Outline
00:00 Start
1:00 Caffeine & Other Drugs
2:10 Eric Loves Coffee
4:56 Eric’s College Experience
5:18 India In The 1980s
7:08 India Is Evolving
8:14 The Truth About Attention Spans
9:41 The Untriggered Journey So Far
10:14 Who Is Eric Weinstein?
13:00 Being ‘Real’ In Modern Society
15:45 Why Joe Rogan Is The GOAT
20:01 DMT & Psychedelics
21:45 Guns N’ Roses Concert in India
24:54 Music We Grew Up Listening To
25:36 Eric’s First Time Listening To Hindi Rap
26:43 The Indian Hip-Hop Scene Is Booming
27:38 Who Is The Science GOAT?
29:01 Eric Remembers Jim Watson
30:59 Difference Between Good Science & Great Science
32:16 The ‘Mad Scientist’ Archetype
33:50 Neurodivergence
35:40 The Impact Of Teachers
37:57 The Indian Education System Is Broken
43:21 Old Bollywood
45:24 Eric’s Controversial Opinions
47:41 Which Are The Best Mangoes?
49:31 Our Favourite Fruits
51:13 Indian Food
53:07 Truth About China
56:43 Indian Wedding Are Wild
58:04 Marriage & Children
59:50 Intra-Indian Diversity
1:03:13 Why Is India Influenced By American Pop-Culture?
1:08:21 Why Indians Are Loving Desi Hip-Hop (DHH)
1:10:11 Issues Indians Are Facing
1:13:00 Geo-Political Climate Of The World
1:14:55 India’s Biggest Challenges
1:21:19 Self-Driving AI Cars In India
1:25:02 AI Usage Is Getting Out Of Hand
1:27:39 Why Gen-Z Are Screwed
1:31:12 Impact Of Porn & Only Fans
1:33:15 Old Patterns Are Resurfacing
1:39:10 Positive Illusions
1:44:05 Interstellar Ending Explanation
1:47:16 Eric’s Advice For Indian Kids
Untriggered is a podcast that is meant for bold and unfiltered discourse. Sometimes the wrong thing is the funniest thing to say and that’s okay. None of the jokes that we make are real, they’re just jokes. Political correctness isn’t something that you’re going to find here, and if you’re sensitive then you probably won’t have a good time listening to this.
Transcript
00:00:00
Eric Weinstein: Let’s go. Eric Weinstein on Untriggered podcast, which is something that I never thought I would be saying.
00:00:05
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. In this reality, I would not have thought-
00:00:08
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:00:08
Amin Jazayeri: … someone like someone of your caliber is sitting down with some of us.
00:00:12
Eric Weinstein: Caliber? [laughs]
00:00:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
00:00:12
Eric Weinstein: We’re pulling out the big words.
00:00:14
Amin Jazayeri: The big words. We are-
00:00:15
Eric Weinstein: Okay
00:00:15
Amin Jazayeri: … sitting down with a, with a geometer.
00:00:18
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:00:18
Amin Jazayeri: And I’ve gotten zero in geometry.
00:00:20
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:00:20
Amin Jazayeri: That is my feat. Like, no one in my school has ever gotten zero.
00:00:23
Eric Weinstein: Wow.
00:00:23
Amin Jazayeri: And this, this is the earliest we’ve ever woken up- Yeah.
00:00:25
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:00:25
Amin Jazayeri: … to do a podcast. We usually don’t do it this early.
00:00:28
Eric Weinstein: More or less the same for me. I, I, I, I don’t know how to get up at this hour.
00:00:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
00:00:32
Eric Weinstein: Okay, then why, why are we here?
00:00:33
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, why do we do this so early-
00:00:34
Eric Weinstein: Why?
00:00:34
Amin Jazayeri: … in the morning then?
00:00:35
Eric Weinstein: Because-
00:00:36
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:00:37
Eric Weinstein: … I’m, I’m … So the, there’s a … I guess phobic about the north of, of Bombay.
00:00:43
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:00:43
Eric Weinstein: So I don’t-
00:00:44
Amin Jazayeri: Okay
00:00:44
Eric Weinstein: … know really where Andheri and Bandra begin and end. And so-
00:00:47
Amin Jazayeri: Okay, okay, okay. So we’re like, let’s just get it out of the way.
00:00:50
Eric Weinstein: Let’s get it out of the way.
00:00:51
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:00:51
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:00:52
Amin Jazayeri: We’ll be back. Fair. First thing in the morning.
00:00:54
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, I’m, like, fully locked in. I’m chewing a gum that has caffeine in it.
00:00:59
Amin Jazayeri: God damn.
00:00:59
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:01:00
Amin Jazayeri: Yo.
00:01:00
Eric Weinstein: This, like, this is my, this is the most prep I’ve done for a-
00:01:03
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:01:03
Eric Weinstein: … podcast.
00:01:05
Amin Jazayeri: Are you a caffeine guy?
00:01:06
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, very much.
00:01:07
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah? Do you start your day with coffee?
00:01:09
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s very interesting, first of all, that we have culture around a very small number of drugs.
00:01:15
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Right.
00:01:16
Eric Weinstein: Alcohol, caffeine, nicotine.
00:01:18
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:01:18
Eric Weinstein: We have culture.
00:01:19
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:01:19
Eric Weinstein: So you can say, “Let’s go for a drink. Let’s have a smoke.”
00:01:22
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:01:23
Eric Weinstein: Um, “Let’s get a cup of coffee,” but if you say like, “Hey, do you wanna get some, uh, w- white drugs or red drugs?” Um, s- you know, suddenly it feels very different.
00:01:33
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:33
Eric Weinstein: And so the weird thing is that different, different psychoactive substances have had traditionally different cultures. And so-
00:01:40
Amin Jazayeri: Right
00:01:41
Eric Weinstein: … you’re taking the, you know the Persian angle, that opium was a-
00:01:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:01:44
Eric Weinstein: … a gentleman’s drug after-
00:01:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:01:45
Eric Weinstein: … dinner.
00:01:46
Amin Jazayeri: Mm. Yeah, it’s just casual.
00:01:48
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:01:49
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Yeah. It’s like post-dinner opium session. [laughs]
00:01:51
Eric Weinstein: Exactly.
00:01:52
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:01:52
Eric Weinstein: So I, I don’t know how to start my day with opium, so I just-
00:01:55
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:01:55
Eric Weinstein: … get a cup of coffee.
00:01:56
Amin Jazayeri: Coffee?
00:01:57
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:01:57
Amin Jazayeri: What do you do about the crash?
00:01:59
Eric Weinstein: What crash?
00:02:00
Amin Jazayeri: There’s this caffeine crash that you get know.
00:02:02
Eric Weinstein: Not if you keep drinking coffee.
00:02:03
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:02:05
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. I, I drink so much coffee. I, I-
00:02:06
Amin Jazayeri: How, how many cups a day? Like, what, what is the …
00:02:09
Eric Weinstein: Uh-
00:02:10
Amin Jazayeri: You know?
00:02:10
Eric Weinstein: … I could easily lose track-
00:02:12
Amin Jazayeri: Oh
00:02:13
Eric Weinstein: … and have, like, six cups.
00:02:15
Amin Jazayeri: Six? And this is of black coffee?
00:02:16
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:02:17
Amin Jazayeri: Wow.
00:02:18
Eric Weinstein: Well, because, you know, when you … Like, if you’re doing math-
00:02:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:02:21
Eric Weinstein: … geometry in particular-
00:02:23
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:02:23
Eric Weinstein: … you’re just constantly not thinking about your surroundings.
00:02:27
Amin Jazayeri: Right. Okay.
00:02:27
Eric Weinstein: So you just completely lose track of the world.
00:02:29
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:02:29
Eric Weinstein: And then you realize, “Why am, why am I so jittery?”
00:02:31
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Mm. Yeah.
00:02:33
Eric Weinstein: Do you think-
00:02:34
Amin Jazayeri: I f- I found that taking, uh, L-theanine with coffee helps with the crash and the jitters.
00:02:39
Eric Weinstein: What is this?
00:02:39
Amin Jazayeri: There’s this, um … It’s a supplement called L-theanine.
00:02:43
Eric Weinstein: Huh.
00:02:43
Amin Jazayeri: And it slows down the crash.
00:02:45
Eric Weinstein: I know-
00:02:45
Amin Jazayeri: So the gum that I’m chewing right now-
00:02:47
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:02:47
Amin Jazayeri: … it’s got caffeine and L-theanine, so it’s like it gives you the-
00:02:51
Eric Weinstein: Right
00:02:51
Amin Jazayeri: … boost and the focus that you need. It’s pretty good actually.
00:02:54
Eric Weinstein: You know, my … I got, uh, my friend Melissa Chen on the Rogan program.
00:02:58
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:02:59
Eric Weinstein: And, uh, she started just drinking these Bang energy drinks that he was-
00:03:06
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:03:06
Eric Weinstein: … and i- you know, one, two, and suddenly she starts having like a heart attack on air.
00:03:11
Amin Jazayeri: Oh my Lord.
00:03:11
Eric Weinstein: And she just lost … So then, you know, she strips off her jacket. She’s a very attractive woman, and then she’s got these bare arms, and then the ratings went way up.
00:03:19
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:03:19
Eric Weinstein: But it was very dramatic that, uh, that she basically was going into some sort of arrhythmia-
00:03:26
Amin Jazayeri: Wow
00:03:26
Eric Weinstein: … from this energy drink.
00:03:27
Amin Jazayeri: I mean, I have … I heard about this gum on the Joe Rogan podcast.
00:03:30
Eric Weinstein: Is that right?
00:03:30
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. It’s called NeuroGum, and he spoke about it on one of-
00:03:33
Eric Weinstein: NeuroGum.
00:03:33
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:03:34
Eric Weinstein: I worry about the supplements thing, ’cause when you do podcasting, they’re one of the-
00:03:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:03:37
Eric Weinstein: … most, um, reliable [laughs] offers of income.
00:03:42
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Right, right.
00:03:43
Eric Weinstein: But, like, do we really know what’s in these things?
00:03:46
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I mean, supplements, people have started supplementing a lot now. I just got a blood work done, and I’m heavily deficient in vitamin D, so …
00:03:56
Eric Weinstein: But I think they tell that to all of us.
00:03:58
Amin Jazayeri: I mean, I don’t know. But I guess we all are deficient in vitamin D. We don’t leave the house that much.
00:04:01
Eric Weinstein: Do you think so?
00:04:01
Amin Jazayeri: We don’t leave the house that much.
00:04:03
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:04:03
Amin Jazayeri: So we’re not getting sun. We’re not getting any sun- Yeah … at all.
00:04:05
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:04:05
Amin Jazayeri: Today was probably the first time I got some sun at 8, 8:00 in the morning.
00:04:10
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:04:10
Amin Jazayeri: And it felt so good. Yeah. Just get some sun. What does a day in your life look like?
00:04:15
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know. They’re all different.
00:04:17
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:04:17
Eric Weinstein: But, uh, you know, right now we’re just adjusting for the fact that, uh, our two kids have more or less left the nest.
00:04:26
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:04:26
Eric Weinstein: So we’re trying to figure out, you know, should we buy a disco ball and turn it into Party Central-
00:04:31
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:04:31
Eric Weinstein: … or what should we do?
00:04:32
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:04:32
Eric Weinstein: Um, so in part, yeah, it’s like we’re at a different stage, uh, in our lives. And so, like, I’m watching you guys having the time of, of your life in a group house-
00:04:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:04:41
Eric Weinstein: … and I’m thinking, “Yeah, this is what, this is what is eating our children and changing our lives,” ’cause I think we weren’t done with them yet.
00:04:48
Amin Jazayeri: They’re in college now?
00:04:50
Eric Weinstein: Uh, one is finishing law school, and one-
00:04:52
Amin Jazayeri: Okay
00:04:52
Eric Weinstein: … is a junior in college, yeah.
00:04:53
Amin Jazayeri: Okay. Did you party a lot when you were in college?
00:04:56
Eric Weinstein: What do you mean?
00:04:57
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:04:57
Eric Weinstein: No.
00:04:58
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:05:00
Eric Weinstein: No. Thank you, sir. No, I didn’t. Uh, I was …
00:05:03
Amin Jazayeri: Excuse me. Okay.
00:05:05
Eric Weinstein: I was pretty much-
00:05:06
Amin Jazayeri: Thank you.
00:05:08
Eric Weinstein: Uh, I was, I was pretty much balls to the wall mathematics and physics.
00:05:12
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:05:13
Eric Weinstein: And, um, actually I came to India to party back then.
00:05:18
Amin Jazayeri: When was this?
00:05:19
Eric Weinstein: ’85 was the first time I was here, so I’ve been coming for 40 years.
00:05:22
Amin Jazayeri: Okay. What was India like in ’85?
00:05:25
Eric Weinstein: Oh my God.
00:05:26
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:05:26
Eric Weinstein: I mean, look, it was much more ordered and subdued.
00:05:31
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:05:31
Eric Weinstein: And so it was much more regimented.
00:05:33
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm. Mm.
00:05:34
Eric Weinstein: But that also meant that the underground scene was really intense and very, very fun.
00:05:39
Amin Jazayeri: Which cities, uh, did you visit at that time?
00:05:42
Eric Weinstein: Well, way back in the day, um, first trip, uh, Bombay and then around that Karjat and Kihim-
00:05:52
Amin Jazayeri: Kihim
00:05:52
Eric Weinstein: … um, near, uh, Alibag, and then down in Goa.
00:05:58
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:05:59
Eric Weinstein: Over to- Chennai, Pondicherry, and the, the madness of Auroville.
00:06:05
Amin Jazayeri: Oh, wow. Right.
00:06:06
Eric Weinstein: And then was up in Agra and Srinagar, passed through Bangalore. So, uh, it just changed my life. I mean, completely rocked my world.
00:06:19
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I can imagine, like ba- especially back in ’85, because I came to In- India in 2004, and it was still very different than what it is now. And-
00:06:29
Eric Weinstein: Well, it’s a moving target. And, and that’s one of the things that I think I worry about, is that I’m plugged into an older India.
00:06:36
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:06:36
Eric Weinstein: And it’s one of the reasons I’m excited to do your podcast, is that-
00:06:39
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:06:39
Eric Weinstein: … boy, do I hear about a lot of change.
00:06:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:06:42
Eric Weinstein: And change that we… Sort of inconceivable from, from the perspective of the West.
00:06:47
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:06:47
Eric Weinstein: And so, you know, you guys seem like very w- well-mannered, uh, young men who are very badly behaved.
00:06:53
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] We’re, we’re good actors. I would-
00:06:56
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:06:57
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I mean- Which, in which direction? [laughs]
00:07:00
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:07:00
Amin Jazayeri: No, but that is, like, that is the case with most of new India, it’s that we, we’ve had access to information that maybe people before us didn’t have, and access to culture. Everyone’s, like, grown up watching movies of, from the West, so everyone’s, like, kind of tuned in what’s happening in the world. And I think this is the first Indian generation that is, like, all in. Like, they know ev- everything about the world. They know-
00:07:26
Eric Weinstein: Such as? What do you think that, that they didn’t know in the ’80s?
00:07:30
Amin Jazayeri: Oh, I mean, I’m assuming you didn’t have social, like, you didn’t have social media, so not every second of… Ah. Like, you wouldn’t be- you probably wouldn’t know what’s happening in the US. Uh, I wouldn’t know if there’s like, um, someone’s gone on Andrew Schulz’s podcast, and then they’re this-
00:07:51
Eric Weinstein: But that’s such noise.
00:07:53
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, but then it-
00:07:54
Eric Weinstein: I mean, in other words, like, none of us would have known about the Hawk Tuah girl.
00:07:57
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:58
Eric Weinstein: Right?
00:07:58
Amin Jazayeri: Totally. It would have taken a while for her to come to India.
00:08:01
Eric Weinstein: But it, like, what is that?
00:08:02
Amin Jazayeri: It would have never come to India. It wouldn’t make the newspapers. Yeah.
00:08:04
Eric Weinstein: What is that? It’s nothing.
00:08:06
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:08:06
Eric Weinstein: I mean, she, she’s very nice and she’s fun, but, like, we’re getting swept up in nonsense.
00:08:11
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. True.
00:08:12
Eric Weinstein: And so my question is, are we really informed about each other’s lives, or are we consuming this ridiculous surface area-
00:08:21
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:08:21
Eric Weinstein: … and not actually getting down into what the heck is going on?
00:08:25
Amin Jazayeri: So would you say we’re more distracted than ever, like?
00:08:29
Eric Weinstein: Holy cow, yeah.
00:08:31
Amin Jazayeri: Hm. Arguably, yeah.
00:08:32
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. And, and it means that we’re not having… Well, look, the weird thing is that long form podcasting is the thing that goes in the other direction.
00:08:42
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:08:43
Eric Weinstein: So I keep hearing, okay, modern attention spans, you can’t-
00:08:46
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:08:46
Eric Weinstein: … you can’t sit still for 20 seconds.
00:08:48
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:08:49
Eric Weinstein: And then somebody comes to you and says, “I’m on my fourth listening of your Rogan podcast,” which was like three and a half hours long.
00:08:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:56
Eric Weinstein: And I’m thinking, “Wait, you’re on your third, fourth listening of a three hour… That’s insane.”
00:09:01
Amin Jazayeri: Mm. Yeah.
00:09:01
Eric Weinstein: And so I think that what’s happening is the barbell effect. We’re both getting very, very focused on things we really care about-
00:09:10
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:09:10
Eric Weinstein: … and constantly distracted by everything.
00:09:13
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:09:14
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, again, one of the things I find fascinating is what has any longevity? You guys have been doing this for, like, what, five years?
00:09:21
Amin Jazayeri: Five, five years. Close to five, yeah.
00:09:21
Eric Weinstein: That’s long i- in podcast space. And so whatever it is, you’re having to renew yourself.
00:09:27
Amin Jazayeri: Mm. Yeah.
00:09:29
Eric Weinstein: And so I’m curious as to how are you guys surviving?
00:09:32
Amin Jazayeri: Um, so we started doing this when we were in Pune, and it, like, we would shoot out of my living room, and it was just four friends talking about what is happening in the world or what is happening in our lives. And now just, it’s, it’s very interesting for us because we are seeing ourselves grow up through this podcast. So you can go back and l- look at any episode and be like, “Okay, this is what I was feeling, and this is what I was thinking about-“
00:09:58
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:09:58
Amin Jazayeri: “… during that time of my life.” And the things that we’ve spoken about have changed. We’ve also evolved to have, like, we have someone like you on the podcast, which is something that we’d never thought, like-
00:10:10
Eric Weinstein: I don’t think anyone knows who I am over here.
00:10:12
Amin Jazayeri: Let’s do one, let’s do a quick introduction.
00:10:14
Eric Weinstein: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
00:10:14
Amin Jazayeri: There are people, of course they know who you are. How would you introduce yourself to, like, a bunch of, like, Indian kids in college who are watching this right now?
00:10:23
Eric Weinstein: I’m a, I’m a math guy. Um, I don’t know. I, I, I guess we went through some very strange stuff, uh, in the mid, uh, 20-teens-
00:10:37
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:10:37
Eric Weinstein: … and I’ve sort of avoided becoming better known successfully at previous times, and then I ended up, um… You know, there’s the Tim Ferriss hot tub st- story. You guys know Tim Ferriss?
00:10:49
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:51
Eric Weinstein: So I didn’t really know much about Tim’s podcasting life.
00:10:54
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:10:54
Eric Weinstein: And in 2016 or so we were just in a hot tub. And I don’t really do the bro thing, but I was trying to do the bro thing.
00:11:02
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:11:03
Eric Weinstein: And he’s like, “Dude, we should totally podcast.”
00:11:05
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:11:06
Eric Weinstein: And so, you know, I, I, I looked at him and I tried to put on my best bro voice. “Dude, totally.”
00:11:11
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:11:12
Eric Weinstein: “Podcast.” Like, “All right, we should do it before I go to the, the airport tomorrow.” Like, “Totally.” So he’s like, “Serious.” I didn’t know really what a podcast was.
00:11:22
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:11:22
Eric Weinstein: And so I came over the next day, and he hands me a microphone. And he’s, like, literally packing for the airport on his kitchen table, asking me questions, and I’m just talking into a microphone. And I didn’t think anything of it.
00:11:37
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:11:39
Eric Weinstein: And then the next day, uh, I’d, I’d given… Look, I’m obsessed with Kung Fu Panda.
00:11:45
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:11:45
Eric Weinstein: Completely obsessed.
00:11:47
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:11:47
Eric Weinstein: And I’d given my whole analysis, you know, like I was a literary theorist, about the, the depth of Kung Fu Panda. And I see this thing on what was then Twitter, and it says, “Amazing analysis of Kung Fu Panda by Eric Weinstein.”
00:12:02
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:12:02
Eric Weinstein: “I wish we had had it while we were writing it.”
00:12:05
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:12:06
Eric Weinstein: And I was just blown away. This guy Glen Berger went on Twitter for the first time just to interact because he’d heard this thing.
00:12:15
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Wow.
00:12:16
Eric Weinstein: And that, that blew my mind, because I didn’t have any way of reaching
00:12:21
Stuvi Krishnan: Right
00:12:21
Eric Weinstein: … such people.
00:12:22
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
00:12:22
Eric Weinstein: And, uh, yeah, a- and, and it’s been great for me. So m- more or less it’s, it’s a bit odd, the question, because I don’t have a book.
00:12:34
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:12:34
Eric Weinstein: I’m not doing my podcast. I, I’m not doing anything that would normally plug me into this scene. I just sort of opine about things. And so, so long as people find that interesting, um, I’m… I’ve, I’ve been fortunate or [laughs] fortunate to be on some of the bigger shows in the world.
00:12:55
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:12:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:12:56
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, I think o- one of my, one of my beliefs is that most of us have a very interesting story, but very few of us are willing to share our actual thoughts. Because it takes skill and, and it’s hard not to hurt yourself being real.
00:13:11
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, that’s something I’ve realized through doing this, is like sometimes you might have an opinion or you might have a thought, and you’re like, “Okay, you know what? Today on this episode we’re going to be talking about this, and this is my opinion that I’ve thought of, and I’m gonna come and present it.” And when you come here and do it, it just doesn’t sound like-
00:13:29
Eric Weinstein: Something sounded good in your head-
00:13:30
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:13:30
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:13:31
Eric Weinstein: … and then you’re stuck with it for five years.
00:13:33
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:13:33
Eric Weinstein: Everybody laughs at you, right?
00:13:35
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:13:35
Eric Weinstein: But on the other hand, the thing that you… All right. So I have my, my standard anti-homosexual, uh, riff-
00:13:45
Amin Jazayeri: Okay
00:13:45
Eric Weinstein: … which is the homosexuals, uh, have monopolized the closet.
00:13:50
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:13:51
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:13:51
Eric Weinstein: We all have closets-
00:13:52
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:13:52
Eric Weinstein: … and why they get to make being closeted about being gay, particularly when nobody much cares in the States anymore.
00:13:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:14:00
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:14:01
Eric Weinstein: You know, ’cause y- your, your parents say, “Okay, you’re gay. As long as I get grandchildren, I’m, I’m cool with it.” [laughs] Um, yeah, I think that most of us are in a closet about all sorts of things. And the only thing people wanna hear is what is that voice that you… You’re afraid-
00:14:19
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:14:20
Eric Weinstein: … to give voice to.
00:14:21
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:14:22
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the primary reasons of us starting this, was because we thought that there’s so many things that we talk about in private which we think are interesting, and we know other people are talking about the same things in their circles, but no one is saying it out loud. And that’s when we-
00:14:38
Eric Weinstein: Some of those things should stay in private.
00:14:40
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, that’s something we’ve learned.
00:14:42
Stuvi Krishnan: That’s what we’ve learned [laughs]
00:14:43
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:14:43
Eric Weinstein: Oh, okay.
00:14:43
Stuvi Krishnan: We, we’ve made our mistakes.
00:14:45
Eric Weinstein: All right. Like two years ago-
00:14:46
Stuvi Krishnan: We said it out loud
00:14:46
Eric Weinstein: … I’m an open book, I have nothing to hide, and then you find out where that, where that, uh, train goes.
00:14:51
Stuvi Krishnan: 10 minutes after episode goes live you get a message saying, “Why would you say that?” [laughs]
00:14:56
Amin Jazayeri: About me.
00:14:56
Eric Weinstein: About me.
00:14:57
Stuvi Krishnan: About me.
00:14:58
Eric Weinstein: From your uncle. [laughs]
00:15:01
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:15:01
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:15:02
Amin Jazayeri: But, but it, it is also important to say some of those things and learn for yourself that, okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. If you-
00:15:08
Eric Weinstein: Well, if you… But if you’re skillful about it-
00:15:10
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:15:11
Eric Weinstein: … um, then you keep people from feeling isolated, right? I mean, some of your best moments are when you say something that everyone is having internally that no one dares say, and suddenly-
00:15:27
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:15:27
Eric Weinstein: … you get this eruption of, “Wait, you’re thinking the same thing, too?”
00:15:30
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:15:30
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:15:30
Eric Weinstein: And that, that’s a… It’s a very odd-
00:15:33
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:15:33
Eric Weinstein: … moment when that happens.
00:15:35
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. And then you become the guy who’s, like voiced that opinion. I mean, that’s, that’s-
00:15:40
Eric Weinstein: You gotta be skillful.
00:15:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I think that’s one of the things Joe Rogan is great at, where he like talks about things and people are like, “Yeah, like why, why isn’t anyone saying what he’s saying?”
00:15:53
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. I’ve once or twice been in the hot seat with Joe where he’s said something [laughs] that’s… I don’t know how to respond.
00:16:00
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Yeah, he does go off on tangents sometimes, where it’s just like-
00:16:05
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. But sometimes it’s very personal stuff. Like one of the things that, that Joe has said to me is, “You, Eric, should go back to my earliest episodes and see that it’s just me making fart jokes into a webcam.”
00:16:19
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:16:20
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:16:20
Eric Weinstein: “And that that’s the, that’s the genesis of it.”
00:16:22
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:16:22
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:16:23
Eric Weinstein: You know, or sponsored by Fleshlight or something ridiculous.
00:16:26
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. [laughs]
00:16:27
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:16:27
Eric Weinstein: And, and so then you, you, you build this institution, uh, out of madness-
00:16:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:16:32
Eric Weinstein: … and out of extremely raunchy, ridiculous, like bad stuff.
00:16:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:16:37
Eric Weinstein: And, and he, and he’s built it into something that’s amazing and great and wonderful. E- e- even if… There are episodes where I… You know, sometimes I’ll text him like, “Really?” [laughs]
00:16:49
Amin Jazayeri: But I mean, when you do over 2,000 episodes, like there are going to be episodes where you’re like, “Okay.”
00:16:55
Eric Weinstein: Sure. You’re going to have your highs and your lows.
00:16:57
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:16:58
Eric Weinstein: Um, the thing about Joe that people just don’t understand, I think, is it takes a l- I, I think Dolly Parton was the one who said, “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.”
00:17:09
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:17:10
Eric Weinstein: It takes a lot of genius to look that ordinary.
00:17:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:17:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:17:14
Stuvi Krishnan: That’s true.
00:17:15
Amin Jazayeri: I was gonna-
00:17:15
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:17:15
Amin Jazayeri: … I was just gonna ask you about that. Like if you’ve, uh… If you haven’t spent time with him and have h- had like four-hour long conversations with him, his whole thing is, oh, he’s just a comedian and he keeps saying, “I’m a moron. I, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” But-
00:17:30
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, sure
00:17:31
Amin Jazayeri: … but like, isn’t he… He knows everything. Like he knows something about everything.
00:17:39
Eric Weinstein: He’s extraordinarily broad. He’s very fast on recall.
00:17:43
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:17:43
Eric Weinstein: He, he has moves that you and I can only dream of, and he doesn’t let you know that he even has them.
00:17:50
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Like I’ve seen breakdowns on YouTube about his personality and how he forms his questions.
00:17:57
Eric Weinstein: Nobody’s cracked the code. Nobody’s cracked the code.
00:17:57
Amin Jazayeri: And so many people try to replicate it. I think when I started this podcast, I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna be the… I’m gonna have people on and talk to them one by one.” I did two episodes and then I was like, “Okay, this is not happening.” And then I started calling my friends.
00:18:11
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:18:11
Amin Jazayeri: I was like, “Let’s do it together.”
00:18:13
Eric Weinstein: Well, one thing is is that his ego is differently constructed than almost anyone else’s you’ve ever met.
00:18:19
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:18:20
Stuvi Krishnan: In what sense?
00:18:22
Eric Weinstein: So imagine… Okay, so you’ve got a really good point.
00:18:25
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:18:25
Eric Weinstein: You’ve got a fantastic insight, and your guest sits down Most of us are gonna try to steer the guest and then make our really good point.
00:18:35
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:18:36
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:18:37
Eric Weinstein: Joe will have the guest sit down, steer the guest and serve it up to the guest so that the guest seems to be a genius.
00:18:45
Amin Jazayeri: Genius.
00:18:46
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:18:46
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:18:47
Eric Weinstein: Who does that?
00:18:49
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:18:50
Yug Patil: It’s a layup.
00:18:51
Eric Weinstein: Well, y- yeah. It’s, uh… You know, Larry Bird is a pretty good, um, analogy that-
00:19:01
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:19:01
Eric Weinstein: … both one of the best shooters in the league, but also the guy who can pass and make everyone around him better.
00:19:07
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:19:08
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:19:08
Eric Weinstein: And the only people that it really doesn’t work with is people who have some sort of an ego problem who-
00:19:15
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:19:15
Eric Weinstein: … bring it to the studio, and that can be a disaster. But if you’re, you know, if you’re basically a decent person and you’re not grinding an agenda or being too transactional, Joe is going to make you the best version of you. He’s gonna try to make you look good.
00:19:34
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:19:34
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:19:34
Eric Weinstein: And most of us just don’t have enough material and enough generosity of spirit and enough egolessness. And I think the idea is that he’s very well compensated, he’s very successful, doesn’t need to prove anything. And most people, when they become that, you know, if y- if you just, like, watch him deal with waiters and things-
00:19:53
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:19:53
Eric Weinstein: … he’s a prince.
00:19:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:19:55
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:19:55
Amin Jazayeri: There’s no ego. Uh, all the ego went away, I think, after the first two DMT trips that [laughs]
00:20:01
Eric Weinstein: Do you think it’s that?
00:20:02
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:20:03
Eric Weinstein: I, ’cause I don’t agree with this.
00:20:04
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:20:04
Eric Weinstein: I don’t agree with this. All sorts of people in Silicon Valley-
00:20:06
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:20:07
Eric Weinstein: … disappear to Peru for a while, you know?
00:20:09
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:20:10
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:20:10
Eric Weinstein: Like-
00:20:11
Yug Patil: It’s, it’s customary. After becoming a millionaire, you go to Peru and-
00:20:14
Eric Weinstein: I think you need to make more than a million to be allowed into Peru
00:20:17
Yug Patil: … oh, yeah, you, you need to be a million
00:20:17
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know.
00:20:17
Yug Patil: [laughs] Okay.
00:20:18
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know. But, um, but I think a lot of people, uh, are not ready for shamanic insight.
00:20:26
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:20:26
Eric Weinstein: And so they expose themselves to the chemicals, to the rituals which aren’t theirs. They’re not, you know, deeply, um, enmeshed in a culture. And they receive way too much information-
00:20:40
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:20:40
Yug Patil: That they’re not ready for
00:20:41
Eric Weinstein: … that they’re not ready for.
00:20:42
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:20:42
Eric Weinstein: And so, you know, my feeling is, is that whatever Joe’s doing-
00:20:45
Yug Patil: Mm-hmm
00:20:46
Eric Weinstein: … he’s processed it well.
00:20:49
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:20:49
Eric Weinstein: And, and part of this, you know, just in terms of illegal drugs, part of the problem with illegal drugs is that there isn’t control of the substances, some sort of understanding about the integration of insight that comes from-
00:21:05
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:21:06
Eric Weinstein: … these things. And so, you know, it’s sort of home, it’s home-brewed.
00:21:10
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:21:10
Eric Weinstein: Whatever Joe’s doing works. At some point, my recollection is I ran into Keith Richards at a Spice Market in New York City, and he looked like death.
00:21:22
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:21:22
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:21:22
Eric Weinstein: And somebody had asked him, “What is your secret? You, you know, you look, you look like death, but here you are, you’re still playing guitar and you’re still walking around.” He said, “You have to buy really good drugs.” [laughs]
00:21:35
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:21:35
Eric Weinstein: “Don’t waste money on bad drugs.”
00:21:38
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:21:38
Eric Weinstein: You know? And, uh, I don’t know where, I don’t know where Joe gets his DMT, but-
00:21:43
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:21:43
Eric Weinstein: … it’s working for him.
00:21:44
Amin Jazayeri: We watched, uh, Guns N’ Roses live earlier this year.
00:21:47
Eric Weinstein: No kidding.
00:21:47
Amin Jazayeri: They, they were playing Bombay.
00:21:49
Eric Weinstein: No kidding.
00:21:49
Amin Jazayeri: They did a show in Bombay.
00:21:50
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:21:50
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:21:50
Amin Jazayeri: I think-
00:21:50
Yug Patil: Did it?
00:21:51
Amin Jazayeri: … 20,000, 30,000 people.
00:21:52
Eric Weinstein: Who is the guitarist?
00:21:53
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, Slash.
00:21:54
Yug Patil: Slash.
00:21:54
Eric Weinstein: Oh, okay.
00:21:55
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:21:55
Eric Weinstein: He wasn’t the Buckethead?
00:21:57
Amin Jazayeri: No.
00:21:57
Yug Patil: Slash.
00:21:58
Amin Jazayeri: Slash does wear a Buckethead-
00:21:59
Yug Patil: Yeah, Slash is the Buckethead.
00:22:01
Eric Weinstein: No, Buckethead is a different guy.
00:22:02
Amin Jazayeri: Okay, okay.
00:22:03
Yug Patil: But he does wear-
00:22:04
Amin Jazayeri: But Slash-
00:22:04
Yug Patil: … he does wear that hat
00:22:04
Eric Weinstein: … the KFC. No, he-
00:22:06
Yug Patil: Oh
00:22:07
Eric Weinstein: … Slash wears the top hat.
00:22:08
Yug Patil: Yeah, yeah.
00:22:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, the top hat.
00:22:08
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:22:08
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, the other guy wears a buck-
00:22:10
Yug Patil: Okay.
00:22:10
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:22:10
Eric Weinstein: You, you, you know about Buckethead?
00:22:12
Amin Jazayeri: He actually wears a lot of bucket hats.
00:22:14
Yug Patil: [laughs] Yeah.
00:22:15
Amin Jazayeri: He’s talking about Buckethead.
00:22:16
Yug Patil: Buckethead.
00:22:16
Amin Jazayeri: Head, head, sorry, yeah.
00:22:19
Yug Patil: Yeah. [laughs]
00:22:19
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Anyway, A- Axl Rose was on stage for three hours-
00:22:21
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:22:21
Amin Jazayeri: … and he had all the energy in the world, and I think he knows where to get it.
00:22:26
Eric Weinstein: He knows where, he knows where.
00:22:27
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:22:28
Eric Weinstein: So s- I was in, uh, elementary school with Slash.
00:22:32
Amin Jazayeri: Really?
00:22:33
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, when he was Saul Hudson.
00:22:35
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:22:35
Eric Weinstein: My recollection was he was this British black Jewish kid, which was pretty confusing.
00:22:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:22:41
Yug Patil: Yeah, it is. [laughs]
00:22:42
Eric Weinstein: And he was, like, super smart and kind of a delinquent.
00:22:45
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:22:46
Eric Weinstein: And, um, now I skipped a grade, so I skipped out of his year, but I was always sort of afraid that he would steal my bicycle or something like that.
00:22:56
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:22:57
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:22:57
Eric Weinstein: And he used to hang out at, uh, with Mark Canter-
00:23:01
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:23:01
Eric Weinstein: … uh, famously at Canter’s Delicatessen.
00:23:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:23:03
Eric Weinstein: So anyway, at some point I was in Vegas and I saw that he was, like, I tried to make contact with him and failed. But, uh, it’s, it’s sort of weird that that’s the guy who was the most successful product of 3rd Street Elementary in Los Angeles.
00:23:17
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, he’s… So when we were at the concert, um, I mean, we’re a bit too young to-
00:23:24
Yug Patil: [coughs]
00:23:24
Amin Jazayeri: … ha- have grown up during Guns N’ Roses. We know a couple of songs.
00:23:27
Eric Weinstein: And I’m way too old, but go on.
00:23:30
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, but then we just knew that, uh, Guns N’ Roses is an iconic band, and if they come to your city, you go watch them. And we saw Slash do his guitar solos in every song.
00:23:40
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:23:41
Amin Jazayeri: And, like, there was this energy within those 20,000 people.
00:23:44
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:23:44
Amin Jazayeri: Like, it was almost hypnotic.
00:23:46
Eric Weinstein: Oh, wow.
00:23:47
Amin Jazayeri: And I look at these boys and I say, “You realize you’re looking at someone do something that they’re probably one of the best to ever do, and you’re seeing that happen right in front of you.”
00:23:58
Eric Weinstein: You’re, you’re saying the, the, the Guns N’ Roses band?
00:24:01
Amin Jazayeri: No, just Slash with the guitar.
00:24:02
Eric Weinstein: Oh, just Slash?
00:24:02
Amin Jazayeri: With the guitar.
00:24:03
Eric Weinstein: Oh.
00:24:03
Amin Jazayeri: I was like, “He’s probably one of the best to ever do this activity that you’re, like, witnessing right now.”
00:24:08
Eric Weinstein: Interesting.
00:24:08
Amin Jazayeri: “And that’s what’s causing this energy.” Like, you, you could look at people just, like, mesmerized.
00:24:15
Yug Patil: Yeah, people were crying.
00:24:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:24:16
Yug Patil: Like, all these adults that we were seeing, all these people in their 30s, 40s.
00:24:20
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:24:21
Yug Patil: Even older people-
00:24:21
Amin Jazayeri: Even older than that
00:24:22
Yug Patil: … just standing looking at it and crying, like, just admiring.
00:24:24
Amin Jazayeri: For them, it’s like a part of their life that you’re just-
00:24:27
Yug Patil: Yeah
00:24:27
Amin Jazayeri: … seeing over there.
00:24:28
Eric Weinstein: It’s funny, ’cause they- they’re sort of after my time.
00:24:31
Yug Patil: Mm-hmm.
00:24:32
Eric Weinstein: Uh, do you guys know what your time was? Are you still in your time?
00:24:35
Amin Jazayeri: Ah.
00:24:35
Yug Patil: I feel like we’re past. [laughs]
00:24:37
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:24:37
Eric Weinstein: Really? You feel you’re pre-date?
00:24:38
Yug Patil: I guess 2010s was, like, our time.
00:24:40
Amin Jazayeri: 2010s and 2000s, like, that’s when we started listening to English music.
00:24:46
Eric Weinstein: All right, so what are the groups or bands that you would say are kinda-
00:24:49
Amin Jazayeri: Oh
00:24:49
Eric Weinstein: … when you’re in your rocker you’re gonna say, “Oh, I remember that”?
00:24:52
Amin Jazayeri: Linkin Park.
00:24:54
Yug Patil: That’s a big one.
00:24:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:24:55
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:24:55
Amin Jazayeri: Linkin Park, Green Day.
00:24:57
Eric Weinstein: Green Day-
00:24:57
Amin Jazayeri: And like-
00:24:57
Eric Weinstein: … is a little too old for you guys.
00:24:59
Amin Jazayeri: Oh.
00:24:59
Yug Patil: Not, not really.
00:25:00
Amin Jazayeri: No.
00:25:00
Yug Patil: Green Day is-
00:25:01
Eric Weinstein: No?
00:25:01
Yug Patil: Their sound, their sound came to India around then for us.
00:25:03
Eric Weinstein: Oh, okay. I see.
00:25:04
Amin Jazayeri: Even Coldplay, I feel like a lot of-
00:25:06
Yug Patil: Yeah
00:25:06
Amin Jazayeri: … people-
00:25:07
Eric Weinstein: Hm
00:25:07
Yug Patil: I’d say like an Eminem really inspired our youth.
00:25:11
Amin Jazayeri: A- Akon.
00:25:13
Eric Weinstein: Interesting. [laughs]
00:25:13
Yug Patil: Yeah. [laughs]
00:25:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, that’s like around the time… That’s the Bluetooth era we call it-
00:25:19
Eric Weinstein: Bluetooth era
00:25:19
Amin Jazayeri: … because that’s when-
00:25:20
Yug Patil: We had-
00:25:20
Amin Jazayeri: … that’s how you shared music.
00:25:22
Eric Weinstein: I see.
00:25:22
Amin Jazayeri: Like, someone would get a bunch of songs on their phone, and they would send it to everyone else. Like, you would have to sit there for 20 minutes until the transfer is done. [laughs]
00:25:29
Yug Patil: You would stand in the school hallway and be like, “Bro, you want some, you want some music?” [laughs]
00:25:32
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:25:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
00:25:33
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:25:34
Eric Weinstein: I remember the first time I saw Indian rap.
00:25:36
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:25:37
Yug Patil: Yeah. [laughs]
00:25:37
Eric Weinstein: In a Hindi film with Jackie Shroff. Um.
00:25:42
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:25:43
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:25:44
Eric Weinstein: “Ama Dig.” You remember the song?
00:25:46
Amin Jazayeri: “Ama Dig”?
00:25:47
Yug Patil: Oh, Ama Dig.
00:25:48
Amin Jazayeri: Ama Dig.
00:25:49
Yug Patil: Dig.
00:25:49
Amin Jazayeri: Dig.
00:25:49
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:25:49
Amin Jazayeri: Deewane tere pigre jai.
00:25:51
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. [laughs]
00:25:51
Yug Patil: You know that song?
00:25:52
Eric Weinstein: No.
00:25:52
Yug Patil: What is wrong with you? [laughs]
00:25:54
Amin Jazayeri: No.
00:25:54
Yug Patil: It’s such an iconic song.
00:25:56
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s-
00:25:56
Eric Weinstein: And then it go- and then it-
00:25:57
Yug Patil: Closes down
00:25:57
Eric Weinstein: … it goes into English, and it’s like, it’s very funny because you see how this other culture is seeing you.
00:26:03
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:26:03
Eric Weinstein: It’s like, “Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. Don’t moan and groan.”
00:26:07
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:26:07
Eric Weinstein: “Why don’t you learn [laughs] with the times, and please leave us alone?”
00:26:11
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:26:11
Eric Weinstein: Like, um, he goes, “What kind of a man would spend his life like a jack of all trades, master of none? Boogie-woogie, reggae, rap, ra- raga, rock ‘n’ roll, and bhangra.”
00:26:20
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:26:20
Eric Weinstein: You know, and I remember thinking this is such a bad rap.
00:26:24
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
00:26:25
Eric Weinstein: But it’s a, it’s this image of how, uh, the US is going to ruin Indian youth.
00:26:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of that happening now. Like, Indian hip-hop has fully taken off. It’s like Indian hip-hop is a thing.
00:26:39
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:26:39
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:26:39
Amin Jazayeri: And, like, there’s rappers, and there’s, like, rivalries where they’re like-
00:26:43
Eric Weinstein: Diss tracks.
00:26:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, like they’re dissing each other.
00:26:47
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:26:47
Amin Jazayeri: I … The … You know, there’s a, a, in the scientific community also there’s a lot of hip-hop that-
00:26:52
Eric Weinstein: In the scientific community of India?
00:26:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Not in India.
00:26:56
Eric Weinstein: Mm. Okay.
00:26:56
Amin Jazayeri: Just, like, uh, like I’m sure there’s sci- scientists who, like, they, they have this theory, and then the other person is trying to prove them wrong. They have-
00:27:04
Eric Weinstein: And they have rap battles to figure out who’s right?
00:27:06
Amin Jazayeri: I mean, that’s, that would be the best way to do it, I think.
00:27:09
Yug Patil: When they publish a paper, are they dissing each other? Is that, [laughs] is that how it works?
00:27:13
Amin Jazayeri: Well, yeah, but it does.
00:27:13
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:27:13
Amin Jazayeri: Subliminally. [laughs]
00:27:15
Yug Patil: Is there a message somewhere?
00:27:16
Eric Weinstein: But you can’t dance to it. That’s the problem.
00:27:19
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:27:19
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:27:19
Eric Weinstein: No, I… Look, you ever, you ever see this thing like rap battles of history?
00:27:24
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah.
00:27:24
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:27:24
Amin Jazayeri: Yes.
00:27:24
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. So-
00:27:24
Amin Jazayeri: We used to watch that growing up.
00:27:26
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. So that, uh, that was always very funny to me when they do two scientists against each other-
00:27:31
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:27:31
Eric Weinstein: … or two economists.
00:27:32
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:27:34
Eric Weinstein: Um.
00:27:36
Amin Jazayeri: Who, who would you say is the GOAT? [laughs] The science-
00:27:40
Eric Weinstein: The science GOAT?
00:27:41
Amin Jazayeri: The science GOAT. Yeah.
00:27:42
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:27:42
Eric Weinstein: Oh my God.
00:27:43
Amin Jazayeri: Who, who, who’s the Eminem of science?
00:27:47
Eric Weinstein: Uh, well, we don’t really have one.
00:27:50
Amin Jazayeri: Some people would say, like, N- like Newton was.
00:27:55
Eric Weinstein: Sure. In mathematical physics world, I think-
00:27:59
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:27:59
Eric Weinstein: … that’s one of the few places where everyone hasn’t… I’ve never heard somebody really smart go up against Newton.
00:28:08
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:28:08
Yug Patil: Hm.
00:28:08
Eric Weinstein: Now, with that said, I just got back from Kerala.
00:28:11
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:28:11
Eric Weinstein: And people don’t recognize that Kerala has a claim potentially on being the first to the calculus in religious verse-
00:28:19
Amin Jazayeri: Okay
00:28:19
Eric Weinstein: … because of the Kerala school of, uh, astronomy and mathematics-
00:28:23
Amin Jazayeri: Okay
00:28:24
Eric Weinstein: … uh, in the north of the state, so no- north of Kochi. And, um, and that was done in religious verse, I guess in Malayalam. I’m, I’m not-
00:28:32
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:28:32
Eric Weinstein: Um, yeah, so I, I would say that that’s a fair point about Newton. Um, I would say that there are… The modern, the greatest of recent times, or the GOAT-
00:28:45
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:28:45
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:28:45
Eric Weinstein: … uh, you know, in mathematics would probably be a guy named Alexander Grothendieck.
00:28:49
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:28:50
Eric Weinstein: Um, hard to say in biology. I’m … So we just lost Jim Watson.
00:28:57
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:28:57
Eric Weinstein: And if you wanna talk about politically incorrect, I’m a huge Jim Watson fan. I knew Jim a bit, so he, uh-
00:29:04
Amin Jazayeri: Can you tell us more about Jim Watson?
00:29:06
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. He, he, you know, he, in ’53, he must have been, like, a 23-year-old guy or something like that.
00:29:13
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:29:13
Eric Weinstein: And he figured out along with Francis Crick the three-dimensional structure of DNA-
00:29:19
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, okay
00:29:19
Eric Weinstein: … as a double helix.
00:29:20
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:29:21
Eric Weinstein: And then he wrote this book called The Double Helix, which is one of the greatest works of literature of the 20th century.
00:29:26
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:29:26
Eric Weinstein: So you have a guy basically doing this permanent thing, being the first to the three-dimensional structure of DNA, and writing one of the great books of all time. He was a complete ass.
00:29:40
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:29:40
Eric Weinstein: No, he just was.
00:29:41
Yug Patil: Like, as a person?
00:29:42
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:29:43
Yug Patil: Okay.
00:29:43
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:29:44
Eric Weinstein: Um, because he would say things like, he would talk about IQ and, um, and race.
00:29:50
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:29:50
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:29:51
Eric Weinstein: And you’re not supposed to notice that breeding has anything to do with cognitive ability.
00:29:58
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:29:58
Yug Patil: Okay.
00:29:58
Eric Weinstein: So, you know, we, we all agreed to get that wrong so that we don’t have madness result, and he couldn’t take that. Um, he also wasn’t able to deal with fictions, um, that male and female distributions were exactly coincident. And as he started to say these things, thinking, “I’m a scientist. Why did I become a scientist if I can’t speak the truth?”
00:30:20
Yug Patil: Right.
00:30:21
Eric Weinstein: He got crazier and crazier and crazier. And, um-
00:30:26
Yug Patil: [coughs]
00:30:26
Eric Weinstein: … it was terrible because the… You know, my quote about it is that the legacy of Jim Watson is far too important to be left to Jim Watson. So he was just-
00:30:36
Amin Jazayeri: Hm
00:30:36
Eric Weinstein: … constantly saying things that he shouldn’t, getting himself into trouble. And it wasn’t that he was wrong about all of these things, it was just that it was just inappropriate.
00:30:49
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:30:49
Eric Weinstein: And- But I loved him. I, I really, I, I, I felt very strongly that he was one of the only people to talk about the difference between good science and great science.
00:31:01
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:31:01
Eric Weinstein: And the idea in my mind, I always say it this way, is that you don’t get great science by taking good science and turning it up to 11. Great science is something completely different.
00:31:11
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:31:11
Eric Weinstein: It’s, it’s much closer to madness, where you, you allow your mind to think things that, you know, really can’t be justified easily.
00:31:20
Amin Jazayeri: You have to dare to even-
00:31:23
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, you have to make it-
00:31:24
Amin Jazayeri: … to consider.
00:31:24
Eric Weinstein: Well, y- y- a famous example of this was that both of the teams that were in the lead for the three-dimensional structure of DNA-
00:31:32
Amin Jazayeri: Right
00:31:32
Eric Weinstein: … announced a triple helix-
00:31:35
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:31:35
Eric Weinstein: … but completely inverted, where the sugar phosphate is in the center-
00:31:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:31:41
Eric Weinstein: … and the, the vulnerable nucleotides are pointing out. So for some reason, that model occurred to the Caltech group and also occurred, um, to the Cavendish Lab group. And these guys called all of their colleagues in to look at this model they’d built, which was just wrong.
00:31:56
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:31:56
Eric Weinstein: And they were humiliated. So whenever you get humiliated, you have to think about the fact that a lot of the greatest people ever went through humiliation that no one else could take.
00:32:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:32:08
Eric Weinstein: That that’s part of greatness, is just making an ass out of yourself.
00:32:12
Amin Jazayeri: I mean, yeah, the m- mad scientist archetype exists for a reason, right? Because it’s just… When, when it comes to really smart people who dare to have these thoughts and come up with these things, and then try to justify it and prove it, and when no one else understands what you’re-
00:32:28
Eric Weinstein: Right
00:32:28
Amin Jazayeri: … trying to say, it’s going to annoy you and drive you a bit crazy until you’ve convinced people. And by the time you’ve done that, it’s too late.
00:32:38
Eric Weinstein: Well, even then, you know, I don’t think you, you… I don’t think you live to be fully exonerated. Once you’ve demonstrated that you’re not going to follow the crowd-
00:32:48
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:32:49
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:32:49
Eric Weinstein: … you’re never really trusted by the crowd because they know that you could break with the crowd at any moment.
00:32:55
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:32:55
Eric Weinstein: So it’s only when you’re dead that you get [coughs] elevated to saint status.
00:32:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:33:01
Eric Weinstein: But, you know, if you think about… I don’t know, you know, it’s, it’s also int- interesting the way India deals with madness differently-
00:33:11
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:33:11
Eric Weinstein: … than other cultures-
00:33:12
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:33:13
Eric Weinstein: … and eccentricity.
00:33:14
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:33:14
Eric Weinstein: And, and I, I think that that might be changing, but it, it used to be the case that we would make huge excuses for people that I knew in India.
00:33:22
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:33:23
Eric Weinstein: Um, and just like a, like that person’s eccentric so that you don’t have to say something about mental health.
00:33:31
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:33:31
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh, okay. But I feel really smart people do tend to have issues, and that’s the reason why… And, like, I’m saying it-
00:33:41
Amin Jazayeri: Example? [laughs]
00:33:41
Stuvi Krishnan: No, I’m not giving… I don’t know. I don’t have-
00:33:42
Eric Weinstein: Come on, man
00:33:43
Stuvi Krishnan: … an example. [laughs]
00:33:44
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:33:45
Stuvi Krishnan: But I feel like at least that’s what we were told-
00:33:47
Amin Jazayeri: He sees through-
00:33:47
Stuvi Krishnan: … growing up
00:33:47
Amin Jazayeri: … you, Satish.
00:33:48
Eric Weinstein: I see.
00:33:49
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:33:49
Eric Weinstein: Well, Elon, for example-
00:33:50
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:33:50
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:33:50
Eric Weinstein: … is neurodivergent.
00:33:52
Stuvi Krishnan: Correct.
00:33:53
Eric Weinstein: And, um, more or less my entire world is neurodivergent.
00:33:58
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:33:58
Eric Weinstein: I don’t really wanna deal with people who aren’t d- [laughs] neurodivergent.
00:34:01
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:34:02
Eric Weinstein: Um, and that’s hard because people don’t under- they don’t understand it. They just view it as, you know.
00:34:09
Amin Jazayeri: What does neurodivergent… Like how does that look like in… Like how does it manifest in-
00:34:16
Eric Weinstein: Well-
00:34:16
Amin Jazayeri: … itself in a person?
00:34:18
Eric Weinstein: Like you, you have s- things in childhood development. One thing that has now been identified, it’s called asynchronous development.
00:34:23
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:34:24
Eric Weinstein: Which means that you don’t develop your abilities in the same order that somebody else does.
00:34:30
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:34:30
Eric Weinstein: So maybe by the time you get to be 25, everything is in place.
00:34:33
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:34:33
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:34:34
Eric Weinstein: But what happens if you’re reading a- at a high school level at age four-
00:34:40
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:34:40
Stuvi Krishnan: Right
00:34:41
Eric Weinstein: … but you’re not verbal.
00:34:42
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:34:43
Eric Weinstein: So you’ve got some kid who’s super smart, and literally for non-verbal, we use the word dumb.
00:34:49
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:34:50
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Yeah.
00:34:50
Eric Weinstein: Isn’t that funny, right? [laughs]
00:34:53
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:34:54
Amin Jazayeri: He just can’t say what he thinks-
00:34:55
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:34:55
Amin Jazayeri: … but he’s really smart.
00:34:56
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:34:57
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh, yeah.
00:34:57
Amin Jazayeri: He just can’t… [laughs]
00:34:58
Eric Weinstein: Well, imagine, imagine you were really g-
00:34:59
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:34:59
Eric Weinstein: … good at mathematics and we called that puggle. You know-
00:35:02
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:35:02
Eric Weinstein: … it, it’s just like-
00:35:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:35:03
Eric Weinstein: … it, it’s, it’s a terrible insult coupled to some positive trait, um, that somebody might, might be so interior that they’re thinking amazing and brilliant thoughts, and they just don’t speak. So I guess I, I’m interested in dyslexia, dysgraphia, and various cognitive differences.
00:35:23
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:35:23
Eric Weinstein: And that’s, that… You know, if you ask me d- do you relate to being an American? Do you relate to being Jewish? Do you relate to any one of these things? The thing I relate to most is probably neurodivergence and just being in school and hating my teachers. Hating my teachers completely.
00:35:40
Amin Jazayeri: Why?
00:35:40
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
00:35:41
Amin Jazayeri: They don’t-
00:35:41
Eric Weinstein: Uh, I viewed them as torturers.
00:35:43
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:35:44
Eric Weinstein: They were just bad.
00:35:46
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:35:46
Eric Weinstein: And y- you know, you don’t have the presence of mind when you’re a kid either to realize that it’s okay to think that all of your teachers are bad.
00:35:56
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:35:57
Eric Weinstein: Nor do you have an idea of why this is a… I mean, it’s a strange thing to say, right? And the answer is that they’re, they’re trained to handle 20 kids at a time.
00:36:07
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:36:07
Eric Weinstein: And if you’ve got 20 kids who are, you know, 19 kids who are going in one direction and 1 guy who’s wandering off there-
00:36:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:36:14
Eric Weinstein: … that teacher is eventually just gonna get angry.
00:36:16
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:36:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Right.
00:36:18
Eric Weinstein: And so, yeah, d- m- school is torture for the neurodivergent.
00:36:23
Amin Jazayeri: In India, it’s not 20, it’s usually 40 to 50.
00:36:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, 50.
00:36:27
Amin Jazayeri: We, yeah, we had 40 kids in my class.
00:36:29
Stuvi Krishnan: Like a classroom will be filled with 50 students.
00:36:30
Amin Jazayeri: And I remember thinking all my teachers are bad when I was in school.
00:36:33
Eric Weinstein: Maybe true.
00:36:35
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, because then… I, I mean, there were some exceptions, like there… We had this biology, uh, teacher who is probably one of the best teachers in the world. Like I w- He would come into the class and the energy would shift. I like… I’ll say his name also, Gopi Sir, like he-
00:36:55
Eric Weinstein: This is in Pune?
00:36:56
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. He made me love biology to an extent where I wanted to study, go to medical school and become-
00:37:02
Eric Weinstein: Oh, wow
00:37:02
Amin Jazayeri: … a doctor.
00:37:03
Eric Weinstein: Did you?
00:37:04
Amin Jazayeri: No, no.
00:37:05
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:37:06
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:37:06
Amin Jazayeri: No.
00:37:06
Eric Weinstein: Not that much. [laughs]
00:37:08
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:37:08
Amin Jazayeri: No, I mean, there were different reasons for me not choosing to do that, but for the longest time, like, I think he taught us from seventh, seventh grade to 10th grade, and it was just like people would look forward to-
00:37:22
Eric Weinstein: Wow
00:37:23
Amin Jazayeri: … his lectures.
00:37:25
Eric Weinstein: So it’s wonderful.
00:37:27
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:37:28
Eric Weinstein: And I wish I’d had that experience.
00:37:29
Amin Jazayeri: But that’s when I realized how much of a difference a good teacher can make. Uh, I used to think if we had this for every other subject, like, school would be so much more fun. I would be learning so much more. And with him, it was like, you wanted to do well in his subject. Like, you wanted to kind of-
00:37:46
Yug Patil: Right
00:37:46
Amin Jazayeri: … make him proud.
00:37:47
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:37:48
Amin Jazayeri: Because you were like, “He’s so good at what he does, and I enjoy… Like, I’ll feel, I feel like I’m letting him down if I don’t do well on my exams.”
00:37:56
Eric Weinstein: So one of the things that’s, that’s fascinating to me is that India produces some great thinkers-
00:38:02
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:38:02
Eric Weinstein: … but th- the school system is not well-suited to them.
00:38:06
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:38:06
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:38:06
Eric Weinstein: So this whole concept of mugging, you know, and just-
00:38:09
Yug Patil: Mm
00:38:09
Eric Weinstein: … like, learning by rote and r- r- regurgitating and giving the teacher what-
00:38:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:38:14
Eric Weinstein: … they want and, and cheating, should we say?
00:38:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:38:16
Eric Weinstein: That there’s also a culture of cheating.
00:38:18
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah.
00:38:18
Eric Weinstein: Um, I think that that’s really un- unfortunate. Then you’ve got this very bizarre thing, which is, I guess, Nehru’s theory of tertiary education, which is-
00:38:28
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:38:28
Eric Weinstein: … that you’ve got so many people, you can afford to say screw it to primary and secondary [laughs] because something is gonna survive, and you send it to IIT-
00:38:36
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:38:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:38:37
Eric Weinstein: … or to the States, you know?
00:38:38
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:38:39
Eric Weinstein: And that’s, that’s a very strange thing. But on the other hand, okay, you’ve got a, an advanced nuclear program. Uh, one of my… I mean, my favorite place in all of Bombay is TIFR.
00:38:51
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:38:52
Eric Weinstein: It’s the nice… It’s, you know, it’s nicer than the Willingdon Club, for sure. And, uh, it, it’s this beautiful testament to India’s faith in science that, that, uh, I guess, uh, uh, built by the Tatas maybe.
00:39:13
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:39:13
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:39:13
Eric Weinstein: And right at the beginning of the nuclear era, around the time that the US exploded the hydrogen bomb. And I really wish India would expand a little bit from its totally outstanding IITs to just go for it and actually-
00:39:33
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:39:34
Eric Weinstein: … try to do something. Take on the world, not trying to catch up-
00:39:39
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:39:40
Eric Weinstein: … but leapfrog it. Go past.
00:39:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, but with the education system and how the schools are, like you said, it doesn’t really encourage, um, thinking. Like, if you’re someone who has original thoughts and you, you want… Like, you’re usually discouraged from, like, doing your own thing. Like, I’ll… For, in mathematics in school, if there is a theory or if there is a problem that I’m supposed to solve, if I come up with my own way of solving it-
00:40:11
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:40:11
Amin Jazayeri: … and getting to the answer quicker or easier-
00:40:13
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:40:13
Amin Jazayeri: … it’s looked down upon, because you’re not following the method that was taught to you by your teacher-
00:40:18
Yug Patil: They take it personally
00:40:18
Amin Jazayeri: … who you’re supposed to respect.
00:40:20
Eric Weinstein: So let’s get somebody with a few rupees to-
00:40:23
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:40:23
Eric Weinstein: … rub together and create a school for weirdos and freaks.
00:40:27
Yug Patil: There are, I think.
00:40:27
Amin Jazayeri: I, I think there’s better schooling systems now.
00:40:30
Eric Weinstein: Are there?
00:40:30
Amin Jazayeri: Like, there’s different-
00:40:31
Eric Weinstein: Where?
00:40:31
Amin Jazayeri: … or there’s alternate e- education, like the, with international schools. I think it’s different. But, like, in the traditional school system-
00:40:41
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:40:41
Amin Jazayeri: … which is, I think, still the British, uh-
00:40:44
Yug Patil: Curriculum
00:40:45
Amin Jazayeri: … curriculum-
00:40:45
Yug Patil: Yeah
00:40:45
Amin Jazayeri: … in most places. It’s just like, “Listen to what the teacher says. Don’t question it.”
00:40:50
Yug Patil: It’s just very antiquated. Like, you’re being marked on steps that you-
00:40:54
Eric Weinstein: Are.
00:40:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:40:55
Eric Weinstein: You guys are really good at producing gurus and cults.
00:40:57
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:40:58
Yug Patil: True.
00:40:58
Eric Weinstein: Do an education cult.
00:41:00
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:41:01
Eric Weinstein: Do an education cult of the neurodivergence and live this crazy world of Hogwarts and the X-Men Academy and-
00:41:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:41:08
Eric Weinstein: … just go after your mutants. Do you know how many mutants there are in this country? Huge-
00:41:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:41:12
Eric Weinstein: … numbers of mutants.
00:41:13
Amin Jazayeri: Pretty sure, yeah.
00:41:14
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. So my feeling is, is that India should weaponize its mutants-
00:41:18
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:41:18
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:41:19
Eric Weinstein: … for science.
00:41:20
Amin Jazayeri: Have like a whole Avengers.
00:41:22
Eric Weinstein: What?
00:41:22
Amin Jazayeri: Have like the Avengers of-
00:41:24
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:41:25
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:41:25
Eric Weinstein: With cool outfits and lasers.
00:41:27
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, because there’s so many people who, uh, like, eventually realize I, “I’m too smart for this.” And then they’re like, “Okay, but this, uh, education system here isn’t going to encourage that,” so they leave the country, and then they go to countries where that is appreciated.
00:41:42
Eric Weinstein: And then they end up running our companies.
00:41:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:41:44
Eric Weinstein: Why?
00:41:44
Amin Jazayeri: That’s what… Like, the best, like, the smartest and the best are leaving the country.
00:41:48
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:41:49
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, because it’s like, “I’m not appreciated here,” or, like, “I’m gonna make so much more money when I go abroad.” And like I-
00:41:56
Eric Weinstein: You’re butt hurt over Priyanka Chopra, aren’t you? [laughs]
00:42:01
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:42:02
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Priyanka has a different story. Like, there’s theories as to why she, like, uh-
00:42:07
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:42:07
Amin Jazayeri: … left India and-
00:42:09
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:42:09
Yug Patil: I think we should-
00:42:10
Amin Jazayeri: I mean-
00:42:11
Yug Patil: We can get into it
00:42:11
Amin Jazayeri: … they’re like conspiracy theories
00:42:12
Yug Patil: … yeah, there are conspiracy theories.
00:42:13
Amin Jazayeri: Like-
00:42:14
Eric Weinstein: All right, gentlemen. Let’s settle down.
00:42:16
Yug Patil: We’re, we’re going into conspiracy mode now.
00:42:18
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I think you can discuss-
00:42:19
Eric Weinstein: Priyanka, I’m sorry I brought this up.
00:42:22
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:42:22
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:42:22
Eric Weinstein: Nerduels.
00:42:24
Amin Jazayeri: I think you can discuss Priyanka Chopra. But, like, what world are we living in when you can’t do Bollywood conspiracy theories anymore and just be, like, scared of, oh-
00:42:32
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:42:32
Amin Jazayeri: … what if Priyanka gets upset? Like-
00:42:34
Eric Weinstein: What? She’ll shut this thing down.
00:42:36
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Uh, I think she’ll prob-
00:42:37
Yug Patil: She will. She has the-
00:42:37
Amin Jazayeri: She’ll probably not come on the show then.
00:42:39
Eric Weinstein: She won’t come on the show?
00:42:40
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:42:41
Eric Weinstein: No, I think she needs to come on the show to clear the air.
00:42:44
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:42:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. If you, if you really wanna know, there was this rumor going around that Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan had a thing, and then Shah Rukh Khan’s wife didn’t like it, so-
00:42:54
Eric Weinstein: Oh, is that right?
00:42:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:42:55
Yug Patil: She kind of ousted her from the-
00:42:56
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, so she got, like, kinda exiled from the industry.
00:43:01
Eric Weinstein: Wow, I didn’t, I did not know this story.
00:43:02
Yug Patil: We are now at the conspiracy theory. [laughs]
00:43:04
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:43:05
Yug Patil: We’ve taught you something here today. [laughs]
00:43:09
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:43:14
Eric Weinstein: I’m still s-
00:43:14
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:43:14
Eric Weinstein: I’m still stuck on DDLJ.
00:43:15
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:43:16
Amin Jazayeri: DDLJ is an iconic film.
00:43:18
Eric Weinstein: It is such a good film.
00:43:19
Amin Jazayeri: It’s great. Uh, it’s really long, but a lot of fun, I think.
00:43:24
Eric Weinstein: Although he can’t play the mandolin to save his life.
00:43:26
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:43:26
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. [laughs]
00:43:27
Amin Jazayeri: He can do this though.
00:43:28
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. [laughs]
00:43:29
Stuvi Krishnan: To save his life.
00:43:30
Yug Patil: That will save a million lives.
00:43:32
Eric Weinstein: No, but I, I saw… I, I, I’m a, I’m a man- mandolin enthusiast.
00:43:36
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
00:43:36
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:43:37
Eric Weinstein: And then I saw him, like at the 30th anniversary or something of DDLJ, and h- he had a mandolin and he couldn’t play it, and I was really hurt.
00:43:45
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:43:46
Eric Weinstein: ‘Cause you remember, he does this scene where he, he’s playing the piano.
00:43:49
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:43:50
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:43:50
Eric Weinstein: And, uh, I thought that he’s such a talented guy that at least he’d learn the mandolin. And by the way, I believe that the mandolin was introduced by Jews into Bollywood.
00:43:59
Amin Jazayeri: Okay. How?
00:44:00
Stuvi Krishnan: To Bollywood?
00:44:01
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:44:01
Stuvi Krishnan: How is that?
00:44:02
Eric Weinstein: Well, there was an early Jewish presence-
00:44:04
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay
00:44:04
Eric Weinstein: … in Bollywood.
00:44:05
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
00:44:05
Eric Weinstein: And I believe that the mandolin somehow came through our community.
00:44:10
Stuvi Krishnan: Snuck its way.
00:44:10
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, snuck its way in. Um, and you know, of course, I- India being India, you just throw in everything-
00:44:19
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:44:19
Eric Weinstein: … to, to make things spicier and more fun.
00:44:21
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:44:21
Eric Weinstein: And so, anyway, I just love the fact that it also, not only did it have great songs, a great story, and amazing scenery, but, uh, I also love that it just featured this mandolin in a really prominent way.
00:44:35
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:44:35
Amin Jazayeri: Did you watch a lot of Bollywood movies?
00:44:37
Eric Weinstein: No.
00:44:38
Amin Jazayeri: No, not at all?
00:44:39
Eric Weinstein: No, and that’s, I wouldn’t say not at all, but I’m stuck… I would say that’s the most modern Bollywood film I’ve probab- eh, it, it… Bollywood’s sort of changing a little bit.
00:44:52
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:44:52
Eric Weinstein: So I like the old, terrible, ridiculous formulas.
00:44:55
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
00:44:55
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:44:56
Eric Weinstein: Um, I think, I think at some moment my wife was watching Dhoom 2.
00:45:03
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:45:03
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:45:04
Eric Weinstein: And I thought, “This is pretty close to Hollywood.”
00:45:09
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:45:10
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:45:11
Eric Weinstein: And I don’t need that. [laughs]
00:45:14
Stuvi Krishnan: But you, you have that.
00:45:15
Eric Weinstein: I have that.
00:45:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Right.
00:45:17
Eric Weinstein: But, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, uh… Well, look, to say something really controversial, I was not part of the Lata army at all.
00:45:27
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:45:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:45:27
Eric Weinstein: I did not understand India’s devotion to that voice.
00:45:31
Amin Jazayeri: No.
00:45:32
Eric Weinstein: I, I agree it was skilled.
00:45:33
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:45:34
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:45:34
Eric Weinstein: Very, very-
00:45:34
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm
00:45:35
Eric Weinstein: … um, you know, a great musician, but it was too high-pitched, and it was-
00:45:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:45:42
Eric Weinstein: … uh, a- and it, it just defined everything.
00:45:45
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
00:45:46
Eric Weinstein: So…
00:45:47
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, my grandmom’s gonna be pissed. [laughs]
00:45:49
Eric Weinstein: You see?
00:45:50
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. [laughs]
00:45:51
Eric Weinstein: I know a couple ways to get Indians going. [laughs]
00:45:54
Yug Patil: [laughs] If she ever watches this, she’s gonna be pissed.
00:45:56
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:45:57
Stuvi Krishnan: Show this to her. [laughs]
00:45:58
Eric Weinstein: What does, what does this gora know about it? [laughs]
00:46:00
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:46:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah.
00:46:01
Eric Weinstein: Um, for sure. But the, uh, well, the other one, i- if we really wanna get into it-
00:46:07
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:46:07
Eric Weinstein: … is, is mangoes.
00:46:09
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:46:10
Eric Weinstein: You wanna start-
00:46:10
Stuvi Krishnan: Your man-
00:46:10
Eric Weinstein: You wanna start-
00:46:11
Stuvi Krishnan: Your man mangoes?
00:46:11
Eric Weinstein: No, no, no, no, no, no. It’s which one.
00:46:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh, which one.
00:46:14
Amin Jazayeri: Okay, okay.
00:46:14
Eric Weinstein: And it’s just very funny. If you’re ever, like, if you’re being threatened by a group of Indians and you need to create a distraction so you can create an escape-
00:46:22
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:46:22
Eric Weinstein: … you just say, you know, whatever one, one particular mango is, and then watch them fight it out.
00:46:27
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:46:28
Eric Weinstein: They lose all track of, of reality.
00:46:31
Stuvi Krishnan: You’ve done this before? [laughs]
00:46:33
Eric Weinstein: Uh-
00:46:33
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, what’s the issue?
00:46:34
Eric Weinstein: Well, it’s funny because they don’t realize what’s going on.
00:46:36
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:46:37
Eric Weinstein: And-
00:46:38
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:46:38
Eric Weinstein: … it, um, it… Look, I wanted to do a mango tours of India.
00:46:44
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
00:46:44
Eric Weinstein: You know, time it so that things are exactly right-
00:46:47
Stuvi Krishnan: Seasonal
00:46:47
Eric Weinstein: … because it really is seasonal. And I just, I don’t th- well, okay, do you know about our mango problem?
00:46:56
Amin Jazayeri: No.
00:46:56
Stuvi Krishnan: No.
00:46:56
Eric Weinstein: Okay. I think in 1928-
00:46:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm
00:46:59
Eric Weinstein: … Florida invented the world’s worst mango.
00:47:03
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:47:04
Eric Weinstein: This thing is so horrible, you can’t even believe it. It’s called Tommy Atkins.
00:47:09
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
00:47:09
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:47:10
Eric Weinstein: And, um, you know, I know that back in my country, they’re gonna say, “Eric, I thought you were America first.” Uh, but no, we have terrible mangoes, and the reason that Florida introduced this mango is that it’s shelf stable, so it lasts forever.
00:47:23
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
00:47:24
Eric Weinstein: It’s beautiful, it’s a really rich color, and it’s huge, and that’s all that can be said for it. You open it up and it’s like barely flavored dental floss that gets between your teeth.
00:47:35
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh.
00:47:35
Eric Weinstein: It’s inedible. Um, and so we, in general, did not get really good mangoes.
00:47:41
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:47:41
Eric Weinstein: Uh, the UK does. They get pretty good stuff.
00:47:43
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
00:47:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:47:44
Eric Weinstein: And then George W. Bush said we could have Alphonso, but we have to irradiate it.
00:47:50
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
00:47:51
Eric Weinstein: Um, but yeah, I, I don’t think Americans understand the importance of the mango because we, we’re not, we’re not raised on great mango.
00:48:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I, it is a, it’s such a unique fruit. Like, it’s-
00:48:05
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:48:05
Amin Jazayeri: … there’s no other fruit that’s like it. Like, okay, with like watermelons, you’re like, “Oh, there’s melons,” and that’s… Like, you can group papaya, watermelon, muskmelon in the same group.
00:48:14
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, different, different apples also.
00:48:15
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, there’s like apples and like everything kind of-
00:48:18
Eric Weinstein: Okay, but keep going
00:48:20
Amin Jazayeri: … but then mangoes, it’s just like the flavor to it is-
00:48:23
Stuvi Krishnan: One of one
00:48:23
Amin Jazayeri: … the flavor is just too unique to-
00:48:26
Eric Weinstein: Well, which one?
00:48:28
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, I mean, we have a lot of different mangoes.
00:48:31
Eric Weinstein: I know.
00:48:31
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, he knows. He worked at India tour.
00:48:33
Amin Jazayeri: So the Alphonso is the most, like, it’s like, okay, it’s reliable. You know you can go-
00:48:37
Eric Weinstein: But we’re in Maharashtra right now.
00:48:39
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:48:39
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:48:39
Eric Weinstein: So you’re, you’re repping the home team.
00:48:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:48:41
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:48:41
Amin Jazayeri: But there’s this, uh, other variant also called, I think, Kesari?
00:48:47
Stuvi Krishnan: Kesari.
00:48:47
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
00:48:47
Amin Jazayeri: Kesari.
00:48:49
Stuvi Krishnan: Kesari.
00:48:49
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, Kesa- Kesari also I like.
00:48:51
Stuvi Krishnan: I think I’m on the Alphonso. I’m team Alphonso.
00:48:53
Eric Weinstein: Team Alphonso.
00:48:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair.
00:48:55
Stuvi Krishnan: You’re the basic. [laughs]
00:48:56
Eric Weinstein: You don’t, you don’t think it’s like too sickly sweet sometimes?
00:48:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Sometimes. Some of them are.
00:49:01
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:49:02
Amin Jazayeri: I feel like you wanna have sweet mango, right?
00:49:04
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:49:04
Amin Jazayeri: Like, I feel like that’s the whole point.
00:49:07
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:49:07
Stuvi Krishnan: But sometimes it’s really sweet.
00:49:09
Amin Jazayeri: I like really sweet.
00:49:10
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh.
00:49:11
Amin Jazayeri: I also like the green unripe
00:49:14
Yug Patil: Grape?
00:49:15
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:49:15
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, sure.
00:49:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, put some, like, salt and red chili powder.
00:49:19
Yug Patil: Chikoo gravy.
00:49:19
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:49:19
Stuvi Krishnan: You would have custard apples.
00:49:22
Amin Jazayeri: How do you know?
00:49:22
Eric Weinstein: Although this morning-
00:49:24
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:49:24
Eric Weinstein: … we had a worm in one.
00:49:26
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:49:26
Yug Patil: Oh, no.
00:49:27
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:49:27
Eric Weinstein: But look, the thing about, the thing, the thing about sitaphal, and, and don’t even… Ramphal doesn’t even exist.
00:49:33
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:49:34
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:49:34
Eric Weinstein: Uh, sitaphal cannot be gotten in the US.
00:49:38
Yug Patil: Yeah, I know.
00:49:39
Eric Weinstein: And I’ve tried really hard. The closest we can get is frozen atemoya or something that comes close to custard apple from Taiwan, and it’s inedible.
00:49:50
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:49:50
Eric Weinstein: Um, so that’s really, that’s really a treat.
00:49:54
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:49:54
Eric Weinstein: Like, you can occasionally get chiku. Um, don’t think I’ve ever had colajumoon.
00:50:02
Amin Jazayeri: But chiku and jamun is like, okay, fine, you can skip.
00:50:05
Stuvi Krishnan: I’m not a fan of chiku-
00:50:06
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:50:06
Stuvi Krishnan: … ’cause it sticks to, like, the top of your-
00:50:09
Yug Patil: Oh, chiku’s are awesome, man
00:50:10
Amin Jazayeri: … see, custard apple.
00:50:11
Yug Patil: Oh, no. [laughs]
00:50:11
Stuvi Krishnan: No, but it-
00:50:12
Eric Weinstein: What is going on?
00:50:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Chiku does something to your tongue.
00:50:14
Yug Patil: There was something wrong with you.
00:50:14
Eric Weinstein: You, you need different friends.
00:50:16
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:50:17
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:50:17
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:50:17
Eric Weinstein: Well, okay.
00:50:18
Yug Patil: No, chiku’s are great.
00:50:18
Eric Weinstein: So I started seeing persimmons here.
00:50:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:22
Eric Weinstein: Uh.
00:50:22
Amin Jazayeri: But n- not a lot of people know what persimmons are.
00:50:24
Eric Weinstein: They don’t.
00:50:25
Amin Jazayeri: And it’s very seasonal.
00:50:26
Eric Weinstein: Well-
00:50:26
Amin Jazayeri: I think it comes for a week or two weeks.
00:50:28
Eric Weinstein: And there are two kinds.
00:50:29
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:50:29
Eric Weinstein: There’s the Japanese version and the kind that we get more in Israel.
00:50:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:50:32
Eric Weinstein: And, uh, those are d- those are delightful.
00:50:36
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:50:36
Eric Weinstein: India’s gonna do amazing things with persimmons, I’m, I’m sure of it.
00:50:40
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I think people haven’t gotten into it because it makes your mouth a bit numb.
00:50:44
Eric Weinstein: Well, can, it can also be chalky.
00:50:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:50:46
Eric Weinstein: Right? So you have to, you have to w- get it… We’re having this fruit discussion. [laughs]
00:50:51
Yug Patil: Yeah. [laughs]
00:50:51
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. [laughs]
00:50:51
Yug Patil: Yeah, we’ve gone so deep into fruit.
00:50:54
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:50:55
Amin Jazayeri: We could be talking to you about anything, and this is like-
00:50:58
Eric Weinstein: Well, but I’m obsessed.
00:50:59
Amin Jazayeri: Exactly.
00:50:59
Eric Weinstein: Right? I mean, one of the rea-
00:51:00
Amin Jazayeri: Fruits are great
00:51:01
Eric Weinstein: … one of the real reasons to come to India-
00:51:02
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:51:03
Eric Weinstein: … is y- you just… I mean, first of all, this, this very funny idea that we talk about Indian food. Do you like Indian food? Oh, I don’t like Indian food. What the hell are these people talking about?
00:51:15
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:51:15
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:51:15
Eric Weinstein: There’s so… I, I… It’s a, it’s a, it’s a bottomless-
00:51:20
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:51:21
Eric Weinstein: … variety-
00:51:22
Yug Patil: Mm
00:51:22
Eric Weinstein: … of different things.
00:51:23
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:51:23
Eric Weinstein: Like, I can’t even… A- and it’s very funny that we just have this, like, very narrow range, and we call that Indian food.
00:51:29
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:51:29
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Like, I’m sure butter chicken is… People-
00:51:33
Yug Patil: Chicken tikka masala
00:51:34
Amin Jazayeri: … who, who like butter chicken-
00:51:35
Stuvi Krishnan: Chicken tikka. It’s very narrowed down for you all over.
00:51:37
Amin Jazayeri: Naan bread.
00:51:38
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:51:38
Amin Jazayeri: Naan bread. [laughs]
00:51:40
Eric Weinstein: Right. But, like, so we’re at this wedding.
00:51:43
Yug Patil: Mm-hmm.
00:51:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:51:45
Eric Weinstein: That went on forever.
00:51:47
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:51:47
Amin Jazayeri: Oh, yeah, I’m sure. Yeah. [laughs]
00:51:49
Eric Weinstein: I mean, I… It was ridiculous. I couldn’t… The, the sheer number of different types of food.
00:51:55
Amin Jazayeri: That’s what I was talking to him-
00:51:57
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
00:51:57
Amin Jazayeri: … about at the wedding. I was like, “This seems like it’s too much.” Like-
00:52:02
Eric Weinstein: It was too much
00:52:03
Amin Jazayeri: … how, how do you choose?
00:52:04
Stuvi Krishnan: Like, there was no-
00:52:05
Yug Patil: How many, how many cuisines?
00:52:05
Amin Jazayeri: Everything.
00:52:06
Stuvi Krishnan: Bro, if you think of anything, it was there.
00:52:08
Yug Patil: Okay. Okay.
00:52:09
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:52:09
Eric Weinstein: We found this poor Kashmiri guy off in the corner with his little tea stall, and, like, he was s- so removed from everything. We were, like, the only people who made it out to him because it was just an assault.
00:52:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:52:21
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:52:22
Eric Weinstein: Right? It was an assault on your eyes and, and your tongue, and it was amazing. And this poor guy’s like, “This is my Kashmiri tea.” [laughs]
00:52:29
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
00:52:29
Eric Weinstein: Like, “We’ll have two cups.” [laughs]
00:52:31
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs] No little cups.
00:52:33
Yug Patil: Only two cups.
00:52:34
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:52:35
Amin Jazayeri: Wow. But, y- yeah, I mean, where else in the world do you go and you’re handed a menu at the restaurant, and it’s got, like, 500 things on it?
00:52:44
Eric Weinstein: The Chinese will do this too.
00:52:45
Amin Jazayeri: Okay, okay.
00:52:47
Eric Weinstein: Uh, you-
00:52:47
Amin Jazayeri: They’re always competing, so. [laughs]
00:52:48
Yug Patil: Well, what-
00:52:50
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:52:51
Eric Weinstein: Well, but that’s the thing, like, Italy and France make each other better.
00:52:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:52:56
Eric Weinstein: You know, when it comes to cheese, when it comes to wine. So you need competition, otherwise it’s like being the top MMA guy in a division where there’s nobody who’s good at fighting. Then-
00:53:05
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
00:53:05
Eric Weinstein: … you can’t become a legend.
00:53:06
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:53:06
Eric Weinstein: So my feeling is, is that India needs China, uh, to, to beat.
00:53:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Not just in food.
00:53:14
Eric Weinstein: Well-
00:53:15
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:53:15
Eric Weinstein: … you’re gonna have a hard time militarily. [laughs] I, I would start with food.
00:53:18
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
00:53:19
Stuvi Krishnan: One bite at a time.
00:53:21
Amin Jazayeri: How, how advanced is China really? Like, I know they’re way more advanced than people know and think, but, like, what’s the…
00:53:30
Eric Weinstein: Well, they steal all our stuff.
00:53:31
Amin Jazayeri: Okay. So that’s a good-
00:53:32
Eric Weinstein: So they’re pretty advanced.
00:53:33
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:53:36
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know why we let them steal all our stuff.
00:53:38
Stuvi Krishnan: Have you been to China?
00:53:39
Eric Weinstein: Uh, I’ve been to Hong Kong only.
00:53:41
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:53:42
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
00:53:43
Eric Weinstein: Um, but I very much admire the cunning of the Chinese.
00:53:48
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:53:49
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, you c- you can’t hate your adversary. You have to understand your adversary first.
00:53:55
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:53:55
Eric Weinstein: My feeling about it is China has done a very good job of saying, “Hey, we’ll provide you low-cost workers. We’ll call them graduate students. And we’ll put them in all the technical subjects, and you can have them practically for free, and they’ll just come home and tell us everything that you’re doing.” And so what China’s doing is it’s, uh, getting the best of two different systems.
00:54:17
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:54:18
Eric Weinstein: It has a, a very strong command and control ability to get things done, so it, it knows how to execute using sort of totalitarian measures.
00:54:31
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:54:32
Eric Weinstein: And it also knows how to use freedom, because the freedom it, to create exists in the US, and they don’t have to deal with the problems of freedom. So freedom is very chaotic.
00:54:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:54:45
Eric Weinstein: I mean, and you look here.
00:54:46
Amin Jazayeri: So they’re fully outsourced freedom.
00:54:48
Eric Weinstein: They’ve outsourced freedom.
00:54:49
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
00:54:50
Eric Weinstein: And we outsourced, like, execution.
00:54:52
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:54:54
Eric Weinstein: And I think it’s a terrible deal for us.
00:54:57
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
00:54:58
Eric Weinstein: But, uh, you’ve got to admire the Chinese for being extremely shrewd.
00:55:04
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:55:05
Yug Patil: Mm.
00:55:05
Amin Jazayeri: Like, straight to the point, no bullshit.
00:55:08
Eric Weinstein: No, I wouldn’t say that. They lie. They, you know… I had one of the very senior people in China in, in my home, and he said, “I wouldn’t get so exercised, Eric.” He says, “We’re just, all we do is the back end. We just create-
00:55:22
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm
00:55:22
Eric Weinstein: … what you tell us to do.” I said, “You’re stealing all our stuff. You realize that I understand what you’re doing. [laughs] Why are you, why are we lying to each other?”
00:55:31
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:55:31
Eric Weinstein: Um, but America’s made catastrophic decisions.
00:55:36
Stuvi Krishnan: Hm.
00:55:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, like I hear things about China, and like the things they do with AI, and like I hear things like, “Oh, you guys are using GPT now. They’ve had this forever.”
00:55:46
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
00:55:47
Amin Jazayeri: Like, um, and it’s like they’re so much more ahead than everyone else. Which, to what end?
00:55:56
Eric Weinstein: We’re all gonna be super advanced in like four minutes.
00:55:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Hm.
00:56:01
Eric Weinstein: So they get there a little bit first. Are they gonna do some kind of attack with their drone swarms from their… First of all, how screwed up are their drone shows?
00:56:12
Amin Jazayeri: I haven’t seen-
00:56:12
Eric Weinstein: Oh, they’re the most beautiful things in the world.
00:56:15
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
00:56:15
Eric Weinstein: You see people doing incredible work with like sculptures of-
00:56:19
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
00:56:19
Eric Weinstein: … drones and lights, you know, that are as big as a, a downtown of a city over the city. Perfect coordination. But it-
00:56:26
Amin Jazayeri: They’ve started doing those at Indian weddings now.
00:56:28
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:56:29
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
00:56:30
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:56:30
Eric Weinstein: I got…
00:56:30
Amin Jazayeri: So Indian weddings are also really advanced, so it’s just China and then Indian weddings. [laughs]
00:56:34
Eric Weinstein: I see. [laughs] Has there been a nuclear Indian wedding yet?
00:56:38
Amin Jazayeri: Soon.
00:56:39
Stuvi Krishnan: Not yet.
00:56:39
Amin Jazayeri: Soon enough.
00:56:39
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:56:40
Amin Jazayeri: Because they’re leveling up. L- like you get clips out of like Udaipur and Jaipur where they have these weddings, and there’s like international artists on the lineup, and they’ve got drone shows, and they’ve got like crazy pyro-
00:56:54
Eric Weinstein: I’ve never been asked to dance at an Indian wedding. I don’t-
00:56:58
Amin Jazayeri: No. Really?
00:56:59
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. I, I know S-
00:57:01
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh, like on, on stage.
00:57:02
Eric Weinstein: I know SRK has been able to make a good living from-
00:57:05
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:57:05
Eric Weinstein: … showing up. But I, I never get these offers.
00:57:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I mean, now that you’ve put it out. [laughs]
00:57:11
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs] We wanna see him dancing on the stage.
00:57:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, but that’s, like, so you ask your friends to dance at your wedding. Like, you, you don’t obviously pay anyone.
00:57:22
Eric Weinstein: What? Okay. Yeah.
00:57:22
Amin Jazayeri: But it’s a, like, it’s a thing like if now my group of boys-
00:57:26
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:57:26
Amin Jazayeri: … they obviously have to do a dance at my wedding, or like-
00:57:29
Eric Weinstein: When are you getting married?
00:57:31
Amin Jazayeri: Soon, hopefully. Maybe a couple of years.
00:57:33
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:57:33
Stuvi Krishnan: Let’s go.
00:57:34
Amin Jazayeri: Two years, I’m thinking. In the next two to three years.
00:57:36
Eric Weinstein: Have we picked out the girls yet, gentlemen?
00:57:38
Amin Jazayeri: Girls?
00:57:38
Stuvi Krishnan: Girls.
00:57:39
Eric Weinstein: Well, you can’t, you can’t all marry the same girl.
00:57:42
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs] You never know.
00:57:43
Amin Jazayeri: He’s talking about himself.
00:57:44
Eric Weinstein: He’s talking about himself.
00:57:46
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I’m, I’m the closest to the possibility of-
00:57:50
Stuvi Krishnan: Marrying
00:57:50
Amin Jazayeri: … getting married, but these guys are like…
00:57:53
Stuvi Krishnan: We’re a lost hope right now.
00:57:54
Eric Weinstein: Really?
00:57:55
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:57:56
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:57:56
Eric Weinstein: Ladies. [laughs]
00:57:59
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:58:00
Amin Jazayeri: How long have you been married?
00:58:02
Eric Weinstein: A, a very long time.
00:58:04
Amin Jazayeri: Like you’ve stopped keeping count?
00:58:06
Eric Weinstein: No, it’ll be 30 years next year.
00:58:08
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
00:58:09
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:58:09
Yug Patil: Now, you can’t forget that. Can’t forget the husband.
00:58:13
Eric Weinstein: I, I didn’t.
00:58:13
Stuvi Krishnan: He didn’t. [laughs]
00:58:15
Eric Weinstein: But, but you, you’re deflecting.
00:58:18
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:58:18
Yug Patil: How, how are we-
00:58:19
Eric Weinstein: So are you, are you getting pressured to get married?
00:58:22
Yug Patil: No, not really. There is, there is, uh, pressure for grandkids. Like, my grandmom is-
00:58:27
Eric Weinstein: Oh, so she doesn’t need you to get married?
00:58:29
Stuvi Krishnan: So she’s okay with you not-
00:58:29
Yug Patil: No, she wants me to get married also.
00:58:31
Eric Weinstein: Okay. Yeah.
00:58:33
Yug Patil: But g- the grandkids is a bigger-
00:58:34
Eric Weinstein: Is more important.
00:58:35
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:58:36
Eric Weinstein: She’d rather you have an accident.
00:58:38
Yug Patil: [laughs] But still have the kid.
00:58:40
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
00:58:41
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:58:41
Eric Weinstein: No, look, I, I’m hearing things in India that I’ve never, I never thought I’d hear.
00:58:46
Yug Patil: Like?
00:58:48
Stuvi Krishnan: Like?
00:58:48
Eric Weinstein: That, you know, people are living together, that premarital sex is being, uh, decriminalized.
00:58:54
Yug Patil: [laughs]
00:58:54
Eric Weinstein: Uh, that, um, people don’t want children.
00:58:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:58:59
Yug Patil: Yeah.
00:59:00
Stuvi Krishnan: That’s a big-
00:59:00
Eric Weinstein: That parents say, “I, I can’t push my children.” Wh- when did this happen? When did it… [laughs]
00:59:05
Amin Jazayeri: Well, it becomes a choice.
00:59:06
Eric Weinstein: Who was the first Indian parent who said-
00:59:08
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
00:59:09
Eric Weinstein: … “Yeah, whatever they want. Well, it’s none of my business.”
00:59:12
Amin Jazayeri: I mean, there’s probably only like four, so.
00:59:14
Eric Weinstein: What?
00:59:14
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, there’s only like four parents who were ever so …
00:59:17
Eric Weinstein: No, I, look, I-
00:59:17
Stuvi Krishnan: No, no, there are a lot now
00:59:17
Eric Weinstein: … there’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really changed.
00:59:19
Amin Jazayeri: Hm.
00:59:20
Eric Weinstein: I’m hearing madness.
00:59:21
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:59:22
Eric Weinstein: Like, I, I tell my children, I said, “I understand that you think you’re living in 2025, and you think you’re living under the laws of the United States and the State of California. But in here it’s 1100 AD, and [laughs] America hasn’t been invented, and we’re not having any of that.”
00:59:38
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
00:59:39
Amin Jazayeri: But then the thing about India right now is you can’t just say India. Like, it’s not one thing. Like, there’s India one, there’s India two, there’s India three.
00:59:48
Eric Weinstein: What does that mean?
00:59:49
Amin Jazayeri: India one is like tier one cities where there’s people who have been grow- like someone who’s grown up in Mumbai and has gone to school in Mumbai, gone to college maybe in Mumbai.
00:59:59
Yug Patil: A metro city, basically.
01:00:01
Amin Jazayeri: And speaks English and makes good money. Their, their lives are so much different than someone who’s in a tier two city who isn’t making as much money, and like the way they think, the experiences that they have, it’s completely different. It’s like two different countries.
01:00:16
Eric Weinstein: Two?
01:00:17
Amin Jazayeri: There’s multiple-
01:00:17
Eric Weinstein: How do you get two?
01:00:19
Yug Patil: No, I think there’s-
01:00:20
Eric Weinstein: Well, it’s, dude, it’s, it’s, it’s worlds within worlds within worlds.
01:00:23
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:00:24
Yug Patil: Exactly.
01:00:24
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, and, and-
01:00:25
Yug Patil: It gets too big to be categorized.
01:00:26
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. A- and forgive me for saying, I, I’m trying to get myself kicked out of your fair country. But in general, I don’t think that Italy is a country naturally, and I don’t think India is a country naturally.
01:00:38
Stuvi Krishnan: Hm.
01:00:38
Yug Patil: Okay.
01:00:38
Eric Weinstein: It’s, it’s … There is something that, to being Indian, but my God, the, just, just the complexity of cultures, subcultures, sub-subcultures all mixed together, distinct, blended. There, there’s more intra-Indian diversity-
01:00:57
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm
01:00:57
Eric Weinstein: … than there really is diversity between India and anywhere else.
01:01:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:01:01
Eric Weinstein: I, I, I just don’t grasp, um, this concept of, uh, you know, I don’t like Indian food. Uh, Indian people are like this.
01:01:12
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:01:13
Eric Weinstein: Which? What?
01:01:15
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:01:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, so that’s what I was trying to say. Like on-
01:01:18
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, yeah
01:01:18
Amin Jazayeri: … a broader level.
01:01:18
Eric Weinstein: But you were saying it at the, the level of tier one, tier two. That’s such a compression to begin with.
01:01:22
Amin Jazayeri: I was talking from a more economic-
01:01:25
Eric Weinstein: Sure
01:01:25
Amin Jazayeri: … like, uh … because if India like, I mean, I don’t know about other countries, but the way you live life here is heavily dictated by how much money you’re making.
01:01:35
Eric Weinstein: But even there, right? You have an Indian-facing elite.
01:01:39
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:01:39
Eric Weinstein: An In- India-facing elite and a Western-facing elite.
01:01:42
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
01:01:42
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:01:43
Eric Weinstein: That’s a huge difference.
01:01:44
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:01:44
Eric Weinstein: So for example, if you have a very rich family whose wealth is tied to Indian industries or hotel groups or land or, you know, whatever it is-
01:01:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:01:56
Eric Weinstein: … um, to, to your point about, you know, are, are you, uh, do, do you view, uh, Bengali as the highest language or the King’s English or …
01:02:07
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
01:02:08
Eric Weinstein: It’s such a distinction even when you’re talking about the very rich.
01:02:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:02:13
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Yeah, I was … I mean, s- we have, we know people who are as old as us or as young as us, and we know how they’re living their lives. It’s m- mostly West-facing. Like, everyone’s, like, inspired by pop culture from the US. They wanna, they wanna go for a Travis Scott show. They wanna go and, like, s- see all the artists that come. Like, earlier this year, there was this NBA-
01:02:44
Stuvi Krishnan: Event, yeah
01:02:44
Amin Jazayeri: … uh, event that happened here.
01:02:45
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:02:45
Amin Jazayeri: And it was, like, filled. Filled with people our age just going to watch.
01:02:50
Eric Weinstein: Why? Okay, I wanna know this. Why? Like, the, the West-
01:02:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:02:54
Eric Weinstein: … is really at the moment-
01:02:56
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm
01:02:56
Eric Weinstein: … having a moment.
01:02:57
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:02:57
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. Mm.
01:02:58
Eric Weinstein: And were I India, which I’m not, I would be thinking, “They’re gonna fumble the ball. This is our moment, guys.”
01:03:07
Amin Jazayeri: Um, I mean, I think, yeah, I think we’re getting there. Um, I … But, like, that influence by American pop culture is just somehow never going away. Like, we’ve grown up watching everything from Disney to, like, uh-
01:03:26
Stuvi Krishnan: We’ve watched everything, yeah
01:03:26
Amin Jazayeri: … like hip hop music, M- American Pie. There’s movies from there, and it’s just like it’s kind of inbuilt in our psyche. So I don’t think that’s ever going away.
01:03:41
Eric Weinstein: Can I play something for you guys?
01:03:42
Amin Jazayeri: Sure.
01:03:43
Stuvi Krishnan: Of course. [upbeat music]
01:03:50
Amin Jazayeri: What is this?
01:03:51
Eric Weinstein: My friend Greg Sparrow, who’s a student of Herbie Hancock, great jazz pianist, I said, “You know, you’re, you’re having these little successes in jazz.”
01:04:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:04:02
Eric Weinstein: “You need to be cued into things that have amazing backbones, that are un- under- understood.”
01:04:09
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:04:12
Eric Weinstein: You recognize this?
01:04:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Ah, Indian wedding. It’s a Indian wedding band.
01:04:17
Amin Jazayeri: What? [upbeat music]
01:04:27
Eric Weinstein: So-
01:04:28
Amin Jazayeri: Sounded familiar.
01:04:29
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:04:32
Eric Weinstein: It’s Tu Chisbaji Hey Mast Mast or Damas Calander.
01:04:35
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh, okay.
01:04:36
Eric Weinstein: Right? And it’s-
01:04:37
Stuvi Krishnan: With a jazz-
01:04:38
Eric Weinstein: What a groove, man.
01:04:39
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:04:40
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:04:40
Eric Weinstein: You know? And my claim-
01:04:42
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:04:43
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:04:43
Stuvi Krishnan: Oh, I hear it.
01:04:44
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
01:04:44
Eric Weinstein: Right?
01:04:44
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:04:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:04:45
Stuvi Krishnan: Now that you say it, we hear it.
01:04:46
Eric Weinstein: Right?
01:04:47
Amin Jazayeri: Hmm.
01:04:48
Eric Weinstein: You know-
01:04:49
Amin Jazayeri: Classic, or yeah.
01:04:50
Eric Weinstein: And, like, if you just think about the scat at the beginning, you know, uh, like, the Sa Re Ga-
01:04:57
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:04:57
Eric Weinstein: … at the beginning of that, his vocal, uh, flourishes and, and, and the deep groove that won’t let you go. You, you have this base-
01:05:11
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:05:11
Eric Weinstein: … and you’re not exploiting it. It’s like … Well, let me just-
01:05:14
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:05:14
Eric Weinstein: Let me go off.
01:05:15
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:05:16
Eric Weinstein: If you think about B.B. King, right? So B.B. King was the great blues guitarist.
01:05:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:05:21
Eric Weinstein: He’s not, wasn’t the fastest, wasn’t the flashiest, but he, he did something that was very unusual, which is his … He combined major and minor.
01:05:29
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:05:30
Eric Weinstein: Right? And so if you think about Western music, it’s very confined to these two modes, um, the Aeolian and, I don’t know what, the Lydian. Uh-
01:05:42
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:05:43
Eric Weinstein: So, you know, like, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa would be-
01:05:46
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:05:46
Eric Weinstein: … the Lydian major mode.
01:05:47
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:05:48
Eric Weinstein: And in Indian music, you’ve got this great construction where you, you have two … It’s, we … You don’t really have scales, because you go up and come down in these two different ways.
01:05:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:05:59
Eric Weinstein: And so you’re mixing constantly major and minor with microtones, all this stuff. You’re sitting on top of a gold mine that the world needs right now, and you’re listening to, like, what schlock we’re pushing out? I don’t grasp this. Why would you do that?
01:06:15
Amin Jazayeri: Oh, I mean, w- I think I … While we look to the West for pop culture, at the same time in, in India, people also embrace a l- a lot of things that are Indian. It’s, like, not either or.
01:06:29
Eric Weinstein: Right.
01:06:30
Amin Jazayeri: Like, people still love going out and, uh, listening to Bollywood music or dancing to Bollywood music at the n- at a nightclub.
01:06:39
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:06:39
Amin Jazayeri: Like, the whole nightclub institution is very Western, but at the same time you’re going and listening to Indian music.
01:06:45
Eric Weinstein: Sure. So what I’m, what I’m trying to say is that if you … When w- when I’ve traveled-
01:06:51
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:06:52
Eric Weinstein: … I’ve traveled in places in which, uh, Bollywood has had an enormous influence.
01:06:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
01:06:59
Eric Weinstein: So, you know, if you’re traveling in Indonesia-
01:07:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:07:01
Eric Weinstein: … uh, or, you know, even Russia. Like, uh, you know, we were, we were laughing about your poster, uh, Mera Naam Joker.
01:07:09
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:07:10
Eric Weinstein: Um, Raj Kapoor had huge penetration-
01:07:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:07:13
Eric Weinstein: … into Russia.
01:07:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, yeah.
01:07:13
Amin Jazayeri: Yes.
01:07:14
Stuvi Krishnan: Huge audience.
01:07:14
Amin Jazayeri: We’ve heard.
01:07:16
Eric Weinstein: And, um- My feeling is, is that a confident artistic India has a lot to say. I mean, look, we just lost the world’s greatest drummer in Zakir Hussain.
01:07:28
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:07:28
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, he was living– I met him in California of all places.
01:07:31
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:07:32
Eric Weinstein: Um, I, yeah, I, I, I am of the opinion that the world is bored-
01:07:40
Amin Jazayeri: Right
01:07:41
Eric Weinstein: … and it needs to learn what it is that you guys do really well.
01:07:44
Amin Jazayeri: Mm. I feel like, uh, he brought it up earlier, the Indian hip-hop scene, we call it the Desi hip-hop scene-
01:07:50
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:07:50
Amin Jazayeri: … where it is blowing up in a way where it has all the Indian influences and it’s kind of a mixture of this culture of the West and India, but it’s bringing out a massive audience for Indian kids who look up to only these artists-
01:08:05
Eric Weinstein: Mm
01:08:05
Amin Jazayeri: … who are Indian artists making this music. So I feel like that’s playing a very big part- Yeah … in going forward. We have, we have a lot of rappers on this show, and this is something that I tell them. Before Desi hip-hop became a thing, we would listen to hip-hop from outside, and they would talk about like, uh, like someone who is talking about like the hood in the US and the things that they experience. It’s like, okay, we would listen to it and we’d think it’s cool, but you-
01:08:31
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:08:31
Amin Jazayeri: … would never relate, right? It was like-
01:08:33
Eric Weinstein: Straight out of Bandra.
01:08:34
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
01:08:36
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. [laughs]
01:08:36
Amin Jazayeri: But then these guys came along, and they started making music about how, “Oh, I, I had this teacher in school who was like, you know, my parents were really hard on me, and they asked me to study a lot,” or just like-
01:08:48
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
01:08:48
Amin Jazayeri: … I faced… Like [laughs] I mean, I make it sound-
01:08:54
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s a vibe.
01:08:55
Eric Weinstein: And you get an A minus. [laughs]
01:08:57
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:08:57
Amin Jazayeri: No, it’s like pressure from home or, like, caste discrimination.
01:09:01
Eric Weinstein: Sure.
01:09:02
Amin Jazayeri: I was like, oh, okay. Like, this is something that you’re like, okay.
01:09:05
Eric Weinstein: What about shame? So I have, I have-
01:09:08
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:09:08
Eric Weinstein: … this theory that right n- right now we’re in a worldwide shame fetish.
01:09:14
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
01:09:14
Eric Weinstein: Shame is big.
01:09:16
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
01:09:16
Eric Weinstein: And because social media is so good for shaming people-
01:09:20
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:09:20
Eric Weinstein: … you can shame people at scale.
01:09:21
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:09:21
Eric Weinstein: You can ruin their lives.
01:09:23
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:09:23
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:09:23
Eric Weinstein: Uh, nobody does shame like Indians.
01:09:26
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:09:26
Eric Weinstein: So-
01:09:27
Stuvi Krishnan: That is very true.
01:09:28
Eric Weinstein: Right?
01:09:28
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:09:29
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. We are– I feel like we’re one of the most racist set of people.
01:09:32
Eric Weinstein: Racist?
01:09:33
Stuvi Krishnan: But, yeah.
01:09:33
Amin Jazayeri: Or just judgemental.
01:09:34
Stuvi Krishnan: Judgemental for sure.
01:09:35
Eric Weinstein: No, no, no, he said racist. Let’s trap him on it.
01:09:37
Stuvi Krishnan: But racist as well. [laughs]
01:09:38
Eric Weinstein: No, there is a lot of racism.
01:09:39
Stuvi Krishnan: There is a lot of racism-
01:09:40
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:09:40
Stuvi Krishnan: … within India itself.
01:09:41
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:09:42
Stuvi Krishnan: And even towards racists outside, I feel we’re extremely racist. ‘Cause if I go on Instagram and I see the comments-
01:09:48
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:09:49
Stuvi Krishnan: … you can just tell that there is… I don’t know how-
01:09:52
Eric Weinstein: Indian racism.
01:09:53
Amin Jazayeri: No, anti-India racism.
01:09:55
Eric Weinstein: Well, I’ve seen this anti-India racism.
01:09:57
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:09:57
Eric Weinstein: And to be entirely honest, uh, I’ve been traveling with Indians-
01:10:01
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:10:02
Eric Weinstein: … my whole adult life. I’d never encountered this in the wild-
01:10:07
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:10:07
Eric Weinstein: … uh, in the US.
01:10:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:10:08
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:10:09
Amin Jazayeri: No, it’s a very, um, it’s like a internet-
01:10:12
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s a new thing
01:10:12
Amin Jazayeri: … it’s a thing.
01:10:13
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:10:13
Amin Jazayeri: And I think not all of it is real.
01:10:16
Eric Weinstein: I– Well, I think not all of it is real, but the fact is it’s going to become real because people are being instru-
01:10:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:10:22
Eric Weinstein: You, you, you know, learning to hate is a very interesting concept.
01:10:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:10:28
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:10:28
Eric Weinstein: And I, you know, I also believe that there’s a lot of self-hatred in India and a lot of, uh, suspicion, and then there’s a lot of coming together in ways that’d be very difficult, um, you know, particularly in Bombay, where everybody celebrates each other’s holidays.
01:10:43
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:10:43
Eric Weinstein: And in a weird way, like, marriage tends to still be done along your community lines.
01:10:48
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:10:48
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:10:49
Eric Weinstein: But, um, you fraternize very freely with other people.
01:10:53
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:10:53
Eric Weinstein: Although I should say at one point I had a really interesting experience where we held a, a brunch because we w- weren’t here for very long, and we invited all sorts of different friends. And at the brunch, um, the subject of, uh, communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims came up.
01:11:16
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:11:18
Eric Weinstein: And I said, “You know, are pe- are pe-” Because there’d been so unfortunate incidents. [coughs] And I, um, I said, “So, you know, how are people feeling about this?” And it was very strange. Like, the Hindus said, “Yeah, everybody’s over it. Nobody cares.” And the Muslims looked around and said, “What are you talking about?”
01:11:36
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:11:36
Eric Weinstein: And so the weird ways in which we don’t talk about things, and we do, we do have lines. We’re pretty good up to a point, and then, you know, it’s hard to go beyond certain points. Um, I, I think it’s fascinating, and I also think it’s fascinating that India’s rebasing itself in some sense away from these major idealisms that came in around independence.
01:12:02
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:12:03
Eric Weinstein: So one of, one of my shticks is that I believe that all of these major 20th century idealisms, uh, are being repudiated. So in my country, it’s the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson in the mid-’60s where people are saying, “Wait, why are we signed up for the Civil Rights Act? Not that we’re not up for civil rights, but maybe the act is flawed, and it was implemented in ways which had unforeseen consequences.” Or in Turkey, the entire concept of the Ataturk cult, uh, of secular, uh, secular Turkish state, uh, is, you know, Erdoğan is showing the fragility of that concept. In India, I think, you know, basically the, the rise of the BJP-
01:12:49
Amin Jazayeri: Right
01:12:50
Eric Weinstein: … and the concept of, um, does Ind- did India import things that were not Indian, and that India should have had Indian ways of, of dealing-
01:13:00
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:13:00
Eric Weinstein: … with these things. This is fascinating. The pendulum is gonna swing, and we don’t really know in part where this worldwide repudiation of 20th century idealisms is gonna go, particularly in the EU.
01:13:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. What is happening there? What is happening today?
01:13:17
Eric Weinstein: That, you know, there was this sense that we would have a United States of Europe, and that we– One of my riffs is that Europe is actually one of the most dangerous places on Earth, maybe the most dangerous place. And it’s been 80 years more or less of peace because of the specter of nuclear weapons.
01:13:34
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:13:34
Eric Weinstein: What you’re seeing with Russia and Ukraine and Germany, you know, Germany is ne- going to need to shake off the specter of its-
01:13:43
Amin Jazayeri: [coughs]
01:13:43
Eric Weinstein: … sort of Nazi shame-
01:13:44
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:13:44
Eric Weinstein: … because there are gonna be no living Nazis shortly. Um, the post-World War II order is falling apart, and just think about all of the things that happened in, you know, the mid to late ’40s.
01:13:56
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:13:56
Eric Weinstein: It’s not small.
01:13:57
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, yeah. Well, how, how does India play into all of this? Like, wh- wh- where is India at?
01:14:07
Eric Weinstein: Look, the big question in my mind is always can India possibly get out of its own way?
01:14:13
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
01:14:14
Eric Weinstein: Uh, and if I had to… Again, who wants to, who wants [laughs] to hear the visitor saying ridiculous things? But I have been visiting over a long ti- … It can’t. It can’t fully. There’s no way of cleaning this place up.
01:14:29
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
01:14:29
Eric Weinstein: It’s gonna be madness and chaos for decades, and it may be forever. Who knows? What you can do though is you can do extraordinary things, uh, in cells, you know? So for example, if you go to Navy Nagar, that can be ordered in a way that the outside world cannot be-
01:14:49
Amin Jazayeri: Right
01:14:50
Eric Weinstein: … ordered. You know, like TIFR really is a beautiful, beautiful space. And so-
01:14:54
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:14:54
Eric Weinstein: … in part, one of the questions is does India… When we say India, and we say does India get its act together and do something extraordinary, it sort of… Does it build, um, cellular compounds that-
01:15:06
Amin Jazayeri: Right
01:15:06
Eric Weinstein: … can do things that the country cannot do as a whole?
01:15:09
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:15:10
Eric Weinstein: I mean, if you tried to clean up the trash on the streets… One of the things I can’t stand when I post something, um, pro-India on social media is people say, you know, it’s just, “Is it just wall-to-wall trash?” And the answer is that there’s a ton of trash. On the other hand, if that’s your [laughs] understanding of this place-
01:15:27
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:15:27
Eric Weinstein: … I just feel sorry for you.
01:15:28
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:15:28
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, i- India’s going to have to, in some sense, leave behind some of its most idealistic hopes for itself. It’s not going to be able to clean itself up fully. But it, it has to unleash its best, um, to do something extraordinary, and quite honestly, I, i- if it were me, I would be trying to figure out not how to catch up to Europe and the US. I’d b- try to figure out what can we do that’s different-
01:15:56
Amin Jazayeri: Right
01:15:57
Eric Weinstein: … that’s better.
01:15:58
Amin Jazayeri: The thing about the cells is so true even on just, like, for normal people, th- like anyone who starts doing well, they try to do everything they can to isolate themselves from the outside world, is whether it’s like a fancy s- society that you live in which has a gym and, like, a clubhouse so that you don’t have to l- leave your gated community for anything.
01:16:23
Eric Weinstein: Yes and no.
01:16:23
Amin Jazayeri: And you order, um, things on Blinkit, and it comes to your house in 10 minutes, and it’s just-
01:16:28
Eric Weinstein: Yes and no. I mean, look, w- when I was asked, “Okay, Eric, y- you’re back here for a week. Where do you wanna go first?” I hesitated to say, you know, and my first stop was, uh, Bademiya, and-
01:16:45
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:16:46
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm
01:16:46
Eric Weinstein: … you know, there I am sitting on a plastic chair. Last time there was a giant rat running, you know, under it.
01:16:52
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:16:53
Eric Weinstein: But still-
01:16:53
Amin Jazayeri: He’s still there. He’s still there.
01:16:54
Eric Weinstein: Well, he’s still there. [laughing]
01:16:55
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughing]
01:16:56
Eric Weinstein: He sends his regards.
01:16:56
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:16:57
Eric Weinstein: Um, but you know, you’re, you’re, you’re eating on the bonnets of cars, and you’re-
01:17:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah
01:17:03
Eric Weinstein: … having some of the best boti kebabs and seekh kebabs and rumali rotis, and it’s just like how is this not one of the great restaurants on Earth?
01:17:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:17:12
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:17:12
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, um, and I admit that an- another weird distinction, I don’t know whether you guys realize, but Kailash Parbat-
01:17:20
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:17:21
Eric Weinstein: … has been franchising all over planet Earth.
01:17:23
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:17:23
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:17:24
Eric Weinstein: And so you can now go to Kailash Parbat in Chino Hills, California.
01:17:27
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
01:17:28
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:17:28
Eric Weinstein: But to be honest, let’s be honest, the counter downstairs is at a different level than the restaurant upstairs even on the Pasta Lane store. Uh, I don’t know why, but the, the, the pani puri that that guy produces is not duplicated anywhere on Earth.
01:17:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:17:46
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:17:47
Eric Weinstein: So, you know, am I gonna cut myself off from that? I, I appreciate that they now use filtered water supposedly.
01:17:54
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:17:54
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:17:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:17:54
Eric Weinstein: But no, you can’t cut yourself off from the street, and you can’t cut yourself off from the energy because that’s one of the things that’s great about being here.
01:18:03
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:18:03
Amin Jazayeri: No, for sure, but people try. Like, they’re like, “I’m gonna minimize…” Because you go out, the air is dirty. There’s trash around, like, um, it might, like, depends on where you live and might smell. So it’s just like I’m gonna try my best to… Like, with people who work from home, people like us-
01:18:19
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:18:19
Amin Jazayeri: … we try to limit our-
01:18:22
Stuvi Krishnan: Stepping out
01:18:22
Amin Jazayeri: … stepping outside to-
01:18:24
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
01:18:24
Amin Jazayeri: … whenever it’s absolutely necessary.
01:18:25
Eric Weinstein: I’m, I’m really glad that you brought this up. I think it’s one of the things that people don’t understand when they visit, that if they’re used to a particular level in the US, the way that that’s accomplished in India… And again, you know, this is, uh, a money de- determined, class determined thing-
01:18:42
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:18:42
Eric Weinstein: … is that in, uh, a, a city like Bombay becomes a series of interiors.
01:18:48
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:18:48
Eric Weinstein: The idea is that the car deposits you through the gate of some other thing, and the interiors are amazing, but there’s no way to protect it because in, in part the monsoons.
01:18:58
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:18:58
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:18:58
Eric Weinstein: So th- all exteriors are punished.
01:19:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:19:01
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:19:02
Eric Weinstein: And then there’s just, you know, there is the chaos and madness of, of, of, um, this many people packed into-
01:19:11
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:19:11
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
01:19:11
Eric Weinstein: … infrastructure that can’t support it.
01:19:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:19:14
Eric Weinstein: But on the other hand, I mean, I don’t know. If, if I, if I don’t walk the, the Colaba Causeway, I don’t feel like I’m here.
01:19:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:19:22
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm. That’s still one of the better areas I feel to walk around area.
01:19:27
Eric Weinstein: How do you feel about, like, Mo- Muhammad Ali Road and, uh, Chor Bazaar?
01:19:32
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, so that’s, that’s what we’re saying. Like, when you go there, it’s just like so many people.
01:19:36
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, or Crawford Market or something like that.
01:19:38
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:19:38
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s just mountain upon-
01:19:39
Eric Weinstein: I don’t think I need to go to Crawford Market every time that I’m here anymore.
01:19:42
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
01:19:43
Eric Weinstein: No. And we were just, uh, we were just in Delhi.
01:19:47
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
01:19:48
Eric Weinstein: At, uh, what is it? Chandni Chowk.
01:19:50
Amin Jazayeri: Chandni Chowk.
01:19:50
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, yeah.
01:19:51
Eric Weinstein: And it’s too much.
01:19:54
Stuvi Krishnan: The sheer amount of people.
01:19:56
Eric Weinstein: Well-
01:19:56
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:19:56
Eric Weinstein: … but, but also, like, you know, a lot of the, the jewelry stores, like the styles that-
01:20:01
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:20:01
Eric Weinstein: … are the most uniquely Indian aren’t being favored anymore in a certain sense-
01:20:05
Amin Jazayeri: No
01:20:05
Eric Weinstein: … because people don’t want that heaviness. They’re not using, uh, this as a secret strategy for passing wealth through daughters, around sons-
01:20:13
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm
01:20:13
Eric Weinstein: … you know, around son-in-laws. So whatever, whatever’s going on here-
01:20:17
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:20:17
Eric Weinstein: … India’s just changing so much, and I don’t necessarily wanna subject myself to maximum chaos-
01:20:24
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:20:24
Eric Weinstein: … because the maximum chaos is-
01:20:26
Amin Jazayeri: It’s too much.
01:20:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:20:27
Amin Jazayeri: It’s so much.
01:20:27
Eric Weinstein: Well, yes. It, it changes who you are.
01:20:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:20:32
Eric Weinstein: You know, because you, you can’t, you can’t lose yourself in thought because then s- some guy with a metal, you know, rebar is gonna poke through your eye. You have to be-
01:20:41
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:20:41
Eric Weinstein: And by the way, I’m very interested what’s gonna happen with Tesla in full self-driving mode.
01:20:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. We are-
01:20:46
Stuvi Krishnan: Van life, yeah
01:20:46
Amin Jazayeri: … we, we don’t, we just … I can’t imagine how that’s gonna-
01:20:50
Eric Weinstein: Elon is going to get so much smarter with his AI.
01:20:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:20:54
Eric Weinstein: Because what, what, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna have expert Indian drivers, of which there are many.
01:20:59
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:21:00
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:21:00
Eric Weinstein: And those tolerances are so fine.
01:21:03
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:21:04
Eric Weinstein: I think you guys are gonna end up pushing AI.
01:21:06
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:21:07
Eric Weinstein: Because it’s just … You, you … I mean, I, I have a Tesla with full self-driving mode in the States. It’s amazing, but it’s not pushed to the … [laughs]
01:21:16
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s impossible, I feel.
01:21:17
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, I mean-
01:21:18
Stuvi Krishnan: Because-
01:21:18
Eric Weinstein: Say more
01:21:19
Stuvi Krishnan: … I feel like, okay, let’s say if we are going to a very crowded area.
01:21:23
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
01:21:23
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s not possible for AI to detect … I’m, like, I drive. I drive a lot.
01:21:30
Eric Weinstein: Yeah? How do you do it?
01:21:31
Stuvi Krishnan: I just … Huh, sorry?
01:21:32
Eric Weinstein: How do you do it?
01:21:33
Stuvi Krishnan: Exactly. So that’s the thing. Like, just yesterday I was driving, and there was this woman on the sidewalk with her child. And she wants to cross the road, and she puts the child ahead of her. Now, I can see that, and I’m like, “It’s just stupid. It’s flawed.” Like, the woman should be on this side, and she should at least carry the child, ’cause it’s a very small child. It’s a toddler. Like, he can barely walk. Now, I don’t think AI-
01:21:58
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
01:21:58
Stuvi Krishnan: … is ever gonna be able to … I mean, it will.
01:22:01
Eric Weinstein: My friend-
01:22:02
Stuvi Krishnan: But-
01:22:02
Eric Weinstein: … anything you can do, it will learn from you.
01:22:04
Stuvi Krishnan: It will learn.
01:22:05
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:22:05
Stuvi Krishnan: But the thing is, there’s just so much stimulation at one time-
01:22:09
Amin Jazayeri: There’s too much happening
01:22:10
Stuvi Krishnan: … in India when you’re driving that it’s-
01:22:12
Eric Weinstein: I, I-
01:22:12
Stuvi Krishnan: … it’s gonna be system overload, I feel
01:22:14
Eric Weinstein: … I think you’re wrong. I think you’re wrong. I think that India’s going to push.
01:22:17
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
01:22:19
Eric Weinstein: I think this is the best data set you’ve ever seen.
01:22:21
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:22:22
Eric Weinstein: I mean, maybe like Saigon.
01:22:24
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:22:24
Eric Weinstein: If you’ve ever been to Saigon, it’s madness. Um, there, th- there’s a very funny video that I once saw with millions of hits, and it’s just a camera trained on a Bombay intersection for, like, 10 minutes.
01:22:39
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:22:40
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:22:41
Eric Weinstein: How is this possible? Th- this is fake. No, it’s just normal life.
01:22:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:22:45
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s India, yeah.
01:22:46
Amin Jazayeri: No, AI is gonna learn a lot because when a self-driving car comes to India and it comes close to a rickshaw, and the rickshaw guy just starts yelling at the car-
01:22:57
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. [laughs]
01:22:57
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:22:58
Amin Jazayeri: … for no reason. So the, it’s gonna be a insanely trained data model that’s gonna come out of this, I feel, ’cause he’s just gonna start banging the car in five minutes.
01:23:06
Stuvi Krishnan: Less than that.
01:23:07
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. [laughs]
01:23:08
Eric Weinstein: You know, and I, I, I gave one of the AIs that does music, um, the tr- you know, give me a 1970s Bollywood with way too many violins, uh, hit called I Took a Pill in Malabar Hill, you know? [laughs]
01:23:20
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
01:23:20
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:23:21
Eric Weinstein: And, uh, i- in Hindi and, and with a little bit of, uh, Marathi. It’s pretty good.
01:23:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:23:27
Eric Weinstein: There, there’s nothing this thing can’t do.
01:23:29
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:23:29
Eric Weinstein: It’s just i- if it can watch you-
01:23:32
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:23:33
Eric Weinstein: … it’ll learn, and it doesn’t need to understand that there’s a, a woman or a child to say, “Well, what did you do?”
01:23:41
Amin Jazayeri: Mm. Yeah, I mean, my scope of AI, the, uh, the way I’ve been using it hasn’t really gone beyond GPT, but it’s just like-
01:23:53
Eric Weinstein: Well, how do you use GPT?
01:23:54
Amin Jazayeri: I-
01:23:54
Eric Weinstein: Do you use her, do you use the voice?
01:23:56
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, no. I dictate what I want to say, but it transcribes, and it goes. But then I just talk about anything. Like yesterday I was like, “Oh, Eric Weinstein was coming on the podcast. What do we talk to him about?” Or just, like, I’ll send screenshots. If I’m talking to a girl, I’ll take a screenshot, and I’ll say, “Look, what’s happening here?” Like, “How do we respond?”
01:24:16
Stuvi Krishnan: Break it down.
01:24:17
Eric Weinstein: Really?
01:24:17
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, that-
01:24:18
Stuvi Krishnan: A lot of people ha-
01:24:19
Eric Weinstein: Sorry, sorry
01:24:19
Stuvi Krishnan: … these days have been using it.
01:24:20
Eric Weinstein: So you have an AI, and she has an AI, and you’re both getting coached.
01:24:24
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:24:25
Amin Jazayeri: That is happening.
01:24:26
Eric Weinstein: Why, why don’t you just, like, set your two AIs for Netflix and chill, and then-
01:24:30
Amin Jazayeri: That, we have discussed that.
01:24:31
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:24:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, we’ve discussed that. We were like, “Should we set them up also?” Like-
01:24:36
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, for sure
01:24:36
Amin Jazayeri: … I think they’ll get along.
01:24:37
Eric Weinstein: You should chaperone.
01:24:39
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I, I think it’ll be interesting.
01:24:40
Eric Weinstein: This is terrible.
01:24:41
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah, I know, right? This is, this is-
01:24:43
Eric Weinstein: This is really bad
01:24:44
Stuvi Krishnan: … this is really bad.
01:24:44
Amin Jazayeri: So I started off … So I was also on this whole thing where I was like, you don’t need to talk to AI for every single decision that you make. Like, you, you, I think it will hamper your decision-making ability. But then I was like, okay, let me experiment, because-
01:24:59
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:24:59
Amin Jazayeri: … I’ve heard of so many people who use AI as a best friend, as an assistant. Like, their AI … Like, I could text my GPT right now, it’s like, “Oh, which girls are we talking to?” And they’ll know, okay, this girl that you met at this party and this girl. So I used it for a while, and now I’m realizing that, okay, this is a slippery slope, and it’s not good.
01:25:21
Eric Weinstein: So why don’t you ask ChatGPT-
01:25:26
Amin Jazayeri: In voice? Do it
01:25:27
Eric Weinstein: … in voice, “I have Eric Weinstein in the studio in Bombay. What is it I should ask him about that he never gets asked?”
01:25:34
Amin Jazayeri: Okay, let’s do it. Uh. [notification sound] Okay. I’m sitting down with Eric Weinstein in our podcast studio in Bombay, and we want to ask him something that he never gets asked. Can you help me?
01:26:00
AI Chatbot: Absolutely. If you wanna hit Eric with something he rarely hears, go for a question that flips the usual script. For instance, “Eric, you’ve talked about institutions and the big picture breakdowns a lot, but what’s one tiny, oddly personal thing about your own life that’s shaped your worldview that people never ask you about?” This kind of question invites him to share something personal and unique, not just his usual public theories. It’ll stand out.
01:26:21
Amin Jazayeri: Dude, I had that.
01:26:22
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs] I was gonna ask it in, like, 10 minutes.
01:26:24
Amin Jazayeri: Not bad, right?
01:26:25
Eric Weinstein: I, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve shared way too much-
01:26:27
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
01:26:27
Eric Weinstein: … that’s personal so far.
01:26:29
Stuvi Krishnan: I knew his favorite fruit, I mean [laughs]
01:26:31
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah.
01:26:31
Stuvi Krishnan: He shouldn’t have allowed that.
01:26:33
Amin Jazayeri: No, but it is pretty good. Like, when it comes to work and ideation, like, I w- I ask for ideas, and I may not necessarily take those ideas, but those ideas will inspire an idea within me, and then I’m like, “Okay, now that I have this idea, I’ll share that idea-“
01:26:48
Eric Weinstein: Mm
01:26:48
Amin Jazayeri: … and I’ll tell them, “This is how I want it,” if I need it in a paragraph so that I can send it ahead to someone else. It makes things so much easier.
01:26:56
Eric Weinstein: Let’s talk about how screwed you guys are.
01:26:58
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
01:26:59
Eric Weinstein: You guys are so screwed.
01:27:01
Stuvi Krishnan: In what sense?
01:27:01
Eric Weinstein: Gen Z.
01:27:02
Amin Jazayeri: What do you feel like?
01:27:02
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know. I mean, I, I’ve got Gen Z kids.
01:27:05
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
01:27:05
Eric Weinstein: And it’s astounding the extent to which Gen Z in India parallels, in some ways-
01:27:10
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:27:10
Eric Weinstein: … Gen Z in the States. Um, it’s like all of these systems are breaking down simultaneously. Obviously, the phone is at the-
01:27:18
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:27:18
Eric Weinstein: … at the heart of it.
01:27:19
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:27:20
Eric Weinstein: And you guys know what it is that you’re, quote, “supposed to be doing,” you’re just not doing it.
01:27:24
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:27:24
Eric Weinstein: And you don’t really have the abilities to do it.
01:27:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:27:27
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
01:27:27
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, o- of course, this is a new opportunity. Podcasting didn’t used to exist.
01:27:32
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:27:33
Eric Weinstein: Um, but, like, your meaning is being attacked.
01:27:38
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:27:39
Eric Weinstein: Your meaning complexes are really difficult to build, and many of you are not really plugged in to the past. Like, we were talking about this movie and-
01:27:51
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:27:51
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
01:27:52
Eric Weinstein: … you know, I, I said, “What was the big song in it?” And you guys got it wrong, and that’s– It’s sad in a weird way that you’re not connected to history in a really profound way because somehow the, the phone-
01:28:11
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:28:11
Eric Weinstein: … changed everything.
01:28:13
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, yeah. I think there’s dis- distraction whenever you want it or whenever you need it, and I could be sitting– I’ll talk about myself. I could be sitting, and I know, okay, this is exactly what I need to do today.
01:28:30
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:28:30
Amin Jazayeri: This is what I need to get done. But if I choose to not do it, or if I am looking for a distraction, I can just pick this up and, like, that’s two hours gone right there.
01:28:41
Eric Weinstein: What do you think that is?
01:28:42
Stuvi Krishnan: [sighs] I feel like it’s, like, just dopamine hits every-
01:28:47
Amin Jazayeri: The– It’s obviously-
01:28:48
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s-
01:28:48
Amin Jazayeri: It’s obviously the dopamine and stuff, but it’s also, like, there’s this crazy fear of missing out where it’s like if I’m not online right now, I won’t know what’s going on or-
01:28:57
Eric Weinstein: So what’s going on online, man?
01:28:59
Stuvi Krishnan: There’s-
01:28:59
Eric Weinstein: Like, you guys are gonna do some onl- this thing is gonna get released, and then-
01:29:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:29:03
Eric Weinstein: … why would you talk to that guy for so long? You know, like, it’s gonna pr- produce all this noise.
01:29:09
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:29:10
Eric Weinstein: But the real life thing is happening now, and then it’s gonna have this online lingering trail.
01:29:18
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:29:18
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, my feeling about it is if you’ve ever heard people say, “Oh, I, I, I’m an alcoholic, I’m a shopaholic, I’m a chocoholic,” m- I always wondered, who came up with all of these different addictions? There’s no such thing.
01:29:32
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
01:29:32
Eric Weinstein: It’s one addiction.
01:29:35
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:29:35
Eric Weinstein: And it attaches itself to different objects.
01:29:38
Stuvi Krishnan: Objects, yeah.
01:29:39
Eric Weinstein: You know? So the idea is that you’re, you’re a real-aholic, but it’s holic that’s-
01:29:46
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:29:46
Eric Weinstein: … that’s the common thing.
01:29:47
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:29:47
Eric Weinstein: And the fact is that you’re having all of these amazing experiences, they just happen to belong to somebody else.
01:29:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:29:54
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm. You know, living vicariously through the internet.
01:29:57
Eric Weinstein: I mean, like, I’ve swum with so many sharks.
01:30:01
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:30:02
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Yeah.
01:30:03
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:30:04
Eric Weinstein: You know? And-
01:30:07
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s true, though, like, what you said. I feel Gen Z is becoming dumber. Even though we’re– I feel like we’re on the cusp of a millennial Gen Z. We’re ’98 born.
01:30:16
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:30:16
Stuvi Krishnan: So we were the last generation to not grow up with phones. Like, it came in quite-
01:30:21
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:30:21
Stuvi Krishnan: … late in our lives.
01:30:22
Amin Jazayeri: And the phones that we had didn’t have reels or they didn’t have, like-
01:30:24
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah. The phones that we had, we had, like, 2G internet. We started with 2G.
01:30:28
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:30:29
Stuvi Krishnan: So we’ve seen 2G, 3G-
01:30:30
Amin Jazayeri: So we’ve had a, we’ve had a millennial upbringing.
01:30:32
Stuvi Krishnan: Upbringing.
01:30:33
Amin Jazayeri: Which is something-
01:30:34
Eric Weinstein: How do you, how do you guys think porn, um, impacted India?
01:30:38
Amin Jazayeri: Oh, it-
01:30:39
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm.
01:30:40
Amin Jazayeri: Like, still it’s– We have made an attempt. Like, every once in a while we talk about how it’s not good, and we try to, like– Because for us to have access to porn, it still re- required some effort. You had to be alone at home, you had to, uh-
01:30:59
Stuvi Krishnan: You needed a PC or something. You needed internet.
01:31:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, you needed a computer-
01:31:02
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
01:31:02
Amin Jazayeri: … and you needed internet. So it was just like, it wasn’t as accessible as it is now. But I can only imagine how destructive it would have been if I had access to it at all times-
01:31:14
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah
01:31:14
Amin Jazayeri: … which is what the kids now do.
01:31:16
Eric Weinstein: I think, I think it’s an absolute– Because we’re uncomfortable talking about it-
01:31:21
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:31:21
Eric Weinstein: … we can’t talk about its effects.
01:31:25
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:31:25
Eric Weinstein: And I, I just see this as being, you know, a giant disaster-
01:31:30
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:31:30
Eric Weinstein: … uh, for young people courting.
01:31:31
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:31:32
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, next to porn is this issue of– So OnlyFans, for example-
01:31:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:31:37
Eric Weinstein: … in the US-
01:31:38
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm
01:31:38
Eric Weinstein: … has blurred the distinction between- Being in the industry and not in the industry.
01:31:45
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:31:45
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:31:46
Eric Weinstein: And then the other one is seeking arrangement-
01:31:48
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:31:49
Eric Weinstein: … uh, which blurred the distinction with prostitution.
01:31:52
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:31:53
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:31:54
Eric Weinstein: And so roughly speaking, we’ve mainstreamed pornography and prostitution in the US-
01:32:01
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:32:01
Eric Weinstein: … as quasi normal activities.
01:32:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:32:03
Yug Patil: Mm.
01:32:03
Amin Jazayeri: And, uh, it’s happening in India also.
01:32:05
Eric Weinstein: Really?
01:32:06
Amin Jazayeri: Like OnlyFans-esque [laughs] um, models.
01:32:10
Yug Patil: Like, it, it has a different name.
01:32:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, there’s different names and-
01:32:13
Eric Weinstein: What’s it called?
01:32:13
Amin Jazayeri: I don’t know
01:32:14
Yug Patil: We, we don’t have an OnlyFans in India.
01:32:15
Amin Jazayeri: No, but there are other things, like similar-
01:32:17
Eric Weinstein: But I assume you can get access to it.
01:32:19
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:32:19
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. There are things that are similar, maybe not as explicit, but like that, that thing happens
01:32:24
Yug Patil: It’s on the verge of like an OnlyFans.
01:32:26
Amin Jazayeri: Like online video chat and-
01:32:28
Yug Patil: Mm
01:32:28
Amin Jazayeri: … similar, you pay-
01:32:29
Yug Patil: Yeah
01:32:29
Amin Jazayeri: … and you can-
01:32:30
Eric Weinstein: So how do you guys think you get out of all of these problems? Are you gonna get married do you think? Do you think you’re gonna have children? Do you think you want children? What, what happens next?
01:32:40
Amin Jazayeri: So I’ve, I, I’ve always wanted children, but then obviously I’ve also had phases when I’m like, “Nah,” like who wants to get married and who wants kids? But then like when I think about it practically, it’s one of those things, like what are you gonna do after 50, after you’re 50 years old, after you’ve made money? Like-
01:33:01
Eric Weinstein: They move out anyway, man.
01:33:03
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:33:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, but then you still have something that you’re invested in.
01:33:06
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:33:06
Amin Jazayeri: And then it’s eventually gone, it’s-
01:33:08
Eric Weinstein: Well, I’m just, I, I’m shocked by how much our children moving out has rocked our world.
01:33:14
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
01:33:15
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:33:15
Amin Jazayeri: Say more.
01:33:17
Eric Weinstein: You know, my, my feeling about it is that the one thing that Americans do really poorly is family.
01:33:26
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:33:26
Yug Patil: Mm.
01:33:28
Eric Weinstein: And there’s something to be said for not moving around, not sending your kids off to the four corners of the earth, having larger families, um, making a big deal about the oldies.
01:33:39
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:33:40
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:33:40
Eric Weinstein: You know, so that getting older is not just getting weaker and dumber and less capable, but it’s also r- rising in prestige, and you’re gonna lose all of that. You’re gonna wait and you’re gonna defer your fertility, you’re gonna have smaller families, and you’re not gonna be able to sustain this amazing culture.
01:33:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:33:55
Yug Patil: Mm.
01:33:56
Eric Weinstein: And I don’t know what to do about that, you know? I c- I can see… I can, I, I sort of thought, well, India would, will continue to, to understand. If you, if you look at, for example, Israel as a counter-
01:34:11
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:34:12
Eric Weinstein: Israel still has a pretty high birth rate.
01:34:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:34:15
Yug Patil: Mm.
01:34:16
Eric Weinstein: And being about something, particularly at a moment where the world has gone stupid about Israel, and all sorts of anti-Israel hate is everywhere and driven by propaganda in most cases. They, they feel very embattled, uh, but it, they know who they are.
01:34:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:34:37
Eric Weinstein: You know?
01:34:37
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:34:37
Eric Weinstein: Like, and in large measures, I, I, I think it’s really important that Gen Z assert itself-
01:34:47
Yug Patil: Mm
01:34:47
Eric Weinstein: … and say, “We’re not falling for all of this nonsense.”
01:34:51
Amin Jazayeri: I, I believe that it will reverse at some point.
01:34:55
Eric Weinstein: Really?
01:34:55
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. I feel like we’ll go all the way south, and then people will realize, “Okay, this is-“
01:35:01
Eric Weinstein: How do you think dependency ratios work? So in other words, you have old people supported by many young people-
01:35:06
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:35:07
Eric Weinstein: … economically in a pyramid.
01:35:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:35:08
Eric Weinstein: And so what happens when you have, you know, like China’s one child policy and you have a lot of old people and very few young people?
01:35:15
Amin Jazayeri: Young people.
01:35:16
Eric Weinstein: Then you have to enslave the young-
01:35:18
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:35:18
Eric Weinstein: … which is bad.
01:35:20
Yug Patil: I don’t feel this will ever happen, though.
01:35:23
Amin Jazayeri: No, I, I can see it reverse. [laughs] Like if, if you’re talking about relationship trends.
01:35:28
Yug Patil: Mm.
01:35:29
Amin Jazayeri: So f- like we went all the way to how it’s cool to be like detached.
01:35:33
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:35:34
Amin Jazayeri: Like, people were practicing detachment, and even when it, with, when it comes to relationships, like in Gen Z, commitment is a big deal. Like-
01:35:42
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
01:35:43
Amin Jazayeri: … you-
01:35:44
Yug Patil: No, you can’t, you can’t even think about being in a relationship.
01:35:47
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:35:47
Yug Patil: It’s always-
01:35:48
Amin Jazayeri: That’s why we have terms like situationships and like-
01:35:52
Yug Patil: Yeah
01:35:52
Amin Jazayeri: … we’ve come up with new terms to define every sort of-
01:35:55
Eric Weinstein: You think you invented all this stuff?
01:35:58
Amin Jazayeri: I mean-
01:35:58
Yug Patil: I mean, it just didn’t have a name. I’m sure it existed.
01:36:00
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. What about contract marriage?
01:36:02
Yug Patil: That still exists.
01:36:03
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, but you know what I’m saying.
01:36:04
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:36:05
Yug Patil: Yeah.
01:36:05
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:36:05
Eric Weinstein: There were a lot of things that you aren’t exactly told about.
01:36:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:36:08
Yug Patil: Exactly.
01:36:08
Amin Jazayeri: And it just, it just got popularized-
01:36:11
Yug Patil: Yeah, yeah
01:36:11
Amin Jazayeri: … by these kids.
01:36:12
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:36:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, but the point I was trying to make is like we went all the way there, and now I am seeing people like slowly coming back. It’s like, okay, that was like, we need to be… Like, there needs to be room for romance, and love is still a thing, and you want to be with a partner.
01:36:26
Eric Weinstein: Do you believe in it?
01:36:28
Amin Jazayeri: In what?
01:36:29
Eric Weinstein: What you just said.
01:36:31
Amin Jazayeri: Love and romance?
01:36:33
Yug Patil: Love.
01:36:33
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:36:34
Amin Jazayeri: Yes, of course.
01:36:35
Eric Weinstein: Well, you say of course. I don’t know.
01:36:37
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, but I’m saying [laughs]…
01:36:39
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:36:41
Amin Jazayeri: No, I think, I think there is a lot, uh, there’s a lot of, mm, merits to being with one person and building a life together, and eventually building a family. I think if it’s done well and if it’s done right, the problem is most people can’t do it right, and it doesn’t end up well, and that also discourages other people from doing it. But I think there is a way to do it right. If you are dedicated, I think it can end up being great for you. Like, I, I have a good relationship with my parents, and like, I’m grateful for the way-
01:37:18
Eric Weinstein: Your parents are Indian?
01:37:19
Amin Jazayeri: No.
01:37:20
Eric Weinstein: They’re Persian.
01:37:20
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:37:21
Eric Weinstein: Okay.
01:37:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. But then I think Indian and Persian parents are alike in many ways.
01:37:26
Eric Weinstein: Well, there’s a lot of parallels, for sure.
01:37:28
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:37:28
Yug Patil: Mm.
01:37:29
Amin Jazayeri: But then, yeah, I’m saying it’s something that I would like to work towards, and I think if it’s done well, it’ll, mm, like, there’s, it’ll do more good for me than bad.
01:37:41
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, I think that one of the things is you guys are entitled to illusions.
01:37:45
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:37:45
Yug Patil: Mm-hmm.
01:37:45
Eric Weinstein: And I think that one of the problems with authenticity is that you don’t recognize the way in which illusions are necessary for scaffolding.
01:37:53
Amin Jazayeri: Okay.
01:37:54
Eric Weinstein: So that, you know, if you have You have beliefs that aren’t really true or really real, you can find that if you incorporate them into your psyche, that you end, end up building a reality that it sort of makes them true in r- in arrears.
01:38:11
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:38:12
Eric Weinstein: So you assume something that wasn’t true, like the one, the whole concept of the one.
01:38:16
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:38:16
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:38:17
Eric Weinstein: If you believe in the one, you might meet a random person and make her into the one.
01:38:22
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:38:23
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
01:38:23
Eric Weinstein: Even if she-
01:38:24
Stuvi Krishnan: A projection.
01:38:25
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, but that thing becomes true later.
01:38:27
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
01:38:29
Eric Weinstein: You know?
01:38:29
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:38:29
Eric Weinstein: And so the idea is that if you don’t have room for illusions-
01:38:34
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm
01:38:34
Eric Weinstein: … then you can’t actually build these ideas. And so in part, one of the things that I hope for you guys is that, you know, you stay off the cynicism of Reddit or whatever.
01:38:44
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
01:38:44
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:38:45
Eric Weinstein: And, and you’re int- you entitled yourselves to some positive illusions on which to scaffold your lives.
01:38:52
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I think that’s the way to do it, ’cause otherwise if you’re going to be, like, super practical and logical about everything and like, “Oh, the one doesn’t exist. It’s just a chemical reaction in your brain,” and the, the-
01:39:06
Eric Weinstein: To hell with the chemical reaction
01:39:07
Amin Jazayeri: … yeah, and then love isn’t real and … But I don’t think that will end up well for you.
01:39:13
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:39:13
Amin Jazayeri: Like, you’ll just be-
01:39:15
Eric Weinstein: You’ll cheat your … Too much awareness and cynicism.
01:39:20
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:39:20
Eric Weinstein: You, you have to be willing to be fooled in order to have a good life.
01:39:24
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:39:25
Eric Weinstein: You do. Let me ask you a question. How did this episode go? Was this normal, not normal?
01:39:30
Amin Jazayeri: Normal.
01:39:31
Eric Weinstein: How much … Well, first of all, how much do you guys do these in English versus Hindi?
01:39:35
Amin Jazayeri: Mostly in English.
01:39:35
Stuvi Krishnan: It’s mostly in English. Mainly in English.
01:39:36
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:39:37
Eric Weinstein: Okay.
01:39:37
Stuvi Krishnan: ‘Cause English is, like, our first language.
01:39:38
Eric Weinstein: Okay.
01:39:39
Stuvi Krishnan: For us, our thoughts come in English, so it’s just easier to communicate in that.
01:39:43
Eric Weinstein: Good.
01:39:44
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:39:44
Eric Weinstein: So I don’t feel guilty.
01:39:45
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:39:45
Eric Weinstein: And then, uh … And how often do you guys talk to somebody from outside of the cool young Indian ecosystem?
01:39:54
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:39:54
Amin Jazayeri: Uh, not as often.
01:39:56
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:39:56
Amin Jazayeri: Most of our episodes, at least this year, have been just us with no guests.
01:40:00
Eric Weinstein: Oh, no guests?
01:40:01
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:40:01
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:40:01
Amin Jazayeri: Like, we just talk about-
01:40:02
Eric Weinstein: I cracked the inner sanctum. [laughs]
01:40:04
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:40:06
Amin Jazayeri: I mean, we have each other, and we always have things to talk about, so it’s easy to do episodes with no guests. But, uh, yeah, not as often. But we do enjoy these conversations a lot when we have different perspectives. And, like, with this episode, we went into it thinking … Yesterday I sat down to do research because we also planned it quite, like, last minute.
01:40:27
Eric Weinstein: Never, never do research.
01:40:29
Amin Jazayeri: But then 10 minutes into the research I was just like, “This is a person that I can probably talk about anything to.” So I’m just going to treat this as if you’ve come home to sit down with us, and we’ll just talk, and we’ll see where it goes. And I think-
01:40:44
Eric Weinstein: You guys are great at what you do, so why would-
01:40:45
Stuvi Krishnan: Why would you say never do research?
01:40:47
Eric Weinstein: Well, no, it’s not that. [laughs]
01:40:48
Stuvi Krishnan: Okay.
01:40:49
Eric Weinstein: Because it gets too formal.
01:40:50
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:40:51
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm.
01:40:52
Eric Weinstein: You know?
01:40:52
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:40:52
Eric Weinstein: And what people really seem to enjoy in some sense-
01:40:56
Stuvi Krishnan: Mm-hmm
01:40:56
Eric Weinstein: … is the lost art of conversation. If we’re all on our screens-
01:41:00
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:41:00
Eric Weinstein: … like, all four of us could be lost in stupid town.
01:41:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:41:04
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:41:04
Eric Weinstein: And this forces us into-
01:41:06
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:41:06
Eric Weinstein: … going back into that other thing. And, you know, it’s funny because I listen to this stuff and I get lost in it-
01:41:12
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:41:12
Eric Weinstein: … when other people are doing it. And I just think one of the things I’m very hopeful, and when I, I was excited to do the podcast, is that, um, I live in Los Angeles, and it doesn’t have the best intellectual reputation.
01:41:27
Amin Jazayeri: Mm-hmm.
01:41:27
Eric Weinstein: And a lot of the smartest people in the world live in LA.
01:41:30
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:41:31
Eric Weinstein: Um, it’s an un- undiscovered gem of, of thought, uh, and, and I think it’s an intellectual hub. And I, I think in a certain sense, so is Bombay. But-
01:41:43
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:41:43
Eric Weinstein: … in Bombay, the finance, the entertainment, the chaos, um, the business overwhelm this.
01:41:51
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:41:51
Eric Weinstein: And so it’s just w- w- what a treat also to be able to plug into something that isn’t ancient and old, and that you guys are doing, uh, as a vanguard. I have no idea whether people are listening outside of India, but I’m very curious as to whether this gets picked up.
01:42:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah, I mean, it’s … The reason that we do this and we will keep doing this is, like, we don’t want to lose … Uh, like, it’s one of our favorite parts of the week where we just, like, come and sit down, and we get to talk to so many people. And it’s … Uh, like I w- I don’t think I’m ever going to stop doing this because how else am I going to have people like you come here and sit and talk to us for a, a couple of hours, you know? So … And I think a lot of good things come out of conversation.
01:42:38
Eric Weinstein: Have you guys reached out to the trigonometry people given that you’re the untriggered? [laughs]
01:42:43
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:42:43
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs]
01:42:43
Eric Weinstein: And maybe the two of you-
01:42:44
Stuvi Krishnan: I don’t think so
01:42:44
Eric Weinstein: … you, you, like, annihilate each other into a shower of photons or something.
01:42:49
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] No.
01:42:49
Eric Weinstein: So Konstantin and Francis, if you’re out there, you should check these guys out and their pod.
01:42:52
Amin Jazayeri: I hated trigonometry when I was in school.
01:42:54
Stuvi Krishnan: Yeah.
01:42:54
Amin Jazayeri: I just didn’t get it. I was like-
01:42:56
Stuvi Krishnan: You loved geometry though. [laughs]
01:42:57
Amin Jazayeri: No. No. [laughs]
01:42:59
Eric Weinstein: Hate, hate geometry.
01:42:59
Stuvi Krishnan: Last night I called up one of my closest friends.
01:43:02
Eric Weinstein: Yeah.
01:43:02
Stuvi Krishnan: So he used to always teach me math when we were in school. And I told him, “You’re on.” I’m like, “Can you teach me about geometric unity?”
01:43:08
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
01:43:08
Stuvi Krishnan: He’s like, “How do you expect me to explain everything to you?” But I think he did a pretty good job in one hour’s time.
01:43:14
Amin Jazayeri: You thought we were going to be speaking about geometry?
01:43:17
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. [laughs]
01:43:18
Stuvi Krishnan: I wanted to. [laughs]
01:43:18
Amin Jazayeri: What is wrong with you?
01:43:19
Stuvi Krishnan: Then he taught me about the 14 dimensional manifold that you’re talking about.
01:43:22
Eric Weinstein: Now we’re talking. Right at the end.
01:43:24
Stuvi Krishnan: Right at the end.
01:43:24
Eric Weinstein: Tune in next time when Eric returns to Bombay.
01:43:27
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:43:27
Amin Jazayeri: Dude, I have, I have one last question before we wrap. As a mathematician and a geometer, can you explain to me what the ending of Interstellar was?
01:43:36
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
01:43:36
Amin Jazayeri: Like, what happens at the end?
01:43:39
Eric Weinstein: I don’t know. I think that was Kip Thorne, uh, at Caltech playing with a very large budget of Christopher Nolan.
01:43:45
Stuvi Krishnan: [laughs]
01:43:45
Eric Weinstein: I don’t, I don’t really know what happened. Uh, you know, I th- I forget. Was it-
01:43:50
Amin Jazayeri: What is your take on what happened?
01:43:51
Eric Weinstein: Well, look, the big problem is do you accept Einstein’s model- As reality, which I do not.
01:44:03
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:44:03
Eric Weinstein: I think it, you know, th- there’s this issue f- familiar [laughs] from psychedelics, the map is not the territory.
01:44:09
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:44:09
Eric Weinstein: Einstein’s theory is the map of reality, but it’s just like any map, like a Mercator projection. It, it’s, it’s a distortion at the places where it doesn’t work very well. So near the poles-
01:44:21
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:44:22
Eric Weinstein: … that flat map of the world pays its ultimate price, and I believe that this was an attempt to talk about, you know, time travel and dimensional crossings within an Einsteinian framework.
01:44:36
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:44:37
Eric Weinstein: And to be honest, I’m not that interested. I think that we’ve been, um… Albert Einstein is my ultimate hero, but we’ve been in his prison. He’s our jailer.
01:44:48
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:44:48
Eric Weinstein: And so, you know, as I sometimes say, [coughs] the solar system is an escape room.
01:44:54
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:44:55
Eric Weinstein: And the number one priority on planet Earth is to figure out, can we get out of the solar system?
01:45:01
Amin Jazayeri: Right.
01:45:01
Eric Weinstein: Because you can’t do it with chemical rockets. Um, it’s not going to lead to anything. And so-
01:45:07
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:45:07
Eric Weinstein: … my belief is that geometric unity is our best hope-
01:45:13
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:45:14
Eric Weinstein: … of making meaning of the end of Interstellar. But I believe that Kip Thorne probably accepted the yoke. Maybe it’s a spinning black hole or-
01:45:21
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:45:22
Eric Weinstein: … you know, an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, but I didn’t pay it too much attention.
01:45:26
Amin Jazayeri: Okay. Do you enjoy movies like that?
01:45:30
Eric Weinstein: Um, somewhat. I liked Arrival.
01:45:37
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:45:37
Eric Weinstein: Um, but I, I don’t see many movies any longer that really move me.
01:45:44
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:45:44
Eric Weinstein: And that’s why, you know, the Kung Fu Panda thing-
01:45:47
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah
01:45:47
Eric Weinstein: … um, was so profound is, is that it was hidden as if it was a children’s film, but it was an absolutely deep exploration of the human learning process, uh, disguised as a cartoon.
01:45:59
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:46:00
Eric Weinstein: I would be very up for more films that hid their payload in a vehicle that’s missed by most people.
01:46:08
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:46:08
Eric Weinstein: Uh, and we don’t do that enough. And yeah, I think science fiction is fun. I, I, I guess the three-body problem is the, probably the thing that moved me the most, and whether or not we’ve stagnated physics because physics is just too dangerous-
01:46:22
Amin Jazayeri: Right
01:46:22
Eric Weinstein: … which we should try to talk about next time if you guys are up for it.
01:46:25
Amin Jazayeri: 100%. Next time I’ll have to do research then for the next one. [laughs] Call, call your friend to do some physics.
01:46:31
Eric Weinstein: I think a couple of Kingfishers is all the, all the [laughs] research you’ll really need.
01:46:35
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] Okay. Before we go, do you have, um, any advice to, like, the Indian kids who might be watching this?
01:46:45
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. Know that what you’re going through here is being experienced all over the world.
01:46:51
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:46:51
Eric Weinstein: If you’re feeling disconnected, if you’re feeling failed, if you’re feeling like you can’t get your bearings, you can’t make meaning, um, know that it’s happening everywhere on Earth. Stop looking outside of India.
01:47:05
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:47:05
Eric Weinstein: Uh, you have everything you need right here. Obviously, the phone is not a phone. Uh, we don’t know what it is. It just rewires our minds in ways that we don’t understand.
01:47:14
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah.
01:47:15
Eric Weinstein: And, um, consider having kids. Really, I’m just gonna say I have one of the most interesting lives on Earth.
01:47:26
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:47:26
Eric Weinstein: I get to talk to the coolest people. I get to think about the coolest stuff. Nothing competes with bath time with your own kids.
01:47:33
Amin Jazayeri: Mm.
01:47:33
Eric Weinstein: It just doesn’t. Um, so prioritize that and remember that the party of your 20s and 30s comes to an end-
01:47:44
Amin Jazayeri: Mm
01:47:44
Eric Weinstein: … and don’t stay too long at that party.
01:47:46
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. Or know when to leave.
01:47:49
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. Don’t, don’t, don’t wait till the bitter end.
01:47:52
Amin Jazayeri: Yeah. You should tell them to leave the party. At, at some point, at after the second, third afterparty- Afterparty. [laughs] … you should go home. [laughs]
01:47:58
Eric Weinstein: Yeah. Well, that’s why I look forward to, uh, to three weddings in the sh- in the near future, ladies. [laughs]
01:48:04
Amin Jazayeri: [laughs] We’re gonna have you dance at at least two of them. Dance with us. Yeah. [laughs] Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.
01:48:09
Eric Weinstein: Thanks for having me, guys.
01:48:10
Amin Jazayeri: Thank you. And you’re always welcome to come back the next time we’re here.
01:48:13
Eric Weinstein: You’re very kind.
01:48:13
Amin Jazayeri: Thank you so much. Ah, fun. [sighs] Wow. [microphone rustles]
