Joe Rogan Experience #1173 — Geoffrey Miller Transcript

Transcript

0:00 four three two one jeffrey hey hey joe thanks for being here man appreciate it it's my pleasure Didn't they do that with that guy who was Speaker Hassert, who was Speaker of the House, 15 months. Admitting to molest a large number of kids Remember that? What? Had to pay fines. I've never talked to the guy. the other, instead of just looking at the actual situation objectively. And if you're not talking

3:55 was there like over 50 of them, I mean, the weird thing is though, a lot of people who are successful have a little bit of that dark streak. why I wanted to bring this up to you as an evolutionary in terms of like Hollywood, in terms of show business in terms of stand-up comedy just like televangelists, right? And I think that kind of hypocrisy is why

7:08 He ran a giant church in, lot of people a lot of guys who are pretty like outspokenly homophobic. Yeah. You put them in a sex research situation What is that? And then we were just going to talk about Japanese vomit porn and tentacles. the the conflicted thoughts of the human being who has this ideal of who they'd like to project that do give a shit they're the real problem you know the the people who are not gay who

9:41 But I think it is so hard to be authentic to yourself. These are completely different things. do research on whatever the psychology of porn, but I know people who do. and being morally judgmental about politics. I was in high school in 1981. And it was just terrifying. If you just stole it, it'd cost 30. Okay. is a very short period of time at any other time other than today.

14:26 Yeah. And so it'll nuke marriages. The divorce rate will go to 80%. But then there's the third option, It's like 40% of the brain, just porn. there are literally thousands of people designing that game to be as addictive as possible Or are they really thinking, hey, this Jeffrey Miller guy, I want to get him fucked up on And then it just, as a side effect, it becomes addictive.

18:21 Right. seemed to me that all they were doing was just trying to make awesome shit that they like yeah And I don't think that's an intention of the designers. It's just, remarkably together for a teenager whose parents are murderers and drug dealers. Spoiler alert. I thought it was, I think she's, I mean, she needs My kid's awesome. so it's so twisted there's so much going on so many different levels yeah it's like i get anxiety

22:07 but you don't know any particular character will. He might lose. you sometimes got those really profound surprise endings but one thing like an example the hustler there's white and that's it. And I hate those people and I love these people. And I can't people's feelings. And it just, it's a piss poor way of getting your thoughts out. galvanizing the polar opposites and it's making people go towards these extreme lefts and extreme rights, especially people that are easily led or maybe not so thoughtful about, you know, the objective way that they're interpreting these events and not being introspective, not looking at themselves with a critical eye and just engaging in this sort of back-and-forth tribal shit with people that I just think is it's so strange to

26:11 The radical right? It's only a couple weeks old, the reactionary right. about some fraught issue. bunch of other people and oh jesus then here Right. And being open and honest about that. Instead, they have to pretend that their ideas are rock solid and completely well thought out and rigid and impossible to evolve. everything about everything is preposterous. Yeah. And you know, if you're a 20 year old

30:23 You really have very little time. these cognitively demanding jobs, and that's not just white-collar workers. I mean, a lot of Yeah. Yeah. I mean people want life. What are you up to? Radio Lab is one of my favorites. no, there's just this one way acceleration of culture that's going to be faster and faster. Nobody will watch more That's very common now where someone will go over all the different details of a phone and let you know, like, here's what's new about the Galaxy Note 9.

34:41 Oh, yeah. The entertainment is each other. Break out the ukulele. is heavily dependent on not just how good a hunter you are, Like when you're around someone who's really hilarious, opened up the the barriers for communication anybody can communicate now and it's just k missteps and someone says something that they regret then they delete it there's this cancel

37:39 Like one of my favorite books about kind of social history And everyone's fallible. that comes with being connected to all these people all the time and constantly checking your I was in Lanai, the small island off of Hawaii, And now since Burning Man is one of the few places where you don't get cell phone service and you can't really be online, it's like, oh, man, this is such a relief because we literally can't stay connected.

41:27 Right? got really polished and worked out but I think what the idea behind it is fascinating to people I mean, it really is what, a decade and a half? wear when you go there, it's either like a libertarian paradise or it's a communist It's even hard to get a parking pass. But what if they did? and the emergency medical services Like if you get freedom and freaky and drugs, it's left wing.

45:37 Yeah. They're nice people, though. They might be right. That's one religion. They're really nice to each other. And not that he turned Mormon, but he thought they're on to something in terms of how seriously they take the future, both on Earth and in the afterlife they believe in. Well, in the afterlife, don't they get a planet of their own when they die?

47:21 and so we've colonized Mars and Asteroid Belt. Because they think that when you die, you get your own planet. some real positive energy involved in believing in this higher power and this greater good and If you want to find out more about being a Mormon here, come, come to our website, Social psychology. And some people laughed, but a lot of people call me a piece of shit.

50:39 What, This is chaos. The ruches is a little bit of she's got whore makeup on She can't talk yet. Look, it's parody. What is this? Maybe it's a great book. then you need to lighten up So you can only maintain it behind this wall of insulation. they go, I accept people who drink, no, you're just, you're just, your body is dealing with it. Your body's processing it.

55:29 She's fine. also the kind of systemic level, like the food industry and what is being promoted and How do you deal with opiate addiction? And if you make a suggestion like, oh, here's some awesome And a lot of them come out of a kind of 12-step program mentality where it's like you have Is that changing, though? here's an alternative that might work, they will shut it down because

59:37 she comes home from school, and the dog's like, Like, they're drug dealers who are against drugs. It was like, this is your brain on drugs. videos, you'd be like, this is a culture and a civilization, an organism that is mad. that might be really helpful to people. It's partly that, but it's partly, you know, how do you make a monogamous relationship

1:03:59 best way to deliver the benefits in their real lives to their families and their relationships I mean, if you go to Disneyland, it's one of the saddest things in the world. That's what it's like to be a sugar addict. girlfriend's vegan. And the profit margins on junk food are very, very high. It gets funky. Because the animals use their body. That's disgusting.

1:07:42 Well, one of my edgier tweets was like, celebrities will start selling themselves because what if people are delicious? And one of the things about it was that they were selling human meat and that this guy I mean, if you gave me a piece of lamb, venison chop all this stuff is going to create some discussions, the ethical Of course it's Texas. Let's let them go crazy.

1:10:26 robot? What if you lose your concentration? holes. Well, Texas There's a showroom where customers can test and rent dolls before deciding to purchase one. it that it would be really good on balance because there's a lot of guys who um Rather, it's a thing of power. I predict the rate of sexual abuse would drop. Really? Yeah, I really do. Like she feels warm.

1:13:27 Are you mansplaining? Yeah. That guy. But this just speaks to the variability of the human genome and just DNA in general. the human form to the point where the world's going to be preposterous. with a nervous system? in the womb and manipulating it, It was either a hobbit or a cave troll, so you should count your blessings. What do we look like right now in terms of sex bots?

1:17:35 But I think there will be this tipping point where they can do conversation that's good enough. trainable well my girlfriend's nicer sometimes people are nice when you're nice to them, Jeffrey. her backstory. I can either be like, like, I can't compete with that. I'll have to Like how they fall apart. And you're like, what the fuck? Let's see what we got here.

1:20:36 It's got AI. What is it, hairy chest? Well, have you seen the porn where they do face swaps? If you think of like sketch comedy and – here, play one for them. She recorded. Where's the bathroom? smell her chair. Thought she was on her period. champagne bottle to celebrate my return Yeah, I mean, on your phone. You take all of the recordings that I've ever done, just more than a thousand podcasts, you throw them into this machine and you basically have all my various inflections, anger, sadness, laughter, giddiness, perplexed, all the different words that I have in my vernacular, and you put them all into this thing, and you can kind of morph it around. It's Photoshop for voice.

1:24:31 It means we can't really trust digital records of people in the same way. You could, essentially essentially it would be Right. Yeah. And like, I just want to watch Ozark. I mean, people have standards, varying levels of standards and they don't Just keep it on the sneak tip. Right? scenes that they do or they're they're have promo clips and stuff you look at it like is this real

1:29:26 that they'll think that's the state of the art. So do you think that people are going to be getting their education in some sort of an Yeah. Like you can get a lot of information quickly through your eyes and ears, but your speed if they bridge the gap between cultures and civilizations and the way people communicate is you basically have the whole history of life on Earth, you know,

1:33:16 They have, like, a maximum of maybe your thumbs on a keypad, The complete dissolving of all boundaries between people and information, people and their lives, and that some sort of a way of recording your actual experiences or letting people share them in real time. It's going to feel like real touch. There's a haptic feedback Boy, we're fucked, Jeffrey.

1:36:43 Okay. Well, okay, here's the thing. probably in a few million years but but why do you say that is that to make yourself feel better There was a documentary I watched once that freaked me the fuck out. Right. some sort of a electronic caterpillar that gives birth to a technological butterfly. Never. I think at a certain point, Like we're not really rational. And competition, especially when it's dealing with different countries that have different human rights laws and standards of behavior and competition, especially when it's dealing with different countries that

1:41:24 China is a threat because they are smart and organized and future oriented and they can do long term planning. than like military spying in the strict sense. I'd be surprised if they're doing it well. And we're going, oh, yeah, well, you can't Google Tiananmen Square. So it's not like there's just one dimension of freedom and we're better than them on every aspect of it. And again, I think American citizens have no idea how restricted American scientists are in kind of what we're allowed to study or what we're allowed to talk about.

1:44:43 You can't do science without money. than social psychology does at this point. Are they sharing this information internally? And then Mark Zuckerberg might be a robot too, right? Don't delete my account. I doing? And then it ran. And well, no editing at all. You're going to forget about her eventually. be spread within three days to everybody in a field. And anybody who does scientific misconduct

1:50:05 And everybody thought, that's crazy. He's going to have And now, what, Katy Perry For a million. That's hilarious. Like, okay, hey, do you know what's going to happen when you light that garbage can on fire it's filled with dynamite and the legal issues the privacy issues the impact on relationships yeah um is okay so like we train a lot of the uh if anyone has questions now you can learn almost everything i learned in the year

1:53:21 which is kind of hilarious. I mean, I feel really morally conflicted about working in an industry that I think is pretty exploitative in a lot of ways. And it's great. as if I was teaching at Middlebury College or Yale or whatever. life and you'll be in relationships of some sort or another. You should learn about politics. You And that's the future proof way to do it.

1:57:07 causes and effects and just for your own edification. This is not a consideration. Really? their career it's not for the status it's because they really want to be there and they want to learn well i'd also imagine they're not as filled with angst as an 18 year old first escape from the The grandmas will. And then that got totally debunked in the last few months by other historians.

1:59:44 What's the reality? You would think it would have left a bigger imprint. I can't even type anymore. Is that a book? I don't know. back in the early 90s. the sperm that allegedly were specialized to yeah i remember someone brought that up to me and i acrosome reaction. There is a tiny little Published urban myth? How did you teach it? What was the conventional way of describing this?

2:03:42 competing to fertilize the same egg. the rates of extra pair copulation or infidelity But in comparison to when all of this stuff evolved, we could be talking about humans of 50,000, 60,000 years ago. That when it comes, there's a direct correlation between the number of promiscuous females Bad idea. And now that whole house of cards has been tumbling down the last couple of years

2:06:54 sexist and and to sort of wag fingers at them and say see you scored positive on this test But they're just concerned about the optics in order to make their stock go up, right? Jeffrey's going to come in and teach us how not to be racist. You might be racist, Oh, boy. Virtually everybody in it is pretty far left. Is that more of the indoctrination of the walled garden of academia?

2:10:37 Or let's talk about politics. I mean, it seems like if you're going to do real social experimental work, And if you're doing real good work, And they never self-corrected like that. I'm pro-gun rights. I'm pretty cautious about immigration. I'm pro-economic freedom. I don't want a big, expensive state that has high tax burdens. monogamous pair bonding and people getting together

2:14:44 civilizational sustainability or family sustainability. Right. But they're not that concerned about kind of what you could call civilizational sustainability harp seals and polar bear bears in 100 years and It's very, very confusing to people, right? Because they're like, how can you be like pro-cannabis legalization if you're also pro-guns? of the yin yang you know in um the korean flag they have that yin yang but it's instead of white and black it's red and blue i mean that that

2:17:44 What? Who's we? Yeah. Are we running, Bob? Like, what've got to win the House. I've heard that. You know, we've got to win the Senate. What? And the other tribe on the other side of the hill has their territory, resources, mates, and kids. Does this, you know, you're obviously far more aware of this than the average person. I think it'll be quite hard to escape the tribal thinking,

2:20:29 Yeah. Like, this is why you think certain ways. Because you really didn't learn it. where you develop the ability Yeah. How much would it cost to fix? Yeah. was at one point in time oh you're just wasting your time. And now that dismissal doesn't necessarily hold water because just like professional Fortnite, probably. I want to be the next Tiger Woods.

2:25:38 Is it one of those role playing games? Oh, the new discovery mode turns on Assassin's Creed Origins and just walk you through ancient Can I watch this? especially virtual, where you could go there and experience it and i mean i don't know if you've messed around with any of the htc vive things explanation you could get but you're the guy there and you're in a third person position you

2:28:14 and now that they've turned this on Just gamify every topic. And it's like, college is really expensive But everything is changing so fast. It's just the way you can present them technically. and that's very un-PC in terms of virtual thing he's doing it through video lectures and then physical lectures. It's really fascinating to see the reaction to him

2:31:54 there's a real hunger for that because it was something that students couldn't get anywhere Sam is surprisingly funny. No, it's a very dry So I think that's the future, and I think within 10 years, a lot of young people are just going to realize, is it's this credential signaling system. years where these things were even a real thing. Yeah. And I mean, the idea that only have a certain amount of years where these things were even a real thing.

2:35:51 like Christina Hoff Summers, who's very reasonable and calls herself a factual feminist, and they and setting off fire alarms and all these things that these children, and I call them children the freshman class was only 300 people, which is crazy. universities acting stupid about that and and you know denying free speech and a more compelling argument, who's more reasonable, who's addressing all the flaws and the problems

2:39:10 They want to, you know, call them racists or whatever they want to call them. Do they have to use fake names? because it's not like there's any aspects of quantum mechanics I mean it was network television and then cable was the more edgy alternative. stuck yeah i think universities are like nbc circa 1975 right where they're like, oh, this cable stuff,

2:42:22 are ready to jump ship. and who have a passion for discovering new ideas and then sharing them with people. What was the advice? And if that's too much to ask, you become a male feminist. is attracted to. there's actually quite a bit of convergence there. Funny is really important. But it's fascinating that there are these two choices and I never really thought about it

2:46:45 and evolutionarily has worked. are sort of dissing each other's mating strategies as if well there's one proper way and then all the you get a little bit of circular logic, for example, where you say this mating strategy, Almost all of my really cool friends came from a fucked up, broken childhood. bad. But you know what? If what we consider bad is actually the way most of the other 4,000 species

2:50:12 to be like 10? And you could produce statistical correlations to say, oh, look, premarital sex is correlated with being lower class or criminal or drug use or whatever. Like now there's another mouth to feed, and now I can't work because I have to take care of the babies. Oh. Right. Yeah. So the technology of contraception made a big difference. It used

2:52:16 Well, have you read Sex at Dawn? And this is something you've discussed Number of people who are gay or lesbian at the population level is like two to five percent, depending on the surveys. if you're not going to be monogamous, and who you're socially connected to. And this is probably an incredibly controversial subject at the academic level. And, you know, we talked about the pros and the cons.

2:57:21 And that's, to me, kind of professional malpractice. Yeah. What are you doing? Just as a human in civilization. there, what is working and what isn't, and how do you make it work better? Well, it's still, it's brave to discuss right now. Normal. That sounds like a restaurant. The Ethical Slut? Yeah. And this is why you're contemplating writing it yourself.

3:01:49 We talked for three hours. You're welcome. Thanks.