Joe Rogan Experience #1081 — Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Boom and we're live ladies and gentlemen Heather Hying, Brett Weinstein. I didn't What we're talking about, folks, what we would like to talk about is... Why don't you explain with respect to understanding what a human being is and how we function and how we interact. But we also have a tremendous number of millennial friends, former students, who are trying to navigate this stuff

2:47 I'm trying to get this sucker up close to you. Sorry. way and you know maybe we need to call it modern as opposed to pre or post We can tell that there's nobody really at the helm. And you have a lot of people who are faced and I don't, you know, this is not a monolithic community. I actually know quite a number of offenders in a women's prison because they declare themselves to be female? So not tracking the

7:07 I want 100% of the solution to this problem, you'll cause a catastrophe. So getting people But we can't do that with biology. that our ancestors didn't I haven't heard that one. You know, gametes aren't on a continuum. Have you folks heard about that new crayfish that they're battling in Europe? And like asexuality has actually evolved in a few lineages, a few vertebrate lineages.

10:54 I think they just farm it for food if it's tasty. Yeah. And all ideas of being honest intellectually or looking at things objectively what you're actually discussing, it's about who can win. happens when that system breaks down and people perceive themselves as needing to win against The value, really. But a scientific approach is, I've got this idea.

14:40 cherished beliefs are wrong and you can't do it you have pretty good But is it right or is it not? and that gives you the ability to navigate almost anything that's thrown at you, And that's a big hazard for people like Heather and myself because you have to sort the wheat from the chaff in order to figure out what to defend and what to be agnostic about.

17:17 you know, somebody challenged Feynman that he was the kind of guy who would take apart a flower and You will get a lot of value. And the activation energy for understanding your own self, your sexual self even, as a product of evolution that is wired in a particular way for particular objectives that may or may not be relevant to your conscious person's objective.

19:03 aphorism that you can adopt and suddenly your life functions. like male and female are universals. these exceptions, but the truth underlying them is always the same, It allows them to take over a landscape from one individual because it can just spread and spread and spread without It's more or less, yeah. to tolerate change? Well, it has to do one thing, which is it has to have some place

22:25 And it turns out that this is true. Some people are hoping for that. Well, how do they get away with being asexual? Komodo dragons, which are the biggest monitor lizards. There is evidence from, I think it's it would only be in zoos that we would know for the most part. in order to populate a new island, must have crossed of making offspring. Or is this individual the result of sex? We assume sex. And it's only when somebody puts them in a

26:16 They're crazy. Giving you more information out of that big eyeball. shared ancestor with us that had grief. They separately evolved grief because their complex Wow. lizards that actually caused the switch and if you could then maybe trigger it wow so like some There's no evidence. Right. But there are certain animals, There's one frog where there's a little bit of evidence, but it may be an artifact of a zoo setting, effectively,

30:11 But they're also, so that's the sequential, you know, where one individual no chromosomal sex determination, and the sex is effectively So most lizards, snakes, frogs, crocodiles, turtles, regard. Those are echidnas and platypus. Yeah, there are only three species left on earth. males are homogametic WW, and females are WZ, which means that female birds can't clone themselves

32:51 This is true between birds and mammals. For those of you listening, Georgia O'Keeffe. So here's what I want to show you about this. of reluctant about sex with strangers. The male parts are really enthusiastic about it, right? It's going to produce, I don't know what, orders of magnitude more pollen than it has ovules to be fertilized. behavior easily and that that is mind-blowing,

36:37 plants. And then, okay, that's true. And then we have fungi, which break every single rule. and those sexes will follow rules that we see over and over and over again, How much of that is what's going on today? in understanding what those patterns are, Oh, yeah. in animals. It happens, but our sex role reversal is so weird and it is not complete. That's it?

40:00 They're pretty consistent. They've never been to Austin. more or less what they are a signal of. They are a signal of having the resources to produce a baby, So one of the other things that is unique about humans, at least with regard Vomeronasal, some large. we can't intuit what it would be like because we don't have it. But so humans have these persistent, constant sexual signals in the form of breasts, among

44:08 from the female herself. Now that always gets pushed back if you say that in a room full of And there may be some self-knowledge possible there. Okay. having a child also is partially a burden and so maybe more intelligent creatures as humans got Yeah, absolutely horrible. So in a sense, hiding this information from everybody appears to be an evolutionary solution

46:57 fascinating. So the other thing that Heather mentioned, which I think belongs front and Is the dolphin example, is it year-round? Do you know? I think elephants occasionally and orcas, I believe orcas also have that pattern. out as an evolutionary biologist um well let me try an experiment with you this is this is uh but is hot. Me either. This, I think, actually is a window into much that is wrong with what we think about human sexuality.

50:32 my own mind and I can say that at least for some men, it is true that beauty and hotness So what's going on? Because males are males, they have, I want to say they have two reproductive strategies. and the mothers of their offspring. has been ubiquitous throughout human history So just I think you said something that was unclear at the beginning. It's not a good term because it's quite clear which came first.

54:46 an offspring does not require commitment from them in order to have sex, that's an evolutionary When they have the opportunity to produce offspring with no commitment, they have a hard time resisting that opportunity because it's such an evolutionary win. which of course works because men have a hard time ignoring hotness. Madonna whore dichotomy, that neither of those words is quite right because no one wants a

58:16 I feel like we could do this together. No good. someone to reproduce with. But it's so new. Right. So the software is still wired the same way to look at a woman who you believe would be a good carrier of babies, female, was someone with So this is mostly pre-industrial cultures they're looking at. But the jobs that across cultures where it happens, only men do,

1:01:50 Yeah, definitely don't do that. and therefore the stakes for women for having sex have been greatly reduced, and therefore more women That would not necessarily say that the way to do it was to go around banging strangers, And that tends to look like the argument tends to be more sex with more people. I mean, college students, you know, tell you anything for 50 bucks.

1:04:57 and we say, what would the rules be And that's one thing that what's going on in modern American culture is there's no end point. It's just Isn't this sex with strangers thing attractive because it's difficult to accomplish? Sex and the city. novel is social media. because this is a new type of human being. Because every girl comes of age and discovers that that's an asset, whether you want it to be or not, that now I'm being looked at.

1:08:56 so well where your circuitry is different. So there are lots of places where males and females women talking somewhere and you walk by and they're like, look at that. That's one fine hunk of man. The difference between a man experiencing that with women is I'm not going to get gang raped. part of it. Which is, I mean, it's huge for sure, but there's other stuff going on too. But here's

1:10:58 But I see exactly where you're going with that. But a woman walking past a construction site and getting five, six, seven guys whistling. I saw that. of oh my god these catcalls are are awful and it's just it's a pain in the ass to walk down and if you have daughters and you still cat No, actually, let's, I mean, this is interesting because I think this is something actually Heather probably won't intuit either.

1:13:51 much smaller circumstances, a small town where everybody knew everybody. And so whatever it is You might find gold. That is likely to be the body taking one last shot. It shows you that there's some part. Yeah. But my point would be, what has to be true in order for such a pattern where some entity Can you imagine a scenario? And so I don't know what the pattern would be.

1:18:21 And so then the question is, is the female advertising that they are having sex by making noises that make it visible, in which case that creates jeopardy. Why would you be cautious about Sex, It, Dawn as a book? i don't know who's right let's put it this way that book is a pretty good strategy for getting what that means i've heard it before but it's now um what out of all this can we unpack

1:20:53 What's wrong with it as a biologist, as a person who understands humans? that most men are behaving in some kind of a toxic way and I just I don't like that word but imagining that because most women have experienced harassment most men are for instance, of their employment. all men I mean we were actually hearing from people that any boy that you are

1:23:58 The easiest one. But in doing so, the overzealous approach of accusing all men of being potential rapists, And we're not going to deny monsters because someone goes too far and they accuse Garrison Keillor of being a monster when we know that that's not true. And then years later, when all this Me Too thing, He hasn't been resurrected. I just don't understand it.

1:26:36 a kind of naive conclusion making that makes them inevitably hijacked. They get inevitably hijacked by bad are sociopathic. If you set up a system in which we are obligated to believe every victim, It is. It's a transfer of well-being from the people who have been most harmed What will happen if we don't do that, Yeah, it is the death of nuance because if you're wielding this thing as a weapon, right, if what you want to do is turn the tables on all

1:30:07 when they're at all healthy. And maybe you're going to say something wrong, and I'm not going to be thrilled with it. feel like I kind of wish you hadn't said that but that has to mean that that And that's not a legit move. So we got to be super careful here. Yeah. One thing that is true is we are facing a landscape in which would be absolutely essential because the danger of a miscommunication

1:33:35 if it's is it okay if i touch you here is it okay if i take your shirt off and she says not yet and If you want symmetry, you would have to say that if the man has consumed alcohol and the No, I mean, the thing is, the only thing that keeps us safe from being arrested for this is that since we've both done it, it's like a standoff. but is no longer, and we're looking to establish this new parameter

1:35:39 within women, and it's going to destroy.'s actively making male female relationships impossible to Safety. Okay, if the point of this is to make sex safe because it's pleasurable, this is going to rob all of the pleasure from sex. The only, the reason it exists. I haven't seen the description of what the, In the universities, and it's spreading. So it's very frightening.

1:39:13 Or are these people who are going to be able to hear a story if you look at the narratives that exist in movies, people are capable of understanding the subtlety of human interactions. But they are either pretending or convincing themselves in the public space that things are way simpler than they actually are. Since you guys are talking about it, I don't know how it affects what you're talking about currently.

1:40:21 They asked him for comment, and he didn't respond yet because this was just within the last 24 hours. It shifts the balance of something. It is yet another reason that we can't build naively. You know, was it in good taste? And he insisted. You really are. So anyway, that one appears to have gone in what I imagine is the right direction. one it started off well you know i can say as a person who worked as an actor for a while i heard

1:44:45 Yep. Oh, I think there's no question. There would be some sort of evidence of that. This is a terrible error. And so if we are to get to a state that makes sense, Right. it can possibly be, that is not a landscape that is good for everybody. and this is another tough point where I'm worried There should be legal protection for her to do it. Risk-taking is more common in men than women, on average, across cultures.

1:49:52 a problem. You go to Disneyland. through it with a fine-tooth comb so that nothing bad can happen to you and you can have all of this manner of situations. that we took our kids and 30 undergraduates to the Amazon Jesus. Jaguars are not the issue. And our younger son found a gigantic coral snake You expose yourself to sexual situations that aren't stranger sex so that you can know how to build courtship and romance and love and sex later on.

1:54:11 they will be terrible at managing risk as adults, and then something terrible is going to happen to them. So what I operate on, or maybe I'm reverse engineering the way I think I've learned how to behave is something I call the theory of close calls, which is that you don't we had, it wasn't really the only rule, experienced serious danger, this thing actually occurred to them. Nobody comes home in a box.

1:56:03 Somebody we knew in high school happened to go to the same college that I started at at Penn. something that I did with any sort of intent. are going to lay down the law and say you must seek affirmative consent every 37 seconds, Yeah, it's tough. when you're like that. And that's how you understand social interaction. And this is a big part of how

1:59:08 you're a dummy, you can find other dummies that think just like you and you organize a very There's a lot of squirrely thinking going on and it's And what we face is an epidemic of novelty. now. Right. The rate of change is so high that our evolutionary capacity to deal with novelty People don't take it seriously. And it certainly triggers that second male strategy.

2:03:03 Yeah. And so what we've effectively done is accidentally, economically, we've announced to children that this is what sex looks like. And maybe they even get proficient at that kind of sex. form they take. I don't necessarily want to see children exposed to it willy-nilly, couple porn that makes sense where it is a husband and wife or a boyfriend and

2:06:08 Some people actually prefer that because it seems like real people who are attracted to is actually pretty easy to draw, good for you neither have i neither have i all right it's just it's erotic well if none of us Like you're not going to know how to engage with actual real human beings who can give you feedback. don't look like what happens when somebody writes a script.

2:08:21 Or NC-17, right? later on? Almost certainly not. Because the vast number of people who end up realizing, The only thing that seems to fit is this agenda that this is a natural normal part of our society but if it were possible to know with how little we understand about why it is that some people end up gender dysphoric for life and all that, Yeah, the more they change development.

2:12:01 If you decide to be trans, the way ours does is so high that there is a very, it's the barrier to telling the world that this is shock people. They do a lot of things let we certainly can't let parents leap to it. in the book and he'd be out back building a fence, he'd say, you're going to come out and help me dig post holes and pour the cement and put in the posts and you're going to do this.

2:15:00 girl. That's a giant problem with this category of men and women obviously there's this everything else. And they're right. particularly French women, who are like, what the fuck are you guys doing? I'm glad we're getting to this part of the conversation. We have to protect people yourself trans i don't think that makes you trans isn't there an issue and this is not i'm not anti

2:18:40 do feel like you were born in the wrong body, the only way to change that is to inject who, you know, at first, you know, I must say there's a lot of trans folks at evergreen and at first when we first arrived it was odd to me like what Trying it on as an identity as opposed to, you know, that includes LGB, but it's too high. And to me, that doesn't look like trans. students who are really legitimately trans and have done surgery or hormones or both and are

2:22:03 you know, mind you, I'm now learning that some trans people actually don't feel this way, And there was access to something, for trans women, because in many cases, maybe almost all cases, they are using these signs I'm not saying everybody who puts on makeup is doing that, That's very well put. Yeah, I think that's a very important distinction too,

2:25:24 Kathy Newman interview in the UK, which was like heels or dresses um so he did say maybe maybe yes he didn't he didn't say women shouldn't do this This is, you know, this is a sign of a nuanced thinking person. That's not going to be possible because look at how many other sexual signals there are. need to be gotten rid of from the workplace, literally says, I didn't say women shouldn't wear makeup in the workplace. I said, maybe,

2:28:52 I think they should release the whole thing. And he's actually pretty careful not to do that. If these are signals, even unconscious ones, if they are sexual signals. Why am I wearing one to go to a family reunion? social pressure, including the fact that you are in a landscape of other people wearing them. It's physiological, right? So the idea that these signals are out there and common should become

2:31:56 I mean, if the boss makes a joke, everybody laughs, whether or not it's funny. And the size of the stone and the quality of the stone, even though the stone is not actually useful for very much, it is symbolically important. And the last point I would make is that we also need to recognize that we have a mismatch between personal signaling and broadcast signaling.

2:34:37 within the polyamorous community, there's a recognition about just how difficult it is to away from it because I think it actually prioritizes one thing, which is desirable, then as a woman, you're trapped in this terrible situation How do I not get locked into that relationship that's going to trap me with somebody who's decaying in front of me? Well, I'm telling you specifically that.

2:37:43 Right. Yeah. But he believes it. Yes, a friend who is polyamorous. And this friend has convinced me that it can be accomplished, Totally. But isn't monogamy extraordinarily difficult to pull off? And so I'm not telling people that they should live one way or the other. It's something we can potentially move past. What processes are you referring to?

2:42:14 and which is really freaky it's like those lizards how do they know right they just know There's an important distinction there. So a couple interesting facts. Not you. We're not putting deodorant anywhere else on our body. deodorant. Frankly, I don't find somebody who is taking daily showers and isn't wearing deodorant, think to name what about makeup what if women stopped wearing makeup how much would that change

2:45:07 And then there's a question of whether there's anything there to back it up. On the other hand, it may say something. which is Heather and I have spent all of that time adventuring together. That's a big part. It's unfortunately really common. Like being able to look at each other with compassion. in any situation when you disagree with someone, and it's all these rash generalizations in this extreme tribalism well yes there is kind

2:49:45 But if Heather and I both know that, So knowing that we're engaging in theater at some level, even though neither of us wants to be. Like, you know, you're talking about Peterson and going to work and wearing makeup and you think, am I sending sexual signals? There are things that have to happen in order for you to I'm considering exploding. And that is not an infinite process.

2:52:15 you can sort of theatrically reset some important points. This is a great lesson for reasonable