 And I would say what's happened with the great religious myths when they don't and then and then i could say well your task is to straddle the border between those is right at the center of the border between chaos and order. of enriching it obvious. And so the fact that it isn't mentioned tends to de-emphasize it as a risk. modern times are perhaps 15,000 years old. And people think, well, we can just update that so

1:12:49 because it's very difficult for me to see that the totalizing nature of Islam It's real simple. Just don't go near the porcupine. Teach the kid to not go near the porcupine because You're lying to them for their own protection. it's all just a part of some gigantic algorithm kids i wouldn't tell them that a porcupine i'm sure you wouldn't but how but why use the word

1:15:12 Well, here's part of the problem, and this is a really big problem. like that. Well, that's the issue. truth that manifests itself as a representation of the objective world. And sometimes both those the case with the biblical stories, because if you read And we augured in because we started to talk about pragmatism, but there's also something like the truth of a description and the truth of a tool.

1:18:14 when sometimes you should use the term fact like like yes one plus one is two that is a fact one So let's take the word filth from the Old Testament. to say something that actually results in an improvement in health before, you know, literally The the Old Testament is true. It's not relevant, right? So, back to your point about terminology. he would say, well, the fact is the thing, and the wisdom is a second-order derivation of that.

1:21:42 within the interest of all the people around you but may might not serve you that well well there's also a distinction is where ethics field you aggregate, you're not going to be able to determine the appropriate path by aggregating but with an understanding that we don't have a complete map of a lot of stuff. and about the fact that things are iterated across time, and that

1:24:16 let's call it objective reality, and the you that'll be in a month, and it works for you and your family, and it works for you and because the number of potential interpretations are infinite. it's a big deal, I think, And I think that constraint system is what we regard as ethics. It's something like that. That's why they turn to Marxism, as far as I can tell.

1:27:15 because postmodernism is a dead end from the perspective of applicable wisdom. that it was really just a response to capitalism. Well, it's... being composed of a power struggle between the privileged and the underprivileged, right? cut him off at the knees, which manifested And that opened the door to this move by mostly French intellectuals their motivation is. And then I would say it's this resentment-driven anti-capitalism. There's

1:30:49 In other words, it's a pretty good story that doesn't happen to function. If you don't mind, break it down as to why it goes bad. that Marx had something to say. variability in individual production. It doesn't matter what it is. And so the Pareto distribution and the Pareto distribution have half of whatever it is roughly speaking, are played 50% of the time.

1:33:39 here's one of those places where it's actually empirically true. single system of production that we know because everybody's mad. It's like, that's a big problem. Okay, so how do human beings fix that? Well, the first thing we did was diversify the insanely powerful. Right? So you still have this tendency for what's useful and good to be And so that fractionally increases the possibility that another good thing will happen to you.

1:36:08 who have more, and it's not because oppressed and downtrodden? it's a podcast or your youtube videos or whatever people enjoy it they gravitate towards it and then And I'm not disagreeing with that argument in the least. Like what why what are the people doing wrong that are failing whether in any creative? And then you might also say, well, you want to remove the impediments from people who have those capabilities so that they can move forward.

1:39:25 You're poor. You don't have anything. and they say, hey, you're stuck at zero. If someone says, and maybe that's why they wear the Che Guevara t-shirt, it's like, hey, I'm stuck at zero. and you have a real concern about your future. And one of the advantages there is that you're driven by brute necessity. However, I would still say, you know, the zero issue is there are levels of absolute

1:41:42 a difference and then what's really bizarre is those people in that what's going to get it for us. And maybe it's inventing something and then you'll be happy. So let's look at something like the – let's imagine an ancient farmer. too trivial sounding. You could turn it into a space where you use that to investigate important But if we were smart, what we would do is we would think about the problem of how to take the gains that come from not being bumped up at the limits of a system and turn them into what we value.

1:45:38 so stupendously since 1895 that it's an absolute miracle. innovator, or the one who's inequality destabilizes things, So, because you could make a Republican argument and say, don't let the inequality in your to start thinking very carefully through how to do the But we've skittered off into these radical oversimplifications, I don't think the fundamental problem is that people don't have enough money.

1:48:53 And we've got a problem. And we're producing a culture that's very cognitively complex. And the liberals say, well, everyone's basically the same and you can train anyone to do anything. thing to spend your time on. So you can figure out what it is that they know that you don't. that you're doing something wrong that you might fix, Well, a solution.

1:52:06 conversation. That when people have the sense that the burst of growth that they were experiencing of the inequality is reduced to a tolerable level. That's the argument for universal basic income, And that's been the American dream, and that's that's a really high power and i guess that was evidenced to some degree by the 2008 collapse, because it

1:54:43 And so we're also being driven into this inequality corner by, But when you get to the point where you fail to distinguish the productive people from But why is that? Whereas discovering the next big thing that's actually productive is, you know, something that goes along and fits and starts. here's what we would like to accomplish. And then the markets

1:58:01 And, like, that, I think it's one of these runaway positive feedback processes. You know, the universities start to tilt hard to the left in the universities. And like that, I think it's one of these runaway positive feedback processes. And it sort of looks like a conspiracy, but it doesn't mean that anyone is actually planning it, precipitously. Like, I think a lot of it's driven, because there's a lot of smart people in academia,

1:59:45 are often angry with me because I do work with the business school. You know, and I Well, they don't come out and say that, but they certainly question my motivations, for example, in forming ties with the business school. compete the individual with moral limits because... And in any given round, that's true. Okay. But to the extent that what you're saying is to the extent

2:02:08 And the best that the ethically restrained person can do is compete dead even. Right, tech people. I think they actually meant that. Yeah. One of the issues was there was all sorts of fake Google going on, either. So there are reasons for them to be skeptical, say, of my association with the business school shouldn't be allowed to touch. And there are certain things that they shouldn't do, like tell

2:06:43 of large-scale states it's like well what do we want the landscape to look like? where the market starts probing the minds of your children and figuring out how to sell them things that they point that freedom breeds inequality. It's something like speed. of conscientiousness and IQ, you can predict someone's success in a competitive landscape with a correlation of about 0.6. And what that would

2:10:00 So it's a whopping effect, and it's actually some validation for the essential integrity of our system, is actually um could be generalized and that's part of equal opportunity it's not an equal Like, some things have worked in a major way. and then they'd do a little better in grade one, and that would make them do even more kids who got into Head Start were either socialized better or that some fraction of them were removed

2:12:53 And B, it doesn't insulate you from all of the stuff in terms of eliminating individual differences in IQ original biological parents than to the adoptive parents and be almost perfectly correlated with And that's a really complicated one because you think, it would show up as a similar IQ later in life. is nothing but good. Right. a fair game with equality of opportunity.

2:16:22 Freedom. So that you are encouraged Well, there is some evidence of that actually happening in Canada. And so now, you know, the issue of universal health care is obviously a very thorny one. Because you would expect, especially if you're a free market type, that, you know, I know the health care system in the U.S. is not precisely free market, but it is more so than it is in Canada.

2:18:46 And I just encourage anybody to go watch it because it just shows how they elevated the We kind of have. I'm at the point where the probability I mean, anybody who has an argument about Genghis Khan, who killed 10% of the world's population, Right now, that is impossible. No way, man. we've all agreed that they're a bad thing. And the point is that they exist in a latent program.

2:22:46 I want to clarify one thing. I mean, because this argument was sort of phrased as we have you're pointing out the danger of assuming that you can put Hitler in a, You can't say that he wasn't charismatic. are on earth, that A, he did enslave those Jews who were most fit to work in service of the German But unless they're very close. tendency to believe that evolution only functions at the level of kin when you're talking about very close relatives, I believe, is an error.

2:26:52 in Russia. And it took 12 million Russians to turn around the German war machine. I mean, superior. All of the language about German superiority is nonsense. However, genes are Other people have it lurking to be triggered. Yeah, the Daily Storm had, is that what it's called? And so I really had to think about what Trump said, You can use the truth to wound and hurt,

2:30:29 And then two weeks later, he could have said, well, would we look at the political landscape as a whole, perhaps commenting on Berkeley? There's a wink and a nod to them always. walked out of the room He said that we need to study why people get so angry and implied that there was hate, dot, dot, dot, on both sides, exclamation point. it's the wink and the nod to that side that is the only wink and the nod that they're getting.

2:32:38 or Type. She did a podcast with people she was talking to, but I think she failed to criticize them sufficiently. She didn't ask the tough questions, you know. Now, and that was a, well, it was a I'm sure you are familiar with Louis Theroux. but one of the great ones that he did was the Westboro Baptist Church. very, very polite about it. himself, he did it with Scientology

2:35:45 was it was so hall of mirrors like it was like it was a talk about free speech talks being shut down And our conclusion was that she had failed to she had failed to she didn't ask enough tough Sometimes you don't have to be confrontational with them. And without him confronting them on it, without him yelling and arguing, you got to see it One of many problems.

2:38:11 abhorrent in the in the way that they see themselves so you can understand it rather than to people talked with people who walk well it's also one of the one of the big problems with this hard stance of the of the left It's a very the Frog of everybody. And so this guy was like, well, you just admitted you're a Nazi. of humor in knots. I mean, I'm fearing that I'm saying something about this frog and that there's going to be something that's going to emerge that I should know about that somehow I'm admitting something.

2:41:31 them are not that most of them the vast majority of them are humorous and if and again these people You know, giant lips, black existed and make that racist it doesn't mean that the frog is racist. Like you're not looking at this thing rationally at all. And there's a variability of all thoughts. this left versus right extreme end of the spectrum A cartoon frog.

2:44:20 Yeah, this was great. handle again? you're not the first Yep