Dan Carlin: Hardcore History
历史与文明政治与社会音乐与艺术心理与人性技术与编程
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AI 智能总结
丹·卡林谈硬核历史
这是 Lex Fridman 与「Hardcore History」播客主持人 Dan Carlin 的深度对话。卡林以他独特的叙事风格，探讨了历史的教训、战争的本质、人类文明的脆弱性，以及为什么理解历史对当代如此重要。
历史战争文明播客叙事蒙古帝国第一次世界大战
Dan Carlin 是美国播客主持人，「Hardcore History」和「Common Sense」播客的创始人，以长达数小时的深度历史叙事著称，是 Lex Fridman 最重要的播客启蒙者之一。
📌 核心观点
- 历史叙事的艺术：卡林认为历史不应该是枯燥的事实堆砌，而应该是引人入胜的故事。他的「Hardcore History」系列（如《蒙古帝国》《第一次世界大战》）通过沉浸式叙事，让听众真正感受到历史的重量。
- 战争的本质：卡林对战争有深刻的理解，他认为战争是人类最复杂的活动，既展示了人类最黑暗的一面，也展示了最崇高的一面。他特别关注普通士兵的经历，而非将领的战略。
- 历史的教训：卡林认为历史最重要的教训是「人类不会从历史中学习」——我们一遍又一遍地重复同样的错误。但他也认为理解历史可以帮助我们更好地理解当代问题。
- 文明的脆弱性：卡林对人类文明的长期存续持谨慎态度，他认为我们的文明比我们想象的更脆弱，核武器、气候变化和技术失控都是真实的存在性威胁。
- 播客作为媒介：卡林认为播客是一种革命性的媒介，它允许深度、长篇的内容在没有商业压力的情况下存在。他的节目有时长达 6 小时，这在传统媒体中是不可能的。
✨ 金句摘录
卡林：历史最重要的教训是人类不会从历史中学习——我们一遍又一遍地重复同样的错误。
卡林：战争既展示了人类最黑暗的一面，也展示了最崇高的一面——这就是为什么它如此令人着迷。
卡林：播客允许深度、长篇的内容存在——我的节目有时长达 6 小时，这在传统媒体中是不可能的。
📋 章节目录
暂无章节信息
🔑 关键词
donhistoryhitlersaidwarforcehumangoingeviltalksayingputgovernmentsomebodystuffdoingdidngermanymanjoe
💬 精彩语录
暂无语录
🎙️ 完整对话（4522 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Dan Carlin,
以下是与丹·卡林的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:03.800)
host of Hardcore History and Common Sense Podcasts.
硬核历史和常识播客的主持人。
Lex Fridman (00:08.760)
To me, Hardcore History is one of,
对我来说，硬核历史是其中之一，
Lex Fridman (00:11.680)
if not the greatest podcast ever made.
如果不是有史以来最伟大的播客。
Lex Fridman (00:15.960)
Dan and Joe Rogan are probably the two main people
丹和乔·罗根可能是两个主要人物
Dan Carlin (00:19.240)
who got me to fall in love with the medium of podcasting
谁让我爱上播客这个媒介
Lex Fridman (00:22.880)
as a fan and eventually as a podcaster myself.
作为一名粉丝，最终我自己也成为一名播客。
Dan Carlin (00:27.400)
Meeting Dan was surreal.
见到丹是超现实的。
Lex Fridman (00:29.960)
To me, he was not just a mere human like the rest of us,
对我来说，他不仅仅是像我们其他人一样的普通人，
Dan Carlin (00:33.400)
since his voice has been a guide
因为他的声音一直是指引
Lex Fridman (00:36.000)
through some of the darkest moments
度过一些最黑暗的时刻
Dan Carlin (00:37.680)
of human history for me.
对我来说人类历史。
Lex Fridman (00:39.480)
Meeting him was like meeting Genghis Khan,
遇见他就像遇见成吉思汗，
Dan Carlin (00:42.120)
Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great,
斯大林、希特勒、亚历山大大帝、
Lex Fridman (00:45.200)
and all of the most powerful leaders in history all at once
以及历史上所有最有权势的领导人
Dan Carlin (00:48.460)
in a crappy hotel room in the middle of Oregon.
在俄勒冈州中部一间破烂的酒店房间里。
Lex Fridman (00:51.880)
It turns out that he is in fact just a human
原来他其实只是一个人
Lex Fridman (00:55.880)
and truly one of the good ones.
确实是最好的之一。
Lex Fridman (00:58.720)
This was a pleasure and an honor for me.
这对我来说是一种荣幸和荣幸。
Dan Carlin (01:02.400)
Quick mention of each sponsor,
快速提及每个赞助商，
Lex Fridman (01:04.280)
followed by some thoughts related to the episode.
Dan Carlin (01:07.360)
First is Athletic Greens,
Lex Fridman (01:09.080)
the all in one drink that I start every day with
Dan Carlin (01:11.720)
to cover all my nutritional bases.
Lex Fridman (01:14.160)
Second is SimpliSafe,
Dan Carlin (01:16.080)
a home security company I use to monitor
Lex Fridman (01:18.260)
and protect my apartment.
Dan Carlin (01:20.240)
Third is Magic Spoon,
Lex Fridman (01:22.160)
low carb, keto friendly cereal that I think is delicious.
Lex Fridman (01:26.440)
And finally, Cash App,
Lex Fridman (01:27.860)
the app I use to send money to friends for food and drinks.
Dan Carlin (01:31.360)
Please check out these sponsors in the description
Lex Fridman (01:33.640)
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
Dan Carlin (01:37.720)
As a side note, let me say that I think
Lex Fridman (01:40.120)
we're living through one of the most challenging moments
Dan Carlin (01:42.680)
in American history.
Lex Fridman (01:44.720)
To me, the way out is through reason and love.
Dan Carlin (01:49.040)
Both require a deep understanding of human nature
Lex Fridman (01:52.100)
and of human history.
Dan Carlin (01:54.180)
This conversation is about both.
Lex Fridman (01:56.720)
I am, perhaps hopelessly, optimistic about our future.
Dan Carlin (02:01.760)
But, if indeed we stand at the precipice
Lex Fridman (02:05.280)
of the great filter, watching our world consumed by fire,
Dan Carlin (02:09.600)
think of this little podcast conversation
Lex Fridman (02:12.360)
as the appetizer to the final meal before the apocalypse.
Dan Carlin (02:17.920)
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
Lex Fridman (02:20.480)
review the Five Stars on Apple podcast,
Dan Carlin (02:22.680)
follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon,
Lex Fridman (02:25.440)
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (02:28.800)
And now, finally, here's my conversation
Lex Fridman (02:32.720)
with the great Dan Carlin.
Dan Carlin (02:36.320)
Let's start with the highest philosophical question.
Lex Fridman (02:39.080)
Do you think human beings are fundamentally good,
Dan Carlin (02:41.860)
or are all of us capable of both good and evil,
Lex Fridman (02:46.680)
and it's the environment that molds how we,
Lex Fridman (02:50.920)
the trajectory that we take through life?
Lex Fridman (02:53.520)
How do we define evil?
Dan Carlin (02:55.680)
Evil seems to be a situational
Lex Fridman (02:57.960)
eye of the beholder kind of question.
Dan Carlin (03:00.600)
So, if we define evil, maybe I can get a better idea of,
Lex Fridman (03:04.880)
and that could be a whole show, couldn't it, defining evil.
Lex Fridman (03:08.280)
But when we say evil, what do we mean?
Lex Fridman (03:10.720)
That's a slippery one, but I think there's some way
Dan Carlin (03:13.800)
in which your existence, your presence in the world,
Lex Fridman (03:17.620)
leads to pain and suffering and destruction
Dan Carlin (03:22.300)
for many others in the rest of the world.
Lex Fridman (03:25.000)
So, you steal the resources and you use them
Dan Carlin (03:28.800)
to create more suffering than there was before in the world.
Lex Fridman (03:33.920)
So, I suppose it's somehow deeply connected
Dan Carlin (03:35.920)
to this other slippery word, which is suffering.
Lex Fridman (03:39.360)
As you create suffering in the world,
Dan Carlin (03:41.780)
you bring suffering to the world.
Lex Fridman (03:43.600)
But here's the problem, I think, with it,
Dan Carlin (03:45.160)
because I fully see where you're going with that,
Lex Fridman (03:47.000)
and I understand it.
Dan Carlin (03:48.480)
The problem is the question of the reason
Lex Fridman (03:52.520)
for inflicting suffering.
Dan Carlin (03:54.200)
So, sometimes one might inflict suffering
Lex Fridman (03:58.080)
upon one group of individuals
Dan Carlin (04:00.800)
in order to maximize a lack of suffering
Lex Fridman (04:04.360)
with another group of individuals,
Dan Carlin (04:05.500)
or one who might not be considered evil at all
Lex Fridman (04:08.840)
might make the rational, seemingly rational choice
Dan Carlin (04:11.600)
of inflicting pain and suffering
Lex Fridman (04:13.280)
on a smaller group of people
Dan Carlin (04:15.240)
in order to maximize the opposite of that
Lex Fridman (04:17.260)
for a larger group of people.
Dan Carlin (04:19.040)
Yeah, that's one of the dark things about,
Lex Fridman (04:20.880)
I've spoken and read the work of Stephen Kotkin,
Dan Carlin (04:23.160)
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the historian,
Lex Fridman (04:25.340)
and he's basically a Stalin, a Joseph Stalin scholar.
Lex Fridman (04:30.040)
And one of the things I realized,
Lex Fridman (04:32.600)
I'm not sure where to put Hitler, but with Stalin,
Dan Carlin (04:37.000)
it really seems that he was sane
Lex Fridman (04:41.640)
and he thought he was doing good for the world.
Dan Carlin (04:44.600)
I really believe from everything I've read about Stalin
Lex Fridman (04:47.960)
that he believed that communism is good for the world.
Lex Fridman (04:52.800)
And if you have to kill a few people along the way,
Lex Fridman (04:56.320)
it's like you said, the small groups,
Dan Carlin (04:57.880)
if you have to sort of remove the people
Lex Fridman (05:01.280)
that stand in the way of this utopian system of communism,
Dan Carlin (05:06.440)
then that's actually good for the world.
Lex Fridman (05:08.640)
And it didn't seem to me
Dan Carlin (05:12.360)
that he could even consider the possibility
Lex Fridman (05:14.480)
that he was evil.
Dan Carlin (05:16.280)
He really thought he was doing good for the world.
Lex Fridman (05:18.680)
And that stuck with me because he's one of the most,
Dan Carlin (05:21.960)
is to our definition of evil,
Lex Fridman (05:24.520)
he seems to have brought more evil onto this world
Dan Carlin (05:29.320)
than almost any human in history.
Lex Fridman (05:32.540)
And I don't know what to do with that.
Dan Carlin (05:35.220)
Well, I'm fascinated with the concept,
Lex Fridman (05:36.960)
so fascinated by it that the very first
Dan Carlin (05:39.120)
hardcore history show we ever did,
Lex Fridman (05:40.520)
which was a full 15 or 16 minutes,
Dan Carlin (05:42.800)
was called Alexander versus Hitler.
Lex Fridman (05:46.200)
And the entire question about it was the motivations, right?
Lex Fridman (05:51.040)
So if you go to a court of law because you killed somebody,
Lex Fridman (05:55.020)
one of the things they're going to consider
Lex Fridman (05:56.640)
is why did you kill them, right?
Lex Fridman (05:59.000)
And if you killed somebody, for example, in self defense,
Dan Carlin (06:02.300)
you're going to be treated differently
Lex Fridman (06:03.720)
than if you malicious killed somebody
Lex Fridman (06:05.600)
maliciously to take their wallet, right?
Lex Fridman (06:08.000)
And in the show, we wondered,
Dan Carlin (06:10.680)
because I don't really make pronouncements,
Lex Fridman (06:12.840)
but we wondered about if you believe Hitler's writings,
Dan Carlin (06:17.320)
for example, Mein Kampf, which is written by a guy
Lex Fridman (06:20.720)
who's a political figure who wants to get,
Lex Fridman (06:22.720)
so I mean, it's about as believable
Lex Fridman (06:24.520)
as any other political tract would be.
Lex Fridman (06:26.880)
But in his mind, the things that he said that he had to do
Lex Fridman (06:31.260)
were designed for the betterment of the German people, right?
Dan Carlin (06:35.040)
Whereas Alexander the Great, once again,
Lex Fridman (06:37.240)
this is somebody from more than 2000 years ago,
Lex Fridman (06:39.360)
so with lots of propaganda in the intervening years,
Lex Fridman (06:42.280)
but one of the views of Alexander the Great
Dan Carlin (06:44.880)
is that the reason he did what he did
Lex Fridman (06:46.600)
was to, for lack of a better word,
Dan Carlin (06:49.360)
write his name in a more permanent graffiti
Lex Fridman (06:51.880)
on the pages of history, right?
Dan Carlin (06:53.240)
In other words, to glorify himself.
Lex Fridman (06:55.160)
And if that's the case,
Dan Carlin (06:57.440)
does that make Alexander a worse person than Hitler
Lex Fridman (07:00.060)
because Hitler thought he was doing good,
Dan Carlin (07:02.660)
whereas Alexander, if you believe the interpretation,
Lex Fridman (07:05.800)
was simply trying to exalt Alexander.
Lex Fridman (07:08.140)
So the motivations of the people doing these things,
Lex Fridman (07:11.680)
it seems to me, matter.
Dan Carlin (07:14.180)
I don't think you can just sit there and go,
Lex Fridman (07:15.740)
the only thing that matters is the end result,
Dan Carlin (07:17.780)
because that might've been an unintentional byproduct,
Lex Fridman (07:20.820)
in which case, that person,
Dan Carlin (07:22.760)
had you been able to show them the future,
Lex Fridman (07:25.640)
might have changed what they were doing.
Lex Fridman (07:27.220)
So were they evil or misguided or wrong or made the wrong?
Lex Fridman (07:30.880)
So, and I hate to do that
Dan Carlin (07:32.360)
because there's certain people like Hitler
Lex Fridman (07:33.640)
that I don't feel deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Dan Carlin (07:36.360)
At the same time, if you're fascinated
Lex Fridman (07:38.320)
by the concept of evil and you delve into it deeply enough,
Dan Carlin (07:42.040)
you're going to want to understand
Lex Fridman (07:43.520)
why these evil people did what they did.
Lex Fridman (07:46.600)
And sometimes it can confuse the hell out of you.
Lex Fridman (07:49.240)
You know, who wants to sit there
Lex Fridman (07:50.560)
and try to see things from Hitler's point of view
Lex Fridman (07:52.200)
to get a better understanding
Lex Fridman (07:53.160)
and sort of commiserate with.
Lex Fridman (07:54.760)
So, but I'm, obviously, first history show,
Dan Carlin (07:57.180)
I'm fascinated with the concept.
Lex Fridman (07:59.680)
So do you think it's possible,
Dan Carlin (08:01.500)
if we put ourselves in the mindset
Lex Fridman (08:03.200)
of some of the people that have led,
Dan Carlin (08:05.560)
created so much suffering in the world,
Lex Fridman (08:08.060)
that all of them had their motivations were,
Lex Fridman (08:12.520)
had good intentions underlying them?
Lex Fridman (08:15.180)
No, I don't, it's simply because there's so many,
Dan Carlin (08:17.920)
I mean, the law of averages would suggest
Lex Fridman (08:20.680)
that that's not true.
Dan Carlin (08:21.520)
I guess it is pure evil possible,
Lex Fridman (08:24.840)
meaning you, again, it's slippery,
Lex Fridman (08:28.000)
but you, the suffering is the goal.
Lex Fridman (08:31.360)
Suffering, intentional suffering.
Dan Carlin (08:33.280)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (08:34.120)
Yes, I think that, and I think that there's historical
Dan Carlin (08:36.160)
figures that one could point,
Lex Fridman (08:38.240)
but that gets to the deeper question of,
Lex Fridman (08:40.480)
are these people sane?
Lex Fridman (08:42.340)
Do they have something wrong with them?
Lex Fridman (08:43.460)
Are they twisted from something in their youth?
Lex Fridman (08:48.040)
You know, these are the kinds of things
Dan Carlin (08:50.160)
where you start to delve into the psychological makeup
Lex Fridman (08:53.040)
of these people.
Lex Fridman (08:53.960)
In other words, is anybody born evil?
Lex Fridman (08:56.280)
And I actually believe that some people are.
Dan Carlin (08:58.840)
I think the DNA can get scrambled up in ways.
Lex Fridman (09:01.480)
I think the question of evil is important too,
Dan Carlin (09:03.800)
because I think it's an eye of the beholder thing.
Lex Fridman (09:05.720)
I mean, if Hitler, for example, had been successful
Lex Fridman (09:09.000)
and we were today on the sixth or seventh leader
Lex Fridman (09:12.640)
of the Third Reich, since I think his entire history
Dan Carlin (09:16.960)
would be viewed through a different lens,
Lex Fridman (09:18.480)
because that's the way we do things, right?
Dan Carlin (09:20.720)
Genghis Khan looks different to the Mongolians
Lex Fridman (09:23.120)
than he does to the residents of Baghdad, right?
Lex Fridman (09:25.960)
And I think, so an eye of the beholder question,
Lex Fridman (09:28.880)
I think comes into all these sorts of things.
Dan Carlin (09:30.600)
As you said, it's a very slippery question.
Lex Fridman (09:32.720)
Where do you put, as somebody who's fascinated
Dan Carlin (09:35.280)
by military history, where do you put violence
Lex Fridman (09:41.200)
in terms of the human condition?
Dan Carlin (09:43.400)
Is it core to being human or is it just a little tool
Lex Fridman (09:47.040)
that we use every once in a while?
Lex Fridman (09:49.320)
So I'm gonna respond to your question with a question.
Lex Fridman (09:52.000)
What do you see the difference being
Lex Fridman (09:54.340)
between violence and force?
Lex Fridman (09:57.720)
Let me go farther.
Dan Carlin (09:58.800)
I'm not sure that violence is something
Lex Fridman (10:02.760)
that we have to put up with as human beings forever,
Dan Carlin (10:05.540)
that we must resign ourselves to violence forever.
Lex Fridman (10:09.540)
But I have a much harder time seeing us
Dan Carlin (10:12.760)
able to abolish force.
Lex Fridman (10:15.680)
And there's going to be some ground
Dan Carlin (10:19.040)
where if those two things are not the same,
Lex Fridman (10:21.680)
and I don't know that maybe they are,
Dan Carlin (10:23.400)
where there's certainly some crossover.
Lex Fridman (10:25.440)
And I think force, you're an engineer,
Dan Carlin (10:28.880)
you'll understand this better than I did,
Lex Fridman (10:30.040)
but think about it as a physical law.
Dan Carlin (10:32.920)
If you can't stop something from moving
Lex Fridman (10:34.980)
in a certain direction without pushing back
Dan Carlin (10:36.940)
in that same direction, I'm not sure
Lex Fridman (10:40.400)
that you can have a society or a civilization
Dan Carlin (10:44.440)
without the ability to use a counter force
Lex Fridman (10:48.600)
when things are going wrong,
Lex Fridman (10:50.520)
whether it's on an individual level, right?
Lex Fridman (10:53.080)
A person attacks another person,
Lex Fridman (10:55.060)
so you step in to save that person,
Lex Fridman (10:57.720)
or even at the highest levels of politics or anything else,
Dan Carlin (11:01.560)
a counter force to stop the inertia
Lex Fridman (11:04.480)
or the impetus of another movement.
Lex Fridman (11:07.280)
So I think that force is a simple,
Lex Fridman (11:11.120)
almost law of physics in human interaction,
Dan Carlin (11:13.940)
especially at the civilizational level.
Lex Fridman (11:15.640)
I think civilization requires a certain amount of,
Dan Carlin (11:18.560)
if not violence, then force.
Lex Fridman (11:22.420)
And again, they've talked, I mean,
Dan Carlin (11:23.920)
it goes back into St. Augustine,
Lex Fridman (11:25.680)
all kinds of Christian beliefs about the proper use of force
Lex Fridman (11:28.800)
and people have philosophically tried to decide
Lex Fridman (11:31.900)
between can you have sort of an ahimsa,
Dan Carlin (11:35.480)
Buddhists sort of, we will be nonviolent toward everything
Lex Fridman (11:38.600)
and exert no force, or there's a reason to have force
Dan Carlin (11:42.080)
in order to create the space for good.
Lex Fridman (11:44.880)
I think force is inevitable.
Dan Carlin (11:47.440)
Now, we can talk, and I've not come up
Lex Fridman (11:50.240)
to the conclusion myself, if there is a distinction
Dan Carlin (11:52.660)
to be made between force and violence.
Lex Fridman (11:54.720)
I mean, is a nonviolent force enough,
Dan Carlin (11:58.400)
or is violence when done for the cause of good
Lex Fridman (12:02.120)
a different thing than violence done
Dan Carlin (12:03.880)
either for the cause of evil, as you would say,
Lex Fridman (12:05.660)
or simply for random reasons?
Dan Carlin (12:08.800)
I mean, we humans lack control sometimes.
Lex Fridman (12:10.800)
We can be violent for no apparent reason or goal.
Lex Fridman (12:14.320)
And that's it.
Lex Fridman (12:15.160)
I mean, you look at the criminal justice system alone
Lex Fridman (12:18.000)
and the way we interact with people
Lex Fridman (12:20.800)
who are acting out in ways that we as a society
Dan Carlin (12:23.800)
have decided is intolerable.
Lex Fridman (12:25.920)
Can you deal with that without force
Lex Fridman (12:28.000)
and at some level violence?
Lex Fridman (12:29.320)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (12:30.160)
Can you maintain peacefulness without force?
Lex Fridman (12:32.960)
I don't know.
Dan Carlin (12:34.720)
Just to be a little bit more specific
Lex Fridman (12:36.880)
about the idea of force, do you put force
Lex Fridman (12:40.480)
as general enough to include force in the space of ideas?
Lex Fridman (12:45.400)
So you mentioned Buddhism or religion or just Twitter.
Dan Carlin (12:53.880)
I can think of no things farther apart than that.
Lex Fridman (12:56.320)
Okay.
Dan Carlin (12:58.400)
Is the battles we do in the space of ideas
Lex Fridman (13:03.120)
of the great debates throughout history,
Lex Fridman (13:07.460)
do you put force into that?
Lex Fridman (13:09.560)
Or do you, in this conversation,
Dan Carlin (13:12.720)
are we trying to right now keep it to just physical force
Lex Fridman (13:17.840)
in saying that you have an intuition
Lex Fridman (13:20.640)
that force might be with us much longer than violence?
Lex Fridman (13:25.120)
I think the two bleed together.
Lex Fridman (13:27.740)
So take, because it's always my go to example.
Lex Fridman (13:33.480)
I'm afraid and I'm sure that the listeners all hate it,
Lex Fridman (13:35.480)
but take Germany during the 1920s, early 1930s,
Lex Fridman (13:40.360)
before the Nazis came to power.
Lex Fridman (13:42.440)
And they were always involved in some level of force,
Lex Fridman (13:45.160)
beating up in the streets or whatever it might be.
Lex Fridman (13:46.960)
But think about it more like an intellectual discussion
Lex Fridman (13:49.940)
until a certain point.
Dan Carlin (13:53.720)
It would be difficult, I imagine,
Lex Fridman (13:55.800)
to keep the intellectual counter force of ideas
Dan Carlin (14:00.280)
from at some point degenerating
Lex Fridman (14:02.060)
into something that's more coercion, counter force,
Dan Carlin (14:06.920)
if we want to use the phrases we were just talking about.
Lex Fridman (14:09.440)
So I think the two are intimately connected.
Lex Fridman (14:11.720)
I mean, actions follow thought, right?
Lex Fridman (14:14.120)
And at a certain point, I think,
Dan Carlin (14:16.840)
especially when one is not achieving the goals
Lex Fridman (14:20.680)
that they want to achieve through a peaceful discussion
Dan Carlin (14:24.400)
or argumentation or trying to convince the other side,
Lex Fridman (14:27.800)
that sometimes the next level of operations
Dan Carlin (14:30.440)
is something a little bit more physically imposing,
Lex Fridman (14:33.280)
if that makes sense.
Dan Carlin (14:34.120)
We go from the intellectual to the physical.
Lex Fridman (14:36.360)
Yeah, so it too easily spills over into violence.
Dan Carlin (14:39.320)
Yes, and one leads to the other often.
Lex Fridman (14:41.400)
So you kind of implied perhaps a hopeful message.
Dan Carlin (14:45.440)
Let me ask it in the form of a question.
Lex Fridman (14:47.320)
Do you think we'll always have war?
Dan Carlin (14:51.280)
I think it goes to the first question too.
Lex Fridman (14:52.860)
So for example, what do you do?
Dan Carlin (14:56.720)
I mean, let's play with nation states now,
Lex Fridman (14:59.760)
although I don't know that nation states
Dan Carlin (15:02.000)
are something we should think of
Lex Fridman (15:03.200)
as a permanent construct forever.
Lex Fridman (15:06.120)
But how is one nation state
Lex Fridman (15:08.320)
supposed to prevent another nation state
Dan Carlin (15:10.720)
from acting in ways that it would see
Lex Fridman (15:12.560)
as either detrimental to the global community
Lex Fridman (15:14.760)
or detrimental to the interest of their own nation state?
Lex Fridman (15:20.040)
I think we've had this question
Dan Carlin (15:22.620)
of going back to ancient times,
Lex Fridman (15:25.300)
but certainly in the 20th century,
Dan Carlin (15:26.780)
this has come up quite a bit.
Lex Fridman (15:27.840)
I mean, the whole Second World War argument
Dan Carlin (15:30.360)
sometimes revolves around the idea
Lex Fridman (15:32.080)
of what the proper counterforce should be.
Lex Fridman (15:34.760)
Can you create an entity, a league of nations,
Lex Fridman (15:37.080)
the United Nations, a one world entity maybe even
Dan Carlin (15:41.280)
that alleviates the need for counterforce
Lex Fridman (15:44.320)
involving mass violence and armies and navies
Lex Fridman (15:46.580)
and those things?
Lex Fridman (15:47.700)
I think that's an open discussion we're still having.
Dan Carlin (15:51.600)
It's good to think through that
Lex Fridman (15:53.800)
because having something like a United Nations,
Dan Carlin (15:57.140)
there's usually a centralized control.
Lex Fridman (15:59.060)
So there's humans at the top,
Dan Carlin (16:01.240)
there's committees and usually like leaders
Lex Fridman (16:05.200)
emerge as singular figures
Dan Carlin (16:07.320)
that then can become corrupted by power.
Lex Fridman (16:10.760)
And it's just a really important,
Dan Carlin (16:12.520)
it feels like a really important thought experiment
Lex Fridman (16:15.200)
and something to really rigorously think through.
Lex Fridman (16:18.420)
How can you construct systems of government
Lex Fridman (16:21.960)
that are stable enough to push us towards less and less war
Lex Fridman (16:28.320)
and less and less unstable and another tough word,
Lex Fridman (16:33.320)
another tough word which is unfair of application of force?
Dan Carlin (16:39.720)
You know, that's really at the core of the question
Lex Fridman (16:42.400)
that we're trying to figure out as humans,
Dan Carlin (16:44.760)
as our weapons get better and better and better
Lex Fridman (16:46.720)
destroying ourselves,
Dan Carlin (16:48.360)
it feels like it's important to think about
Lex Fridman (16:50.880)
how we minimize the over application
Dan Carlin (16:54.960)
or unfair application of force.
Lex Fridman (16:57.860)
There's other elements that come into play too.
Dan Carlin (16:59.440)
You and I are discussing this
Lex Fridman (17:00.440)
at the very high intellectual level of things,
Lex Fridman (17:02.720)
but there's also a tail wagging the dog element to this.
Lex Fridman (17:05.440)
So think of a society of warriors,
Dan Carlin (17:08.200)
a tribal society from a long time ago.
Lex Fridman (17:11.520)
How much do the fact that you have warriors in your society
Lex Fridman (17:15.580)
and that their reason for existing,
Lex Fridman (17:17.560)
what they take pride in, what they train for,
Lex Fridman (17:20.960)
what their status in their own civilization,
Lex Fridman (17:23.080)
how much does that itself
Lex Fridman (17:24.840)
drive the responses of that society, right?
Lex Fridman (17:28.520)
How much do you need war to legitimize warriors?
Dan Carlin (17:33.040)
That's the old argument that you get to
Lex Fridman (17:34.640)
and we've had this in the 20th century too,
Dan Carlin (17:36.200)
that the creation of arms and armies
Lex Fridman (17:39.320)
creates an incentive to use them, right?
Lex Fridman (17:42.880)
And that they themselves can drive that incentive
Lex Fridman (17:45.360)
as a justification for their reasons for existence.
Dan Carlin (17:50.240)
That's where we start to talk about the interactivity
Lex Fridman (17:52.720)
of all these different elements of society upon one another.
Lex Fridman (17:55.880)
So when we talk about governments and war,
Lex Fridman (17:58.520)
well, you need to take into account
Dan Carlin (18:00.280)
the various things those governments have put into place
Lex Fridman (18:02.280)
in terms of systems and armies and things like that
Lex Fridman (18:05.120)
to protect themselves, right?
Lex Fridman (18:06.440)
For reasons we can all understand,
Lex Fridman (18:08.100)
but they exert a force on your range of choices, don't they?
Lex Fridman (18:13.240)
It's true.
Dan Carlin (18:14.080)
You're making me realize that in my upbringing
Lex Fridman (18:17.040)
and I think upbringing of many, warriors are heroes.
Dan Carlin (18:21.480)
To me, I don't know where that feeling comes from,
Lex Fridman (18:25.120)
but to sort of die fighting
Dan Carlin (18:29.560)
is an honorable way to die, it feels like that.
Lex Fridman (18:34.400)
I've always had a problem with this
Dan Carlin (18:35.640)
because as a person interested in military history,
Lex Fridman (18:38.200)
the distinction is important
Lex Fridman (18:40.000)
and I try to make it at different levels.
Lex Fridman (18:42.640)
So at base level, the people who are out there
Dan Carlin (18:45.800)
on the front lines doing the fighting,
Lex Fridman (18:48.800)
to me, those people can be compared with police officers
Lex Fridman (18:52.480)
and firemen and people, fire persons,
Lex Fridman (18:56.800)
but I mean, people that are involved
Dan Carlin (18:59.800)
in an ethical attempt to perform a task
Lex Fridman (19:05.140)
which ultimately one can see in many situations
Lex Fridman (19:08.720)
as being a saving sort of task, right?
Lex Fridman (19:12.880)
Or if nothing else, a self sacrifice
Dan Carlin (19:15.720)
for what they see as the greater good.
Lex Fridman (19:17.320)
Now, I draw a distinction between the individuals
Lex Fridman (19:20.880)
and the entity that they're a part of,
Lex Fridman (19:22.400)
a military, and I certainly draw a distinction
Dan Carlin (19:25.280)
between the military and then the entire,
Lex Fridman (19:27.840)
for lack of a better word, military industrial complex
Dan Carlin (19:30.540)
that that service is a part of.
Lex Fridman (19:32.840)
I feel a lot less moral attachment
Dan Carlin (19:37.040)
to those upper echelons than I do the people on the ground.
Lex Fridman (19:40.560)
The people on the ground could be any of us
Lex Fridman (19:42.200)
and have been in a lot of,
Lex Fridman (19:43.800)
we have a very professional sort of military now
Dan Carlin (19:46.720)
where it's a very, a subset of the population,
Lex Fridman (19:50.160)
but in other periods of time, we've had conscription
Lex Fridman (19:53.680)
and drafts and it hasn't been a subset of the population,
Lex Fridman (19:56.640)
it's been the population, right?
Lex Fridman (19:58.640)
And so it is the society oftentimes going to war
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.020)
all the newspapers, and find the,
Dan Carlin (1:00:03.220)
I used to know all the journalists by name,
Lex Fridman (1:00:05.100)
and I could pick out, you know, who they were,
Lex Fridman (1:00:06.860)
and I have a hard time picking out the truth
Lex Fridman (1:00:11.020)
from the falsehoods, so I think constantly,
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.380)
how are people who don't have all this background,
Lex Fridman (1:00:16.460)
who have lives, or who are trained in other specialties,
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.100)
how do they do it?
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.500)
But if the government is the only approved outlet for truth,
Dan Carlin (1:00:25.380)
a traditional American,
Lex Fridman (1:00:26.600)
and a lot of other traditional societies
Dan Carlin (1:00:28.260)
based on these ideas of the Enlightenment
Lex Fridman (1:00:29.940)
that I talked about earlier,
Dan Carlin (1:00:31.220)
would see that as a disaster waiting to happen,
Lex Fridman (1:00:33.440)
or a tyranny in progress.
Lex Fridman (1:00:35.120)
Does that make sense?
Lex Fridman (1:00:35.960)
Oh, it totally makes sense,
Lex Fridman (1:00:37.440)
and I would agree with you, I still agree with you,
Lex Fridman (1:00:40.140)
but it is clear that something about the freedom
Dan Carlin (1:00:43.860)
of the press and freedom of speech in today,
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.460)
like literally the last few years
Dan Carlin (1:00:49.580)
with the internet is changing,
Lex Fridman (1:00:52.380)
and the argument, you know,
Dan Carlin (1:00:53.860)
you could say that the American system
Lex Fridman (1:00:55.980)
of freedom of speech is broken,
Dan Carlin (1:00:59.340)
because the, here's the belief I grew up on,
Lex Fridman (1:01:04.160)
and I still hold, but I'm starting to be sort of
Dan Carlin (1:01:07.740)
trying to see multiple views on it.
Lex Fridman (1:01:09.660)
My belief was that freedom of speech results
Dan Carlin (1:01:14.340)
in a stable trajectory towards truth always.
Lex Fridman (1:01:18.180)
So like truth will emerge.
Dan Carlin (1:01:19.900)
That was my sort of faith and belief
Lex Fridman (1:01:21.660)
that yeah, there's going to be lies all over the place,
Lex Fridman (1:01:24.820)
but there'll be like a stable thing that is true,
Lex Fridman (1:01:27.820)
that's carried forward to the public.
Dan Carlin (1:01:31.620)
Now it feels like it's possible to go towards a world
Lex Fridman (1:01:36.620)
where nothing is true,
Dan Carlin (1:01:39.740)
where truth is something that groups of people
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.700)
convince themselves of,
Lex Fridman (1:01:45.900)
and there's multiple groups of people,
Lex Fridman (1:01:48.020)
and the idea of some universal truth,
Dan Carlin (1:01:51.220)
as I suppose is the better thing,
Lex Fridman (1:01:53.220)
is something that we can no longer exist under.
Dan Carlin (1:01:57.320)
Like some people believe that the Green Bay Packers
Lex Fridman (1:02:00.460)
is the best football team,
Lex Fridman (1:02:02.600)
and some people can think the Patriots,
Lex Fridman (1:02:04.860)
and they deeply believe it
Dan Carlin (1:02:07.940)
to where they call the other groups liars.
Lex Fridman (1:02:10.260)
Now that's fun for sports,
Dan Carlin (1:02:11.540)
that's fun for favorite flavors of ice cream,
Lex Fridman (1:02:14.660)
but they might believe that about science,
Dan Carlin (1:02:17.220)
about the various aspects of politics,
Lex Fridman (1:02:23.780)
various aspects of sort of different policies
Dan Carlin (1:02:28.200)
within the function of our government.
Lex Fridman (1:02:30.660)
And like, that's not just like
Dan Carlin (1:02:32.700)
some weird thing we'll complain about,
Lex Fridman (1:02:34.220)
but that'll be the nature of things,
Dan Carlin (1:02:35.620)
like truth is something we can no longer have.
Lex Fridman (1:02:38.740)
Well, and let me de romanticize
Dan Carlin (1:02:41.320)
the American history of this too,
Lex Fridman (1:02:43.920)
because the American press was often just as biased,
Dan Carlin (1:02:49.100)
just as, I mean, I always looked to the 1970s
Lex Fridman (1:02:52.480)
as the high watermark of the American journalistic,
Dan Carlin (1:02:55.740)
in the post Watergate era,
Lex Fridman (1:02:57.860)
where it was actively going after the abuses
Dan Carlin (1:03:02.860)
of the government and all these things.
Lex Fridman (1:03:04.240)
But there was a famous speech, very quiet though,
Dan Carlin (1:03:06.460)
very quiet, given by Katherine Graham,
Lex Fridman (1:03:08.660)
who was a Washington Post editor, I believe.
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.400)
And I actually, somebody sent it to me,
Lex Fridman (1:03:13.400)
we had to get it off of a journalism,
Dan Carlin (1:03:15.160)
like a J store kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (1:03:16.880)
And she, at a luncheon,
Dan Carlin (1:03:20.800)
assured to the government people at the luncheon,
Lex Fridman (1:03:23.760)
don't worry, this is not gonna be something
Dan Carlin (1:03:25.700)
that we make a trend.
Lex Fridman (1:03:27.640)
Because the position of the government
Dan Carlin (1:03:31.680)
is still something that was carried,
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.840)
that the newspapers were the water,
Lex Fridman (1:03:36.440)
and the newspapers were the big thing
Lex Fridman (1:03:37.760)
up until certainly the late 60s, early 70s.
Dan Carlin (1:03:40.500)
The newspapers were still the water carrier
Lex Fridman (1:03:42.760)
of the government, right?
Lex Fridman (1:03:43.960)
And they were the water carriers
Lex Fridman (1:03:45.680)
of the owners of the newspaper.
Lex Fridman (1:03:47.740)
So let's not pretend there was some angelic, wonderful time.
Lex Fridman (1:03:51.000)
And I'm saying to me,
Dan Carlin (1:03:52.000)
cause I was the one who brought it up,
Lex Fridman (1:03:53.680)
let's not pretend there was any super age
Dan Carlin (1:03:56.860)
of truthful journalism and all that.
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.580)
And I mean, you go to the revolutionary period
Dan Carlin (1:04:01.000)
in American history,
Lex Fridman (1:04:02.280)
and it looks every bit as bad as today, right?
Dan Carlin (1:04:05.000)
That's a hopeful message, actually.
Lex Fridman (1:04:06.440)
So things may not be as bad as they look.
Dan Carlin (1:04:09.120)
Well, let's look at it more like a stock market,
Lex Fridman (1:04:11.180)
and that you have fluctuations in the truthfulness
Dan Carlin (1:04:14.080)
or believability of the press.
Lex Fridman (1:04:16.080)
And there are periods where it was higher
Dan Carlin (1:04:18.520)
than other periods.
Lex Fridman (1:04:19.920)
The funny thing about the so called clickbait era,
Lex Fridman (1:04:22.240)
and I do think it's terrible,
Lex Fridman (1:04:24.260)
but I mean, it resembles earlier eras to me.
Lex Fridman (1:04:27.840)
So I always compare it to when I was a kid growing up,
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.320)
when I thought journalism was as good as it's ever gotten.
Dan Carlin (1:04:33.840)
It was never perfect.
Lex Fridman (1:04:36.120)
But it's also something that you see very rarely
Dan Carlin (1:04:39.400)
in other governments around the world.
Lex Fridman (1:04:41.300)
And there's a reason that journalists
Dan Carlin (1:04:42.840)
are often killed regularly in a lot of countries.
Lex Fridman (1:04:46.600)
And it's because they report on things
Dan Carlin (1:04:48.300)
that the authorities do not want reported on.
Lex Fridman (1:04:50.160)
And I've always thought that
Dan Carlin (1:04:51.000)
that was what journalism should do.
Lex Fridman (1:04:52.960)
But it's gotta be truthful,
Lex Fridman (1:04:55.080)
otherwise it's just a different kind of propaganda, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:59.080)
Can we talk about Genghis Khan?
Lex Fridman (1:05:01.360)
Genghis Khan?
Lex Fridman (1:05:02.200)
Sure.
Lex Fridman (1:05:03.020)
By the way, is it Genghis Khan or Genghis Khan?
Lex Fridman (1:05:05.680)
It's not Genghis Khan.
Dan Carlin (1:05:06.680)
It's either Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khan.
Lex Fridman (1:05:09.200)
So let's go with Genghis Khan.
Dan Carlin (1:05:11.240)
That's the only thing I'll be able to say
Lex Fridman (1:05:12.640)
with any certain, last certain thing I'll say about it.
Dan Carlin (1:05:16.600)
It's like, I don't know, GIF versus GIF.
Lex Fridman (1:05:20.080)
I don't know if you know about those things.
Dan Carlin (1:05:21.120)
I don't know how it ever got started the wrong way.
Lex Fridman (1:05:23.800)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.920)
So first of all, your episodes on Genghis Khan
Lex Fridman (1:05:28.840)
for many people are the favorite.
Dan Carlin (1:05:31.000)
It's fascinating to think about events
Lex Fridman (1:05:33.520)
that had so much like in their ripples,
Dan Carlin (1:05:36.040)
had so much impact on so much of human civilization.
Lex Fridman (1:05:40.440)
In your view, was he an evil man?
Dan Carlin (1:05:45.120)
Let's go start a discussion of evil.
Lex Fridman (1:05:48.320)
Another way to put it is I've read he's much loved
Dan Carlin (1:05:53.000)
in many parts of the world like Mongolia.
Lex Fridman (1:05:56.560)
And I've also read arguments that say
Dan Carlin (1:05:59.200)
that he was quite a progressive for the time.
Lex Fridman (1:06:03.040)
So where do you put him?
Lex Fridman (1:06:04.240)
Is he a progressive or is he an evil destroyer of humans?
Lex Fridman (1:06:08.440)
As I often say, I'm not a historian,
Dan Carlin (1:06:10.440)
which is why what I try to bring
Lex Fridman (1:06:13.580)
to the Hardcore History podcasts are these sub themes.
Lex Fridman (1:06:17.680)
So each show has, and they're not,
Lex Fridman (1:06:19.400)
I try to kind of soft pedal them.
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.040)
So they're not always like really right in front
Lex Fridman (1:06:23.040)
of your face.
Dan Carlin (1:06:23.880)
In that episode, the soft peddling sub theme had to do
Lex Fridman (1:06:28.640)
with what we referred to as a historical arsonist.
Lex Fridman (1:06:32.360)
And it's because some historians have taken the position
Lex Fridman (1:06:36.200)
that sometimes, and most of this is earlier stuff,
Dan Carlin (1:06:38.600)
historians don't do this very much anymore,
Lex Fridman (1:06:40.440)
but these were the wonderful questions I grew up with
Dan Carlin (1:06:43.160)
that blend, it's almost the intersection
Lex Fridman (1:06:45.640)
between history and philosophy.
Lex Fridman (1:06:48.180)
And the idea was that sometimes the world has become
Lex Fridman (1:06:52.440)
so overwhelmed with bureaucracy or corruption
Dan Carlin (1:06:56.800)
or just stagnation that somebody has to come in
Lex Fridman (1:07:00.760)
or some group of people or some force has to come in
Lex Fridman (1:07:03.920)
and do the equivalent of a forest fire
Lex Fridman (1:07:06.240)
to clear out all the dead wood
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.380)
so that the forest itself can be rejuvenated
Lex Fridman (1:07:11.040)
and society can then move forward.
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.160)
And there's a lot of these periods where the historians
Lex Fridman (1:07:15.620)
of the past will portray these figures who come in
Lex Fridman (1:07:18.840)
and do horrific things as creating an almost service
Lex Fridman (1:07:23.400)
for mankind, right?
Dan Carlin (1:07:25.440)
Creating the foundations for a new world
Lex Fridman (1:07:28.520)
that will be better than the old one.
Lex Fridman (1:07:29.880)
And it's a recurring theme.
Lex Fridman (1:07:31.000)
And so this was the sub theme of the Khan's podcast,
Dan Carlin (1:07:34.440)
because otherwise you don't need me to tell you the story
Lex Fridman (1:07:36.240)
of the Mongols, but I'm gonna bring up
Dan Carlin (1:07:37.960)
the historical arsonist element.
Lex Fridman (1:07:40.240)
And, but this gets to how the Khan has been portrayed,
Lex Fridman (1:07:43.560)
right?
Lex Fridman (1:07:44.380)
If you wanna say, oh yes, he cleared out the dead wood
Lex Fridman (1:07:46.800)
and made for, well, then it's a positive thing.
Lex Fridman (1:07:49.400)
If you say, my family was in the forest fire that he set,
Dan Carlin (1:07:52.720)
you're not gonna see it that way.
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.720)
Much of what Genghis Khan is credited with
Lex Fridman (1:07:58.260)
on the upside, right?
Lex Fridman (1:07:59.840)
So things like religious toleration,
Lex Fridman (1:08:02.800)
and you'll say, well, he was religiously,
Lex Fridman (1:08:05.160)
the Mongols were religiously tolerant.
Lex Fridman (1:08:08.040)
And so this makes them almost like a liberal reformer
Lex Fridman (1:08:10.600)
kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (1:08:11.500)
But this needs to be seen within the context
Lex Fridman (1:08:14.280)
of their empire, which was very much
Dan Carlin (1:08:17.560)
like the Roman viewpoint,
Lex Fridman (1:08:18.640)
which is the Romans didn't care at a lot of time
Lex Fridman (1:08:20.640)
what your local people worshiped.
Lex Fridman (1:08:22.720)
They wanted stability.
Lex Fridman (1:08:24.280)
And if that kept stability and kept you paying taxes
Lex Fridman (1:08:26.880)
and didn't require the legionaries to come in,
Lex Fridman (1:08:29.440)
then they didn't care, right?
Lex Fridman (1:08:31.300)
And the Khans were the same way.
Dan Carlin (1:08:32.960)
Like they don't care what you're practicing
Lex Fridman (1:08:34.600)
as long as it doesn't disrupt their empire
Lex Fridman (1:08:36.440)
and cause them trouble.
Lex Fridman (1:08:37.980)
But what I always like to point out is yes,
Lex Fridman (1:08:39.820)
but the Khan could still come in with his representatives
Lex Fridman (1:08:42.360)
to your town, decide your daughter was a beautiful woman
Dan Carlin (1:08:45.240)
that they wanted in the Khan's concubine,
Lex Fridman (1:08:47.280)
and they would take them.
Lex Fridman (1:08:48.800)
So how liberal an empire is this, right?
Lex Fridman (1:08:52.440)
So many of the things that they get credit for
Dan Carlin (1:08:54.720)
as though there's some kind of nice guys
Lex Fridman (1:08:56.880)
may in another way of looking at it
Lex Fridman (1:08:58.840)
just be a simple mechanism of control, right?
Lex Fridman (1:09:01.760)
A way to keep the empire stable.
Dan Carlin (1:09:04.760)
They're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
Lex Fridman (1:09:07.160)
They have decided that this is the best.
Lex Fridman (1:09:09.120)
And I love because the Mongols were what we would call
Lex Fridman (1:09:13.360)
a pagan people now.
Dan Carlin (1:09:15.240)
I love the fact that they, and I think we call it,
Lex Fridman (1:09:17.880)
I forgot the term we used, had to do with,
Lex Fridman (1:09:19.760)
like they were hedging their bets religiously, right?
Lex Fridman (1:09:22.360)
They didn't know which God was the right one.
Lex Fridman (1:09:24.440)
So as long as you're all praying for the health of the Khan,
Lex Fridman (1:09:27.400)
we're maximizing the chances that whoever the gods are,
Lex Fridman (1:09:30.440)
they get the message, right?
Lex Fridman (1:09:32.440)
So I think it's been portrayed as something
Dan Carlin (1:09:34.960)
like a liberal empire.
Lex Fridman (1:09:36.440)
And the idea of Mongol universality
Dan Carlin (1:09:40.720)
is more about conquering the world.
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.680)
And it's like saying, you know,
Dan Carlin (1:09:44.600)
we're gonna bring stability to the world by conquering it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:46.680)
Well, what if that's Hitler, right?
Dan Carlin (1:09:48.720)
He could make the same case,
Lex Fridman (1:09:50.160)
or Hitler wasn't really the world conqueror like that
Dan Carlin (1:09:52.240)
because he wouldn't have been trying
Lex Fridman (1:09:54.040)
to make it equal for all peoples.
Lex Fridman (1:09:55.640)
But my point being that it kind of takes
Lex Fridman (1:09:58.300)
the positive moral slant out of it
Dan Carlin (1:10:01.520)
if their motivation wasn't a positive moral slant
Lex Fridman (1:10:05.120)
to the motivate, and the Mongols didn't see it that way.
Lex Fridman (1:10:09.720)
And I think the way that it's portrayed is like,
Lex Fridman (1:10:13.140)
and I always like to use this analogy,
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.200)
but it's like shooting an arrow
Lex Fridman (1:10:17.480)
and painting a bull's eye around it afterwards, right?
Lex Fridman (1:10:20.300)
How do we justify and make them look good in a way
Lex Fridman (1:10:24.680)
that they themselves probably,
Lex Fridman (1:10:26.120)
and listen, we don't have the Mongol point of view per se.
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.780)
I mean, there's something called the secret history
Dan Carlin (1:10:31.360)
of the Mongols, and there's things written down
Lex Fridman (1:10:33.660)
by Mongolian overlords through people
Dan Carlin (1:10:36.160)
like Persian and Chinese scribes later.
Lex Fridman (1:10:38.580)
We don't have their point of view,
Lex Fridman (1:10:41.100)
but it sure doesn't look like this was an attempt
Lex Fridman (1:10:44.000)
to create some wonderful place
Dan Carlin (1:10:45.820)
where everybody was living a better life
Lex Fridman (1:10:47.560)
than they were before.
Dan Carlin (1:10:48.560)
I think that's later people putting a nice rosy spin on it.
Lex Fridman (1:10:53.920)
But there's an aspect to it, maybe you can correct me,
Dan Carlin (1:10:57.880)
because I'm projecting sort of my idea
Lex Fridman (1:10:59.740)
of what it would take to conquer so much land
Dan Carlin (1:11:04.440)
is the ideology is emergent.
Lex Fridman (1:11:08.880)
So if I were to guess,
Dan Carlin (1:11:11.960)
the Mongols started out as exceptionally,
Lex Fridman (1:11:16.400)
as warriors who valued excellence in skill of killing,
Dan Carlin (1:11:23.240)
not even killing, but like the actual practice of war.
Lex Fridman (1:11:27.280)
And you can start out small,
Lex Fridman (1:11:28.640)
and you can grow and grow and grow.
Lex Fridman (1:11:30.320)
And then in order to maintain the stability
Dan Carlin (1:11:32.740)
of the things over which of the conquered lands,
Lex Fridman (1:11:36.720)
you developed a set of ideas with which you can,
Dan Carlin (1:11:40.260)
like you said, establish control, but it was emergent.
Lex Fridman (1:11:43.900)
And it seems like the core first principle idea
Dan Carlin (1:11:48.740)
of the Mongols is just to be excellent warriors.
Lex Fridman (1:11:52.780)
That felt to me like the starting point.
Dan Carlin (1:11:55.400)
It wasn't some ideology.
Lex Fridman (1:11:57.200)
Like with Hitler and Stalin,
Dan Carlin (1:11:59.680)
with Hitler, there was an ideology
Lex Fridman (1:12:03.120)
that didn't have anything to do with war underneath it.
Dan Carlin (1:12:06.960)
It was more about conquering.
Lex Fridman (1:12:08.240)
It feels like the Mongols started out more organically,
Dan Carlin (1:12:12.920)
I would say, like this phenomenon started emergently,
Lex Fridman (1:12:16.240)
and they were just like similar to the Native Americans
Dan Carlin (1:12:19.260)
with the Comanches, like the different warrior tribes
Lex Fridman (1:12:21.960)
that Joe Rogan's currently obsessed with,
Dan Carlin (1:12:24.160)
that led me to look into it more.
Lex Fridman (1:12:28.120)
They seem to just start out just valuing the skill
Dan Carlin (1:12:32.200)
of fighting whatever the tools of war they had,
Lex Fridman (1:12:35.280)
which were pretty primitive,
Lex Fridman (1:12:36.460)
but just to be the best warriors
Lex Fridman (1:12:38.280)
they could possibly be, make a science out of it.
Dan Carlin (1:12:40.540)
Is that crazy to think that there was no ideology behind it
Lex Fridman (1:12:44.560)
in the beginning?
Dan Carlin (1:12:46.320)
I'm gonna back up a second.
Lex Fridman (1:12:47.280)
I'm reminded of the line said about the Romans,
Dan Carlin (1:12:49.680)
that they create a wasteland and call it peace.
Lex Fridman (1:12:52.880)
That is, but there's a lot of conquerors like that, right?
Dan Carlin (1:12:57.000)
Where you will sit there, and listen,
Lex Fridman (1:12:59.560)
historians forever have, it's the famous trade offs
Dan Carlin (1:13:03.160)
of empire, and they'll say, well,
Lex Fridman (1:13:04.920)
look at the trade that they facilitated,
Lex Fridman (1:13:07.320)
and look at the religion, all those kinds of things,
Lex Fridman (1:13:09.440)
but they come at the cost of all those peoples
Dan Carlin (1:13:13.060)
that they conquered forcibly and by force,
Lex Fridman (1:13:16.840)
integrated into their empire.
Dan Carlin (1:13:18.560)
The one thing we need to remember about the Mongols
Lex Fridman (1:13:20.720)
that makes them different than, say, the Romans,
Lex Fridman (1:13:22.800)
and this is complex stuff and way above my pay grade,
Lex Fridman (1:13:26.000)
but I'm fascinated with it,
Lex Fridman (1:13:27.320)
and it's more like the Comanches that you just brought up,
Lex Fridman (1:13:30.260)
is that the Mongols are not a settled society, okay?
Dan Carlin (1:13:33.800)
They come from a nomadic tradition.
Lex Fridman (1:13:36.860)
Now, several generations later,
Dan Carlin (1:13:39.380)
when you have Kublai Khan as the emperor of China,
Lex Fridman (1:13:44.240)
it's beginning to be a different thing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:13:46.600)
And the Mongols, when their empire broke up,
Lex Fridman (1:13:48.840)
the ones that were in settled,
Dan Carlin (1:13:50.880)
the so called settled societies, right, Iran,
Lex Fridman (1:13:53.240)
places like that, they will become more like,
Dan Carlin (1:13:56.040)
over time, the rulers of those places were traditionally,
Lex Fridman (1:13:59.320)
and the Mongols in, say, the Khaganate of the Golden Horde,
Dan Carlin (1:14:03.680)
which is still in their traditional nomadic territories,
Lex Fridman (1:14:06.760)
will remain traditionally more Mongol,
Lex Fridman (1:14:09.600)
but when you start talking about who the Mongols were,
Lex Fridman (1:14:13.440)
I try to make a distinction.
Dan Carlin (1:14:15.400)
They're not some really super special people.
Lex Fridman (1:14:19.520)
They're just the latest confederacy in an area
Dan Carlin (1:14:23.780)
that saw nomadic confederacies going back
Lex Fridman (1:14:27.680)
to the beginning of recorded history.
Dan Carlin (1:14:30.120)
The Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Avars,
Lex Fridman (1:14:33.640)
the Huns, the Magyars, I mean, these are all the nomadic,
Dan Carlin (1:14:37.120)
you know, the nomads of the Eurasian steppe
Lex Fridman (1:14:39.640)
were huge, huge players in the history of the world
Dan Carlin (1:14:42.880)
until gunpowder nullified their traditional weapons system,
Lex Fridman (1:14:49.160)
which I've been fascinated with
Dan Carlin (1:14:50.460)
because their traditional weapons system
Lex Fridman (1:14:52.580)
is not one you could copy,
Dan Carlin (1:14:54.280)
because you were talking about being the greatest warriors
Lex Fridman (1:14:56.400)
you could be.
Dan Carlin (1:14:57.840)
Every warrior society I've ever seen values that.
Lex Fridman (1:15:02.080)
What the nomads had of the Eurasian steppe
Dan Carlin (1:15:05.200)
was this relationship between human beings and animals
Lex Fridman (1:15:10.680)
that changed the equation.
Dan Carlin (1:15:12.760)
It was how they rode horses.
Lex Fridman (1:15:15.680)
And societies like the Byzantines,
Dan Carlin (1:15:18.080)
which would form one flank of the steppe
Lex Fridman (1:15:20.340)
and then all the way on the other side you had China,
Lex Fridman (1:15:22.580)
and below that you had Persia,
Lex Fridman (1:15:24.940)
these societies would all attempt
Dan Carlin (1:15:27.360)
to create mounted horsemen who used archery.
Lex Fridman (1:15:30.640)
And they did a good job,
Lex Fridman (1:15:32.160)
but they were never the equals of the nomads
Lex Fridman (1:15:35.000)
because those people were literally raised in the saddle.
Dan Carlin (1:15:38.760)
They compared them to centaurs.
Lex Fridman (1:15:41.520)
The Comanches, great example,
Dan Carlin (1:15:42.920)
considered to be the best horse riding warriors
Lex Fridman (1:15:47.120)
in North America.
Dan Carlin (1:15:48.620)
The Comanches, I always love watching, there's paintings.
Lex Fridman (1:15:51.720)
George Catlin, the famous painter
Dan Carlin (1:15:54.960)
who painted the Comanches, illustrated it.
Lex Fridman (1:15:57.840)
But the Mongols and the Scythians and the Avars
Lex Fridman (1:16:01.200)
and all these people did it too,
Lex Fridman (1:16:02.840)
where they would shoot from underneath the horse's neck,
Dan Carlin (1:16:06.680)
hiding behind the horse the whole way.
Lex Fridman (1:16:09.640)
You look at a picture of somebody doing that,
Lex Fridman (1:16:12.120)
and it's insane.
Lex Fridman (1:16:13.440)
This is what the Byzantines couldn't do
Lex Fridman (1:16:15.840)
and the Chinese couldn't do.
Lex Fridman (1:16:17.460)
It was a different level of harnessing
Dan Carlin (1:16:21.680)
a human animal relationship
Lex Fridman (1:16:23.720)
that gave them a military advantage
Lex Fridman (1:16:26.260)
that could not be copied, right?
Lex Fridman (1:16:28.600)
It could be emulated, but they were never as good, right?
Dan Carlin (1:16:31.560)
That's why they always hired these people.
Lex Fridman (1:16:33.480)
They hired mercenaries from these areas
Lex Fridman (1:16:35.460)
because they were incomparable, right?
Lex Fridman (1:16:38.320)
It's the combination of people who were shooting bows
Lex Fridman (1:16:40.680)
and arrows from the time they were toddlers,
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.240)
who were riding from the time they were,
Dan Carlin (1:16:45.000)
who rode all the time.
Lex Fridman (1:16:46.600)
I mean, the Huns were bow legged, the Romans said,
Dan Carlin (1:16:49.560)
because they were never,
Lex Fridman (1:16:50.880)
they ate, slept, everything in the saddle.
Dan Carlin (1:16:54.360)
That creates something that is difficult to copy.
Lex Fridman (1:16:57.560)
And it gave them a military advantage.
Dan Carlin (1:17:00.480)
I enjoy reading actually about
Lex Fridman (1:17:02.640)
when that military advantage ended.
Lex Fridman (1:17:04.880)
So 17th and 18th century,
Lex Fridman (1:17:07.300)
when the Chinese on one flank and the Russians on the other
Dan Carlin (1:17:10.260)
are beginning to use firearms and stuff
Lex Fridman (1:17:12.540)
to break this military power of these various Khans.
Dan Carlin (1:17:18.100)
The Mongols were simply the most dominating
Lex Fridman (1:17:20.520)
and most successful of the Confederacies.
Lex Fridman (1:17:23.100)
But if you break it down,
Lex Fridman (1:17:24.560)
they really formed the nucleus at the top of the pyramid,
Dan Carlin (1:17:28.680)
of the apex of the food chain.
Lex Fridman (1:17:30.640)
And a lot of the people that were known as Mongols
Dan Carlin (1:17:33.320)
were really lots of other tribes, non Mongolian tribes,
Lex Fridman (1:17:37.200)
that when the Mongols conquer you,
Dan Carlin (1:17:38.760)
after they killed a lot of you,
Lex Fridman (1:17:40.360)
they incorporated you into their Confederacy
Lex Fridman (1:17:43.400)
and often made you go first.
Lex Fridman (1:17:45.440)
You're gonna fight somebody,
Dan Carlin (1:17:46.280)
we're gonna make these people go out in front
Lex Fridman (1:17:48.080)
and suck up all the arrows
Dan Carlin (1:17:49.580)
before we go in and finish the job.
Lex Fridman (1:17:51.540)
So to me, and I guess a fan of the Mongols would say
Dan Carlin (1:17:56.040)
that the difference and what made the Mongols different
Lex Fridman (1:17:59.080)
wasn't the weapon system or the fighting
Dan Carlin (1:18:01.240)
or the warriors or the armor or anything,
Lex Fridman (1:18:03.360)
it was Genghis Khan.
Lex Fridman (1:18:05.000)
And if you go look at the other really dangerous,
Lex Fridman (1:18:07.520)
from the outside world's perspective,
Dan Carlin (1:18:09.000)
dangerous step, nomadic Confederacies from past history
Lex Fridman (1:18:12.640)
was always when some great leader emerged
Dan Carlin (1:18:16.180)
that could unite the tribes.
Lex Fridman (1:18:17.400)
And you see the same thing in Native American history
Dan Carlin (1:18:19.320)
to a degree too.
Lex Fridman (1:18:21.140)
You had people like Attila, right?
Dan Carlin (1:18:24.280)
Or there's one called Tumen.
Lex Fridman (1:18:26.280)
You go back in history and these people
Dan Carlin (1:18:28.160)
make the history books because they caused
Lex Fridman (1:18:30.600)
an enormous amount of trouble for their settled neighbors
Dan Carlin (1:18:33.480)
that normally, I mean, Chinese Byzantine and Persian
Lex Fridman (1:18:36.840)
approaches to the steppe people were always the same.
Dan Carlin (1:18:39.660)
They would pick out tribes to be friendly with,
Lex Fridman (1:18:42.000)
they would give them money, gifts, hire them,
Lex Fridman (1:18:43.960)
and they would use them against the other tribes.
Lex Fridman (1:18:46.440)
And generally Byzantine,
Dan Carlin (1:18:48.040)
especially in Chinese diplomatic history
Lex Fridman (1:18:50.880)
was all about keeping these tribes separated.
Dan Carlin (1:18:54.040)
Don't let them form confederations of large numbers of them
Lex Fridman (1:18:57.480)
because then they're unstoppable.
Dan Carlin (1:18:59.280)
Attila was a perfect example.
Lex Fridman (1:19:01.080)
The Huns were another large,
Dan Carlin (1:19:02.840)
the Turks, another large confederacy of these people.
Lex Fridman (1:19:05.520)
And they were devastating when they could unite.
Lex Fridman (1:19:08.240)
So the diplomatic policy was don't let them.
Lex Fridman (1:19:10.600)
That's what made the Mongols different
Dan Carlin (1:19:12.000)
is Genghis Khan united them.
Lex Fridman (1:19:14.000)
And then unlike most of the tribal confederacies,
Dan Carlin (1:19:16.640)
they were able to hold it together for a few generations.
Lex Fridman (1:19:19.880)
To linger on the little thread that you started pulling
Dan Carlin (1:19:24.880)
on this man, Genghis Khan, that was a leader.
Lex Fridman (1:19:28.280)
Temujin, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:19:29.960)
What do you think makes a great leader?
Lex Fridman (1:19:32.280)
Maybe if you have other examples throughout history
Lex Fridman (1:19:35.920)
and great, again, let's use that term loosely.
Lex Fridman (1:19:41.200)
Meaning.
Dan Carlin (1:19:42.040)
Now I was gonna ask for a definition.
Lex Fridman (1:19:42.880)
Great uniter of whether it's evil or good,
Dan Carlin (1:19:46.920)
it doesn't matter.
Lex Fridman (1:19:49.840)
Is there somebody who stands out to you,
Dan Carlin (1:19:51.960)
Alexander the Great talking about military or ideologies,
Lex Fridman (1:19:57.040)
some people bring up FDR or, I mean,
Dan Carlin (1:20:00.520)
you could be the founding fathers of this country,
Lex Fridman (1:20:03.720)
or we can go to, was he man of the century up there?
Dan Carlin (1:20:09.640)
Hitler of the 20th century and Stalin
Lex Fridman (1:20:14.800)
and these people had really amassed the amount of power
Dan Carlin (1:20:19.320)
that probably has never been seen
Lex Fridman (1:20:20.920)
in the history of the world.
Dan Carlin (1:20:22.440)
Is there somebody who stands out to you
Lex Fridman (1:20:24.720)
by way of trying to define what makes a great uniter,
Lex Fridman (1:20:28.720)
great leader in one man or woman, maybe in the future?
Lex Fridman (1:20:34.120)
It's an interesting question.
Lex Fridman (1:20:35.280)
And one I've thought a lot about,
Lex Fridman (1:20:36.680)
because let's take Alexander the Great as an example,
Dan Carlin (1:20:39.080)
because Alexander fascinated the world of his time,
Lex Fridman (1:20:41.720)
fascinated, ever since people have been fascinated
Dan Carlin (1:20:44.120)
with the guy.
Lex Fridman (1:20:45.200)
But Alexander was a hereditary monarch, right?
Dan Carlin (1:20:49.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:20:50.240)
He was handed the kingdom.
Dan Carlin (1:20:52.200)
Which is fascinating.
Lex Fridman (1:20:53.040)
Right, but he did not need to rise from nothing
Dan Carlin (1:20:56.780)
to get that job.
Lex Fridman (1:20:57.760)
In fact, he reminds me of a lot of other leaders
Dan Carlin (1:21:00.160)
of Frederick the Great, for example, in Prussia.
Lex Fridman (1:21:03.440)
These are people who inherited
Dan Carlin (1:21:06.080)
the greatest army of their day.
Lex Fridman (1:21:09.880)
Alexander, unless he was an imbecile,
Dan Carlin (1:21:11.960)
was going to be great no matter what,
Lex Fridman (1:21:14.760)
because I mean, if you inherit the Wehrmacht,
Lex Fridman (1:21:17.280)
you're gonna be able to do something with it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:21:19.920)
Alexander's father may have been greater, Philip.
Dan Carlin (1:21:23.720)
Philip II was the guy who literally did create
Lex Fridman (1:21:27.640)
a strong kingdom from a disjointed group of people
Dan Carlin (1:21:33.000)
that were continually beset by their neighbors.
Lex Fridman (1:21:34.960)
He's the one that reformed that army,
Dan Carlin (1:21:37.680)
took things that he had learned from other Greek leaders
Lex Fridman (1:21:41.000)
like the Theban leader at Paminondas,
Lex Fridman (1:21:44.160)
and then laboriously over his lifetime
Lex Fridman (1:21:48.400)
stabilized the frontiers, built this system.
Dan Carlin (1:21:51.000)
He lost an eye doing it.
Lex Fridman (1:21:53.600)
His leg was made lame.
Dan Carlin (1:21:55.200)
I mean, this was a man who looked like he built the empire
Lex Fridman (1:21:58.420)
and led from the front ranks.
Dan Carlin (1:22:00.480)
I mean, and then who may have been killed by his son,
Lex Fridman (1:22:04.680)
we don't know who assassinated Philip,
Lex Fridman (1:22:06.800)
but then handed the greatest army
Lex Fridman (1:22:08.480)
the world had ever seen to his son,
Dan Carlin (1:22:10.420)
who then did great things with it.
Lex Fridman (1:22:12.000)
You see this pattern many times.
Lex Fridman (1:22:13.880)
So in my mind, I'm not sure Alexander
Lex Fridman (1:22:17.640)
really can be that great when you compare him
Dan Carlin (1:22:20.320)
to people who arose from nothing.
Lex Fridman (1:22:22.320)
So the difference between what we would call
Dan Carlin (1:22:24.220)
in the United States the self made man
Lex Fridman (1:22:27.040)
or the one who inherits a fortune.
Dan Carlin (1:22:29.360)
There's an old line that, it's a slur,
Lex Fridman (1:22:31.840)
but it's about rich people.
Lex Fridman (1:22:33.480)
And it's like he was born on third base
Lex Fridman (1:22:37.080)
and thought he hit a triple, right?
Dan Carlin (1:22:39.480)
Philip was born at home plate and he had to hit.
Lex Fridman (1:22:42.880)
Alexander started on third base.
Lex Fridman (1:22:45.200)
And so I try to draw a distinction between them.
Lex Fridman (1:22:48.100)
Genghis Khan is tough because there's two traditions.
Dan Carlin (1:22:51.700)
The tradition that we grew up with here
Lex Fridman (1:22:53.560)
in the United States and that I grew up learning
Dan Carlin (1:22:55.340)
was that he was a self made man.
Lex Fridman (1:22:57.800)
But there is a tradition,
Lex Fridman (1:22:59.240)
and it may be one of those things that's put after the fact
Lex Fridman (1:23:01.920)
because a long time ago, whether or not you had blue blood
Dan Carlin (1:23:05.720)
in your veins was an important distinction.
Lex Fridman (1:23:08.840)
And so the distinction that you'll often hear
Dan Carlin (1:23:10.620)
from Mongolian history is that this was a nobleman
Lex Fridman (1:23:14.580)
who had been deprived of his inheritance.
Lex Fridman (1:23:16.640)
So he was a blue blood anyway.
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.720)
I don't know which is true.
Dan Carlin (1:23:20.660)
There's certainly, I mean, when you look at a Genghis Khan,
Lex Fridman (1:23:22.960)
you have to go, that is a wicked amount of things
Dan Carlin (1:23:26.720)
to have achieved.
Lex Fridman (1:23:28.320)
He's very impressive as a figure.
Dan Carlin (1:23:30.200)
Attila is very impressive as a figure.
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.600)
Hitler's an interesting figure.
Dan Carlin (1:23:35.120)
He's one of those people,
Lex Fridman (1:23:36.800)
you know, the more you study about Hitler,
Dan Carlin (1:23:38.600)
the more you wonder where the defining moment was.
Lex Fridman (1:23:43.200)
Because if you look at his life,
Dan Carlin (1:23:46.040)
I mean, Hitler was a relatively common soldier
Lex Fridman (1:23:50.240)
in the First World War.
Dan Carlin (1:23:51.200)
I mean, he was brave.
Lex Fridman (1:23:52.240)
He got some decorations.
Dan Carlin (1:23:54.280)
In fact, the highest decoration he got
Lex Fridman (1:23:56.040)
in the First World War was given to him by a Jewish officer.
Lex Fridman (1:23:59.660)
And he often didn't talk about that decoration,
Lex Fridman (1:24:03.080)
even though it was the more prestigious one
Dan Carlin (1:24:04.760)
because it would open up a whole can of worms
Lex Fridman (1:24:06.320)
you didn't wanna get into.
Lex Fridman (1:24:07.720)
But Hitler's, I mean, if you said who was Hitler today,
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.240)
one of the top things you're gonna say
Dan Carlin (1:24:12.660)
is he was an anti Semite.
Lex Fridman (1:24:14.720)
Well, then you have to draw a distinction
Dan Carlin (1:24:16.040)
between general regular anti Semitism
Lex Fridman (1:24:19.840)
that was pretty common in the era
Lex Fridman (1:24:21.640)
and something that was a rabid level of anti Semitism.
Lex Fridman (1:24:24.440)
But Hitler didn't seem to show a rabid level
Dan Carlin (1:24:27.560)
of anti Semitism until after
Lex Fridman (1:24:29.480)
or at the very end of the First World War.
Lex Fridman (1:24:31.560)
So if this is a defining part of this person's character
Lex Fridman (1:24:34.880)
and much of what we consider to be his evil
Dan Carlin (1:24:38.320)
stems from that, what happened to this guy
Lex Fridman (1:24:41.440)
when he's an adult, right?
Dan Carlin (1:24:43.200)
He's already fought in the war to change him so.
Lex Fridman (1:24:45.960)
I mean, it's almost like the old,
Dan Carlin (1:24:47.200)
there was always a movie theme.
Lex Fridman (1:24:48.240)
Somebody gets hit by something on the head
Lex Fridman (1:24:50.740)
and their whole personality changes, right?
Lex Fridman (1:24:52.840)
I mean, it almost seems something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.340)
So I don't think I call that necessarily a great leader.
Lex Fridman (1:24:58.840)
To me, the interesting thing about Hitler
Dan Carlin (1:25:00.200)
is what the hell happened to a nondescript person
Lex Fridman (1:25:03.600)
who didn't really impress anybody with his skills.
Lex Fridman (1:25:07.160)
And then in the 1920s, it's all of a sudden,
Lex Fridman (1:25:10.440)
as you said, sort of the man of the hour, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:12.800)
So that to me is kind of,
Lex Fridman (1:25:14.040)
I have this feeling that Genghis Khan,
Lex Fridman (1:25:16.420)
and we don't really know,
Lex Fridman (1:25:18.000)
was an impressive human being from the get go.
Lex Fridman (1:25:20.520)
And then he was raised in this environment
Lex Fridman (1:25:22.040)
with pressure on all sides.
Lex Fridman (1:25:23.440)
So you start with this diamond and then you polish it
Lex Fridman (1:25:26.000)
and you harden it his whole life.
Dan Carlin (1:25:27.720)
Hitler seemed to be a very unimpressive gemstone
Lex Fridman (1:25:31.240)
most of his life, and then all of a sudden.
Dan Carlin (1:25:33.320)
So, I mean, I don't think I can label great leaders.
Lex Fridman (1:25:36.800)
And I'm always fascinated by that idea that,
Lex Fridman (1:25:39.360)
and I'm trying to remember who the quote was by that,
Lex Fridman (1:25:41.540)
that great men, oh, Lord Acton.
Lex Fridman (1:25:43.440)
So great men are often not good men.
Lex Fridman (1:25:47.240)
And that in order to be great,
Dan Carlin (1:25:49.120)
you would have to jettison many of the moral qualities
Lex Fridman (1:25:51.760)
that we normally would consider a Jesus or a Gandhi,
Dan Carlin (1:25:55.200)
or, you know, these qualities that one looks at
Lex Fridman (1:25:58.640)
as the good upstanding moral qualities
Lex Fridman (1:26:01.160)
that we should all aspire to as examples, right?
Lex Fridman (1:26:03.460)
The Buddha, whatever it might be,
Dan Carlin (1:26:05.600)
those people wouldn't make good leaders
Lex Fridman (1:26:07.240)
because what you need to be a good leader
Dan Carlin (1:26:08.600)
often requires the kind of choices
Lex Fridman (1:26:10.480)
that a true philosophical diogenes moral man wouldn't make.
Lex Fridman (1:26:15.840)
So I don't have an answer to your question.
Lex Fridman (1:26:17.360)
How about that?
Dan Carlin (1:26:18.200)
That's a long way of saying, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:26:20.120)
Just linger a little bit.
Dan Carlin (1:26:22.240)
It does feel like from my study of Hitler
Lex Fridman (1:26:24.960)
that the time molded the man versus Genghis Khan,
Dan Carlin (1:26:28.840)
where it feels like he, the man molded his time.
Lex Fridman (1:26:33.600)
Yes, and I feel that way
Dan Carlin (1:26:34.520)
about a lot of those nomadic Confederacy builders,
Lex Fridman (1:26:37.840)
that they really seem to be these figures
Dan Carlin (1:26:41.120)
that stand out as extraordinary in one way or another.
Lex Fridman (1:26:45.760)
Remembering, by the way,
Dan Carlin (1:26:46.600)
that almost all the history of them were written
Lex Fridman (1:26:48.600)
by the enemies that they so mistreated
Dan Carlin (1:26:50.560)
that they were probably never gonna get any good press.
Lex Fridman (1:26:52.720)
They didn't write themselves.
Dan Carlin (1:26:53.960)
That's a caveat.
Lex Fridman (1:26:54.800)
We should always add to basically all of human history.
Dan Carlin (1:26:56.080)
Nomadic or Native American peoples
Lex Fridman (1:26:58.040)
or tribal peoples anywhere
Dan Carlin (1:26:59.760)
generally do not get the advantage
Lex Fridman (1:27:01.440)
of being able to write the history of their heroes.
Dan Carlin (1:27:04.720)
Okay, I've recently almost done
Lex Fridman (1:27:08.360)
with the rise and the fall of the Third Reich.
Dan Carlin (1:27:11.360)
It's one of the historical descriptions
Lex Fridman (1:27:16.360)
of Hitler's rise to power, Nazi's rise to power.
Dan Carlin (1:27:21.600)
There's a few philosophical things
Lex Fridman (1:27:23.440)
I'd like to ask you to see if you can help.
Dan Carlin (1:27:27.840)
Like one of the things I think about
Lex Fridman (1:27:32.120)
is how does one be a hero in 1930s Nazi Germany?
Lex Fridman (1:27:37.960)
What does it mean to be a hero?
Lex Fridman (1:27:41.360)
What do heroic actions look like?
Dan Carlin (1:27:44.920)
I think about that because I think about
Lex Fridman (1:27:50.280)
how I move about in this world today.
Dan Carlin (1:27:56.000)
That we live in really chaotic, intense times
Lex Fridman (1:28:01.440)
where I don't think you wanna draw any parallels
Dan Carlin (1:28:04.320)
between Nazi Germany and modern day
Lex Fridman (1:28:06.440)
in any of the nations we can think about.
Lex Fridman (1:28:09.600)
But it's not out of the realm of possibility
Lex Fridman (1:28:12.080)
that authoritarian governments take hold,
Dan Carlin (1:28:18.160)
authoritarian companies take hold.
Lex Fridman (1:28:21.000)
And I'd like to think that I could be
Dan Carlin (1:28:24.960)
in my little small way and inspire others
Lex Fridman (1:28:27.640)
to take the heroic action before things get bad.
Lex Fridman (1:28:33.560)
And I kind of try to place myself
Lex Fridman (1:28:36.640)
in what would 1930s Germany look like?
Lex Fridman (1:28:40.000)
Is it possible to stop a Hitler?
Lex Fridman (1:28:44.560)
Is it even the right way to think about it?
Lex Fridman (1:28:47.800)
And how does one be a hero in it?
Lex Fridman (1:28:51.480)
I mean, you often talk about that living through
Dan Carlin (1:28:53.920)
a moment in history is very different
Lex Fridman (1:28:55.640)
than looking at that history,
Dan Carlin (1:28:57.520)
looking when you look back.
Lex Fridman (1:29:00.040)
I also think about it, would it be possible
Dan Carlin (1:29:03.920)
to understand what's happening
Lex Fridman (1:29:06.960)
that the bells of war are ringing?
Dan Carlin (1:29:12.400)
It seems that most people didn't seem to understand,
Lex Fridman (1:29:16.240)
you know, late into the 30s that war is coming.
Dan Carlin (1:29:21.040)
That's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (1:29:22.320)
On the United States side, inside Germany,
Dan Carlin (1:29:25.760)
like the opposing figures,
Lex Fridman (1:29:27.880)
the German military didn't seem to understand this.
Dan Carlin (1:29:30.920)
Maybe the other countries, certainly France
Lex Fridman (1:29:34.680)
and England didn't seem to understand this.
Dan Carlin (1:29:37.560)
That kind of tried to put myself into 90s, 30s Germany
Lex Fridman (1:29:41.360)
as I'm Jewish, which is another little twist on the whole.
Lex Fridman (1:29:46.800)
Like what would I do?
Lex Fridman (1:29:48.120)
What should one do?
Lex Fridman (1:29:51.440)
Do you have interesting answers?
Lex Fridman (1:29:54.400)
So earlier we had talked about Putin
Lex Fridman (1:29:56.120)
and we had talked about patriotism
Lex Fridman (1:29:57.920)
and love of country and those sorts of things.
Dan Carlin (1:30:00.680)
In order to be a hero in Nazi Germany
Lex Fridman (1:30:05.800)
by our views here, you would have had to have been
Dan Carlin (1:30:11.720)
anti patriotic to the average German's viewpoint
Lex Fridman (1:30:15.720)
in the 1930s, right?
Dan Carlin (1:30:16.960)
You would have to have opposed your own government
Lex Fridman (1:30:20.000)
and your own country.
Lex Fridman (1:30:21.280)
And that's a very, it would be a very weird thing
Lex Fridman (1:30:24.160)
to go to people in Germany and say,
Dan Carlin (1:30:26.080)
listen, the only way you're gonna be seen
Lex Fridman (1:30:28.040)
as a good German and a hero to the country
Dan Carlin (1:30:32.080)
that will be your enemies is we think
Lex Fridman (1:30:35.080)
you should oppose your own government.
Dan Carlin (1:30:36.680)
It's a strange position to put the people
Lex Fridman (1:30:40.520)
in a government saying you need to be against your leader,
Dan Carlin (1:30:43.240)
you need to oppose your government's policies,
Lex Fridman (1:30:45.520)
you need to oppose your government,
Dan Carlin (1:30:47.080)
you need to hope and work for its downfall.
Lex Fridman (1:30:49.600)
That doesn't sound patriotic.
Dan Carlin (1:30:51.160)
It wouldn't sound patriotic here in this country
Lex Fridman (1:30:53.360)
if you made a similar argument.
Dan Carlin (1:30:55.080)
I will go away from the 1930s and go to the 1940s
Lex Fridman (1:31:00.480)
to answer your question.
Lex Fridman (1:31:01.520)
So there is movements like the White Rose Movement
Lex Fridman (1:31:05.320)
in Germany, which involved young people really,
Lex Fridman (1:31:09.000)
and from various backgrounds, religious backgrounds often,
Lex Fridman (1:31:13.240)
who worked openly against the Nazi government
Dan Carlin (1:31:17.320)
at a time when power was already consolidated,
Lex Fridman (1:31:19.880)
the Gestapo was in full force and they execute people
Dan Carlin (1:31:23.320)
who are against the government.
Lex Fridman (1:31:24.680)
And these young people would go out
Lex Fridman (1:31:26.400)
and distribute pamphlets and many of them got their heads
Lex Fridman (1:31:29.900)
cut off with guillotines for their trouble.
Lex Fridman (1:31:32.700)
And they knew that that was gonna be the penalty.
Lex Fridman (1:31:35.960)
That is a remarkable amount of bravery and sacrifice
Lex Fridman (1:31:41.560)
and willingness to die, and almost not even willingness
Lex Fridman (1:31:44.700)
because they were so open about it,
Lex Fridman (1:31:46.020)
it's almost a certainty, right?
Lex Fridman (1:31:49.620)
That's incredibly moving to me.
Lex Fridman (1:31:51.620)
So when we talk, and we had talked earlier
Lex Fridman (1:31:53.160)
about sort of the human spirit and all that kind of thing,
Dan Carlin (1:31:57.040)
there are people in the German military who opposed
Lex Fridman (1:32:01.920)
and worked against Hitler, for example.
Lex Fridman (1:32:04.480)
But to me, that's almost cowardly compared
Lex Fridman (1:32:08.120)
to what these young people did in the White Rose Movement
Dan Carlin (1:32:10.600)
because those people in the Wehrmacht, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:32:13.960)
who were secretly trying to undermine Hitler,
Dan Carlin (1:32:16.320)
they're not really putting their lives on the line
Lex Fridman (1:32:18.920)
to the same degree.
Lex Fridman (1:32:20.240)
And so I think when I look at heroes,
Lex Fridman (1:32:23.760)
and listen, I remember once saying
Dan Carlin (1:32:25.360)
there were no conscientious objectors in Germany
Lex Fridman (1:32:28.720)
as a way to point out to people
Dan Carlin (1:32:30.680)
that you didn't have a choice,
Lex Fridman (1:32:31.600)
you know, you were gonna serve in there.
Lex Fridman (1:32:32.680)
And I got letters from Jehovah's Witnesses who said,
Lex Fridman (1:32:35.500)
yes, there were.
Lex Fridman (1:32:36.920)
And we got sent to the concentration camps.
Lex Fridman (1:32:39.400)
Those are remarkably brave things.
Dan Carlin (1:32:42.080)
It's one thing to have your own set of standards and values.
Lex Fridman (1:32:47.080)
It's another thing to say, oh no,
Dan Carlin (1:32:50.460)
I'm going to display them in a way
Lex Fridman (1:32:52.580)
that with this regime, that's a death sentence.
Lex Fridman (1:32:54.580)
And not just for me, for my family, right?
Lex Fridman (1:32:57.580)
In these regimes, there was not a lot of distinction made
Dan Carlin (1:33:00.460)
between father and son and wives.
Lex Fridman (1:33:03.380)
That's a remarkable sacrifice to make.
Lex Fridman (1:33:05.540)
And far beyond what I think I would even be capable of.
Lex Fridman (1:33:08.640)
And so the admiration comes from seeing people
Dan Carlin (1:33:12.740)
who appear to be more morally profound
Lex Fridman (1:33:16.020)
than you are yourself.
Lex Fridman (1:33:18.040)
So when I look at this, I look at that kind of thing
Lex Fridman (1:33:20.460)
and I just say, wow.
Lex Fridman (1:33:22.600)
And the funny thing is if you'd have gone
Lex Fridman (1:33:24.360)
to most average Germans on the street in 1942
Lex Fridman (1:33:29.580)
and said, what do you think of these people?
Lex Fridman (1:33:31.660)
They're gonna think of them as traitors
Dan Carlin (1:33:33.340)
who probably got what they deserved.
Lex Fridman (1:33:35.820)
So that's the eye of the beholder thing.
Dan Carlin (1:33:37.660)
It's the power of the state to sow propagandize values
Lex Fridman (1:33:42.660)
and morality in a way that favors the state
Dan Carlin (1:33:45.960)
that you can turn people who today we look at
Lex Fridman (1:33:49.200)
as unbelievably brave and moral
Lex Fridman (1:33:51.840)
and crusading for righteousness
Lex Fridman (1:33:54.280)
and turn them into enemies of the people.
Dan Carlin (1:33:58.160)
So, I mean, in my mind, it would be people like that.
Lex Fridman (1:34:00.860)
See, I think, so hero is a funny word
Lex Fridman (1:34:05.520)
and we romanticize the notion,
Lex Fridman (1:34:07.760)
but if I could drag you back to 1930s Germany from 1940s.
Dan Carlin (1:34:11.720)
Sure.
Lex Fridman (1:34:13.600)
I feel like the heroic actions that doesn't accomplish much
Dan Carlin (1:34:19.320)
is not what I'm referring to.
Lex Fridman (1:34:21.760)
So there's many heroes I look up to that,
Dan Carlin (1:34:27.200)
like David Goggins, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:34:29.200)
the guy who runs crazy distances.
Dan Carlin (1:34:31.360)
He runs for no purpose except for the suffering in itself.
Lex Fridman (1:34:35.280)
And I think his willingness to challenge the limits
Dan Carlin (1:34:38.880)
of his mind is heroic.
Lex Fridman (1:34:42.120)
I guess I'm looking for a different term,
Lex Fridman (1:34:44.520)
which is how could Hitler have been stopped?
Lex Fridman (1:34:49.080)
My sense is that he could have been stopped
Dan Carlin (1:34:52.120)
in the battle of ideas where people,
Lex Fridman (1:34:56.160)
millions of people were suffering economically
Dan Carlin (1:34:59.680)
or suffering because of the betrayal of World War I
Lex Fridman (1:35:02.900)
in terms of the love of country
Lex Fridman (1:35:04.720)
and how they felt they were being treated.
Lex Fridman (1:35:07.440)
And a charismatic leader that inspired love
Lex Fridman (1:35:11.920)
and unity that's not destructive could have emerged.
Lex Fridman (1:35:15.540)
And that's where the battle should have been fought.
Dan Carlin (1:35:18.320)
I would suggest that we need to take into account
Lex Fridman (1:35:22.740)
the context of the times that led to Hitler's rise of power
Lex Fridman (1:35:26.620)
and created the conditions where his message resonated.
Lex Fridman (1:35:31.240)
That is not a message that resonates at all times, right?
Dan Carlin (1:35:34.760)
It is impossible to understand the rise of Hitler
Lex Fridman (1:35:40.160)
without dealing with the First World War
Lex Fridman (1:35:42.040)
and the aftermath of the First World War
Lex Fridman (1:35:44.020)
and the inflationary terrible depression in Germany
Lex Fridman (1:35:46.560)
and all these things and the dissatisfaction
Lex Fridman (1:35:50.320)
with the Weimar Republic's government,
Dan Carlin (1:35:52.100)
which was often seen as something put into,
Lex Fridman (1:35:55.440)
which it was put into place by the victorious powers.
Dan Carlin (1:35:59.240)
Hitler referred to the people that signed those agreements
Lex Fridman (1:36:02.340)
that signed the armistice as the November criminals.
Lex Fridman (1:36:06.280)
And he used that as a phrase
Lex Fridman (1:36:08.240)
which resonated with the population.
Dan Carlin (1:36:10.080)
This was a population that was embittered.
Lex Fridman (1:36:12.800)
And even if they weren't embittered,
Dan Carlin (1:36:14.280)
the times were so terrible.
Lex Fridman (1:36:15.920)
And the options for operating within the system
Lex Fridman (1:36:19.600)
in a non radical way seemed totally discredited, right?
Lex Fridman (1:36:24.460)
You could work through the Weimar Republic,
Lex Fridman (1:36:25.880)
but they tried and it wasn't working anyway.
Lex Fridman (1:36:27.640)
And then the alternative to the Nazis
Dan Carlin (1:36:29.880)
who were bully boys in the street
Lex Fridman (1:36:31.800)
were communist agitators
Dan Carlin (1:36:33.480)
that to the average conservative Germans seem no better.
Lex Fridman (1:36:36.800)
So you have three options
Dan Carlin (1:36:38.020)
if you're an average German person.
Lex Fridman (1:36:39.760)
You can go with the discredited government
Dan Carlin (1:36:42.360)
put in power by your enemies that wasn't working anyway.
Lex Fridman (1:36:46.760)
You could go with the Nazis
Dan Carlin (1:36:48.120)
who seemed like a bunch of super patriots
Lex Fridman (1:36:49.960)
calling for the restoration of German authority,
Dan Carlin (1:36:54.120)
or you could go with the communists.
Lex Fridman (1:36:55.720)
And the entire thing seemed like a litany of poor options.
Lex Fridman (1:37:00.000)
And in this realm, Hitler was able to triangulate,
Lex Fridman (1:37:03.680)
if you will.
Dan Carlin (1:37:07.000)
He came off as a person
Lex Fridman (1:37:08.840)
who was going to restore German greatness
Dan Carlin (1:37:11.100)
at a time when this was a powerful message.
Lex Fridman (1:37:13.640)
But if you don't need German greatness restored,
Lex Fridman (1:37:16.580)
it doesn't resonate, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:18.840)
So the reason that your love idea and all this stuff,
Dan Carlin (1:37:23.560)
I don't think would have worked in the time period
Lex Fridman (1:37:25.600)
is because that was not a commodity
Dan Carlin (1:37:27.700)
that the average German was in search of then.
Lex Fridman (1:37:30.960)
Well, it's interesting to think about
Dan Carlin (1:37:33.760)
whether greatness can be restored through mechanisms,
Lex Fridman (1:37:38.200)
through ideas that are not so,
Dan Carlin (1:37:41.920)
from our perspective today, so evil.
Lex Fridman (1:37:46.740)
I don't know what the right term is.
Lex Fridman (1:37:48.700)
But the war continued in a way.
Lex Fridman (1:37:50.500)
So remember that when Germany,
Dan Carlin (1:37:52.460)
when Hitler is rising to power,
Lex Fridman (1:37:54.840)
the French are in control of parts of Germany, right?
Dan Carlin (1:37:58.440)
The Ruhr, one of the main industrial heartlands of Germany,
Lex Fridman (1:38:01.680)
was occupied by the French.
Lex Fridman (1:38:02.920)
So there's never this point
Lex Fridman (1:38:04.500)
where you're allowed to let the hate dissipate, right?
Dan Carlin (1:38:07.960)
Every time maybe things were calming down,
Lex Fridman (1:38:10.440)
something else would happen to stick the knife in
Lex Fridman (1:38:13.120)
and twist it a little bit more,
Lex Fridman (1:38:14.280)
from the average German's perspective, right?
Lex Fridman (1:38:16.960)
The reparations, right?
Lex Fridman (1:38:18.400)
So if you say, okay, well, we're gonna get back on our feet,
Dan Carlin (1:38:20.600)
the reparations were crushing.
Lex Fridman (1:38:22.560)
These things prevented the idea of love or brotherhood
Lex Fridman (1:38:27.200)
and all these things from taking hold.
Lex Fridman (1:38:29.280)
And even if there were Germans who felt that way,
Lex Fridman (1:38:31.480)
and there most certainly were,
Lex Fridman (1:38:33.680)
it is hard to overcome the power of everyone else.
Dan Carlin (1:38:38.760)
You know, what I always say
Lex Fridman (1:38:39.620)
when people talk to me about humanity
Dan Carlin (1:38:41.960)
is I believe on individual levels,
Lex Fridman (1:38:44.520)
we're capable of everything and anything,
Dan Carlin (1:38:46.960)
good, bad, or indifferent.
Lex Fridman (1:38:48.580)
But collectively, it's different, right?
Lex Fridman (1:38:51.280)
And in the time period that we're talking about here,
Lex Fridman (1:38:55.360)
messages of peace on earth and love your enemies
Lex Fridman (1:38:58.100)
and all these sorts of things
Lex Fridman (1:39:00.600)
were absolutely deluged and overwhelmed
Lex Fridman (1:39:03.400)
and drowned out by the bitterness, the hatred,
Lex Fridman (1:39:06.400)
and let's be honest,
Dan Carlin (1:39:07.280)
the sense that you were continually being abused
Lex Fridman (1:39:10.200)
by your former enemies.
Dan Carlin (1:39:11.760)
There were a lot of people in the Allied side
Lex Fridman (1:39:14.200)
that realized this and said, we're setting up the next war.
Dan Carlin (1:39:17.560)
This is, I mean, they understood
Lex Fridman (1:39:18.960)
that you can only do certain things
Dan Carlin (1:39:20.840)
to collective human populations
Lex Fridman (1:39:23.040)
for a certain period of time
Dan Carlin (1:39:24.320)
before it is natural for them to want to.
Lex Fridman (1:39:26.680)
And there are, you can see German posters from the region,
Dan Carlin (1:39:29.040)
Nazi propaganda posters that show them
Lex Fridman (1:39:31.680)
breaking off the chains of their enemies.
Lex Fridman (1:39:33.640)
And I mean, Germany awake, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:35.160)
That was the great slogan.
Lex Fridman (1:39:37.440)
So I think love is always a difficult option.
Lex Fridman (1:39:42.760)
And in the context of those times,
Dan Carlin (1:39:44.960)
it was even more disempowered than normal.
Lex Fridman (1:39:48.840)
Well, this goes to the,
Dan Carlin (1:39:51.680)
just to linger on it for a little longer,
Lex Fridman (1:39:54.800)
the question of the inevitability of history.
Lex Fridman (1:39:59.660)
Do you think Hitler could have been stopped?
Lex Fridman (1:40:02.480)
Do you think this kind of force that you're saying
Dan Carlin (1:40:04.840)
that there was a pain and it was building,
Lex Fridman (1:40:07.800)
there was a hatred that was building,
Lex Fridman (1:40:10.400)
do you think there was a way to avert?
Lex Fridman (1:40:15.700)
I mean, there's two questions.
Dan Carlin (1:40:17.000)
Could have been a lot worse and could have been better
Lex Fridman (1:40:22.240)
in the trajectory of history in the 30s and 40s.
Dan Carlin (1:40:25.320)
The most logical, see, we had started this conversation,
Lex Fridman (1:40:28.000)
it brings a wonderful bow tie into the discussion
Lex Fridman (1:40:30.320)
and buttons it up nicely.
Lex Fridman (1:40:32.360)
We had talked about force and counter force earlier.
Dan Carlin (1:40:35.640)
The most obvious and much discussed way
Lex Fridman (1:40:38.540)
that Hitler could have been stopped
Dan Carlin (1:40:39.680)
has nothing to do with Germans.
Lex Fridman (1:40:42.160)
When he remilitarized the Rhineland,
Dan Carlin (1:40:45.400)
everyone talks about what a couple of French divisions
Lex Fridman (1:40:49.760)
would have done had they simply gone in and contested.
Lex Fridman (1:40:52.340)
And this was something Hitler was extremely,
Lex Fridman (1:40:54.280)
I mean, it might've been the most nervous time
Dan Carlin (1:40:56.120)
in his entire career because he was afraid
Lex Fridman (1:40:58.720)
that they would have responded with force
Lex Fridman (1:41:01.000)
and he was in no position to do anything about it
Lex Fridman (1:41:03.440)
if they did.
Lex Fridman (1:41:04.640)
So this is where you get the people who say,
Lex Fridman (1:41:08.640)
and Churchill's one of these people too,
Dan Carlin (1:41:10.240)
where they talk about that he should have been stopped
Lex Fridman (1:41:13.480)
militarily right at the very beginning when he was weak.
Dan Carlin (1:41:16.720)
I don't think...
Lex Fridman (1:41:20.120)
Listen, there were candidates in the Catholic Center Party
Lex Fridman (1:41:23.480)
and others in the Weimar Republic
Lex Fridman (1:41:25.520)
that maybe could have done things
Lex Fridman (1:41:26.760)
and it's beyond my understanding of specific German history
Lex Fridman (1:41:30.680)
to talk about it intelligently.
Lex Fridman (1:41:32.680)
But I do think that had the French responded militarily
Lex Fridman (1:41:35.840)
to Hitler's initial moves into that area,
Dan Carlin (1:41:38.760)
that he would have been thwarted.
Lex Fridman (1:41:40.200)
And I think he himself believed,
Dan Carlin (1:41:42.160)
if I'm remembering my reading,
Lex Fridman (1:41:44.560)
that this would have led to his downfall.
Lex Fridman (1:41:46.820)
So the potential...
Lex Fridman (1:41:47.960)
See, what I don't like about this
Dan Carlin (1:41:49.720)
is that it almost legitimizes military intervention
Lex Fridman (1:41:52.760)
at a very early stage
Dan Carlin (1:41:54.280)
to prevent worse things from happening,
Lex Fridman (1:41:56.360)
but it might be a pretty clear cut case.
Lex Fridman (1:41:58.760)
But it shows we pointed out that there was a lot of sympathy
Lex Fridman (1:42:01.960)
on the part of the allies for the fact that
Dan Carlin (1:42:04.680)
the Germans probably should have Germany back
Lex Fridman (1:42:06.920)
and this is traditional German land.
Dan Carlin (1:42:08.980)
I mean, they were trying, in a funny way,
Lex Fridman (1:42:11.000)
it's almost like the love and the sense of justice
Dan Carlin (1:42:14.880)
on the allies part may have actually stayed their hand
Lex Fridman (1:42:18.440)
in a way that would have prevented
Dan Carlin (1:42:20.480)
much, much, much worse things later.
Lex Fridman (1:42:22.160)
But if the times were such
Dan Carlin (1:42:26.080)
that the message of a Hitler resonated,
Lex Fridman (1:42:28.520)
then simply removing Hitler from the equation
Dan Carlin (1:42:30.900)
would not have removed the context of the times.
Lex Fridman (1:42:34.200)
And that means one of two things,
Dan Carlin (1:42:36.680)
either you could have had another one
Lex Fridman (1:42:39.120)
or you could have ended up in a situation equally bad
Dan Carlin (1:42:43.240)
in a different direction.
Lex Fridman (1:42:44.840)
I don't know what that means
Dan Carlin (1:42:46.260)
because it's hard to imagine anything could be worse
Lex Fridman (1:42:49.080)
than what actually occurred, but history's funny that way.
Lex Fridman (1:42:52.440)
And Hitler's always everyone's favorite example
Lex Fridman (1:42:55.560)
of the difference between the great man theory of history
Lex Fridman (1:42:58.360)
and the trends and forces theories of history, right?
Lex Fridman (1:43:01.400)
The times made a Hitler possible
Lex Fridman (1:43:03.840)
and maybe even desirable to some.
Lex Fridman (1:43:06.160)
If you took him out of the equation,
Lex Fridman (1:43:08.640)
those trends and forces are still in place, right?
Lex Fridman (1:43:12.040)
So what does that mean?
Dan Carlin (1:43:13.840)
If you take him out and the door is still open,
Lex Fridman (1:43:16.600)
does somebody else walk through it?
Dan Carlin (1:43:19.040)
Yeah, it's mathematically speaking,
Lex Fridman (1:43:21.960)
the probability of charismatic leaders emerge.
Dan Carlin (1:43:28.120)
I'm so torn on that at this point.
Lex Fridman (1:43:32.500)
Here's another way to look at it.
Dan Carlin (1:43:33.880)
The institutional stability of Germany
Lex Fridman (1:43:37.840)
in that time period was not enough to push back.
Lex Fridman (1:43:41.320)
And there are other periods in German history.
Lex Fridman (1:43:43.220)
I mean, that Hitler arose in, arisen in 1913,
Dan Carlin (1:43:47.720)
he doesn't get anywhere
Lex Fridman (1:43:49.120)
because Germany's institutional power
Dan Carlin (1:43:51.520)
is enough to simply quash that.
Lex Fridman (1:43:54.400)
It's the fact that Germany was unstable anyway
Dan Carlin (1:43:57.560)
that prevented a united front
Lex Fridman (1:43:59.560)
that would have kept radicalism from getting out of hand.
Lex Fridman (1:44:02.440)
Does that make sense?
Lex Fridman (1:44:03.280)
Yes, absolutely.
Dan Carlin (1:44:04.280)
A tricky question on this,
Lex Fridman (1:44:06.080)
just to stay on this a little longer
Dan Carlin (1:44:09.480)
because I'm not sure how to think about it,
Lex Fridman (1:44:11.400)
is the World War II versus the Holocaust.
Dan Carlin (1:44:18.800)
We were talking just now
Lex Fridman (1:44:20.640)
about the way that history unrolls itself
Lex Fridman (1:44:23.640)
and could Hitler have been stopped?
Lex Fridman (1:44:26.200)
And I don't quite know what to think about Hitler
Dan Carlin (1:44:30.840)
without the Holocaust.
Lex Fridman (1:44:33.080)
And perhaps in his thinking,
Lex Fridman (1:44:36.440)
how essential the antisemitism
Lex Fridman (1:44:39.680)
and the hatred of Jews was.
Dan Carlin (1:44:44.400)
It feels to me that,
Lex Fridman (1:44:48.080)
I mean, we were just talking about
Lex Fridman (1:44:50.280)
where did he pick up his hatred of the Jewish people?
Lex Fridman (1:44:54.520)
There's stories in Vienna and so on
Dan Carlin (1:44:57.880)
that it almost is picking up the idea
Lex Fridman (1:45:02.240)
of antisemitism as a really useful tool,
Dan Carlin (1:45:06.900)
as opposed to actually believing it in its core.
Lex Fridman (1:45:10.360)
Do you think World War II as it turned out
Lex Fridman (1:45:13.120)
and Hitler as he turned out
Lex Fridman (1:45:15.560)
would be possible without antisemitism?
Lex Fridman (1:45:18.560)
Could we have avoided the Holocaust?
Lex Fridman (1:45:21.420)
Or was it an integral part of the ideology
Lex Fridman (1:45:26.200)
of fascism and the Nazis?
Lex Fridman (1:45:29.240)
Not an integral part of fascism
Dan Carlin (1:45:30.760)
because Mussolini really, I mean,
Lex Fridman (1:45:32.800)
Mussolini did it to please Hitler,
Lex Fridman (1:45:34.740)
but it wasn't an integral part.
Lex Fridman (1:45:36.800)
What's interesting to me is that that's the big anomaly
Dan Carlin (1:45:40.400)
in the whole question because antisemitism
Lex Fridman (1:45:42.940)
didn't need to be a part of this at all, right?
Dan Carlin (1:45:45.680)
Hitler had a conspiratorial view of the world.
Lex Fridman (1:45:50.320)
He was a believer that the Jews controlled things, right?
Dan Carlin (1:45:53.760)
The Jews were responsible for both Bolshevism on one side
Lex Fridman (1:45:57.600)
and capitalism on the other, they ruled the banks.
Lex Fridman (1:46:00.320)
I mean, United States was a Jewified country, right?
Lex Fridman (1:46:03.680)
Bolshevism was a Jewified sort of a political.
Dan Carlin (1:46:09.200)
In other words, he saw Jews everywhere
Lex Fridman (1:46:11.280)
and he had that line about it.
Dan Carlin (1:46:12.320)
The Jews of Europe force another war to Germany,
Lex Fridman (1:46:15.920)
they'll pay the price or whatever,
Lex Fridman (1:46:17.360)
but then you have to believe that they're capable of that.
Lex Fridman (1:46:20.280)
The Holocaust is a weird, weird sidebar to the whole thing.
Lex Fridman (1:46:24.120)
And here's what I've always found interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:46:25.960)
It's a sidebar that weakened Germany
Dan Carlin (1:46:28.400)
because look at the First World War.
Lex Fridman (1:46:29.720)
The Jews fought for Germany, right?
Lex Fridman (1:46:31.960)
Who was the most important?
Lex Fridman (1:46:34.560)
And this is a very arguable point,
Lex Fridman (1:46:36.120)
but it's just the first one that pops into my head.
Lex Fridman (1:46:38.280)
Who was the most important Jewish figure
Dan Carlin (1:46:41.800)
that would have maybe been on the German side
Lex Fridman (1:46:45.120)
had the Germans had a non antisemitic?
Dan Carlin (1:46:48.360)
Well, listen, that whole part.
Lex Fridman (1:46:49.800)
Yes, it was Einstein, but the whole,
Dan Carlin (1:46:52.240)
I should point out that to say Germany or Europe
Lex Fridman (1:46:55.360)
or Russia or any of those things were not antisemitic
Lex Fridman (1:46:58.160)
is to do injustice to history, right?
Lex Fridman (1:47:00.040)
Pogroms, I mean, it's standard operating procedure.
Lex Fridman (1:47:04.680)
What you see in the Hitlerian era
Lex Fridman (1:47:06.760)
is an absolute huge spike, right?
Dan Carlin (1:47:09.080)
Cause the government has a conspiracy theory
Lex Fridman (1:47:11.200)
that the Jews have.
Dan Carlin (1:47:12.080)
It's funny because Hitler both thought of them as weak
Lex Fridman (1:47:15.120)
and super powerful at the same time, right?
Lex Fridman (1:47:17.240)
And as an outsider people that weakened Germany,
Lex Fridman (1:47:20.400)
the whole idea of the blood
Lex Fridman (1:47:21.840)
and how that connects to Darwinism
Lex Fridman (1:47:23.440)
and all that sort of stuff is just weird, right?
Dan Carlin (1:47:26.720)
A real outlier, but Einstein,
Lex Fridman (1:47:29.360)
let's just play with Einstein.
Dan Carlin (1:47:31.560)
If there's no antisemitism in Germany
Lex Fridman (1:47:34.760)
or none above the normal level, right?
Dan Carlin (1:47:38.680)
The baseline level, does Einstein leave
Lex Fridman (1:47:41.680)
along with all the other Jewish scientists?
Lex Fridman (1:47:44.840)
And what does Germany have as increased technological
Lex Fridman (1:47:49.240)
and intellectual capacity if they stay, right?
Dan Carlin (1:47:52.840)
It's something that actually weakened that state.
Lex Fridman (1:47:55.480)
It's a tragic flaw in the Hitlerian worldview,
Lex Fridman (1:47:59.880)
but it was so, and let me, you had mentioned earlier,
Lex Fridman (1:48:03.480)
like maybe it was not integral to his character.
Dan Carlin (1:48:06.480)
Maybe it was a wonderful tool for power.
Lex Fridman (1:48:09.320)
I don't think so.
Dan Carlin (1:48:10.480)
Somewhere along the line, and really not at the beginning,
Lex Fridman (1:48:13.920)
this guy became absolutely obsessed with this.
Dan Carlin (1:48:17.840)
With the conspiracy theory.
Lex Fridman (1:48:19.000)
And Jews, and he surrounded himself
Dan Carlin (1:48:22.200)
with people and theorists.
Lex Fridman (1:48:23.880)
I'm gonna use that word really, really sort of loosely,
Dan Carlin (1:48:27.480)
who believed this too.
Lex Fridman (1:48:28.800)
And so you have a cabal of people
Dan Carlin (1:48:30.920)
who are reinforcing this idea
Lex Fridman (1:48:33.200)
that the Jews control the world.
Dan Carlin (1:48:35.200)
He called it international jewelry
Lex Fridman (1:48:37.520)
was a huge part of the problem.
Lex Fridman (1:48:39.160)
And because of that, they deserved to be punished.
Lex Fridman (1:48:40.960)
They were an enemy within all these kinds of things.
Dan Carlin (1:48:43.680)
It's a nutty conspiracy theory
Lex Fridman (1:48:46.420)
that the government of one of the most,
Lex Fridman (1:48:49.080)
I mean, the big thing with Germany was culture, right?
Lex Fridman (1:48:51.440)
They were a leading figure in culture and philosophy
Lex Fridman (1:48:55.720)
and all these kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:48:56.600)
And that they could be overtaken
Dan Carlin (1:48:59.520)
with this wildly wickedly weird conspiracy theory
Lex Fridman (1:49:03.040)
and that it would actually determine things.
Dan Carlin (1:49:05.120)
I mean, Hitler was taking vast amounts of German resources
Lex Fridman (1:49:08.280)
and using it to wipe out this race
Dan Carlin (1:49:10.640)
when he needed them for all kinds of other things
Lex Fridman (1:49:12.900)
to fight a war of annihilation.
Lex Fridman (1:49:14.640)
So that is the weirdest part of the whole Nazi phenomenon.
Lex Fridman (1:49:19.640)
It's the darkest possible silver lining to think about
Dan Carlin (1:49:25.800)
is that the Holocaust may have been
Lex Fridman (1:49:27.880)
and the hatred of the Jewish people
Dan Carlin (1:49:29.920)
may have been the thing that avoided Germany
Lex Fridman (1:49:32.600)
getting the nuclear weapons first.
Dan Carlin (1:49:35.400)
And.
Lex Fridman (1:49:38.600)
Isn't that a wonderful historical ironic twist
Dan Carlin (1:49:41.280)
that if it weren't so overlaid with tragedy,
Lex Fridman (1:49:43.920)
a thousand years from now will be seen
Dan Carlin (1:49:45.560)
as something really kind of funny.
Lex Fridman (1:49:46.760)
Well, that's true.
Dan Carlin (1:49:47.840)
It's fascinating to think as you've talked.
Lex Fridman (1:49:50.640)
So the seeds of his own destruction, right?
Dan Carlin (1:49:52.480)
The tragic flaw.
Lex Fridman (1:49:55.400)
And my hope is, this is a discussion I have
Dan Carlin (1:49:59.760)
with my dad as a physicist,
Lex Fridman (1:50:04.400)
is that evil inherently contains with it
Dan Carlin (1:50:09.720)
that kind of incompetence.
Lex Fridman (1:50:12.400)
So my dad's discussion, so he's a physicist
Lex Fridman (1:50:17.400)
and an engineer, his belief is that at this time
Lex Fridman (1:50:21.440)
in our history, the reason we haven't had nuclear
Dan Carlin (1:50:24.120)
like terrorist blow up a nuclear weapon somewhere
Lex Fridman (1:50:29.880)
in the world is that the kind of people
Dan Carlin (1:50:32.920)
that would be terrorists are simply not competent enough
Lex Fridman (1:50:38.120)
at their job of being a destructive.
Lex Fridman (1:50:41.200)
So like, there's a kind of, if you plot it,
Lex Fridman (1:50:43.940)
the more evil you are, the less able you are.
Lex Fridman (1:50:47.920)
And by evil, I mean, purely just like we said,
Lex Fridman (1:50:53.240)
if we were to consider the hatred of Jewish people as evil,
Dan Carlin (1:50:56.360)
because it's sort of detached from reality,
Lex Fridman (1:50:58.320)
it's like just this pure hatred of something
Dan Carlin (1:51:02.460)
that's grounded on things, conspiracy theories.
Lex Fridman (1:51:07.660)
If that's evil, then the more you sell yourself,
Dan Carlin (1:51:11.120)
the more you give into these conspiracy theories,
Lex Fridman (1:51:13.820)
the less capable you are at actually engineering,
Dan Carlin (1:51:16.880)
which is very difficult, engineering nuclear weapons
Lex Fridman (1:51:19.160)
and effectively deploying them.
Lex Fridman (1:51:20.920)
So that's a hopeful message that the destructive people
Lex Fridman (1:51:25.000)
in this world are by their worldview incompetent
Dan Carlin (1:51:30.440)
in creating the ultimate destruction.
Lex Fridman (1:51:33.800)
I don't agree with that.
Dan Carlin (1:51:35.120)
Oh boy.
Lex Fridman (1:51:35.960)
I straight up don't agree with that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:37.640)
So why are we still here?
Lex Fridman (1:51:39.200)
Why haven't we destroyed ourselves?
Lex Fridman (1:51:41.560)
Why haven't the terrorists blown, it's been many decades.
Lex Fridman (1:51:45.140)
Why haven't we destroyed ourself to this point?
Dan Carlin (1:51:49.040)
Well, when you say it's been many decades, many decades,
Lex Fridman (1:51:52.400)
that's like saying in the life of 150 year old person,
Dan Carlin (1:51:56.800)
we've been doing well for a year.
Lex Fridman (1:51:58.880)
The problem with all these kinds of equations,
Lex Fridman (1:52:01.520)
and it was Bertrand Russell, right?
Lex Fridman (1:52:02.960)
The philosopher who said so.
Dan Carlin (1:52:04.960)
He said, it's unreasonable to expect a man to walk
Lex Fridman (1:52:09.080)
on a tight rope for 50 years.
Dan Carlin (1:52:12.040)
I mean, the problem is that this is a long game.
Lex Fridman (1:52:15.560)
And let's remember that up until relatively recently,
Lex Fridman (1:52:18.320)
what would you say, 30 years ago,
Lex Fridman (1:52:20.480)
the nuclear weapons in the world
Dan Carlin (1:52:22.620)
were really tightly controlled.
Lex Fridman (1:52:24.360)
That was one of the real dangers
Dan Carlin (1:52:25.520)
in the fall of the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (1:52:26.760)
Remember the worry that all of a sudden
Dan Carlin (1:52:29.660)
you were gonna have bankrupt former Soviet Republic
Lex Fridman (1:52:32.600)
selling nuclear weapons to terrorists and whatnot.
Dan Carlin (1:52:35.120)
I would suggest, and here's another problem is that
Lex Fridman (1:52:37.720)
when we call these terrorists evil,
Dan Carlin (1:52:39.540)
it's easy for an American, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:52:42.060)
to say that Osama bin Laden is evil.
Dan Carlin (1:52:44.940)
Easy for me to say that.
Lex Fridman (1:52:46.320)
But one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
Dan Carlin (1:52:49.200)
as the saying goes, and to other people, he's not.
Lex Fridman (1:52:52.080)
What Osama bin Laden did,
Lex Fridman (1:52:54.740)
and the people that worked with him,
Lex Fridman (1:52:56.760)
we would call evil genius.
Dan Carlin (1:52:58.660)
The idea of hijacking planes
Lex Fridman (1:53:00.720)
and flying them into the buildings like that,
Lex Fridman (1:53:02.640)
and that he could pull that off,
Lex Fridman (1:53:04.720)
and that still boggles my mind.
Dan Carlin (1:53:07.400)
I'm still, it's funny, I'm still stunned by that.
Lex Fridman (1:53:10.720)
And yet, the idea, here's the funny part,
Lex Fridman (1:53:14.080)
and I hesitate to talk about this
Lex Fridman (1:53:16.560)
because I don't wanna give anyone ideas,
Lex Fridman (1:53:19.560)
but you don't need nuclear weapons
Lex Fridman (1:53:22.720)
to do incredibly grave amounts of danger.
Dan Carlin (1:53:26.320)
I mean, what one can of gasoline and a BIC lighter can do
Lex Fridman (1:53:30.560)
in the right place and the right time,
Lex Fridman (1:53:33.440)
and over and over and over again
Lex Fridman (1:53:36.640)
can bring down societies.
Dan Carlin (1:53:38.440)
This is the argument behind the importance of the stability
Lex Fridman (1:53:42.120)
that a nation state provides.
Lex Fridman (1:53:44.240)
So when we went in and took out Saddam Hussein,
Lex Fridman (1:53:48.640)
one of the great counter arguments
Dan Carlin (1:53:50.400)
from some of the people who said,
Lex Fridman (1:53:51.560)
this is a really stupid thing to do,
Dan Carlin (1:53:53.600)
is that Saddam Hussein was the greatest anti terror weapon
Lex Fridman (1:53:57.300)
in that region that you could have
Dan Carlin (1:53:59.040)
because they were a threat to him.
Lex Fridman (1:54:01.400)
So he took that, and he did it in a way
Lex Fridman (1:54:03.640)
that was much more repressive than we would ever be, right?
Lex Fridman (1:54:07.120)
And this is the old line
Dan Carlin (1:54:08.160)
about why we supported right wing death squad countries,
Lex Fridman (1:54:12.480)
because they were taking out people
Dan Carlin (1:54:14.720)
that would inevitably be a problem for us if they didn't,
Lex Fridman (1:54:18.280)
and they were able to do it
Dan Carlin (1:54:19.720)
in a way we would never be able to do, supposedly.
Lex Fridman (1:54:21.920)
We're pretty good at that stuff,
Dan Carlin (1:54:23.560)
just like the Soviet Union was behind the scenes
Lex Fridman (1:54:25.640)
and underneath the radar.
Lex Fridman (1:54:27.020)
But the idea that the stability created
Lex Fridman (1:54:29.960)
by powerful and strong centralized leadership
Dan Carlin (1:54:32.760)
allowed them, it's almost like outsourcing
Lex Fridman (1:54:35.920)
anti terror activities, allowed them to,
Dan Carlin (1:54:38.520)
for their own reasons.
Lex Fridman (1:54:39.680)
I mean, you see the same thing
Dan Carlin (1:54:41.080)
in the Syria situation with the Assads.
Lex Fridman (1:54:42.820)
I mean, you can't have an ISIS in that area
Dan Carlin (1:54:46.200)
because that's a threat to the Assad government
Lex Fridman (1:54:48.040)
who will take care of that for you,
Lex Fridman (1:54:49.680)
and then that helps us by not having an ISIS.
Lex Fridman (1:54:51.840)
So I would suggest one, that the game is still on
Dan Carlin (1:54:56.520)
on whether or not these people get nuclear weapons
Lex Fridman (1:54:59.000)
in their hands.
Dan Carlin (1:55:00.320)
I would suggest they don't need them
Lex Fridman (1:55:02.080)
to achieve their goals, really.
Dan Carlin (1:55:05.340)
The crazy thing is if you start thinking
Lex Fridman (1:55:06.840)
like the Joker in Batman, the terrorist ideas,
Dan Carlin (1:55:10.200)
it's funny, I guess I would be a great terrorist
Lex Fridman (1:55:12.000)
because I'm just full of those ideas.
Dan Carlin (1:55:13.460)
Oh, you could do this, you could,
Lex Fridman (1:55:14.920)
it's scary to think of how vulnerable we are.
Lex Fridman (1:55:17.480)
But the whole point is that you as the Joker
Lex Fridman (1:55:22.320)
wouldn't do the terrorist actions.
Dan Carlin (1:55:24.740)
That's the theory that's so hopeful to me with my dad,
Lex Fridman (1:55:29.280)
is that all the ideas, your ability to generate good ideas,
Dan Carlin (1:55:33.640)
forget nuclear weapons, how you can disrupt the power grid,
Lex Fridman (1:55:37.200)
how you can disrupt the, attack our psychology,
Dan Carlin (1:55:41.960)
attack like with a can of gasoline, like you said,
Lex Fridman (1:55:44.960)
somehow disrupt the American system of ideas.
Dan Carlin (1:55:49.800)
That coming up with good ideas there.
Lex Fridman (1:55:53.720)
Are we saying evil people can't come up
Lex Fridman (1:55:55.600)
with evil genius ideas?
Lex Fridman (1:55:57.480)
That's what I'm saying.
Dan Carlin (1:55:58.600)
We have this Hollywood story.
Lex Fridman (1:56:00.040)
I don't think history backs that up.
Dan Carlin (1:56:02.320)
I mean, I think you can say with the nuclear weapons,
Lex Fridman (1:56:04.000)
it does, but only because they're so recent.
Lex Fridman (1:56:06.320)
But I mean, evil genius, I mean, that's almost proverbial.
Lex Fridman (1:56:10.040)
But that's, okay, so to push back for the fun of it, or.
Lex Fridman (1:56:13.720)
And I don't mean to, I don't want you to leave this
Lex Fridman (1:56:15.400)
in a terrible mood because I push back
Dan Carlin (1:56:17.800)
on every hopeful idea you had,
Lex Fridman (1:56:20.040)
but I tend to be a little cynical about that stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:56:22.360)
But that goes to the definition of evil, I think,
Lex Fridman (1:56:26.680)
because I'm not so sure human history
Dan Carlin (1:56:29.840)
has a lot of evil people being competent.
Lex Fridman (1:56:33.440)
I do believe that they mostly,
Dan Carlin (1:56:36.600)
like in order to be good at doing
Lex Fridman (1:56:38.920)
what may be perceived as evil,
Dan Carlin (1:56:40.680)
you have to be able to construct an ideology
Lex Fridman (1:56:43.840)
around which you truly believe
Dan Carlin (1:56:45.880)
when you look in the mirror by yourself,
Lex Fridman (1:56:49.040)
that you're doing good for the world.
Lex Fridman (1:56:51.220)
And it's difficult to construct an ideology
Lex Fridman (1:56:54.560)
where destroying the lives of millions
Dan Carlin (1:56:59.000)
or disrupting the American system,
Lex Fridman (1:57:01.120)
I'm already contradicting myself as I'm saying.
Dan Carlin (1:57:03.240)
I was just gonna say, people have done this already, yes.
Lex Fridman (1:57:05.760)
So, but then it's the question of like,
Dan Carlin (1:57:09.560)
about aliens with the idea that
Lex Fridman (1:57:16.180)
if the aliens are all out there,
Lex Fridman (1:57:18.080)
why haven't they visited us?
Lex Fridman (1:57:20.340)
The same question, if it's so easy to be evil,
Dan Carlin (1:57:25.000)
not easy, if it's possible to be evil,
Lex Fridman (1:57:27.160)
why haven't we destroyed ourselves?
Lex Fridman (1:57:29.160)
And your statement is from the context of history,
Lex Fridman (1:57:33.180)
the game is still on.
Lex Fridman (1:57:34.840)
And it's just been a few years
Lex Fridman (1:57:37.280)
since we've found the tools to destroy ourselves.
Lex Fridman (1:57:40.320)
And one of the challenges of our modern time
Lex Fridman (1:57:44.140)
that we don't often think about this pandemic
Dan Carlin (1:57:46.200)
kind of revealed is how soft we've gotten
Lex Fridman (1:57:49.660)
in terms of our deep dependence on the system.
Lex Fridman (1:57:53.680)
So somebody mentioned to me,
Lex Fridman (1:57:56.760)
what happens if power goes out for a day?
Lex Fridman (1:57:59.280)
What happens if power goes out for a month?
Lex Fridman (1:58:04.000)
Oh, for example, the person that mentioned this
Dan Carlin (1:58:06.040)
was a Berkeley faculty that I was talking with.
Lex Fridman (1:58:10.200)
He's an astronomer who's observing solar flares.
Lex Fridman (1:58:13.440)
And it's very possible that a solar flare,
Lex Fridman (1:58:16.960)
they happen all the time to different degrees.
Dan Carlin (1:58:19.480)
To knock out your cell phones.
Lex Fridman (1:58:20.720)
Yeah, to knock out the power grid for months.
Lex Fridman (1:58:25.800)
So like, just as a thought experiment,
Lex Fridman (1:58:29.200)
what happens if just power goes out
Lex Fridman (1:58:31.040)
for a week in this country?
Lex Fridman (1:58:33.720)
Like the electromagnetic pulses and the nuclear weapons
Lex Fridman (1:58:37.660)
and all those kinds of things, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:58:38.920)
But maybe that's an act of nature.
Lex Fridman (1:58:41.640)
And even just the act of nature will reveal
Lex Fridman (1:58:46.160)
like a little. The fragility of it all.
Lex Fridman (1:58:48.640)
And then the evil can emerge.
Lex Fridman (1:58:50.040)
I mean, the kind of things that might happen
Dan Carlin (1:58:51.560)
when power goes out, especially during a divisive time.
Lex Fridman (1:58:56.200)
Well, you won't have food.
Dan Carlin (1:58:57.280)
At baseline level, that would mean
Lex Fridman (1:59:00.420)
that the entire supplies chain begins to break down.
Lex Fridman (1:59:04.640)
And then you have desperation.
Lex Fridman (1:59:06.000)
And desperation opens the door to everything.
Lex Fridman (1:59:09.340)
Can I ask a dark question?
Lex Fridman (1:59:10.960)
As opposed to the other things we've been talking about?
Dan Carlin (1:59:13.720)
There's always a thread, a hopeful message.
Lex Fridman (1:59:16.360)
I think there'll be a hopeful message on this one too.
Dan Carlin (1:59:18.400)
You may have the wrong guess.
Lex Fridman (1:59:19.640)
I'm just saying.
Dan Carlin (1:59:23.320)
If you were to bet money on the way
Lex Fridman (1:59:26.820)
that human civilization destroys itself,
Dan Carlin (1:59:31.000)
or it collapses in some way that is,
Lex Fridman (1:59:35.280)
where the result would be unrecognizable to us
Lex Fridman (1:59:38.160)
as anything akin to progress, what would you say?
Lex Fridman (1:59:42.980)
Is it nuclear weapons?
Dan Carlin (1:59:46.480)
Is it some societal breakdown
Lex Fridman (1:59:48.840)
through just more traditional kinds of war?
Lex Fridman (1:59:51.560)
Is it engineered pandemics, nanotechnology?
Lex Fridman (1:59:54.520)
Is it artificial intelligence?
Lex Fridman (1:59:56.600)
Is it something we can't even expect yet?
Lex Fridman (1:59:59.040)
Do you have a sense of how we humans will destroy ourselves?
Lex Fridman (20:01.680)
and I make a distinction between those warriors
Lex Fridman (20:04.480)
and the entities either in the system
Dan Carlin (20:06.920)
that they're a part of the military
Lex Fridman (20:08.240)
or the people that control the military
Dan Carlin (20:10.700)
at the highest political levels.
Lex Fridman (20:12.240)
I feel a lot less moral attachment to them
Lex Fridman (20:15.840)
and I'm much harsher about how I feel about them.
Lex Fridman (20:19.580)
I do not consider the military itself to be heroic
Lex Fridman (20:25.080)
and I do not consider the military industrial complex
Lex Fridman (20:27.520)
to be heroic.
Dan Carlin (20:28.800)
I do think that is a tail wagging the dog situation.
Lex Fridman (20:31.800)
I do think that draws us into looking at military endeavors
Dan Carlin (20:36.800)
as a solution to the problem much more quickly
Lex Fridman (20:39.560)
than we otherwise might.
Lex Fridman (20:41.160)
And to be honest, to tie it all together,
Lex Fridman (20:42.880)
I actually look at the victims of this
Dan Carlin (20:45.500)
as the soldiers we were talking about.
Lex Fridman (20:47.480)
If you set a fire to send firemen into to fight,
Dan Carlin (20:53.800)
then I feel bad for the firemen.
Lex Fridman (20:55.680)
I feel like you've abused the trust
Lex Fridman (20:57.620)
that you give those people, right?
Lex Fridman (20:58.860)
So when people talk about war,
Dan Carlin (21:01.160)
I always think that the people that we have to make sure
Lex Fridman (21:03.900)
that a war is really necessary in order to protect
Dan Carlin (21:07.800)
are the people that you're gonna send over there
Lex Fridman (21:09.220)
to fight that.
Dan Carlin (21:10.060)
The greatest victims in our society of war
Lex Fridman (21:12.600)
are often the warriors.
Lex Fridman (21:14.200)
So in my mind, when we see these people coming home
Lex Fridman (21:18.120)
from places like Iraq,
Dan Carlin (21:19.440)
a place where I would have made the argument
Lex Fridman (21:21.720)
and did at the time that we didn't belong.
Dan Carlin (21:24.080)
To me, those people are victims
Lex Fridman (21:26.520)
and I know they don't like to think about themselves
Dan Carlin (21:28.040)
that way because it runs totally counter to the ethos.
Lex Fridman (21:31.320)
But if you're sending people to protect this country's shores,
Dan Carlin (21:35.800)
those are heroes.
Lex Fridman (21:37.440)
If you're sending people to go do something
Dan Carlin (21:39.920)
that they otherwise probably don't need to do
Lex Fridman (21:42.040)
but they're there for political reasons
Dan Carlin (21:43.560)
or anything else you wanna put in
Lex Fridman (21:44.760)
that's not defense related,
Dan Carlin (21:46.400)
well then you've made victims of our heroes.
Lex Fridman (21:48.680)
And so I feel like we do a lot of talk
Dan Carlin (21:52.540)
about our troops and our soldiers and stuff
Lex Fridman (21:54.520)
but we don't treat them as valuable
Dan Carlin (21:56.980)
as the rhetoric makes them sound.
Lex Fridman (21:59.640)
Otherwise, we would be much more careful
Dan Carlin (22:03.700)
about where we put them.
Lex Fridman (22:05.080)
If you're gonna send my son,
Lex Fridman (22:06.800)
and I don't have a son, I have daughters,
Lex Fridman (22:07.960)
but if you're gonna send my son into harm's way,
Dan Carlin (22:11.760)
I'm going to demand that you really need
Lex Fridman (22:14.460)
to be sending him into harm's way
Lex Fridman (22:15.680)
and I'm going to be angry at you
Lex Fridman (22:17.320)
if you put him into harm's way if it doesn't warrant it.
Lex Fridman (22:21.240)
And so I have much more suspicion about the system
Lex Fridman (22:23.800)
that sends these people into these situations
Dan Carlin (22:25.880)
where they're required to be heroic
Lex Fridman (22:28.360)
than I do the people on the ground
Dan Carlin (22:29.600)
that I look at as either the people
Lex Fridman (22:32.680)
that are defending us in situations
Dan Carlin (22:34.980)
like the Second World War, for example,
Lex Fridman (22:37.160)
or the people that turn out to be the individual victims
Dan Carlin (22:41.400)
of a system where they're just a cog in a machine
Lex Fridman (22:44.000)
and the machine doesn't really care as much about them
Dan Carlin (22:46.920)
as the rhetoric and the propaganda would insinuate.
Lex Fridman (22:51.920)
Yeah, and as my own family history,
Dan Carlin (22:54.840)
it would be nice if we could talk about
Lex Fridman (22:57.520)
there's a gray area in the places
Dan Carlin (23:00.060)
that you're talking about.
Lex Fridman (23:01.480)
There's a gray area in everything.
Dan Carlin (23:03.040)
In everything.
Lex Fridman (23:05.240)
But when that gray area is part of your own blood,
Dan Carlin (23:08.840)
as it is for me, it's worth shining a light on somehow.
Lex Fridman (23:16.080)
Sure, give me an example of what you mean.
Lex Fridman (23:17.680)
So you did a program of four episodes
Lex Fridman (23:20.520)
of Ghosts of the Ostfront.
Dan Carlin (23:22.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (23:23.080)
So I was born in the Soviet Union.
Dan Carlin (23:26.620)
I was raised in Moscow.
Lex Fridman (23:27.820)
My dad was born and raised in Kiev.
Dan Carlin (23:30.640)
My grandmother, who just recently passed away,
Lex Fridman (23:33.160)
was raised in Ukraine.
Dan Carlin (23:38.160)
A city.
Lex Fridman (23:39.640)
It's a small city on the border between Russia and Ukraine.
Dan Carlin (23:44.240)
I have a grandfather born in Kiev.
Lex Fridman (23:45.720)
In Kiev.
Dan Carlin (23:46.720)
The interesting thing about the timing of everything,
Lex Fridman (23:49.640)
as you might be able to connect, is she survived.
Dan Carlin (23:52.940)
She's the most badass woman I've ever encountered in my life
Lex Fridman (23:57.100)
and most of the warrior spirit I carry is probably from her.
Dan Carlin (24:01.640)
She survived Polar Mor, the Ukrainian starvation
Lex Fridman (24:04.600)
of the 30s.
Dan Carlin (24:05.840)
She was a beautiful teenage girl
Lex Fridman (24:08.600)
during the Nazi occupation of,
Lex Fridman (24:11.200)
so she survived all of that.
Lex Fridman (24:14.320)
And of course, family that everybody,
Lex Fridman (24:17.720)
and so many people died through that whole process.
Lex Fridman (24:21.280)
And one of the things you talk about in your program
Dan Carlin (24:25.240)
is that the gray area is, even with the warriors,
Lex Fridman (24:30.240)
it happened to them, just like as you're saying now,
Dan Carlin (24:33.960)
they didn't have a choice.
Lex Fridman (24:35.520)
So my grandfather on the other side,
Dan Carlin (24:38.400)
he was a machine gunner that was in Ukraine that.
Lex Fridman (24:45.360)
In the Red Army?
Dan Carlin (24:46.840)
In the Red Army, yeah.
Lex Fridman (24:48.080)
And they threw, like the statement was that there's,
Dan Carlin (24:54.240)
I don't know if it's obvious or not,
Lex Fridman (24:55.520)
but the rule was there's no surrender.
Lex Fridman (24:57.740)
So you better die.
Lex Fridman (24:59.860)
So you, I mean, you're basically,
Dan Carlin (25:02.080)
the goal was when he was fighting
Lex Fridman (25:04.920)
and he was lucky enough,
Dan Carlin (25:06.400)
one of the only to survive by being wounded early on
Lex Fridman (25:10.880)
is there was a march of Nazis towards, I guess, Moscow.
Lex Fridman (25:16.560)
And the whole goal in Ukraine was to slow every,
Lex Fridman (25:21.160)
to slow them into the winter.
Dan Carlin (25:23.840)
I mean, I view him as such a hero
Lex Fridman (25:26.800)
and he believed that he's indestructible,
Dan Carlin (25:31.640)
which is survivor bias.
Lex Fridman (25:33.760)
And that, you know, bullets can't hurt him.
Lex Fridman (25:37.880)
And that's what everybody believed.
Lex Fridman (25:39.640)
And of course, basically everyone that,
Dan Carlin (25:43.480)
he quickly rose to the ranks, let's just put it this way,
Lex Fridman (25:46.300)
because everybody died.
Dan Carlin (25:48.320)
It was just bodies dragging these heavy machine guns,
Lex Fridman (25:53.620)
like always, you know, always slowly retreating,
Dan Carlin (25:56.880)
shooting and retreating, shooting and retreating.
Lex Fridman (25:59.760)
And I don't know, he was a hero to me, like I always,
Dan Carlin (26:06.600)
I grew up thinking that he was the one
Lex Fridman (26:08.640)
that sort of defeated the Nazis, right?
Dan Carlin (26:11.340)
And, but the reality that there could be another perspective,
Lex Fridman (26:14.200)
which is all of this happened to him
Dan Carlin (26:16.880)
by the incompetence of Stalin, the incompetence
Lex Fridman (26:21.280)
and men of the Soviet Union being used like pawns
Lex Fridman (26:26.280)
in a shittily played game of chess, right?
Lex Fridman (26:30.120)
So like the one narrative is of him as a victim,
Dan Carlin (26:35.500)
as you're kind of describing.
Lex Fridman (26:37.500)
And then somehow that's more paralyzing and that's more,
Dan Carlin (26:43.500)
I don't know, it feels better to think of him as a hero
Lex Fridman (26:48.620)
and as Russia, Soviet Union saving the world.
Dan Carlin (26:52.300)
I mean, that narrative also,
Lex Fridman (26:53.940)
is in the United States that the United States was key
Dan Carlin (26:57.860)
in saving the world from the Nazis.
Lex Fridman (27:00.100)
It feels like that narrative is powerful for people.
Dan Carlin (27:03.140)
I'm not sure, and I carry it still with me,
Lex Fridman (27:06.740)
but when I think about the right way
Dan Carlin (27:09.500)
to think about that war,
Lex Fridman (27:11.380)
I'm not sure if that's the correct narrative.
Dan Carlin (27:14.580)
Let me suggest something.
Lex Fridman (27:15.940)
There's a line that a Marine named Eugene Sledge had to say
Dan Carlin (27:20.940)
once and I keep it on my phone because it's,
Lex Fridman (27:23.940)
it makes a real distinction.
Lex Fridman (27:25.860)
And he said, the front line is really where the war is.
Lex Fridman (27:30.300)
And anybody, even a hundred yards behind the front line
Dan Carlin (27:33.900)
doesn't know what it's really like.
Lex Fridman (27:36.500)
Now, the difference is, is there are lots of people miles
Lex Fridman (27:39.940)
behind the front line that are in danger, right?
Lex Fridman (27:42.140)
You can be in a medical unit in the rear
Lex Fridman (27:44.180)
and artillery could strike you, planes could strike me.
Lex Fridman (27:46.980)
You could be in danger,
Lex Fridman (27:48.300)
but at the front line, there are two different things.
Lex Fridman (27:50.980)
One is that, and at least,
Lex Fridman (27:53.940)
and I'm doing a lot of reading on this right now
Lex Fridman (27:55.580)
and reading a lot of veterans accounts.
Dan Carlin (27:57.820)
James Jones, who wrote books like From Here to Eternity,
Lex Fridman (28:01.700)
fictional accounts of the Second World War,
Lex Fridman (28:03.660)
but he based them on his own service.
Lex Fridman (28:05.700)
He was at Guadalcanal, for example, in 1942.
Lex Fridman (28:08.980)
And Jones had said that the evolution of a soldier
Lex Fridman (28:12.460)
in front line action requires a lot of
Dan Carlin (28:16.020)
front line action requires an almost surrendering
Lex Fridman (28:20.180)
to the idea that you're going to live,
Dan Carlin (28:22.460)
that you become accustomed to the idea
Lex Fridman (28:24.780)
that you're going to die.
Lex Fridman (28:26.340)
And he said, you're a different person
Lex Fridman (28:28.500)
simply for considering that thought seriously,
Dan Carlin (28:31.340)
because most of us don't.
Lex Fridman (28:32.980)
But what that allows you to do is to do that job
Lex Fridman (28:35.460)
at the front line, right?
Lex Fridman (28:36.740)
If you're too concerned about your own life,
Lex Fridman (28:40.340)
you become less of a good guy at your job, right?
Lex Fridman (28:44.460)
The other thing that the people in the 100 yards
Dan Carlin (28:47.220)
at the front line do that the people
Lex Fridman (28:49.220)
in the rear medical unit really don't,
Lex Fridman (28:51.620)
is you kill and you kill a lot, right?
Lex Fridman (28:54.100)
You don't just, oh, there's a sniper back here
Lex Fridman (28:55.820)
so I shot him.
Lex Fridman (28:56.740)
It's we go from one position to another
Lex Fridman (28:58.900)
and we kill lots of people.
Lex Fridman (29:01.060)
Those things will change you.
Lex Fridman (29:02.620)
And what that tends to do, not universally,
Lex Fridman (29:05.420)
because I've read accounts from Red Army soldiers
Lex Fridman (29:08.420)
and they're very patriotic, right?
Lex Fridman (29:10.700)
But a lot of that patriotism comes through years later
Dan Carlin (29:13.620)
as part of the nostalgia and the remembering.
Lex Fridman (29:16.620)
When you're down at that front 100 yards,
Dan Carlin (29:19.300)
it is often boiled down to a very small world.
Lex Fridman (29:22.140)
So your grandfather, was it your grandfather?
Dan Carlin (29:24.580)
Grandfather.
Lex Fridman (29:25.420)
At the machine gun, he's concerned about his position
Lex Fridman (29:28.900)
and his comrades and the people
Lex Fridman (29:30.700)
who he owes a responsibility to.
Lex Fridman (29:32.740)
And those, it's a very small world at that point.
Lex Fridman (29:35.380)
And to me, that's where the heroism is, right?
Dan Carlin (29:37.420)
He's not fighting for some giant world,
Lex Fridman (29:39.860)
civilizational thing.
Dan Carlin (29:40.940)
He's fighting to save the people next to him.
Lex Fridman (29:43.540)
And his own life at the same time
Dan Carlin (29:44.980)
because they're saving him too.
Lex Fridman (29:46.940)
And that there is a huge amount of heroism to that.
Lex Fridman (29:49.900)
And that gets to our question about force earlier.
Lex Fridman (29:52.220)
Why would you use force?
Dan Carlin (29:53.780)
Well, how about to protect these people
Lex Fridman (29:55.700)
on either side of me, right?
Dan Carlin (29:56.740)
Their lives.
Lex Fridman (29:59.020)
Now, is there hatred?
Lex Fridman (2:00:02.680)
Or might we live forever?
Lex Fridman (2:00:04.800)
I think what governs my view of this thing
Dan Carlin (2:00:08.720)
is the ability for us to focus ourselves collectively.
Lex Fridman (2:00:13.240)
And that gives me the choice of looking at this
Lex Fridman (2:00:15.800)
and saying, what are the odds we will do X versus Y, right?
Lex Fridman (2:00:20.680)
So go look at the 62 Cuban Missile Crisis,
Dan Carlin (2:00:24.000)
where we looked at the potential of nuclear war
Lex Fridman (2:00:28.000)
and we stared right in the face of that.
Dan Carlin (2:00:30.600)
To me, I consider that to be,
Lex Fridman (2:00:32.440)
you wanna talk about a hopeful moment?
Dan Carlin (2:00:34.820)
That's one of the rare times in our history
Lex Fridman (2:00:36.920)
where I think the odds were overwhelmingly
Dan Carlin (2:00:41.240)
that there would be a nuclear war.
Lex Fridman (2:00:43.280)
And I'm not the super Kennedy worshiper that,
Dan Carlin (2:00:46.720)
I grew up in an era where he was,
Lex Fridman (2:00:48.360)
especially amongst people in the Democratic Party,
Dan Carlin (2:00:50.920)
he was almost worshiped.
Lex Fridman (2:00:52.000)
And I was never that guy, but I will say something.
Dan Carlin (2:00:54.880)
John F. Kennedy by himself probably made decisions
Lex Fridman (2:01:00.120)
that saved a hundred million or more lives
Dan Carlin (2:01:02.760)
because everyone around him thought he should be
Lex Fridman (2:01:06.400)
taking the road that would have led to those deaths.
Lex Fridman (2:01:08.760)
And to push back against that is,
Lex Fridman (2:01:11.400)
when you look at it now, I mean, again,
Dan Carlin (2:01:12.920)
if you were a betting person,
Lex Fridman (2:01:13.920)
you would have bet against that.
Lex Fridman (2:01:15.240)
And that's rare, right?
Lex Fridman (2:01:17.840)
So when we talk about how the world will end,
Dan Carlin (2:01:22.480)
the fact that one person actually had that in their hands
Lex Fridman (2:01:26.400)
meant that it wasn't a collective decision.
Dan Carlin (2:01:29.120)
It gave, remember I said,
Lex Fridman (2:01:30.240)
I trust people on an individual level,
Lex Fridman (2:01:32.060)
but when we get together, we're more like a herd
Lex Fridman (2:01:34.120)
and we devolved down to the lowest common denominator.
Dan Carlin (2:01:36.640)
That was something where the higher ethical ideas
Lex Fridman (2:01:40.520)
of a single human being could come into play
Lex Fridman (2:01:42.720)
and make the decisions that influence the events.
Lex Fridman (2:01:46.320)
But when we have to act collectively,
Dan Carlin (2:01:48.760)
I get a lot more pessimistic.
Lex Fridman (2:01:50.280)
So take what we're doing to the planet.
Lex Fridman (2:01:53.720)
And we talk about it always now in terms of climate change,
Lex Fridman (2:01:56.560)
which I think is far too narrow.
Dan Carlin (2:01:59.240)
Look at, and I always get very frustrated
Lex Fridman (2:02:02.720)
when we talk about these arguments about,
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.040)
is it happening?
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.880)
Is it human?
Dan Carlin (2:02:05.720)
Just look at the trash, forget climate for a second.
Lex Fridman (2:02:09.940)
We are destroying the planet because we're not taking care
Dan Carlin (2:02:12.840)
of it and because what it would do to take care of it
Lex Fridman (2:02:14.980)
would require collective sacrifices
Dan Carlin (2:02:17.640)
that would require enough of us to say, okay.
Lex Fridman (2:02:21.480)
And we can't get enough of us to say, okay,
Dan Carlin (2:02:24.640)
because too many people have to be on board.
Lex Fridman (2:02:27.040)
It's not John F. Kennedy making one decision from one man.
Dan Carlin (2:02:30.640)
We have to have 85% of us or something around the world.
Lex Fridman (2:02:34.720)
Not just, you can't say we're gonna stop doing damage
Dan Carlin (2:02:37.720)
to the world here in the United States if China does it.
Lex Fridman (2:02:41.400)
So the amount of people that have to get on board
Dan Carlin (2:02:43.800)
that train is hard.
Lex Fridman (2:02:46.560)
You get pessimistic hoping for those kinds of shifts
Dan Carlin (2:02:49.900)
unless it's right, you know, Krypton's about to explode.
Lex Fridman (2:02:54.040)
We have, and so I think if you're talking
Dan Carlin (2:02:57.460)
about a gambling man's view of this,
Lex Fridman (2:03:00.360)
that that's gotta be the odds on favorite
Dan Carlin (2:03:02.340)
because it requires such a UNAM.
Lex Fridman (2:03:05.320)
I mean, and the systems maybe aren't even in place, right?
Dan Carlin (2:03:09.160)
The fact that we would need intergovernmental bodies
Lex Fridman (2:03:12.080)
that are completely discredited now on board
Lex Fridman (2:03:14.500)
and you would have to subvert the national interests
Lex Fridman (2:03:17.760)
of nation states, I mean, the amount of things
Dan Carlin (2:03:20.340)
that have to go right in a short period of time
Lex Fridman (2:03:23.960)
where we don't have 600 years to figure this out, right?
Lex Fridman (2:03:27.560)
So to me, that looks like the most likely
Lex Fridman (2:03:30.160)
just because the things we would have to do
Dan Carlin (2:03:31.760)
to avoid it seem the most unlikely.
Lex Fridman (2:03:33.640)
Does that make sense?
Dan Carlin (2:03:34.480)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:03:35.440)
I believe, call me naive,
Dan Carlin (2:03:38.360)
in just like you said with the individual,
Lex Fridman (2:03:41.400)
I believe that charismatic leaders,
Dan Carlin (2:03:43.800)
individual leaders will save us.
Lex Fridman (2:03:46.120)
Like this.
Lex Fridman (2:03:46.960)
What if you don't get them all at the same time?
Lex Fridman (2:03:48.480)
What if you get a charismatic leader in one country
Lex Fridman (2:03:50.520)
but under, or what if you get a charismatic leader
Lex Fridman (2:03:52.380)
in a country that doesn't really matter that much?
Dan Carlin (2:03:54.440)
Well, it's a ripple effect.
Lex Fridman (2:03:55.840)
So it starts with one leader
Lex Fridman (2:03:57.400)
and their charisma inspires other leaders.
Lex Fridman (2:04:00.840)
So it's like one ant queen steps up
Lex Fridman (2:04:05.160)
and then the rest of the ant starts behaving.
Lex Fridman (2:04:07.280)
And then there's like little other spikes
Dan Carlin (2:04:09.220)
of leaders that emerge.
Lex Fridman (2:04:11.120)
And then that's where collaboration emerges.
Dan Carlin (2:04:13.080)
I tend to believe that like when you heat up the system
Lex Fridman (2:04:16.240)
and shit starts getting really chaotic,
Dan Carlin (2:04:21.040)
then the leader, whatever this collective intelligence
Lex Fridman (2:04:24.600)
that we've developed, the leader will emerge.
Dan Carlin (2:04:27.980)
Like there.
Lex Fridman (2:04:28.820)
Don't you think there's just as much of a chance though
Dan Carlin (2:04:30.400)
that the leader would emerge and say,
Lex Fridman (2:04:31.760)
the Jews are the people who did all this.
Lex Fridman (2:04:33.960)
You know what I'm saying?
Lex Fridman (2:04:34.800)
Is that the idea that they would come up,
Dan Carlin (2:04:36.920)
you have a charismatic leader
Lex Fridman (2:04:37.880)
and he's going to come up with the rights
Dan Carlin (2:04:39.440)
or she is going to come up with the right solution
Lex Fridman (2:04:41.660)
as opposed to totally coming up with the wrong solution.
Dan Carlin (2:04:45.360)
I mean, I guess what I'm saying is you could be right,
Lex Fridman (2:04:47.580)
but a lot of things have to go the right way.
Lex Fridman (2:04:50.080)
But my intuition about the evolutionary process
Lex Fridman (2:04:52.880)
that led to the creation of human intelligence
Lex Fridman (2:04:55.520)
and consciousness on earth results
Lex Fridman (2:04:58.820)
in the power of like, if we think of it,
Dan Carlin (2:05:02.400)
just the love in the system versus the hate in the system,
Lex Fridman (2:05:05.480)
that the love is greater.
Dan Carlin (2:05:07.480)
The human kindness potential in the system
Lex Fridman (2:05:13.780)
is greater than the human hatred potential.
Lex Fridman (2:05:18.200)
And so the leader that is in the time when it's needed,
Lex Fridman (2:05:21.800)
the leader that inspires love and kindness
Dan Carlin (2:05:25.960)
is more likely to emerge and will have more power.
Lex Fridman (2:05:30.560)
So you have the Hitlers of the world that emerge,
Lex Fridman (2:05:34.160)
but they're actually in a grand scheme of history
Lex Fridman (2:05:37.840)
are not that impactful.
Lex Fridman (2:05:40.680)
So it's weird to say,
Lex Fridman (2:05:42.840)
but not that many people died in World War II.
Dan Carlin (2:05:45.840)
If you look at the full range of human history,
Lex Fridman (2:05:51.800)
it's up to a hundred million, whatever that is,
Dan Carlin (2:05:55.680)
with natural pandemics too,
Lex Fridman (2:05:57.000)
you can have those kinds of numbers,
Lex Fridman (2:05:58.400)
but it's still a percentage.
Lex Fridman (2:06:00.160)
I forget what the percentage is,
Dan Carlin (2:06:01.220)
maybe three, 5% of the human population on earth.
Lex Fridman (2:06:04.600)
Maybe it's a little bit focused on a different region,
Lex Fridman (2:06:07.160)
but it's not destructive
Lex Fridman (2:06:09.040)
to the entirety of human civilization.
Lex Fridman (2:06:11.840)
So I believe that the charismatic leaders,
Lex Fridman (2:06:17.700)
when time is needed, that do good for the world
Dan Carlin (2:06:22.180)
in the broader sense of good
Lex Fridman (2:06:24.680)
are more likely to emerge
Dan Carlin (2:06:26.000)
than the ones that say, kill all the Jews.
Lex Fridman (2:06:29.440)
It's possible though, and this is just,
Dan Carlin (2:06:32.000)
I've thought about this all of 30 seconds,
Lex Fridman (2:06:33.640)
but I mean, it seems.
Dan Carlin (2:06:36.160)
We're betting money here on the 21st century,
Lex Fridman (2:06:38.440)
who's gonna win?
Dan Carlin (2:06:39.280)
I think maybe you've divided this
Lex Fridman (2:06:42.560)
into too much of a black and white dichotomy,
Dan Carlin (2:06:45.680)
this love and good on one side and this evil on another.
Lex Fridman (2:06:48.640)
Let me throw something that might be more
Dan Carlin (2:06:50.760)
in the center of that linear balancing act,
Lex Fridman (2:06:54.800)
self interest, which may or may not be good.
Dan Carlin (2:06:59.680)
The good version of it we call enlightened self interest.
Lex Fridman (2:07:02.960)
The bad version of it we call selfishness.
Lex Fridman (2:07:05.920)
But self interest to me seems like something more likely
Lex Fridman (2:07:09.600)
to impact the outcome than either love on one side
Dan Carlin (2:07:13.180)
or evil on the other.
Lex Fridman (2:07:14.840)
Simply a question of what's good for me
Dan Carlin (2:07:17.480)
or what's good for my country
Lex Fridman (2:07:19.280)
or what's good from my point of view
Dan Carlin (2:07:21.120)
or what's good for my business.
Lex Fridman (2:07:22.980)
I mean, if you tell me, and maybe I'm a coal miner
Dan Carlin (2:07:27.980)
or maybe I own a coal mine.
Lex Fridman (2:07:29.780)
If you say to me, we have to stop using coal
Dan Carlin (2:07:32.680)
because it's hurting the earth,
Lex Fridman (2:07:34.100)
I have a hard time disentangling that greater good question
Lex Fridman (2:07:39.700)
from my right now good feeding my family question, right?
Lex Fridman (2:07:43.760)
So I think maybe it's gonna be a much more banal thing
Dan Carlin (2:07:48.280)
than good and evil, much more a question
Lex Fridman (2:07:50.800)
of we're not all going to decide at the same time
Dan Carlin (2:07:54.400)
that the interests that we have are aligned.
Lex Fridman (2:07:57.520)
Does that make sense?
Dan Carlin (2:07:58.360)
Totally, but I mean, I've looked at Ayn Rand
Lex Fridman (2:08:00.740)
and objectivism and kind of really thought like,
Lex Fridman (2:08:02.780)
how bad or good can things go
Lex Fridman (2:08:04.480)
when everybody's acting selfishly?
Lex Fridman (2:08:06.640)
But I think we're just talking two aunts here
Lex Fridman (2:08:08.880)
with microphones talking about.
Lex Fridman (2:08:13.320)
But like the question is when this spreads,
Lex Fridman (2:08:17.800)
so what do I mean by love and kindness?
Dan Carlin (2:08:23.080)
I think it's human flourishing on earth
Lex Fridman (2:08:26.680)
and throughout the cosmos.
Dan Carlin (2:08:28.920)
It feels like whatever the engine that drives human beings
Lex Fridman (2:08:33.960)
is more likely to result in human flourishing.
Lex Fridman (2:08:37.240)
And people like Hitler are not good for human flourishing.
Lex Fridman (2:08:41.240)
So that's what I mean by good is there's a,
Dan Carlin (2:08:45.280)
I mean, maybe it's an intuition that kindness
Lex Fridman (2:08:48.840)
is an evolutionary advantage.
Dan Carlin (2:08:51.600)
I hate those terms.
Lex Fridman (2:08:52.680)
I hate to reduce stuff to evolutionary biology always,
Lex Fridman (2:08:55.920)
but it just seems like for us to multiply
Lex Fridman (2:08:58.560)
throughout the universe, it's good to be kind to each other.
Lex Fridman (2:09:03.120)
And those leaders will always emerge to save us
Lex Fridman (2:09:06.880)
from the Hitlers of the world that wanna kind of
Dan Carlin (2:09:09.200)
burn the thing down with a flamethrower.
Lex Fridman (2:09:11.360)
That's the intuition.
Lex Fridman (2:09:12.280)
But let's talk about, you brought up evolution several times.
Lex Fridman (2:09:14.920)
Let me play with that for a minute.
Dan Carlin (2:09:18.280)
I think going back to animal times,
Lex Fridman (2:09:20.400)
we are conditioned to deal with overwhelming threats
Dan Carlin (2:09:24.360)
right in front of us.
Lex Fridman (2:09:25.200)
So I have quite a bit of faith in humanity
Dan Carlin (2:09:28.560)
when it comes to impending doom right outside our door.
Lex Fridman (2:09:33.920)
If Krypton's about to explode,
Dan Carlin (2:09:35.880)
I think humanity can rouse themselves to great,
Lex Fridman (2:09:39.880)
and would give power to the people who needed it
Lex Fridman (2:09:42.320)
and be willing to make the sacrifices.
Lex Fridman (2:09:44.360)
But that's what makes, I think,
Dan Carlin (2:09:45.640)
the pollution slash climate change
Lex Fridman (2:09:47.760)
slash screwing up your environment threat
Lex Fridman (2:09:51.280)
so particularly insidious is it happens slowly, right?
Lex Fridman (2:09:55.200)
It defies fight and flight mechanisms.
Dan Carlin (2:09:58.080)
It defies the natural ability we have to deal
Lex Fridman (2:10:01.080)
with the threat that's right on top of us.
Lex Fridman (2:10:03.840)
And it requires an amount of foresight
Lex Fridman (2:10:06.280)
that while some people would be fine with that,
Dan Carlin (2:10:09.160)
most people are too worried and understandably,
Lex Fridman (2:10:12.000)
I think too worried about today's threat
Dan Carlin (2:10:14.840)
rather than next generation's threat or whatever it might be.
Lex Fridman (2:10:18.560)
So I mean, when we talk about when you had said,
Lex Fridman (2:10:20.600)
what do you think the greatest threat is?
Lex Fridman (2:10:23.040)
I think with nuclear weapons,
Lex Fridman (2:10:24.400)
I think could we have a nuclear war?
Lex Fridman (2:10:26.400)
We darn right could,
Lex Fridman (2:10:27.360)
but I think that there's enough of an inertia
Lex Fridman (2:10:31.000)
where against that because people understand instinctively,
Dan Carlin (2:10:34.800)
if I decide to launch this attack against China
Lex Fridman (2:10:37.680)
and I'm India,
Dan Carlin (2:10:38.960)
we're gonna have 50 million dead people tomorrow.
Lex Fridman (2:10:41.600)
Whereas if you say,
Dan Carlin (2:10:42.800)
we're gonna have a whole planet of dead people
Lex Fridman (2:10:44.800)
in three generations if we don't start now,
Dan Carlin (2:10:47.520)
I think the evolutionary way that we have evolved
Lex Fridman (2:10:53.840)
mitigates maybe against that.
Dan Carlin (2:10:55.520)
In other words, I think I would be pleasantly surprised
Lex Fridman (2:10:58.440)
if we could pull that off.
Lex Fridman (2:10:59.720)
Does that make sense?
Lex Fridman (2:11:01.320)
Totally.
Dan Carlin (2:11:02.160)
I don't mean to be like, I'm the sight predicting doom.
Lex Fridman (2:11:05.280)
It's fun that way.
Dan Carlin (2:11:06.120)
I think we're both,
Lex Fridman (2:11:07.480)
maybe I'm over the top on the love thing.
Dan Carlin (2:11:09.240)
Maybe I'm over the top on the doom.
Lex Fridman (2:11:11.480)
So it makes for a fun chat, I think.
Lex Fridman (2:11:14.560)
So one guy that I've talked to several times
Lex Fridman (2:11:17.440)
is slowly becoming a friend is a guy named Elon Musk.
Dan Carlin (2:11:22.080)
He's a big fan of hardcore history,
Lex Fridman (2:11:26.320)
especially Genghis Khan series of episodes,
Lex Fridman (2:11:29.560)
but really all of it,
Lex Fridman (2:11:31.240)
him and his girlfriend Grimes listen to it, which is.
Dan Carlin (2:11:34.840)
I know Elon.
Lex Fridman (2:11:35.840)
Yeah, you know Elon?
Dan Carlin (2:11:36.720)
Okay, awesome.
Lex Fridman (2:11:37.560)
So that's like relationship goals,
Dan Carlin (2:11:40.360)
like listen to hardcore history on the weekend
Lex Fridman (2:11:42.480)
with your loved one.
Dan Carlin (2:11:43.600)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (2:11:44.960)
So let me, if I were to look at the guy
Dan Carlin (2:11:48.360)
from a perspective of human history,
Lex Fridman (2:11:51.320)
it feels like he will be a little speck that's remembered.
Dan Carlin (2:11:55.960)
Oh, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:11:56.920)
You think about like the people,
Lex Fridman (2:11:58.320)
what will we remember from our time?
Lex Fridman (2:12:01.840)
Who are the people we'll remember,
Dan Carlin (2:12:03.760)
whether it's the Hitlers or the Einsteins,
Lex Fridman (2:12:07.840)
who's going to be?
Dan Carlin (2:12:09.240)
It's hard to predict when you're in it,
Lex Fridman (2:12:11.560)
but it seems like Elon
Dan Carlin (2:12:13.320)
will be one of those people remembered.
Lex Fridman (2:12:14.880)
And if I were to guess what he's remembered for,
Dan Carlin (2:12:17.920)
it's the work he's doing with SpaceX
Lex Fridman (2:12:20.760)
and potentially being the person.
Dan Carlin (2:12:23.800)
Now we don't know,
Lex Fridman (2:12:24.800)
but the being the person
Dan Carlin (2:12:26.800)
who launched a new era of space exploration.
Lex Fridman (2:12:31.840)
If we look centuries from now,
Dan Carlin (2:12:34.280)
if we are successful as human beings surviving long enough
Lex Fridman (2:12:37.200)
to venture out into the, you know, toward the stars.
Dan Carlin (2:12:43.120)
It's weird to ask you this.
Lex Fridman (2:12:44.560)
I don't know what your opinions are,
Lex Fridman (2:12:46.480)
but do you think humans will be a multi planetary species
Lex Fridman (2:12:51.400)
in the long arc of history?
Lex Fridman (2:12:53.760)
Do you think Elon will be successful in his dream?
Lex Fridman (2:12:56.240)
And he doesn't shy away from saying it this way, right?
Dan Carlin (2:12:59.840)
He really wants us to colonize Mars first
Lex Fridman (2:13:04.680)
and then colonize other Earth like planets
Dan Carlin (2:13:08.320)
in other solar systems throughout the galaxy.
Lex Fridman (2:13:11.400)
Do you have a hope that we humans will venture out
Lex Fridman (2:13:13.560)
towards the stars?
Lex Fridman (2:13:15.440)
So here's the thing.
Lex Fridman (2:13:16.480)
And this actually, again, dovetails
Lex Fridman (2:13:17.960)
to what we were talking about earlier.
Dan Carlin (2:13:19.920)
I actually, first of all, I toured SpaceX
Lex Fridman (2:13:24.080)
and it's hard to get your mind around
Dan Carlin (2:13:27.360)
because he's doing what it took governments to do before.
Lex Fridman (2:13:30.080)
Yes. Okay.
Lex Fridman (2:13:30.920)
So it's incredible that we're watching individual companies
Lex Fridman (2:13:33.800)
and stuff doing this.
Dan Carlin (2:13:34.880)
Doing it faster and cheaper.
Lex Fridman (2:13:35.960)
Yeah. Well, and pushing the envelope, right?
Dan Carlin (2:13:38.720)
Faster than the governments at the time we're moving.
Lex Fridman (2:13:40.760)
It really is.
Dan Carlin (2:13:42.440)
I mean, there's a lot of people who I think,
Lex Fridman (2:13:45.240)
who think Elon is overrated and you have no idea, right?
Dan Carlin (2:13:49.560)
When you go see it, you have no idea.
Lex Fridman (2:13:51.800)
But that's actually not what I'm most impressed with.
Dan Carlin (2:13:55.680)
It's Tesla I'm most impressed with.
Lex Fridman (2:13:57.720)
And the reason why is because in my mind,
Dan Carlin (2:14:00.560)
we just talked about what I think is the greatest threat,
Lex Fridman (2:14:02.920)
the environmental stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:14:04.160)
And I talked about our inability maybe all at the same time
Lex Fridman (2:14:08.280)
to be willing to sacrifice our self interests
Dan Carlin (2:14:11.600)
in order for the goal.
Lex Fridman (2:14:14.480)
And I don't wanna put words in Elon's mouth,
Lex Fridman (2:14:16.400)
so you can talk to him if you want to.
Lex Fridman (2:14:18.200)
But in my mind, what he's done is recognize that problem.
Lex Fridman (2:14:22.880)
And instead of building a car that's a piece of crap,
Lex Fridman (2:14:25.440)
but it's good for the environment so you should drive it,
Dan Carlin (2:14:27.760)
he's trying to create a car that if you're only motivated
Lex Fridman (2:14:31.880)
by your self interest, you'll buy it anyway.
Lex Fridman (2:14:35.240)
And it will help the environment and help us transition away
Lex Fridman (2:14:38.080)
from one of the main causes of damage.
Dan Carlin (2:14:40.760)
I mean, one of the things this pandemic
Lex Fridman (2:14:42.960)
and the shutdown around the world has done
Dan Carlin (2:14:45.640)
is show us how amazingly quickly
Lex Fridman (2:14:48.040)
the earth can actually rejuvenate.
Dan Carlin (2:14:49.720)
We're seeing clear skies in places species come
Lex Fridman (2:14:52.040)
and you would have thought it would have taken decades
Dan Carlin (2:14:54.400)
for some of this stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:14:55.720)
So what if to name just one major pollution source,
Lex Fridman (2:14:59.640)
we didn't have the pollution caused by automobiles, right?
Lex Fridman (2:15:03.800)
And if you had said to me, Dan,
Lex Fridman (2:15:06.080)
what do you think the odds of us transitioning away
Lex Fridman (2:15:08.040)
from that were 10 years ago,
Dan Carlin (2:15:09.480)
I would have said, well, people aren't gonna do it
Lex Fridman (2:15:10.840)
because it's inefficient, it's this, it's that,
Dan Carlin (2:15:12.280)
nobody wants to, but what if you created a vehicle
Lex Fridman (2:15:15.200)
that was superior in every way
Lex Fridman (2:15:16.400)
so that if you were just a self oriented consumer,
Lex Fridman (2:15:19.360)
you'd buy it because you wanted that car.
Dan Carlin (2:15:21.720)
That's the best way to get around that problem
Lex Fridman (2:15:24.280)
of people not wanting to, I think he's identified that.
Lex Fridman (2:15:28.480)
And as he's told me before,
Lex Fridman (2:15:30.720)
when the last time a car company was created
Dan Carlin (2:15:33.200)
that actually, blah, blah, blah, he's right.
Lex Fridman (2:15:36.520)
And so I happen to feel that even though he's pushing
Dan Carlin (2:15:39.280)
the envelope on the space thing,
Lex Fridman (2:15:40.760)
I think somebody else would have done that someday.
Dan Carlin (2:15:43.640)
I'm not sure because of the various things he's mentioned,
Lex Fridman (2:15:46.640)
how difficult it is to start there,
Dan Carlin (2:15:48.200)
I'm not sure that the industries that create vehicles
Lex Fridman (2:15:51.120)
for us would have gone where he's going to lead them
Dan Carlin (2:15:55.160)
if he didn't force them there through consumer demand
Lex Fridman (2:15:57.960)
by making a better car that people wanted anyway.
Dan Carlin (2:16:00.560)
They'll follow, they'll copy, they'll do all those things.
Lex Fridman (2:16:03.840)
And yet who was gonna do that?
Lex Fridman (2:16:06.640)
So I hope he doesn't hate me for saying this,
Lex Fridman (2:16:08.760)
but I happen to think the Tesla idea
Dan Carlin (2:16:12.240)
may alleviate some of the need to get off this planet
Lex Fridman (2:16:15.080)
because the planet's being destroyed, right?
Lex Fridman (2:16:17.040)
And we're gonna colonize Mars probably anyway
Lex Fridman (2:16:19.260)
if we live long enough.
Lex Fridman (2:16:20.600)
And I think the Tesla idea, not just Elon's version,
Lex Fridman (2:16:23.820)
but ones that follow from other people
Dan Carlin (2:16:25.800)
is the best chance of making sure we're around long enough
Lex Fridman (2:16:28.400)
to see Mars colonized.
Lex Fridman (2:16:29.520)
Does that make sense?
Lex Fridman (2:16:30.360)
Yeah, totally.
Lex Fridman (2:16:31.200)
And one other thing from my perspective,
Lex Fridman (2:16:33.240)
because I'm now starting a company,
Dan Carlin (2:16:35.320)
I think the interesting thing about Elon
Lex Fridman (2:16:38.760)
is he serves as a beacon of hope, like pragmatically speaking
Dan Carlin (2:16:43.640)
for people that, sort of to push back
Lex Fridman (2:16:45.640)
on our Doom conversation from earlier,
Dan Carlin (2:16:48.580)
that a single individual could build something
Lex Fridman (2:16:53.580)
that allows us as self interested individuals
Dan Carlin (2:16:57.940)
to gather together in a collective way
Lex Fridman (2:17:00.220)
to actually alleviate some of the dangers
Dan Carlin (2:17:02.660)
that face our world.
Lex Fridman (2:17:04.820)
So it gives me hope as an individual
Dan Carlin (2:17:08.540)
that I can build something that can actually have impact
Lex Fridman (2:17:13.780)
that counteracts the Stalins and the Hitlers
Lex Fridman (2:17:18.780)
and all the threats that face that human civilization faces,
Lex Fridman (2:17:24.100)
that an individual has that power.
Dan Carlin (2:17:26.020)
I didn't believe that the individual has that power
Lex Fridman (2:17:29.220)
in the halls of government.
Dan Carlin (2:17:32.060)
Like, I don't feel like any one presidential candidate
Lex Fridman (2:17:34.980)
can rise up and help the world, unite the world.
Dan Carlin (2:17:38.460)
It feels like from everything I've seen
Lex Fridman (2:17:41.500)
and you're right with Tesla,
Dan Carlin (2:17:44.020)
it can bring the world together to do good.
Lex Fridman (2:17:49.300)
That's a really powerful mechanism
Dan Carlin (2:17:50.820)
of whatever you say about capitalism,
Lex Fridman (2:17:53.140)
that you can build companies that start,
Dan Carlin (2:17:58.100)
it starts with a single individual.
Lex Fridman (2:17:59.340)
Of course, there's a collective that grows around that,
Lex Fridman (2:18:02.640)
but the leadership of a single individual,
Lex Fridman (2:18:05.020)
their ideas, their dreams, their vision
Dan Carlin (2:18:08.100)
can catalyze something that takes over the world
Lex Fridman (2:18:12.560)
and does good for the entire world.
Lex Fridman (2:18:14.580)
But if I think, but again, I think the genius of the idea
Lex Fridman (2:18:18.220)
is that it doesn't require us
Lex Fridman (2:18:20.180)
to go head to head with human nature, right?
Lex Fridman (2:18:23.140)
He's actually built human nature into the idea
Dan Carlin (2:18:27.580)
by basically saying, I'm not asking you
Lex Fridman (2:18:29.420)
to be an environmental activist.
Dan Carlin (2:18:31.700)
I'm not asking you to sacrifice to make it.
Lex Fridman (2:18:33.940)
I'm gonna sell you a car you're going to like better.
Lex Fridman (2:18:36.540)
And by buying it, you'll help the environment.
Lex Fridman (2:18:38.740)
That takes into account our foibles as a species
Lex Fridman (2:18:42.420)
and actually leverages that to work for the greater good.
Lex Fridman (2:18:46.460)
And that's the sort of thing that does turn off
Dan Carlin (2:18:49.300)
my little doom caster cynicism thing a little bit
Lex Fridman (2:18:51.940)
because you're actually hitting us where we live, right?
Dan Carlin (2:18:55.020)
You're not, you can take somebody
Lex Fridman (2:18:57.280)
who doesn't even believe the environment's a problem,
Lex Fridman (2:18:59.500)
but they want a Tesla.
Lex Fridman (2:19:00.500)
So they're inadvertently helping anyway.
Dan Carlin (2:19:03.140)
I think that's the genius of the idea.
Lex Fridman (2:19:05.820)
Yeah, and I'm telling you, that's one way to make love
Dan Carlin (2:19:09.540)
a much more efficient mechanism of change than hate.
Lex Fridman (2:19:13.580)
Making it in your self interest to love somebody.
Dan Carlin (2:19:15.140)
Making it in your self interest, creating a product
Lex Fridman (2:19:17.620)
that leads to more love than hate.
Dan Carlin (2:19:21.140)
You're gonna wanna love your neighbor
Lex Fridman (2:19:22.380)
because you're gonna make a fortune.
Dan Carlin (2:19:23.500)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (2:19:24.340)
Right, okay, I get it.
Dan Carlin (2:19:25.160)
There you go.
Lex Fridman (2:19:26.000)
That's why he said.
Dan Carlin (2:19:26.820)
All right, I'm on board.
Lex Fridman (2:19:27.660)
That's why Elon said love is the answer.
Dan Carlin (2:19:29.820)
That's, I think, exactly what he meant.
Lex Fridman (2:19:33.100)
Okay, let's try something difficult.
Dan Carlin (2:19:35.680)
You've recorded an episode of Steering Into the Iceberg
Lex Fridman (2:19:41.960)
on your Common Sense program.
Dan Carlin (2:19:43.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:19:44.620)
That has started a lot of conversations.
Dan Carlin (2:19:48.400)
It's quite moving, it was quite haunting.
Lex Fridman (2:19:51.120)
Got me a lot of angry emails.
Lex Fridman (2:19:52.960)
Really?
Lex Fridman (2:19:53.800)
Of course.
Dan Carlin (2:19:55.280)
I did something I haven't done in 30 years.
Lex Fridman (2:19:57.320)
I endorsed a political candidate
Dan Carlin (2:19:58.720)
from one of the two main parties
Lex Fridman (2:19:59.840)
and there were a lot of disillusioned people
Dan Carlin (2:20:01.680)
because of that.
Lex Fridman (2:20:02.920)
I guess I didn't hear it as an endorsement.
Dan Carlin (2:20:05.520)
I just heard it as the similar flavor of conversation
Lex Fridman (2:20:11.840)
as you have in hardcore history.
Dan Carlin (2:20:14.640)
It's almost the speaking about modern times
Lex Fridman (2:20:19.480)
in the same voice as you speak about
Dan Carlin (2:20:21.480)
when you talk about history.
Lex Fridman (2:20:23.000)
So it was just a little bit of a haunting view
Dan Carlin (2:20:27.160)
of the world today.
Lex Fridman (2:20:30.560)
I know we were just wearing our doom caster.
Lex Fridman (2:20:33.800)
Let me put that right back on, are you?
Lex Fridman (2:20:36.000)
No.
Dan Carlin (2:20:38.280)
I like the term doom caster.
Lex Fridman (2:20:44.480)
How do we get love to win?
Lex Fridman (2:20:47.360)
What's the way out of this?
Lex Fridman (2:20:49.160)
Is there some hopeful line that we can walk
Dan Carlin (2:20:57.560)
to avoid something, and I hate to use the terminology,
Lex Fridman (2:21:01.440)
but something that looks like a civil war,
Dan Carlin (2:21:06.200)
not necessarily a war of force,
Lex Fridman (2:21:08.620)
but a division to a level where it doesn't any longer feel
Dan Carlin (2:21:15.280)
like a United States of America with an emphasis on United.
Lex Fridman (2:21:20.000)
Is there a way out?
Dan Carlin (2:21:23.000)
I read a book a while back.
Lex Fridman (2:21:24.920)
I want to say George Friedman, the Stratfor guy wrote it.
Dan Carlin (2:21:28.280)
It was something called The Next Hundred Years,
Lex Fridman (2:21:30.080)
I think it was called.
Lex Fridman (2:21:31.520)
And I remember thinking, I didn't agree with any of it.
Lex Fridman (2:21:35.380)
And one of the things I think he said in the book
Dan Carlin (2:21:37.200)
was that the United States was going to break up.
Lex Fridman (2:21:39.260)
I'm going from memory here.
Dan Carlin (2:21:40.100)
He might not have said that at all,
Lex Fridman (2:21:41.080)
but something was stuck in my memory about that.
Lex Fridman (2:21:42.600)
And I remember thinking,
Lex Fridman (2:21:45.980)
but I think some of the arguments were connected
Dan Carlin (2:21:49.160)
to the differences that we had
Lex Fridman (2:21:53.020)
and the fact that those differences are being exploited.
Lex Fridman (2:21:55.760)
So we talked about media earlier
Lex Fridman (2:21:57.440)
and the lack of truth and everything.
Dan Carlin (2:21:58.920)
We have a media climate that is incentivized
Lex Fridman (2:22:03.320)
to take the wedges in our society and make them wider.
Lex Fridman (2:22:08.160)
And there's no countervailing force to do the opposite
Lex Fridman (2:22:11.920)
or to help.
Lex Fridman (2:22:13.340)
So there was a famous memo
Lex Fridman (2:22:17.600)
from a group called Project for a New American Century.
Lex Fridman (2:22:21.000)
And they took it down,
Lex Fridman (2:22:21.880)
but the Wayback Machine online still has it.
Lex Fridman (2:22:24.040)
And it happened before 9 11,
Lex Fridman (2:22:25.800)
spawned all kinds of conspiracy theories
Dan Carlin (2:22:27.640)
because it was saying something to the effect of,
Lex Fridman (2:22:30.840)
and I'm really paraphrasing here,
Lex Fridman (2:22:32.320)
but you know that the United States
Lex Fridman (2:22:33.800)
needs another Pearl Harbor type event
Dan Carlin (2:22:36.320)
because those galvanize a country
Lex Fridman (2:22:39.160)
that without those kinds of events periodically
Dan Carlin (2:22:41.720)
is naturally geared towards pulling itself apart.
Lex Fridman (2:22:45.400)
And it's those periodic events
Dan Carlin (2:22:47.160)
that act as the countervailing force
Lex Fridman (2:22:49.040)
that otherwise is not there.
Dan Carlin (2:22:52.120)
If that's true,
Lex Fridman (2:22:53.720)
then we are naturally inclined towards pulling ourselves apart.
Lex Fridman (2:22:57.920)
So to have a media environment
Lex Fridman (2:23:01.420)
that makes money off widening those divisions,
Dan Carlin (2:23:06.360)
which we do.
Lex Fridman (2:23:07.200)
I mean, I was in talk radio
Lex Fridman (2:23:08.680)
and it has those people,
Lex Fridman (2:23:11.120)
the people that used to scream at me
Dan Carlin (2:23:12.640)
cause I wouldn't do it.
Lex Fridman (2:23:13.600)
But I mean, we would have these terrible conversations
Dan Carlin (2:23:15.620)
after every broadcast
Lex Fridman (2:23:17.020)
where I'd be in there with the program director
Lex Fridman (2:23:18.600)
and they're yelling at me about heat.
Lex Fridman (2:23:21.280)
Heat was the word they create more heat.
Lex Fridman (2:23:22.980)
Well, what is heat, right?
Lex Fridman (2:23:24.380)
Heat is division, right?
Lex Fridman (2:23:25.800)
And they want the heat,
Lex Fridman (2:23:26.640)
not because they're political,
Dan Carlin (2:23:28.320)
they're not Republicans or Democrats either.
Lex Fridman (2:23:32.480)
We want listeners
Lex Fridman (2:23:33.920)
and we want engagement and involvement.
Lex Fridman (2:23:36.000)
And because of the constructs of the format,
Dan Carlin (2:23:39.040)
you don't have a lot of time to get it.
Lex Fridman (2:23:40.320)
So you can't have me giving you like on a podcast
Dan Carlin (2:23:43.120)
an hour and a half or two hours
Lex Fridman (2:23:44.940)
where we build a logical argument
Lex Fridman (2:23:47.000)
and you're with me the whole way,
Lex Fridman (2:23:48.680)
your audience is changing every 15 minutes.
Lex Fridman (2:23:51.240)
So whatever points you make to create interest
Lex Fridman (2:23:53.680)
and intrigue and engagement have to be knee jerk right now.
Dan Carlin (2:23:58.400)
Things, they told me once
Lex Fridman (2:24:00.280)
that the audience has to know
Dan Carlin (2:24:01.720)
where you stand on every single issue
Lex Fridman (2:24:04.960)
within five minutes of turning on your show.
Dan Carlin (2:24:07.640)
In other words, you have to be part
Lex Fridman (2:24:09.200)
of a linear set of political beliefs
Lex Fridman (2:24:12.720)
so that if you feel A about subject A,
Lex Fridman (2:24:15.940)
then you must feel D about subject D.
Lex Fridman (2:24:18.040)
And I don't even need to hear your opinion on it
Lex Fridman (2:24:19.560)
cause if you feel that way about A,
Dan Carlin (2:24:20.640)
you're gonna feel that way about D.
Lex Fridman (2:24:22.320)
This is a system that is designed
Dan Carlin (2:24:24.320)
to pull us apart for profit,
Lex Fridman (2:24:26.600)
but not because they wanna pull us apart, right?
Dan Carlin (2:24:29.360)
It's a byproduct of the profit.
Lex Fridman (2:24:32.540)
That's one little example of 50 examples in our society
Dan Carlin (2:24:37.740)
that work in that same fashion.
Lex Fridman (2:24:39.880)
So what that project
Dan Carlin (2:24:40.840)
for a new American century document was saying
Lex Fridman (2:24:42.940)
is that we're naturally inclined towards disunity
Lex Fridman (2:24:46.520)
and without things to occasionally ratchet
Lex Fridman (2:24:49.720)
the unity back up again,
Lex Fridman (2:24:51.220)
so that we can start from the baseline again
Lex Fridman (2:24:53.200)
and then pull ourselves apart till the next Pearl Harbor,
Dan Carlin (2:24:55.960)
that you'll pull yourself apart,
Lex Fridman (2:24:57.240)
which I think was,
Dan Carlin (2:24:58.680)
think that's what the George Friedman book was saying
Lex Fridman (2:25:01.160)
that I disagreed with so much at the time.
Lex Fridman (2:25:04.380)
So in answer to your question about civil wars,
Lex Fridman (2:25:07.960)
we can't have the same kind of civil war
Dan Carlin (2:25:09.740)
because we don't have a geographical division
Lex Fridman (2:25:12.000)
that's as clear cut as the one we had before, right?
Dan Carlin (2:25:13.960)
You had a basically north south line and some border states.
Lex Fridman (2:25:16.720)
It was set up for that kind of a split.
Dan Carlin (2:25:18.880)
Now we're divided within communities, within families,
Lex Fridman (2:25:22.420)
within gerrymandered voting districts and precincts, right?
Lex Fridman (2:25:25.980)
So you can't disengage.
Lex Fridman (2:25:28.580)
We're stuck with each other.
Lex Fridman (2:25:30.000)
So if there's a civil war now,
Lex Fridman (2:25:33.000)
for lack of a better word,
Lex Fridman (2:25:34.760)
what it might seem like is the late 1960s, early 1970s,
Lex Fridman (2:25:39.560)
where you had the bombings
Lex Fridman (2:25:42.000)
and let's call it domestic terrorism and things like that,
Lex Fridman (2:25:45.800)
because that would seem to be something
Dan Carlin (2:25:48.500)
that once again, you don't even need a large chunk
Lex Fridman (2:25:50.840)
of the country pulling apart.
Dan Carlin (2:25:52.200)
10% of people who think it's the end times
Lex Fridman (2:25:56.040)
can do the damage.
Dan Carlin (2:25:57.000)
Just like we talked about terrorism before
Lex Fridman (2:25:59.200)
and a can of gas and a big lighter,
Dan Carlin (2:26:01.360)
I've lived in a bunch of places
Lex Fridman (2:26:02.920)
and I won't give anybody ideas
Dan Carlin (2:26:04.640)
where a can of gas and a big lighter
Lex Fridman (2:26:06.640)
would take a thousand houses down before you could blink.
Lex Fridman (2:26:10.280)
Right?
Lex Fridman (2:26:12.000)
That terrorist doesn't have to be from the Middle East,
Dan Carlin (2:26:15.620)
doesn't have to have some sort of a fundamentalist
Lex Fridman (2:26:17.640)
or religious agenda.
Dan Carlin (2:26:18.800)
It could just be somebody really pissed off
Lex Fridman (2:26:20.780)
about the election results.
Lex Fridman (2:26:22.280)
So once again, if we're playing an odds game here,
Lex Fridman (2:26:25.440)
everybody has to behave for this to work right.
Dan Carlin (2:26:28.480)
Only a few people have to misbehave
Lex Fridman (2:26:30.400)
for this thing to go sideways.
Lex Fridman (2:26:31.640)
And remember, for every action,
Lex Fridman (2:26:33.760)
there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Lex Fridman (2:26:36.280)
So you don't even have to have those people
Lex Fridman (2:26:38.240)
doing all these things.
Dan Carlin (2:26:39.120)
All they have to do is start a tit for tat retribution cycle.
Lex Fridman (2:26:43.240)
And there's an escalation.
Dan Carlin (2:26:44.280)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:26:45.120)
And it creates a momentum of its own,
Dan Carlin (2:26:48.800)
which leads fundamentally,
Lex Fridman (2:26:49.960)
if you follow the chain of events down there
Dan Carlin (2:26:51.800)
to some form of dictatorial government
Lex Fridman (2:26:54.160)
as the only way to create stability, right?
Dan Carlin (2:26:57.400)
You want to destroy the Republic and have a dictator,
Lex Fridman (2:26:59.480)
that's how you do.
Lex Fridman (2:27:00.320)
And there are parallels to Nazi Germany,
Lex Fridman (2:27:02.420)
the burning of the Reichstag, blah, blah, blah.
Lex Fridman (2:27:05.760)
I'm the doom caster again, aren't I?
Lex Fridman (2:27:07.840)
And some of it could be manufactured
Dan Carlin (2:27:09.880)
by those seeking authoritarian power.
Lex Fridman (2:27:12.000)
Absolutely, like the Reichstag fire was
Dan Carlin (2:27:14.840)
or the Polish soldiers that fired over the border
Lex Fridman (2:27:17.840)
before the invasion in 1939.
Dan Carlin (2:27:20.600)
To fight the devil's advocate with an angel's advocate,
Lex Fridman (2:27:24.560)
I would say just as our conversation about Elon,
Dan Carlin (2:27:27.760)
it feels like individuals have power to unite us,
Lex Fridman (2:27:31.120)
to be that force of unity.
Lex Fridman (2:27:33.440)
So you mentioned the media.
Lex Fridman (2:27:35.960)
I think you're one of the great podcasters in history.
Dan Carlin (2:27:40.860)
Joe Rogan is like a long form, whatever.
Lex Fridman (2:27:44.040)
It's not podcasting, it's actually whatever the, yeah.
Dan Carlin (2:27:47.800)
Very infrequent is what it is, no matter what it is.
Lex Fridman (2:27:50.940)
But the basic process of it is you go deep
Lex Fridman (2:27:53.600)
and you stay deep and the listener stays
Lex Fridman (2:27:56.320)
with you for a long time.
Lex Fridman (2:27:57.680)
So I'm just looking at the numbers,
Lex Fridman (2:28:01.000)
like we're almost three hours in.
Lex Fridman (2:28:05.340)
And from previous episodes, I can tell you
Lex Fridman (2:28:08.800)
that about 300,000 people are still listening
Dan Carlin (2:28:12.480)
to the sound of our voice three hours in.
Lex Fridman (2:28:15.160)
So usually it's 300 to 500,000 people listen
Lex Fridman (2:28:18.540)
and they tune out.
Lex Fridman (2:28:19.380)
Congratulations, by the way, that's wonderful.
Dan Carlin (2:28:20.880)
Joe Rogan is like 10 times that.
Lex Fridman (2:28:23.800)
And so he has power to unite.
Dan Carlin (2:28:30.080)
You have power to unite.
Lex Fridman (2:28:31.640)
There's a few people with voices
Dan Carlin (2:28:34.160)
that it feels like they have power to unite.
Lex Fridman (2:28:37.360)
Even if you quote unquote endorse a candidate and so on,
Dan Carlin (2:28:41.040)
there's still, it feels to me that speaking of,
Lex Fridman (2:28:47.720)
I don't wanna keep saying love,
Lex Fridman (2:28:49.420)
but it's love and maybe unity more practically speaking
Lex Fridman (2:28:53.760)
that like sanity, that like respect
Dan Carlin (2:28:58.940)
for those you don't agree with or don't understand.
Lex Fridman (2:29:04.060)
So empathy, just a few voices of those can help us avoid
Dan Carlin (2:29:09.060)
the really importantly, not avoid the singular events,
Lex Fridman (2:29:14.120)
like you said, of somebody starting a fire and so on,
Lex Fridman (2:29:17.320)
but avoid the escalation of it.
Lex Fridman (2:29:21.160)
The preparedness of the populace to escalate those events,
Dan Carlin (2:29:26.320)
to turn a singular event and a single riot or a shooting
Lex Fridman (2:29:32.760)
or like even something much more dramatic than that,
Dan Carlin (2:29:35.700)
to turn that into something that creates
Lex Fridman (2:29:38.580)
like ripples that grow as opposed to ripples that fade away.
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.200)
And so like, I would like to put responsibility
Lex Fridman (2:29:46.360)
on somebody like you and on me in some small way.
Lex Fridman (2:29:51.040)
And Joe, being cognizant of the fact
Lex Fridman (2:29:55.720)
that a lot of very destructive things
Dan Carlin (2:29:58.520)
might happen in November.
Lex Fridman (2:30:01.200)
And a few voices can save us is the feeling I have.
Dan Carlin (2:30:05.440)
Not by saying who you should vote for
Lex Fridman (2:30:07.560)
or any of that kind of stuff,
Lex Fridman (2:30:09.200)
but really by being the voice of calm
Lex Fridman (2:30:13.680)
that like calms the seas from
Dan Carlin (2:30:19.240)
or whatever the analogy is from boiling up.
Lex Fridman (2:30:22.240)
Because I truly am worried about,
Dan Carlin (2:30:25.960)
this is the first time this year when I,
Lex Fridman (2:30:30.320)
I sometimes, I somehow have felt
Dan Carlin (2:30:32.960)
that the American project will go on forever.
Lex Fridman (2:30:35.960)
When I came to this country, I just believed,
Lex Fridman (2:30:39.540)
and I still think I'm young, but like,
Lex Fridman (2:30:42.340)
I have a dream of creating a company
Dan Carlin (2:30:45.040)
that will do a lot of good for the world.
Lex Fridman (2:30:47.400)
And I thought that America is the beacon of hope
Dan Carlin (2:30:51.280)
for the world and the ideas of freedom,
Lex Fridman (2:30:54.280)
but also the idea of empowering companies
Dan Carlin (2:30:56.760)
that can do some good for the world.
Lex Fridman (2:30:58.800)
And I'm just worried about this America that filled me,
Dan Carlin (2:31:03.580)
a kid that came from, our family came from nothing
Lex Fridman (2:31:08.160)
and from Russia as it was, Soviet Union as it was,
Dan Carlin (2:31:11.840)
to be able to do anything in this new country.
Lex Fridman (2:31:15.360)
I'm just worried about it.
Lex Fridman (2:31:16.560)
And it feels like a few people
Lex Fridman (2:31:18.720)
can still keep this project going.
Dan Carlin (2:31:21.960)
Like people like Elon, people like Joe.
Lex Fridman (2:31:25.860)
Is there, do you have a bit of that hope?
Dan Carlin (2:31:34.140)
I'm watching this experiment with social media right now.
Lex Fridman (2:31:38.020)
And I don't even mean social media,
Dan Carlin (2:31:38.900)
really expand that out to,
Lex Fridman (2:31:41.220)
I mean, I feel like we're all guinea pigs right now,
Dan Carlin (2:31:43.420)
watching, you know, I have two kids and just watching,
Lex Fridman (2:31:45.900)
and there's a three year space between the two of them,
Dan Carlin (2:31:48.500)
one's 18, the other's 15.
Lex Fridman (2:31:50.620)
And just, you know, when I was a kid,
Dan Carlin (2:31:52.920)
a person who was 18 and 15 would not be that different,
Lex Fridman (2:31:56.520)
just three years difference, more maturity.
Lex Fridman (2:31:58.660)
But their life experiences,
Lex Fridman (2:32:00.120)
you would easily classify those two people
Dan Carlin (2:32:02.240)
as being in the same generation.
Lex Fridman (2:32:04.760)
Now, because of the speed of technological change,
Dan Carlin (2:32:08.280)
there is a vast difference between my 18 year old
Lex Fridman (2:32:11.160)
and my 15 year old, and not in a maturity question,
Dan Carlin (2:32:13.500)
just in what apps they use, how they relate to each other,
Lex Fridman (2:32:17.220)
how they deal with their peers, their social skills,
Dan Carlin (2:32:20.100)
all those kinds of things where you turn around and go,
Lex Fridman (2:32:22.460)
this is uncharted territory, we've never been here,
Lex Fridman (2:32:25.180)
so it's gonna be interesting to see
Lex Fridman (2:32:26.200)
what effect that has on society.
Dan Carlin (2:32:27.360)
Now, as that relates to your question,
Lex Fridman (2:32:29.900)
the most upsetting part about all that
Dan Carlin (2:32:33.580)
is reading how people treat each other online.
Lex Fridman (2:32:36.100)
And you know, there's lots of theories about this,
Dan Carlin (2:32:37.600)
the fact that some of it is just for trolling laughs,
Lex Fridman (2:32:40.200)
that some of it is just people are not interacting
Dan Carlin (2:32:42.380)
face to face, so they feel free
Lex Fridman (2:32:43.900)
to treat each other that way.
Lex Fridman (2:32:46.860)
And I, of course, I'm trying to figure out how,
Lex Fridman (2:32:51.460)
if this is how we have always been as people, right?
Dan Carlin (2:32:55.180)
We've always been this way, but we've never had the means
Lex Fridman (2:32:57.180)
to post our feelings publicly about it,
Dan Carlin (2:32:59.840)
or if the environment and the social media
Lex Fridman (2:33:02.700)
and everything else has provided a change
Lex Fridman (2:33:05.840)
and changed us into something else.
Lex Fridman (2:33:09.300)
Either way, when one reads how we treat one another
Lex Fridman (2:33:13.740)
and the horrible things we say about one another online,
Lex Fridman (2:33:17.660)
which seems like it shouldn't be that big of deal,
Dan Carlin (2:33:20.180)
they're just words, but they have a cumulative effect.
Lex Fridman (2:33:23.080)
I mean, when you, I was reading Meghan Markle,
Dan Carlin (2:33:27.380)
who I don't know a lot about,
Lex Fridman (2:33:28.460)
because it's too much of the pop side of culture
Dan Carlin (2:33:30.500)
for me to pay lip, but I read a story the other day
Lex Fridman (2:33:32.420)
where she was talking about the abuse she took online
Lex Fridman (2:33:34.980)
and how incredibly overwhelming it was
Lex Fridman (2:33:37.760)
and how many people were doing it.
Lex Fridman (2:33:40.140)
And you think to yourself, okay, this is something
Lex Fridman (2:33:43.040)
that people who are in positions
Dan Carlin (2:33:44.840)
of what you were discussing earlier
Lex Fridman (2:33:46.620)
never had to deal with.
Dan Carlin (2:33:48.420)
Let me ask you something, and boy, this is the ultimate
Lex Fridman (2:33:50.940)
doomcaster thing of all time to say.
Dan Carlin (2:33:53.860)
When you think of historical figures
Lex Fridman (2:33:56.460)
that push things like love and peace
Lex Fridman (2:34:01.300)
and creating bridges between enemies,
Lex Fridman (2:34:05.720)
when you think of what happened to those people,
Dan Carlin (2:34:09.180)
first of all, they're very dangerous.
Lex Fridman (2:34:10.820)
Every society in the world has a better time,
Dan Carlin (2:34:13.020)
easier time dealing with violence and things like that
Lex Fridman (2:34:15.540)
than they do nonviolence.
Dan Carlin (2:34:16.940)
Nonviolence is really difficult for governments
Lex Fridman (2:34:19.380)
to deal with, for example.
Lex Fridman (2:34:20.940)
What happens to Gandhi and Jesus and Martin Luther King?
Lex Fridman (2:34:25.260)
And you think about all those people, right?
Dan Carlin (2:34:27.660)
When they're that, it's ironic, isn't it,
Lex Fridman (2:34:30.380)
that these people who push for peaceful solutions
Dan Carlin (2:34:32.660)
are so often killed, but it's because they're effective.
Lex Fridman (2:34:36.920)
And when they're killed, the effectiveness is diminished.
Lex Fridman (2:34:40.220)
Why are they killed?
Lex Fridman (2:34:41.300)
Because they're effective, and the only way to stop them
Dan Carlin (2:34:44.140)
is to eliminate them, because they're charismatic leaders
Lex Fridman (2:34:47.900)
who don't come around every day,
Lex Fridman (2:34:49.580)
and if you eliminate them from the scene,
Lex Fridman (2:34:51.820)
the odds are you're not gonna get another one for a while.
Dan Carlin (2:34:54.740)
I guess what I'm saying is the very things
Lex Fridman (2:34:56.300)
you're talking about, which would have the effect
Lex Fridman (2:34:57.980)
you think it would, right?
Lex Fridman (2:34:58.880)
They would destabilize systems in a way
Dan Carlin (2:35:01.580)
that most of us would consider positive,
Lex Fridman (2:35:03.840)
but those systems have a way of protecting themselves,
Lex Fridman (2:35:06.860)
right?
Lex Fridman (2:35:07.700)
And so I feel like history shows,
Dan Carlin (2:35:10.940)
see, history's pretty pessimistic, I think, by and large.
Lex Fridman (2:35:14.060)
If only because we can find so many examples
Dan Carlin (2:35:16.380)
that just sound pessimistic.
Lex Fridman (2:35:17.480)
But I feel like people who are dangerous
Dan Carlin (2:35:19.740)
to the way things are tend to be removed.
Lex Fridman (2:35:24.260)
Yes, but there's two things to say.
Dan Carlin (2:35:26.820)
I feel like you're right, that history,
Lex Fridman (2:35:30.340)
I feel like the ripples that love leaves in history
Dan Carlin (2:35:35.300)
are less obvious to detect,
Lex Fridman (2:35:37.020)
but are actually more transformational.
Dan Carlin (2:35:39.540)
Like in this. Well, one could make a case about,
Lex Fridman (2:35:41.620)
I mean, if you wanna talk about the long term value
Dan Carlin (2:35:44.020)
of a Jesus, a Gandhi, but yeah, yes,
Lex Fridman (2:35:45.980)
those people's ripples are still affecting people today.
Dan Carlin (2:35:48.260)
I agree with you.
Lex Fridman (2:35:49.100)
And that's, you feel those ripples
Dan Carlin (2:35:50.780)
through the general improvement of the quality of life
Lex Fridman (2:35:53.700)
that we see throughout the generations.
Dan Carlin (2:35:56.540)
Like you feel the ripples through the growth.
Lex Fridman (2:35:58.380)
Yeah, okay, I'll go along with you on that, okay.
Lex Fridman (2:35:59.900)
But I would, even if that's not true,
Lex Fridman (2:36:04.460)
I tend to believe that, and by the way,
Dan Carlin (2:36:07.740)
the company that I'm working on as a competitor
Lex Fridman (2:36:12.140)
is exactly attacking this, which is a competitor to Twitter.
Dan Carlin (2:36:15.700)
I think I can build a better Twitter as a first step.
Lex Fridman (2:36:17.820)
There's a long story in there.
Dan Carlin (2:36:18.940)
I think a three year old child could build a better,
Lex Fridman (2:36:21.500)
and this is not to denigrate you,
Dan Carlin (2:36:22.980)
I'm sure yours would be better than a three year old,
Lex Fridman (2:36:24.580)
but Twitter is so, and listen, Facebook too,
Dan Carlin (2:36:27.180)
they're really awful platforms for intellectual discussion
Lex Fridman (2:36:30.580)
and meaningful discussion, and I'm on it.
Lex Fridman (2:36:33.020)
So let me just say, I'm part of the problem.
Lex Fridman (2:36:34.580)
We're new to this, so it wasn't obvious at the time
Lex Fridman (2:36:36.980)
how to do it, it's now, and now a three year old can do it.
Lex Fridman (2:36:41.020)
I tend to believe that we live in a time where the tools
Dan Carlin (2:36:46.140)
that people that are interested in providing love,
Lex Fridman (2:36:49.500)
like the weapons of love are much more powerful.
Lex Fridman (2:36:54.660)
So like the one nice thing about technology
Lex Fridman (2:36:58.340)
is it allows anyone to build a company
Dan Carlin (2:37:02.020)
that's more powerful than any government.
Lex Fridman (2:37:04.580)
So that could be very destructive,
Lex Fridman (2:37:06.620)
but it could be also very positive.
Lex Fridman (2:37:09.660)
And that's, I tend to believe that somebody like Elon
Dan Carlin (2:37:12.420)
that wants to do good for the world,
Lex Fridman (2:37:14.100)
somebody like me and many like me
Dan Carlin (2:37:16.540)
could have more power than any one government.
Lex Fridman (2:37:20.860)
And by power, I mean the power to effect change,
Dan Carlin (2:37:24.460)
which is different from Gandhi.
Lex Fridman (2:37:25.300)
What do you do with government,
Lex Fridman (2:37:26.140)
and I don't mean to interrupt you,
Lex Fridman (2:37:26.980)
but I'll forget my train of thought, I'm getting old.
Lex Fridman (2:37:28.700)
But I mean, how do you deal with the fact
Lex Fridman (2:37:30.300)
that already governments who are afraid of this
Dan Carlin (2:37:33.660)
are walling off their own internet systems
Lex Fridman (2:37:36.220)
as a way to create firewalls simply to prevent you
Lex Fridman (2:37:40.340)
from doing what you're talking about?
Lex Fridman (2:37:42.260)
In other words, there's an old line
Dan Carlin (2:37:43.900)
that if voting really changed anything,
Lex Fridman (2:37:45.340)
they'd never allow it.
Dan Carlin (2:37:46.980)
If love through a modern day successor to Twitter
Lex Fridman (2:37:51.900)
would really do what you want it to do,
Lex Fridman (2:37:53.780)
and this would destabilize governments,
Lex Fridman (2:37:56.500)
do you think that governments would take countermeasures
Lex Fridman (2:38:00.540)
to squash that love before it got too dangerous?
Lex Fridman (2:38:03.620)
There's several answers.
Dan Carlin (2:38:04.820)
One, first of all, I don't actually,
Lex Fridman (2:38:06.900)
to push back on something you said earlier,
Dan Carlin (2:38:08.740)
I don't think love is as much of an enemy of the state
Lex Fridman (2:38:12.700)
as one would think.
Dan Carlin (2:38:14.940)
Different states have different views.
Lex Fridman (2:38:20.100)
I think the states want power,
Lex Fridman (2:38:22.540)
and I don't always think that love is in tension with power.
Lex Fridman (2:38:33.220)
I think it's not just about love,
Dan Carlin (2:38:34.620)
it's about rationality, it's reason, it's empathy,
Lex Fridman (2:38:37.940)
all of those things.
Dan Carlin (2:38:39.060)
I don't necessarily think there always have to be
Lex Fridman (2:38:42.740)
by definition in conflict with each other.
Lex Fridman (2:38:45.660)
So that's one sense is I feel like basically
Lex Fridman (2:38:50.100)
you can Trojan horse love into behind,
Lex Fridman (2:38:54.900)
but you have to be good at it.
Lex Fridman (2:38:56.100)
This is the thing,
Dan Carlin (2:38:58.420)
is you have to be conscious of the way these states think.
Lex Fridman (2:39:01.500)
So the fact that China bans certain services and so on,
Dan Carlin (2:39:05.700)
that means the companies weren't eloquent,
Lex Fridman (2:39:09.340)
whoever the companies are,
Dan Carlin (2:39:10.900)
weren't actually good at infiltrating.
Lex Fridman (2:39:16.900)
I think, isn't that a song, like love is a battlefield?
Dan Carlin (2:39:19.780)
I think it's all a cap editor.
Lex Fridman (2:39:22.500)
It's all a game, and you have to be good at the game.
Lex Fridman (2:39:25.700)
And just like Elon, we said with Tesla
Lex Fridman (2:39:28.780)
and saving the environment.
Dan Carlin (2:39:32.380)
I mean, that's not just by getting on a stage
Lex Fridman (2:39:35.260)
and saying it's important to save the environment,
Dan Carlin (2:39:37.700)
is by building a product that people can't help but love
Lex Fridman (2:39:43.540)
and then convincing Hollywood stars to love it.
Dan Carlin (2:39:46.100)
Like there's a game to be played.
Lex Fridman (2:39:48.740)
Okay, so let me build on that
Dan Carlin (2:39:50.580)
because I think there's a way to see this.
Lex Fridman (2:39:52.420)
I think you're right.
Lex Fridman (2:39:53.260)
And so it has to do with a story about the 1960s.
Lex Fridman (2:39:57.020)
In the vast scheme of things, the 1960s looks like
Lex Fridman (2:39:59.580)
a revival of neo romantic ideas, right?
Lex Fridman (2:40:03.740)
I had a buddy of mine several years,
Dan Carlin (2:40:05.660)
well, two decades older than I was who was in the 60s,
Lex Fridman (2:40:09.020)
went to the protest, did all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (2:40:11.380)
And we were talking about it and I was romanticizing it.
Lex Fridman (2:40:14.020)
He said, don't romanticize it.
Dan Carlin (2:40:15.300)
He goes, let me tell you, most of the people
Lex Fridman (2:40:16.780)
that went to those protests and did all those things,
Dan Carlin (2:40:19.560)
all they were there was to meet girls and have a good time.
Lex Fridman (2:40:21.960)
And it wasn't so,
Lex Fridman (2:40:23.620)
but it became in vogue to have all,
Lex Fridman (2:40:29.100)
in other words, let's talk about your empathy and love.
Dan Carlin (2:40:32.100)
You're never gonna, in my opinion,
Lex Fridman (2:40:33.900)
grab that great mass of people that are only in it
Dan Carlin (2:40:36.420)
for their interest in whatever.
Lex Fridman (2:40:38.340)
But if meeting girls for a young teenage guy
Dan Carlin (2:40:42.500)
requires you to feign empathy,
Lex Fridman (2:40:45.900)
requires you to read deeper subjects
Dan Carlin (2:40:49.300)
because that's what people are into,
Lex Fridman (2:40:52.020)
you can almost, as a silly way to be trendy,
Dan Carlin (2:40:55.580)
you could make maybe empathy trendy, love trendy,
Lex Fridman (2:40:59.460)
solutions that are the opposite of that,
Dan Carlin (2:41:03.260)
the kind of things that people inherently
Lex Fridman (2:41:05.660)
will not put up with.
Dan Carlin (2:41:07.140)
In other words, the possibility exists
Lex Fridman (2:41:09.540)
to change the zeitgeist and reorient it in a way
Dan Carlin (2:41:13.820)
that even if most of the people aren't serious about it,
Lex Fridman (2:41:17.180)
the results are the same.
Lex Fridman (2:41:19.060)
Does that make sense?
Lex Fridman (2:41:19.880)
Absolutely. Okay.
Dan Carlin (2:41:21.080)
Okay, so we've found a meeting of the moments.
Lex Fridman (2:41:23.460)
Yeah, exactly.
Dan Carlin (2:41:24.300)
Creating incentives that encourage the best
Lex Fridman (2:41:29.860)
and the most beautiful aspects of human nature.
Dan Carlin (2:41:32.060)
Even against our will.
Lex Fridman (2:41:33.780)
It all boils down to meeting girls and boys.
Dan Carlin (2:41:37.660)
Once again, you're getting to the bottom
Lex Fridman (2:41:39.180)
of the evolutionary motivations
Lex Fridman (2:41:40.940)
and you're always on safe ground when you do that.
Lex Fridman (2:41:42.940)
Yeah.
Dan Carlin (2:41:43.820)
That's a little difficult for me.
Lex Fridman (2:41:46.300)
And I'm sure it's actually difficult for you
Dan Carlin (2:41:48.260)
to listen to me say complimenting you,
Lex Fridman (2:41:51.180)
but it's difficult for both of us, okay?
Dan Carlin (2:41:57.020)
So, but you and I, as I mentioned to you,
Lex Fridman (2:42:01.140)
I think off mic, been friends for a long time.
Dan Carlin (2:42:03.420)
It's just been one way.
Lex Fridman (2:42:05.060)
It's two way now.
Dan Carlin (2:42:06.740)
It's two way now.
Lex Fridman (2:42:08.100)
So that's the beauty of podcasting.
Dan Carlin (2:42:10.820)
Now, just been fortunate enough
Lex Fridman (2:42:12.860)
with this particular podcast
Dan Carlin (2:42:14.260)
that I see it in people's eyes when they meet me,
Lex Fridman (2:42:17.320)
that they've been friends with me for a few years now.
Lex Fridman (2:42:20.980)
And we become fast friends actually after we start talking.
Lex Fridman (2:42:25.100)
But it's one way in the vet in that first moment.
Dan Carlin (2:42:30.020)
You know, like there's something about
Lex Fridman (2:42:32.220)
the especially hardcore history that,
Dan Carlin (2:42:34.460)
you know, I do some crazy challenges and running and stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:42:37.900)
I remember in particular, probably don't have time.
Dan Carlin (2:42:40.780)
One of my favorite episodes, the painful tainment one.
Lex Fridman (2:42:44.300)
Some people hate that episode.
Dan Carlin (2:42:46.140)
Because it's too real.
Lex Fridman (2:42:47.420)
Yeah, they can't listen to it.
Dan Carlin (2:42:49.100)
It's my darkest one.
Lex Fridman (2:42:50.120)
We wanted to set a baseline.
Dan Carlin (2:42:51.480)
That's the baseline.
Lex Fridman (2:42:53.100)
But I remember listening to that
Dan Carlin (2:42:54.980)
when I ran 22 miles for me, that was a long distance.
Lex Fridman (2:42:58.340)
Holy cow, that's painful tainment right there.
Dan Carlin (2:43:00.780)
Yeah, and it just pulls you in.
Lex Fridman (2:43:03.580)
There's something so powerful
Dan Carlin (2:43:06.620)
about this particular creation
Lex Fridman (2:43:09.080)
that's bigger than you actually, that you've created.
Dan Carlin (2:43:12.100)
It's kind of interesting.
Lex Fridman (2:43:13.140)
I think anything that is successful like that,
Dan Carlin (2:43:14.980)
like Elon's stuff too, it becomes bigger than you.
Lex Fridman (2:43:17.140)
And that's what you're hoping for, right?
Dan Carlin (2:43:18.900)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:43:19.740)
Didn't mean to interrupt you, I apologize.
Dan Carlin (2:43:20.940)
I guess a question I have, if you look in the mirror,
Lex Fridman (2:43:26.060)
but you also look at me,
Lex Fridman (2:43:29.220)
what advice would you give to yourself and to me
Lex Fridman (2:43:34.340)
and to other podcasters, maybe to Joe Rogan,
Lex Fridman (2:43:37.500)
about this journey that we're on?
Lex Fridman (2:43:40.040)
I feel like it's something special.
Dan Carlin (2:43:41.860)
I'm not sure exactly what's happening.
Lex Fridman (2:43:44.040)
But it feels like podcasting is special.
Lex Fridman (2:43:48.300)
What advice, and I'm relatively new to it,
Lex Fridman (2:43:52.540)
what advice do you have for people
Lex Fridman (2:43:55.300)
that are carrying this flame and traveling this journey?
Lex Fridman (2:43:59.580)
Well, I'm often asked for advice by new podcasters,
Dan Carlin (2:44:03.620)
people just starting out.
Lex Fridman (2:44:04.940)
And so I have sort of a tried and true list
Dan Carlin (2:44:08.900)
of do's and don'ts.
Lex Fridman (2:44:11.340)
But I don't have advice or suggestions for you or for Joe.
Dan Carlin (2:44:18.140)
Joe doesn't need anything from me.
Lex Fridman (2:44:19.740)
Joe's figured it out, right?
Dan Carlin (2:44:21.260)
I mean, he hasn't yet.
Lex Fridman (2:44:22.100)
He's still a confused kid, curious about the world.
Lex Fridman (2:44:25.260)
But that's the genius of it.
Lex Fridman (2:44:26.780)
That's what makes it work, right?
Lex Fridman (2:44:28.580)
That's what Joe's brand is, right?
Lex Fridman (2:44:31.740)
I guess what I'm saying is,
Dan Carlin (2:44:32.900)
by the time you reach the stage that you're at,
Lex Fridman (2:44:35.300)
or Joe's at, they don't need it.
Dan Carlin (2:44:38.040)
They have figured this out.
Lex Fridman (2:44:39.480)
The people that sometimes need help are brand new people
Dan Carlin (2:44:41.760)
trying to figure out what do I do with my first show
Lex Fridman (2:44:43.580)
and how do I talk into them?
Lex Fridman (2:44:44.860)
And I have standard answers for that.
Lex Fridman (2:44:47.020)
But you found your niche.
Dan Carlin (2:44:48.420)
I mean, you don't need me to tell you what to do.
Lex Fridman (2:44:51.180)
As a matter of fact, I might ask you questions
Lex Fridman (2:44:52.940)
about how you do what you do, right?
Lex Fridman (2:44:55.340)
Well, I guess there's specific things
Dan Carlin (2:44:58.580)
like we were talking offline about monetization.
Lex Fridman (2:45:01.660)
That's a fascinating one.
Dan Carlin (2:45:03.260)
Very difficult as an independent, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:45:05.980)
And one of the things that Joe is facing
Dan Carlin (2:45:09.060)
with, I don't know if you're paying attention,
Lex Fridman (2:45:11.140)
but he joined Spotify with a $100 million deal
Dan Carlin (2:45:15.940)
for going exclusive on their platform.
Lex Fridman (2:45:18.200)
The idea of exclusivity that,
Dan Carlin (2:45:19.900)
one, I don't give a damn about money personally,
Lex Fridman (2:45:22.260)
but I'm single, and I like living in a shitty place.
Lex Fridman (2:45:26.080)
So I enjoy, so I guess it makes it easy.
Lex Fridman (2:45:30.540)
You get the freedom, right, to not care, yeah.
Dan Carlin (2:45:32.580)
Freedom.
Lex Fridman (2:45:33.420)
It's freedom.
Dan Carlin (2:45:34.240)
Not saving for anybody's college.
Lex Fridman (2:45:35.840)
Exactly. Yeah.
Dan Carlin (2:45:37.040)
Okay, so on that point, but I also,
Lex Fridman (2:45:40.380)
okay, maybe it's romanticization,
Lex Fridman (2:45:41.980)
but I feel like podcasting is pirate radio.
Lex Fridman (2:45:46.100)
And when I first heard about Spotify partnering up with Joe,
Dan Carlin (2:45:50.820)
I was like, you know, fuck the man.
Lex Fridman (2:45:53.380)
I said, I even, I drafted a few tweets and so on,
Dan Carlin (2:45:57.280)
just like attacking Spotify, then I calmed myself down
Lex Fridman (2:46:00.980)
that you can't lock up this special thing we have.
Lex Fridman (2:46:04.660)
But then I realized that maybe
Lex Fridman (2:46:07.700)
that these are vehicles for just reaching more people
Lex Fridman (2:46:11.900)
and actually respecting podcasters more and so on.
Lex Fridman (2:46:15.120)
So that's what I mean by it's unclear what the journey is
Dan Carlin (2:46:18.700)
because you also serve as beacon for,
Lex Fridman (2:46:22.260)
now there's like millions, one million plus podcasters.
Dan Carlin (2:46:29.400)
I wonder what the journey is.
Lex Fridman (2:46:31.540)
Do you have a sense,
Dan Carlin (2:46:32.780)
are you romantic in the same kind of way
Lex Fridman (2:46:36.860)
in feeling that, because you have a roots in radio too.
Lex Fridman (2:46:41.060)
Do you feel that podcasting is pirate radio
Lex Fridman (2:46:43.920)
or is the Spotify thing one possible avenue?
Dan Carlin (2:46:48.020)
Are you nervous about Joe as a fan, as a friend of Joe
Lex Fridman (2:46:52.260)
or is this a good thing for us?
Lex Fridman (2:46:55.940)
So my history of how I got involved
Lex Fridman (2:46:58.380)
in podcasting is interesting.
Dan Carlin (2:47:00.260)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:47:01.100)
I was in radio and then I started a company
Dan Carlin (2:47:04.660)
back in the era where the dot com boom was happening
Lex Fridman (2:47:08.100)
and everybody was being bought up
Lex Fridman (2:47:09.280)
and it just seemed like a great idea, right?
Lex Fridman (2:47:12.280)
I did it with six other people
Lex Fridman (2:47:14.780)
and the whole goal of the company was,
Lex Fridman (2:47:18.020)
we had to invent the term.
Dan Carlin (2:47:19.220)
I'm sure everybody, there's other places
Lex Fridman (2:47:20.840)
that invented it at the same time.
Lex Fridman (2:47:22.180)
But what we were pitching to investors
Lex Fridman (2:47:25.100)
was something called amateur content.
Lex Fridman (2:47:26.920)
So this is before YouTube, before podcasting,
Lex Fridman (2:47:29.220)
before all this stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:47:30.980)
And my job was to be the evangelist.
Lex Fridman (2:47:34.500)
And I would go to these people and talk
Lex Fridman (2:47:36.580)
and sing the praises of all the ways
Lex Fridman (2:47:39.640)
that amateur content was gonna be great.
Lex Fridman (2:47:42.260)
And I never got a bite.
Lex Fridman (2:47:45.340)
And they all told me the same thing.
Dan Carlin (2:47:46.860)
This isn't gonna take off
Lex Fridman (2:47:47.940)
cause anybody who's good is already gonna be making money
Dan Carlin (2:47:50.360)
at this.
Lex Fridman (2:47:51.200)
And I kept saying, forget that.
Dan Carlin (2:47:53.100)
We're talking about scale here.
Lex Fridman (2:47:55.260)
If you have millions of pieces of content
Dan Carlin (2:47:57.560)
being made every week, a small percentage
Lex Fridman (2:48:00.080)
is gonna be good no matter what, right?
Dan Carlin (2:48:01.540)
16 year olds will know what other 16 year olds like.
Lex Fridman (2:48:03.980)
I kept pushing this nobody bit.
Lex Fridman (2:48:06.100)
But the podcast grew out of that
Lex Fridman (2:48:07.540)
because if you're talking about amateur content in 1999,
Dan Carlin (2:48:12.900)
well then you're already, you're ahead of the game
Lex Fridman (2:48:16.920)
in terms of not seeing where it's gonna go financially
Lex Fridman (2:48:20.380)
but seeing where it's going to go technologically.
Lex Fridman (2:48:23.140)
And so when we started the podcast in 2005
Lex Fridman (2:48:25.500)
and it was the political one, not hardcore history,
Lex Fridman (2:48:28.020)
which was an outgrowth of the old radio show,
Dan Carlin (2:48:30.940)
we didn't have any financial ideas.
Lex Fridman (2:48:34.540)
We were simply trying to get our handle on the technology
Lex Fridman (2:48:37.460)
and how you distribute it to people and all that.
Lex Fridman (2:48:38.980)
And it was years later that we tried to figure out,
Dan Carlin (2:48:41.940)
okay, how can we get enough money
Lex Fridman (2:48:43.060)
to just support us while we're doing this?
Lex Fridman (2:48:45.060)
And the cheap and the easy way
Lex Fridman (2:48:46.620)
was just to ask listeners to donate like a PBS kind of model.
Lex Fridman (2:48:49.620)
And that was the original model.
Lex Fridman (2:48:52.940)
So then once we started down that,
Dan Carlin (2:48:55.180)
we figured out other models and there's the advertising thing
Lex Fridman (2:48:57.500)
and that we sell the old shows.
Lex Fridman (2:48:58.740)
And so all these became ways for us to support ourselves.
Lex Fridman (2:49:03.220)
But as podcasting matured
Lex Fridman (2:49:06.920)
and as more operating systems developed
Lex Fridman (2:49:09.820)
and phones were developed and all these kinds of things,
Dan Carlin (2:49:13.500)
every one of those developments,
Lex Fridman (2:49:15.300)
which actually made it easier for people to get the podcast
Dan Carlin (2:49:18.580)
actually made it more complex to make money off of them.
Lex Fridman (2:49:22.060)
So while our audience was building,
Dan Carlin (2:49:24.140)
the amount of time and effort we had to put
Lex Fridman (2:49:26.020)
into the monetization side began to skyrocket.
Lex Fridman (2:49:29.940)
So to get back to your Spotify question,
Lex Fridman (2:49:31.820)
to use just one example,
Dan Carlin (2:49:32.820)
there's a lot of people who are doing similar things.
Lex Fridman (2:49:36.820)
In this day and age, we used to just sell MP3 files.
Lex Fridman (2:49:39.660)
And all you had to have was an MP3 player,
Lex Fridman (2:49:41.060)
it's cheap and dirty.
Dan Carlin (2:49:42.660)
Now, every time there's an OS upgrade,
Lex Fridman (2:49:45.140)
something breaks for us.
Lex Fridman (2:49:46.720)
So we're having, I mean, my choices are at this point
Lex Fridman (2:49:49.340)
to start hiring staff, more staff,
Lex Fridman (2:49:51.460)
and then be a human resources manager.
Lex Fridman (2:49:54.260)
I mean, the pirate radio side of this
Dan Carlin (2:49:55.980)
was the pirate radio side of this
Lex Fridman (2:49:57.300)
because you didn't need anybody,
Lex Fridman (2:49:58.500)
but you know, you or you and another,
Lex Fridman (2:50:00.340)
I mean, you could just do this lean and mean,
Lex Fridman (2:50:02.140)
and it's becoming hard to do it lean and mean now.
Lex Fridman (2:50:05.280)
So if somebody like a Spotify comes in and says,
Dan Carlin (2:50:07.460)
hey, we'll handle that stuff for you.
Lex Fridman (2:50:10.780)
In the past, I would just say,
Dan Carlin (2:50:12.640)
F off, we don't need you, I don't mind.
Lex Fridman (2:50:15.300)
And I definitely am not making what we could make on this,
Lex Fridman (2:50:18.300)
but what we would have to do to make that is onerous to me.
Lex Fridman (2:50:22.420)
But it's becoming onerous to me day to day anyway.
Lex Fridman (2:50:25.860)
And so if somebody were to come in and say,
Lex Fridman (2:50:28.380)
hey, we'll pick that up for you,
Dan Carlin (2:50:30.340)
we will not interfere with your content at all,
Lex Fridman (2:50:32.600)
we won't, and in my case, you can't say,
Lex Fridman (2:50:34.260)
we need to show a month because that ain't happening, right?
Lex Fridman (2:50:36.720)
So I mean, everybody's design is different, right?
Lex Fridman (2:50:40.540)
So it doesn't, you know, there's not one size fits all,
Lex Fridman (2:50:43.300)
but I guess as a long time pirate podcaster,
Dan Carlin (2:50:48.740)
we've been looking to partner with people,
Lex Fridman (2:50:50.140)
but nobody's right for us to partner with.
Dan Carlin (2:50:51.940)
I mean, so I'm always looking for ways
Lex Fridman (2:50:55.940)
to take that side of it off my plate
Dan Carlin (2:50:58.300)
because I'm not interested in that side.
Lex Fridman (2:50:59.600)
All I wanna do is the shows,
Lex Fridman (2:51:02.020)
and it's really at this point,
Lex Fridman (2:51:04.540)
you shouldn't call yourself an artist
Dan Carlin (2:51:06.500)
because that's something to be decided by others.
Lex Fridman (2:51:08.820)
But I mean, we're trying to do art
Lex Fridman (2:51:11.740)
and there's something very satisfying in that.
Lex Fridman (2:51:15.020)
But the part that I can't stand
Dan Carlin (2:51:16.780)
is the increasing amount of time
Lex Fridman (2:51:19.280)
the monetization question takes upon us.
Lex Fridman (2:51:22.220)
So there's a case to be made, I guess is what I'm saying,
Lex Fridman (2:51:26.460)
that if a partnership with some outside firm
Dan Carlin (2:51:29.700)
enhances your ability to do the art
Lex Fridman (2:51:32.500)
without disenhancing your ability to do the art,
Dan Carlin (2:51:36.100)
it's, the word I'm looking for here is it's enticing.
Lex Fridman (2:51:42.260)
I don't like big companies.
Lex Fridman (2:51:44.500)
So I'm afraid of whatever strings might come with that.
Lex Fridman (2:51:49.540)
And if I'm Joe Rogan and I'm talking about subjects
Dan Carlin (2:51:52.220)
that can make public companies a little nervous,
Lex Fridman (2:51:55.860)
I would certainly be careful.
Lex Fridman (2:51:57.300)
But at the same time, people who are not in this game
Lex Fridman (2:52:00.520)
don't understand the problems that literally,
Dan Carlin (2:52:04.540)
I mean, just all the operating systems, all the podcatchers,
Lex Fridman (2:52:07.580)
every time some new podcatcher comes up,
Dan Carlin (2:52:09.440)
makes it easier to get the podcast,
Lex Fridman (2:52:10.980)
that's something we have to account for on the back end.
Lex Fridman (2:52:14.220)
And I'm not exactly the technological wizard of all time.
Lex Fridman (2:52:17.740)
So I think it is maybe, maybe the short answer is,
Dan Carlin (2:52:21.900)
is that as the medium develops,
Lex Fridman (2:52:24.300)
it's becoming something that you have to consider,
Dan Carlin (2:52:26.860)
not because you wanna sell out,
Lex Fridman (2:52:28.900)
but because you wanna keep going.
Lex Fridman (2:52:30.420)
And it's becoming harder and harder to be pirate like
Lex Fridman (2:52:34.020)
in this environment.
Dan Carlin (2:52:35.420)
The thing that convinced me, especially inside Spotify,
Lex Fridman (2:52:39.060)
is that they understand,
Lex Fridman (2:52:41.720)
so if you walk into this whole thing with some skepticism,
Lex Fridman (2:52:45.960)
as you're saying, of big companies,
Dan Carlin (2:52:48.360)
then it works because Spotify understands the magic
Lex Fridman (2:52:52.080)
that makes podcasting, or they appear to in part,
Dan Carlin (2:52:56.520)
at least they understand enough to respect Joe Rogan.
Lex Fridman (2:53:00.240)
And despite what, I don't know if you,
Lex Fridman (2:53:02.920)
so there's the internet and there's people
Lex Fridman (2:53:04.520)
with opinions on the internet.
Dan Carlin (2:53:05.800)
Really? Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:53:06.640)
I've not heard about that.
Lex Fridman (2:53:07.880)
And they have opinions about Joe and Spotify.
Lex Fridman (2:53:11.920)
But the reality is, there's two things
Dan Carlin (2:53:14.760)
in private conversation with Joe,
Lex Fridman (2:53:16.720)
and in general, there's two important things.
Dan Carlin (2:53:19.520)
One, Spotify literally doesn't tell Joe anything.
Lex Fridman (2:53:22.800)
Like all the people that think that Spotify
Dan Carlin (2:53:25.800)
is somehow pushing Joe in this direction.
Lex Fridman (2:53:28.200)
It's a contractual, didn't he insist upon that?
Dan Carlin (2:53:30.520)
It's in the contract.
Lex Fridman (2:53:31.360)
But also, companies have a way of,
Dan Carlin (2:53:34.000)
even with the contract. They sure do.
Lex Fridman (2:53:36.000)
To be marketing people, hey, I know we're not forcing you.
Dan Carlin (2:53:39.040)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:53:39.880)
I hate that.
Dan Carlin (2:53:41.080)
Yeah, I'm with you.
Lex Fridman (2:53:42.840)
You and Joe are the same,
Lex Fridman (2:53:44.400)
and Spotify is smart enough
Lex Fridman (2:53:45.960)
not to send a single email of that kind.
Dan Carlin (2:53:48.280)
That's really smart.
Lex Fridman (2:53:49.600)
And they leave them be.
Dan Carlin (2:53:51.320)
There is meetings inside Spotify that people complain,
Lex Fridman (2:53:55.840)
but those meetings never reach Joe.
Dan Carlin (2:53:58.040)
That's like company stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:54:00.440)
And the idea that Spotify is different than pirate radio,
Dan Carlin (2:54:04.760)
the difficult thing about podcasting
Lex Fridman (2:54:07.320)
is nobody gives a damn about your podcast.
Dan Carlin (2:54:10.120)
You're alone in this.
Lex Fridman (2:54:11.760)
I mean, there's fans and stuff, but nobody.
Dan Carlin (2:54:14.000)
Nobody's looking out for you.
Lex Fridman (2:54:15.040)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:54:15.880)
And the nice thing about Spotify
Lex Fridman (2:54:17.360)
is they want Joe's podcast to succeed even more.
Dan Carlin (2:54:21.720)
That's what Joe talked about
Lex Fridman (2:54:23.960)
is that's the difference between YouTube and Spotify.
Dan Carlin (2:54:27.080)
Spotify wants to be the Netflix of podcasting.
Lex Fridman (2:54:30.000)
And they, like what Netflix does
Dan Carlin (2:54:32.360)
is they don't want to control you in any way,
Lex Fridman (2:54:37.160)
but they want to create a platform where you can flourish.
Dan Carlin (2:54:40.680)
Even more.
Lex Fridman (2:54:41.520)
Because your interests are aligned.
Dan Carlin (2:54:42.360)
Interests are aligned.
Lex Fridman (2:54:43.200)
So let me bring up something that,
Dan Carlin (2:54:45.560)
let's make a distinction
Lex Fridman (2:54:46.600)
because not all companies who do this are the same.
Lex Fridman (2:54:50.520)
And you brought up YouTube and Spotify,
Lex Fridman (2:54:52.080)
but to me, YouTube is at least more like Spotify
Dan Carlin (2:54:55.000)
than some of these smaller.
Lex Fridman (2:54:56.760)
The term is walled garden, right?
Lex Fridman (2:54:58.560)
You've heard the term walled garden?
Lex Fridman (2:54:59.800)
Yes. Okay.
Lex Fridman (2:55:00.640)
So I've been around podcasting so long now
Lex Fridman (2:55:04.080)
that I've seen rounds of consolidation over the years
Lex Fridman (2:55:07.200)
and they come in waves and all of a sudden,
Lex Fridman (2:55:09.520)
so you'll get, and I'm not going to mention any names,
Lex Fridman (2:55:12.120)
but up until recently,
Lex Fridman (2:55:13.840)
the consolidation was happening with relatively small firms
Dan Carlin (2:55:16.880)
compared to people like Spotify.
Lex Fridman (2:55:18.840)
And the problem was,
Dan Carlin (2:55:20.160)
is that by deciding to consolidate your materials
Lex Fridman (2:55:23.360)
in a walled garden,
Lex Fridman (2:55:25.000)
you are walling yourself off from audience, right?
Lex Fridman (2:55:28.360)
So your choice is I'm going to accept this amount of money
Dan Carlin (2:55:30.400)
from this company,
Lex Fridman (2:55:31.240)
but the loss is going to be a large chunk of my audience.
Lex Fridman (2:55:33.960)
And that's a catch 22
Lex Fridman (2:55:35.200)
because you're negotiating power with that company
Dan Carlin (2:55:37.480)
is based on your audience size.
Lex Fridman (2:55:39.280)
So signing up with them diminishes your audience size,
Dan Carlin (2:55:41.360)
you lose negotiating power.
Lex Fridman (2:55:43.400)
But when you get to the level of the Spotify
Dan Carlin (2:55:46.840)
to just pick them out, there's other players,
Lex Fridman (2:55:49.480)
but you brought up Spotify specifically,
Dan Carlin (2:55:51.480)
these are people who can potentially,
Lex Fridman (2:55:54.320)
potentially enhance your audience over time.
Lex Fridman (2:55:57.880)
And so the risk to you is lower
Lex Fridman (2:56:00.800)
because if you decide in a year or two,
Dan Carlin (2:56:03.440)
whatever the licensing agreements term is,
Lex Fridman (2:56:05.880)
that you're done with them and you want to leave,
Dan Carlin (2:56:07.840)
instead of how you would have been
Lex Fridman (2:56:09.640)
with some of these smaller walled gardens,
Dan Carlin (2:56:11.560)
where you're walking away with a fraction of the audience
Lex Fridman (2:56:14.320)
you walked in with,
Dan Carlin (2:56:15.560)
you have the potential to walk out
Lex Fridman (2:56:17.660)
with whatever you got in the original deal,
Dan Carlin (2:56:19.760)
plus a larger audience,
Lex Fridman (2:56:21.240)
because their algorithms and everything
Dan Carlin (2:56:22.840)
are designed to push people to your content
Lex Fridman (2:56:26.440)
if they think you'd like.
Lex Fridman (2:56:27.520)
So it takes away some of the downside risk,
Lex Fridman (2:56:31.320)
which alleviates,
Lex Fridman (2:56:33.280)
and if you can write an agreement like Joe Rogan,
Lex Fridman (2:56:35.320)
I mean, where you've protected your freedom
Dan Carlin (2:56:37.560)
to put the content out the way you want.
Lex Fridman (2:56:39.340)
So, and if some of the downside risk is mitigated,
Lex Fridman (2:56:42.320)
and if you eliminate the problem of trying to monetize
Lex Fridman (2:56:45.840)
and stay up with the latest tech,
Dan Carlin (2:56:47.560)
then it might be worth it.
Lex Fridman (2:56:49.240)
You know, I'm scared of things like that,
Lex Fridman (2:56:51.040)
but at the same time,
Lex Fridman (2:56:51.960)
I'm trying to not be an idiot about it,
Lex Fridman (2:56:54.780)
and I can be an idiot about it.
Lex Fridman (2:56:56.760)
And when you've been doing it as independently
Dan Carlin (2:56:59.360)
for as long as I have,
Lex Fridman (2:57:00.800)
the inertia of that has a force all its own,
Lex Fridman (2:57:04.640)
but I'm inhibited enough in what I'm trying to do
Lex Fridman (2:57:09.560)
on this other end,
Dan Carlin (2:57:10.840)
that it's opened me at least to listening to people.
Lex Fridman (2:57:14.900)
But listen, at the same time, I love my audience,
Lex Fridman (2:57:18.640)
and it sounds like a cliche,
Lex Fridman (2:57:20.840)
but they're literally the reason I'm here.
Lex Fridman (2:57:23.640)
So I wanna make sure that whatever I do,
Lex Fridman (2:57:26.040)
if I can, is in keeping with a relationship
Dan Carlin (2:57:29.760)
that I've developed with these people over 15 years.
Lex Fridman (2:57:34.160)
But like you said, no matter what you do,
Dan Carlin (2:57:36.560)
you are, because see, here's the thing.
Lex Fridman (2:57:38.120)
If you don't sign up with one of those companies
Dan Carlin (2:57:40.020)
to make it easier for them to get your stuff on this hand,
Lex Fridman (2:57:42.660)
they might yell at you for how difficult it is,
Dan Carlin (2:57:45.100)
because the new operating system just updated,
Lex Fridman (2:57:48.080)
and you said, I can't get your stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:57:49.120)
So either way, you're opening yourself up to ridicule
Lex Fridman (2:57:52.120)
at this point.
Dan Carlin (2:57:52.960)
All of that makes it easier to go,
Lex Fridman (2:57:55.200)
well, if the right deal came along,
Lex Fridman (2:57:56.840)
and they weren't screwing me,
Lex Fridman (2:57:57.680)
and they weren't screwing my audience, and blah, blah, blah.
Dan Carlin (2:58:00.500)
I mean, again, in this business,
Lex Fridman (2:58:01.880)
when you're talking about cutting edge technology
Dan Carlin (2:58:03.800)
that is ever changing,
Lex Fridman (2:58:04.940)
and as you said, a million podcasts and growing,
Dan Carlin (2:58:08.040)
I think you have to try to maintain flexibility,
Lex Fridman (2:58:10.760)
and especially if they can mitigate the downside risk,
Dan Carlin (2:58:14.080)
I think you'd be an idiot to not at least try to stay up
Lex Fridman (2:58:19.080)
on the current trends.
Lex Fridman (2:58:20.040)
And look, I'm watching Joe.
Lex Fridman (2:58:22.120)
I'm going, okay, let's see how it goes for Joe.
Dan Carlin (2:58:24.280)
I mean, if he's like, ah, this is terrible,
Lex Fridman (2:58:26.700)
I'm getting out of this,
Dan Carlin (2:58:27.540)
you go, okay, those people are off the list.
Lex Fridman (2:58:29.640)
So Joe's put himself out as a guinea pig,
Lex Fridman (2:58:31.840)
and the rest of us guinea pigs appreciate it.
Lex Fridman (2:58:34.000)
As a huge, as a fan of your show,
Lex Fridman (2:58:36.560)
and as a fan of Netflix, the people there,
Lex Fridman (2:58:40.400)
I think I can speak for like millions of people
Dan Carlin (2:58:44.000)
in hope that hardcore history comes to Netflix,
Lex Fridman (2:58:46.920)
or if Spotify becomes the Netflix of podcasting,
Dan Carlin (2:58:49.520)
then to Spotify.
Lex Fridman (2:58:50.720)
There's something at its best
Dan Carlin (2:58:53.020)
that they bring out the, you said artists,
Lex Fridman (2:58:56.080)
so I can say it,
Dan Carlin (2:58:57.600)
is they bring out the best out of the artists.
Lex Fridman (2:58:59.720)
They remove some of the headache,
Lex Fridman (2:59:02.820)
and somehow like they put at their best,
Lex Fridman (2:59:08.160)
Netflix, for example, is able to enforce
Lex Fridman (2:59:11.760)
and find the beauty and the power
Lex Fridman (2:59:14.420)
in the creations that you make even better than you.
Dan Carlin (2:59:17.800)
Like they don't interfere with the creations,
Lex Fridman (2:59:20.580)
but they somehow, it's a branding thing probably too.
Dan Carlin (2:59:24.400)
Yeah, but interfering would be,
Lex Fridman (2:59:25.240)
that would be a no go for me.
Dan Carlin (2:59:26.520)
That's right, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:59:28.000)
That can't happen.
Lex Fridman (2:59:28.840)
But that's why Netflix is masterful.
Lex Fridman (2:59:31.000)
They seem to not interfere with the talent,
Dan Carlin (2:59:34.020)
as opposed to, I could throw other people under the bus,
Lex Fridman (2:59:36.460)
like Amazon.
Dan Carlin (2:59:37.300)
There's a lot of places under the bus
Lex Fridman (2:59:38.400)
that could be thrown, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:59:39.800)
So I would love, I know there's probably
Lex Fridman (2:59:41.800)
people screaming yes right now.
Dan Carlin (2:59:43.560)
In terms of hardcore history on Netflix,
Lex Fridman (2:59:45.520)
it would be awesome.
Lex Fridman (2:59:46.520)
And I don't love asking this question,
Lex Fridman (2:59:51.120)
but it's asked probably the most popular question
Dan Carlin (2:59:55.580)
that's unanswerable.
Lex Fridman (2:59:57.060)
So let me try to ask it in a way
Dan Carlin (2:59:59.320)
that you would actually answer it,
Lex Fridman (30:01.060)
Yeah, I hated the Germans for what they were doing.
Dan Carlin (30:03.300)
As a matter of fact, I got a note from a poll
Lex Fridman (30:06.220)
not that long ago.
Lex Fridman (30:07.420)
And I have this tendency to refer to the Nazis, right?
Lex Fridman (30:10.740)
The regime that was, and he said,
Lex Fridman (30:12.420)
why do you keep calling them Nazis?
Lex Fridman (30:14.060)
He says, say what they were.
Dan Carlin (30:15.740)
They were Germans.
Lex Fridman (30:17.020)
And this guy wanted me to not absolve Germany
Dan Carlin (30:21.240)
by saying, oh, it was this awful group of people
Lex Fridman (30:23.460)
that took over your country.
Dan Carlin (30:24.540)
He said, the Germans did this.
Lex Fridman (30:26.340)
And there's that bitterness where he says,
Dan Carlin (30:28.540)
let's not forget what they did to us
Lex Fridman (30:30.860)
and what we had to do back, right?
Lex Fridman (30:33.740)
So for me, when we talk about these combat situations,
Lex Fridman (30:37.140)
the reason I call these people heroic is because of,
Dan Carlin (30:40.240)
they're fighting to defend things we could all understand.
Lex Fridman (30:42.860)
I mean, if you come after my brother
Lex Fridman (30:45.300)
and I take a machine gun and shoot you
Lex Fridman (30:48.540)
and you're gonna overrun me,
Dan Carlin (30:49.580)
I mean, that becomes a situation
Lex Fridman (30:51.980)
where we talked about counterforce earlier.
Dan Carlin (30:55.140)
Much easier to call yourself a hero
Lex Fridman (30:56.920)
when you're saving people
Dan Carlin (30:57.980)
or you're saving this town right behind you.
Lex Fridman (30:59.860)
And you know, if they get through your machine gun,
Dan Carlin (31:02.340)
they're gonna burn these villages.
Lex Fridman (31:03.520)
They're gonna throw these people out
Dan Carlin (31:04.580)
in the middle of winter, these families.
Lex Fridman (31:06.680)
That to me is a very different sort of heroism
Dan Carlin (31:09.420)
than this amorphous idea of patriotism.
Lex Fridman (31:13.060)
And you know, patriotism is a thing
Lex Fridman (31:14.340)
that we often get used with, right?
Lex Fridman (31:17.460)
People manipulate us through love of country and all this
Dan Carlin (31:21.440)
because they understand
Lex Fridman (31:22.340)
that this is something we feel very strongly,
Lex Fridman (31:24.020)
but they use it against us sometimes
Lex Fridman (31:26.480)
in order to whip up a war fever or to get people.
Dan Carlin (31:29.460)
I mean, there's a great line
Lex Fridman (31:30.980)
and I wish I could remember it in its entirety
Dan Carlin (31:32.660)
that Herman Goering had said about how easy it was
Lex Fridman (31:35.460)
to get the people into a war.
Dan Carlin (31:37.240)
He says, you know, you just appeal to their patriotism,
Lex Fridman (31:39.380)
you, I mean, there's buttons that you can push
Lex Fridman (31:41.540)
and they take advantage of things like love of country
Lex Fridman (31:44.500)
and the way we have a loyalty and an admiration
Dan Carlin (31:48.080)
to the warriors who put their lives on the line.
Lex Fridman (31:50.180)
These are manipulatable things in the human species
Dan Carlin (31:53.860)
that reliably can be counted on to move us
Lex Fridman (31:57.740)
in directions that in a more sober, reflective state of mind
Dan Carlin (32:03.740)
we would consider differently.
Lex Fridman (32:05.140)
It gets the, I mean, you get this war fever up
Lex Fridman (32:07.020)
and people wave flags and they start denouncing the enemy
Lex Fridman (32:09.940)
and they start signing, you know, we've seen it over
Lex Fridman (32:11.920)
and over and over again in ancient times this happened.
Lex Fridman (32:14.660)
But the love of country is also beautiful.
Lex Fridman (32:17.340)
So I haven't seen it in America as much.
Lex Fridman (32:19.900)
So people in America love their country,
Dan Carlin (32:22.180)
like this patriotism is strong in America,
Lex Fridman (32:24.820)
but it's not as strong as I remember,
Dan Carlin (32:27.520)
even with my sort of being younger,
Lex Fridman (32:30.420)
the love of the Soviet Union.
Dan Carlin (32:33.780)
Now, was it the Soviet Union this requires a distinction
Lex Fridman (32:36.680)
or was it mother Russia?
Lex Fridman (32:39.140)
What it really was, was the communist party.
Lex Fridman (32:41.300)
Okay, so it was the system in place, okay.
Dan Carlin (32:43.660)
The system in place, like loving,
Lex Fridman (32:46.340)
I haven't quite deeply synchronized exactly what you love.
Dan Carlin (32:49.980)
I think you love that like populist message of the worker,
Lex Fridman (32:56.540)
of the common man, the common person.
Dan Carlin (32:59.100)
Let me draw the comparison then.
Lex Fridman (33:01.440)
And I often say this, that the United States
Lex Fridman (33:04.560)
like the Soviet Union is an ideological based society, right?
Lex Fridman (33:09.940)
So you take a country like France,
Dan Carlin (33:13.380)
it doesn't matter which French government you're in now.
Lex Fridman (33:16.100)
The French have been the French for a long time, right?
Lex Fridman (33:19.060)
It's not based on an ideology, right?
Lex Fridman (33:22.700)
Whereas what unites the United States is an ideology,
Dan Carlin (33:26.260)
freedom, liberty, the constitution.
Lex Fridman (33:28.460)
This is what draws, you know,
Lex Fridman (33:29.500)
it's the e pluribus unum kind of the idea, right?
Lex Fridman (33:32.100)
That out of many one, well, what binds
Lex Fridman (33:34.900)
all these unique different people?
Lex Fridman (33:37.020)
The shared beliefs, this ideology.
Dan Carlin (33:39.380)
The Soviet Union was the same way.
Lex Fridman (33:40.780)
Cause as you know, the Soviet Union,
Dan Carlin (33:42.180)
Russia was merely one part of the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (33:45.860)
And if you believe the rhetoric until Stalin's time,
Dan Carlin (33:49.180)
everybody was going to be united
Lex Fridman (33:52.000)
under this ideological banner someday, right?
Dan Carlin (33:54.300)
It was a global revolution.
Lex Fridman (33:56.920)
So ideological societies are different.
Lex Fridman (33:59.100)
And to be a fan of the ideological framework and goal,
Lex Fridman (34:03.840)
I mean, I'm a Liberty person, right?
Dan Carlin (34:05.860)
I would like to see everybody in the world
Lex Fridman (34:08.500)
have my system of government,
Lex Fridman (34:09.760)
which is part of a bias, right?
Lex Fridman (34:12.460)
Because they might not want that.
Lex Fridman (34:14.220)
But I think it's better for everyone
Lex Fridman (34:16.020)
cause I think it's better for me.
Dan Carlin (34:17.860)
At the same time, when the ideology,
Lex Fridman (34:20.900)
if you consider, and you know,
Dan Carlin (34:22.380)
this stems from ideas of the enlightenment
Lex Fridman (34:25.300)
and there's a bias there.
Lex Fridman (34:26.620)
So my bias are toward the, but you feel,
Lex Fridman (34:28.860)
and this is why you say,
Dan Carlin (34:29.700)
we're going to bring freedom to Iraq.
Lex Fridman (34:30.780)
We're going to bring freedom to here.
Dan Carlin (34:31.620)
We're going to bring freedom
Lex Fridman (34:32.460)
because we think we're spreading to you
Dan Carlin (34:34.340)
something that is just undeniably positive.
Lex Fridman (34:37.940)
We're going to free you and give you this.
Lex Fridman (34:42.900)
It's hard for me to wipe my own bias away from there, right?
Lex Fridman (34:47.780)
Cause if I were in Iraq, for example,
Lex Fridman (34:50.220)
I would want freedom, right?
Lex Fridman (34:51.860)
But if you then leave and let the Iraqis vote
Dan Carlin (34:54.780)
for whomever they want,
Lex Fridman (34:56.300)
are they going to vote for somebody that will,
Dan Carlin (34:58.660)
I mean, you know, you look at Russia now
Lex Fridman (35:01.540)
and I hear from Russians quite a bit
Dan Carlin (35:03.140)
because so much of my views on Russia
Lex Fridman (35:06.660)
and the Soviet Union were formed in my formative years.
Dan Carlin (35:09.820)
And, you know, we were not hearing from many people
Lex Fridman (35:12.700)
in the Soviet Union back then, but now you do.
Dan Carlin (35:14.860)
You hear from Russians today who will say,
Lex Fridman (35:16.500)
your views on Stalin are archaic and cold.
Dan Carlin (35:18.980)
You know, so you try to reorient your beliefs a little bit,
Lex Fridman (35:21.780)
but it goes to this idea of,
Dan Carlin (35:23.260)
if you gave the people in Russia a free and fair vote,
Lex Fridman (35:27.060)
will they vote for somebody who promises them
Dan Carlin (35:29.260)
a free and open society
Lex Fridman (35:30.660)
based on enlightenment democratic principles?
Dan Carlin (35:33.060)
Or will they vote for somebody,
Lex Fridman (35:34.180)
we in the US would go, what are they doing?
Dan Carlin (35:36.260)
They're voting for some strong man who's just good.
Lex Fridman (35:38.540)
You know, so I think it's very hard to throw away
Dan Carlin (35:41.940)
our own biases and preconceptions.
Lex Fridman (35:45.220)
And, you know, it's an all eye of the beholder kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (35:48.780)
But when you're talking about ideological societies,
Lex Fridman (35:52.060)
it is very difficult to throw off
Dan Carlin (35:55.100)
all the years of indoctrination
Lex Fridman (35:57.140)
into the superiority of your system.
Dan Carlin (35:59.660)
I mean, listen, in the Soviet Union,
Lex Fridman (36:01.500)
Marxism one way or another was part of every classrooms.
Dan Carlin (36:04.780)
You know, you could be studying geometry
Lex Fridman (36:06.640)
and they'll throw Marxism in there somehow,
Dan Carlin (36:09.080)
because that's what united the society.
Lex Fridman (36:11.580)
And that's what gave it a higher purpose.
Lex Fridman (36:13.540)
And that's what made it in the minds of the people
Lex Fridman (36:16.500)
who were its defenders,
Dan Carlin (36:17.820)
a superior, morally superior system.
Lex Fridman (36:20.500)
And we do the same thing here.
Dan Carlin (36:21.680)
In fact, most people do, but see, you're still French,
Lex Fridman (36:24.820)
no matter what the ideology or the government might be.
Lex Fridman (36:28.100)
So in that sense,
Lex Fridman (36:29.780)
it's funny that there would be a cold war
Dan Carlin (36:31.720)
with these two systems,
Lex Fridman (36:32.800)
because they're both ideologically based systems
Dan Carlin (36:35.620)
involving peoples of many different backgrounds
Lex Fridman (36:38.300)
who are united under the umbrella of the ideology.
Dan Carlin (36:42.060)
First of all, that's brilliantly put.
Lex Fridman (36:45.120)
I'm in a funny position that in my formative years,
Dan Carlin (36:48.620)
I came here when I was 13,
Lex Fridman (36:50.160)
is when I, you know, teenage is your first love or whatever,
Dan Carlin (36:55.840)
is I fell in love with the American set of ideas
Lex Fridman (36:59.700)
of freedom and individuals.
Lex Fridman (37:00.960)
They're compelling, aren't they?
Lex Fridman (37:01.800)
Yes. They're compelling, yes.
Lex Fridman (37:02.840)
But I also remember, it's like you remember
Lex Fridman (37:05.080)
like maybe an ex girlfriend or something like that.
Dan Carlin (37:07.480)
I also remember loving as a very different human,
Lex Fridman (37:13.300)
the Soviet idea, like we had the national anthem,
Dan Carlin (37:17.780)
which is still, I think the most badass national anthem,
Lex Fridman (37:20.880)
which is the Soviet Union,
Dan Carlin (37:22.600)
like saying we're the indestructible nation.
Lex Fridman (37:24.760)
I mean, just the words are so,
Dan Carlin (37:26.920)
like Americans words are like, oh, we're nice.
Lex Fridman (37:29.760)
Like we're freedom,
Lex Fridman (37:31.320)
but like a Russian Soviet Union national anthem was like,
Lex Fridman (37:34.580)
we're bad motherfuckers.
Dan Carlin (37:35.980)
Nobody will destroy us.
Lex Fridman (37:38.120)
I just remember feeling pride in a nation as a kid,
Dan Carlin (37:41.860)
like dumb not knowing anything
Lex Fridman (37:43.320)
because we all had to recite the stuff.
Dan Carlin (37:45.360)
It was, there's a uniformity to everything.
Lex Fridman (37:48.520)
There's pride underlying everything.
Dan Carlin (37:50.460)
I didn't think about all the destructive nature
Lex Fridman (37:52.960)
of the bureaucracy, the incompetence,
Dan Carlin (37:56.380)
the, you know, all the things that come
Lex Fridman (37:59.020)
with the implementation of communism,
Dan Carlin (38:01.880)
especially around the eighties and nineties.
Lex Fridman (38:06.120)
But I remember what it's like to love that set of ideas.
Lex Fridman (38:09.640)
So I'm in a funny place of like,
Lex Fridman (38:12.280)
remember like switching the love
Dan Carlin (38:14.600)
because I'm, you know,
Lex Fridman (38:15.600)
I kind of joke around about being Russian,
Lex Fridman (38:18.200)
but you know, my longterm monogamous relationship
Lex Fridman (38:21.280)
is now with the idea, the American ideal.
Dan Carlin (38:23.780)
Like I'm stuck with it in my mind,
Lex Fridman (38:25.900)
but I remember what it was like to love it.
Lex Fridman (38:28.920)
And I think about that too,
Lex Fridman (38:30.400)
when people criticize China or they criticize
Dan Carlin (38:33.420)
the current state of affairs with how Stalin is remembered
Lex Fridman (38:37.260)
and how Putin is to know that the,
Dan Carlin (38:42.260)
you can't always wear the American ideal of individualism,
Lex Fridman (38:48.220)
radical individualism and freedom
Dan Carlin (38:50.660)
in analyzing the ways of the world elsewhere.
Lex Fridman (38:54.620)
Like in China, in Russia, that it does,
Dan Carlin (38:59.160)
if you don't take yourself too seriously,
Lex Fridman (39:01.360)
as Americans all do, as I do,
Dan Carlin (39:04.380)
it's kind of a beautiful love to have for your government,
Lex Fridman (39:09.220)
to believe in the nation, to let go of yourself
Lex Fridman (39:13.100)
and your rights and your freedoms,
Lex Fridman (39:15.340)
to believe in something bigger than yourself.
Dan Carlin (39:18.000)
That's actually, that's a kind of freedom.
Lex Fridman (39:22.020)
That's, you're actually liberating yourself.
Dan Carlin (39:24.660)
If you think like life is suffering,
Lex Fridman (39:26.700)
you're giving into the flow of the water,
Dan Carlin (39:30.180)
the flow, the way of the world
Lex Fridman (39:32.200)
by giving away more power from yourself
Lex Fridman (39:35.020)
and giving it to what you would conceive as,
Lex Fridman (39:37.340)
as the power of the people together,
Dan Carlin (39:40.080)
together we'll do great things
Lex Fridman (39:41.480)
and really believing in the ideals of what,
Dan Carlin (39:46.540)
in this case, I don't even know what you would call Russia,
Lex Fridman (39:50.300)
but whatever the heck that is,
Dan Carlin (39:51.660)
authoritarian, powerful state, powerful leader,
Lex Fridman (39:56.460)
believing that can be as beautiful
Dan Carlin (3:00:01.520)
which is, of course, you said
Lex Fridman (3:00:02.760)
you don't release shows very often.
Lex Fridman (3:00:05.040)
And the question is, or the requests and the questions is,
Lex Fridman (3:00:08.760)
well, can you tell Dan to do one on the Civil War?
Lex Fridman (3:00:11.760)
Can you tell Dan to do one on the Napoleon Bonaparte?
Lex Fridman (3:00:14.240)
Can you tell him to do one?
Dan Carlin (3:00:16.400)
Every topic, and you've spoken to this.
Lex Fridman (3:00:18.660)
Actually, your answer about the Civil War
Dan Carlin (3:00:20.040)
is quite interesting.
Lex Fridman (3:00:21.040)
I didn't know you knew what my answer
Dan Carlin (3:00:22.880)
about the Civil War was.
Lex Fridman (3:00:24.880)
As a military historian, you enjoy, in particular,
Dan Carlin (3:00:27.520)
when there is differences in the armies,
Lex Fridman (3:00:29.960)
as opposed to contrasts.
Dan Carlin (3:00:32.400)
With the Civil War, which blew my mind
Lex Fridman (3:00:34.680)
when I heard you say there's not an interesting,
Dan Carlin (3:00:38.880)
a deep, intricate contrast between the two opposing sides.
Lex Fridman (3:00:42.200)
It's like the Roman Civil Wars,
Dan Carlin (3:00:43.120)
where it's legionary against legionary.
Lex Fridman (3:00:45.520)
And you've also said that the shows you work on
Dan Carlin (3:00:49.080)
are ones where you have some roots
Lex Fridman (3:00:51.320)
of fundamental understanding about that period.
Lex Fridman (3:00:54.720)
And so, when you work on a show,
Lex Fridman (3:00:57.380)
it's basically pulling at those strings further
Lex Fridman (3:01:00.360)
and refreshing your mind and learning.
Lex Fridman (3:01:02.960)
You have definitely done the research.
Dan Carlin (3:01:04.680)
Wow, these are words out of my mouth.
Lex Fridman (3:01:06.280)
Yeah, you're right.
Lex Fridman (3:01:07.680)
But is there something like shower thoughts on Reddit?
Lex Fridman (3:01:12.680)
Is there some ideas that are lingering in your head
Lex Fridman (3:01:16.920)
about possible future episodes?
Lex Fridman (3:01:19.600)
Is there things that, whether you're not committing
Dan Carlin (3:01:23.960)
to anything, but whether you're gonna do it or not,
Lex Fridman (3:01:27.840)
is there something that makes you think,
Dan Carlin (3:01:29.920)
hmm, that'll be interesting to pull at that thread
Lex Fridman (3:01:34.040)
a little bit?
Dan Carlin (3:01:35.600)
Oh yeah, we have things we keep in our back pocket
Lex Fridman (3:01:38.400)
for later.
Dan Carlin (3:01:39.240)
So, Blueprint for Armageddon, the first World War series
Lex Fridman (3:01:42.280)
we did, that was in my back pocket the whole time.
Lex Fridman (3:01:44.840)
And when the centennial of the war happened,
Lex Fridman (3:01:47.320)
it just seemed to be the likely time to bring out what was.
Dan Carlin (3:01:50.400)
That was a hell of a series.
Lex Fridman (3:01:51.800)
That's probably one of my favorite series.
Dan Carlin (3:01:53.240)
Take my rear end, man.
Lex Fridman (3:01:54.600)
I have to tell you.
Lex Fridman (3:01:55.440)
Psychologically, you mean?
Lex Fridman (3:01:56.280)
Well, just, you know, when you get to these,
Dan Carlin (3:01:58.660)
I think, I'm guessing here, I think it's 26 hours,
Lex Fridman (3:02:01.640)
all pieces together.
Dan Carlin (3:02:02.840)
Think about, and we don't do scripts.
Lex Fridman (3:02:05.360)
It's improvised.
Dan Carlin (3:02:06.560)
So, think about what, I had somebody write on Twitter
Lex Fridman (3:02:10.320)
just yesterday saying, he said something like,
Dan Carlin (3:02:13.200)
I'm not seeing the dedication here.
Lex Fridman (3:02:14.760)
You're only getting 2.5 shows out a year.
Lex Fridman (3:02:16.760)
And I wanted to say, man, you have no idea what,
Lex Fridman (3:02:20.380)
the only people who understand really
Dan Carlin (3:02:22.480)
are other history podcasters.
Lex Fridman (3:02:24.360)
And even they don't generally do 26 hours.
Dan Carlin (3:02:27.440)
You know, that was a two year endeavor.
Lex Fridman (3:02:29.920)
As I said, the first show we ever did was like 15 minutes.
Dan Carlin (3:02:32.000)
I could crank out one of those a month.
Lex Fridman (3:02:33.840)
But when you're doing, I mean, the last show we did
Dan Carlin (3:02:36.140)
on the fall of the Roman Republic was five and a half hours.
Lex Fridman (3:02:39.040)
That's a book, right?
Lex Fridman (3:02:41.320)
And it was part six or something.
Lex Fridman (3:02:43.040)
So, I mean, you just do the math.
Lex Fridman (3:02:45.560)
And it felt like you were, sorry to interrupt,
Lex Fridman (3:02:47.800)
on World War I, it felt like you were emotionally
Dan Carlin (3:02:51.760)
pulled in to it.
Lex Fridman (3:02:53.760)
Like, it felt taxing.
Dan Carlin (3:02:55.280)
I was gonna say, that's a good thing though,
Lex Fridman (3:02:56.440)
because that, you know, and I think we said during the show,
Dan Carlin (3:02:58.780)
that was the feeling that the people at the time have.
Lex Fridman (3:03:01.880)
And I think at one point we said,
Dan Carlin (3:03:03.400)
if this is starting to seem gruesomely repetitive,
Lex Fridman (3:03:06.940)
now you know how the people at the time felt.
Lex Fridman (3:03:10.160)
So in other words, that had sort of inadvertently,
Lex Fridman (3:03:13.500)
because when you improvise a show,
Dan Carlin (3:03:14.620)
some of these things are inadvertent,
Lex Fridman (3:03:16.360)
but it had inadvertently created the right climate
Dan Carlin (3:03:20.160)
for having a sense of empathy with the storyline.
Lex Fridman (3:03:24.440)
And to me, those are the serendipitous moments
Dan Carlin (3:03:26.880)
that make this art and not some sort of paint by the numbers
Lex Fridman (3:03:31.000)
kind of endeavor, you know?
Lex Fridman (3:03:32.280)
And that's, to me, that wouldn't have happened
Lex Fridman (3:03:35.160)
had we scripted it out.
Lex Fridman (3:03:36.920)
So it's mostly, you just bring the tools of knowledge
Lex Fridman (3:03:40.680)
to the table and then in large part improvise,
Lex Fridman (3:03:44.240)
like the actual wording?
Lex Fridman (3:03:45.520)
I always say we make it like they made things
Dan Carlin (3:03:47.240)
like spinal tap and some of those other things
Lex Fridman (3:03:49.360)
where the material, so I do have notes about things
Dan Carlin (3:03:52.840)
like on page 427 of this book, you have this quote,
Lex Fridman (3:03:55.540)
so that I know, aha, I'm at the point
Dan Carlin (3:03:57.280)
where I can drop that in.
Lex Fridman (3:03:58.760)
And sometimes I'll write notes saying,
Dan Carlin (3:04:00.600)
here's where you left off yesterday, so I remember.
Lex Fridman (3:04:03.960)
But in the improvisation, you end up throwing a lot out.
Lex Fridman (3:04:07.440)
And so like, but it allows us to go off on tangents,
Lex Fridman (3:04:10.560)
like we'll try things.
Dan Carlin (3:04:11.440)
Like I'll sit there and go,
Lex Fridman (3:04:12.560)
I wonder what this would sound like.
Lex Fridman (3:04:14.080)
And I'll spend two days going down that road
Lex Fridman (3:04:16.900)
and then I'll listen to it and go, it doesn't work.
Lex Fridman (3:04:18.560)
But that's, you know, like writers do this all the time.
Lex Fridman (3:04:20.840)
It's called killing your babies, right?
Dan Carlin (3:04:22.280)
You got, can't, you know, but people go,
Lex Fridman (3:04:24.600)
so this guy goes, I'm not seeing the dedication.
Dan Carlin (3:04:26.400)
He has no idea how many things we're throwing out.
Lex Fridman (3:04:28.920)
I did an hour and a half,
Dan Carlin (3:04:30.720)
I had an hour and a half into The Current Show
Lex Fridman (3:04:32.560)
about two months ago.
Lex Fridman (3:04:34.440)
And I listened to it and I just went, you know what?
Lex Fridman (3:04:36.280)
It's not right.
Dan Carlin (3:04:37.120)
Boom, out the window.
Lex Fridman (3:04:37.940)
There goes six weeks of work, right?
Lex Fridman (3:04:41.000)
But here's the problem.
Lex Fridman (3:04:42.480)
Do you trust your, sorry to interrupt,
Lex Fridman (3:04:43.800)
do you trust your judgment on that?
Lex Fridman (3:04:45.400)
No, no.
Lex Fridman (3:04:48.400)
But here's the thing.
Lex Fridman (3:04:51.960)
Our show is a little different than other people's.
Dan Carlin (3:04:54.100)
Joe Rogan called it evergreen content.
Lex Fridman (3:04:56.380)
In other words, my political show is like a car you buy.
Lex Fridman (3:04:59.800)
And the minute you drive it off the lot,
Lex Fridman (3:05:01.520)
it loses half its value, right?
Dan Carlin (3:05:03.000)
Cause it's not current anymore.
Lex Fridman (3:05:04.560)
These shows are just as good or just as bad
Dan Carlin (3:05:07.840)
five years from now as they are when we,
Lex Fridman (3:05:09.640)
although the standards on the internet changed.
Lex Fridman (3:05:11.360)
So when I listen to my old shows,
Lex Fridman (3:05:12.440)
I cringe sometimes cause the standards
Dan Carlin (3:05:14.000)
are so much higher now.
Lex Fridman (3:05:15.240)
But when you're creating evergreen content,
Dan Carlin (3:05:18.060)
you have two audiences to worry about.
Lex Fridman (3:05:20.320)
You have the audience that's waiting for the next show
Lex Fridman (3:05:22.560)
and they've already heard the other ones
Lex Fridman (3:05:23.720)
and they're impatient and they're telling you on Twitter,
Lex Fridman (3:05:25.360)
where is it?
Lex Fridman (3:05:26.240)
But you have show,
Dan Carlin (3:05:27.120)
the show is also for people five years from now
Lex Fridman (3:05:29.080)
who haven't discovered it yet
Lex Fridman (3:05:30.440)
and who don't care a wit for how long it took
Lex Fridman (3:05:32.880)
cause they're gonna be able to download the whole,
Lex Fridman (3:05:34.880)
and all they care about is quality.
Lex Fridman (3:05:36.840)
And so what I always tell new podcasters is,
Dan Carlin (3:05:40.200)
they always say, I read all these things,
Lex Fridman (3:05:41.640)
it's very important you have a release schedule.
Dan Carlin (3:05:44.440)
Well, it's not more important
Lex Fridman (3:05:45.480)
than putting out a good piece of work.
Lex Fridman (3:05:47.280)
And the audience will forgive me if it takes too long,
Lex Fridman (3:05:52.040)
but it's really good when you get it.
Dan Carlin (3:05:53.880)
They will not forgive me if I rush it
Lex Fridman (3:05:55.720)
to get it out on time and it's a piece of crap.
Lex Fridman (3:05:58.320)
So for us, and this is why when you brought up
Lex Fridman (3:06:00.800)
a Spotify deal or anything else,
Dan Carlin (3:06:02.480)
they can't interfere with this at all
Lex Fridman (3:06:04.160)
because my job here, as far as I'm concerned is quality
Lex Fridman (3:06:07.920)
and everything else goes by the wayside
Lex Fridman (3:06:10.240)
because the only thing people care about longterm,
Lex Fridman (3:06:12.480)
the only thing that gives you longevity is how good is it?
Lex Fridman (3:06:15.760)
How good is that book?
Dan Carlin (3:06:16.720)
If you read J.R.R. Tolkien's work tomorrow,
Lex Fridman (3:06:19.320)
you don't care how long it took him to write it,
Lex Fridman (3:06:21.200)
all you care is how good is it today?
Lex Fridman (3:06:22.720)
And that's what we try to think too.
Lex Fridman (3:06:24.120)
And I feel like if it's good, if it's really good,
Lex Fridman (3:06:27.120)
everything else falls into place and takes care of itself.
Lex Fridman (3:06:30.600)
And so sometimes to push back, sorry to interrupt.
Lex Fridman (3:06:33.440)
I've done it to you a thousand times,
Lex Fridman (3:06:34.720)
so you can get me back, please.
Lex Fridman (3:06:36.160)
Sometimes the deadline, some of the greatest movies
Lex Fridman (3:06:40.560)
and books have been, you think about like Dostoevsky,
Lex Fridman (3:06:43.760)
I forget which one, notes from underground or something.
Dan Carlin (3:06:46.000)
He needed the money, so he had to write it real quick.
Lex Fridman (3:06:49.040)
Sometimes the deadline creates is powerful
Dan Carlin (3:06:53.920)
at taking a creative mind of an artist
Lex Fridman (3:06:57.280)
and just like slapping it around
Dan Carlin (3:06:59.480)
to force some of the good stuff out.
Lex Fridman (3:07:01.160)
Now, the problem with history, of course,
Dan Carlin (3:07:02.720)
is there's different definitions of good
Lex Fridman (3:07:06.480)
that like it's not just about which you talk about,
Dan Carlin (3:07:09.160)
which is the storytelling,
Lex Fridman (3:07:10.320)
the richness of the storytelling.
Lex Fridman (3:07:12.000)
And I'm sure you're, again, not to compliment you too much,
Lex Fridman (3:07:15.560)
but you're one of the great storytellers of our time
Dan Carlin (3:07:18.200)
that I'm sure if you put in a jail cell
Lex Fridman (3:07:21.040)
and forced like somebody pointed a gun at you,
Dan Carlin (3:07:24.360)
you could tell one hell of a good story,
Lex Fridman (3:07:26.280)
but you still need the facts of history
Dan Carlin (3:07:29.600)
or not necessarily the facts,
Lex Fridman (3:07:31.280)
but like making sure you're painting the right full picture,
Dan Carlin (3:07:36.000)
not perfectly right.
Lex Fridman (3:07:37.280)
That's what I meant about the audience
Dan Carlin (3:07:38.480)
doesn't understand what a history podcast,
Lex Fridman (3:07:39.880)
you can't just riff and be wrong.
Lex Fridman (3:07:41.680)
So let me both oppose what you just said
Lex Fridman (3:07:45.600)
and back up what you just said.
Lex Fridman (3:07:47.320)
So I have a book that I wrote, right?
Lex Fridman (3:07:49.360)
And in a book you have a hard deadline, right?
Lex Fridman (3:07:52.280)
So Harper Collins had a hard deadline on that book.
Lex Fridman (3:07:54.960)
So when I released it, I was mad
Dan Carlin (3:07:57.560)
because I would have worked on it a lot longer,
Lex Fridman (3:07:59.520)
which is my style, right?
Dan Carlin (3:08:00.800)
Get it right.
Lex Fridman (3:08:02.320)
But we had a chapter in that book
Dan Carlin (3:08:04.600)
entitled pandemic prologue question mark.
Lex Fridman (3:08:07.920)
And it was the book about the part about the black death
Lex Fridman (3:08:10.680)
and the 1918 flu and all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (3:08:13.720)
And I was just doing an interview
Dan Carlin (3:08:15.520)
with a Spanish journalist this morning who said,
Lex Fridman (3:08:18.080)
did you ever think how lucky you got on that?
Lex Fridman (3:08:20.040)
And first of all, lucky on a pandemic, it strikes you.
Lex Fridman (3:08:24.280)
But had I had my druthers,
Dan Carlin (3:08:27.440)
I would have kept that book working
Lex Fridman (3:08:29.480)
in my study for months more
Lex Fridman (3:08:32.240)
and the pandemic would have happened.
Lex Fridman (3:08:34.560)
And that would have looked like a chapter
Dan Carlin (3:08:36.560)
I wrote after the fact.
Lex Fridman (3:08:37.880)
I would have had to rewrite the whole thing.
Lex Fridman (3:08:39.680)
So that argues for what you said.
Lex Fridman (3:08:42.680)
At the same time, I would have spent months more
Dan Carlin (3:08:45.920)
working on it because to me,
Lex Fridman (3:08:47.080)
it didn't look the way I wanted it to look yet.
Lex Fridman (3:08:49.720)
Can you drop a hint of the things
Lex Fridman (3:08:51.960)
that you're keeping on the shelves?
Dan Carlin (3:08:53.440)
Oh, the Alexander the Great podcast.
Lex Fridman (3:08:55.080)
I've talked around, I talked to somebody the other day,
Dan Carlin (3:08:58.080)
he said, do you know that the very first word
Lex Fridman (3:09:00.560)
in your very first podcast, in the title,
Dan Carlin (3:09:02.880)
the very first thing that anybody ever saw
Lex Fridman (3:09:04.400)
with hardcore history is the word Alexander.
Dan Carlin (3:09:07.840)
Because the show's entitled Alexander versus Hitler.
Lex Fridman (3:09:10.080)
I have talked around the career.
Dan Carlin (3:09:12.120)
I've done show after,
Lex Fridman (3:09:13.040)
I talked about his mother in one episode.
Dan Carlin (3:09:14.960)
I talked about the funeral games after his death.
Lex Fridman (3:09:18.240)
I've talked around this,
Dan Carlin (3:09:19.400)
I've specifically left this giant Alexandrian size hole
Lex Fridman (3:09:22.840)
in the middle,
Dan Carlin (3:09:23.680)
because we're gonna do that show one day
Lex Fridman (3:09:24.920)
and I'm going to lovingly enjoy talking about
Dan Carlin (3:09:27.640)
this crazily interesting figure of Alexander the Great.
Lex Fridman (3:09:30.560)
So that's one of the ones that's on the back pocket list.
Lex Fridman (3:09:33.280)
And what we try to do is whenever this,
Lex Fridman (3:09:37.160)
we're doing Second World War in Asia and the Pacific now,
Dan Carlin (3:09:40.600)
I'm on part five, whenever the heck we finish this,
Lex Fridman (3:09:43.480)
the tendency is to then pick a very different period
Dan Carlin (3:09:46.160)
because we've had it and the audience has had it.
Lex Fridman (3:09:49.120)
So it's time.
Lex Fridman (3:09:49.960)
So I will eventually get to the Alexander saga.
Lex Fridman (3:09:53.200)
What about just one last kind of little part of this is,
Lex Fridman (3:09:57.920)
what about the other half of that first 10 minute,
Lex Fridman (3:10:00.600)
15 minute episode?
Dan Carlin (3:10:02.360)
Which is, so you've done quite a bit about the World War.
Lex Fridman (3:10:05.040)
You've done quite a bit about Germany.
Lex Fridman (3:10:07.720)
Will you ever think about doing Hitler and the Man?
Lex Fridman (3:10:12.400)
It's funny because I talked earlier
Dan Carlin (3:10:14.800)
about how I don't like to go back to the old shows
Lex Fridman (3:10:16.440)
cause our standards have changed so much.
Dan Carlin (3:10:18.040)
Well, a long time ago,
Lex Fridman (3:10:19.640)
one of my standards for not getting five hour podcasts done
Dan Carlin (3:10:24.480)
or not getting too deeply into them
Lex Fridman (3:10:27.160)
was to flip around the interesting points.
Dan Carlin (3:10:29.960)
We didn't realize we were gonna get an audience
Lex Fridman (3:10:32.280)
that wanted the actual history.
Dan Carlin (3:10:34.520)
We thought we could just go with,
Lex Fridman (3:10:36.400)
assume the audience knew the details
Lex Fridman (3:10:38.120)
and just talk about the weird stuff
Lex Fridman (3:10:39.440)
that only makes up one part of the show now.
Lex Fridman (3:10:41.720)
So we did a show called Nazi tidbits.
Lex Fridman (3:10:44.640)
And it was just little things about,
Dan Carlin (3:10:46.760)
you know, it's totally out of date now.
Lex Fridman (3:10:47.960)
Like, you know, you can still buy them,
Lex Fridman (3:10:49.240)
but they're out of date.
Lex Fridman (3:10:51.440)
Where we dealt a little with it.
Dan Carlin (3:10:53.720)
You know, it would be interesting,
Lex Fridman (3:10:54.920)
but I'll give you another example.
Dan Carlin (3:10:56.240)
I mean, history is not stagnant, as you know.
Lex Fridman (3:10:59.400)
And we had talked about Stalin earlier
Lex Fridman (3:11:02.120)
and Ghost of the Ostfront was done years ago.
Lex Fridman (3:11:04.600)
And people will write me from Russia now and say,
Dan Carlin (3:11:06.660)
well, your portrayal of Stalin is totally out of,
Lex Fridman (3:11:09.520)
out of, it's outdated because there's all this new stuff
Dan Carlin (3:11:13.520)
from the former Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (3:11:15.080)
And you do, you turn around and you go, okay, they're right.
Lex Fridman (3:11:18.120)
And so when you talk about Hitler,
Lex Fridman (3:11:21.600)
it's very interesting to think about
Lex Fridman (3:11:23.160)
how I would do a Hitler show today
Lex Fridman (3:11:24.800)
versus how I did one 10 years ago.
Lex Fridman (3:11:27.600)
And you would think, well, what's new?
Lex Fridman (3:11:28.680)
I mean, it happens a lot, but there's lots of new stuff
Lex Fridman (3:11:30.600)
and there's lots of new scholarship.
Lex Fridman (3:11:31.880)
And so, yeah, I would think that would be
Dan Carlin (3:11:34.680)
an interesting one to do someday.
Lex Fridman (3:11:36.720)
I haven't thought about that.
Dan Carlin (3:11:37.840)
That's not in the back pocket,
Lex Fridman (3:11:39.520)
but yeah, that'd be interesting.
Dan Carlin (3:11:40.960)
I have a disproportionate amount of power
Lex Fridman (3:11:42.880)
because I trapped you somehow in a room and,
Lex Fridman (3:11:46.320)
and thereby.
Lex Fridman (3:11:47.140)
During a pandemic.
Dan Carlin (3:11:47.980)
During a pandemic.
Lex Fridman (3:11:49.120)
So like my hope will be stuck in your head,
Lex Fridman (3:11:51.860)
but after Alexander the Great,
Lex Fridman (3:11:53.280)
which would be an amazing podcast,
Dan Carlin (3:11:55.960)
I hope you do give a return to Hitler,
Lex Fridman (3:11:59.560)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which to me,
Dan Carlin (3:12:04.960)
It's a contemporary book, basically.
Lex Fridman (3:12:06.680)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:12:07.520)
And I, exactly.
Lex Fridman (3:12:08.840)
It's by a person who was there.
Dan Carlin (3:12:10.080)
Shira, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:12:11.360)
I really loved that study of the man of Hitler.
Lex Fridman (3:12:16.240)
And I would love to hear your study
Lex Fridman (3:12:20.280)
of certain aspects of it.
Dan Carlin (3:12:21.760)
Perhaps even an episode that's like more focused
Lex Fridman (3:12:23.840)
on a very particular period.
Dan Carlin (3:12:27.040)
I just feel like you can tell a story that it's funny.
Lex Fridman (3:12:30.880)
Hitler is one of the most studied people.
Lex Fridman (3:12:32.600)
And I still feel like all the stories
Lex Fridman (3:12:35.880)
or most of the stories haven't been told.
Dan Carlin (3:12:38.000)
Oh, and there's, listen, I've got three books at home.
Lex Fridman (3:12:40.400)
I'm on all the publishers lists now.
Lex Fridman (3:12:42.040)
And they just, there's young Hitler,
Lex Fridman (3:12:43.860)
there's this Hitler, there's that.
Dan Carlin (3:12:45.040)
I mean, I've been reading these books
Lex Fridman (3:12:46.160)
and I've read about Hitler.
Dan Carlin (3:12:47.220)
I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Lex Fridman (3:12:48.800)
My mother thought I needed to go to a psychologist
Dan Carlin (3:12:51.200)
because I read it when I was six.
Lex Fridman (3:12:53.400)
And she said, there's something wrong with the boy.
Dan Carlin (3:12:55.640)
And, but, but she was right.
Lex Fridman (3:12:58.080)
She was absolutely right.
Dan Carlin (3:12:59.520)
But, but you would think that,
Lex Fridman (3:13:01.240)
that something like that is pretty established fact.
Lex Fridman (3:13:04.220)
And yet there's new stuff coming out all the time.
Lex Fridman (3:13:06.280)
And needless to say,
Dan Carlin (3:13:07.640)
Germany's been investigating this guy forever.
Lex Fridman (3:13:10.280)
And sometimes it takes years to get the translations.
Dan Carlin (3:13:13.120)
I took five years of German in school.
Lex Fridman (3:13:15.200)
I can't read any of it.
Dan Carlin (3:13:16.920)
So, I mean, and he is,
Lex Fridman (3:13:20.080)
when you talk about fascinating figures,
Dan Carlin (3:13:22.080)
he's so, the whole thing is so twistedly weird.
Lex Fridman (3:13:26.060)
There was a, it came out a couple of years ago.
Dan Carlin (3:13:28.200)
Somebody found a tape of him talking to,
Lex Fridman (3:13:31.460)
I want to say it was General,
Lex Fridman (3:13:34.460)
the Finnish General Mannerheim, right?
Lex Fridman (3:13:36.580)
And he's just in a very normal conversation
Dan Carlin (3:13:39.580)
of the sort we're having now.
Lex Fridman (3:13:41.160)
And, you know, the Hitler tapes,
Dan Carlin (3:13:42.360)
when you hear him normally he's ranting and raving.
Lex Fridman (3:13:44.420)
But this was a very sedate.
Lex Fridman (3:13:46.040)
And I wish I'd understood the German well enough
Lex Fridman (3:13:47.820)
to really get a feel,
Dan Carlin (3:13:48.860)
because I was reading what Germans said.
Lex Fridman (3:13:51.300)
And they say, wow, you can really hear the Southern accent.
Dan Carlin (3:13:55.060)
You know, little things
Lex Fridman (3:13:56.060)
that only a native speaker would hear.
Lex Fridman (3:13:58.640)
And I remember thinking,
Lex Fridman (3:13:59.560)
this is such a different side of this twisted character.
Lex Fridman (3:14:02.300)
And you would think you would always,
Lex Fridman (3:14:04.540)
you would think that this was information
Dan Carlin (3:14:05.980)
that was out in the rise and fall of the Third Reich,
Lex Fridman (3:14:08.740)
but it wasn't.
Lex Fridman (3:14:09.740)
And so this goes along with that stuff
Lex Fridman (3:14:12.980)
about new stuff coming out all the time.
Dan Carlin (3:14:14.860)
Alexander, new stuff coming out all the time.
Lex Fridman (3:14:16.820)
Really?
Dan Carlin (3:14:17.660)
Well, at least interpretations rather than factual data.
Lex Fridman (3:14:20.180)
And those color your,
Dan Carlin (3:14:21.700)
those give depth to your understanding.
Lex Fridman (3:14:23.380)
Yes, and you want that because of the historiography.
Dan Carlin (3:14:26.020)
People love that.
Lex Fridman (3:14:27.700)
And that was a byproduct of my lack of credentials,
Dan Carlin (3:14:31.000)
where we thought we're gonna bring in the historians,
Lex Fridman (3:14:34.020)
and we call them audio footnotes,
Dan Carlin (3:14:36.100)
right away for me to say, listen, I'm not a historian,
Lex Fridman (3:14:38.400)
but I'll quote this guy who is so you can trust him.
Lex Fridman (3:14:41.060)
But then we would quote other people
Lex Fridman (3:14:42.680)
who had different views.
Lex Fridman (3:14:44.360)
And people didn't realize that, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:14:46.380)
if they're not history majors,
Dan Carlin (3:14:47.900)
that historians don't always agree on this stuff
Lex Fridman (3:14:49.860)
and that they have disagreements and they love that.
Lex Fridman (3:14:52.260)
So I love the fact that there's more stuff out there
Lex Fridman (3:14:55.660)
because it allows us to then bring in other points of view
Lex Fridman (3:14:58.820)
and sort of maybe three dimensionalize
Lex Fridman (3:15:00.820)
or flesh out the story a little bit more.
Dan Carlin (3:15:04.220)
Two last questions.
Lex Fridman (3:15:05.100)
One really simple, one absurdly ridiculous,
Lex Fridman (3:15:07.900)
and perhaps also simple.
Lex Fridman (3:15:10.260)
First, who has been and is he real?
Dan Carlin (3:15:14.600)
I don't even know what you're talking about.
Lex Fridman (3:15:17.260)
Very well.
Lex Fridman (3:15:18.380)
How's that for an answer?
Lex Fridman (3:15:20.300)
It's like asking me, is Harvey the White Rabbit real?
Dan Carlin (3:15:22.360)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (3:15:23.580)
There's carrots all around the production room,
Lex Fridman (3:15:25.320)
but I don't know what that means.
Lex Fridman (3:15:27.020)
Well, a lot of people demanded that I prove,
Dan Carlin (3:15:30.180)
I somehow figure out a way to prove the existence.
Lex Fridman (3:15:32.460)
If I said he was real, people would say, no, he's not.
Lex Fridman (3:15:35.560)
And if I said he was, if he wasn't real,
Lex Fridman (3:15:37.580)
they would say, yes, he is.
Lex Fridman (3:15:38.500)
So it's a Santa Claus Easter bunny kind of vibe there.
Lex Fridman (3:15:42.220)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:15:43.220)
I mean, what is real anyway?
Lex Fridman (3:15:44.620)
That's exactly what I told him if he exists.
Dan Carlin (3:15:48.600)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (3:15:49.440)
The most absurd question, I'm very sorry.
Dan Carlin (3:15:51.740)
Very sorry, but then again, I'm not.
Lex Fridman (3:15:53.420)
What's the meaning of it all?
Dan Carlin (3:15:55.980)
You study history, human history.
Lex Fridman (3:16:03.140)
Have you been able to make sense of why the hell
Lex Fridman (3:16:06.060)
we're here on this spinning rock?
Lex Fridman (3:16:08.500)
Does any of it even make sense?
Lex Fridman (3:16:09.940)
What's the meaning of life?
Lex Fridman (3:16:13.460)
What I look at sometimes that I find interesting
Dan Carlin (3:16:16.440)
is certain consistencies that we have over time.
Lex Fridman (3:16:20.780)
History doesn't repeat, but it has a constant,
Lex Fridman (3:16:24.700)
and the constant is us.
Lex Fridman (3:16:26.660)
Now we change.
Dan Carlin (3:16:27.940)
I mentioned earlier the wickedly weird time we live in
Lex Fridman (3:16:31.420)
with what social media is doing to us as guinea pigs,
Lex Fridman (3:16:33.660)
and that's a new element, but we're still people
Lex Fridman (3:16:37.600)
who are motivated by love, hate, greed, envy, sex.
Dan Carlin (3:16:41.780)
I mean, all these things that would have connected us
Lex Fridman (3:16:43.580)
with the ancients, right?
Dan Carlin (3:16:45.480)
That's the part that always makes history sound
Lex Fridman (3:16:48.020)
like it rhymes, you know?
Lex Fridman (3:16:50.940)
And when you put the constant, the human element,
Lex Fridman (3:16:54.380)
and you mix it with systems that are similar,
Lex Fridman (3:16:57.300)
so one of the reasons that the ancient Roman Republic
Lex Fridman (3:16:59.580)
is something that people point to all the time
Dan Carlin (3:17:02.900)
as something that seems like we're repeating history
Lex Fridman (3:17:05.140)
is because you have humans, just like you had then,
Lex Fridman (3:17:08.780)
and you have a system that resembles the one we have here.
Lex Fridman (3:17:12.300)
So you throw the constant in with a system
Dan Carlin (3:17:14.400)
that is somewhat similar, and you begin to see things
Lex Fridman (3:17:17.340)
that look like they rhyme a little.
Lex Fridman (3:17:19.580)
So for me, I'm always trying to figure out more about us,
Lex Fridman (3:17:23.420)
and when you show us in 500 years ago in Asia,
Lex Fridman (3:17:28.680)
and 800 years ago in Africa,
Lex Fridman (3:17:30.780)
and you look at all these different places
Dan Carlin (3:17:32.780)
that you put the guinea pig in,
Lex Fridman (3:17:34.980)
and you watch how the guinea pig responds
Dan Carlin (3:17:37.180)
to the different stimuli and challenges,
Lex Fridman (3:17:40.000)
I feel like it helps me flesh out a little bit more
Dan Carlin (3:17:44.980)
who we are in the long timeline.
Lex Fridman (3:17:47.480)
Not who we are today, specifically,
Lex Fridman (3:17:49.620)
but who we've always been.
Lex Fridman (3:17:52.260)
It's a personal quest.
Dan Carlin (3:17:53.340)
It's not meant to educate anybody else.
Lex Fridman (3:17:55.580)
It's something that fascinates me.
Lex Fridman (3:17:57.580)
Do you think there's, in that common humanity
Lex Fridman (3:18:00.540)
throughout history of the guinea pig,
Lex Fridman (3:18:03.260)
is there a why underneath it all?
Lex Fridman (3:18:06.080)
Or is it somehow, like, it feels like
Lex Fridman (3:18:07.940)
it's an experiment of some sort?
Lex Fridman (3:18:10.480)
Oh, now you're into it.
Dan Carlin (3:18:11.860)
Elon Musk and I talked about this,
Lex Fridman (3:18:13.260)
the simulation thing, right?
Dan Carlin (3:18:14.460)
Nick Bostrom's, yeah, the idea that there's some kid,
Lex Fridman (3:18:17.860)
and we're the equivalent of an alien's ant farm, you know?
Lex Fridman (3:18:21.100)
And we hope he doesn't throw a tarantula in
Lex Fridman (3:18:23.100)
just to see what happens.
Dan Carlin (3:18:26.080)
I think the whys elude us.
Lex Fridman (3:18:29.420)
And I think that what makes philosophy and religion
Lex Fridman (3:18:32.900)
and those sorts of things so interesting
Lex Fridman (3:18:34.920)
is that they grapple with the whys.
Lex Fridman (3:18:39.280)
But I'm not wise enough to propose a theory
Lex Fridman (3:18:44.280)
in myself, but I'm interested enough
Dan Carlin (3:18:46.840)
to read all the other ones out there.
Lex Fridman (3:18:48.560)
So let's put it this way.
Dan Carlin (3:18:51.520)
I don't think there's any definitive why
Lex Fridman (3:18:53.560)
that's been agreed upon,
Lex Fridman (3:18:54.660)
but the various theories are fascinating.
Lex Fridman (3:18:56.760)
Yeah, whatever it is, whoever the kid is
Dan Carlin (3:18:59.400)
that created this thing, the ant farm,
Lex Fridman (3:19:03.360)
it's kind of interesting.
Dan Carlin (3:19:06.080)
Well, so far, a little bit twisted
Lex Fridman (3:19:08.240)
and perverted and sadistic, maybe.
Dan Carlin (3:19:09.800)
That's what makes it fun, I think.
Lex Fridman (3:19:12.120)
But then again, that's the Russian perspective.
Dan Carlin (3:19:13.960)
I was just gonna say.
Lex Fridman (3:19:15.140)
It is the Russian perspective.
Dan Carlin (3:19:18.840)
That's what makes the Russian.
Lex Fridman (3:19:21.480)
So Russian history, one day I'll do some Russian history.
Dan Carlin (3:19:24.120)
I took it in college.
Lex Fridman (3:19:26.840)
That's the ant farm, baby.
Dan Carlin (3:19:28.600)
That's an ant farm with a very, very frustrated
Lex Fridman (3:19:31.160)
young teenage alien kid.
Dan Carlin (3:19:35.920)
Dan, I can't say.
Lex Fridman (3:19:37.380)
I've already complimented you way too much.
Dan Carlin (3:19:39.400)
I'm a huge fan.
Lex Fridman (3:19:40.880)
This has been an incredible conversation.
Dan Carlin (3:19:42.880)
It's a huge gift, your gift of humanity.
Lex Fridman (3:19:46.640)
I hope you.
Dan Carlin (3:19:47.480)
Oh, let me cut you off and just say
Lex Fridman (3:19:49.160)
you've done a wonderful job.
Dan Carlin (3:19:50.920)
This has been fun for me.
Lex Fridman (3:19:52.800)
The questions, and more importantly,
Dan Carlin (3:19:54.340)
the questions can come from anybody.
Lex Fridman (3:19:56.040)
The counter statements, your responses have been wonderful.
Dan Carlin (3:19:58.620)
You made this a very fun intellectual discussion for me.
Lex Fridman (3:20:01.260)
Thank you.
Dan Carlin (3:20:02.100)
Well, let me have the last word and say,
Lex Fridman (3:20:03.660)
I agree with Elon and despite the doom caster say
Dan Carlin (3:20:08.280)
that I think we've concluded definitively
Lex Fridman (3:20:10.760)
and you don't get a chance to respond
Dan Carlin (3:20:12.140)
that love is in fact the answer and the way forward.
Lex Fridman (3:20:16.920)
So thanks so much, Dan.
Dan Carlin (3:20:18.400)
Thank you for having me.
Lex Fridman (3:20:20.280)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Dan Carlin
Lex Fridman (3:20:23.160)
and thank you to our sponsors.
Lex Fridman (3:20:25.200)
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Dan Carlin (3:20:27.480)
that I start every day with
Lex Fridman (3:20:29.360)
to cover all my nutritional bases.
Dan Carlin (3:20:31.880)
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Lex Fridman (3:20:34.400)
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Dan Carlin (3:20:36.720)
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Lex Fridman (3:20:39.640)
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Lex Fridman (3:20:41.720)
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Lex Fridman (3:20:43.800)
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Dan Carlin (3:20:47.040)
Please check out these sponsors in the description
Lex Fridman (3:20:49.660)
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Dan Carlin (3:20:53.720)
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
Lex Fridman (3:20:56.180)
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
Dan Carlin (3:20:58.600)
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Lex Fridman (3:21:01.200)
or connect with me on Twitter, Alex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (3:21:04.720)
And now, let me leave you with some words from Dan Carlin.
Lex Fridman (3:21:09.160)
Wisdom requires a flexible mind.
Dan Carlin (3:21:12.540)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (40:00.120)
as believing the American ideal.
Dan Carlin (40:02.280)
Not just that, let me add to what you're saying.
Lex Fridman (40:04.460)
And I'm very, I spend a lot of time
Dan Carlin (40:07.740)
trying to get out of my own biases.
Lex Fridman (40:11.240)
It is a fruitless endeavor longterm,
Lex Fridman (40:14.320)
but you try to be better than you normally are.
Lex Fridman (40:16.260)
One of the critiques that China,
Lex Fridman (40:19.160)
and I always, as an American,
Lex Fridman (40:20.620)
I tend to think about this as their government, right?
Dan Carlin (40:22.660)
This is a rationale that their government puts forward.
Lex Fridman (40:25.240)
But what you just said is actually,
Dan Carlin (40:27.900)
if you can make that viewpoint beautiful
Lex Fridman (40:30.460)
is kind of a beautiful way of approaching it.
Dan Carlin (40:32.260)
The Chinese would say that what we call human rights
Lex Fridman (40:36.060)
in the United States and what we consider
Dan Carlin (40:37.700)
to be everybody's birthright around the world
Lex Fridman (40:40.500)
is instead Western rights.
Dan Carlin (40:42.900)
That's the words they use, Western rights.
Lex Fridman (40:44.500)
It's a fundamentally Western oriented,
Lex Fridman (40:47.980)
and I'll go back to the enlightenment based ideas,
Lex Fridman (40:52.660)
on what constitutes the rights of man.
Lex Fridman (40:55.540)
And they would suggest that that's not internationally
Lex Fridman (40:58.540)
and always applicable, right?
Dan Carlin (41:00.380)
That you can make a case, and again, I don't believe this.
Lex Fridman (41:03.460)
This runs against my own personal views,
Lex Fridman (41:05.340)
but that you could make a case
Lex Fridman (41:07.100)
that the collective wellbeing of a very large group
Dan Carlin (41:10.540)
of people outweighs the individual needs
Lex Fridman (41:14.180)
of any single person, especially if those things
Lex Fridman (41:17.280)
are in conflict with each other, right?
Lex Fridman (41:18.920)
If you cannot provide for the greater good
Dan Carlin (41:21.660)
because everyone's so individualistic,
Lex Fridman (41:24.260)
well then really what is the better thing to do, right?
Lex Fridman (41:27.060)
Is suppress individualism so everybody's better off?
Lex Fridman (41:30.440)
I think trying to recognize how someone else might see that
Dan Carlin (41:34.780)
is important if we want to, you know,
Lex Fridman (41:36.260)
you had talked about eliminating war.
Dan Carlin (41:37.860)
We talk about eliminating conflict.
Lex Fridman (41:39.980)
The first need to do that is to try to understand
Lex Fridman (41:42.700)
how someone else might view something differently
Lex Fridman (41:44.860)
than yourself.
Dan Carlin (41:47.340)
I'm famously one of those people who buys in
Lex Fridman (41:50.500)
to the ideas of traditional Americanism, right?
Lex Fridman (41:53.780)
And look, what a lot of people who live today,
Lex Fridman (41:56.540)
I mean, they would seem to think that things like patriotism
Dan Carlin (42:00.540)
requires a belief in the strong military
Lex Fridman (42:04.100)
and all these things we have today,
Lex Fridman (42:05.040)
but that is a corruption of traditional Americanism,
Lex Fridman (42:07.480)
which viewed all those things with suspicion
Dan Carlin (42:10.120)
in the first hundred years of the Republic
Lex Fridman (42:12.020)
because they saw it as an enemy to the very things
Lex Fridman (42:15.260)
that Americans celebrated, right?
Lex Fridman (42:17.140)
How could you have freedom and liberty
Lex Fridman (42:20.100)
and individualistic expression
Lex Fridman (42:23.100)
if you had an overriding military
Dan Carlin (42:24.900)
that was always fighting wars
Lex Fridman (42:26.740)
and the founders of this country looked to other examples
Dan Carlin (42:29.340)
like Europe, for example,
Lex Fridman (42:30.820)
and saw that standing militaries, for example,
Dan Carlin (42:33.420)
standing armies were the enemy of liberty.
Lex Fridman (42:36.720)
Well, we have a standing army now
Lex Fridman (42:38.740)
and one that is totally interwoven in our entire society.
Lex Fridman (42:43.320)
If you could go back in time and talk to John Quincy Adams,
Dan Carlin (42:47.740)
right, early president of the United States
Lex Fridman (42:49.500)
and show him what we have now,
Dan Carlin (42:51.540)
he would think it was awful and horrible
Lex Fridman (42:54.700)
and that somewhere along the line,
Dan Carlin (42:56.980)
the Americans had lost their way
Lex Fridman (42:59.820)
and forgotten what they were all about.
Lex Fridman (43:01.780)
But we have so successfully interwoven
Lex Fridman (43:04.860)
this modern military industrial complex
Dan Carlin (43:08.340)
with the traditional benefits
Lex Fridman (43:11.820)
of the American system and ideology
Lex Fridman (43:14.020)
so that they've become intertwined in our thinking,
Lex Fridman (43:16.100)
whereas 150 years ago, they were actually considered
Dan Carlin (43:19.260)
to be at opposite polarities and a threat to one another.
Lex Fridman (43:22.820)
So when you talk about the love of the nation,
Dan Carlin (43:27.060)
I tend to be suspicious of those things.
Lex Fridman (43:29.300)
I tend to be suspicious of government.
Dan Carlin (43:31.040)
I tend to try very hard to not be manipulated
Lex Fridman (43:34.540)
and I feel like a large part of what they do
Dan Carlin (43:37.680)
is manipulation and propaganda.
Lex Fridman (43:40.020)
And so I think a healthy skepticism of the nation state
Dan Carlin (43:45.180)
is actually 100% Americanism
Lex Fridman (43:47.980)
in the traditional sense of the word.
Lex Fridman (43:50.000)
But I also have to recognize,
Lex Fridman (43:51.420)
as you so eloquently stated,
Dan Carlin (43:53.980)
Americanism is not necessarily universal at all.
Lex Fridman (43:58.700)
And so I think we have to try to be more understanding.
Dan Carlin (44:02.620)
See, the traditional American viewpoint
Lex Fridman (44:05.980)
is that if a place like China
Dan Carlin (44:07.460)
does not allow their people individual human rights,
Lex Fridman (44:10.280)
then they're being denied something.
Dan Carlin (44:12.260)
They're being denied and 100 years ago,
Lex Fridman (44:14.720)
they would have said they're God given rights.
Dan Carlin (44:17.180)
Man is born free and if he's not free,
Lex Fridman (44:19.400)
it's because of something done to him, right?
Dan Carlin (44:22.100)
The government has taken away his God given rights.
Lex Fridman (44:25.500)
I'm getting excited just listening to that.
Dan Carlin (44:27.620)
Well, but I mean, I think the idea that this is universal
Lex Fridman (44:31.260)
is in and of itself a bias.
Lex Fridman (44:33.980)
Now, do I want freedom for everybody else?
Lex Fridman (44:36.140)
I sure do.
Lex Fridman (44:36.980)
But the people in the Soviet Union
Lex Fridman (44:38.220)
who really bought into that
Dan Carlin (44:40.220)
wanted the workers of the world to unite
Lex Fridman (44:42.500)
and not be exploited by the greedy blood sucking people
Dan Carlin (44:47.060)
who worked them to death and pocketed all of the fruits
Lex Fridman (44:50.260)
of their labor.
Dan Carlin (44:51.460)
If you frame it that way,
Lex Fridman (44:52.780)
that sounds like justice as well, you know?
Lex Fridman (44:55.260)
So it is an eye of the beholder sort of thing.
Lex Fridman (44:58.380)
I'd love to talk to you about Vladimir Putin,
Dan Carlin (45:03.640)
sort of while we're in this feeling and wave of empathy
Lex Fridman (45:08.320)
and trying to understand others that are not like us.
Dan Carlin (45:12.060)
One of the reasons I started this podcast
Lex Fridman (45:15.120)
is because I believe that there's a few people
Dan Carlin (45:17.320)
I could talk to.
Lex Fridman (45:18.940)
Some of it is ego.
Dan Carlin (45:21.060)
Some of it is stupidity.
Lex Fridman (45:24.000)
Is there some people I could talk to
Lex Fridman (45:26.500)
that not many others can talk to?
Lex Fridman (45:29.700)
The one person I was always thinking about
Dan Carlin (45:31.780)
was Vladimir Putin.
Lex Fridman (45:33.660)
Do you still speak the language?
Dan Carlin (45:35.020)
I speak the language very well.
Lex Fridman (45:36.420)
That makes it even easier.
Dan Carlin (45:37.940)
I mean, you might be appointed for that job.
Lex Fridman (45:41.160)
That's the context in which I'm asking you this question.
Lex Fridman (45:43.640)
What are your thoughts about Vladimir Putin
Lex Fridman (45:48.660)
from a historical context?
Lex Fridman (45:51.540)
Have you studied him?
Lex Fridman (45:52.700)
Have you thought about him?
Dan Carlin (45:54.220)
Yes, studied is a loaded word.
Lex Fridman (45:59.340)
And again, I find it hard sometimes
Dan Carlin (46:02.020)
to not filter things through an American lens.
Lex Fridman (46:05.220)
So as an American,
Dan Carlin (46:07.180)
I would say that the Russians should be allowed
Lex Fridman (46:10.240)
to have any leader that they want to have.
Lex Fridman (46:12.720)
But what an American would say is,
Lex Fridman (46:15.040)
but there should be elections, right?
Lex Fridman (46:17.120)
So if the Russians choose Vladimir Putin
Lex Fridman (46:20.040)
and they keep choosing him, that's their business.
Dan Carlin (46:23.720)
Where as an American, I would have a problem
Lex Fridman (46:26.720)
is when that leader stops letting the Russians
Dan Carlin (46:29.880)
make that decision.
Lex Fridman (46:30.900)
And we would say, well, now you're no longer
Dan Carlin (46:33.780)
ruling by the consent of the governed.
Lex Fridman (46:36.420)
You've become the equivalent of a person
Dan Carlin (46:38.420)
who may be oppressing your people.
Lex Fridman (46:40.620)
You might as well be a dictator, right?
Dan Carlin (46:42.800)
Now there's a difference between a freely elected
Lex Fridman (46:45.900)
and reelected and reelected and reelected dictator, right?
Dan Carlin (46:49.580)
If that's what they want.
Lex Fridman (46:50.420)
And look, it would be silly to broad brush the Russians
Lex Fridman (46:54.600)
like it would be silly to broad brush anyone, right?
Lex Fridman (46:56.760)
Millions and millions of people
Dan Carlin (46:57.880)
with different opinions amongst them all.
Lex Fridman (46:59.900)
But they seem to like a strong person at the helm.
Lex Fridman (47:03.260)
And listen, there's a giant chunk of Americans
Lex Fridman (47:05.340)
who do too in their own country.
Lex Fridman (47:08.260)
But an American would say, as long as the freedom of choice
Lex Fridman (47:12.300)
is given to the Russians to decide this
Lex Fridman (47:15.140)
and not taken away from them, right?
Lex Fridman (47:16.980)
It's one thing to say he was freely elected,
Lex Fridman (47:18.580)
but a long time ago and we've done away with elections
Lex Fridman (47:20.580)
since then is a different story too.
Lex Fridman (47:23.300)
So my attitude on Vladimir Putin
Lex Fridman (47:25.580)
is if that's who the Russian people want
Lex Fridman (47:27.500)
and you give them the choice, right?
Lex Fridman (47:29.340)
If he's only there because they keep electing him,
Dan Carlin (47:31.580)
that's a very different story.
Lex Fridman (47:32.740)
When he stops offering them the option
Dan Carlin (47:36.420)
of choosing him or not choosing him,
Lex Fridman (47:38.220)
that's when it begins to look nefarious
Dan Carlin (47:40.060)
to someone born and raised with the mindset
Lex Fridman (47:42.900)
and the ideology that is an integral part of yours truly.
Lex Fridman (47:46.260)
And that I can't, you can see gray areas
Lex Fridman (47:48.700)
and nuance all you like, but it's hard to escape.
Lex Fridman (47:51.380)
And you alluded to this too.
Lex Fridman (47:52.960)
It's hard to escape what was indoctrinated
Dan Carlin (47:56.380)
into your bones in your formative years.
Lex Fridman (47:59.260)
It's like, your bones are growing, right?
Lex Fridman (48:02.220)
And you can't go back.
Lex Fridman (48:03.700)
So to me, this is so much a part of who I am
Dan Carlin (48:06.340)
that I have a hard time jettisoning that and saying,
Lex Fridman (48:09.360)
oh no, Vladimir Putin not being elected anymore,
Dan Carlin (48:11.700)
it's just fine.
Lex Fridman (48:12.900)
I'm too much of a product of my upbringing to go there.
Lex Fridman (48:16.780)
Does that make sense?
Lex Fridman (48:17.620)
Yeah, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (48:18.460)
But of course there's, like we were saying,
Lex Fridman (48:20.160)
there's gray areas, which is, I believe,
Dan Carlin (48:23.820)
I have to think through this,
Lex Fridman (48:24.980)
but I think there is a point at which Adolf Hitler
Dan Carlin (48:28.420)
became the popular choice in Nazi Germany in the 30s.
Lex Fridman (48:32.940)
There's a, in the same way, from an American perspective,
Dan Carlin (48:37.660)
you can start to criticize some in a shallow way,
Lex Fridman (48:42.860)
some in a deep way.
Dan Carlin (48:43.940)
The way that Putin has maintained power
Lex Fridman (48:47.360)
is by controlling the press.
Lex Fridman (48:48.620)
So limiting one other freedom that we Americans value,
Lex Fridman (48:51.320)
which is the freedom of the press or freedom of speech
Dan Carlin (48:55.040)
that he, it is very possible.
Lex Fridman (48:57.740)
Now things are changing now,
Lex Fridman (49:00.360)
but for most of his presidency,
Lex Fridman (49:03.260)
he was the popular choice and sometimes by far.
Lex Fridman (49:06.780)
And I have, I actually don't have real family in Russia
Lex Fridman (49:12.580)
who don't love Putin.
Dan Carlin (49:15.020)
The only people who write to me about Putin
Lex Fridman (49:17.820)
and not liking him are like sort of activists
Lex Fridman (49:22.380)
who are young, right?
Lex Fridman (49:24.740)
But like to me, they're strangers.
Dan Carlin (49:26.900)
I don't know anything about them.
Lex Fridman (49:28.300)
The people I do know who have a big family in Russia,
Dan Carlin (49:32.300)
they love Putin.
Lex Fridman (49:34.980)
They...
Lex Fridman (49:35.820)
Do they miss elections?
Lex Fridman (49:41.860)
Would they want the choice to prove it at the ballot box?
Dan Carlin (49:45.940)
And, or are they so in love with him
Lex Fridman (49:49.920)
that they wouldn't wanna take a chance
Lex Fridman (49:52.440)
that someone might vote him out?
Lex Fridman (49:54.540)
No, they don't think of it this way.
Lex Fridman (49:56.220)
And they are aware of the incredible bureaucracy
Lex Fridman (50:00.300)
and corruption that is lurking in the shadows,
Dan Carlin (50:03.520)
which is true in Russia.
Lex Fridman (50:05.540)
Everywhere.
Dan Carlin (50:06.640)
Everywhere.
Lex Fridman (50:07.480)
But like, there's something about the Russian,
Dan Carlin (50:09.700)
it's a remnants, corruption is so deeply part of the Russian,
Lex Fridman (50:14.520)
so the Soviet system that even the overthrow of the Soviet,
Dan Carlin (50:18.540)
the breaking apart of the Soviet Union
Lex Fridman (50:21.900)
and Putin coming and reforming a lot of the system,
Dan Carlin (50:27.100)
it's still deeply in there.
Lex Fridman (50:28.980)
And they're aware of that.
Dan Carlin (50:31.000)
That's part of the, like the love for Putin
Lex Fridman (50:33.300)
is partially grounded in the fear of what happens
Dan Carlin (50:38.060)
when the corrupt take over, the greedy take over.
Lex Fridman (50:42.100)
And they see Putin as the stabilizer,
Dan Carlin (50:44.940)
as like a hard like force that says...
Lex Fridman (50:49.380)
A counter force.
Dan Carlin (50:50.380)
Counter force that get your shit together.
Lex Fridman (50:53.020)
Like basically, from the Western perspective,
Dan Carlin (50:56.180)
Putin is terrible, but from the Russian perspective,
Lex Fridman (51:01.820)
Putin is the only thing holding this thing together
Dan Carlin (51:04.580)
before it goes, if it collapses.
Lex Fridman (51:07.340)
Now, from the, like Gary Kasparov has been loud on this,
Dan Carlin (51:11.780)
a lot of people from the Western perspective say,
Lex Fridman (51:14.540)
well, if it has to collapse, let it collapse.
Dan Carlin (51:17.300)
You know, that's...
Lex Fridman (51:18.140)
That's easier said than done
Dan Carlin (51:18.980)
when you don't have to live through that.
Lex Fridman (51:20.140)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (51:21.180)
And so anyone worrying about their family about...
Lex Fridman (51:23.940)
And they also remember the inflation
Lex Fridman (51:28.860)
and the economic instability
Lex Fridman (51:30.420)
and the suffering and the starvation
Dan Carlin (51:31.920)
that happened in the 90s with the collapse
Lex Fridman (51:33.700)
of the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (51:35.100)
And they saw the kind of reform
Lex Fridman (51:36.940)
and the economic vibrancy that happened
Dan Carlin (51:39.060)
when Putin took power,
Lex Fridman (51:40.500)
that they think like, this guy's holding it together.
Lex Fridman (51:43.480)
And they see elections as potentially
Lex Fridman (51:48.480)
being mechanisms by which the corrupt people
Dan Carlin (51:53.080)
can manipulate the system unfairly,
Lex Fridman (51:55.280)
as opposed to letting the people speak with their voice.
Dan Carlin (51:58.160)
They somehow figure out a way to manipulate the elections,
Lex Fridman (52:03.120)
to elect somebody like one of them Western revolutionaries.
Lex Fridman (52:08.160)
And so I think one of the beliefs
Lex Fridman (52:11.600)
that's important to the American system
Dan Carlin (52:13.580)
is the belief in the electoral system
Lex Fridman (52:17.880)
that the voice of the people can be heard
Dan Carlin (52:20.400)
in the various systems of government,
Lex Fridman (52:22.480)
whether it's judicial, whether it's...
Dan Carlin (52:25.920)
I mean, basically the assumption is
Lex Fridman (52:29.080)
that the system works well enough
Dan Carlin (52:31.600)
for you to be able to elect the popular choice.
Lex Fridman (52:36.760)
Okay, so there's a couple of things
Dan Carlin (52:38.620)
that come to mind on that.
Lex Fridman (52:40.660)
The first one has to do with the idea of oligarchs.
Dan Carlin (52:45.400)
There's a belief in political science,
Lex Fridman (52:48.240)
you know, it's not the overall belief,
Lex Fridman (52:50.420)
but that every society is sort of an oligarchy really,
Lex Fridman (52:53.560)
if you break it down, right?
Lex Fridman (52:55.340)
So what you're talking about are some of the people
Lex Fridman (52:57.800)
who would form an oligarchic class in Russia,
Lex Fridman (53:02.720)
and that Putin is the guy who can harness
Lex Fridman (53:06.240)
the power of the state to keep those people in check.
Dan Carlin (53:10.040)
The problem, of course, in a system like that,
Lex Fridman (53:12.360)
a strong man system, right?
Dan Carlin (53:13.920)
Where you have somebody who can hold the reins
Lex Fridman (53:16.520)
and steer the ship when the ship is violently in a storm,
Dan Carlin (53:20.280)
is the succession.
Lex Fridman (53:21.860)
So if you're not creating a system
Dan Carlin (53:25.180)
that can operate without you,
Lex Fridman (53:27.640)
then that terrible instability and that terrible future
Dan Carlin (53:31.720)
that you justify the strong man for
Lex Fridman (53:35.200)
is just awaiting your future, right?
Dan Carlin (53:37.480)
I mean, unless he's actively building the system
Lex Fridman (53:41.380)
that will outlive him and allow successors
Dan Carlin (53:44.720)
to do what he's doing,
Lex Fridman (53:46.480)
then what you've done here is create a temporary,
Dan Carlin (53:49.040)
I would think, a temporary stability here,
Lex Fridman (53:51.040)
because it's the same problem you have in a monarchy, right?
Dan Carlin (53:54.120)
Where you have this one king and he's particularly good,
Lex Fridman (53:57.480)
or you think he's particularly good,
Lex Fridman (53:59.340)
but he's gonna turn that job over
Lex Fridman (54:00.760)
to somebody else down the road,
Lex Fridman (54:02.680)
and the system doesn't guarantee
Lex Fridman (54:04.320)
because no one's really worked on,
Lex Fridman (54:07.480)
and again, you would tell me,
Lex Fridman (54:08.920)
if Putin is putting into place,
Dan Carlin (54:11.120)
I know he's talked about it over the years,
Lex Fridman (54:13.080)
putting into place a system that can outlive him
Lex Fridman (54:15.800)
and that will create the stability
Lex Fridman (54:17.320)
that the people in Russia like him for when he's gone,
Dan Carlin (54:21.640)
because if the oligarchs just take over afterwards,
Lex Fridman (54:24.000)
then one might argue,
Dan Carlin (54:25.640)
well, we had 20 good years of stability,
Lex Fridman (54:28.180)
but I mean, I would say
Dan Carlin (54:29.280)
that if we're talking about a ship of state here,
Lex Fridman (54:32.560)
the guy steering the ship, maybe,
Dan Carlin (54:34.100)
if you wanted to look at it from the Russian point of view,
Lex Fridman (54:35.760)
has done a great job, maybe, just saying,
Lex Fridman (54:38.320)
but the rocks are still out there,
Lex Fridman (54:39.920)
and he's not going to be at the helm forever,
Lex Fridman (54:42.520)
so one would think that his job is to make sure
Lex Fridman (54:45.000)
that there's going to be someone
Dan Carlin (54:47.460)
who can continue to steer the ship
Lex Fridman (54:49.040)
for the people of Russia after he's gone.
Dan Carlin (54:51.340)
Now, let me ask, because I'm curious,
Lex Fridman (54:55.160)
and ignorant, so is he doing that, do you think?
Dan Carlin (54:58.960)
Is he setting it up so that when there is no Putin,
Lex Fridman (55:02.240)
the state is safe?
Dan Carlin (55:04.000)
From the beginning, that was the idea,
Lex Fridman (55:06.960)
whether one of the fascinating things,
Dan Carlin (55:09.240)
now, I read every biography,
Lex Fridman (55:10.680)
English written biography on Putin,
Lex Fridman (55:12.760)
so I need to think more deeply,
Lex Fridman (55:16.420)
but one of the fascinating things
Lex Fridman (55:17.680)
is how did power change Vladimir Putin?
Lex Fridman (55:20.940)
He was a different man when he took power than he is today.
Dan Carlin (55:24.400)
I actually, in many ways, admire the man that took power.
Lex Fridman (55:29.720)
I think he's very different than Stalin and then Hitler
Dan Carlin (55:33.160)
at the moment they took power.
Lex Fridman (55:34.920)
I think Hitler and Stalin were both,
Dan Carlin (55:39.160)
in our previous discussion,
Lex Fridman (55:41.080)
already on the trajectory of evil.
Dan Carlin (55:44.000)
I think Putin was a humble, loyal, honest man
Lex Fridman (55:49.400)
when he took power.
Dan Carlin (55:50.760)
The man he is today is worth thinking about and studying.
Lex Fridman (55:54.560)
I'm not sure that that.
Dan Carlin (55:56.560)
That's an old line, though,
Lex Fridman (55:57.520)
about absolute power corrupting, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (55:59.800)
But it's kind of a line.
Lex Fridman (56:02.780)
It's a beautiful quote,
Lex Fridman (56:05.500)
but you have to really think about it.
Lex Fridman (56:07.780)
Like, what does that actually mean?
Dan Carlin (56:10.420)
Like, one of the things I still have to do,
Lex Fridman (56:13.500)
I've been focusing on securing the conversation, right?
Lex Fridman (56:15.740)
So I haven't gone through a dark place yet
Lex Fridman (56:18.980)
because I feel like I can't do the dark thing for too long.
Lex Fridman (56:21.820)
So I really have to put myself in the mind of Putin
Lex Fridman (56:26.260)
leading up to the conversation.
Lex Fridman (56:27.920)
But for now, my sense is he took power
Lex Fridman (56:32.820)
when Yeltsin gave him,
Dan Carlin (56:34.700)
one of the big sort of acts of the new Russia
Lex Fridman (56:38.300)
was for the first time in its history,
Dan Carlin (56:42.040)
a leader could have continued being in power
Lex Fridman (56:45.940)
and chose to give away power.
Dan Carlin (56:48.120)
That was the George Washington.
Lex Fridman (56:49.740)
Right, we in the United States
Dan Carlin (56:50.820)
would look at that as absolute positive, yeah.
Lex Fridman (56:52.860)
A sign of good things, yes.
Lex Fridman (56:54.420)
And so that was a huge act.
Lex Fridman (56:56.100)
And Putin said that that was the defining thing
Dan Carlin (57:00.980)
that will define Russia for the 21st century,
Lex Fridman (57:03.580)
that act, and he will carry that flag forward.
Dan Carlin (57:07.220)
That's why in rhetoric, he, after two terms,
Lex Fridman (57:12.140)
he gave away power.
Lex Fridman (57:13.180)
To Medvedev, but it was a puppet, right?
Lex Fridman (57:15.300)
Yeah, yes, but it was,
Lex Fridman (57:17.940)
but like still the story was being told.
Lex Fridman (57:20.700)
I think he believed it early on.
Dan Carlin (57:23.460)
I think he, I believe he still believes it,
Lex Fridman (57:28.260)
but I think he's deeply suspicious
Dan Carlin (57:30.500)
of the corruption that lurks in the shadows.
Lex Fridman (57:33.140)
And I do believe that,
Dan Carlin (57:34.860)
like as somebody who thinks clickbait journalism is broken,
Lex Fridman (57:38.180)
journalists annoy the hell out of me.
Dan Carlin (57:40.140)
Clickbait journalism's working perfectly.
Lex Fridman (57:42.340)
Journalism's broken.
Dan Carlin (57:43.660)
Journalism.
Lex Fridman (57:44.500)
Clickbait thing's working great.
Dan Carlin (57:45.320)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (57:46.700)
So I understand from Putin's perspective
Dan Carlin (57:49.780)
that journalism, journalists can be seen
Lex Fridman (57:52.840)
as the enemy of the state,
Dan Carlin (57:53.940)
because people think journalists write these deep,
Lex Fridman (57:57.800)
beautiful philosophical pieces
Dan Carlin (57:59.660)
about criticizing the structure of government
Lex Fridman (58:02.300)
and the proper policy where, you know,
Dan Carlin (58:04.740)
the steps that we need to take to make a greater nation.
Lex Fridman (58:07.820)
No, they, they're unfairly take stuff out of context.
Dan Carlin (58:11.340)
They, they're critical in ways
Lex Fridman (58:13.860)
that's like shallow and not interesting.
Dan Carlin (58:16.580)
They, they call you a racist or sexist,
Lex Fridman (58:19.740)
or they make up stuff all the time.
Lex Fridman (58:22.540)
So I can put myself in the mindset of a person
Lex Fridman (58:25.420)
that thinks that it is okay to remove
Dan Carlin (58:28.420)
that kind of shallow fake news voice from the system.
Lex Fridman (58:34.020)
The problem is, of course, that is a slippery slope
Dan Carlin (58:36.900)
to then you remove all the annoying people from the system,
Lex Fridman (58:41.080)
and then you change what annoying means,
Dan Carlin (58:43.240)
which annoying starts becoming a thing
Lex Fridman (58:45.240)
that like anyone who opposes the system.
Dan Carlin (58:48.780)
I mean, I get, I get the slippery,
Lex Fridman (58:53.020)
it's obvious that it becomes a slippery slope,
Lex Fridman (58:55.300)
but I can also put myself in the mindset
Lex Fridman (58:57.220)
of the people that see it's okay
Dan Carlin (58:59.340)
to remove the liars from the system,
Lex Fridman (59:02.260)
as long as it's good for Russia.
Dan Carlin (59:04.280)
And, okay, so herein lies, and this again,
Lex Fridman (59:06.460)
the traditional American perspective,
Dan Carlin (59:08.460)
because we've had yellow, so called yellow journalism
Lex Fridman (59:11.260)
since the founding of the Republic.
Dan Carlin (59:12.620)
That's nothing new.
Lex Fridman (59:14.220)
But, but the problem then comes into play,
Dan Carlin (59:16.900)
when you remove journalists, even, you know,
Lex Fridman (59:20.100)
it's a broad brush thing,
Dan Carlin (59:21.260)
because you remove both the crappy ones who are lying,
Lex Fridman (59:24.740)
and the ones who are telling the truth too,
Dan Carlin (59:26.500)
you're left with simply the approved government journalists,
Lex Fridman (59:31.060)
right, the ones who are towing the government's line,
Dan Carlin (59:34.020)
in which case the truth as you see it
Lex Fridman (59:37.220)
is a different kind of fake news, right?
Dan Carlin (59:39.240)
It's the fake news from the government,
Lex Fridman (59:41.380)
instead of the clickbait news,
Lex Fridman (59:43.340)
and oh yeah, maybe truth mixed into all that too,
Lex Fridman (59:46.500)
in some of the outlets.
Dan Carlin (59:48.020)
The problem I always have with our system
Lex Fridman (59:49.700)
here in the United States right now
Dan Carlin (59:50.920)
is trying to tease the truth out from all the falsehoods.
Lex Fridman (59:55.540)
And look, I've got 30 years in journalism.
Dan Carlin (59:58.660)
My job used to be to go through, before the internet,
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