Are we Being Manipulated?

Welcome to the second renaissance. I'm James Dler. >> Greetings. I'm Nov >> and today's topic is the sovereign mind or how to be a freethinker or how to not be manipulated. So this is like a big topic in social media these days like can of worms. >> Yeah, exactly. Are we being manipulated by the information online? >> O yeah. My main thing is are who isn't being manipulated basically like we all are indoctrinated in some capacity depending on what we're consuming but I think some people maybe haven't woken up since

co 1984 still I think that was the time where it really separated maybe the freethinkers from the the sheep or the indoctrinated ones potentially. >> Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, this is an interesting one to get into actually because uh cuz yeah, I think what we're talking about when we're talking about being like a free thinker is being able to evaluate beliefs for yourself and not take them from like some authority. But I would also say that uh people who go too far on like the conspiracy theory side of things >>

are going to be ahead of the curve. >> No, no, I was going to say it's it's the same thing, right? Because it becomes its own group think, which is like you're you're taking the consensus belief from the uh kind of alternative viewpoints crowd, right? It's always contrarian. >> True. And I think if you haven't made up your decision like going into something, then a lot of people will maybe flip too quickly or sorry, no, if they haven't had any opinion and then they read something, they'll just absorb that and

regurgitate that information. So, I like to kind of read the consensus like what's the mainstream media saying, what's the alternative media saying, and now ruminate on that and see how I want to like make my decisions. But I don't think most people are doing that either. >> Yeah, definitely. So, I think this is kind of what we want to talk about today, like how do we evaluate all this information because we're hit it we're hit with all these viewpoints online and a lot of them are very convincing, right? There's lots

of convincing arguments. Uh, and now I feel like in the age of AI, you can make really convincing arguments for anything. You can pull up data. You can like find all this information to support some point you want to make. And how do we how do we figure out what is true? How do we figure out Yeah, >> I think AI makes everyone feel intelligent. So, in some ways, it's good that it wasn't around maybe in during the pandemic because a lot of people would have just input like, oh, do

I need to wear any face mask ever? And it's like, well, actually, studies show that face masks aren't. And then they're like, okay, no, I don't need to wear them anymore. >> Well, and that's what people kind of do, right? They're like, what's the information that supports the view I already have? Right? So, uh, >> so yeah, and I I uh think of this concept, which is like, do you hold the belief or does the belief hold you, >> right? Like, are you the the arbiter of what you believe or

have you been captured? True. >> You've been captured by some belief. And usually that belief came from someone else. It didn't come from yourself. >> Yeah. I guess we're all seduced by certain ideas where it's just too captivating where we can't relinquish that once we've like stumbled upon it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Yeah. I like thinking of also uh it is Will Durant again where he says like the Henistic um like culture seduce people not with like swords and spears and stuff like that but by ideas. >> Good ideas

too. I remember when we're talking about the Henistic culture. >> Yeah. So, I love that one, too, because I think good ideas do sell themselves. >> Yeah. And I think good ideas should stand on the merit of the idea itself and the evidence that supports it from all these different areas and not because some authority said it's true. And uh for most of human history, we've kind of out outsourced our thinking to authorities. And we're still doing this in the modern age, but now we do it to like social media

influencers, talking heads, >> Anthony Fouchy. >> Yeah. if you want to bring back the co didn't know we were getting this controversial this early on the on the pod >> well >> but no that it is something we should talk about I feel like because uh yeah it does seem like there was a lot of uh certainty during that time by the authority figures that the science actually has not backed up and has not been kind to in the years since then and no one's no one's really talked about it

>> yeah there's so many oneliners that I could say maybe they'll come out on here but I just the Anthony Fouchi one um like he was the only guy that could convince feminists that it wasn't their body, their choice anymore. Like that. So, there's a funny meme of him being like, "These women think like they're not going to allow men what they can put in their body anymore." And then it has him like grinning. >> Yeah. Definitely could rile up a few Karens with a statement like that. There there was

also the the counter meme during co cuz I liked I I can laugh at both perspectives, but it was like millennials. I'm not putting that [ __ ] in my body. also millennials like doing lines of coke in the bathroom at the club. >> True. True. >> That's a good one. >> But yeah, so I mean I think this is kind of the capacity that we need to develop as a society, which is how how can you be a freeth thinker who evaluates claims uh on your own? How can you

have the tools available to you to actually figure out for yourself what is true and what is not true? And and again, we don't know what's absolutely true. So it's always a spectrum. It's like what's the best information available at this moment to make a decision and not and and authority figures can be part of that decision-m process, but it's not like just outsourcing the decision to whatever this person says I'm going to believe because that leads to really dangerous and dystopian outcomes. >> Yeah. And I think authority figures aren't

necessarily bad. We need them in some capacity. It's the outsourcing your thinking before just because they're wearing like a lab coat for example or like a certain kind of uniform where oh because they're telling me to do this I have to obey blindly. I think that's really dangerous and I think Robert Sldini has some really good like studies and points around that where people will listen even if you know you shouldn't be doing something at times like that. Like for example in the concentration camps like I think a lot of

the guards maybe didn't agree with what their orders were but because they were outranked they followed blindly and I think co as well too. I think a lot of doctors maybe did support my body my choice or didn't agree with vaccine mandates but because their higher-ups told them no this is what we have to do they just followed it blindly. And a lot of people didn't even want to get the vaccine but they wanted to keep their job or they wanted to take a trip or they wanted to get the

promotion. So I I think those are always where we have to kind of step back for a second and think why are we being pushed into something without enough time to be able to understand what this vaccine is about like what mRNA is. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's a few things to unpack there but one I think you made a good point which is that there's an emotional aspect of like belonging right people want to belong and it's actually very risky to go against the in-roup consensus on things. Oh, it used

to mean death. If you were ostracized from the tribe, it meant death back then. >> So, psychologically, we still have that perspective where it's like if I go against my group, I'm I'm condemning myself to death. >> That's how our system reacts to it. But even just socially, right, you can be socially ostracized, which I've se I'm sure some listeners have experienced or seen people experience where if you express a certain political view or something like that, there there's people in the world who are like, "Oh, I won't be friends

with you anymore." True. Like we can't we can't have different perspectives on this. Like >> I've lost a few friends over the times. Not that I ever post anything controversial, but I've had a few people get riled up over things that I posted. >> You controversial? >> I don't think so. >> But the funny thing is is I remember one of my friends told me she's like, "Oh, don't worry about people who are offended if you tend to be more right-wing or you tend to have more libertarian beliefs or let's

call it freethinking beliefs." It's like, oh, you'll meet cooler people and you'll resonate with them, too. Like, you're almost weeding out the sensitivas based on like certain things that you post, unless you're posting things that are like outlandish or overly controversial. >> Yeah, I I think it goes both ways. Uh yeah, cuz also yeah, it's like your delivery is also important cuz people can deliver things in a way that's just polarizing and like offensive to people, but then there's also like people can be o overly sensitive where it's like, well,

that's not actually offensive. That's that's just like a a belief expressed in a reasonable way. Uh but also I feel like most people are have lost the ability to like communicate effectively in like a reasonable way without being polarizing. So >> definitely ties back to our DI iss what we talked about on the last pod. >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. Cuz I think you can have almost like a cultural shadow or a cultural DI at times too where certain people don't want to acknowledge certain things and then when you have

a leader maybe calling out the elephant in the room that can offend like a whole country potentially >> like Trump derangement syndrome for example like a lot of Canadians would suffer from that. And I guess it is on topic because he probably is one of the master manipulators of our time. >> And manipulation goes both ways, right? Because you could like the people who are anti-Trump would look at him and be like, "Oh, these people are manipulated by what he's saying." But getting people emotionally riled up and upset and angry

actually makes their thinking function shut down. So it makes them more manipulatable. So actually someone who's like controversial or or polarizing is actually both sides are being manipulated in some way because once your anxiety or your fear your outrage sparks up your thinking function shuts down. This is one of the things I wanted to talk about today. So actually makes a population more manipulatable because their critical thinking is reduced when they're in the state of emotional outrage. >> Definitely. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that cuz you can just see

it. Logic goes out the window once people get really hot. Once the demon of certainty comes in and captivates them, they've lost all logical ability. >> Yeah. >> And they're just an emotion or kind of trigger function at that point. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> It's like pushing the anger button. I remember telling my niece that back in the day when she would get like little kids, for example, get really riled up about little things sometimes cuz they don't understand when it's time to go to bed or why they can't have

a snack or why someone else might want to watch TV after you've been watching Soy Luna for 4 hours or something like that. Sounds like a very personal reference, but I remember explaining to her just saying like, "Oh, but if you do get riled up or triggered, you're giving Tio like uncle like uh the remote con and telling him to push like the trigger button or the angry button or the temper tantrum button." And she's like, "Ah, Tio, just give me the controller." But I think after repeating that a few

times, then she started to think about that or she would like we had little clowns about like pushing the remote con when maybe my sister would get angry. Not that she does, but just if she did. And and this ties back in with kind of the the with Trump, right? Because I think a lot of people think he's stupid. I I'm I'm not a fan of Trump. I don't agree with I I don't think he's stupid. And I think he um I think he's quite intelligent and unintelligent in some ways,

but for that, >> but this again, this is like having a a balanced nuance perspective. I'll say he's intelligently compromised, >> but but I think he he just kept repeating the same loop where he realized if he said something outrageous, the media would cover it. It would get everyone riled up. All all eyeballs on him. He's getting all this attention. >> So, he just kept doing that same thing over and over and the whole world kept falling for it again and again. >> True. >> Where it's it it is a

manipulation tactic in some way. And again, manipulation, not necessarily in like a nefarious way, although it could be, but it's like how do you how do you get what you want in the world? How do you sway public sentiment? How do you move attention, right? Because you can think of attention kind of moving like currents, right? And uh yeah, I think people like him are actually very good at or well, now he's kind of in his like >> Yeah. good. You have to be careful >> good at the skill at

of uh of manipulating public attention and what people are focused on. I think that's art of the deal. >> It is being able to like manipulate situations to get what you want, >> right? >> Yeah. It is kind of like all the bluster and maybe being offensive and then dialing it back and being pragmatic suddenly when people expect you to be irrational again and then they're like, "Oh, maybe he does want to bargain or he does want to like bring something that we can work with at the table for a

ceasefire or negotiation or something like that." >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. Although it seems like now kind of the house of cards is kind of falling down and he's like losing control. Like I think even his core supporters are kind of dwindling in in numbers and yeah and I think Trump for like to be fair to Trump I remember Trump when he was kind of on the up and up on the rise in 2016. I do believe that Trump wanted to be a libertarian. like everything that he said and what

he stood for, he is like a a patriot and I think he did want to bring back the workforce to America and make America great and stuff like that. But then maybe from happenings, you know, on islands or different things that he like got embroiled in, at some point he wasn't able to act independently anymore. And then it started to be evident to, I think, everyone that, oh, maybe Trump isn't at the helm of America anymore. That's another can of worms. But >> yeah, definitely a can of worms. I I'll

hold uncertainty on this one. I I think there is evidence accumulating that like yeah, our government officials might be compromised, the whole system being like manipulated from the inside out. Definitely in terms of just money and financial incentives and perhaps some more like darker nefarious, you know, blackmail kind of stuff. Definitely evidence accumulating that there's a strong case for that. But for things like this, I'll still hold uncertainty cuz like the information we see on the surface is just a fraction of the information inside the system that we can't see.

And it's like uh yeah, just being able to hold multiple possibilities in the mind and not have to collapse on one. Um yeah, this this could be a good kind of uh transition here. >> Oh, there was a few more I wanted to say on >> Yeah. Yeah. I guess we opened the can of worms, so I can't really close that. Yeah, cuz some of my favorite memes that I think I just think they're so witty or like it's it's so preient to bring them up on a topic of like

being compromised or indoctrinated or thinking clearly cuz I feel like co was that time where like collectively everyone kind of lost their ability to reason or logic anymore. So, one of my favorite memes, it's a scene from Dumb and Dumber where it says, "Remember Lloyd? One of the symptoms is not having any symptoms." I really like that one, too. And then I remember debating people about the COVID boosters and it was something like a vaccine so effective that it only partly works when your neighbors have all of their boosters. So,

it's like it doesn't matter what you put into your body, it only works if your neighbors have it as well too. >> Yeah. And this is the problem is that at the time that they were recommending the vaccines and the boosters, actually, evidence was already starting to accumulate that they were not effective at preventing transmission actually. So, they they were effective at reducing symptoms of the one who was infected. And some vaccines do prevent transmission, but these particular vaccines didn't because the virus was evolving too quickly. And they already the

evidence was already accumulating at the time they were making these policies that they knew that. But it was kind of like I don't know like probably a combination of factors, but it was like an institutional capture where they had made these very public statements about these policies and they kind of couldn't back down or people in the inroup couldn't go against the group think, right? There was also the censorship happening at the time. They were shutting down like anyone who was pointing out uh side effects which are now known of

some of these vaccines. Um anyone who was voicing concerns or evidence about that was getting like silenced on social media. >> Yeah, I had my account like blocked at one point when I was posting all the co 19. >> But nothing I said is really controversial for people holding uncertainty or my body my choice. Well, and this is the problem is that as a society when you suppress disscent, when you suppress information, you you end up with group think. And um yeah, it it's quite dangerous. And actually, I think the

the biggest tragedy or one of the biggest tragedies of the whole COVID spectacle is that it actually significantly reduced trust in public authorities. >> And that's fair though. It was welld deserved. But but now you have so so now you have this distrust of vaccines in general where there are vaccines that have been very effective in history at like small pox has has like a 30% fatality rate for someone who acquires it and smallox was was eliminated by vaccines. So there are like actually very good examples historically. Actually, here's one

where you and I might disagree on. Sure. >> Because I'm all for a libertarian society, especially when it comes into putting things into your body. >> So, I'm on the side of even for polio. Like, parents get to choose which vaccines their kids get regardless of what the science is. >> See, this one's interesting to me actually, and I I don't necessarily agree with you because like the kids aren't of age to make a decision for themselves. And uh so polio for example, I grew up with a friend whose mother

was from Morocco and had like a lifelong limp because of polio as a kid, right? And uh you're kind of condemning some kids to like potentially death or like a lifelong disability because their parents had were misinformed about like risks versus rewards of of certain uh vaccines, for example. >> So I'm all for more information. My issue with that is it's a very slippery it's a slippery slope of saying oh now we have a mandate for this then we get into these 1984 situations where we have vax mandates suddenly and

everyone kind of had to take it. >> Yeah. So my understanding is that in the in the US at least um it's required for children to enroll in public schools or kindergarten and um but there's exemptions allowed for like religious re or philosophical exemption like I I don't want to do this for for reasons. >> I should have applied for the philosophical >> uh so so there are ways that parents cannot can choose to not do it. Um but but CO was different because we've never had adult mandates where it's

like everyone has to get this thing and and that one was so >> it was a scary time. >> Well, it when it was new and it was un unstudied and there were side effects of it, right? So the riskto-reward for young people in particular is really not obvious. Like there there are long-term effects of like long COVID for some people. There's also long-term effects of vaccines for some people. >> Yeah. And I fell into the camp of having natural immunity like having COVID very early. So I like to call

natural immunity the gold standard where it's like natural immunity worked for 100,000 years and then it ceased to work anymore during 2020. It's like no, you've had CO, you have natural immunity, but you still need to take these experimental like shots. >> Well, I agree with you on the experimental nature and I think that never should have been mandated or forced on anyone, right? because it was so experimental and I think if they had publicly explained look here's what we know about COVID here's the risks we know about here's the

vaccine here's what the science says it helps with here's what we don't know there right if if there was just an honest landscape of information it and everyone can make the choices for themselves I think they wouldn't have lost trust >> definitely but that's expecting integrity from public officials which you've lost me that's why I'm a libertarian I just don't trust elected officials because it even ties back to the incentives with an Anthony Fouchy and Gain of Function and Big Pharma, like I like to call that era of like big

pharma, the government and the mainstream media all having a threesome together. Like they were all in on it together basically. >> Yeah. I mean the uh the the big pharma I mean the the financial incentives inside government have just completely ruined the integrity of the governmental function. uh which again is kind of a a side topic or tangential topic, but when you have like hundreds of millions of dollars of funding going into the the presidential candidates um yeah and and Congress people as well like they're they receive all this funding

and it's like yeah the incentives are all out of whack. >> No, and I think it it was actually in Barack Obama's book Dreams from My Father where he says you get into public office to kind of show what kind of person that you are. So if you leave public office with $100 million, you've shown that you've sold yourself out. So another book on Barack Obama was bought and paid for. So it kind of shows him getting into politics. Again, I think for the right reasons, wanting to make a change

or having good ideas, like regardless of how he's aged as a politician now or some of the scandals around Big Mike or all the other things that people think about him, I think he did get into it uh for the right reasons. But when you leave with a hund00 million net worth, somewhere along the way, you've sold yourself out. I think not to get into the Nancy Pelosi tracker and some of the insider trading shenanigans, but a lot of public officials go in there, I think, to make a change or

for the right reasons. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I think so. Right. But yeah, and also there was some study that found that the uh performance of the average Congress person's portfolio, I don't remember the stat, maybe I can find it and pull it up on the screen, but they outperformed this S&P 500. Congress as a whole has outperformed the S&P 500, which is statistically impossible. >> Yeah. I mean, anyone could outperform if you have insider information. >> No, exactly. So, it's just it's just extremely strong evidence that there's insider trading

happening. Um, >> yeah. Like, if you're outperforming Warren Buffett and being a congresswoman at the same time, questions need to be asked. >> Yeah. Yeah. How many how many like financial reports are you reading on the side of the I I don't think you're actually like a really good investor. I think you're probably just >> Yeah. getting insider information. >> Definitely. Especially when people buy those like short-term call options right before a bill gets passed or something like that, you're like, "Wait a minute here." >> Right. Right. Yeah. So, ty

tying this back into kind of the uh the free thinker, a sovereign mind thing. So, I think it's interesting because you can use AI now to ask questions and pull up information on both sides of a story. So, it's really easy to like have a a a conviction or pre-formed belief and then just pull up information that only supports that. But actually I think it's really important to to push back and challenge and and look at both sides of the story because yeah I mean on the on the vaccines one

for example so now there's a lot of people who are just like oh vaccine bad all vaccines bad but if you it it's a case by case basis. So, so for example, measles is another one where actually, so natural immunity is one thing and that works mainly with bacteria, but certain viruses like measles are just really nasty. It actually can permanently [ __ ] the immune system. So post measles infection, it it does something to the immune system that actually makes it worse at identifying intruders in the future. >> True.

So, so people who who have had measel, like natural immunity doesn't always make you stronger with some viruses. >> No, that's true. I just think you should always allow people to make their own informed decisions. Informed is key. So, I think the more information on health issues is better for everyone. But I think pushing it upon people because it is a lot of times like the certaintists who will object to the vaccines, right? And that can tie into bronze age mythology where they don't trust western societies giving them injections or

things like that too. >> Yeah, I totally agree with you and I think some European countries take more of this stance which is like it's not required, it's not mandated, but they they do a good job of public education. >> And I think when there's like adequate public information that everyone can have access to, then it does become I hate to say it like a natural selection kind of thing like oh if you don't want to give the vaccine to your kids well that's on you. >> Yeah. Yeah, but this

is the kid didn't choose that, right? So, it's like natural selection, but a kid that's a kid's life or that's a kid's like now I'm permanently disabled because my parents were low education or because my parents got deceived by some counternarrative that convinced a bunch of people, don't trust vaccines. They're trying to put like microchips in your blood or something like that. And and that's like kids' lives like uh permanently ruined by that or or even deaths right? >> True. I just think you should always have I I'd rather heir

on the side of too much freedom than not enough freedom. And I'd always want to have more debate in society. Like it's like the Volater quote where he says it's dangerous to be right where established men are wrong. So I think during the co time it was dangerous not necessarily to be right but to have a contrasting opinion to what the established men had at that time. >> Yeah. Spinosa would agree with that as well. like some of these some of these intellectuals in history who went against the establishment that

was very consensus like this is this is true this is the only acceptable belief Galileo >> true >> next minute you're exiled in the chatau deep or like the best deal >> well yeah so this is really interesting right because it's it's really important to have a free flow of information in a society but now we're having this problem where there's there's overabundance of information people can make convincing arguments for anything using AI. So now we're just like being bathed in all this information. A lot of it is false. Some

of it is misinformation with incentives to get people to believe certain things. Like so yeah, this gets into uh Henland's razor, which is don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. Don't assume there's bad intent that someone's trying to manipulate you. If you could just be like, well, they're just stupid. But even that it's like it is that even true? Is that a scop itself? Right. Convincing a population like no no no nothing is happening. No one has uh perverse intentions. It's uh it's just that people are ignorant.

>> Yeah. And I think that's where you and I maybe have one of our biggest differences on is I do like respect or believe Hanland's razor, but I think as more mounting evidence comes in, I heir on the side of malicious intent or like malicious incentive systems. And and where I stand on this is uh so I would I would go against that it's one centralized group of of dark wizards who's like manipulating the whole world. I think there's a lot of people at top of power structures and who have

financial incentives. And manipulation doesn't have to be for like we're trying to uh microchip everyone or something. It could just be trying to make more money, right? Like even influencers, like everyone on social media is trying to manipulate you in some way or another because they have some reason they're creating that content except for us. We're just we're just good wizards. >> Our merch will drop on like episode 10. >> Yeah. Yeah. But but there's like good inline ways to to make money on things. And then there's like people who

who just want to make as much money as possible. So they they're trying they have some financial incentive to convince their audience of something. fear, anxiety. Oh, look, I have the solution. I have the panacea and you just have to pay me $5,000 for my mastermind or or whatever it is. >> You need to join Hustlers University. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, like manipulation doesn't have to be, oh, they're trying to harm you, but it could just be they're focused on their own benefit. >> Yeah. And how I view

some of the CT stuff like the conspiracy theory stuff that we talk about maybe not as much on the pod is it's not one like group sitting at a table deciding everything but it's like a lot of small tables having negotiations giving each other what they want and brokering with higher up tables where everyone's kind of getting what they want in an extractive manipulative way. So it's not like one dark wizard ruling the whole world. So even like Trump for example, it's like I don't believe he's the mastermind or Netanyahu

or any of these guys, but they are getting what they want along on a darker narrative where everyone kind of gets what they want. >> Well, yeah, there there's power structures and there's incentives and each individual has their own motivations and I do think in something like government as you're you're climbing up that ladder, you need to play that game. There's existing people with power. you need to kind of get their favor. You might need to do favors for different people. There is a whole dynamic that I think most of

us don't fully understand what's happening behind the scenes. Yeah. And I don't pretend to either. I just remember hearing like every man has a price, but the surprising point is how low most men's price really is. Like how easily most people will sell out. So yeah, where where I would agree with you here is I think we understand human nature enough to know that human nature is corruptible, right? So you should always have a suspicion of people in in power. >> Yeah. Actually, >> that doesn't mean you should be convinced

that they're they're doing something malicious or nefarious, but there should always be a suspicion and an ability to see that perspective because once people put someone on a pedestal, um this happens with like spiritual gurus as well where you some of these spiritual gurus who were supposedly enlightened ended up having allegations of sexual abuse against their followers. Right. >> Well, most well not most of them but a lot of them like don't drink the Kool-Aid and don't sleep with the guru. >> Right. Right. It happens with a a pretty high

like surprisingly high uh rate. And yeah, I think it's really important to not hold anyone on that level of authority where you think they're infallible, they're incapable of of being corrupted or having like bad influences or ulterior motives >> except Ron Paul. >> But but yeah, and I think you here's where you would probably agree with me. you and you've kind of influenced me on this where if you look I think if you look at the dynamics of power structures it's actually the people should hold people in power with a

degree of suspicion >> because if you don't do that then it's like it's almost like a game theory argument. There's some percentage chance that this person is like fully altruistic and just fully in favor of doing good for the people and there's some percentage chance that they have some ulterior motives that they're going to benefit themselves or their inroup. We don't know what those percentages are, but it's not zero. >> Yeah. >> And because it's not zero, you actually have to take that possibility seriously and and consider. It's like the

inversion with we were talking about like consider the possibility that's unconsidered. >> Definitely. I agree with that >> because then you can see, okay, is the pattern matching lining up more with that than this? But and this is where I think the interesting part of this podcast is when there's so much information and you can find evidence to support any belief, how do you choose what to believe? 100%. Actually, bro, just one thing on like trusting public officials is I have like a libertarian wager. We haven't brought up wagers yet,

which is every everyone >> every episode needs a wager. My libertarian wager is everyone is a libertarian. They just haven't found the issue that government's encroaching on yet. And once they do discover that, it's like, who makes better decisions for your money? You are the government. Who makes better decisions for your body? You are a public official again. or who makes you know better business decisions of which state you can register your business in you or the government again. So I would always know on the side of myself over like

public officials because I trust my own incentives what's best for me as opposed to trusting a public official cuz usually once you see the public official you're like oh he doesn't really have my best interest at heart he owns 5% of this company or was gifted it to him when he got into office. Well, yeah. And here's the interesting thing with the kind of power dynamic is once people start trusting their authority to an authority figure and maybe that person has fully good intentions and they're they're high integrity. Well, that

person might get corrupted over time because no one's perfect. Everyone's human. Someone offers them $100 million, right? or that person gets replaced by someone else who doesn't have the same integrity and the population has been trained to just defer their their thinking to an authority figure. And that's where it gets dangerous because humans are not perfect. We're not like these these angelic beings that have no no self-interest, right? No, we have to know our blind spots or where we're where our biases are >> and and we have to I think

h hold that suspicion of people in power to hold them accountable. >> Definitely, bro. It reminds me of this one. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history be the answer to this question. That's Thomas Jefferson. >> I love that quote. Yeah, >> me too. It's so good. And I think the founding fathers were very libertarian. That's why they separated church

and state or they put all the right to bear arms or the right for free speech because they knew like they were kind of escaping a monarchy in the new world, right? So they made this as like it it was an experiment at that time. >> And the founding fathers, I think this is a great topic because the founding fathers of the of the US created a system to give the people this kind of epistemic sovereignty or the the the sovereignty of thinking to be able to hold the leaders accountable.

And some of the institutions they put into place for this were the right of free speech and the right of assembly. So let people get together and talk about things and share information that the government can't stop them from doing that. And they even had the postal system which was which was free so people could communicate across distances. So by allowing free exchange of information they they knew that would keep the people in power accountable cuz this is kind of the 1984 method of authoritarianism, right? Which is to suppress information

exchange. So there's only one narrative, no one can disagree and that's really dangerous to society. Definitely. And we are living in more like a huxley brave new world where to bring it back to our first one where we live in in the abundance of information. So we don't even need to kind of suppress information. We just drown people in it and pleasures or somas and then they don't really care what's going on. >> Yeah. And this one's really interesting cuz you had these two really famous books about kind of an

authoritarian government that used totally different strategies. and 1984 was information suppression and brave new world was just drowning people in in information entertainment and our world now has drifted more towards the brave new world >> definitely but I feel like once you're drowning that information your freedoms are slowly taken away from you like the frog getting boiled so once the frog's initially in the pot it doesn't notice the water temperature slowly rising until suddenly the water's boiling and then you're in like Norwellian society. So I think that's how we get

into these like situations is people don't notice when their liberties are being taken back one by one to never be put back in place. Oh, these are temporary measures for terrorism or temporary measures for your safety during the pandemic or these are temporary measures for we need to, you know, have the war act so we can intervene quickly. But then it's like, oh, now every uh commander-in-chief just starts wars without Congress's approval. >> Well, yeah. And this is the issue is because like once everyone's bathed in kind of thisformational chaos,

right? It's harder to communicate information because if you're like, "Hey, look what's happening here. This this is bad." That information doesn't reach any ears because everyone's like the the algorithm's just throwing all this information at people. It's hard for people to even exchange information. And then also, this is another way to kind of manipulate or control people, which is if you're constantly activating people's like fear, anxiety, outrage, you're shutting down thinking, and it's harder for them to to focus. It's harder for them to even focus on what are the important

or critical issues that we should be thinking and talking about. >> 100%. You're pulling their strings and making them feel like you're you're pulling them from like fear and greed. And all along the way, you're taking away their freedoms to never be given back to them. >> Yeah. And here we could bring back Hanland's razor, which is okay. Well, is this intentional malicious intent or is this just kind of chaotic craziness by like stupidity, the the system, the algorithms themselves? I think it's probably a mix of both. I think I

don't think this is like a planned thing, but I think because the systems emerged as they did, there's definitely powers at play that are using these systems to try to manipulate. And we know we know this from like X and Twitter where there there's been like millions of bot accounts that have been detected and deleted. Maybe it's even hundreds of million. It's it's a huge number. So, who's funding these bot accounts, right? And it's different parties trying to get their narrative across. No, I never trust engagement even on X. Like

I know how heavily manipulated everything can be on there >> cuz you've seen it being censored before, weaponized against you, even like personally. And then you can think of like, okay, if they're doing that on smaller accounts, what are they able to do on bigger accounts to sway public opinion? >> Yeah. And this is where like epistemic hygiene, right, which is which is kind of your hygiene of the information that you're taking in and how you form beliefs, right? paying attention to that. This becomes really important because when you're reading

a post on X or a YouTube video or Tik Tok or whichever channel it is is is very convincing because people can make very convincing arguments or gather information for something. Some of the information might be outright false. Some of it might be true but but kind of manipulated to paint a particular story or narrative. And how do we actually filter this to to know what we can trust and what we can't trust? And this is one of the biggest problems I think our society needs to solve right now. And

I have some thoughts on this. I think we'll get to this later on the pod. >> Do you think that the times are too good or they have been too good that people don't thirst after truth as much because they're like, "Well, if I just keep going with the status quo, life is pretty good or it has been pretty good." So part of my yeah theory is why we're in the current times is because we were living in like an abundance for such a long time that people turned off their

reasoning abilities where when you started like America's inception it was that time where people didn't trust a monarchy or they didn't trust a government so they were kind of on edge but I think that ties into you get the leaders that you kind of deserve. If no one's paying attention it's very easy to manipulate or twist or deceive people. I think that's definitely true and I think this is one of the causal factors because people look at Trump now and how he's used these executive orders and and abused them to

go around Congress, but actually this has been happening with the presidents leading up to Trump increasingly and no one really made a big deal of it at the time because people were generally content and happy and the stock markets are doing well and so I think this is definitely >> Don't ask about the Epstein files. The Dow's at 50,000. >> Right. Right. That was such a clown when Pon uh Bondi >> Pam >> Bondi and that also marked the top of the market before before the crash. So it was like

>> that was just such a hilarious moment books. >> Yeah. People were saying like now that the Dow's not at 50,000 can we get back to the Epstein files? And then it's like no new SCO up war with Iran. >> Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Just just keep people distracted with all these things going on and and people won't ask questions. And I think another aspect of this is the complexity of the current system. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Because if things are so complex that most people's minds can't even

grasp or understand what's happening, let alone how do I participate in it or or influence it? >> Yeah. And it's not even so much maybe can't grasp or don't know. In my opinion, it's just that if you are working a full-time job or have families and stuff like that, can you really be expected to pay attention to all the new legislation that's getting enacted on a daily bas? It's just insane. Yeah. >> Like, no one's even reading the bills. That's where Thomas Massie or Ron Paul will call out sometimes. Like,

how can you pass a bill that's 50,000 pages? I can't read that fast. And I doubt any of the senators that passed it can either. It means nobody's really reading what's going in. >> And there's another one. There's like a coordinated attack on online privacy right now because they're using all these different angles to try to pass bills that make people validate a real world government ID to like access services online. And this is a disaster for society if this happens because of again you centralize all that power. Who's who's

at the helm of that power? Can that person be trusted? Even if the current person can be trusted, can the next one? And we don't even know who's who has access to that information. >> That's why I'm for a small government every step of the way where Reagan said like a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it away because at some point those powers are going to fall into a dark wizard's hands, right? So, I always heir on the side of a smaller

government cuz I know at some point there is going to be a bad leader at the helm. And the same thing for businesses too. Like you don't want one director or one CEO having too much influence cuz at some point they're going to fall behind or their incentives are going to change. >> Yeah. And this is back to like even if you had the philosopher king, right, who Marcus Aurelius, the bus next to your head, >> the OG >> is like one of the the best examples of history. But >>

then it fell into comedy. to come and come was a terrible ruler and so once you centralize that much power once people give away their power and I think this applies to people's sense making too their ability to think rationally and make sense of situations once you defer that power to someone well then it gets passed on to someone else who probably doesn't have the most angelic in incentives >> yeah and that's the libertarian wager >> where I don't trust people because I know throughout history where that trust is being

misplaced and where it leads to. It's a very slippery slope >> and this is where I think we need power structures in play where the where the common people have the ability to collectively make sense of information and the the power should be in the people's hands. It shouldn't be in the the leader hands. >> Yeah, definitely. That's why we need more decentralized things like Bitcoin. >> Yeah. And and the problem now is just that the system is is too complex for people to really understand. So it's like even if

people are talking about this stuff which which now discourse is even shut down because everyone's so polarized they're not able to like proactively exchange information in search of solutions and and this is kind of again they've deferred their thinking to an ideology not necessarily one authority person but like a group think and that is the only thing that their their mind can consider. So this this comes to the certainty problem, right? Once once you've collapsed uncertainty on something then well you're certainly wrong as Bertrand Russell would say are >> but

also now you can't have discourse in a society because both sides are certain they're right the other one is wrong and this just leads to tribalism >> polarity extreme ideology like Munger says cuz you hammer it in. It's not so much that you agree with everything that's being said, but because you've identified as part of that tribe, you just regurgitate the talking pieces and you're kind of hammering that in, it's like manacles on your brain where you're not able to think anymore. >> Yeah. And then once people have identified with

the ideology or the group think, now when it's challenged by another perspective, well, they respond as it's an ego death, right? their ego feels threatened that they're going to die because their identity is is with this ideology. So this causes like fear, outrage, which it increases polarity, but it also just increases people's ability to be manipulated, right? Cuz once people have this level of of outrage, confusion, right? all these emotions, complexity, feeling helpless. Someone who comes in with like a very simple solution with certainty, they just want to give that

that trust away to that person. And there's there's a quote I like here. This is HL Mein. For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. >> Oh, nice. >> Cuz that's the idea. When people are have all this complexity that their mind can't make sense of, they want to just collapse on a simplistic explanation. Whether whether it's some authority telling them just believe this it'll be okay or it's a conspiracy theory that like this one thing makes sense of everything right and ah I feel

relief I can make sense of it but usually that's wrong >> well people want simple explanations like a simple explanation that gives people peace is better than a complex explanation that takes more thinking or investigation >> but I would argue that to be epistemically sovereign you need to be able to hold complexity because the world is complex You won't find a debate with me on that one, bro. It reminds me also, do you guys just sit around like quoting like sages? >> Yeah, we do, bro. >> Basically, we do. Uh

there's a book called The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustav Labon. And he says, "Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master. Whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." It's like how popular opinions, not necessarily rights, even like a stupidity repeated often enough, people will take it, you know, with a bigger merit where they're like, "Oh [ __ ] a lot of people have referenced this. It must be true because they can outsource their intellectual reasoning to someone who seems like an authority

figure." >> What just came up for me is that movie Idiocracy. Oh, yeah. Which is such a good one. And it's so it's so prophetic now when you go back and that he directed that like 20 years ago or something, but we've trended way more in that direction than not. But the scene where where he's like they're watering the the plants with the sports drink. Yeah. And it's like >> but Brondo's got what plants crave. >> What do plants crave? It's got electrolytes. Like do And it's a circular reasoning, but

they've heard it repeated so many times that everyone's just like but that's what plants crave, right? >> True. True. No, that's funny. Yeah, cuz we are living in those times. >> We are. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. They have like the celebrity president, right? It's it's exact. It's so prophetic that movie. >> Yeah. Celebrity presidents aren't necessarily bad. Ronald Reagan, for example, >> right? No, I don't. >> Yeah. Yeah. But Trump Yeah. I like I think a lot of people who like Trump liked him for maybe his business acumen. Like I

don't think anyone would really defend Trump's character. Like he kind of is a polarizing egoomaniac. But I think a lot of the things where they're like, "Well, Trump's a businessman and most voters, it's elderly people who vote disproportionately, so they vote for their 401s or the economy as opposed to what makes them feel good." >> And I also just think there were a lot of underrepresented people who who were dissatisfied with how their lives were going. >> So let what's better to do than roll the dice with a casino owner?

>> Yeah. Exactly. Well, he's the he's the one who spoke to them that they felt like related to. >> True. >> Um >> and to be fair, both choices were flawed. Yeah. And I think people like to point at the individual and and put blame. Again, a simple explanation. Oh, it's everything is Trump's fault. Everything is this person's fault. But it's the the system itself. You have to look at all of the things leading up that that allowed that person to gain that amount of influence. Why were they able to

gain that amount of influence? It's because of the systems that that existed that enabled that. So, it's all about incentive structures. >> True. So how can we pig million society to a higher standard now so we get better elected leaders? >> Yeah, I mean this is this is the big question, right? How do we restore societal sensem? >> True. >> How do we get a highly educated society that's able to think for themselves? And I think the tools now need to be different than the tools before because again before the

problem was access to information. So this is the public education system, right? like just let's get people educated by by giving them all access to the same information and now it's uh an overabundance of information and I think we need different strategies actually as I'm saying this like the the public education system in itself just teaches people to defer to authority right >> definitely >> well here's the answers it's in the textbook right >> actually we were debating that uh recently with one of our buddies on it was around the

military specifically where it's like How of so many people with potentially good intentions wanting to make a positive change in the world be misled or not informed enough to be able to commit literally atrocities in my opinion. I know this could be a very polarizing or controversial take. But I think if you are bearing arms in a foreign country thinking you're doing you know good and we're we're always pushed like support the troops do this and it's like but shouldn't we understand why we go to war? I love that scene

from the Matt Damon movie. I think it's the red zone or the green zone where he's like, "It always matters why we go to war. It always matters why we are killing people or you know what I mean?" And I think that's where I'm after is not lazy thinking. I want people to do more investigation. Um, not to bring up a because yeah, this could be very controversial and I don't mean it for people that are serving. I I just mean it in a way where to kind of make people

think a lot. So, it's like there's a guy sitting in a military office and he's signing up and then it says, "Oh, by the way, there's this uh TV show about uh billionaires forking over money to kind of for their entertainment to kind of see what happens yet." And then it's like, "Oh, yeah, enough about Squid Games. Why don't we get you enlisted here?" So, I know that could be controversial and I don't mean it like that, but I mean it in a way that hopefully provokes people to maybe investigate

a little bit more and not be satisfied with the status quo or easy answers. >> To look at another perspective, yeah, cuz I think one of the things that we'll get into later, I think certainty is is the biggest problem for people to have this epistemic sovereignty. >> Yeah. Um, and people need to be able to hold some degree of uncertainty and at least consider another perspective. Another thing that's coming up for me is the movie Starship Troopers. Have you seen this one? >> No. >> So, it's uh it's like

a space like fighting aliens movie. It's actually a satire, but the satire is so subtle that the movie didn't get great reviews because it it shows this like heroic humans like going to war with this alien species that's trying to invade them. And it's like kind of a feelood movie where you can't help but like cheer for the humans, but there's like all these subtle things thrown in there that it's like the humans are actually the aggressors. Like >> sounds like Avatar. >> The aliens are just kind of on their

their planet and the the the authoritarian government needs an enemy. They need an enemy to keep the the populace appeased. So So like a meteor hits Earth and they're like, "It came from the the bug planet." and they invade the bug planet and like uh they all the news shows it like the bugs are attacking but they're the ones who keep like colonizing and invading the bugs planet. So uh yeah it's like a it's quite a funny one. >> It sounds like Avatar and also like the meaz. >> Sure. Sure.

>> Like you always need an exterior enemy to kind of unite the domestic populace behind a cause. >> Yeah. And this is something to be aware of psychologically. Whoops. This is something to be aware of psychologically in terms of like are we being manipulated because outrage is one of the easiest trigger emotions to now get people receptive to like you know an answer right we need to do something about this outrage >> I'm allergic to group think >> yeah I really am I hate it I love the quote take the

risk of thinking for yourself >> like there is some kind of risk like you could be ostracized you could lose Instagram followers like you you might have people riled up at a conversation at times, but intellectual honesty or thinking for yourself, I think is in short supply. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> And that would be the number one thing again that I'm after. Well, yeah, this this might be a good transition like what sovereign thinking actually is. What is thinking for yourself? What does that actually mean? Um, so I wrote something

down here and I I use the word epistemic sovereignty, which is like again these are these are words, but it's it's the most accurate term I can think of because sovereignty is related to like who has power or who has authority, right? >> I like definitions. >> Yeah. So if you have your own sovereignty, it's like you you don't have to depend on any any authority for for power kind of. And epistemic is related to knowledge. So if someone has epistemic sovereignty, I think they have the capacity to evaluate their

own beliefs. Right? So I said uh epistemic sovereignty means owning your relationship to knowledge. You do not outsource your beliefs to authorities, algorithms, tribes or charismatic figures. You engage with expertise, but you do not surrender judgment. >> Oh, that's good. Because yeah, I think um I think judgment becomes this really important aspect because when we have an abundance of information, it's it's actually the judgment that we need to continue to hold as individuals. If you give up your judgment to someone else, then then yeah, you're just giving up your capacity

to be an independent thinker. >> You've outsourced your thinking or reasoning, >> right? >> Yeah, that's dangerous. Um, I have a few habits here just like source diversity over volume. Follow people you disagree with who argue in good faith. So I I love thinking of challenging my own opinions all the time. I almost like it when I find a new book or a new reference or a new viewpoint where I'm like, "Oh, that's true. I haven't thought about that." Cuz it gives you a more powerful vantage point. It's like the

meme we put on the other thing. Like the more information that you acquire, if you're able to sit on it and then make a decision, you definitely have an edge over people who are just certain on one opinion, especially when it comes to investing or making like political decisions. >> Yeah. And I I think that's important, right? It's not it's not you don't reject expertise. You take expertise like >> but not blindly. >> But not blindly. You don't surrender the judgment, right? And also, it's important to to recognize the emotional

component. >> Yeah. Like are are words being used to intentionally fire up your emotions in a certain way? >> Yeah. >> Because that's like a pretty good trigger that like it is this reason based on evidence and and logic or is this trying to trigger emotions to get you to believe something? >> Epistemic humility being able to say I don't know. Right. >> So that's also something that I value myself on where if someone asks me something, I like deferring to you on different things or I like being able to

hold like oh actually I don't know that or I'm new to Thailand or wherever it might be. So I I should research that. You're right. I think that's really important. >> Yeah. And for me this is the idea of core uncertainty which is I can argue this from like 10 different angles but no matter how we look at it we cannot know anything about the world about the universe about the future with 100% certainty. All of our beliefs are models, right? Where because think about it, everything we know is from

experience. And our experience, we know from eyewitness testimony experiments. You take two people who witnessed a crime, they recount different events, totally different perceptions. So, our memory is not 100% reliable. Even our five senses aren't 100% reliable. Everything we think we know is is might be wrong in some some capacity. And I think it's important to sit on things, right? Like literally like a tea sit or a meditation session or a run like ruminate on it and then think. Don't act or post or make a decision on the spot because

you'll easily be misled by your emotions. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So like take a step back, sleep on it, do whatever you need to do, but don't make a quick decision based on really radical new information. >> Well, yeah. And I think you can hold your beliefs like, okay, well, what's the best belief at this moment? I can hold this belief but I'm open to revising it with more information coming in. >> That's your uncertaintist handshake. >> Yeah, exactly. And even with scientific knowledge, so our science is constantly evolving. There

is not there's not like a single scientific theory that that has survived the test of time that wasn't eventually changed. Right? So even um physics like Newtonian mechanics like Newton's laws of physics that held for hundreds of years and then we found some things we couldn't explain and we needed Einstein's relativity to come along to like revise that and um we know Einstein's relativity isn't the final theory of physics because it's incompatible with quantum mechanics. Like our two leading edge theories of physics, no one's been able to bridge them and

make them compatible with each other. So, we know there's probably some even better model that's that's more accurate. And and with psych psychological studies, too, right? People like to see a scientific study. They're like, "Oh, science proves that X." Well, actually, science has evidence of X, but there's a bunch of uh studies where further studies went to like disprove the original result or show that it was due to something else or there's a more complex arrangement that explains things. But that's why I love the scientific method cuz it's not we

have all the answers. This is what stood all the investigation or inquiry or challenges. So it's the best of our knowledge to this time. I agree and this is how scientists hold science. But the the people use science to try to manipulate people, right? To say like science shows this. Science proves this. Science doesn't prove anything. Science provides evidence for something. And some of the evidence can be overwhelming and the more evidence we've accumulated, the more likely that belief is to be true. But I think most people don't know how

to evaluate the amount of scientific evidence. But with AI, you can do this much better. You can just ask it like, how certain are we that this is true? Like how much evidence do we have to support this? And and do the research yourself. >> True. I like that you brought up the royal uh you brought up the scientific method because this was created by the Royal Society of London. I think it was in in the 1617 1800 I don't know the timeline exactly but their motto >> me >> their

motto was Nullius in Verba and that it's Latin for take no one's word for it. So the whole idea of the scientific method is we don't need to rely on the priests or the church to tell us what's true. We can do experiments for ourselves and share results with each other. And when we share our results, we'll accumulate more evidence that we can know for oursel what is true. So the idea was replicatability. Anyone could replicate these studies and and try it for themselves. And of course with cutting edge physics,

you don't have like a particle accelerator. But I do think for for thinking we can start to apply this this mindset which is take no one's word for it. Verify for yourself. >> True. >> Does this make sense to you? When you look at all the evidence that they're using to find that conclusion, does that make sense to you also? And you can take a an expert's opinion as strong testimony for something, but don't take it as truth. Withhold your judgment. True. Okay. So, I have here epistemic sovereignty is the

ability to say here is my current model. Here's why I hold it. Here's what evidence would change my mind. Here is where I'm still uncertain. Right? So, it's like here's what I believe. Here's why. Right? Here's the evidence for why. And being able to acknowledge what evidence would change my mind because if you can't do that, then you don't hold the belief. The belief holds you. True. >> And um yeah, just acknowledging uncertainty that this is the best belief I have now. And uh I'm open to changing my mind. I

think that's a really important stance. >> It's like what we were saying when you enter a discussion or an argumentative reasoning session with someone, you always need to know of what could possibly disprove you or cause you to change your mind. >> Yeah. The uncertainty handshake. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> And this this ties back in with the co thing. So, this is how I think the authorities should have communicated about this issue and it wouldn't have destroyed trust. Right? Here's why we think the vaccines are good. Here's the evidence we

have so far. Um, here's where we're genuinely uncertain. Right? This is the amount of evidence we have. Uh, right? Cuz now you're just communicating the whole picture and let letting people make a decision for themselves as opposing as opposed to telling them what to think because oh well, I'm I'm the authority. I'm the scientist. So I know better than you and and the authorities lost trust there. There's been a measurable reduction in trust in like health authorities now because of how they handled the co situation. So society now is recovering

where we have a a non-inssignificant group of people who just do not trust health authorities at all because of what happened during COVID. So this is like the fallout of of certainty of over certain conviction and telling people what to think. >> Well, the pendulum swinging back to more libertarian values of people making their own decisions for themselves and less trust in institutions and leaders. >> But it can swing too far the other way which is like trust no one, trust no information, like just radical skepticism, which also isn't healthy.

>> True. But again, I'd rather heir on that side. I remember having the debate like with a friend of ours that was would you rather live in a world that is too dictorial and telling you what to do at all times, telling you what to think or would you rather live in like I think we were calling it the free thinkers uh libertarian utopia. So >> if you add the word utopia to it, of course that sounds better. >> Well, okay. Yeah. Yeah. But it it's more like the people who

tend to be libertarian or free thinkers in general. It's not because they've been indoctrinated in my opinion that much. It's because they they know like the holy texts more than maybe some of the certaintists or the fundamentalists and they they've decided like oh I don't resonate or these aren't my values anymore. And the same thing with the government. It's like it's not just a blind trust in anarchy or yourself. It's it's a distrust in organized institutions because of things like co. So I think learning history it's like that Jefferson quote.

It's like, well, we've seen in history what too much blind trust leads us to. So, I'd rather heir on that side of trusting yourself or believing that you know what's best for you. Yeah, I generally agree with you, but I also think it can go too far the other extreme, which is always believing the the alternative narrative or the conspiratorial thinking. Right. There's a >> But not blindly. >> No. No. Exactly. Because it's the same difference to group think. Actually, if if someone's on one side or the other, there's a

famous story I think articulates this well. So, it was Frank Zappa. He was like a musician who was like the counterculture like hippie movement. And uh I think at one of his concerts for some reason like uh a security officer had to do something, take someone off off stage and someone in the audience is like, "Get that uniform out of here." And Frank Zappa is like, "We're all wearing uniforms. Don't kid yourself." >> True. >> Right. And his point was that like everyone looks around at each other and the hippies

are all dressed in a standardized uniform, right? So even people who think like, "Oh, I'm uh I'm contrarian, right? I'm a freethinker." Can also tend to gravitate into a group think of always being contrarian on everything. >> True. >> So that's not being a freethinker either. You have to consider both perspectives and then it's case by case. >> True. >> Yeah. Again, I don't have all the answers here, but it's like it's a really interesting balance and I think we're being posed with this question maybe for the first time in

history, which is how do we collectively make sense of this information? I feel like we will need to have some sort of new infrastructure arise that helps people h have the ability to make sense of things for themselves without like it's not the public school system. It's not, you know, the these are sources of information, but how do we give people the tools and capacity to make decisions for themselves and also it's not done in isolation. It has to be done with other people as well. Like kind of collective sensemies

don't fail from one giant lie. They fail from chronic epistemic decay. A free person is a free thinker. Everything else is cosplay. Who said that or this you? >> Uh, no. >> Okay, nice. >> Yeah, he summarized some of those ones. No, I'm pretty good though. I think we hit most of those points there. >> Yeah, I had a couple more here. So, this one's from Plato. So, this is on the topic of like it's kind of our civic duty to be informed. And Plato said, "One of the penalties for

refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." >> That's definitely true right now, >> right? Yeah. It's like if people someone else will handle that well who ends up handling it right it's the people who are driven and a lot of them are driven by by personal incentives or wanting wanting power or capture >> democracies only function if you have an informed populace >> yeah so I also had here like a society of freeth thinkers is harder to capture >> definitely >> right because

we don't want society getting captured by one narrative one one group think >> one book >> one book yeah one anything so yeah I do feel like um human flourishing kind of depends on us building this cognitive immune system of how do we exchange information peer-to-peer in such a way that keep prevents people from being captured >> make debating sexy again >> and another one bro I had is is the concept of the mastermind group which we love >> definitely >> because I think there's something defensive against this kind of

capture if you have peer-to-peer networks of people getting together with a few other friends or intellectuals to discuss ideas and discuss these things. >> Oh, it sharpens your opinion or your reasoning skills? >> And as opposed to people just getting their information top down from social media or or authorities, it's the peer-to-peer element of that. Hey, I feel this way. Does anyone else feel this way? And and being open to other opinions and perspectives. >> Yeah. And I think it it is making debate like not so controversial. Like it's good

to have an idea exchange. It gets you both to a deeper understanding of what's really going on. Like if more people would have debated during COVID or maybe on the Iranian situation instead of taking a side right away thinking like okay why are we being sold this narrative to go to war now or why are we having a vaccine mandate suddenly like if more people would have taken a step back had a mastermind and had that ability to have a healthy discourse I don't think we would have been in the

situations that we've been in. >> Yeah and I think that's one of the biggest issues is that discourse has kind of broken down peer-to-peer. I was talking to a good friend in the US who was saying that um you can't really have discussions with people even when he meets he moved to like a new city and uh has been putting together like a friend group there and he's like everyone's just kind of been numbed down to not say anything that might offend anyone. So you need the license to offend like

free speech is the license to offend like not everyone's going to like what you're saying but that is free speech. when if you don't have that, people air too much on the side of not trying to offend anyone, then you lose information exchange. >> Yeah, Canada is a prime example of that. >> A lot of the the Western world is definitely that's offensive. I love when Hitchens said he's like in the West someone can say that's offensive. He's like, I'm still waiting to hear what your point is, but that's the

end. Like that counts as a debate point basically. Like that's offensive. And then everyone's like, yeah. And then the debate just shifts from, oh, that point was too offensive, so we can't engage with it anymore. And it's like, but we haven't gotten anywhere yet, >> right? >> We've just scratched the surface, and we've already lost all the sensitivas. >> Yeah. And this is one of the notes I had on like what's a practical tool for for engaging in better thinking. One of the things I think is being aware of your

bodily sensations, right? When you feel yourself tense up, when you feel yourself get kind of fiery, that's like something in me is is reacting to this information defensively and the more you're able to become aware of that, the more you're able to open yourself to another perspective. >> Yeah, I remember reading that in the guide to the good life where I think it's Epictitus, but it's been paraphrased where he says, "When a dog barks at you, do you get offended or do you realize like, oh, that's the dog's nature? Why

would I let myself be offended by that?" And I think about that sometimes because in certain countries you can have dogs barking in malls or when you're trying to sleep and it's like well no of course you can't. That's silly to allow yourself to be like hijacked like that over a dog's nature. >> Well yeah and >> and the same thing with humans. Sorry. It's Yeah. If someone says something that's offensive to you again it's like oh why am I holding that idea so deeply or so personally? They're not really

trying to offend me. >> Yeah. And with the dog example, most people wouldn't take personal offense that the dog's barking at them. They're like, "Oh, I recognize that's about the dog. That's not about me." So with people too, I think that's a useful one. If someone's like fired up or offensive on something, it's like you could just try to consider it a perspective. And oh, I wonder what it's like to live inside this person's perspective. I wonder why they're so passionate and fiery about this. like what is it about their

experiences or upbringing that have led them to hold this belief so passionately and that's kind of a way I think to make yourself more open to it because you're not living from your defensive standpoint. You're like trying to empathize with them more. There's a funny meme of a dog crying like a little poodle as the owner tells him like shut the hell up and he's like but I'm just trying to warn you of danger like as his wolf instincts come out and then it shows the dog crying like in the

corner. >> Right. Right. Right. That's a funny one. Yeah. Yeah, >> nice. >> Uh, yeah. And I I guess just I'll close on AI. I think AI is one of the tools that could very much help us solve this problem of information abundance. Help us sift through the noise. Run everything through AI. Um, the the at Grock, is this true? And they'll have like the drooling face emoji. But do that. I mean, I think that's better than nothing, right? Getting another perspective. The problem is if people defer to AI as

the new authority, AI has the answers. AI has the truth. It doesn't. AI doesn't have the wisdom. It's wrong about things. It's an average of collective knowledge right now. It's a good resource to consult to get different perspectives, but push back on it, like ask follow-up questions, do inversion, be like, "Oh, but what about this?" Cuz I have this all the time where AI will tell me something. It's like, "Oh, this is the truth." I'll be like, "Yeah, but what about this thing?" It's like, "Good point, right?" And then it

pulls up all this other evidence that it didn't include in the first one. >> Yeah, I think about that all the time. And I think you and I slightly disagree on that one where it's like I don't trust AI's answers just as I don't trust the mainstream media answers where it's like okay this no like you're not allowed to say this or this happened here and then you can be like is that really the truth though? Do you know what I mean? Like the same way that you can question the

mainstream media. I kind of hold a little uncertainty with everything that I get from my AI as well. >> And you absolutely should. >> Yeah. >> And yeah, I think push back on it though because for me at least claude opus, which is what I use primarily, if I push back on it, I found it to be very reasonable. I haven't found a single thing where I'm like it it will not acknowledge a a good point. Yeah, there's certain things on Grock, like there's a joke before Grock was neutered that

it was allowed to have more open-minded or freethinking opinions and then at some point it changed and wasn't allowed to say certain things. And there's a lot of examples on that, but I think always hold a healthy level of skepticism no matter what information you're taking in. >> Yeah, I can only speak specifically for Claude Opus. Um, I don't know about the other ones, but I I would challenge someone to show me something that Claude Opus will will have an opinion on or that I would disagree with, right? Because I

find if you go to the very bottom of any belief or opinion, you will arrive at uncertainty and you can point out to opus, but we can't genuinely know this. And and it will acknowledge that. And then you can build, okay, well, what are the possible beliefs or what are the possible truths? And I found Claude Opus to be extremely reasonable at doing that when you co-c collaborate with it. If you just ask it one question and expect that to be the full answer in truth, no. So just treat it

as a source of information, but you have to withhold judgment for yourself. Absolutely. >> True. Cool. Is that a good good note to end on here? >> Yeah. I don't have any other like talking points or notes that I wrote down here, but I think we crushed it on this one. >> Yeah, we definitely crushed it, bro. >> Nice, bro. Wow. Yeah. Stay curious and uh stay hungry. >> Yeah. I like that one. Steve Jobs said uh what was his >> stay foolish, stay hungry. >> Stay hungry, stay foolish. And

I I like I've thought of one as like stay humble, stay curious. >> Yeah, I like that. Right. Right. >> Right. Like the epistemic humility and and curiosity. I think curiosity is one of our antidotes against the modern world. >> True. >> Yeah. >> Cuz curiosity I feel like is the one thing that can cut through the algorithm where it's like fear, despair, outrage. Curiosity is the one emotion I feel like actually works and goes viral on the algorithm. >> Truth is what reasonable people who investigate come to. And I

think if you're curious and you're reasonable, you will come to similar conclusions. >> Yeah, absolutely. That's a great combination. >> Yeah. Nice, bro. >> All right. >> Good pod. >> Nice. >> Catch you guys on the next one. >> Like and subscribe. >> Oh, yeah.