Joe Rogan Experience #1309 — Naval Ravikant Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Two, one, boom. My pleasure. and tech investing but you see a bear on a unicycle, that's really interesting, right? lover, thinker, et cetera. So I like the model of life that the ancients had, the Greeks, i couldn't agree more and i i think that sometimes people find certain success in life that you just don't have the time. So it's very painful to go back down and look for a new

3:25 beginner's mind and go back to the beginning to start over. And if you're not doing that, That's what I live for. But that's not really understanding. I don't really know the answer to what the meaning of life is or how we got here. and the Federal Reserve prints it in terms of like have a don't give me the I just, I already know. center because it was a very tough neighborhood.

6:13 as a vanity metric. Because really, when people are putting up photos on Twitter, Instagram, be fiction. It could be science. It could be sci-fi. These days, it's mostly sci-fi, philosophy, i can if i find a thread that's interesting i can follow through five social networks through the And I'm as guilty of that as anybody. And then one idiot comes along, one out of 10, one out of 100, and they can easily tear it down.

9:48 You know, I was having this conversation with my wife. she used to think that that's just part of the price of being famous, yeah i don't think we knew what it was though we did but we carry on so it tells us we are cute females you know yeah yeah i look at my brief little youtube clips. I have a tiny little podcast going now, and it's like 95% male.

12:03 Yeah, so what it was, I did a tweet storm but let's just start with three, the three basics. you want to be rich and happy and healthy. And a fitness, I'm not going to teach. maybe give you a few hooks so you can remember things when they happen or put a name of way, not the banker, crash the economy, get bailed out kind of way, but build businesses and

14:50 And it has all the information. I think you need the principles that if you absorb these and you work hard over 10 years, you get what you want. So I've got the one on wealth creation. I'm going when there's a crisis going on, you want to be the calmest, coolest cucumber in the room How did you develop that one? Six months passed, nine months passed.

16:37 And you're not serious about it, that we make. And happiness is just one of those choices. And this is unpopular to say because capable, why can't you change this? There are a bunch of people though that actually take pleasure yourself to be unhappy until you get what you okay to suffer over that one, but on all the others, you want to let them go so you can be

19:20 Well, if you want to be a high-performance athlete, how good of an athlete are you going to be if you're always having epileptic seizures, if you're always like twitching and running around and like jumping and your limbs are flailing out of control? your code. So a clear mind leads to better judgment leads to better outcome. So a happy, and he eats mostly McDonald's.

20:49 He's made it really far. Stress is the big killer. that pleasing of the mind that's probably better output is he getting? What you do, who you do it with, how you do it, way more important than how Allegedly. No, I agree wholeheartedly. But for people that are working for someone, enough. They just don't have that ability to retire. So the first thing you have to do is you

24:13 Yeah. but even those were still mostly family farms. And intrinsic in that is that I have to work for somebody else. and I need someone to come in and provide the lumber. I'm a developer, right? Do I want that we're seeing the optimal size of the firm shrinking. It's most obvious in Silicon Valley, will be available in a gig fashion You decide whether to take the project or not.

27:40 employees, I always tell those people, hey, I'm going to help you start your company when you're individuals setting out to do missions. And when those missions are done, we collect our money, I sat down and talked with him about it. When electricity came along, that put a lot of people out of work. Absolutely. of jobs will be created. If I told you 10 years ago that podcaster was going to be a job, or that playing video games

30:44 The question is, how quickly can you retrain people? So it's an's it's i don't see it in the numbers i don't see it actually happening the question is how quickly can you retrain people so it's an education problem the problem in the ubi there's response as all the entrepreneurs fled. So you would essentially bankrupt the country. And lastly, it's nonsense to hand 15K out to everybody.

32:41 And finally, in terms of the rate of automation, I think we can educate people very quickly. and you can educate them into creative professions. That's the end of the human species. It's another, it's a combination of Cassandra complex. don't know how the brain works at all. Number two, we've never even modeled a paramecium or an amoeba, let alone a human brain. Number three, there's this assumption

35:02 such thing as general intelligence. Every intelligence is contextual within the context of the environment that it's in. So Like what is going on inside cells and biological organisms? But I'm saying the neuron is a cell. Exactly. ever published anything, all the people that have ever spoken any words, stores all of But what about something that recreates the abilities of a brain?

38:00 to be intelligent outside of the boundaries of feedback in a real medium. But isn't that biological? They're not on the road to the unbounded game of life. Being good at Go doesn't mean that you can then suddenly figure out how to write great poetry. This is a creative job. not going to stop at 15 because the moment people are like i mean at 15 like that people demand more

40:35 I mean, heck, if I was not working and I was getting my 15 a year, and eliminated the middle class. Yeah, they've essentially taken huge risks Basic math comes from accounting, keeping track of debts and credits and so on. choices or reap the rewards from good choices, then you are forcibly redistributing through violence. It's interesting where it's like, you're higher up, I'm lower down. You're president, so I must be vice president.

43:15 we end up like Venezuela or the former Soviet Union. been implemented have you ever had a conversation with someone who's a socialist who were many times You haven't thought it through. So basically, the larger the group of people you have massed together who have different interests, the less trust there is, the more cheating there is, the better the incentives have to be aligned, the better the system has to work,

45:13 Please, everybody, come take what you want. opportunities. So, for example, instead of basic income, what if we had a retraining Yes. It just means that they put in the amount of energy and effort Then you're living in the first world. that are harassed by the police. So this idea of white privilege or male privilege or whatever it is, against white people that one that's a variation of the whole still while i hate you argument

48:41 And the rest of us are just kind of watching like, oh, that's kind of interesting. I'm like, this is a preposterous amount of effort that you put into saying virtually nothing. be seen as a horrible person yeah and it's very hard to it's the kind of thing that everybody has to agree with you on because nobody wants to be seen as a horrible person. That's hilarious!

50:30 i think i saw a tweet from recently just said or her that it's not okay to be white yes Yeah, that's so true. So, for example, if a totalitarian dictator were to come to power get somebody outraged. And so you have to learn how, first of all, society just has to get over do I want to work with this person? But I think that's what's happening right now because these are addictive, right?

54:08 everything's become atomized. We stand alone. You live in your apartment alone. You live in I love capitalism. it'll like sap away your libido and you're not going out in real life society anymore because There's no guidebook on how to handle this. Like, oh, my God, look, she's drunk. I mean, you could find them. I think Facebook and Twitter Yeah, I use media with air quotes in that regard because I don't think this is something that the New York Times would have done or anything responsible.

57:48 You know, you go on Google News, you're like, okay, what's a piece of news? shock troops, there's a left-wing one, right? when you see The illusion of objectivity that journalism had is lost. one social media site for friends and family, one for business, et cetera. So that's the world that we're headed towards. So this idea of who's a journalist and

1:00:38 manipulate search results? And he said, no, we do not manipulate search results. Really? That's your through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down, give us a court order. Otherwise, we don't And now they have no more friends. In what way? How do you think they're going to be controlled? Do you think they're going to But they're just applying pressure.

1:03:04 of Defense when it's the Department of War. Good luck. I mean, it really is. that will then start spreading these various things. And that will take the place of Twitter It's just he's in an organization where the other individuals in the organization feel differently. You can have regular Twitter, or you can try Wild West Twitter. But it's still not decentralized.

1:06:02 That's right. Totally. Otherwise you're automatically the enemy. but it definitely has that oppressive feeling to it. And a whole bunch of people, a lot of them from Silicon Valley, piled in and said, what is it that you can't say? He was someone who was thinking about saying something he shouldn't have said. I wonder who has won the culture war. of the state, right? Contraception is a technology that kind of helps lean leftward. It takes away

1:08:36 leads the world left. Yeah, it's also usually highly educated people that are involved in What do they have to say? is a real discipline, real science, real math behind it, logic, reason. And then you get macroeconomics, which can be politicized a little bit more voodoo. And the crossover point is biology, right? Where you can see like the whole gender is a social construct movement

1:10:45 Well, the good news is the physical sciences have a reality on their side. here, right? So that's a clear example. So there's just the crossover line of what is acceptable and example blank slate theory you know are we nature are we nurture um it's kind of uh socially unacceptable to say that you know a lot of it is nature and not nurture or vice versa depending on

1:12:48 On most of these topics, people are talking past each other anyway. the right is talking about, That would be a very different conversation than no immigrants or everybody comes in. And then also on the left, you have this benefit that everybody who's currently coming in illegally So for example, There's no room for nuance when you're dealing with these political battlegrounds, when you're dealing with right versus left and one side has a clearly

1:15:01 You have blow-up risk. like you're all Democrat in power now, all Republican. Because of that, to win, you have So because of that, all of your beliefs have to neatly fit into the Democrat bundle or the Republican bundle. And so when you get into It will destroy your ability to think. overexposed to everything. So the way to survive in modern society is to be an ascetic. It is to

1:17:53 it was pascal he said you know all of man's problems arise because he cannot sit by himself and when I was a kid, This engine was always moving And that is a superpower that I think everybody can attain. they kind of give it up. It's one of those things that everybody says they do, but nobody actually How many chirps did you get? You don't have time.

1:20:42 is it's self-therapy. It's just that that everybody should experience. But you should be able to just do it. Don't put effort against it. And concentration is a technique to still your mind enough that you can then drop the object it's dimmer, it's smaller, you've heard it before, you see the patterns, it's more recent, You've hit some transcendent psychedelic states where you're hallucinating the whole deal? I've had trippy visuals. I've had the kind of the lights and

1:24:07 Yeah, peace, to me, peace is happiness at at rest and happiness is kind of peace in motion you can convert peace to happiness anytime you want but peace is what you want most resolving external problems other than politicians? Everybody. That's what everybody's everybody's struggling to do right why are you trying to make money to solve And, you know, everyone's on social media shouting about environmentalism and conserve and sustain.

1:25:54 doing it. And it was really inspirational. Meeting people like him made me far more environmentally He sounds like a crazy hoarder, like a hoarder person problem which is finite earth spaceship earth this is all we got't ruin it. But they don't have the solution. which is you have to build green technology. with cholera and diphtheria and typhoid, I can cure your diseases, I can help make your immune

1:28:07 so you basically make clean technologies cost competitive through subsidies innovation ideally This is bad for you. Yeah, there's a new technology that was just, Rhonda Patrick had it on her Twitter today, This doesn't solve deforestation. But the Amazon has incredible resources. So I think there are solutions where we, as the first worlders who have money,

1:30:48 Well, often, like just this, often the problem is there is no really good solution. Yeah, it's a constrained environment. Do you enjoy doing this kind of thing where you break things down and give your perspective on things and try to illuminate certain complex objects. I can sit around and think my thoughts all day long, when I was young was, you know, I always wanted to seem like the smartest kid in the room. Uh,

1:32:35 I read a lot of books. live your life in congruence with reality, you want to have a deep understanding of what you do And the problem is, and this is true of, I think, all reasoning, So if you look at the most powerful thinkers, And it's a complete, unbroken logical chain me is i try to understand something and then i try to write it down in such a way that i can

1:35:36 think about it. It's something you ask your parents when you're young, they tell you don't I mean, I think the question is more interesting than the answer. Everyone should explore this and there's a thing called Agrippa's Trilemma. Well, A. And the most popular axiom is God. Right? But luckily there is no answer. the bacteria, the parasites, the symbiotic relationship we have to our environment,

1:38:59 You're completely separated. to just say the words Joe Rogan. So in that sense, you're connected to everything. It's There's a big difference between not knowing what the meaning of life is and, God, I got to get the fuck out of this job. technology everything and you would go out in the woods by yourself you have to give everything up and you can find a certain freedom in that,

1:41:30 Are those things even possible? Look at my home. So to me, it's more of a philosophical contribution where for it to have meaning and to be legit, you had enough understanding of computers, They just have to be educated. and technology. We would have wonderful lives. So it is really just a question of education, that far from those kinds of technologies working uh it's just a question of guts and uh you know

1:44:08 And so photons are great for information transmission, we said, oh, no more steam engines for a while, or very carefully regulated billion dollars of regulation. You can't innovate that way. When the first airplane crashed, we said, words when they fail they fail into a when you the plug on them, they fail into a state where there's no leakage, there's no problem.

1:45:49 So what you actually got to do is you got to rev it on the moon, and you're using it there maybe to launch more satellites, more rockets further out into the solar system. I've got a nice BMW but now I want a Mercedes you can't you have to go through that I like that car, man. For me, they're toys. They're exhausted. Otherwise, you're not that smart.

1:47:55 Because the peace that we seek is not peace of mind, Most of the ways we try to get peace from mind are indirect. There is. and they're leaning against it And I think that's okay. saved up that just your passive income off of that without you having to lift a finger covers I must like do what that person is doing to make money. that nobody else has,

1:51:15 and a comedian Oh, you didn't? Okay, sorry. Or, you know, you what you're worth. I never fought in the UFC, though. Oh, you didn't? I'm sure at this point I could make you start over tomorrow, If Joe Rogan were to disappear off the air tomorrow, Be authentic and then figure out how to map that to what society actually wants. You're not saving. loop.

1:53:48 And then there's for you to say. I was working since the age of 11 on and off here and there. So like, okay. It's a terrible place. and the hard things that you did. Yeah, struggle. Victim mentality. and say, actually, At the end of the day, I do think, even despite what I said earlier, life is really a single-player game. for an instant because you'll feel good about yourself. I'm better than that. But then you're

1:57:22 yourself. It's just like, I can't fix your eating habits for you. I can give you some general guidelines, but you got to go In many ways. Confucius had a lot of mic drops. A sick person just wants one thing. But just be very careful of your desires. or was it a radical change? It's ongoing. It's gradual. Every day gets better. So you're happier About eight years.

1:59:42 the i tried meditation i tried witnessing uh you know i even tried all the, I tried meditation, I tried witnessing, you know, So for example, like a friend of my wife's was over and she, when we were dating and she took I could pick the one that I like, right? is you want to clear minds. Simple hacks, get more sunlight, right? Watch your mind all day long.

2:01:58 pretty calm and it was just running and running and running and every thought i would have i would So I am hardwired to always rehearse things so I will sound smart. they say smart things, you go, God, I want to sound smart. That's how I know it's real. it's because you were a loser at some point. You'd be living in your hometown. Yeah. Hey, Joe, can you come to my event?

2:05:02 eliminate and clear your schedule, drop all the meetings, not even respond to the emails. can we just talk on the phone and then we talked on the phone there was nothing to say it was just worth. Okay, no one's going to pay me more than what I think I'm worth. Okay, no one's going to pay me more than what I think I'm worth. Aspirational. or give it away.

2:06:44 Rest, leisure, spending time with your friends and family. Otherwise, don't do the work. which never amounts to anything, Wow. or it's a place I want to see your life, whether it was a car or whether it was a girl or there's money when you got it a year later you were back to zero your brain had hedonically serotonin then you ride it back down as that wears off then you need another high then you ride it up. You get a little dopamine rush and get a little serotonin. Then you ride it back down as that wears off.

2:09:21 Art? I create businesses early stage because it's fun, because I'm into the product. Thank God no one gave me that opportunity. You're not working. because I'm just playing 16 hours a day. But I really appreciate your time, and I really appreciate you coming in here. I have a YouTube channel, Naval. Bye-bye.