In Episode 182 of Prakhar Gupta’s podcast, PG Radio, Eric Weinstein joins to discuss India’s global influence, from Western perceptions to the richness of Hindustani music culture. We explore how Indians can enhance their global presentation, the impact of spirituality and yoga, and the complexities of the global village concept. The conversation also touches on conspiracies, political events, and the U.S. military’s role in the world.
Outline
00:00 – Sponsor
00:52 – Global Vision About India
02:14 – How Does The West Look At India
08:02 – Eric’s Fascination With India
10:30 – Hindustani Music Culture
16:03 – How Indians Can Present Themselves Better
20:45 – Global Influence Of India Through Spirituality And Yoga
24:47 – Ancient Wisdom, Religions And Culture Of India
37:09 – The Issues With The Concept Of Global Village
46:45 – Global Conspiracies
54:08 – Who shot Trump
1:03:38 – Eric and Prakhar talk about Rogan
1:06:35 – Eric on the Middle East conflict
1:17:09 – The US military is next level
1:18:24 – Eric’s question to Prakhar
1:28:22 – Monologue
Recording Date: 3 October, 2024
Transcript
00:00:00
Prakhar Gupta: Let’s talk about protein for a bit. It is still very common in India to see protein as a bodybuilder supplement, but that’s not right. Protein is not just crucial for muscle building and recovery, but for overall health, immune function, and energy levels. In our busy lives, getting enough protein via food can be very tough. That’s where MuscleBlaze Biozyme Performance Whey comes in, India’s number one whey protein trusted by over six million plus customers. Each scoop gives you 25 grams of quality protein. Their patented EF technology ensures superior digestion and absorption without any bloating issues. It’s available in multiple flavors and free from heavy metals, preservatives, pesticides, and artificial flavors. This is also the most internationally tested and certified whey protein. Add MuscleBlaze Biozyme Whey to your routine for a convenient and effective way to hit your protein targets. Use my code PGMB for the best discount on muscleblaze.com. Eric, thank you so much for making time. In a very surreal way, it’s rather hard to believe ’cause I started listening to podcasting right around the time you were very prominent in podcasting circles back then, and to have you on the show, I am super… I’m glad. Thank you.
00:01:07
Eric Weinstein: Well, the, the, w- I, I’m thrilled that India is starting to take off, and I think that we don’t think enough about India as part of the Anglophone universe, and, uh-
00:01:19
Prakhar Gupta: And why do you think that might be?
00:01:20
Eric Weinstein: Well, because, uh, I don’t think that the US and the other Anglophone countries even think about India properly, so I think that our vision of India is… W- we barely think about India.
00:01:37
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:01:37
Eric Weinstein: And, and we don’t have a good model for it, and as a result, uh, I think it’s too confusing. It’s such a… It’s a place that demands a certain kind of expertise that al- almost none of us achieve because you have to, you have to spend a long time with it to be able to even understand it. And, and I, I do sometimes even think that in India it’s very hard to understand because it’s not naturally a country. Like Italy is not naturally a country. It’s a bunch of princely states. And in a certain sense, India isn’t a country in the standard sense either with all the regional languages, all the different customs, practices, food, what have you.
00:02:10
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:02:10
Eric Weinstein: Um, it’s not an easy place to wrap your head around.
00:02:13
Prakhar Gupta: Right. I, uh, um, I actually want to talk about that a little more because I think you might be right. I find, here, so I’ll give you how this really plays out with me. ‘Cause I’ve spent a lot of time here in my youth, and I return to an India, an India which is at least culturally, at least in the sense of public discourse, at least in the sense of communicating with each other, on the upswing.
00:02:36
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:02:36
Prakhar Gupta: And it begins to ask questions like, uh, “Who are we in the world?” You know, young Indians will ask me, “Prakhar, you’ve seen the world. How does the West look at us?” And I tell them, often to their dismay, that the West really does not look at us at all.
00:02:50
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] I think that that’s true.
00:02:51
Prakhar Gupta: Right? And as much as Indians would like to be recognized as an emerging power, um, as an emerging intellectual power, military power, uh, economic power, I don’t necessarily think that we are at the inflection point yet.
00:03:05
Eric Weinstein: It’s an interesting point because in a certain sense, Indians in the US appear to be taking over the country from, you know, the heads of Microsoft and, and Google to Nikki Haley or what have you-
00:03:18
Prakhar Gupta: Vivek Ramaswamy. Yeah
00:03:20
Eric Weinstein: … Kamala.
00:03:20
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:03:21
Eric Weinstein: And-
00:03:21
Prakhar Gupta: Supposedly.
00:03:23
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] Supposedly.
00:03:23
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs]
00:03:23
Eric Weinstein: Well, when she’s not Black.
00:03:25
Prakhar Gupta: Right. [laughs]
00:03:25
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, m- but that’s, but that’s just it. It’s that we don’t even recognize the extent to which India is, uh, affecting the US’s course.
00:03:36
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:03:37
Eric Weinstein: Uh, because we don’t see it or, or understand it. If we have an image of it, it’s a very exoticized image.
00:03:43
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:03:43
Eric Weinstein: It’s not going to be IIT.
00:03:46
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:03:47
Eric Weinstein: You know, it’s going to be some, uh, I don’t know, some video sequence from holy celebrations or-
00:03:54
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:03:54
Eric Weinstein: … you know, some snake charmer.
00:03:56
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:03:56
Eric Weinstein: Uh, and as a result, I think we don’t even realize the extent to which India is influencing the co- the course of the United States.
00:04:06
Prakhar Gupta: In that specific way, I think the Jewish population of America gets a bad rep because the Indian CEOs are overly represented in top, top tech companies-
00:04:16
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:04:16
Prakhar Gupta: … at this point, at top l- like, I feel like that, the whole, um, the whole idea that why are Jews so overrepresented in positions of power, nobody ever asks why are Indians so overrepresented in positions of power in America.
00:04:30
Eric Weinstein: Well, in a certain weird sense, the connection between India and European civilization is, is sort of mysterious, that if you think about East Asia, East Asia, I think, in the, in the Western mind is hard to understand.
00:04:53
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:04:54
Eric Weinstein: But somehow when you’re in India, once you realize that everything is somehow shifted, a lot of it is very familiar. I mean, a lot of the conversational patterns, a lot of the hospitality, a lot of the issues, I mean, coming from a Jewish background myself-
00:05:09
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:05:09
Eric Weinstein: … uh, India was very intuitive. Whether I was in a Hindu or a Muslim or a Jewish house in India-
00:05:16
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:05:17
Eric Weinstein: … uh, a, a lot of… And, and, and, you know, of course, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna get into the idea that people who, who study in, uh, English medium schools-
00:05:27
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:05:27
Eric Weinstein: … uh, are going to behave somewhat differently.
00:05:30
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:05:30
Eric Weinstein: But the accessible part of India that is Western facing in part, um, is, it’s surprisingly accessible. And then on the other hand, it’s totally bewildering for the Western mind-
00:05:41
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:05:41
Eric Weinstein: … because it, it half behaves like the world you know, and it half behaves in some fashion which is completely different from everything that you, you understand.
00:05:51
Prakhar Gupta: Right. And to a great degree, that half that behaves in a completely alien fashion is the same for an Indian as well. Like one of the hardest things for me, for me-
00:06:00
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:06:01
Prakhar Gupta: … to help people understand about India, for, for that matter, Klau, is that if I’m in any state in South India, it might as well have been Eastern Europe at that point. Right? Like the, there is some cultural connection, there is some grand totality in which we are all part of the same saucer on the table, but it’s very strange linguistically to me, and it’s very strange even culturally, and I don’t know what culture I might offend without trying in those places.
00:06:25
Eric Weinstein: Like Kerala to Bihar-
00:06:27
Prakhar Gupta: It’s completely different
00:06:27
Eric Weinstein: … it’s two different, two different worlds.
00:06:28
Prakhar Gupta: Completely different worlds.
00:06:29
Eric Weinstein: And but j- to get back to what, what, what you were asking me before, I believe that Indians have a certain kind of an edge-
00:06:37
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:06:37
Eric Weinstein: … which is that they are very adept inside of the US within the English language.
00:06:45
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:06:45
Eric Weinstein: Uh, very often I would say they speak even more beautiful English, uh, than Americans.
00:06:50
Prakhar Gupta: There’s a British influence to it.
00:06:52
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
00:06:52
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, right.
00:06:52
Eric Weinstein: Uh, but, but it, w- with a, with a [laughs] a good dose of masala.
00:06:57
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:06:57
Eric Weinstein: Right? And that, that otherness and familiarity together is a very potent, uh, sort of hybrid vigor, you know?
00:07:09
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:07:10
Eric Weinstein: So that you, it’s both other and the familiar simultaneously, and I believe in part also you’ve got this very strange, uh, decision due to Nehru, I think, to focus on tertiary education at the expense of primary and secondary-
00:07:24
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:07:25
Eric Weinstein: … education. So if you have an, an enormous number of people, you don’t need everybody to be well-educated. You can just have a sort of Darwinian competition, and then you have the IIT sort of level at the top-
00:07:38
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:07:38
Eric Weinstein: … which is the envy of the world.
00:07:40
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:07:40
Eric Weinstein: And I think that i- i- in part, uh, th- that very high focus on achievement and, um, being well-spoken and being very a- adept, uh, at, at technical things is serving India very well with, in a, in an age dominated by software.
00:08:00
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. I can see that. Talk to me, to some degree, about your fascination with India, ’cause what I want to get at, and this is sort of the question I’m actively at this stage in my life pondering-
00:08:14
Eric Weinstein: Sure
00:08:14
Prakhar Gupta: … which is how does India present itself to the West? I think it’s a mature population, I think it’s a smart population, I think we’ve proven ourselves in places where we don’t necessarily have to speak. I think arts and culture is a domain we’ve proved ourselves several thousand years ago, right, at this point. Um, but there is still something missing before India becomes the way we say in content mainstream. Right? The, where before India becomes a sort of focal point in global conversation, global arts, global culture and such. So before I get to that, tell me, what is your fascination with India, how were you introduced to India, and what is your interaction with India?
00:08:51
Eric Weinstein: So my, my, one of my two best friends from college is a guy named Adil Abdullahi, who, uh, came from, um, Bombay, and he and I approximately 40 years ago went on a trip for six weeks through India. And India was probably the most formative adult experience of my life, just getting sent back in time. I immediately realized I didn’t know how to eat, I didn’t know how to go to the bathroom, I didn’t know how to cross a street-
00:09:27
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Mm
00:09:27
Eric Weinstein: … ’cause the traffic is insane. And it’s a very strange thing to find a place on Earth that is so, uh, so far away in, in, in so many different ways that, that you really, y- you’re a beginner all over again, i- in my case, in my early 20s.
00:09:45
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:09:46
Eric Weinstein: And it’s not really a fascination at this point. It, it, it’s a love affair, and in a love affair it’s y- it also drives me crazy.
00:09:55
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:09:55
Eric Weinstein: Um, you know, i- it’s, it, it’s all through you, but I don’t have a place th- that I can easily hang my relationship to India, so I can’t say I, I lived there for a number of years, because I haven’t. I can’t say I found my ancient Hindu soul, because that isn’t-
00:10:11
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs]
00:10:11
Eric Weinstein: … it’s not my thing.
00:10:12
Prakhar Gupta: You’re not California enough yet.
00:10:14
Eric Weinstein: Yeah [laughs].
00:10:15
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:10:15
Eric Weinstein: Um, it, it’s just a place that I view as a repository of so much of the world’s great culture, great minds, great art. You know, it, it’s funny, there’s a, a thing called the Music Circle here which I don’t know if you know about at Occidental College that was actually founded by, uh, Ravi Shankar about 50 years ago.
00:10:38
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:10:40
Eric Weinstein: And I love going to, uh, Hindustani classical performances, but it’s very hard to get anyone to want to come because it’s so different.
00:10:51
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:10:52
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, uh, w-
00:10:53
Prakhar Gupta: Is it hard for them to come the first time, or then for them to be a repeat customer?
00:10:57
Eric Weinstein: Well, you have to make an investment.
00:11:00
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:11:00
Eric Weinstein: You have to really understand, you know, the concept that you’re seeing something that is improvisational but classical-
00:11:06
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:11:06
Eric Weinstein: … because we’ve driven improvisation out of Western classical music.
00:11:10
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:11:10
Eric Weinstein: You know, we, we have scherzos and cadenzas and things, but mostly you just play the notes as they’re written.
00:11:16
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:11:16
Eric Weinstein: Um, the concept of harmony is effectively absent in Indian music because you don’t have even temperament.
00:11:23
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:11:24
Eric Weinstein: Uh, on the other hand, if you look at Western rhythm, it’s pathetic. Right? India is, without question in my mind, the world’s, the source of the world’s greatest, uh, r- rhythmic, um, depth.
00:11:38
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:11:39
Eric Weinstein: Um, and the relationship, for example, between the tabla player and the soloist-
00:11:45
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:11:46
Eric Weinstein: … is a very strange thing.
00:11:47
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:11:47
Eric Weinstein: You know, it’s about m- mirror neurons and anticipating a- and fighting a- and, you know, it, it’s a, it’s a, it’s almost like watching two people making love through music.
00:11:58
Prakhar Gupta: Right. It’s playful conflict.
00:11:59
Eric Weinstein: A playful conflict.
00:12:00
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:12:00
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:12:00
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:12:01
Eric Weinstein: Like, can, can I lose the tabla player or no, no, no, he’s, he’s right on me.
00:12:06
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:12:07
Eric Weinstein: Um, the, um… And then the instruments are so different. So for example, in the West, we had, uh, a wonderful instrument called viola d’amore.
00:12:18
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:12:19
Eric Weinstein: Vivaldi wrote for it. And it had sympathetic strings under the finger board, right? Um, but if you look at Indian instruments, from the sarangi to the sarod to the sitar, you- you’ve got these gorgeous resonant strings that ring out and that are hard to silence, you know?
00:12:39
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm, mm.
00:12:40
Eric Weinstein: And we got rid of those, and India retained them.
00:12:43
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:12:43
Eric Weinstein: And then I think about, for example, so I’m particularly partial to the sarangi.
00:12:47
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:12:48
Eric Weinstein: And w- what do you even say about it? Do you, you, do you call it a violin? Because to do so is, is-
00:12:58
Prakhar Gupta: Is actually condensing it into a subset?
00:13:00
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, well, the, it’s ma- it’s trying to make it familiar. It, it, it’s-
00:13:04
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:13:04
Eric Weinstein: … it’s, it’s so much closer to the human voice.
00:13:07
Prakhar Gupta: From a purely auditory perspective-
00:13:09
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:13:09
Prakhar Gupta: … from purely listening to this, right? Classical music visits with my parents were supposed to be the visits where I’d go to sleep, until I finally began to understand, oh my God, what is even really happening, right? Where you would figure out that as an experience, as an emotion that can be evoked purely from sound, I’m listening to something fantastic, right? Um, the interesting part about what you were saying is you were saying that this is different because this was created in a different geography and a different cultural context. I think the present day understanding of India, and tell me if you think this is right or wrong, is that it’s not necessarily that this was during the same timeline even.
00:13:48
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
00:13:48
Prakhar Gupta: That this was done so much f- so much before the modern Western instruments were birthed, that it looks different as a function of its time, not necessarily a function of its geography and culture.
00:14:00
Eric Weinstein: Hmm.
00:14:00
Prakhar Gupta: That this is almost historic, the fact that this existed.
00:14:04
Eric Weinstein: I wonder about that.
00:14:05
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:14:05
Eric Weinstein: I think about, like the harmonium. The harmonium is almost certainly a Western-derived object. I, I don’t know that-
00:14:11
Prakhar Gupta: Mm, right
00:14:11
Eric Weinstein: … but, you know, it, it does have this fixed, uh, even temperament, although you can use the bellows to bend notes like a harmonica a little bit.
00:14:19
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:14:20
Eric Weinstein: Um, whatever it is, it’s a different universe. I mean, if we were talking about Persian music, we’d be talking about tar and setar.
00:14:28
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:14:28
Eric Weinstein: And if we were talking Turkish music, we’d be talking about bağlama, you know? Uh, or oud or, or, or what have you.
00:14:36
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:14:36
Eric Weinstein: So there is this, like, universe of different, um, of different instrumentation, different theory.
00:14:42
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:14:43
Eric Weinstein: Um, so, you know, for example, the Turks use a 53, uh, tone system because you get a better third and a better fifth than you do e- with a 12-tone even temperament. Uh, the whole concept of, um, of the revelation of scale in Indian music, uh, is very different because you, you, you ha- you, each note is sort of introduced, um, progressively, and then this idea of tying the notes, uh, to times of the day, w- which rags, you know, you-
00:15:15
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right, right, right, right
00:15:16
Eric Weinstein: … you, you play at one time or another. And that may not be even retained in the future, just the way you, cricket, you know, has, has to change because there isn’t enough room in modern lives for the traditional ways.
00:15:26
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:15:26
Eric Weinstein: But yes, I, I do think these d- these things do feel very ancient.
00:15:30
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:15:30
Eric Weinstein: But in the case of the harmonium, for example, my guess is that if I looked at its history, it looks ancient, but it probably won’t be.
00:15:37
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:15:38
Eric Weinstein: Um, I don’t know. I, I haven’t studied it from the point of view of, of, of scholarship.
00:15:44
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:15:44
Eric Weinstein: But I, all I’m trying to say is that the investment needed to understand even to begin with what the hell is going on-
00:15:55
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:15:55
Eric Weinstein: … uh, is enormous.
00:15:57
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. Right. Is there something India can do-
00:16:01
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:16:01
Prakhar Gupta: … or Indians can do to present themselves? Because, um, uh, this is sort of a distraction, but we are definitely in probably the weirdest time since I’ve been born, and I was born just right before the 2000s. So I think, I think we were in an odd period of peace maybe since the ’70s or the ’80s, and now we are finding ourselves in the midst of a conflict almost that is emerging.
00:16:24
Eric Weinstein: Say more.
00:16:26
Prakhar Gupta: I don’t know. Look, this is, this is my view, right? From the s- if I were to ignore all discourse that’s happening on Twitter ever and just look at factually what is emerging, say in the Middle East at one point.
00:16:38
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:16:38
Prakhar Gupta: The fact that an ex-president of the United States has been shot at twice and nobody’s willing to ask the question, who shot at him? Um-
00:16:46
Eric Weinstein: Particularly with the second.
00:16:47
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:16:48
Eric Weinstein: Uh, the second one didn’t shoot at him.
00:16:50
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:16:51
Eric Weinstein: But you have a guy who’s supposedly an unemployed construction worker who’s in Afghanistan recruiting, uh, jihadis to go to Ukraine.
00:17:02
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. What is happening?
00:17:04
Eric Weinstein: What the hell is going on, man?
00:17:05
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:17:06
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:17:06
Prakhar Gupta: And so in, in that, I feel like we are running out of time. Maybe, maybe this is the pessimism of my age. Maybe in your age, the question was, are we gonna have a nuclear war? Maybe in my age, the question is, are we gonna have World War III? And with sort of that urgency on the geopolitical front, the sort of economic maturity and cultural maturity India is having in the modern world, I feel like Indians need to find a way to present themselves to the world.
00:17:31
Eric Weinstein: Do they?
00:17:32
Prakhar Gupta: Or maybe the world needs to find a way to understand India.
00:17:35
Eric Weinstein: Do they?
00:17:36
Prakhar Gupta: Or, or do they not?
00:17:37
Eric Weinstein: Well, that’s what I’m asking. Like, in part, one of the things that I worry about for India, so I have a funny position. I’m a very proud American.
00:17:44
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:17:44
Eric Weinstein: But the last thing I want is for America to un- exert undue influence on India culturally, and then w- we lose this enormous counterweight, which is really a diversifying element in terms of the intellectual endowment of planet Earth.
00:18:02
Prakhar Gupta: No, no, get, get, get more specific about it. I wanna know more about this.
00:18:04
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
00:18:04
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:18:06
Eric Weinstein: Um, there’s something painful when you start to see, like, KFC, uh-
00:18:13
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs] Pop up everywhere, right?
00:18:14
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:18:14
Prakhar Gupta: We have Popeyes in India now, yeah.
00:18:16
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:18:16
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:18:16
Eric Weinstein: But it’s like inferior American food displacing the best food on Earth.
00:18:20
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. [laughs]
00:18:22
Eric Weinstein: You know?
00:18:22
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:18:23
Eric Weinstein: And you want India to be more self-confident so that it can Think about world culture as a potluck. I don’t want India bringing KFC to the potluck.
00:18:39
Prakhar Gupta: Right, yeah.
00:18:41
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:18:41
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right, right. It completely makes sense.
00:18:42
Eric Weinstein: And so in part, one of the things th- that you find is that because India’s so difficult to understand for the West, it has in a weird way resisted the homogenization.
00:18:57
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:18:57
Eric Weinstein: Also, I- India’s ability to absorb anything that comes from the West-
00:19:02
Prakhar Gupta: And then Indianize it?
00:19:03
Eric Weinstein: And Indianize it.
00:19:04
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Add masala to it.
00:19:06
Eric Weinstein: Well, y- you know, it’s very funny. If you’ve ever, if you’ve ever heard, um, Otico Twi- tico from Puerto Rico. You ever heard this?
00:19:15
Prakhar Gupta: No, what is that?
00:19:16
Eric Weinstein: Otico Tico from Puerto Rico.
00:19:19
Prakhar Gupta: Huh.
00:19:19
Eric Weinstein: And it’s like-
00:19:19
Prakhar Gupta: Oh, Gori
00:19:20
Eric Weinstein: … Gori.
00:19:21
Prakhar Gupta: Oh.
00:19:21
Eric Weinstein: Bhabhi Ji.
00:19:22
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right, right, right.
00:19:23
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah. So that originally was, like, a Carmen Miranda song.
00:19:27
Prakhar Gupta: Huh.
00:19:28
Eric Weinstein: Or I th-
00:19:28
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:19:28
Eric Weinstein: … I think, um, y- you know, Bhabhi Ji De Re Chalna comes, I think, from Qisas, Qisas, Qisas. I’m not positive about that.
00:19:36
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:19:38
Eric Weinstein: So India has taken all of these things that have come from the West and made them un- sort of unrecognizable-
00:19:45
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:19:46
Eric Weinstein: … and Indianized them. And it’s a great defensive strategy, which means that you can absorb wave after wave after wave of adulteration, and it’s like, “Nah, no problem.”
00:19:54
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. Right.
00:19:57
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know if I want India to concentrate on presenting itself to the West. It… look, i- it’s a confusing place, and it’s, it’s confusing to Indians, as, you know, to, to, to our point before about the South and the North o- of India, what-
00:20:14
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:20:14
Eric Weinstein: … what really ties them together. Um, the most important thing for me is th- that India brings what’s special about India to, at a world-class level to the, to the intellectual conversation, and potentially teaches us, uh, different ways of viewing conflict, science-
00:20:37
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:20:37
Eric Weinstein: … uh, the arts, business.
00:20:40
Prakhar Gupta: Right. The, s- let, let’s start with an example on that front-
00:20:45
Eric Weinstein: Sure
00:20:45
Prakhar Gupta: … because I feel like one thing for sure that India has sort of even brought to the table, to the potluck, to the intellectual potluck, if I may-
00:20:53
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:20:53
Prakhar Gupta: … has been its rigorous experiments with the internal world, the spiritual philosophy, if I may. Right? And you see wave after wave of that happening, at least in the modern world. You see that with Krishnamurti. You see that with Osho for that matter, and then you later see this with, I don’t know if you ever followed Richard Alpert becoming Ram Dass. Do you know of that story?
00:21:13
Eric Weinstein: A little bit.
00:21:13
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. Um, for people that do not, Richard Alpert was experimenting with LSD at Harvard. He was a psychologist, and then eventually ended up, after falling out, I think after the war on drugs or something, he left. He was thrown out of Harvard, went to India, met a certain somebody called Neem Karoli Baba.
00:21:30
Eric Weinstein: Mm-hmm.
00:21:30
Prakhar Gupta: And the story or the myth goes that Neem Karoli Baba took the entire vial of psychedelics, LSD, that, um, Richard Alpert had and then drank it.
00:21:38
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:21:39
Prakhar Gupta: To which Richard was so surprised he ended up taking tutelage under, um, Neem Karoli Baba and end- ended up becoming Ram Dass. And so there has been that. Parallelly, there has been yoga.
00:21:48
Eric Weinstein: Mm-hmm.
00:21:48
Prakhar Gupta: But I think the defense system of America, the cultural defense system of the West has been so active it has Americanized yoga.
00:21:55
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
00:21:56
Prakhar Gupta: From yoga being this internal practice of finding union between the spirit and the outside world, it has become stretching poses.
00:22:02
Eric Weinstein: Right, I wanna say something controversial-
00:22:04
Prakhar Gupta: Go ahead
00:22:04
Eric Weinstein: … and hopefully I won’t have a billion people, uh, down my throat.
00:22:07
Prakhar Gupta: We, we’ll find out.
00:22:08
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:22:08
Prakhar Gupta: We’ll find out.
00:22:09
Eric Weinstein: Um, I think in a certain sense, America takes the safest part of India-
00:22:17
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:22:17
Eric Weinstein: … which is spiritual enlightenment.
00:22:20
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:22:21
Eric Weinstein: It’s very safe to say, “Okay, these people have some sort of a soul that is different from ours,” and all this kind of stuff, enlightenment, what have you. What happens when you realize that the Kerala school of astronomy may have gotten to calculus before Newton and Leibniz, and did it in religious verse, rhyming religious verse? That’s pretty disturbing.
00:22:43
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:22:44
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:22:44
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:22:45
Eric Weinstein: Um, or take the story about Ramanujan-
00:22:48
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:22:48
Eric Weinstein: … as being this noble savage that Hardy and Littlewood discovered, uh, in Madras-
00:22:54
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:22:54
Eric Weinstein: … and they, you know, they bring him to, to, uh, to the UK to be educated.
00:22:59
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:23:00
Eric Weinstein: Well, but no, he was, he was a mathematician in good standing in a local mathematical circle in India.
00:23:05
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:23:06
Eric Weinstein: So in a certain sense I think that it’s safe for America to mine the spiritual, you know, the, the, the gurus, the enlightenment, the yoga, whatever.
00:23:19
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:23:19
Eric Weinstein: It’s far more difficult for us to think about this in, in terms of, um, you know, like, half of the particles in the world are bosons after Bose, right?
00:23:34
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:23:35
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:23:36
Prakhar Gupta: That’s after Bose.
00:23:37
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:23:37
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. Right.
00:23:38
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, the, the, I think the birthplace of quantum gravity, for example, is, uh, TIFR in Bombay, which was inaugurated in 1952.
00:23:49
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. I didn’t know that.
00:23:51
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:23:51
Prakhar Gupta: Wow.
00:23:51
Eric Weinstein: So I th- I think that, uh, what happened was that, um, the request was, was, uh, was made, we need a nuclear facility because 1952, November, was when the first hydrogen bomb went off.
00:24:06
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:24:07
Eric Weinstein: And one of the first people to come to TIFR was a guy named Bryce DeWitt with his wife Cecile DeWitt Morette, and they had their f- first child in India, and that’s where he started studying quantum gravity. So I think that in a certain sense, seeing India at the highest heights of achievement-
00:24:30
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:24:31
Eric Weinstein: … outside of the spiritual is tough.
00:24:35
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. Hmm.
00:24:38
Eric Weinstein: You know, it, it, it, it’s, it’s a different universe of thought, and it doesn’t stop at the soul.
00:24:44
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Oh, oh no, for sure. Um-
00:24:46
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:24:47
Prakhar Gupta: … and I, I, I think you’ll find if and ever you do get interested in, in sort of the Indian discourse around this, that a lot of it is credited to the ancients and the continuity of it. So for that matter, having rhyming vocalized formulas of mathematics-
00:25:04
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:25:04
Prakhar Gupta: … right? The fact that they were oral traditions, and partly because there was probably not a lot of places to write or, or, or to have them symbolized on a piece of paper or an object apart from your own voice, they were used in, they were operated in rhyme schemes-
00:25:18
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:25:18
Prakhar Gupta: … so that people would remember it much more easily. And, um, I, we call this phenomena the, the, uh, specifically the WhatsApp Uncle phenomena, because if you-
00:25:28
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] Sorry?
00:25:28
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. The WhatsApp Uncle phenomena is, uh, a thing about India where you’ll receive a WhatsApp forward and, or more specifically our fathers would receive a WhatsApp forward, which will credit something that has happened in the world to the ancient wisdom of India, and that I think is the memetic part of-
00:25:42
Eric Weinstein: Okay
00:25:43
Prakhar Gupta: … something, i- if you dig through that stuff, we’ll find that a lot of these things are super true, that there is, in fact, a continuous river of wisdom that has flown through the land. But a lot of it is just funny stuff. Uh, a lot of it is just internet scams that, you know, get sold to people that are much more, that came to the internet later. Um, and why I’m talking about this is because … [clears throat]
00:26:03
Eric Weinstein: I’m in it for the PJs.
00:26:05
Prakhar Gupta: You’re in it for the PJs? [laughs]
00:26:07
Eric Weinstein: They get sent to me on WhatsApp.
00:26:08
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, you do get them.
00:26:10
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah.
00:26:10
Prakhar Gupta: Um, it’s almost, it’s the intellectual equivalent of dad jokes.
00:26:13
Eric Weinstein: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:13
Prakhar Gupta: That’s what you’ll get, right?
00:26:14
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:26:14
Prakhar Gupta: Um, so the, the, the reason why I’m saying this is bec- I have a feeling that if you go down to it, you’ll find that the, that India was operating on a different timescale, and the reason it was operating on a different timescale is also evidenced by the fact that the religious component of India-
00:26:30
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:26:30
Prakhar Gupta: … is markedly different, that if you look at Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and what is known as Hinduism-
00:26:35
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:26:36
Prakhar Gupta: … is categorically different from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
00:26:42
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah.
00:26:42
Prakhar Gupta: Have you found that to be the case?
00:26:43
Eric Weinstein: For sure.
00:26:44
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:26:44
Eric Weinstein: That the, the Abrahamic faiths have a certain kind of coherence.
00:26:47
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:26:48
Eric Weinstein: I mean, how do I say it? Um, Christianity is sort of a user-friendly version of Judaism, and then Islam got to look at both of these previous Abrahamic faiths, and it’s a marvel of design.
00:27:06
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:27:07
Eric Weinstein: Let me just leave it at that.
00:27:08
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:27:08
Eric Weinstein: It’s, it’s one of the most amazing designed religions of all time.
00:27:13
Prakhar Gupta: Why would you say that?
00:27:15
Eric Weinstein: That, you know, it’s, like, very, very easy to get in, super hard to get out. There’s an ordering of the surahs that, uh, the ones that come later I think take precedence over the ones that come earlier, and the ones that come later seem to contradict some of the things that come earl- I- it’s very hard to unhook, um, Islam in a way that it’s not hard to unhook Christianity or Judaism.
00:27:43
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:27:44
Eric Weinstein: Um, which is one of the reasons why Islam is so powerful.
00:27:47
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:27:47
Eric Weinstein: And then the idea behind Jainism and Hinduism and Buddhism is that… Well, from the West, we don’t have a good frame of reference.
00:28:00
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:28:01
Eric Weinstein: So if you think about, uh, oh, you know this crazy Jain practice that if we know anything about Jainism at all, that a family becomes successful, and they rid themselves of their worldly possessions, and they go off, and they scatter.
00:28:14
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:28:15
Eric Weinstein: You’re like, “Holy crap, what the heck is that?”
00:28:17
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:28:18
Eric Weinstein: You know? Or, um, if you, if you’re ever exposed, um, at some point, I think, uh, we went to a, a, a Puja, uh, for a new apartment in, um, Bombay and, you know, feeding, some people were feeding milk to a s- statue of Ganesh or something.
00:28:42
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:28:42
Eric Weinstein: And I didn’t know, I, I didn’t have a good frame of reference for it-
00:28:47
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:28:47
Eric Weinstein: … because it, it seemed to me that it, the soul is animated very differently in Hinduism, the belief structure. Also, the, the tolerance for contradiction. You see, the most, one of… I could argue that the most powerful concept in Judaism, uh, is Echad, which is the, the number one. So i- if, you know, if you take this, uh, invocation, the Shema, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad,” the Lord is one.
00:29:21
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:29:22
Eric Weinstein: What does that mean? In some sense, it means unity of knowledge, that there are no contradictions, and if I can tell a crazy story from many years ago. I was in Goa, and there was a language strike, and we needed to get to Panjim, and we went to the, we went to the bus station and couldn’t get any information on the bus. And finally, I, I go up to this guy who’s very well-dressed businessman. I figure he’ll know some English, and I said, “Where do I get the bus to Panjim?” He says, “There’s no bus to Panjim today.” And I said, “Yeah?”
00:30:06
Prakhar Gupta: Uh-huh.
00:30:07
Eric Weinstein: And he says, “There’s no bus to Panjim. There’s a strike, bandh.” I said, “Okay. Where are you going?” “I’m going to Panjim.” “Well, how are you going there?” “By bus.” [laughs]
00:30:19
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:30:20
Eric Weinstein: And I said, “There is or is not a bus?”
00:30:23
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:30:24
Eric Weinstein: “Bus will came.”
00:30:25
Prakhar Gupta: Uh-huh.
00:30:26
Eric Weinstein: “Bus will came.” I, like, I co- I couldn’t make sense of any of this.
00:30:29
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:30:30
Eric Weinstein: Sure enough, the bus comes. It says that it’s not operating.
00:30:35
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:30:35
Eric Weinstein: And we all get on, and we go to Panjim.
00:30:37
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:30:38
Eric Weinstein: Now, I have no idea what happened. I assume that the bus was operating somewhat illegally. It was breaking the strike, or I don’t know.
00:30:43
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:30:44
Eric Weinstein: But when I told the story- To Americans, they’re like, “What did he mean?”
00:30:49
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, what did he mean?
00:30:49
Eric Weinstein: What did he mean?
00:30:50
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs]
00:30:50
Eric Weinstein: When I tell the story in India, they’re like, “Oh, yes.”
00:30:53
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, it makes sense. [laughs]
00:30:55
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] And so in a certain sense, the tolerance for contradiction-
00:30:58
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:30:59
Eric Weinstein: … is much higher in India.
00:31:01
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:31:01
Eric Weinstein: That, uh, there isn’t this concept of the unity of knowledge. We’re all pluralistic. You know, the way which we, we, we find to avoid the truth, um, you know, for example, the, the way in which homosexuality has been tolerated in India.
00:31:17
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:31:17
Eric Weinstein: You can’t be openly homosexual-
00:31:19
Prakhar Gupta: But there is a way in which you can be
00:31:20
Eric Weinstein: … oh, that those two are roommates, just both confirmed bachelors.
00:31:24
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:31:25
Eric Weinstein: You know? And it’s like you just don’t break the illusion.
00:31:28
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:31:28
Eric Weinstein: Um, so in part what I think is, is that the pluralism of India is different than the pluralism of the United States, and this is partially the, the rediscovery of, um… And, you know, the West is having a heck of a time with this, but I think that India is in some sense rejecting the sort of post-British Gandhi-Nehru vision.
00:31:56
Prakhar Gupta: At this point, yes.
00:31:56
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:31:57
Prakhar Gupta: Uh, mm-hmm.
00:31:57
Eric Weinstein: And, and saying, “Maybe we have our own way of doing these things, and let’s do this around Hindutva.”
00:32:02
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:32:02
Eric Weinstein: And, and then how do we feel about that? Well, on the one hand, maybe we feel like this is terrible, this is privileging one religion. Isn’t this, isn’t India supposed to be a pluralistic society? And then another version of this is, come on, man, it’s called Hindustan for a reason.
00:32:17
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:32:19
Eric Weinstein: We’re not saying that, uh, nobody else belongs here. We’re just saying that we have a substrate-
00:32:23
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm
00:32:23
Eric Weinstein: … and this is the, you know, the way the US has a Christian substrate.
00:32:26
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:32:26
Eric Weinstein: Now, I’m not Christian, but I’m very happy to be living on a Christian substrate as long as that’s tolerant.
00:32:32
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:32:33
Eric Weinstein: So I, I believe in part the way to think about some of what’s going on in India, and I have never heard anybody say this, is that people are repudiating the idealisms of the 20th century. If you think about, like, Atatürk, uh, and the Kemalist v- vision of Turkey, uh, Erdoğan is in some sense repudiating that. India is repudiating, uh, the Gandhi-Nehru vision, uh-
00:33:00
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:33:00
Eric Weinstein: … of India. All of these attempts to impose grand ideas on people seem to be falling apart.
00:33:11
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Um, you know, actually, this will help me sort of illustrate… This might be interesting for you and for a lot of your listeners. Y- we hit the nail on the head when we spoke about the sort of different cultural understandings and how that language does not translate very well. There’s a man, um, rather controversial but very intelligent, by the name of Rajiv Malhotra, who does work on something called intranslatables.
00:33:37
Eric Weinstein: Say more.
00:33:38
Prakhar Gupta: And he says that there is specific terminology that exists in our cultural religious corpus-
00:33:45
Eric Weinstein: Hmm
00:33:45
Prakhar Gupta: … that does not translate the same way into English. Like, God is not the same as Bhagwan.
00:33:49
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:33:50
Prakhar Gupta: And I may be butchering his examples, but he has a whole list. He has a book on intranslatables, and what he’s trying to do is point out the differences between the cultural grammar of India and what we know as the Dharmic traditions-
00:34:01
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah
00:34:01
Prakhar Gupta: … and the Abrahamic traditions. And, um, in some way, what that points to is the fact that the ontology of these two poles of the world-
00:34:10
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:34:10
Prakhar Gupta: … in some way are completely different.
00:34:12
Eric Weinstein: It’s an interesting point because what… I- India has its own Abrahamic traditions.
00:34:17
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:34:17
Eric Weinstein: And they are somewhat different-
00:34:20
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm
00:34:21
Eric Weinstein: … in India.
00:34:22
Prakhar Gupta: You mean the Islam of India is different from the Islam of the rest of the world?
00:34:25
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34:25
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. And so that is the point at which-
00:34:27
Eric Weinstein: Well, I, I should say the Islams-
00:34:29
Prakhar Gupta: Of the rest of the world
00:34:30
Eric Weinstein: … uh, no, no, the Islams of India.
00:34:31
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:34:32
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:34:33
Prakhar Gupta: Be- because there’s different Islams within India?
00:34:34
Eric Weinstein: Yes, a- a- and also just India… It’s a painful thing to say. Um, like Beirut, Beirut goes back and forth between being very cosmopolitan and then everybody retreating into their home camps.
00:34:54
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:34:55
Eric Weinstein: I think that when Islam is threatened and people retreat into it, it has one sort of a profile. But on the other hand, um, people celebrating each other’s holidays in India is one of the most beautiful things.
00:35:11
Prakhar Gupta: We love holidays. We don’t care-
00:35:13
Eric Weinstein: Well, it’s cha-
00:35:13
Prakhar Gupta: As long as we don’t have to work
00:35:13
Eric Weinstein: … it’s an opportunity for food.
00:35:15
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs] Yeah, yeah.
00:35:16
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:35:16
Prakhar Gupta: It’s an opportunity for us not to work.
00:35:17
Eric Weinstein: And so who’s got a holiday?
00:35:18
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. [laughs] Right.
00:35:19
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:35:19
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:35:20
Eric Weinstein: And, and so I think that Indian pluralism is a very different thing.
00:35:27
Prakhar Gupta: And this is the exact, this one sentence is the exact reason why it is easier for Indians to reject the modern liberal order. We’re talking about how… And I feel like this is happening. I grew up hearing the word global village. I think this is from Marshall McLuhan-
00:35:40
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:35:40
Prakhar Gupta: … right? That the world is a global village, and we are approaching a state where there are no boundaries, we’re all global citizens, and so on, and so forth.
00:35:47
Eric Weinstein: Hors- horseshit.
00:35:47
Prakhar Gupta: Horseshit, right? And I, I mean, uh, uh, l- let’s come to a judgment on that in just a second.
00:35:51
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] Sorry to jump the gun.
00:35:52
Prakhar Gupta: No, no. I’m, and I’m saying this because this is the dream of my childhood.
00:35:55
Eric Weinstein: Okay.
00:35:55
Prakhar Gupta: This is the indoctrination of my school textbook.
00:35:58
Eric Weinstein: Ah.
00:35:58
Prakhar Gupta: Right? This is what I grew up in, and now I’m waking up in a world where it’s, it’s not just India. You were talking about Hungary earlier. We’re talking about something that’s happening in Brazil, something that’s happening in Argentina. We see this, I think, world over, in Turkey for that matter, where everybody’s like, “Listen, this cosmopolitan, global cosmopolitan dream of yours, it’s not working. We’re going to retreat and look after our own.” And this seems to be the wave right now. The wave seems to be much more conservative.
00:36:25
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:36:26
Prakhar Gupta: And India can affect that wave much more strongly because it always says, “Listen, we have a history of being pluralistic without being chest-thumping about it.”
00:36:36
Eric Weinstein: It would be nice if this calmed down.
00:36:39
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:36:39
Eric Weinstein: And I think what we’re seeing is we’re in the period of reaction.
00:36:42
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:36:43
Eric Weinstein: And the undoing of that order is violent.
00:36:47
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:36:48
Eric Weinstein: It’s not where it’s going to stay, but it is the, it’s the casting off- Um, of these beliefs that were, were, that were taught in school-
00:36:59
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:36:59
Eric Weinstein: … to all of us, right? So e- effectively there was a propaganda campaign, um-
00:37:05
Prakhar Gupta: Of this global village level?
00:37:06
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:37:07
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:37:07
Eric Weinstein: I think so.
00:37:07
Prakhar Gupta: And you, and you think this was global?
00:37:09
Eric Weinstein: Well, sure.
00:37:09
Prakhar Gupta: When you talk this here.
00:37:11
Eric Weinstein: Whenever I hear, when- whenever somebody, yeah, actually I, I use India as my example. Somebody says, “Oh, you know, the borders are coming down and we’re really one people.” And I said, “Really?” And I said, “Who’s Aishwarya Rai?” “I have no idea.”
00:37:25
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:37:26
Eric Weinstein: “Well, did you ever see her on David Letterman?”
00:37:28
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:37:29
Eric Weinstein: She went on David Letterman and he’s like, he has no knowledge of her.
00:37:32
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:37:32
Eric Weinstein: He says, “So I understand you’re like the biggest star in India.”
00:37:35
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:37:36
Eric Weinstein: She said, “Oh, I don’t know.” “And you live at home with your parents?”
00:37:39
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:37:39
Eric Weinstein: And he can’t get past it.
00:37:41
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:37:41
Eric Weinstein: It just goes over and over and over.
00:37:42
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:37:43
Eric Weinstein: So my, my comment is if you don’t know who Shah Rukh Khan is, how can this be a global village?
00:37:49
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:37:50
Eric Weinstein: Right? So we, we, we don’t have the first clue-
00:37:54
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:37:54
Eric Weinstein: … about each other’s cultures. Now, there are places on, th- there are a lot of places on Earth where India’s cultural influence is very significant, particularly through film.
00:38:05
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:38:05
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:38:06
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:38:06
Eric Weinstein: S- so, you know, if you go through Indonesia, people will sing, or if you go through Russia-
00:38:11
Prakhar Gupta: Russia, Africa, you find that-
00:38:12
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, people-
00:38:13
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah
00:38:13
Eric Weinstein: … what is it? Mere Joota Hai Japani, they’ll sing that to you because-
00:38:16
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:38:17
Eric Weinstein: … Raj Kapoor was a big deal in Russia.
00:38:18
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:38:19
Eric Weinstein: Um, the… It’s not a, it’s not a global village.
00:38:26
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:38:27
Eric Weinstein: It’s, it’s so hard to learn each other’s cultural references. Uh, it’s so hard to speak each other’s languages, and that which makes us unique and, and those things that can’t be translated. So for example, in, in Hebrew there’s a concept called dafka. I don’t know how to, like you-
00:38:47
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right, right. In translator.
00:38:49
Eric Weinstein: Where, where you do something almost out of spite, but it, it’s got a different connotation. I don’t know how to say it-
00:38:56
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:38:57
Eric Weinstein: … in English. And so certain thoughts, um, are e- more easily thunk in different idioms.
00:39:05
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:39:06
Eric Weinstein: I don’t think we’re anywhere close to a global village. I think it was horseshit.
00:39:09
Prakhar Gupta: And so you think this was propaganda?
00:39:11
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:39:11
Prakhar Gupta: And you think this was active propaganda? Like, was it passively this thing we say because we are the world and we are the people? Or was it-
00:39:19
Eric Weinstein: Well, in part… National Geographic, James Bond films, if you look at things from that era-
00:39:31
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:39:32
Eric Weinstein: … the world was being imported or exported just as jet travel was taking off. So, you know, the first major plane, uh, jet plane for passenger travel was the de Havilland Comet, and it crashed a lot.
00:39:48
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:39:49
Eric Weinstein: And as, as jumbo jets stabilized, you know, there was this thought, “Oh, I can go to all of these places. I can see the world.” But you can easily take yourself to another country and not understand it at all-
00:40:03
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm
00:40:04
Eric Weinstein: … what you just saw. You can form a very definite impression. You can sort of, you know, e- everything that I’m saying, I, I’m not having the sense of I’m an expert. I’m having the sense of I’m making an ass out of myself by struggling to just try to think about these things, and to do it in public is embarrassing.
00:40:20
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:40:20
Eric Weinstein: Um, it’s very hard to understand each other’s cultural references.
00:40:23
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Mm.
00:40:24
Eric Weinstein: And particularly when, um, when there’s such fine shading, you know? The, the, um… Oh, I don’t know. It, it, just within India, for example-
00:40:39
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:40:39
Eric Weinstein: … if you think about, uh, Calcutta and Tamil Nadu as twin intellectual centers of India.
00:40:47
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:40:49
Eric Weinstein: Those are very far away, but I, I often compare Calcutta to sort of like the Cambridge, Massachusetts of India.
00:40:54
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:40:54
Eric Weinstein: Um, I don’t, I don’t think we’re, I don’t think we’re going to get there. I don’t think there’s any way to have a global village unless we homogenize and destroy.
00:41:09
Prakhar Gupta: Right, and I do understand from our previous conversations that homogeneity in this way actually destroys the sort of diverse fabric of our existence. Is that it may not even be the best thing to become a global village.
00:41:21
Eric Weinstein: Well, I don’t want it.
00:41:22
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. It’s much more interesting without it.
00:41:26
Eric Weinstein: I don’t want war-
00:41:27
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
00:41:27
Eric Weinstein: … but up to war.
00:41:30
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:41:30
Eric Weinstein: Um, you know, I give, give this example of sepaktakra, which is a volleyball played with the feet that has taken over Southeast Asia.
00:41:40
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:41:40
Eric Weinstein: It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s like violent martial arts, but-
00:41:47
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah
00:41:47
Eric Weinstein: … a, a rattan ball over a net, you know?
00:41:50
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:41:51
Eric Weinstein: Um-
00:41:51
Prakhar Gupta: Pretty cool to look at.
00:41:53
Eric Weinstein: Gorgeous.
00:41:53
Prakhar Gupta: It makes no sense. How are you doing that?
00:41:55
Eric Weinstein: I, well, I busted my left ankle trying to-
00:41:57
Prakhar Gupta: You tried it?
00:41:58
Eric Weinstein: I was trying to show off for my girl in Indonesia, and I got my foot hooked on some vegetation. Ne- never mind. I found out that the word, uh, for sprain in Bahasa Indonesia is, uh, keseleo. So let’s put it, l- l- let’s leave it at that.
00:42:13
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs]
00:42:14
Eric Weinstein: Um, yeah, I, I don’t want it.
00:42:16
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:42:16
Eric Weinstein: Like, try to explain kabaddi. [laughs]
00:42:19
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:42:20
Eric Weinstein: It doesn’t make any sense. [laughs]
00:42:21
Prakhar Gupta: Draw a line, put like 10 big looking dudes on either side of the whole thing, and then, yeah, you gotta touch and run.
00:42:27
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:42:27
Prakhar Gupta: But it’s so difficult, yeah.
00:42:28
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah.
00:42:28
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right.
00:42:29
Eric Weinstein: So I worry that we’re losing some of that diversity already.
00:42:34
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:42:34
Eric Weinstein: And that if we’re ever going to be a global village, it will be by giving up something of ourselves.
00:42:40
Prakhar Gupta: You know, the common and ostensibly stupid response to sort of this worldview, maybe this is a political conspiracy, right?
00:42:52
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
00:42:52
Prakhar Gupta: Like, maybe this is of that sort of, uh, ilk, where very often it’s said this whole global village idea, the fact that we should sacrifice some of our diversity to become a global village and so on, this is actually agenda pushed by the globalists. That’s making rounds in the Indian discourse. That’s a belief pattern that is forming in the Indian conversation. I want to know from you, well- S- somebody, one from America, and two, you being you, do you think that there is a conspiratorial angle to this? Or do you think this is just an offshoot of the world progressing the way it progressed? You think there’s somebody actively pushing for uniform behaviors across cultures?
00:43:32
Eric Weinstein: It’s a, it’s an interesting question. Um, the US does not like to be threatened.
00:43:38
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:43:40
Eric Weinstein: And it’s very hard to push China around, it’s hard to push Russia around, and it’s hard to push India around, right?
00:43:49
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
00:43:49
Eric Weinstein: Very strong cultures v- with large numbers of people, with a lot of heft. I do sometimes think that the US is not doing itself any favors by trying to get, to trying to subvert the elite in order to gain a measure of control.
00:44:13
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. W-
00:44:14
Eric Weinstein: I think that that’s a long-term bad strategy for the US. Don’t-
00:44:17
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:44:17
Eric Weinstein: … e- I’m not even talking about what it does for, for the other countries.
00:44:21
Prakhar Gupta: The country, yeah, right.
00:44:22
Eric Weinstein: Um, uh, it, it’s, it has no future ultimately.
00:44:27
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:44:29
Eric Weinstein: But it’s a lot of work. You know, if you think about what the Brits tried to do with their foreign service, where they tried to really learn these other cultures, but then, uh, you, everyone ends up going native.
00:44:39
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm, hmm.
00:44:40
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:44:40
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right.
00:44:40
Eric Weinstein: So you start, you start to learn about Egypt, and you start to take on Egyptian af- affectations, and-
00:44:45
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:44:46
Eric Weinstein: … um, which is, uh, which is funny, the way in which you get this kind of reverse colonization.
00:44:51
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:44:51
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:44:52
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:44:52
Eric Weinstein: Um, I don’t know. I, I, I do think that the, the idea of having a, an international order, whether it’s, you know, the SWIFT system in finance or, um, getting people on an American arms standard, uh… Clearly global business is trying to make sure that it can protect its assets. You know, I- IP, for example.
00:45:19
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:45:19
Eric Weinstein: Uh, if you want… Uh, you know, I’m a mathematician. If you want great math books at a fraction of the price that, uh, the Europeans charge for them, go to India, and you-
00:45:30
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:45:30
Eric Weinstein: … can just load up because of the copyright violation.
00:45:33
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:45:34
Eric Weinstein: So in part, it’s an attempt to get everybody on a common standard that benefits the West.
00:45:40
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:45:41
Eric Weinstein: Um, that said, it’s clearly not working. I mean, the amount of reverse migration from colonies, uh, in Europe, you know, so the, the French had French colonies, and you get migration from there. The Brits had British colonies, you get migration from there. I, I believe that in part, the home countries’ cultures are now being, uh, tested so that people don’t even have, uh, the same concept of what it means to be British.
00:46:17
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:46:18
Eric Weinstein: Now, it’s one thing when you’re running British software on, let’s say, Indian hardware. So you have an Indian person who’s been to Cambridge and Oxford, and they speak the King’s English, and they think in British terms. Um, I’m, I’m not a, I’m not a hardware nationalist, but I do like, I do like cultures.
00:46:34
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:46:35
Eric Weinstein: And I want all of these cultures to continue.
00:46:38
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:46:38
Eric Weinstein: And I, I worry that we, we are destroying them.
00:46:41
Prakhar Gupta: Right. But, I’m sorry, I’ll go back to the question I was asking.
00:46:43
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:46:43
Prakhar Gupta: And again, this is almost, it’s almost too stupid for the rest of the conversation we’ve had. But we saw COVID being openly mishandled.
00:46:51
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:46:51
Prakhar Gupta: Right? Before COVID, what was happening in the States was this huge conversation around what came to be known as wokeism on the internet circles.
00:47:00
Eric Weinstein: Wokeism.
00:47:00
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:47:01
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:47:01
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Um, when we saw that conversation happening, us Indians, and I think Indians are privileged in a very unique sense because we come from a very desperately poor land-
00:47:11
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:47:11
Prakhar Gupta: … we are immune to stupid ideas. Because-
00:47:14
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:47:14
Prakhar Gupta: … if it doesn’t make us money, it doesn’t make, it doesn’t help us, right?
00:47:16
Eric Weinstein: How do you explain Arundhati Roy?
00:47:18
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs] Yes, right. Um, well, e- Arundhati Roy is an exception, but she also packaged herself very well in that way, right?
00:47:25
Eric Weinstein: Ah.
00:47:25
Prakhar Gupta: Like, she packaged herself so that he goes-
00:47:26
Eric Weinstein: Oh, I see. So she was a good businesswoman.
00:47:28
Prakhar Gupta: Uh, w- what I’m trying to say is, like, I could never see the, the wokeism float in India except for elite circles like Arundhati Roy.
00:47:34
Eric Weinstein: Elite, but elite circles is, is, is where it does.
00:47:36
Prakhar Gupta: Yes, because we’re very much like the rest of the world, right? Um, when COVID happened, and there was this huge discourse about how much is China involved in all of this, the Indian response to that is, “Are you going to really debate this? Isn’t it obvious to you?” And so there is a sense of pragmatism, uh, or, or l- let’s say there is a difference in which the way India looks at the rest of the world-
00:47:57
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:47:57
Prakhar Gupta: … um, and these events happening. The question I’m trying to bring us back at is that wokeism, COVID, and now we see twice Trump has had shots at himself-
00:48:09
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:48:09
Prakhar Gupta: … um, we see this war in the Middle East, and so on happening.
00:48:12
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:48:12
Prakhar Gupta: Is there, do you think there is a more animated behind-the-scenes operation that’s being run? Is there a conspiracy for globalism, for a global world order, or is it just happenstance?
00:48:25
Eric Weinstein: There is an American conspiracy to keep shipping, finance, energy working in a particular way-
00:48:42
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:48:42
Eric Weinstein: … that America justifies as benefiting everyone, but maybe it benefits America first.
00:48:47
Prakhar Gupta: Fair.
00:48:48
Eric Weinstein: And in a certain sense-
00:48:51
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:48:52
Eric Weinstein: … you have these international agreements and alliances that are thought to stabilize the world. And so those who do not subscribe are viewed as enemies, and those who do subscribe are viewed as friends. That is not going to survive.
00:49:10
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:49:11
Eric Weinstein: Uh, the time in which one could impose that, I think-
00:49:16
Prakhar Gupta: Has passed
00:49:17
Eric Weinstein: … is passing. Let’s put it that way.
00:49:19
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:49:19
Eric Weinstein: Uh, the distance from World War II, the, the- Power of the phone and, uh, telecommunications makes it almost impossible for this to go on. Because you, people had to remain somewhat ignorant of what was actually going on.
00:49:34
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:49:35
Eric Weinstein: And I do believe that that is… There are elements in both the Republican and Democratic parties of the United States that are supportive of this order.
00:49:47
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:49:48
Eric Weinstein: But that order is threatened by every presidential election every four years.
00:49:54
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:49:54
Eric Weinstein: And the parties lost the ability to prevent populists. Now, the Democratic Party has never had a populist stand for a general election, but 2016 was the earthquake, and it wasn’t… I may dislike Trump, but I l- I dislike Trump for reasons totally different than Washington dislikes Trump.
00:50:15
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:50:15
Eric Weinstein: Washington doesn’t like Trump because he doesn’t subscribe to the order, and that’s my, in my opinion, that’s probably his best quality-
00:50:23
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:50:23
Eric Weinstein: … is that the order needs to be rethought. Now, I don’t think Donald Trump is the person to rethink the order.
00:50:29
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:50:30
Eric Weinstein: But I have no idea what the heck’s going on in Ukraine. You, you, you do not dance with Putin, um, casually.
00:50:39
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:50:40
Eric Weinstein: And the argument for why we are doing what we’re doing with Ukraine is a threadbare argument. It’s, it’s like a, a stick figure sketch rather than an actual paint-
00:50:52
Prakhar Gupta: Proper, full argument with meat, yes.
00:50:54
Eric Weinstein: 100%.
00:50:54
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:50:55
Eric Weinstein: And so that thing only exists through bullying. If you even so much as question, um, the Ukraine, the support, the permanent support for Ukraine a- against, uh-
00:51:09
Prakhar Gupta: Russia
00:51:09
Eric Weinstein: … Russia-
00:51:10
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:51:10
Eric Weinstein: … you’re besieged by tiny accounts online. “You’re an idiot. You’re Putin’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
00:51:17
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:51:17
Eric Weinstein: Which is almost certainly a bot network-
00:51:19
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:51:19
Eric Weinstein: … of some kind that somebody has paid for.
00:51:21
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:51:22
Eric Weinstein: So we’re going to have to use more and more force to enforce that order.
00:51:29
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:51:30
Eric Weinstein: And it’s not gonna work ultimately.
00:51:32
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Um, this is exactly what I mean. Like, so if you ask an American… I remember I was in New York when the war broke out between Ukraine and Russia, and there were buildings with Ukraine, Ukraine’s flag lit up on them, right? Um, and if you asked any American at that point why is there such a loud support for Ukraine, the buzzword or the common answer were buzzwords like democracy and freedom.
00:51:54
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:51:54
Prakhar Gupta: And there is a sort of immunity that poverty lends to you in India, where you look at it and you’re like, “No, that’s not democracy and freedom. There has to be some monetary exchange happening somewhere.”
00:52:02
Eric Weinstein: Well, but in part it’s political incorrectness. Now if you, if you think about it-
00:52:06
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:52:06
Eric Weinstein: … Indians are bizarrely non-self-conscious relative to Western mindset.
00:52:10
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:52:11
Eric Weinstein: So for example, nobody in the US has servants.
00:52:16
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:52:17
Eric Weinstein: They have people who work in the house.
00:52:18
Prakhar Gupta: We say domestic helps, by the way.
00:52:20
Eric Weinstein: What?
00:52:20
Prakhar Gupta: Servants is too-
00:52:21
Eric Weinstein: Sorry.
00:52:21
Prakhar Gupta: No, I was just joking.
00:52:22
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:52:22
Prakhar Gupta: But that’s why we say domestic helps.
00:52:23
Eric Weinstein: But like you go to, you go to India and you say, you know, something, you mention that people have servants, um, because that’s the word that’s used.
00:52:31
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Yeah.
00:52:32
Eric Weinstein: And, and, and then, uh, somebody will say to you, “Well, everybody has servants.”
00:52:37
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:52:37
Eric Weinstein: And then you’re thinking, “Do, do you hear yourself?” [laughs]
00:52:40
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:52:40
Eric Weinstein: Um, in part India is closer… Is saying you have servants is more honest.
00:52:50
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:52:51
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:52:51
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
00:52:51
Eric Weinstein: And saying everybody has servants, what does that mean? It means that you, y- you’ve forgotten-
00:52:58
Prakhar Gupta: The rest of the world
00:52:59
Eric Weinstein: … the rest, well, and the rest of the world in India below your level.
00:53:03
Prakhar Gupta: Yes.
00:53:05
Eric Weinstein: So I, I find that you can say things in India because there isn’t this super ego that immediately censors you, and that’s both good and bad. It’s, it’s ugly-
00:53:16
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:53:17
Eric Weinstein: … but it’s also honest and real.
00:53:20
Prakhar Gupta: I think that super ego acts in a way where I cannot get away with saying I don’t want to get married. You see? Like the, the super ego imposes its-
00:53:26
Eric Weinstein: Are you mad? [laughs]
00:53:27
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs] What are you saying?
00:53:29
Eric Weinstein: What are you saying? [laughs]
00:53:30
Prakhar Gupta: Right? You think, right. Um, but, uh, let me draw you to the conversation we were having before about Ukraine and such, and-
00:53:37
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:53:38
Prakhar Gupta: … and, and I, I, I… So I see that you peg sort of this, this conspiracy theory onto American interests. It’s not conspiracy to you, it’s America enforcing its wills through documents, through trade agreements and so on.
00:53:50
Eric Weinstein: Well, it’s also we’re footing the bill for, uh-
00:53:52
Prakhar Gupta: Enormous nations
00:53:53
Eric Weinstein: … you know, a lot, a lot of the, you know, the, the, the enforcement of this world order.
00:53:57
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:53:58
Eric Weinstein: And so we have a sense of we’re paying our tax dollars into a military to… So of course, we’re going to expect something in return to be-
00:54:06
Prakhar Gupta: Right
00:54:06
Eric Weinstein: … you know, bringing order to the world.
00:54:07
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. Who do you think shot, the first time, who do you think shot at Trump, and what is happening in that specific playing field? What’s your guess?
00:54:16
Eric Weinstein: The first shooter I didn’t have a strong sense that anything was particularly bizarre. It seemed like in a country with way too many AR-15s s-
00:54:28
Prakhar Gupta: It’s some random isolated incident.
00:54:30
Eric Weinstein: Probably.
00:54:30
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
00:54:31
Eric Weinstein: The second shooter, whoa.
00:54:35
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:54:36
Eric Weinstein: Just, just, just look at the facts.
00:54:39
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:54:39
Eric Weinstein: If you just look at the facts, you’ll scare yourself because that is a highly non-random individual.
00:54:46
Prakhar Gupta: What are the facts?
00:54:48
Eric Weinstein: That he was apparently… I don’t know. Do you follow Mike Benz at all?
00:54:52
Prakhar Gupta: No. Who’s Mike Benz?
00:54:54
Eric Weinstein: Um, Mike Benz makes the point that this is a guy who was recruiting, as he says it, passports for no-look visas, so almost certainly a CIA affiliated individual. And, you know, you have to remember that central intelligence is not really what makes the CIA controversial. It’s covert operations that makes the CIA controversial. It’s not the in- intelligence part. Everybody has a right to try to learn what’s going on in the world as best they can. It’s the ability to do- Secret things that you don’t have to disclose. And a covert operation is one which is deniable. The technical concept of covert is deniability.
00:55:40
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:55:41
Eric Weinstein: That means that when your cover is blown, you have an explanation that is baked into the story. And what I would say is it’s a terrifying thing that this guy appears to be recruiting passports for jihadis to move to Ukraine and fight-
00:56:00
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:56:00
Eric Weinstein: … ah, for no-look visas, where basically these visas are granted through a special channel that is not acknowledged.
00:56:07
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:56:09
Eric Weinstein: I, I think it’s an absolutely terrifying thing to have to confront.
00:56:14
Prakhar Gupta: Even if these facts did not exist, and there were two instances back to back in the run up to an election, would that not constitute enough questioning? Like, is that not s-
00:56:25
Eric Weinstein: Y- you’re asking an incredibly dangerous question rather casually.
00:56:31
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. Maybe it’s because I’m Indian.
00:56:33
Eric Weinstein: In other words, the podcast will end, and I will have to go back to my regular life.
00:56:37
Prakhar Gupta: Oh.
00:56:40
Eric Weinstein: Now, we know-
00:56:41
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:56:42
Eric Weinstein: … that the intelligence services, through their covert operations divisions, have been involved in assassinations and regime toppling, and all sorts of things. It is sort of inconceivable to us. Like the JFK assassination is particularly terrifying because there is reason to think that there was involvement, uh, of our covert operations division.
00:57:07
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:57:08
Eric Weinstein: And you know that because covert operations are deniable, that the whole point of them is to say, “Oh, you think that? That’s completely crazy.”
00:57:18
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:57:19
Eric Weinstein: That’s how we operate. That’s how we roll.
00:57:21
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:57:21
Eric Weinstein: And I know that the right answer is to say, “Well, surely you don’t think that I…”
00:57:28
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:57:28
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know.
00:57:29
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:57:29
Eric Weinstein: I mean, it– But that second shooter, who didn’t shoot, by the way, I think you’ve said that he-
00:57:34
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right, right. He didn’t shoot, yeah
00:57:36
Eric Weinstein: … um, I’m just, I’m just– I’m at a loss for words, given this person’s background.
00:57:53
Prakhar Gupta: I, I see it. Um, and I also understand your position. And it is, for young Prakar who would resort to listening to Eric to make sense of the world, it’s interesting or fascinating, I don’t know what the right word is, to know that Eric has no way of putting words together to answer this question. Because I think it’s staring us in the face, and I think the larger part of this question is effectively why is nobody asking?
00:58:17
Eric Weinstein: So we agree not to ask.
00:58:18
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:58:18
Eric Weinstein: So for example, we know that Sullivan, who I think was number two at FBI, attempt to induce Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself. We have the letter mailed to Martin Luther King Jr. We assassinated Fred Hampton, who was the original, um, innovator of the Rainbow Coalition, which was a plan to get Black gangs to stop fighting each other, to form a political union and try to get positive social change.
00:58:44
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:58:46
Eric Weinstein: We know we toppled, uh, the regime the, in Chile with Operation Condor, and we know that Kermit Roosevelt and company did this in Iran with Operation Ajax. Yet you are not allowed-
00:59:03
Prakhar Gupta: To ask that question about it
00:59:04
Eric Weinstein: … to ask that question-
00:59:06
Prakhar Gupta: Domestically
00:59:07
Eric Weinstein: … until there’s a hearing.
00:59:08
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:59:09
Eric Weinstein: Right? And so in a, in a certain sense, the reason that we can’t talk about this is that we have an agreement that is implicit with our intelligence service, which isn’t our intelligence service, it’s our covert operation divisions-
00:59:23
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:59:24
Eric Weinstein: … not to pry into covert operations. So in a certain sense, if you start to ask questions, what the government does, it says, “That’s above your pay grade. Let me, let me fire a couple shots across your bow. I’m gonna call you a conspiracy theorist-
00:59:38
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
00:59:38
Eric Weinstein: … and say that you’re wackadoodle.”
00:59:39
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
00:59:40
Eric Weinstein: “And then I’m gonna get some accounts that aren’t known to be linked to the government to denounce you.”
00:59:46
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:59:46
Eric Weinstein: And you won’t know what hit you.
00:59:47
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
00:59:48
Eric Weinstein: So what I’m saying is, is that a lot of the reason we don’t talk about this is the word covert. If something is deniable, it means that the government will use methods at its disposal to make sure that the pain it will visit upon anyone who asks too many questions will be insurmountable.
01:00:12
Prakhar Gupta: Right. I have a personal question.
01:00:14
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:00:15
Prakhar Gupta: Um, and it’s been sort of an observation, maybe it’s incorrect. Do you think these swarms of people who eventually came to Twitter under your sort of tweets and sort of, you know, went at you, did that psychologically bother you? Did that, uh, obstruct your adventure into making sense for a while?
01:00:34
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
01:00:34
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah?
01:00:34
Eric Weinstein: Sure. Yeah.
01:00:35
Prakhar Gupta: It’s, it’s– Was it psychologically unhealthy? Did you find yourself-
01:00:38
Eric Weinstein: See, you’re phrasing this psychologically unhealthy.
01:00:40
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
01:00:40
Eric Weinstein: That’s not where it comes from. It’s a credible threat.
01:00:44
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:00:45
Eric Weinstein: In other words, if somebody were to cut your hand off, you wouldn’t ask that question. You wouldn’t say, “Does, does losing your hand to a machete bother you?”
01:00:55
Prakhar Gupta: Sure.
01:00:56
Eric Weinstein: So to phrase it as a psychological issue is not accurate. It’s a credible threat to destroy your life.
01:01:04
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:01:05
Eric Weinstein: Something feels very comfortable hiding in the shadows, and… I mean, look, we know from past conspiracies how this works. So when the Tobacco Institute, uh, was forced to, uh, disgorge its documents of how it had operated, um, we got a record of how this conspiracy to keep, um- The linkage between cigarettes and cancer hidden
01:01:39
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:01:42
Eric Weinstein: We know from the dirty tricks campaign known as COINTELPRO that lived inside of the FBI that the government will ruin your life if they don’t like what you’re doing.
01:01:54
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:01:54
Eric Weinstein: This is what was done, um, to a very famous Hollywood actress where they spread a rumor that, um, she had cuckolded her husband with a Black Panthers and was carrying a, a half Black child, and she miscarried from the stress.
01:02:16
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:02:16
Eric Weinstein: And, uh, they planted the story with a woman named Joyce Haber, uh, at the Los Angeles Times. So we have the entire record of the government using the press to plant a story to destroy somebody whose politics they didn’t… She hadn’t broken any laws.
01:02:33
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:02:34
Eric Weinstein: Um, so we know how conspiracies work, and then you’re not supposed to believe that any are active.
01:02:46
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Right.
01:02:48
Eric Weinstein: Right? And so this is very… This is a very disturbing place to be in, because you wanna say, “Look, I can tell you 10 instances of the government doing absolutely diabolical things to protect its secrets, and yet should I say that, you call me a conspiracy theorist, and then my career starts to tank or whatever.”
01:03:09
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:03:09
Eric Weinstein: Um, th- this is a nasty game. So the… We are supposed to pretend that we don’t believe in conspiracies.
01:03:17
Prakhar Gupta: H- In that case-
01:03:18
Eric Weinstein: And, and yet we know conspiracies are everywhere.
01:03:20
Prakhar Gupta: And particularly in the post-COVID world, I feel like conspiracy is more normal than normal is. I feel like I would much rather trust an off source citing it to be conspiracy than the official narrative.
01:03:29
Eric Weinstein: Well, the problem is, is that mostly the heterodox are not very good.
01:03:33
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:03:34
Eric Weinstein: And the establishment are not very honest.
01:03:36
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. In, in that environment, how do you think Rogan exists? Like-
01:03:41
Eric Weinstein: Say more.
01:03:42
Prakhar Gupta: I mean, well, you, you can make the argument that Rogan’s not ruffling enough feathers, but I think from somebody who’s followed him, him doing his work for a long time, I think he’s ruffling enough feathers.
01:03:52
Eric Weinstein: Okay.
01:03:52
Prakhar Gupta: I feel like particularly during COVID and the ivermectin stuff, um, he was saying enough things that did not agree with heterodox politics.
01:04:00
Eric Weinstein: So they tried taking him down numerous times.
01:04:02
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right.
01:04:03
Eric Weinstein: And the problem that they had in taking him down was that everybody already knew Joe Rogan.
01:04:09
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:04:10
Eric Weinstein: In other words, if you’ve been watching his show-
01:04:12
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm
01:04:14
Eric Weinstein: … he talked about all sorts of stuff from drug use to-
01:04:19
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah
01:04:19
Eric Weinstein: … sexual antics to… So you knew who he was.
01:04:23
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Right, I see what you mean. So he was insured because of his publicity, because of the fact that people know.
01:04:29
Eric Weinstein: Because you’ve, you’ve been th- A- And by the way, he’s like that in person. He’s not a different guy on the show-
01:04:36
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:04:36
Eric Weinstein: … as he is to hang out with.
01:04:37
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:04:38
Eric Weinstein: And so basically we’re talking about America’s friend.
01:04:44
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:04:46
Eric Weinstein: And like, “But I know Joe.”
01:04:48
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, right. He is the average Joe in that way.
01:04:50
Eric Weinstein: Well, i- sort of.
01:04:51
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, right, right, right. In that, in the way that everybody thinks of him as their neighbor, like everybody knows Joe.
01:04:56
Eric Weinstein: Well, for example, the whole N-word controversy.
01:04:58
Prakhar Gupta: That was so stupid.
01:05:00
Eric Weinstein: Well, but in… [laughs] People don’t understand why the N-word is radioactive. In part it’s an in-grouping, um, word. So if you hang around a, a lot of American Blacks, uh, it will be used, you’ll be granted permission or forced to use this word with a hard R-
01:05:26
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:05:27
Eric Weinstein: … in order to say-
01:05:28
Prakhar Gupta: We are friends.
01:05:29
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:05:30
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. That we’re part of the same clique.
01:05:31
Eric Weinstein: Exactly.
01:05:32
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
01:05:32
Eric Weinstein: So, you know, like my closest friend, you know, is, is a, is a Muslim, and we joke about m- me owning all the newspapers and controlling the banks, and him being a terrorist strapped with a suicide belt, you know?
01:05:46
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs]
01:05:46
Eric Weinstein: And this is how-
01:05:47
Prakhar Gupta: People make friends.
01:05:48
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:05:49
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:05:49
Eric Weinstein: Is that we, we touch the uncomfortable and it-
01:05:51
Prakhar Gupta: And then it’s no longer as sensitive.
01:05:53
Eric Weinstein: Exactly.
01:05:53
Prakhar Gupta: Yes.
01:05:54
Eric Weinstein: And so this other thing which, oh, nobody should say anything, it, it doesn’t work that way. Now what happened to Joe is, is that Joe had been, uh, you know, comedy, I wouldn’t say that Blacks are, are the dominant force, but they’re an incredibly-
01:06:07
Prakhar Gupta: Strong, yeah
01:06:08
Eric Weinstein: … incredibly strong force in comedy. Um, and he was just comfortable in that, in that idiom, and so then they tried to make it, “Okay, well, he’s clearly a bigot.”
01:06:17
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
01:06:17
Eric Weinstein: Like, oh, shut up.
01:06:18
Prakhar Gupta: Right. Nobody’s gonna believe that.
01:06:20
Eric Weinstein: Well, that was the thing.
01:06:21
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:06:21
Eric Weinstein: It was embarrassing-
01:06:22
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:06:22
Eric Weinstein: … and it hurt him, but he was able to survive wave after wave after wave. And so if they’re, if they’re not gonna kill him, they don’t know what to do about him.
01:06:30
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. Right. Um, I have one last question.
01:06:35
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
01:06:35
Prakhar Gupta: Um, and that is what do you think is happening in the Middle East, and how worried should the rest of the world be?
01:06:39
Eric Weinstein: You’d be very worried.
01:06:40
Prakhar Gupta: Very worried?
01:06:41
Eric Weinstein: Very worried.
01:06:41
Prakhar Gupta: Like future threatening worried?
01:06:45
Eric Weinstein: This could work out really well, and it could work out absolutely disastrously. Um, Iran is… By the way, I don’t wanna even say Iran.
01:06:56
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. It’s a regime.
01:06:57
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:06:58
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
01:06:58
Eric Weinstein: The mullahs, the ayatollahs-
01:07:00
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:07:01
Eric Weinstein: … uh, those bad boys are super dangerous.
01:07:06
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:07:07
Eric Weinstein: Uh, through their tentacles, by the way.
01:07:08
Prakhar Gupta: Yes.
01:07:09
Eric Weinstein: And my, my concern is that li- violence is a language.
01:07:17
Prakhar Gupta: Yes.
01:07:17
Eric Weinstein: When people don’t speak violence natively, you have miscommunications.
01:07:24
Prakhar Gupta: Say more.
01:07:27
Eric Weinstein: So did… You saw those, uh, ballistic, hypersonic ballistic missiles falling in Israel?
01:07:35
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:07:38
Eric Weinstein: Yet no Israelis were killed?
01:07:40
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:07:40
Eric Weinstein: Why is that?
01:07:42
Prakhar Gupta: I, I thought that’s because of the shelters, the bomb shelters where people get-
01:07:44
Eric Weinstein: I don’t think so
01:07:45
Prakhar Gupta: … hide. Yeah
01:07:45
Eric Weinstein: I think it’s because they didn’t want to kill any Israelis.
01:07:48
Prakhar Gupta: They’re trying to do a PR activity?
01:07:51
Eric Weinstein: No. It’s what, what you would call-
01:07:53
Prakhar Gupta: Oh
01:07:53
Eric Weinstein: … a credible advertisement.
01:07:55
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:07:55
Eric Weinstein: It’s like, “We can get through your Iron Dome. You may not know that, so we’re going to show you that you are defenseless.” Like, “If we want to unleash a barrage on Tel Aviv-“
01:08:05
Prakhar Gupta: We can do it
01:08:06
Eric Weinstein: … we can do it.
01:08:08
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:08:09
Eric Weinstein: Now, that’s how I read what just happened.
01:08:14
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. It’s like that horse in Godfather, the head of the horse being placed in the bed of the fo- Hollywood film producer.
01:08:21
Eric Weinstein: Mm. Brilliant.
01:08:23
Prakhar Gupta: Right?
01:08:23
Eric Weinstein: It’s exactly that.
01:08:24
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. Right.
01:08:25
Eric Weinstein: Right? And so the idea is that message violence, people don’t understand what message violence is.
01:08:33
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:08:33
Eric Weinstein: In general, you could kill somebody, but if you kill them in a spectacularly disturbing fashion, you might not have to kill anyone else.
01:08:43
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. ‘Cause the message travels.
01:08:45
Eric Weinstein: Because it’s so disturbing that you understand, hey, these people are absolutely not pla-
01:08:51
Prakhar Gupta: Ruthless, yeah. Right
01:08:51
Eric Weinstein: … they’re not playing around.
01:08:53
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:08:53
Eric Weinstein: And so in part, the idea of the language of violence is not well understood.
01:09:01
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:09:03
Eric Weinstein: What’s more, people speak it with different accents, and there are false cognates.
01:09:08
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:09:08
Eric Weinstein: Right? So when you, when you threaten Jews, you have to understand how much genera- intergenerational trauma there is.
01:09:19
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:09:19
Eric Weinstein: Uh, they’re not going to respond as if, you know, if you threaten Muslims, Muslims know that they’re like, how many countries are Muslim and how many people? It’s, it’s a, it’s a large organization, let’s put it that way.
01:09:33
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:09:33
Eric Weinstein: There aren’t that many Jews.
01:09:34
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:09:34
Eric Weinstein: Jews are gonna fight back in a different fashion. So m- my concern is that Iran tried to communicate with Israel.
01:09:43
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:09:44
Eric Weinstein: And Israel is going to interpret that probably as license to take out what it really fears, which is, like, the nuclear facilities.
01:09:56
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:09:59
Eric Weinstein: What’s more, I don’t think the population of Iran supports its mullahs.
01:10:03
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:10:04
Eric Weinstein: It’s a small sliver that really believes in the ayatollahs.
01:10:08
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:10:09
Eric Weinstein: Um, what’s more, Lebanon, you know, is a complicated place, and so the south, the Shia south, and the, uh, you know-
01:10:17
Prakhar Gupta: Sunni north
01:10:17
Eric Weinstein: … yeah, and the, and the Christians, you know, these are very different things. Now the, the Israelis are much more attuned to, to Levin- Lebanon-
01:10:25
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:10:25
Eric Weinstein: … because they’ve been in a bunch of times.
01:10:27
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:10:27
Eric Weinstein: But I really worry that, um, we’ve seen the skilled butchers exit the scene.
01:10:37
Prakhar Gupta: What do you mean skilled butchers?
01:10:39
Eric Weinstein: Saddam Hussein was a very skilled butcher.
01:10:42
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:10:42
Eric Weinstein: He was, if you ever look at how h- the Ba’ath Party took over, um-
01:10:47
Prakhar Gupta: Iraq
01:10:47
Eric Weinstein: … when he basically-
01:10:48
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm
01:10:49
Eric Weinstein: … uh, you know, he started denouncing people and having them, uh-
01:10:52
Prakhar Gupta: Taken away
01:10:53
Eric Weinstein: … taken away-
01:10:54
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:10:54
Eric Weinstein: … on video.
01:10:55
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:10:55
Eric Weinstein: And then he hands the, the sidearms to the remaining people to make them complicit.
01:11:00
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:11:01
Eric Weinstein: Absolutely diabolical.
01:11:03
Prakhar Gupta: But stylish.
01:11:04
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] I don’t want to say that.
01:11:05
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:11:05
Eric Weinstein: I would say message violence spoken, uh, a- a- as perfectly as anyone has ever spoken message violence.
01:11:14
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:11:15
Eric Weinstein: If you think about Ha- Hafez al-Assad-
01:11:17
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:11:17
Eric Weinstein: … if you think about Ariel Sharon, these were people who spoke violence at a very high level.
01:11:23
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Mm.
01:11:24
Eric Weinstein: Now, it’s a weird thing to say, because we all agree that violence is bad.
01:11:29
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:11:30
Eric Weinstein: But that means we don’t understand what’s going on. So if you’re, if you s- if you bring in judgment, I, I, I don’t believe that violence is good.
01:11:39
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:11:39
Eric Weinstein: But I do believe that a skilled butcher is a skilled butcher.
01:11:43
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:11:44
Eric Weinstein: And I worry that a lot of these current leaders are not skilled, and that means that the violence could spiral completely out of control.
01:11:55
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Mm.
01:11:56
Eric Weinstein: Particularly with what’s going on with Putin and Ukraine, um, clearly there’s some sort of long range plan that I don’t think has been updated, uh, to-
01:12:08
Prakhar Gupta: I think Russia has a long play. They’re, they’re gonna wait for-
01:12:11
Eric Weinstein: Well-
01:12:11
Prakhar Gupta: Like, that seems to be the case, no?
01:12:12
Eric Weinstein: I, I mean a, an American plan-
01:12:14
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:12:14
Eric Weinstein: … from the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall-
01:12:18
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:12:19
Eric Weinstein: … is that I think that w- what you’re looking at is a 30-year plan to start to encircle Moscow.
01:12:25
Prakhar Gupta: Wow.
01:12:26
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:12:27
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. That sounds, I mean-
01:12:29
Eric Weinstein: I mean, particularly 2004, which is when you saw the Baltics, um, admitted to Article 5 status within NATO.
01:12:37
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:12:38
Eric Weinstein: It was one thing in, in 1999 when Poland was admitted, because it was Warsaw Pact, but it wasn’t FSU. It wasn’t former Soviet Union. In 2004, we did something that I saw then as crossing a line.
01:12:52
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:12:52
Eric Weinstein: And I thought, “Are you, are you mad?”
01:12:54
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:12:55
Eric Weinstein: “You’re gonna make Latvia,” which is, you know, very close to Moscow in c- in certain terms, uh, NATO.
01:13:02
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:13:02
Eric Weinstein: And I don’t know where we get the confidence, the, the same people who tell me that Putin will never use nuclear weapons are the same people who told me that Putin will never invade Ukraine.
01:13:14
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. Yeah, I’m not sure if I would trust expert intelligence on that. I think human motivations act very differently.
01:13:20
Eric Weinstein: I’m with you.
01:13:20
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:13:20
Eric Weinstein: And, and, and, you know, cornering a skilled player will make a skilled player into a reactive player.
01:13:29
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:13:30
Eric Weinstein: I worry that when most of us are cornered, we behave limbically.
01:13:35
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:13:35
Eric Weinstein: And you may think, “Well, he wouldn’t do that. He’s, he’s rich. Why would he destroy himself and his country?” And the short answer, first of all, I, I tell everybody that the Russians had different relationships to nuclear weapons. They used them for engineering purposes in a way that we never did. Uh, um, and if you’ve, if you’ve ever drunk vodka with pickles with Russians, Russians are very different. They may look-
01:14:02
Prakhar Gupta: Similar
01:14:02
Eric Weinstein: … somewhat similar.
01:14:03
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
01:14:03
Eric Weinstein: That is a very different culture.
01:14:05
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:14:06
Eric Weinstein: And, and its relationship to risk is completely different than the American relationship to risk. So I think we don’t understand the Middle East, we don’t intuit it. We don’t understand Eastern and Central Europe. We certainly don’t intuit, uh, India and Pakistan. We don’t in- intuit China and India. We don’t intuit China and Tai- Taiwan.
01:14:27
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:14:28
Eric Weinstein: So I just think about a bunch of people in Foggy Bottom or-
01:14:32
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah
01:14:33
Eric Weinstein: … uh, inside the Beltway who fancy themselves experts on the world and have no clue how the world actually works, and I… That scares me.
01:14:42
Prakhar Gupta: And I also feel like it’s, to deal with somebody like a Putin, the difference is that he doesn’t have to pander to his local population as much as the Americans have to, for that matter, right?
01:14:51
Eric Weinstein: Well-
01:14:55
Prakhar Gupta: So his motivation structure’s very different
01:14:57
Eric Weinstein: … the Putins of Russia, Russia was fractal in the sense it was Putins all the way down.
01:15:04
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:15:04
Eric Weinstein: Right? It’s a strongman culture.
01:15:06
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:15:08
Eric Weinstein: In general, Russians wanna see strength.
01:15:10
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:15:12
Eric Weinstein: So he does have to project strength.
01:15:15
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:15:15
Eric Weinstein: But, um, but I don’t think… You know, Americans make fun of him being, you know, bare-chested on a horse or doing judo or whatever.
01:15:26
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:15:27
Eric Weinstein: And it’s like you… No, you just don’t get the language.
01:15:29
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, you don’t get the cultural complex of it.
01:15:31
Eric Weinstein: You d- you don’t get the cultural complex.
01:15:33
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:15:33
Eric Weinstein: And so what I’m, what I’m worried about is that a bunch of people who grew up in the US, the US is not like the rest of the world.
01:15:40
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm.
01:15:40
Eric Weinstein: And our foreign policy is extremely muscular, and our domestic policy is kind of flabby and weak. And I worry that people who don’t intuit how the rest of the world works are going to make decisions and find out that the w- rest of the world isn’t going to behave the way they expect. What we sh- really also need to be worried about is a Suez Crisis, that the British Empire really ended, uh, during the Suez Crisis when it was revealed that it wasn’t potent enough to, to pull off what it needed to do.
01:16:13
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:16:14
Eric Weinstein: And I worry that we have an idea that the US is an amazing superpower, but if you watch the way we withdrew from out- A- Afghanistan, um, are we as good as we think we are? Are we as strong?
01:16:28
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm.
01:16:29
Eric Weinstein: Do, do our, uh, do our aircraft carriers work as well as we claim? Are our bases as stocked with munition? I don’t know i- if, if, if the US is revealed not to be capable of managing the Taiwan Strait, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Middle East simultaneously, we got real problems.
01:16:50
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah. I, I see what you’re saying about Afghanistan from… And from the outside, it would seem like a more willingness to spend problem than having the money problem or having the ammunition problem. I feel like Afghanistan was sure embarrassing. Um, but again, this could be my imagination. I feel that the United States is armed to the neck, except that it doesn’t want to show.
01:17:14
Eric Weinstein: We probably have some stuff that nobody’s ever seen. So we, we’ve seen in the Ukraine situation that things are quite a bit different. Th- battle has changed in-
01:17:24
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:17:25
Eric Weinstein: … in, in particular, you know-
01:17:27
Prakhar Gupta: Drone battle.
01:17:28
Eric Weinstein: Oh, my God.
01:17:29
Prakhar Gupta: Robots fighting each other.
01:17:30
Eric Weinstein: Sure, sure.
01:17:30
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:17:31
Eric Weinstein: Um, there are kinds of warfare that we have never seen that I’m sure that we’re capable of that we’re trying to hold back. But not having finesse, you know, if the only-
01:17:43
Prakhar Gupta: Oh, sure
01:17:43
Eric Weinstein: … thing that you have is absolutely massive force and you can’t pull off surgical stuff-
01:17:51
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm
01:17:51
Eric Weinstein: … then you’ve got a real problem.
01:17:53
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, ’cause force will meet force.
01:17:55
Eric Weinstein: Well, it, it, it means that you, you want to escalate in a way where people know that you have a credible threat at every stage of the escalation.
01:18:06
Prakhar Gupta: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:18:07
Eric Weinstein: But if you immediately go-
01:18:09
Prakhar Gupta: To 10 from zero
01:18:11
Eric Weinstein: … yeah, that’s not the way to conduct violence.
01:18:13
Prakhar Gupta: That’s not a good way to play poker either.
01:18:15
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:18:15
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:18:16
Eric Weinstein: All in.
01:18:17
Prakhar Gupta: All in. Um, Eric, do you have a question for me or suggestion for me, anything at all?
01:18:21
Eric Weinstein: Well, I mean, m- m- my first question, uh, is what do we do to really enliven the Indian podcasting sphere? I think that we absolutely need India to take off. And, you know, I’ll, I’ll bring up a f- a sort of a funny example. You know this, this woman, uh, Zarna Garg?
01:18:47
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, comedian.
01:18:48
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:18:48
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:18:49
Eric Weinstein: So-
01:18:50
Prakhar Gupta: Shout out, Zarna, yeah.
01:18:52
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] Uh, I really think that it would be hugely beneficial if we had… What do we do to get better English language podcasting out of India and to be able to use the fact that in a w- certain sense Indians are more free to discuss-
01:19:13
Prakhar Gupta: Hmm
01:19:14
Eric Weinstein: … some of the things that our cultural programming says are, are f- are forbidden or taboo?
01:19:19
Prakhar Gupta: I think the second part of that question is very potent because I absolutely agree. I can discuss things that you cannot, right, um, and get away with it. M-
01:19:30
Eric Weinstein: You did ask a bunch of questions about the shooters.
01:19:32
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs] I know. I saw that. Um, my guess is this, right? And I think this is happening organically. If you were to ask what we do about it actively, it’s a separate question. We see this happening organically now where enough colonization has occurred in Canada-
01:19:46
Eric Weinstein: Hmm
01:19:47
Prakhar Gupta: The, the Western and the Eastern part of America, where there is enough of a population such that any enterprise built for them is successful, and even somewhat more successful than built, built for India. And so that conversation has begun. As far as content and podcasting goes, I think the formula is much more simple.
01:20:04
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
01:20:04
Prakhar Gupta: And I’ll give you an example. Any person who ends up on Rogan-
01:20:08
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:20:09
Prakhar Gupta: … as much as, uh, uh, as long as they end up on Rogan, they can have a podcast and carry that credibility. What I mean is, if your initial podcasts in the Anglosphere space as an Indian person are all great podcasts-
01:20:21
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:20:21
Prakhar Gupta: … then it’s easy to carry the momentum into building a sort of cross national, uh, platform. I think Indians have a very unique ability to speak in English and have a completely different personality, and speak in Hindi and have a completely different personality, and then-
01:20:33
Eric Weinstein: Uh-huh
01:20:33
Prakhar Gupta: … be fluent in both of them pretty much, right? Um, so I think the way I would approach that problem for myself is I’m just gonna call up as many people as I can who I’ve grown up admiring and who I think will contribute to the discourse, and maybe create a separate channel. Maybe even do that. Maybe even create, cater to a separate kind of audience, because I do find through this conversation that a lot of what has been discussed may not be as interesting to my native audience, that they’re interested in different subject matter.
01:20:57
Eric Weinstein: Are we boring the hell out of them right now?
01:20:59
Prakhar Gupta: No, I, I mean, I think these guys are very interested. Right? I think they’re, they’re all very interested.
01:21:04
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
01:21:04
Prakhar Gupta: But I, when I imagine my average viewer, I think only a small percentage of them will be very interested.
01:21:08
Eric Weinstein: Okay, well, I was talking about billions, and you got two guys o- over there against the wall.
01:21:12
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, looking like billions, right? [laughs]
01:21:14
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
01:21:15
Prakhar Gupta: Um, I, I, I, I really think the world is sleeping on India.
01:21:19
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:21:19
Prakhar Gupta: And I think the world is sleeping on its potential, both in the arts, cultures, as well as the content sort of, uh, dialogue sphere. And whether people like it or not, like one of my, um, contemporaries was actually-
01:21:30
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:21:30
Prakhar Gupta: … speaking to Naval earlier, or actually-
01:21:32
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:21:32
Prakhar Gupta: … released a podcast with Naval earlier, one of the two, right? And so that bridge is being built as we talk. What the shape of that will be, I’m not sure.
01:21:41
Eric Weinstein: I would love to be part of that because I, my feeling is, is that we need connections between, I don’t know, the Lex Fridmans and, and beer biceps guy or what- whatever-
01:21:54
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:21:54
Eric Weinstein: … you know?
01:21:54
Prakhar Gupta: Right, yeah.
01:21:55
Eric Weinstein: Um, but particularly, you know, we were talking before, uh, ab- about, um, you know, the In- Indian intelligentsia.
01:22:04
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Right.
01:22:05
Eric Weinstein: It would be really great to get the Indian intelligentsia on American podcasts and the reverse. And I, I, I think about going to India for like three months or something and starting a series, um, because I, I think that India’s simply too big and too important to be in our blind spot.
01:22:24
Prakhar Gupta: And I think given the geopolitical circumstance we are in, India’s also going to be unignorable. Um, I think the way it’s cracking up in Ukraine and Russia, and then the Middle East, and the third one probably in the Taiwan Strait-
01:22:36
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:22:37
Prakhar Gupta: … and luckily Kashmir is no longer as active as it used to be as a sort of fault line, right? But, um, I think India will either be a kind of place where there is no action or all the action. Um, and so there might be some sort of validity to that. I think also it’s a language problem, which is that the right way to represent India is in a India first worldview.
01:22:57
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:22:57
Prakhar Gupta: Right? And so the guys that you showed me on your phone-
01:23:00
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:23:00
Prakhar Gupta: … with the common friends we have, they do a very good job at that.
01:23:02
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:23:02
Prakhar Gupta: Um, and so the person who ends up on an American podcast has to represent India in an India first language, but that is understandable by the world.
01:23:11
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
01:23:11
Prakhar Gupta: Right? Um, when you talk about India, you talk about India from, with the fascination of an outsider, and that’s very helpful for everybody who’s not introduced to India as a concept to get that too.
01:23:21
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:23:21
Prakhar Gupta: Right? And so, um, I think it’s a language problem because with the Anglophone world, you can speak about the West, and you could mean England, you can mean America.
01:23:31
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
01:23:31
Prakhar Gupta: Right?
01:23:32
Eric Weinstein: I mean, I used to, for example, watch, um, Coffee with Karan, right?
01:23:36
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah.
01:23:37
Eric Weinstein: And-
01:23:37
Prakhar Gupta: How’d you survive that?
01:23:38
Eric Weinstein: [laughs] Well-
01:23:39
Prakhar Gupta: I don’t know how’d you live through that.
01:23:40
Eric Weinstein: No, but it was very interesting because we didn’t have the references.
01:23:44
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:23:44
Eric Weinstein: Right? I mean, uh, of course it was like sa- saucy and gossipy and all that kind of stuff-
01:23:49
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:23:49
Eric Weinstein: … with people that we didn’t know.
01:23:50
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:23:52
Eric Weinstein: Um, there is a weird way in which, uh, in order, wh- when Indians intellectualize about the geopolitical order, it translates very well.
01:24:07
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:24:08
Eric Weinstein: Right? But if, if we were to talk about, um-
01:24:13
Prakhar Gupta: Celebrity gossip?
01:24:16
Eric Weinstein: Y- like DDLJ-
01:24:17
Prakhar Gupta: Right
01:24:18
Eric Weinstein: … the anniversary or something like that-
01:24:19
Prakhar Gupta: Right, right
01:24:20
Eric Weinstein: … nobody here will know what the hell’s going-
01:24:22
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah
01:24:22
Eric Weinstein: … the, the, it’ll be meaningless.
01:24:24
Prakhar Gupta: Mm, mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm.
01:24:25
Eric Weinstein: And-
01:24:26
Prakhar Gupta: But do we need that as a cultural object in conversation?
01:24:29
Eric Weinstein: Well, in a certain sense you do.
01:24:30
Prakhar Gupta: Sure.
01:24:31
Eric Weinstein: I mean, like, look, I, yeah, I, I think if you took… Well, for example, all Americans know that Bollywood exists.
01:24:43
Prakhar Gupta: Right.
01:24:44
Eric Weinstein: Could they name three films?
01:24:45
Prakhar Gupta: I don’t know.
01:24:45
Eric Weinstein: Could they name five songs?
01:24:47
Prakhar Gupta: Mm, mm.
01:24:47
Eric Weinstein: No. Right? So in a certain sense, you do need crossovers.
01:24:57
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:24:57
Eric Weinstein: You need… A- and by the way, these things can happen where, you know, a single film can introduce people to something that the, that they only knew about in the abstract.
01:25:10
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:25:10
Eric Weinstein: Um, but I, I don’t know how to make that happen.
01:25:15
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:25:16
Eric Weinstein: And I think th- the bigger issue in some sense is that America’s going to wake up to the fact that it is being Indianized in a massive way.
01:25:28
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:25:29
Eric Weinstein: And it would be good for it to know that this is happening already, and not to fear it, and to-
01:25:35
Prakhar Gupta: Embrace it in some way.
01:25:36
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:25:37
Prakhar Gupta: Mm. Right.
01:25:38
Eric Weinstein: I think it’s a, look, I think it’s a very natural partnership between, between equals.
01:25:46
Prakhar Gupta: I’ve found that to be the case for myself personally.
01:25:48
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:25:49
Prakhar Gupta: I can feel as much at home here as I can back home. Yeah.
01:25:52
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:25:52
Prakhar Gupta: It’s a natural home for me in some way. Yeah.
01:25:54
Eric Weinstein: So if I had a question for you, uh, is what I asked-
01:25:57
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:25:58
Eric Weinstein: … which is how do we get this illegal pirate radio To take off in the Anglosphere, where India becomes a massive market. You know, if, if you look at my numbers-
01:26:11
Prakhar Gupta: Mm
01:26:11
Eric Weinstein: … when I was doing the podcast, it was, like, completely dominated by the US, and then you have Canada and the UK and Australia, and then eventually you get to Sweden and Germany because they speak English very well.
01:26:23
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:26:24
Eric Weinstein: And I just kept thinking, “Where’s India?”
01:26:26
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:26:27
Eric Weinstein: Where is India? And I think that this is the natural cultural bridge.
01:26:34
Prakhar Gupta: Right. I am very interested in that, both as a private sort of business enterprise for myself-
01:26:39
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:26:40
Prakhar Gupta: … and as just a conversation. There’s two parts of me that need to be bridged. Um, so I’ll keep shooting ideas across to you. Tell me if they’re stupid, right? Um, but I definitely, I, I do believe in the same gestalt that you’re seeing, that there is some bridge to be built between these two lands. And, um, I admire these two guys for doing it pretty well. Um, is there any other question that you might have for me?
01:27:01
Eric Weinstein: Um, yeah. What do we do about the mango situation in the United States?
01:27:07
Prakhar Gupta: We stop importing from Mexico.
01:27:09
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:27:09
Prakhar Gupta: We admit that Indian mangoes are just far better.
01:27:12
Eric Weinstein: Do you have a, do you have a favorite variety?
01:27:14
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, langra.
01:27:15
Eric Weinstein: Oh, my God.
01:27:16
Prakhar Gupta: Dashera. Dasheri. Dasheri is my favorite. Yeah. Right. What is yours?
01:27:20
Eric Weinstein: What?
01:27:21
Prakhar Gupta: What, what, what is your favorite mango?
01:27:22
Eric Weinstein: Come on, man. I, I married a girl from Maharashtra.
01:27:24
Prakhar Gupta: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. You married a girl from Maharashtra.
01:27:27
Eric Weinstein: They, they don’t even know that anything exists beyond Alphonso.
01:27:30
Prakhar Gupta: Yeah, right. Alphonsos are great as well.
01:27:32
Eric Weinstein: They’re pretty-
01:27:32
Prakhar Gupta: Mangoes in India are just like, it’s a map
01:27:34
Eric Weinstein: … well, this is the thing. You, you wanna know… Okay. Mangoes you– George Bush allowed us to import Alphonso mangoes by irradiating them, ’cause the concern was that somehow they, they were gonna bring pestilence in.
01:27:47
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:27:48
Eric Weinstein: But the thing that we can’t get here at all is sitaphal.
01:27:52
Prakhar Gupta: At all?
01:27:53
Eric Weinstein: No, you can get cherimoya.
01:27:54
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:27:54
Eric Weinstein: You can get atemoya. But actual sitaphal, I mean, that’s gorgeous stuff, and it’s impossible to get ’cause it’s very fragile.
01:28:03
Prakhar Gupta: Mm.
01:28:04
Eric Weinstein: So my feeling is, is that, um, India has so many gifts to bring. Let’s, let’s start with fruit.
01:28:14
Prakhar Gupta: I think we should call this conversational bridge between the West and India also the sitaphal bridge.
01:28:19
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
01:28:19
Prakhar Gupta: It does justice to the whole thing.
01:28:20
Eric Weinstein: Fantastic.
01:28:20
Prakhar Gupta: This has been a pleasure.
01:28:21
Eric Weinstein: Okay.
01:28:21
Prakhar Gupta: Thank you so much.
01:28:22
Eric Weinstein: Thank you.
01:28:22
Prakhar Gupta: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I think this conversation was super interesting. I think it opened up places in my mind privately that I’m not gonna discuss that. Really, wow. Um, having said that, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to let Eric know in his Twitter or his Instagram DM or mentions or comments or wherever how much you liked this conversation, and what you liked specifically. Let your feedback get to the guest. I am telling you, this is going to help Eric approach India a lot better and me get to guests like him a lot better. Number two, and this is in line with what I’ve just said, a lot of people come and tell me, “Prakhar, I want you to bring this guy or that guy on the show.” I love it. Thank you. It really… It opens my mind up to things I hadn’t thought of in, you know, what guests to get. But if you’re doing that, also let the guest know you’d like to see them on my show. Simply just doing that makes the possibility of it happening way more. Okay? So let the guest know and let me know, both. Number three, I did not want to dilute the quality of this conversation. I did not want to simplify things out of this, specifically for a man like Eric who speaks in so many poetic metaphors or so many examples and importing and exporting patterns from here and there. Um, I just left the conversation as is. I didn’t cut much out of it, right? And in doing that, you’d realize that we were able to ask a few questions that you would not find coming out almost anywhere else. I think that’s a unique strength that Indians bring to the global conversation. We are not as affected by the happenstance of America. I can get away with asking a question like, “Who shot at Trump?” I don’t think, I don’t think it’s– I think it’s such an obvious question, but nobody’s asking. And I don’t have the encumbrances, I don’t have the pressures, the burdens that a regular American podcaster would have in asking that question. And I think that’s very unique. I think that is a solid hypothesis to build on. And so as I take my platform more and more global, as I approach more and more global voices, if you like this conversation, I want you to do me a favor and listen to the ones that I bring in the future. There is a huge resistance, there’s a huge blockade between India and the rest of the world when it comes to conversation. And that blockade will be jumped across by guys like you and I. You will decide that I want to listen to this person or that person from the rest of the world. I ask my team this question almost comically when we are discussing. I’ll be like, “Tell me five scientists from India we can bring on the show.” And they can name maybe a few, but then they start struggling, and that’s because a lot of science is done in the world, and that is not available for pirate radio consumption. That’s not available for podcasting to Indians, and I’d like to be the one to bring them. And if I do bring them, make sure you let those people know how you like the conversation too, that you watch those conversations, you sit through the accents, you absorb the global wealth of information, the Library of Alexandria that’s available to you. That’d be great, no? Um, having said that, I do want to apologize a little bit on the production quality, although I think the edit really managed it. This was a very last minute decision. We put together everything, like, in one hour notice. Literally, like, this was the most happenstance conversation I’ve ever done. [laughs]
