Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man

Lex Fridman (01:21.080)

where you get to relive your whole life

Duncan Trussell (01:23.760)

over and over and over and over.

Lex Fridman (01:25.160)

And I think it's a way to bring to the surface of your mind

Duncan Trussell (01:30.360)

the idea that every single moment in your life matters.

Lex Fridman (01:33.360)

It intensely matters, the bad and the good.

Lex Fridman (01:36.080)

And he kind of wants you to imagine that idea

Lex Fridman (01:40.360)

that every single decision you make throughout your life,

Duncan Trussell (01:43.120)

you repeat over and over and over,

Lex Fridman (01:44.920)

and he wants you to respond to that.

Lex Fridman (01:46.600)

Do you feel horrible about that

Lex Fridman (01:47.980)

or do you feel good about that?

Lex Fridman (01:49.480)

And you have to think through this idea

Lex Fridman (01:51.720)

in order to see where you stand in life.

Lex Fridman (01:54.220)

What is your relationship like with life?

Lex Fridman (01:56.080)

I actually wanna read the way he first introduces

Duncan Trussell (01:58.920)

that concept for people who are not familiar.

Lex Fridman (02:02.980)

What if some day or night a demon,

Duncan Trussell (02:05.600)

by the way, he has a demon introduce this thought experiment.

Lex Fridman (02:09.600)

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you

Duncan Trussell (02:13.240)

into your loneliest loneliness and say to you, quote,

Lex Fridman (02:18.540)

this life as you now live it and have lived it,

Duncan Trussell (02:21.720)

you will have to live once more.

Lex Fridman (02:23.560)

And innumerable times more.

Lex Fridman (02:25.920)

And there will be nothing new in it.

Lex Fridman (02:28.080)

But every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh

Lex Fridman (02:31.280)

and everything unutterably small and great in your life

Lex Fridman (02:35.240)

will have to return to you,

Duncan Trussell (02:37.000)

all in the same succession and sequence.

Lex Fridman (02:40.040)

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth

Lex Fridman (02:43.000)

and curse the demon who spoke thus?

Lex Fridman (02:45.960)

Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment

Duncan Trussell (02:49.380)

when you would have answered him,

Lex Fridman (02:51.560)

you are a God and never have I heard anything more divine.

Lex Fridman (02:55.920)

So are you terrified or excited

Lex Fridman (02:58.000)

by such a thought experiment

Lex Fridman (02:59.220)

when you apply it to your own life?

Lex Fridman (03:00.600)

Excited.

Duncan Trussell (03:01.920)

Excited.

Lex Fridman (03:02.860)

Oh.

Duncan Trussell (03:03.700)

Even the dark stuff.

Lex Fridman (03:04.520)

Oh yeah, for sure.

Duncan Trussell (03:05.680)

Definitely.

Lex Fridman (03:06.520)

I mean, also that thing you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (03:10.280)

he kind of leaves out maybe on purpose

Lex Fridman (03:13.280)

because the thought experiment starts falling apart

Duncan Trussell (03:15.120)

a little bit.

Lex Fridman (03:15.960)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (03:16.800)

The amnesia between each loop.

Lex Fridman (03:19.240)

So the whole thing gets wiped.

Duncan Trussell (03:22.240)

Now, if the amnesia wasn't there

Lex Fridman (03:24.320)

and yet somehow you are witnessing the non autonomy

Duncan Trussell (03:29.040)

implicit in what he's talking about,

Lex Fridman (03:31.200)

so you have to kind of watch yourself

Duncan Trussell (03:32.740)

go through this rotten loop,

Lex Fridman (03:34.920)

then yeah, that's a description.

Duncan Trussell (03:36.480)

There's probably a boredom that comes into that.

Lex Fridman (03:38.800)

So you don't experience everything anew.

Duncan Trussell (03:41.360)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (03:42.200)

So the bad stuff, the good stuff,

Duncan Trussell (03:43.440)

the newness of it is really important.

Lex Fridman (03:45.040)

That's it, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (03:45.940)

This is the, in Hades, when you die,

Lex Fridman (03:51.040)

there's a river, I think it's called Leith.

Lex Fridman (03:52.720)

You ever heard of this?

Lex Fridman (03:53.560)

L E T H E.

Duncan Trussell (03:54.380)

You drink from it and you don't remember your past lives.

Lex Fridman (03:57.400)

And then when you're reborn, it's fresh

Lex Fridman (04:00.220)

and you don't have to, I mean,

Lex Fridman (04:01.760)

just think of like the amount of psychological help

Duncan Trussell (04:05.580)

you would need to get over all the bullshit

Lex Fridman (04:08.200)

that happened in prior lives.

Lex Fridman (04:10.660)

You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (04:11.500)

Can you imagine if you're still resentful

Duncan Trussell (04:13.900)

of something someone did to you in the 14th century,

Lex Fridman (04:16.920)

but it would compound.

Duncan Trussell (04:19.000)

Well, if you repeat the same thing over and over and over,

Lex Fridman (04:22.400)

there would be no difference.

Duncan Trussell (04:23.840)

Maybe you would start to appreciate the nuances more,

Lex Fridman (04:26.860)

like when you watch the same movie over and over and over,

Duncan Trussell (04:29.600)

maybe you'll get to actually let go of this idea

Lex Fridman (04:35.520)

of all the possible, all the positive possibilities

Duncan Trussell (04:38.860)

that lay before you,

Lex Fridman (04:39.700)

but actually enjoy the moment much more.

Duncan Trussell (04:41.400)

If you remember that you've lived this life a thousand times,

Lex Fridman (04:44.320)

all the little things, the way somebody smiles,

Duncan Trussell (04:47.260)

if you're been abused, the way somebody,

Lex Fridman (04:49.560)

like the pain of it, the suffering, the down that you feel,

Duncan Trussell (04:53.360)

the experience of sadness, depression, fear,

Lex Fridman (04:56.340)

all that kind of stuff.

Duncan Trussell (04:57.180)

You get to really, you get to also appreciate

Lex Fridman (04:59.920)

that that's part of life, part of being alive.

Duncan Trussell (05:02.720)

Now, also in his experiment, if I was gonna,

Lex Fridman (05:04.880)

and I love the experiment from the perspective of like,

Duncan Trussell (05:07.640)

just where technology is now and simulation theory

Lex Fridman (05:10.320)

and stuff like that.

Lex Fridman (05:11.160)

But in that thought experiment,

Lex Fridman (05:14.200)

if this rotten demon immediately killed you,

Duncan Trussell (05:19.840)

then within that, it's a little more horrifying

Lex Fridman (05:23.200)

because even in the, first of all,

Duncan Trussell (05:26.840)

you're trusting a fucking demon.

Lex Fridman (05:28.520)

Why are you talking to a demon?

Duncan Trussell (05:29.680)

Let's start there.

Lex Fridman (05:30.520)

Yeah, because that is gonna be,

Duncan Trussell (05:31.640)

even before I get into like the metaphysics

Lex Fridman (05:33.800)

and like the implications and where is this life stored?

Lex Fridman (05:36.960)

Where's the loop stored?

Lex Fridman (05:38.040)

I mean, are we talking about some kind of unchanging data set

Lex Fridman (05:41.240)

or something?

Lex Fridman (05:42.320)

For that, you're like,

Lex Fridman (05:43.160)

why is there a fucking talking demon in my room

Lex Fridman (05:45.360)

trying to freak me out?

Duncan Trussell (05:47.060)

You're gonna wanna autopsy the demon.

Lex Fridman (05:48.660)

Can you catch it?

Lex Fridman (05:49.500)

Does this apply to you, demon?

Lex Fridman (05:50.680)

And again, obviously it's a fucking thought experiment.

Duncan Trussell (05:53.440)

Nietzsche would be annoyed by me,

Lex Fridman (05:54.720)

but I think like you would still be able to entertain

Duncan Trussell (05:58.840)

the joy, you'd have the joy

Lex Fridman (06:01.680)

of not knowing what's around the corner.

Duncan Trussell (06:03.520)

You know, still, it's not like you know what's coming

Lex Fridman (06:05.640)

just cause the demon said some kind of loop.

Duncan Trussell (06:08.240)

In other words, the idea of being damned

Lex Fridman (06:10.480)

to your past decisions, it doesn't even work

Duncan Trussell (06:13.960)

because you can't remember what decisions

Lex Fridman (06:15.720)

you're about to make.

Lex Fridman (06:17.080)

So from that perspective also,

Lex Fridman (06:19.240)

I think I'd be happy about it.

Duncan Trussell (06:20.720)

Or I would just think, oh cool.

Lex Fridman (06:22.360)

I mean, it's a good story.

Duncan Trussell (06:23.420)

I'm gonna tell people about how this.

Lex Fridman (06:24.920)

I wonder what the demon would actually look like in real life

Duncan Trussell (06:27.120)

cause I suspect that would look like a charming,

Lex Fridman (06:30.680)

like a friend.

Lex Fridman (06:32.280)

Wouldn't they be a loved one?

Lex Fridman (06:34.400)

Wouldn't the demon come to you through the mechanism,

Duncan Trussell (06:37.520)

through the front door of love, not through the back door

Lex Fridman (06:41.000)

of evil, like malevolent manipulation?

Duncan Trussell (06:44.480)

Sure, I mean, if it's the truth,

Lex Fridman (06:46.760)

if it's the truth and that's whether it's love or not,

Duncan Trussell (06:50.280)

it's still good fundamentally.

Lex Fridman (06:53.400)

I do like the idea of the memory replay.

Duncan Trussell (06:56.060)

I remember I went to a Newer Link event a few years ago

Lex Fridman (07:00.240)

and got to hang out with Elon.

Duncan Trussell (07:02.900)

I remember how visceral it is that there's like a pig

Lex Fridman (07:06.440)

with a Newer Link in it.

Lex Fridman (07:09.400)

And you're talking about memory replays as a future,

Lex Fridman (07:13.080)

maybe far future possibility.

Lex Fridman (07:15.240)

And you realize, well, this is a very meaningful moment

Lex Fridman (07:17.960)

in my life.

Duncan Trussell (07:19.360)

This could be a replay.

Lex Fridman (07:21.140)

Of all the things you replay, it's probably,

Duncan Trussell (07:25.440)

there's certain magical moments in your life.

Lex Fridman (07:28.080)

Whatever it is, certain people you've met for the first time

Duncan Trussell (07:30.720)

or certain things you've done for the first time

Lex Fridman (07:33.120)

with certain people or just an awesome thing you did.

Lex Fridman (07:36.360)

And I remember just saying to him,

Lex Fridman (07:38.400)

like, I would probably want to replay this,

Duncan Trussell (07:43.080)

this moment.

Lex Fridman (07:44.080)

And it just seemed very kind of,

Duncan Trussell (07:47.560)

I mean, there was a recursive nature to it,

Lex Fridman (07:49.120)

but it seemed very real that this is something

Duncan Trussell (07:52.960)

we would want to do, that the richness of life

Lex Fridman (07:56.280)

could be experienced through the replay.

Duncan Trussell (07:59.560)

That's probably where it's experienced the most.

Lex Fridman (08:02.200)

You could see life as a way to collect

Duncan Trussell (08:04.280)

a bunch of cool memories, and then you get to sit back

Lex Fridman (08:06.760)

in your nice VR headset and replay the cool ones.

Duncan Trussell (08:10.240)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (08:11.280)

This is, in Buddhism, the idea that I struggle with

Duncan Trussell (08:16.120)

is that there's a possibility of not reincarnating,

Lex Fridman (08:20.620)

of not coming back.

Duncan Trussell (08:21.640)

That's the idea.

Lex Fridman (08:24.080)

This is suffering here.

Duncan Trussell (08:25.180)

The suffering is caused by attachment.

Lex Fridman (08:27.240)

And so if you like revise the idea of reincarnation

Duncan Trussell (08:32.560)

or the Nietzsche's loop and look at it from,

Lex Fridman (08:38.000)

could this be possible?

Lex Fridman (08:39.240)

Or how would this be possible technologically?

Lex Fridman (08:42.440)

Then to me, it makes a lot of sense.

Duncan Trussell (08:45.920)

Like I've been thinking a lot about this very thing

Lex Fridman (08:48.600)

and the Nietzsche's idea connecting to it.

Duncan Trussell (08:51.640)

I had this like, it sounds so dumb,

Lex Fridman (08:54.920)

but I was at the dentist getting nitrous oxide,

Duncan Trussell (08:58.280)

high as a fucking kite, man.

Lex Fridman (08:59.920)

And I had this idea, I was thinking about data.

Duncan Trussell (09:03.880)

I was thinking like, man, probably, if I had to bet,

Lex Fridman (09:07.700)

there's some energetic form that we're not aware of

Duncan Trussell (09:11.320)

that for a super advanced technology

Lex Fridman (09:14.160)

would be as detectable as like starlight,

Lex Fridman (09:17.640)

but something that we just don't even know what it is.

Lex Fridman (09:19.960)

Quantum turbulence, who the fuck knows?

Duncan Trussell (09:22.160)

Fill in the blank, whatever that X may be.

Lex Fridman (09:24.440)

But assuming that exists, that somehow data,

Duncan Trussell (09:27.820)

even the most subtle things, the tiniest movements,

Lex Fridman (09:30.680)

whatever it may be,

Duncan Trussell (09:31.960)

the emanations of your neurological process energetically,

Lex Fridman (09:36.080)

whatever it may be, is radiating out in the space time,

Duncan Trussell (09:39.420)

then what if like the James Webb version of this

Lex Fridman (09:44.360)

for some advanced civilization is not that they're like

Duncan Trussell (09:47.380)

looking at the nebula or whatever,

Lex Fridman (09:50.320)

but they're actually able to peer into the past

Lex Fridman (09:53.120)

and via some bizarre technology recreate whatever life,

Lex Fridman (09:57.200)

simulate whatever life was happening there

Duncan Trussell (09:59.640)

just by decoding that quantum energy, whatever it is.

Lex Fridman (10:02.840)

I'm only saying quantum because it's what dumb people say

Duncan Trussell (10:04.940)

when they don't know.

Lex Fridman (10:05.780)

You just say quantum, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (10:07.400)

But you know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (10:08.560)

You're decoding that.

Lex Fridman (10:09.480)

So meaning, in simulation theory,

Lex Fridman (10:12.520)

one of the big questions that pops up is why

Lex Fridman (10:16.720)

and are we in one?

Lex Fridman (10:18.120)

And Elon has talked about,

Duncan Trussell (10:19.920)

well, it's probably more of a probability

Lex Fridman (10:21.240)

than we're in one than we're not, in which case,

Lex Fridman (10:24.120)

what you're talking about is actually happening,

Lex Fridman (10:27.400)

that that loop you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (10:30.040)

we've decided to be here.

Lex Fridman (10:32.520)

This, of all the things, we decided this one,

Duncan Trussell (10:36.240)

oh, let's do that one again.

Lex Fridman (10:37.540)

I wanna do that one.

Duncan Trussell (10:38.480)

Let's try, let's do that.

Lex Fridman (10:40.680)

I love thinking about this because I love my family.

Lex Fridman (10:44.000)

And it makes sense to me that if I'm going to replay

Lex Fridman (10:46.920)

some life or another, it's definitely gonna be this one

Duncan Trussell (10:49.680)

with my kids, my wife,

Lex Fridman (10:51.560)

with all the bullshit that's gone along with it,

Duncan Trussell (10:53.500)

I'm still gonna wanna come back.

Lex Fridman (10:55.160)

So in Buddhism, that's attachment.

Duncan Trussell (10:57.360)

Yeah, but you weren't the one,

Lex Fridman (10:58.840)

oh, you're saying that you're the main player,

Duncan Trussell (11:00.440)

you're not the NPC.

Lex Fridman (11:01.820)

Well, I think we're dealing with all NPCs at this point.

Duncan Trussell (11:04.720)

I mean, depending on how you wanna,

Lex Fridman (11:06.360)

like very, I would say very advanced NPCs,

Duncan Trussell (11:08.800)

like incredibly advanced NPCs

Lex Fridman (11:11.460)

compared to Fallout or something.

Duncan Trussell (11:14.200)

We've got a lot of conversation options happening here.

Lex Fridman (11:17.240)

There's not like four things you can pick from.

Duncan Trussell (11:20.680)

Yeah, there's a whole illusion of free will

Lex Fridman (11:23.720)

that's happening.

Duncan Trussell (11:24.660)

We really do, depending where you are in the world,

Lex Fridman (11:28.320)

feel like you're free to decide any trajectory

Duncan Trussell (11:31.000)

in your life that you want.

Lex Fridman (11:32.100)

Which is pretty funny, right?

Duncan Trussell (11:33.600)

For an NPC, it's pretty, it's nice.

Lex Fridman (11:36.080)

Well, you're gonna want that.

Duncan Trussell (11:37.120)

If we're making a video game,

Lex Fridman (11:38.240)

you do wanna give your NPCs the illusion of free will

Duncan Trussell (11:41.560)

because it's gonna make interactions with them

Lex Fridman (11:44.120)

that much more intense.

Duncan Trussell (11:47.440)

Yeah, so I wonder on the path to that,

Lex Fridman (11:52.180)

how hard is it to create,

Duncan Trussell (11:54.340)

this is sort of the Carmack question

Lex Fridman (11:56.160)

of a realistic virtual world that's as cool as this one.

Duncan Trussell (12:02.020)

Not fully realistic, but sufficiently realistic

Lex Fridman (12:05.800)

that it's as interesting to live in.

Duncan Trussell (12:08.760)

Because we're gonna have to create those worlds

Lex Fridman (12:11.040)

on the path to creating something like a simulation.

Duncan Trussell (12:15.040)

Like long, long, long before.

Lex Fridman (12:17.040)

It'd be virtual worlds where we'd wanna stay forever

Duncan Trussell (12:20.080)

because they're full of that balance of suffering and joy,

Lex Fridman (12:27.240)

of limitations and freedoms and all that kind of stuff.

Duncan Trussell (12:29.920)

A lot of people think like in the virtual world,

Lex Fridman (12:32.160)

I can't wait to be able to, I don't know,

Duncan Trussell (12:35.320)

have sex with anybody I want or have anything I want.

Lex Fridman (12:39.840)

But I think that's not gonna be fun.

Duncan Trussell (12:42.560)

You want the limitations, the constraints.

Lex Fridman (12:44.920)

So you have to battle for the things you want.

Duncan Trussell (12:47.120)

Okay, but, okay, but great video games.

Lex Fridman (12:50.640)

One of my favorite video game memories

Duncan Trussell (12:52.480)

was like I started playing World of Warcraft

Lex Fridman (12:54.620)

in its original incarnation.

Lex Fridman (12:57.800)

And I didn't even know

Lex Fridman (12:59.360)

that you were gonna have flying mounts.

Duncan Trussell (13:01.100)

Like I didn't even know.

Lex Fridman (13:02.160)

So I've been running around dealing

Duncan Trussell (13:03.680)

with all the encumbrances of like being an undead warlock

Lex Fridman (13:07.440)

that can't fly.

Lex Fridman (13:08.700)

But then all of a sudden, holy shit, there's flying mounts.

Lex Fridman (13:12.120)

And now the world you've been running around not flying,

Duncan Trussell (13:15.000)

you're seeing it from the top down.

Lex Fridman (13:16.520)

It was just really cool.

Duncan Trussell (13:18.160)

Like, whoa, I could do this now.

Lex Fridman (13:19.920)

And then that gets boring.

Lex Fridman (13:21.680)

But a really well designed game,

Lex Fridman (13:24.240)

it has a series of these, I don't know what you call it,

Duncan Trussell (13:28.880)

extra abilities that kind of unfold and produce novelty.

Lex Fridman (13:33.200)

And then eventually you just accept it,

Duncan Trussell (13:35.800)

you take it for granted.

Lex Fridman (13:37.060)

And then another novelty appears.

Duncan Trussell (13:40.280)

Those extra abilities are always balanced

Lex Fridman (13:42.040)

with the limitations, the constraints they run up against.

Duncan Trussell (13:44.860)

Because a well balanced video game,

Lex Fridman (13:48.240)

the challenge, the struggle matches the new ability.

Duncan Trussell (13:51.480)

Yeah, and sometimes causes problems on its own.

Lex Fridman (13:54.580)

I mean, and so to go back to this universe, this simulation,

Duncan Trussell (13:59.280)

it's really designed like a pretty awesome video game.

Lex Fridman (14:02.660)

If you look at it from the perspective of history,

Duncan Trussell (14:05.860)

I mean, people were on horses.

Lex Fridman (14:08.360)

They didn't know that they were gonna be bullet trains.

Duncan Trussell (14:10.560)

They didn't know that you could get in a car

Lex Fridman (14:12.960)

and drive across the country in a few days.

Duncan Trussell (14:15.880)

That would have sounded ridiculous.

Lex Fridman (14:17.480)

We're doing that now.

Lex Fridman (14:18.580)

And even in our own lifespan, think about it.

Lex Fridman (14:21.800)

How long has VR goggles existed?

Duncan Trussell (14:24.400)

Like the ones that you could just buy at Best Buy.

Lex Fridman (14:27.480)

I had the original Oculus Rift, the fucking puke machine.

Duncan Trussell (14:31.380)

You put that thing on, I gave it to my friend.

Lex Fridman (14:34.040)

He went and vomited in my driveway

Lex Fridman (14:36.440)

and people were making fun of it.

Lex Fridman (14:38.640)

They were saying, this isn't gonna catch on.

Duncan Trussell (14:40.080)

It's too big, it's unwieldy, the graphics suck.

Lex Fridman (14:43.720)

And then look at where it's at now.

Lex Fridman (14:45.720)

And that's going to keep,

Lex Fridman (14:48.040)

that trajectory is gonna keep improving.

Lex Fridman (14:50.120)

So yeah, I think that we are dealing

Lex Fridman (14:53.120)

with what you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (14:54.200)

which is novelty met with more problems, met with novelty.

Lex Fridman (14:59.600)

Yeah, I wonder why VR is not more popular.

Duncan Trussell (15:01.980)

I wonder what is going to be the magic thing

Lex Fridman (15:05.380)

that really convinces a large fraction of the world

Duncan Trussell (15:10.640)

to move into the virtual world.

Lex Fridman (15:13.140)

I suppose we're already there in the 2D screen

Duncan Trussell (15:16.780)

of Twitter and social media and that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (15:19.740)

And even video games, there's a lot of people

Duncan Trussell (15:21.400)

that get a big sense of community from video games.

Lex Fridman (15:26.200)

But like, it doesn't feel like you're living there.

Duncan Trussell (15:29.500)

It's like, bye mom, I'm going to this other world.

Lex Fridman (15:35.760)

Or like you leave your girlfriend

Duncan Trussell (15:37.900)

to go get your digital girlfriend.

Lex Fridman (15:40.380)

That's gonna be a problem.

Duncan Trussell (15:41.680)

There's less jealousy in the digital world.

Lex Fridman (15:43.580)

Maybe there should be a lot of jealousy

Duncan Trussell (15:45.380)

in the digital world.

Lex Fridman (15:46.380)

Cause that's jealousy, a little jealousy

Duncan Trussell (15:49.860)

is probably good for relationships,

Lex Fridman (15:52.300)

even in the digital world.

Lex Fridman (15:54.260)

So you're gonna have to simulate all of that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (15:56.220)

But I wonder what the magic thing that says,

Duncan Trussell (15:58.440)

I wanna spend most of my days inside the virtual world.

Lex Fridman (16:01.560)

Well, clearly it's gonna be something we don't have yet.

Duncan Trussell (16:05.620)

I mean, strapping that damn thing on your face

Lex Fridman (16:07.740)

still feels weird.

Duncan Trussell (16:08.700)

It's heavy.

Lex Fridman (16:09.940)

If you're depending on what gear you're using,

Duncan Trussell (16:12.380)

sometimes light can leak in.

Lex Fridman (16:13.940)

There's just, you gotta recharge it.

Duncan Trussell (16:15.620)

It's hyper limited.

Lex Fridman (16:16.920)

And then, so yeah, it's gonna have to be something

Duncan Trussell (16:23.380)

that like simulates taste, smell.

Lex Fridman (16:27.580)

You think taste and smell are important touch?

Duncan Trussell (16:29.380)

I do, yeah.

Lex Fridman (16:30.860)

I can't just do, in World War II, you would write letters.

Duncan Trussell (16:34.580)

You could still, don't you think you can convey love

Lex Fridman (16:36.660)

with just words?

Duncan Trussell (16:38.140)

For sure.

Lex Fridman (16:39.300)

But I think for what you're talking about to happen,

Duncan Trussell (16:42.140)

it has to be fully immersive.

Lex Fridman (16:45.180)

So that it's not that you feel like you're walking

Duncan Trussell (16:49.300)

cause it looks like you're walking,

Lex Fridman (16:50.640)

but that your brain is sending signals

Duncan Trussell (16:52.740)

telling your body that you're walking,

Lex Fridman (16:54.960)

that you feel the wind blowing in your face,

Duncan Trussell (16:57.220)

not because of some, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (16:58.940)

fan or something that it's connected to,

Lex Fridman (17:01.260)

but because somehow it's figured out

Lex Fridman (17:03.940)

how to hack into the human brain

Lex Fridman (17:06.740)

and send those signals minus some external thing.

Lex Fridman (17:10.460)

Once that happens, I'd say we're gonna see

Duncan Trussell (17:13.960)

a complete radical shift in everything.

Lex Fridman (17:18.380)

See, I disagree with you.

Duncan Trussell (17:19.540)

I don't know if you've seen the movie Her.

Lex Fridman (17:21.380)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (17:22.540)

I think you can go to another world

Lex Fridman (17:24.520)

in where a digital being lives in the darkness

Lex Fridman (17:27.340)

and all you hear is Scarlett Johansson voice talking to you

Lex Fridman (17:32.060)

and she lives there or he lives there,

Duncan Trussell (17:34.740)

your friend, your loved one,

Lex Fridman (17:38.140)

and all you have is voice and words.

Lex Fridman (17:40.060)

And I think that could be sufficient

Lex Fridman (17:42.540)

to pull you into that world

Duncan Trussell (17:44.140)

where you look forward to that moment all day.

Lex Fridman (17:47.300)

You never wanna leave the darkness,

Duncan Trussell (17:49.460)

just closing your eyes and listening to the voice.

Lex Fridman (17:51.620)

I think those basic mediums of communication

Duncan Trussell (17:55.660)

is still enough.

Lex Fridman (17:56.500)

Like language is really, really powerful.

Lex Fridman (17:58.580)

And I think the realism of touch and smell

Lex Fridman (18:00.940)

and all that kind of stuff

Duncan Trussell (18:02.700)

is not nearly as powerful as language.

Lex Fridman (18:04.540)

That's what makes humans really special

Duncan Trussell (18:07.260)

is our ability to communicate with each other.

Lex Fridman (18:09.580)

That's the sense of like deep connection we get

Duncan Trussell (18:12.460)

is through communication.

Lex Fridman (18:13.800)

Now that communication could involve touch.

Duncan Trussell (18:16.140)

Like, you know, hugging feels damn good.

Lex Fridman (18:20.300)

You see a good friend, you hug.

Duncan Trussell (18:22.900)

That's one of the big things with doing COVID with Rogan.

Lex Fridman (18:25.980)

When you see him, there's a giant hug coming your way

Lex Fridman (18:29.100)

and that makes you feel like, yeah, this feels great.

Lex Fridman (18:33.340)

But I think that can be just with language.

Duncan Trussell (18:36.020)

I think for a lot of people that's true,

Lex Fridman (18:40.800)

but we're talking like massive adoption

Duncan Trussell (18:46.140)

of a technology by the world.

Lex Fridman (18:49.060)

And if language was just enough,

Duncan Trussell (18:52.980)

we wouldn't be selling TVs.

Lex Fridman (18:55.500)

People will be reading.

Lex Fridman (18:57.660)

They wanna watch, they wanna see, you know?

Lex Fridman (19:01.220)

But I agree with you, man.

Duncan Trussell (19:02.620)

When you're getting absorbed into a book

Lex Fridman (19:04.500)

and especially if you've got,

Duncan Trussell (19:06.140)

I think a lot of us went through a weird dark ages

Lex Fridman (19:08.740)

when it came to reading.

Duncan Trussell (19:09.980)

Like when I was a kid and there wasn't the option

Lex Fridman (19:12.440)

for these hypno rectangles, that's just what you did.

Duncan Trussell (19:16.140)

There wasn't even anything special about it.

Lex Fridman (19:17.780)

What's a hypno rectangle? Your phone.

Duncan Trussell (19:19.500)

You know, it was like, you didn't,

Lex Fridman (19:20.820)

when that gravity well.

Duncan Trussell (19:22.060)

Hypno rectangle, gravity well.

Lex Fridman (19:24.340)

It is. Attention, gravity well, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (19:26.340)

When we weren't feeling the pull of these things

Lex Fridman (19:28.260)

all the time, you would just read

Lex Fridman (19:30.540)

and you weren't patting yourself on the back about reading.

Lex Fridman (19:33.100)

You just, that's what you had.

Duncan Trussell (19:34.380)

You had that and you had like eight channels on the TV

Lex Fridman (19:37.740)

and a shitty VCR.

Duncan Trussell (19:39.340)

So, you know, then a lot of people stop reading

Lex Fridman (19:42.440)

because of these things, you know,

Duncan Trussell (19:43.660)

or they think they're reading

Lex Fridman (19:44.620)

because they are technically reading, but you know,

Duncan Trussell (19:47.940)

when you return to reading after a pause, whoa,

Lex Fridman (19:51.940)

and you realize how powerful this simulator is

Duncan Trussell (19:54.540)

when it's given the right code of language,

Lex Fridman (19:57.300)

whoa, holy shit, it's incredible.

Duncan Trussell (19:59.580)

I mean, it's like, again, it's the most embarrassing

Lex Fridman (1:00:01.200)

which is you can end up like missing a lot of moments.

Duncan Trussell (1:00:05.760)

You could, or you start doing the old kick the can

Lex Fridman (1:00:08.740)

down the road thing where you're like coming up

Duncan Trussell (1:00:11.400)

with a variety of ways to procrastinate,

Lex Fridman (1:00:14.520)

making it work now,

Duncan Trussell (1:00:17.880)

because you know, this fucking human lifespan idea, man,

Lex Fridman (1:00:21.120)

it's really caused a lot of problems.

Duncan Trussell (1:00:22.660)

When they started saying on average,

Lex Fridman (1:00:24.820)

this is how many years you're gonna live

Duncan Trussell (1:00:26.640)

if you're a human being,

Lex Fridman (1:00:28.240)

man, that is like really bad

Duncan Trussell (1:00:30.640)

because a lot of people hear that

Lex Fridman (1:00:31.740)

and they like feel like that's a guaranteed number of years

Duncan Trussell (1:00:35.960)

in some temporal bank that they have access to.

Lex Fridman (1:00:41.140)

And when you get cancer,

Duncan Trussell (1:00:43.360)

that's like when you get the alert on your phone

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.280)

where you're like, what the fuck?

Lex Fridman (1:00:47.400)

Wait, what?

Lex Fridman (1:00:48.240)

Like, oh shit, like I have like,

Duncan Trussell (1:00:51.760)

either I don't know how much money's in that bank account

Lex Fridman (1:00:54.760)

or I have way less than I thought.

Lex Fridman (1:00:57.040)

And so at that point, you get to be in the truth

Lex Fridman (1:01:00.840)

because that's ultimately, I think that's what it feels like.

Duncan Trussell (1:01:03.720)

It feels like truth. It's truth.

Lex Fridman (1:01:06.560)

It's the truth.

Duncan Trussell (1:01:07.640)

It's the truth.

Lex Fridman (1:01:08.460)

Like the whole bubble of ignorance

Duncan Trussell (1:01:11.080)

that you subconsciously built around yourself

Lex Fridman (1:01:14.480)

to avoid experiencing the terror of your own mortality,

Duncan Trussell (1:01:18.680)

just, it's like a meteorite in the form of your doctor

Lex Fridman (1:01:22.640)

talking to you just shatters that thing.

Lex Fridman (1:01:24.720)

And now you're like, especially with eye testicular cancer.

Lex Fridman (1:01:28.040)

So when you get the diagnosis, it's just like the movies.

Duncan Trussell (1:01:38.800)

The mother, the doctor took me in his office

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.760)

and you just know, I got cancer.

Duncan Trussell (1:01:44.000)

It's like, you don't even have to say.

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.160)

It's like, I know what you're about to say.

Duncan Trussell (1:01:46.400)

I'm in the office. I know how this goes.

Lex Fridman (1:01:48.240)

But you go in there and what you were thinking,

Duncan Trussell (1:01:51.360)

oh, you know, probably just have some weird thing

Lex Fridman (1:01:53.840)

in my ball.

Duncan Trussell (1:01:54.680)

That's why it's swollen up like that.

Lex Fridman (1:01:55.800)

Anytime I've gone to the doctor,

Duncan Trussell (1:01:57.520)

you always leave like, oh, cool, I'm fine.

Lex Fridman (1:01:59.880)

But no, that's not how you're gonna leave the doctor.

Duncan Trussell (1:02:02.440)

You're gonna leave the doctor

Lex Fridman (1:02:03.480)

in a completely different universe

Duncan Trussell (1:02:06.420)

than the one you grew up in.

Lex Fridman (1:02:07.600)

You're gonna go from, talk about multiverse.

Duncan Trussell (1:02:09.960)

You just popped into a brand new multiverse.

Lex Fridman (1:02:12.800)

So.

Lex Fridman (1:02:13.640)

What was the conversation with the doctor like?

Lex Fridman (1:02:15.280)

Was there like, from a perspective of a doctor,

Duncan Trussell (1:02:19.300)

boys had a hard conversation.

Lex Fridman (1:02:21.180)

I feel like you need to build up philosophically

Duncan Trussell (1:02:23.360)

to that conversation.

Lex Fridman (1:02:25.320)

Oh no.

Duncan Trussell (1:02:26.720)

Oh no, there's not time.

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.280)

He's busy.

Duncan Trussell (1:02:29.120)

He's got other appointments, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:02:30.520)

Also, if you're gonna get cancer, testicular cancer is,

Duncan Trussell (1:02:34.720)

you know, not that there is a great cancer to get,

Lex Fridman (1:02:37.180)

but that's the, you know, that's a good one

Duncan Trussell (1:02:39.240)

because it moves slowly.

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.520)

The treatments they have for it are really advanced now.

Lex Fridman (1:02:46.660)

And so if you catch it early, then, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.320)

generally it's good, you can survive it.

Duncan Trussell (1:02:55.080)

So.

Lex Fridman (1:02:56.240)

So he could offer at least some glimmer of hope.

Duncan Trussell (1:02:58.480)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.000)

I mean, you know, but he didn't really do,

Duncan Trussell (1:03:02.600)

he couldn't really offer that hope

Lex Fridman (1:03:04.800)

because we had to find out how far the cancer progressed

Duncan Trussell (1:03:07.960)

in my body.

Lex Fridman (1:03:09.280)

That's the next step is like,

Duncan Trussell (1:03:11.000)

as soon as they tell you you have cancer,

Lex Fridman (1:03:12.440)

they don't, they're not, they move quick.

Duncan Trussell (1:03:14.740)

They're like, you know, we're going to schedule the surgery

Lex Fridman (1:03:18.820)

for, I think this was a Thursday or Friday.

Duncan Trussell (1:03:21.560)

They're like, we're gonna schedule it for Tuesday.

Lex Fridman (1:03:24.720)

Here's the chance, here's,

Duncan Trussell (1:03:26.800)

we don't know for sure it's cancer.

Lex Fridman (1:03:27.980)

That's what they say.

Duncan Trussell (1:03:28.820)

It's like, there's a 80 or 90% chance that this is cancer.

Lex Fridman (1:03:33.440)

There is some possibility it could be something else.

Duncan Trussell (1:03:36.680)

The only way we can now is like doing a biopsy.

Lex Fridman (1:03:40.800)

And the only way that we can get that biopsy

Duncan Trussell (1:03:42.520)

is by cutting one of your balls off.

Lex Fridman (1:03:44.200)

He didn't say it like that, but you know,

Duncan Trussell (1:03:46.200)

that's pretty much the logic behind it.

Lex Fridman (1:03:47.960)

It's like, we got to get this thing.

Duncan Trussell (1:03:49.120)

It's like a zombie bite.

Lex Fridman (1:03:50.520)

We got to hack this fucking thing off

Lex Fridman (1:03:51.920)

and we got to do it fast.

Lex Fridman (1:03:53.120)

But did you say it in a way that you understood?

Duncan Trussell (1:03:55.440)

Yeah, what they do is because they know

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.160)

that when someone gets a cancer diagnosis,

Duncan Trussell (1:04:00.540)

that their ability to comprehend information changes.

Lex Fridman (1:04:05.200)

When you get a cancer diagnosis,

Duncan Trussell (1:04:07.160)

you, all the tropes, they happen.

Lex Fridman (1:04:09.800)

You're hearing it's weird.

Duncan Trussell (1:04:11.400)

You're basically having like an anxiety attack,

Lex Fridman (1:04:13.480)

if I had to guess.

Duncan Trussell (1:04:14.320)

It's like a hardcore anxiety attack.

Lex Fridman (1:04:16.440)

And then, you know, a nurse is there with me

Duncan Trussell (1:04:19.440)

as he's explaining it.

Lex Fridman (1:04:21.000)

And then her job is, even though he's telling me

Lex Fridman (1:04:23.160)

how to get to the machine that's going to scan my body

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.940)

to see if it's gotten into my brain,

Duncan Trussell (1:04:29.560)

he knows I'm not going to remember that.

Lex Fridman (1:04:31.340)

And so this nurse, when you're in this like fog,

Duncan Trussell (1:04:35.160)

takes you, at least took me to the machine

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.060)

that does the scan,

Lex Fridman (1:04:39.560)

but you're not going to get that data back for a few days.

Lex Fridman (1:04:42.320)

And so that's where you really live in the real world.

Duncan Trussell (1:04:47.760)

That's the real world.

Lex Fridman (1:04:48.920)

It's such a fascinating moment and the days that follow

Lex Fridman (1:04:52.720)

and even that moment, because that doctor,

Lex Fridman (1:04:55.000)

you know, you talk about the matrix where like the pills

Lex Fridman (1:04:57.240)

and so on, you get the blue pill and the red pill.

Lex Fridman (1:05:00.960)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (1:05:01.840)

This is like the, like the real world introduction,

Lex Fridman (1:05:07.680)

the human introduction is the truth.

Duncan Trussell (1:05:10.360)

You've now just taken the red pill.

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.220)

You get to see the truth of reality.

Lex Fridman (1:05:16.200)

And here's a busy doctor just telling you.

Lex Fridman (1:05:19.160)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (1:05:20.000)

Like all those dreams you've had,

Lex Fridman (1:05:22.800)

all those illusions you've built up to somehow your work

Duncan Trussell (1:05:25.900)

as a comedian and actor will make you live forever somehow.

Lex Fridman (1:05:29.720)

It's just the basic illusion we have that we're,

Duncan Trussell (1:05:32.240)

this whole project is going to be an infinite sequence

Lex Fridman (1:05:36.760)

of fun things that we're going to get to do.

Duncan Trussell (1:05:38.340)

It's like, holy shit, it's not.

Lex Fridman (1:05:39.840)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (1:05:40.680)

It's old.

Lex Fridman (1:05:41.500)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.340)

And there's very sophisticated ways of doing that.

Lex Fridman (1:05:44.800)

And there's very dumb ways of doing that.

Lex Fridman (1:05:46.600)

And I'd really been doing a dumb way of doing that.

Lex Fridman (1:05:48.800)

Like I'd been playing around with this idiot notion

Duncan Trussell (1:05:52.920)

of subjective consciousness.

Lex Fridman (1:05:54.840)

So like, I'd been sort of kicking around this,

Duncan Trussell (1:05:57.200)

like I think they call it solipsism.

Lex Fridman (1:05:59.240)

It's like, you're like, okay, I know I'm self aware,

Lex Fridman (1:06:02.920)

but no one else can prove that they're self aware.

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.480)

Like I don't, I have no way of proving

Duncan Trussell (1:06:08.720)

that everything around me isn't just a video game,

Lex Fridman (1:06:11.200)

isn't just some projection, isn't, you know,

Duncan Trussell (1:06:14.400)

who knows what.

Lex Fridman (1:06:15.240)

So maybe everybody else dies.

Duncan Trussell (1:06:18.200)

They're NPCs, but I don't,

Lex Fridman (1:06:20.400)

because I'm the only thing I know

Duncan Trussell (1:06:22.240)

that has subjective consciousness.

Lex Fridman (1:06:24.160)

Now, it's not like I really believed that.

Duncan Trussell (1:06:26.040)

It's like an idea you toy around with

Lex Fridman (1:06:28.480)

when you're trying to evade confronting the reality

Duncan Trussell (1:06:31.600)

of your own mortality.

Lex Fridman (1:06:32.520)

It's just the brain will produce all kinds

Duncan Trussell (1:06:34.440)

of ridiculous forms of ignorance.

Lex Fridman (1:06:36.160)

And that was one I'd been playing around with.

Duncan Trussell (1:06:38.360)

Oh, you mean for like a large part of your life

Lex Fridman (1:06:40.760)

you were playing around with that?

Duncan Trussell (1:06:41.600)

Well, not like really,

Lex Fridman (1:06:42.840)

I think it's important to really emphasize,

Duncan Trussell (1:06:44.800)

I didn't think I was a mortal.

Lex Fridman (1:06:46.960)

Like I knew at some level, I'm probably gonna die.

Duncan Trussell (1:06:49.640)

Everyone dies.

Lex Fridman (1:06:51.000)

But there's ways that you can sort of poke around

Duncan Trussell (1:06:56.520)

with that idea.

Lex Fridman (1:06:57.640)

I still do it to this day.

Duncan Trussell (1:06:58.960)

Like I still do it.

Lex Fridman (1:07:00.440)

Like it's a natural thing to do

Duncan Trussell (1:07:01.920)

when you're confronted with that, with annihilation.

Lex Fridman (1:07:05.160)

You wanna way out.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:06.400)

You wanna talk your way out, figure it out.

Lex Fridman (1:07:08.640)

There's gotta be some way to fix it.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:09.880)

Well, they'll fix it.

Lex Fridman (1:07:10.960)

That's another thing people do.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:12.560)

Well, they'll fix it.

Lex Fridman (1:07:13.480)

Yeah, it'd be fine.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:14.800)

They'll expand the human lifespan.

Lex Fridman (1:07:16.800)

That's what they'll do.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:17.640)

I mean, that's a big argument for it is like,

Lex Fridman (1:07:20.960)

look, the human lifespan up until COVID,

Duncan Trussell (1:07:23.400)

which they had to recalculate like the lifespan

Lex Fridman (1:07:26.520)

because of the statistically all the people who died,

Duncan Trussell (1:07:29.280)

it like threw it off a little bit.

Lex Fridman (1:07:30.520)

But pandemics aside, the idea was the human lifespan

Duncan Trussell (1:07:34.360)

seemed to be increasing by half a year every year,

Lex Fridman (1:07:39.000)

something like that.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:39.840)

We were living longer.

Lex Fridman (1:07:41.200)

So all you gotta do, one more half a year.

Lex Fridman (1:07:45.120)

And we're immortal, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:46.480)

If we live a year longer every year, then we live forever.

Lex Fridman (1:07:50.800)

And so that's another way you can get out

Lex Fridman (1:07:53.240)

of confronting death is you can think,

Duncan Trussell (1:07:55.280)

well, maybe right now we don't have the tech,

Lex Fridman (1:07:58.520)

but it's coming.

Duncan Trussell (1:07:59.360)

Consciousness uploads or downloads or whatever,

Lex Fridman (1:08:03.440)

depending on how you wanna look at it.

Duncan Trussell (1:08:05.080)

Another way people try to squirm out of the reality of death.

Lex Fridman (1:08:09.600)

There's all kinds of tricks.

Duncan Trussell (1:08:11.040)

Yeah, and we do all of them.

Lex Fridman (1:08:13.600)

And sometimes, yeah, I mean, a lot of religions

Duncan Trussell (1:08:17.160)

provide different, even more tools in the toolkit

Lex Fridman (1:08:20.320)

for coming up with ideas of how you can live

Duncan Trussell (1:08:23.440)

in the illusion that we're not going to,

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.280)

there's not an end to this particular experience

Duncan Trussell (1:08:28.040)

that we're having here on earth right now.

Lex Fridman (1:08:29.920)

And then when you get that cancer diagnosis,

Lex Fridman (1:08:32.720)

it's like, yeah, what was that like going home?

Lex Fridman (1:08:37.160)

The car ride, did you drive home alone?

Duncan Trussell (1:08:39.680)

Yeah, I mean, it was one of the most.

Lex Fridman (1:08:42.120)

What'd you listen to, Bruce Springsteen?

Lex Fridman (1:08:44.400)

Bruce Springsteen, hey little girl, is your daddy home?

Lex Fridman (1:08:47.920)

That's not a good one to listen to.

Lex Fridman (1:08:49.160)

Does he have cancer, is he gonna die?

Lex Fridman (1:08:52.000)

Yeah, all the love songs.

Duncan Trussell (1:08:53.760)

Maybe you experienced them more intensely.

Lex Fridman (1:08:57.560)

I don't remember what I listened to,

Lex Fridman (1:09:00.440)

and I don't remember driving home,

Lex Fridman (1:09:02.600)

but I do remember driving to another doctor appointment,

Duncan Trussell (1:09:06.800)

doctor's appointment the next day.

Lex Fridman (1:09:10.920)

I think it was the next day.

Duncan Trussell (1:09:13.200)

I think the Goodyear blimp was floating in the sky

Lex Fridman (1:09:16.320)

and I was looking, I was at a stoplight, looking around.

Lex Fridman (1:09:19.320)

Is that God?

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.520)

Is the person flying it know how to cure cancer?

Duncan Trussell (1:09:26.480)

Oh, you were looking, oh wow.

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.440)

No, I didn't think that.

Lex Fridman (1:09:29.760)

What I thought was this shit just keeps going.

Lex Fridman (1:09:32.920)

That's what I thought.

Duncan Trussell (1:09:34.000)

I thought, I'm gonna be gone

Lex Fridman (1:09:36.760)

and this is just gonna keep going.

Lex Fridman (1:09:38.760)

And that was a beautiful moment for me.

Lex Fridman (1:09:40.840)

It was this beautiful moment of like.

Lex Fridman (1:09:42.400)

You were able to accept it?

Lex Fridman (1:09:43.640)

Oh yeah.

Duncan Trussell (1:09:44.640)

No, like that's just what you're talking about

Lex Fridman (1:09:46.440)

with the Ukraine, what you're talking about.

Duncan Trussell (1:09:50.080)

It's like, unless you've been there,

Lex Fridman (1:09:54.120)

it's really hard to explain to people

Duncan Trussell (1:09:56.360)

that even in the midst of what is generally accepted

Lex Fridman (1:10:01.360)

as one of the worst fucking things that could happen to you,

Duncan Trussell (1:10:04.080)

war, cancer, somehow there's still joy.

Lex Fridman (1:10:11.000)

There's still love.

Duncan Trussell (1:10:12.520)

There's still, in fact, more.

Lex Fridman (1:10:14.840)

It's almost like when the anesthesia wears off,

Duncan Trussell (1:10:17.680)

when you get your mouth worked on, you start feeling again.

Lex Fridman (1:10:21.040)

You're feeling, you're noticing and that, wow.

Lex Fridman (1:10:25.600)

But yet, thank goodness.

Lex Fridman (1:10:29.680)

I think there's other ways for us to achieve

Duncan Trussell (1:10:31.480)

this state of consciousness that don't involve war or cancer.

Lex Fridman (1:10:35.640)

Thank God.

Duncan Trussell (1:10:36.480)

You think just meditating on your mortality

Lex Fridman (1:10:41.280)

is one such mechanism?

Duncan Trussell (1:10:42.920)

Just simply just not allowing yourself to get lost

Lex Fridman (1:10:48.280)

in the day to day illusion of life.

Duncan Trussell (1:10:51.440)

Just kind of stopping, putting on Bruce Springsteen.

Lex Fridman (1:10:56.000)

The most spiritual, he is great.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:00.720)

Maybe Johnny Cash hurt.

Lex Fridman (1:11:01.920)

Maybe that one.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:02.760)

I like Bruce Springsteen.

Lex Fridman (1:11:03.600)

I am knocking Bruce Springsteen.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:05.240)

I have a lot of great Bruce Springsteen memories, truly.

Lex Fridman (1:11:07.680)

His music's fantastic.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:09.480)

Yeah, but not meditating on mortality to Bruce Springsteen.

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.320)

You know what?

Duncan Trussell (1:11:14.160)

I'm just trying to do an audio soundtrack in my head.

Lex Fridman (1:11:17.080)

I guess we can each have our own audio soundtrack.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:19.520)

Oh, I'm on fire.

Lex Fridman (1:11:22.520)

It's so good.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:23.360)

Yeah, it's a good song.

Lex Fridman (1:11:24.200)

That's one of them.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:25.040)

I lay with the sheets soaking wet

Lex Fridman (1:11:27.640)

and the freight train running through the middle of my head

Lex Fridman (1:11:30.920)

and only you can cool my desire.

Lex Fridman (1:11:33.520)

And he's singing about someone else's girl.

Lex Fridman (1:11:35.920)

What a fucking nightmare.

Lex Fridman (1:11:37.840)

Bruce Springsteen's laying in bed

Duncan Trussell (1:11:40.240)

with a freight train running through his head

Lex Fridman (1:11:41.960)

thinking about banging your wife and you're out of town.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:45.360)

Oh my God.

Lex Fridman (1:11:46.200)

Oh, you're taking the other guy's perspective.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:47.720)

Like, holy shit, this guy's gonna get my wife.

Lex Fridman (1:11:49.920)

It's Bruce, yeah, you gotta take the other guy's.

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.200)

But it's love.

Lex Fridman (1:11:53.320)

Both perspectives.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:54.240)

I'm sure Bruce Springsteen thought it was love

Lex Fridman (1:11:55.920)

when he's sweating in bed, waiting to go to somebody's house.

Duncan Trussell (1:11:58.880)

She does too.

Lex Fridman (1:12:00.480)

What, does that marry?

Duncan Trussell (1:12:01.440)

If he's gonna break up that marriage,

Lex Fridman (1:12:03.080)

that marriage wasn't strong enough, right?

Duncan Trussell (1:12:05.240)

I mean, that relationship, I mean, that's the way of love.

Lex Fridman (1:12:08.960)

What marriage could survive?

Duncan Trussell (1:12:11.840)

Bruce Springsteen.

Lex Fridman (1:12:12.920)

Sweaty Bruce Springsteen.

Duncan Trussell (1:12:14.120)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Lex Fridman (1:12:16.760)

Well, maybe one that's based on financial,

Duncan Trussell (1:12:20.640)

sort of financial dynamics versus like love

Lex Fridman (1:12:23.520)

and sweaty Bruce Springsteen, like romantic connections.

Duncan Trussell (1:12:28.360)

Because there's like a music video of that

Lex Fridman (1:12:33.040)

where he's like a mechanic, I think.

Lex Fridman (1:12:35.880)

So he's like the poor mechanic

Lex Fridman (1:12:37.560)

who falls in love with this girl and there's that magic.

Duncan Trussell (1:12:43.600)

I've seen that magic.

Lex Fridman (1:12:44.440)

You connect with people like, I'll see somebody,

Duncan Trussell (1:12:47.480)

I think Jack Kerouac has that where he meets

Lex Fridman (1:12:50.480)

this Mexican girl on a bus.

Lex Fridman (1:12:54.360)

And like he talks about that heartbreak you feel

Lex Fridman (1:12:57.800)

when you realize this person you just fell in love with

Duncan Trussell (1:12:59.920)

in a split second is heading somewhere else

Lex Fridman (1:13:02.800)

in this too big world.

Lex Fridman (1:13:04.920)

But then he actually realizes in, spoiler alert

Lex Fridman (1:13:07.720)

for On The Road, that they're actually heading the same way

Lex Fridman (1:13:10.480)

and he now builds up the courage to talk to her

Lex Fridman (1:13:13.360)

and they kind of fall in love for a few days.

Lex Fridman (1:13:15.720)

And then he realized, eventually realizes

Lex Fridman (1:13:17.920)

that she may not be the perfect person for him.

Lex Fridman (1:13:21.200)

And all the jealousies comes out.

Lex Fridman (1:13:23.040)

It's like, why is this beautiful girl talking to me at all?

Lex Fridman (1:13:26.600)

And then she's probably some kind of,

Lex Fridman (1:13:28.640)

I mean, and that's, it's not very politically correct

Lex Fridman (1:13:31.520)

but he basically thinks that she's a prostitute

Lex Fridman (1:13:34.960)

and he talks to her about like, who's your pimp

Lex Fridman (1:13:38.320)

and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:13:39.160)

He attacks her in all that kind of way

Duncan Trussell (1:13:42.080)

when she's just an innocent, she has a past of that kind.

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.080)

But she's an innocent person and they connected

Lex Fridman (1:13:49.760)

and they fell in love with each other.

Lex Fridman (1:13:51.360)

Her gentleness, his worldliness, all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:13:55.920)

But that sometimes it doesn't work out that way

Lex Fridman (1:13:58.200)

and there's that heartbreak when you see,

Duncan Trussell (1:14:00.000)

you realize you're never gonna be able to have that.

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.280)

And that's, Bruce Springsteen saw that.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:06.000)

This is a married woman.

Lex Fridman (1:14:07.760)

I'm never gonna be able to have that, but I want that.

Lex Fridman (1:14:10.440)

And that's the heartbreak.

Lex Fridman (1:14:12.640)

I gotta say, I just assumed they were fucking, like I didn't.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:16.440)

I mean, after the song, like if the song doesn't get to.

Lex Fridman (1:14:19.440)

Hey little girl, is your daddy home?

Lex Fridman (1:14:21.200)

Did he go away and leave you all alone?

Lex Fridman (1:14:24.480)

You know, he's like, he knows she's at home alone.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:28.240)

Yeah, but it never materializes.

Lex Fridman (1:14:31.600)

He's, it's longing.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:34.040)

It's a man who's not with the thing he craves for.

Lex Fridman (1:14:38.320)

So he's longing for, he's talking about the longing.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:40.800)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:14:41.640)

Not with the having.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:43.240)

Hey, if anybody in the CIA is watching this,

Lex Fridman (1:14:45.440)

can you look into Bruce Springsteen's file

Lex Fridman (1:14:47.440)

and let us know if he actually banged the person

Lex Fridman (1:14:49.560)

you wrote that song about?

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.400)

What happens after the song, or between the song?

Lex Fridman (1:14:52.480)

We want facts.

Duncan Trussell (1:14:53.320)

Look, the longing though, I'll tell you this.

Lex Fridman (1:14:54.640)

Here's what's interesting about that thing

Duncan Trussell (1:14:56.400)

that you're talking about.

Lex Fridman (1:14:57.800)

Have you ever heard of something called Bhakti Yoga?

Duncan Trussell (1:15:01.360)

I think so, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:15:02.200)

It's the yoga of love.

Lex Fridman (1:15:03.480)

And there's all kinds, there's forms of it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:06.080)

The most, the one people know about the most

Duncan Trussell (1:15:08.880)

is the Hare Krishnas.

Lex Fridman (1:15:10.200)

But the Hare Krishnas are like, you know,

Duncan Trussell (1:15:12.760)

the way in Christianity, you've got the Episcopalians,

Lex Fridman (1:15:14.880)

the Catholics, the Baptists.

Duncan Trussell (1:15:16.360)

In Bhakti Yoga, you have various deities

Lex Fridman (1:15:19.880)

that are the object of love.

Lex Fridman (1:15:22.920)

And so Bhakti Yoga is like,

Lex Fridman (1:15:26.880)

and what's really cool about it is it's an analysis of love.

Lex Fridman (1:15:33.880)

And so, and it's the supposition being like,

Lex Fridman (1:15:38.240)

love is the way to commune with the divine.

Duncan Trussell (1:15:42.560)

Now, a distinction is drawn between

Lex Fridman (1:15:45.480)

like two big worldviews that are spiritual.

Duncan Trussell (1:15:49.040)

One is the concept of sort of unit of consciousness,

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.880)

which you'll run into in a lot of forms of Buddhism,

Duncan Trussell (1:15:58.040)

if not all, a sort of a way of deconstructing the identity

Lex Fridman (1:16:03.640)

or understanding that you might not be anything at all.

Duncan Trussell (1:16:07.760)

That in fact, you're part of everything.

Lex Fridman (1:16:09.400)

And in that, there's a potential relief

Duncan Trussell (1:16:14.360)

from suffering in that,

Lex Fridman (1:16:15.520)

not just like intellectually knowing it, but becoming it.

Duncan Trussell (1:16:19.080)

Now, whereas in Bhakti Yoga, there's this idea of like,

Lex Fridman (1:16:27.920)

the best thing is to be the individual

Duncan Trussell (1:16:30.480)

because individuals are required for love,

Lex Fridman (1:16:33.480)

this for love to work, embodied love.

Lex Fridman (1:16:36.760)

And so the quality, the thing we call the experience of love

Lex Fridman (1:16:43.120)

is something that can be cultivated.

Duncan Trussell (1:16:44.880)

It doesn't just have to be for another person.

Lex Fridman (1:16:46.560)

It doesn't have to be for the stranger on the bus.

Duncan Trussell (1:16:48.800)

It doesn't have to be for sweaty Bruce Springsteen's lover

Lex Fridman (1:16:52.920)

that you could actually,

Duncan Trussell (1:16:54.880)

you can actually shift that love to the divine, to God.

Lex Fridman (1:16:58.400)

Cause obviously it's the Hare Krishnas,

Duncan Trussell (1:17:00.160)

it's a theistic religion.

Lex Fridman (1:17:01.240)

They believe in Krishna who is the,

Duncan Trussell (1:17:03.920)

from the POV of Vaisnava Bhakti Yoga,

Lex Fridman (1:17:06.320)

the Godhead, the source from which everything

Duncan Trussell (1:17:10.720)

flows into time and space.

Lex Fridman (1:17:12.840)

So there are all these like fascinating stories of Krishna.

Duncan Trussell (1:17:19.800)

It's not just, most people are familiar with Krishna

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.680)

from the Bhagavad Gita.

Duncan Trussell (1:17:24.120)

They're about to be more, what's cool about it

Lex Fridman (1:17:25.680)

is cause it's like they're making the Oppenheimer movie

Lex Fridman (1:17:27.680)

and he famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita

Lex Fridman (1:17:29.760)

when they split the atom.

Lex Fridman (1:17:31.960)

But there's all these stories of Krishna

Lex Fridman (1:17:35.080)

that are not just in the Bhagavad Gita.

Lex Fridman (1:17:40.680)

And these stories,

Lex Fridman (1:17:44.200)

they could seem very simple when taken literally,

Lex Fridman (1:17:47.160)

but in Vaisnava Bhakti Yoga,

Lex Fridman (1:17:48.680)

it's this very advanced theistic yogic system.

Lex Fridman (1:17:53.600)

So they take these stories and from these stories,

Lex Fridman (1:17:56.560)

they extrapolate this incredible analysis of what love is

Lex Fridman (1:18:01.560)

and how to connect with the universe.

Lex Fridman (1:18:02.720)

So like Krishna has a lover, Radharani.

Lex Fridman (1:18:06.280)

And so sometimes they're getting along.

Lex Fridman (1:18:13.520)

Sometimes they're fighting.

Duncan Trussell (1:18:15.760)

Sometimes they're separated.

Lex Fridman (1:18:18.920)

And so each of these ways of feeling about Krishna

Duncan Trussell (1:18:25.960)

are modes of love.

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.600)

So longing actually is considered

Duncan Trussell (1:18:31.840)

one of the highest forms of love.

Lex Fridman (1:18:35.080)

The idea is the longing is the grace.

Duncan Trussell (1:18:38.120)

The longing is the love.

Lex Fridman (1:18:39.720)

So when you find yourself in a situation

Duncan Trussell (1:18:42.240)

of longing and heartbreak,

Lex Fridman (1:18:45.680)

it is identical to union.

Lex Fridman (1:18:50.920)

And perhaps more intensely representative

Lex Fridman (1:18:54.960)

of the essence of what is love.

Duncan Trussell (1:18:56.480)

Yes, and they call it pining.

Lex Fridman (1:18:58.600)

So there's the, and it's pining for Krishna.

Lex Fridman (1:19:01.520)

And there's also, there's other ways

Lex Fridman (1:19:03.800)

you could be with Krishna is as a friend.

Lex Fridman (1:19:05.760)

So this is another form of love or as a mother,

Lex Fridman (1:19:11.160)

because Krishna has a mother.

Lex Fridman (1:19:13.440)

So there's like all these ways of like looking

Lex Fridman (1:19:16.080)

at the various forms of love.

Lex Fridman (1:19:17.400)

And it's a really beautiful form of yoga.

Lex Fridman (1:19:20.880)

That's emphasizing the individual

Lex Fridman (1:19:22.720)

and the individual as a kind of channel

Lex Fridman (1:19:25.160)

to this universal love.

Duncan Trussell (1:19:27.560)

Yeah, there's a lot of different like their answer

Lex Fridman (1:19:32.560)

to the question of what shows up in Buddhism

Duncan Trussell (1:19:35.800)

as absolute and relative reality.

Lex Fridman (1:19:37.720)

Like that obviously there's relative reality.

Duncan Trussell (1:19:41.560)

We're not right now, you and me are not

Lex Fridman (1:19:44.760)

unit of consciousness.

Duncan Trussell (1:19:46.160)

Like you zoom back far enough

Lex Fridman (1:19:49.000)

and we're gonna seem like an atom or whatever.

Duncan Trussell (1:19:51.160)

The thing is, the trope is you can zoom back far enough

Lex Fridman (1:19:55.320)

and we're in a whatever, we're in a piece of cheese

Duncan Trussell (1:19:58.200)

or something, who knows.

Lex Fridman (1:19:59.240)

But in that way we're like completely unified.

Lex Fridman (1:20:03.160)

But simultaneously we're individuals,

Lex Fridman (1:20:06.160)

like for sure we're individuals.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:08.000)

Like you still gotta pay your taxes.

Lex Fridman (1:20:09.600)

You gotta know your social security number.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:11.200)

That's relative reality.

Lex Fridman (1:20:12.480)

So, you know, Buddhism is like kind of the balance.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:15.560)

Again, when I say Buddhism is I'm a comedian podcast

Lex Fridman (1:20:19.800)

or I'm not some Buddhist expert.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:21.080)

This is just probably my confused idea of what it is.

Lex Fridman (1:20:24.880)

But anyway, in bhakti yoga, there's the concept,

Duncan Trussell (1:20:29.040)

it's called, I'm gonna mispronounce it,

Lex Fridman (1:20:31.520)

asinka, sinka, beta, tatva.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:34.280)

I'm sorry, I'm mispronouncing it.

Lex Fridman (1:20:36.960)

Which means simultaneous oneness and difference.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:40.760)

So.

Lex Fridman (1:20:41.600)

Oneness and difference.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:42.960)

Yes, simultaneous oneness and difference.

Lex Fridman (1:20:44.880)

So that's why the oneness is the more

Duncan Trussell (1:20:48.400)

part of the same piece of cheese

Lex Fridman (1:20:50.560)

and the difference is we are still each paying taxes.

Duncan Trussell (1:20:54.000)

Yes, and in this case, the cheese is Krishna.

Lex Fridman (1:20:56.640)

So, you know, or other ways it gets described

Duncan Trussell (1:21:00.320)

is like, you know, a photon blasting off the sun

Lex Fridman (1:21:03.840)

has sunlight qualities, but it's not the sun.

Duncan Trussell (1:21:08.120)

Humans being one of the many things, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:21:12.400)

flowing out of the creative consciousness of the divine

Duncan Trussell (1:21:16.040)

have qualities that are weirdly like the godlike.

Lex Fridman (1:21:21.040)

You know, like we, in fact, we wanna control primarily.

Duncan Trussell (1:21:24.840)

That's one of the problems, like humans wanna be in control,

Lex Fridman (1:21:29.400)

wherein from their, the bhakti yoga perspective,

Duncan Trussell (1:21:32.200)

Krishna is effortlessly controlling everything.

Lex Fridman (1:21:38.040)

And so within the system, the individual parts

Duncan Trussell (1:21:40.840)

of the system have that same quality,

Lex Fridman (1:21:43.000)

but you can't, you're probably not God.

Duncan Trussell (1:21:45.240)

You might be, I'm not.

Lex Fridman (1:21:46.920)

I'm not. What do you think happens after we die?

Duncan Trussell (1:21:52.480)

Having come close to that, that, that cliff

Lex Fridman (1:21:58.200)

and almost got pushed over once.

Lex Fridman (1:22:00.880)

What do you think happens when you do get pushed off

Lex Fridman (1:22:03.640)

the cliff? Okay.

Duncan Trussell (1:22:06.840)

I feel dumb that I'm even gonna like preface this

Lex Fridman (1:22:09.280)

by saying, obviously I have no fucking idea.

Lex Fridman (1:22:11.800)

And I think that's one of the cool things about death.

Lex Fridman (1:22:14.160)

No idea. The CIA probably does.

Duncan Trussell (1:22:16.680)

You think the CIA, I love like,

Lex Fridman (1:22:19.200)

we've decided your audience is the CIA.

Duncan Trussell (1:22:21.840)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:22:22.880)

How would you, oh, wait.

Duncan Trussell (1:22:24.200)

I need to, cause there's a lot of suspicion

Lex Fridman (1:22:26.000)

that I might be FSB and Marsad.

Lex Fridman (1:22:28.200)

So I'm trying to rebrand.

Lex Fridman (1:22:30.120)

I'm trying to steer them into the CIA direction.

Duncan Trussell (1:22:35.320)

As far as what happens when you, when you die,

Lex Fridman (1:22:37.800)

one thing I returned to when I'm getting overly complex

Duncan Trussell (1:22:40.800)

is the idea of as above, so below.

Lex Fridman (1:22:43.680)

So that you can, a lot of the big questions

Duncan Trussell (1:22:47.720)

can be answered by your own experience now.

Lex Fridman (1:22:52.120)

So in other words, like in terms of thinking

Duncan Trussell (1:22:57.600)

about like death, if you look back to baby Lex

Lex Fridman (1:23:07.360)

versus adult Lex, where's the baby?

Duncan Trussell (1:23:11.560)

Like baby's gone.

Lex Fridman (1:23:13.120)

They, you've regenerated all your cells many times by then.

Lex Fridman (1:23:17.680)

So in a way you could say Lex baby died.

Lex Fridman (1:23:22.200)

The death didn't look like a typical,

Lex Fridman (1:23:24.520)

and I'm not trying to dodge it, but I'm just saying

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.080)

it was very natural that the death of that baby.

Duncan Trussell (1:23:29.840)

It just, it just.

Lex Fridman (1:23:32.240)

In many ways that baby died, but I am,

Duncan Trussell (1:23:35.120)

at least personally I'm surprised

Lex Fridman (1:23:36.960)

how much the person is exactly the same.

Lex Fridman (1:23:39.240)

So there's many ways in which you're very different,

Lex Fridman (1:23:43.240)

but there's a lot of ways in which you're very much the same.

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.920)

And I wonder if that, if there's,

Lex Fridman (1:23:50.040)

if life is defined by many deaths that continue on,

Lex Fridman (1:23:54.080)

and then I wonder if there's something persists beyond

Lex Fridman (1:23:58.240)

in this, that, yeah, there is something

Duncan Trussell (1:24:01.480)

that still persists, I wonder.

Lex Fridman (1:24:02.960)

Okay, so that.

Duncan Trussell (1:24:04.560)

Now, you know, obviously there's so many different answers

Lex Fridman (1:24:09.880)

to this question that are religious,

Lex Fridman (1:24:11.600)

and ranging from like the most absurd shit

Lex Fridman (1:24:15.200)

you ever heard in your life, like the gold.

Duncan Trussell (1:24:18.120)

You're gonna get a mansion.

Lex Fridman (1:24:19.480)

There's gold streets.

Lex Fridman (1:24:20.800)

Like, I don't, do you want like gold streets?

Lex Fridman (1:24:23.600)

Who offers gold streets?

Duncan Trussell (1:24:24.720)

I know about the virgins, but there's a bunch of virgins.

Lex Fridman (1:24:27.800)

The Christians give you the gold streets in the mansion.

Duncan Trussell (1:24:30.640)

Like depending on the, whatever the particular sect

Lex Fridman (1:24:35.320)

of Christianity is, you know, it's like some kind of city.

Duncan Trussell (1:24:39.040)

There's, it's like paved with gold.

Lex Fridman (1:24:41.360)

No one's addressing the fact that at the moment

Duncan Trussell (1:24:43.080)

the streets are made of gold.

Lex Fridman (1:24:44.280)

Gold is a valueless substance.

Duncan Trussell (1:24:46.920)

I mean, it's sort of pretty in a cheesy kind of way,

Lex Fridman (1:24:49.440)

but no one's gonna give a shit about it.

Duncan Trussell (1:24:50.600)

It's like, if there was not a lot of asphalt in the world,

Lex Fridman (1:24:55.560)

then, you know, we'd be in heaven

Duncan Trussell (1:24:57.600)

from that same, that way of thinking.

Lex Fridman (1:24:59.640)

But the, or honestly, when going back,

Duncan Trussell (1:25:03.560)

this is starting to get a theme with Gulag Archipelago.

Lex Fridman (1:25:06.920)

I'm sorry, I'm reading it currently.

Duncan Trussell (1:25:08.440)

That's a sticky book.

Lex Fridman (1:25:09.840)

Yeah, it's very sticky in your mind.

Duncan Trussell (1:25:11.600)

Very, very tough.

Lex Fridman (1:25:12.640)

As I'm running through very hot heat,

Duncan Trussell (1:25:14.800)

I'm listening to Gulag Archipelago.

Lex Fridman (1:25:16.960)

Oh my God.

Lex Fridman (1:25:17.800)

And you know, one of the things they said,

Lex Fridman (1:25:19.000)

they would feed prisoners salt,

Lex Fridman (1:25:23.920)

and then they would exchange,

Lex Fridman (1:25:26.360)

the prisoners would be able to give up anything, everything,

Duncan Trussell (1:25:30.240)

their gold, their possessions,

Lex Fridman (1:25:31.600)

everything for just one drink of water.

Lex Fridman (1:25:33.680)

So that little context of dehydrating them

Lex Fridman (1:25:37.600)

and feeding them salt changes your value system completely.

Lex Fridman (1:25:41.520)

So maybe the gold is supposed to be a metaphor

Lex Fridman (1:25:44.200)

for something that you still value deeply.

Duncan Trussell (1:25:46.320)

Yes, it's, yeah, again, any of these things,

Lex Fridman (1:25:48.920)

when you like take them literally, they seem absurd.

Lex Fridman (1:25:51.200)

But if you look deeper into it, it's like quite beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:25:54.360)

But the Buddhist version of it is that there's a momentum.

Duncan Trussell (1:25:58.160)

The best way to put it is it's the kind of momentum.

Lex Fridman (1:26:00.480)

So the thing you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (1:26:02.800)

which is the personality of the baby

Lex Fridman (1:26:06.520)

that is still in the adult,

Duncan Trussell (1:26:08.320)

which is still in the old person,

Lex Fridman (1:26:10.240)

you're looking at a kind of momentum

Duncan Trussell (1:26:12.880)

that does not stop upon the extinction of the body.

Lex Fridman (1:26:17.880)

Now, I think there's a lot of, I don't want to say harm,

Duncan Trussell (1:26:27.440)

because they didn't mean to hurt,

Lex Fridman (1:26:28.520)

but I think there's some harm that maybe has happened

Duncan Trussell (1:26:30.440)

from the way death is represented in movies.

Lex Fridman (1:26:33.280)

Like when people die in movies, it's like there's this,

Duncan Trussell (1:26:37.040)

usually it's pretty fast,

Lex Fridman (1:26:38.440)

even if it is what they're dying from is a longterm disease,

Duncan Trussell (1:26:42.200)

it like wraps up pretty quickly, starts with a cough,

Lex Fridman (1:26:45.600)

the person's in bed,

Lex Fridman (1:26:46.680)

but there's this weird kind of lucidity to the person

Lex Fridman (1:26:50.000)

up until the point of death.

Lex Fridman (1:26:51.640)

And also they generally, in movies, they have makeup on,

Lex Fridman (1:26:53.920)

which is always funny to me when the person dying looks great.

Duncan Trussell (1:26:57.280)

If you've ever been around a dying person, they're dying.

Lex Fridman (1:27:00.160)

They look like shit.

Duncan Trussell (1:27:01.320)

You're dying.

Lex Fridman (1:27:02.160)

They're all gray and like confused.

Duncan Trussell (1:27:05.160)

They're, you know, when you're around dying people,

Lex Fridman (1:27:07.440)

they will spin through time.

Duncan Trussell (1:27:09.880)

Your parents won't recognize you for a second.

Lex Fridman (1:27:11.880)

They'll think you're somebody else.

Duncan Trussell (1:27:13.080)

They won't, they're like everything's like

Lex Fridman (1:27:17.280)

the process is happening.

Lex Fridman (1:27:18.440)

So you're very confused when you die.

Lex Fridman (1:27:22.000)

So in general, not all the time,

Duncan Trussell (1:27:24.880)

some people die with a clear mind.

Lex Fridman (1:27:26.800)

It just depends on the type of death,

Lex Fridman (1:27:28.560)

but think in terms of getting hit by a car.

Lex Fridman (1:27:32.320)

So you went across the street, you get hit by a car.

Duncan Trussell (1:27:35.320)

Now, if we're talking about this momentum continuing,

Lex Fridman (1:27:40.480)

the confusion, assuming you didn't hit your head

Lex Fridman (1:27:42.760)

and you're unconscious, like somehow you just got smashed

Lex Fridman (1:27:45.520)

and you're like bleeding out,

Duncan Trussell (1:27:47.720)

even then you're gonna be confused

Lex Fridman (1:27:49.120)

because you're getting dizzy,

Duncan Trussell (1:27:50.360)

like blood's leaving your body.

Lex Fridman (1:27:52.080)

You're like, things are fading out.

Duncan Trussell (1:27:53.400)

Your vision's going.

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.480)

So it's a very confusing experience initially

Duncan Trussell (1:27:57.040)

when the body dies.

Lex Fridman (1:27:58.560)

If you are a materialist who has been,

Duncan Trussell (1:28:03.600)

who has convinced themselves that it's a permanent thing,

Lex Fridman (1:28:08.600)

the next bit of confusion is going to be

Duncan Trussell (1:28:10.880)

when you realize something is persisting here,

Lex Fridman (1:28:13.640)

like I'm still here.

Lex Fridman (1:28:14.640)

And this is where you run into the near death experiences,

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.600)

which are a global phenomena

Duncan Trussell (1:28:18.960)

that don't seem to be completely shaped by culture.

Lex Fridman (1:28:23.720)

Like regardless of what part of the world

Duncan Trussell (1:28:25.440)

people are having these experiences in,

Lex Fridman (1:28:27.480)

the reports tend to be similar and everyone's heard it,

Duncan Trussell (1:28:31.000)

the light, the life review,

Lex Fridman (1:28:35.600)

seeing ancestors and stuff like that.

Duncan Trussell (1:28:38.400)

Now, I don't know what that is.

Lex Fridman (1:28:40.600)

I don't know.

Duncan Trussell (1:28:43.520)

Sometimes I think that's probably just like a built in way

Lex Fridman (1:28:46.960)

the computer shuts down.

Lex Fridman (1:28:48.880)

This is something it does, who knows?

Lex Fridman (1:28:50.520)

But in Buddhism, the concept is this momentum persists

Duncan Trussell (1:28:55.840)

into something called the bardo.

Lex Fridman (1:28:57.320)

The bardo means in between.

Lex Fridman (1:28:59.240)

And there's an actual number of days

Lex Fridman (1:29:02.360)

they say that you get to hang out there.

Lex Fridman (1:29:04.560)

And I can't remember, it's like 37 days or 29 days

Lex Fridman (1:29:07.720)

or something, I'm not sure.

Lex Fridman (1:29:09.000)

But at least from the time space perspective,

Lex Fridman (1:29:13.160)

that's how long they're there.

Duncan Trussell (1:29:14.720)

Within this place,

Lex Fridman (1:29:18.960)

there are a lot of technological parallels, man.

Duncan Trussell (1:29:21.760)

It's like in the way the algorithm is reflective,

Lex Fridman (1:29:26.520)

it assesses your desires or whatever

Lex Fridman (1:29:28.840)

and then produces something that has within it

Lex Fridman (1:29:32.320)

a component of attraction to you.

Duncan Trussell (1:29:34.800)

Apparently this happens in the bardo.

Lex Fridman (1:29:36.720)

Or the way you wake up in the morning

Lex Fridman (1:29:39.240)

and you're in a shitty mood.

Lex Fridman (1:29:42.920)

And then coincidentally, everyone that day is an asshole.

Duncan Trussell (1:29:46.760)

If you don't catch it, you could just be like, wow,

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.120)

I guess it's act like an asshole day.

Duncan Trussell (1:29:50.880)

You don't realize you're seeing your asshole projection

Lex Fridman (1:29:55.640)

being reflected off the screen of another person.

Lex Fridman (1:29:58.880)

So in the bardo apparently,

Lex Fridman (1:30:00.480)

you don't need people for the reflective quality.

Duncan Trussell (1:30:03.480)

These projections happen

Lex Fridman (1:30:04.920)

and they appear as either Nietzsche's demon

Duncan Trussell (1:30:09.080)

or Nietzsche's angel.

Lex Fridman (1:30:10.600)

It just depends on where you're at and how you died.

Lex Fridman (1:30:14.360)

And if you died scared, then at least initially

Lex Fridman (1:30:18.400)

that's gonna be some scary shit you see around you.

Duncan Trussell (1:30:20.960)

If you died in a peaceful way,

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.200)

well then there's gonna be more of a possibility

Duncan Trussell (1:30:27.280)

of navigation through this liminal intermediary place.

Lex Fridman (1:30:32.280)

And so thus the emphasis on meditation in Buddhism,

Duncan Trussell (1:30:36.440)

a way to calm one's self, to not be distracted by thoughts,

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.760)

which are their own like apparitions.

Lex Fridman (1:30:43.960)

And then theoretically, if you wanted to,

Lex Fridman (1:30:47.080)

instead of spinning the wheel again

Lex Fridman (1:30:49.960)

and jumping back into a body,

Lex Fridman (1:30:52.160)

you could choose not to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:30:54.040)

And then transcend the wheel of birth and death.

Lex Fridman (1:30:57.840)

But if you still wanted to go back,

Duncan Trussell (1:31:00.440)

if you still wanted to go back or return or whatever,

Lex Fridman (1:31:05.360)

however you wanna put it,

Duncan Trussell (1:31:06.640)

then you could have more control

Lex Fridman (1:31:08.800)

over what your next birth might be

Duncan Trussell (1:31:12.120)

versus in this depiction of things,

Lex Fridman (1:31:15.080)

people running from demons that they don't recognize

Duncan Trussell (1:31:19.000)

as their own projection into any fucking body

Lex Fridman (1:31:23.120)

that they can find.

Duncan Trussell (1:31:24.460)

Because if you've had a body, you want a body.

Lex Fridman (1:31:26.880)

And so this is how you can incarnate as an animal.

Duncan Trussell (1:31:29.580)

This is how you can incarnate in the hell realms.

Lex Fridman (1:31:32.080)

This is how you can incarnate in any variety of things.

Lex Fridman (1:31:34.280)

But the idea is like maybe you could slow down a little bit

Lex Fridman (1:31:38.680)

and like choose a birth

Duncan Trussell (1:31:40.360)

that is gonna be more conducive to you

Lex Fridman (1:31:45.600)

continuing to like spiritually evolve.

Duncan Trussell (1:31:48.360)

I like that idea.

Lex Fridman (1:31:49.440)

Is it true or not?

Lex Fridman (1:31:50.480)

Who the fuck knows?

Lex Fridman (1:31:51.320)

Algorithmically speaking,

Duncan Trussell (1:31:52.940)

it seems like a really fun role playing game

Lex Fridman (1:31:55.040)

where you basically keep improving

Duncan Trussell (1:31:57.960)

the different parameters based on your ability

Lex Fridman (1:32:03.680)

and willingness to meditate

Lex Fridman (1:32:07.180)

and let go of the menial concerns of life on earth.

Lex Fridman (1:32:14.800)

Why do you think Buddhists see life as suffering?

Lex Fridman (1:32:19.200)

What's suffering?

Lex Fridman (1:32:20.680)

Okay, well, first of all,

Duncan Trussell (1:32:23.680)

that gets mistranslated quite a bit.

Lex Fridman (1:32:26.360)

You're talking about the four noble truths.

Duncan Trussell (1:32:27.960)

The first one is,

Lex Fridman (1:32:29.080)

often it's translated as life is suffering,

Duncan Trussell (1:32:31.980)

which is not it, it's there is suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:32:36.800)

The whole life is suffering thing

Duncan Trussell (1:32:38.160)

is just like a spiritual version of life's a bitch,

Lex Fridman (1:32:40.640)

then you die.

Lex Fridman (1:32:41.800)

And people hear that and they're like,

Lex Fridman (1:32:42.880)

yeah, life is fucking suffering,

Lex Fridman (1:32:44.840)

but it's there is suffering, there is suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:32:47.360)

So it's an affirmation.

Duncan Trussell (1:32:50.000)

If you're like this thing that a lot of people feel

Lex Fridman (1:32:53.360)

that they associate with lots of,

Duncan Trussell (1:32:55.240)

they have a lot of reasons they think they're feeling it

Lex Fridman (1:32:57.880)

is known as fundamental dissatisfaction.

Lex Fridman (1:33:00.880)

So another word for suffering,

Lex Fridman (1:33:03.760)

maybe it could be fundamental dissatisfaction.

Duncan Trussell (1:33:06.480)

Also, the term itself,

Lex Fridman (1:33:11.220)

maybe a better translation is wobbly wheel.

Lex Fridman (1:33:14.320)

So like, imagine like when your bike doesn't have,

Lex Fridman (1:33:16.880)

or your car doesn't have enough air in the tires,

Duncan Trussell (1:33:18.800)

your bike doesn't have enough air in the tires,

Lex Fridman (1:33:21.020)

it's kind of a shitty bike ride.

Duncan Trussell (1:33:22.560)

Like no matter what, it's kind of like uncomfortable.

Lex Fridman (1:33:25.720)

It's like irritating.

Lex Fridman (1:33:27.280)

So this is what's being pointed to

Lex Fridman (1:33:30.760)

is that there's this quality within a human life

Duncan Trussell (1:33:34.900)

that is unsatisfying.

Lex Fridman (1:33:39.880)

Like a wobbly wheel.

Duncan Trussell (1:33:41.240)

Wobbly wheel.

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.600)

Why do you think, what is the core of that dissatisfaction?

Duncan Trussell (1:33:48.040)

Because it could be as simple as kind of physical

Lex Fridman (1:33:51.900)

and mental discomfort and sadness and depression

Lex Fridman (1:33:55.480)

and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:33:57.040)

Or it could be more speaking to the sort of existentialist,

Duncan Trussell (1:33:59.920)

the philosophical, the absurdity of it all.

Lex Fridman (1:34:03.720)

The fact that stuff happens,

Duncan Trussell (1:34:05.540)

good stuff happens for no reason,

Lex Fridman (1:34:07.200)

bad stuff happens for no reason.

Duncan Trussell (1:34:10.160)

Yeah, it's no matter how much you try,

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.120)

there's not a universal fairness to the whole thing.

Duncan Trussell (1:34:19.220)

There's not even a universal meaning to the whole thing.

Lex Fridman (1:34:22.200)

So the existentialist perspective.

Lex Fridman (1:34:24.800)

What flavor of suffering do you prefer?

Lex Fridman (1:34:27.400)

If it was an ice cream shop.

Duncan Trussell (1:34:28.520)

That's so funny.

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.360)

Well, I'm definitely picking desire over the,

Duncan Trussell (1:34:32.720)

like if in the RGB that we're talking about here

Lex Fridman (1:34:36.440)

is desire, aversion and ignorance.

Lex Fridman (1:34:41.120)

So if you want to find like the three ingredients

Lex Fridman (1:34:46.120)

that are giving everyone their sophisticated bits

Duncan Trussell (1:34:49.900)

of suffering, there you go.

Lex Fridman (1:34:51.320)

That's what it is.

Lex Fridman (1:34:52.820)

In which way does desire manifest itself in suffering?

Lex Fridman (1:34:56.160)

It hurts.

Duncan Trussell (1:34:57.140)

To lose, to not have.

Lex Fridman (1:34:59.080)

Like, yeah, it hurts to not, like to eternally not have,

Lex Fridman (1:35:02.920)

but just like my friend pointed this out.

Lex Fridman (1:35:05.240)

He's like, you know, like you order something from Amazon.

Duncan Trussell (1:35:09.680)

Like even in the smallest way,

Lex Fridman (1:35:10.860)

you're excited about whatever the thing is.

Duncan Trussell (1:35:12.440)

You order this thing from Amazon,

Lex Fridman (1:35:14.160)

it's not coming for four days.

Lex Fridman (1:35:16.080)

So those four days are going to be somewhat marked

Lex Fridman (1:35:18.980)

by you being what people say, I'm excited about it.

Lex Fridman (1:35:22.200)

But really, if you look at that feeling, it's uncomfortable.

Lex Fridman (1:35:25.680)

Like the feeling of wanting the thing is uncomfortable.

Lex Fridman (1:35:28.640)

So that is a form of suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:35:31.040)

That's suffering.

Duncan Trussell (1:35:32.320)

Interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:35:33.160)

I mean, I wonder,

Duncan Trussell (1:35:34.480)

cause we naturally reframe that in our mind, wanting.

Lex Fridman (1:35:38.960)

We reframe that as a good thing.

Duncan Trussell (1:35:41.480)

As a, and maybe suffering is fundamentally good

Lex Fridman (1:35:49.940)

in the way we think of what life is.

Lex Fridman (1:35:52.780)

So like, it's life affirming,

Lex Fridman (1:35:55.740)

but it's not usually how the word suffering is used.

Duncan Trussell (1:35:58.300)

Well, it's true.

Lex Fridman (1:36:00.100)

It's true.

Duncan Trussell (1:36:00.940)

Like the first noble truth of Buddhism is true.

Lex Fridman (1:36:03.380)

It's called the truth of suffering.

Duncan Trussell (1:36:05.300)

There is suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:36:06.740)

I mean, this is like an, I don't know,

Duncan Trussell (1:36:08.740)

an element that you can't break it down any further than that.

Lex Fridman (1:36:11.500)

Like there is suffering, this is truth.

Lex Fridman (1:36:13.460)

So if you think, you know, and again,

Lex Fridman (1:36:16.860)

assigning like good or bad to truth,

Duncan Trussell (1:36:19.900)

I think maybe there's more of a sort of neutrality there.

Lex Fridman (1:36:23.220)

It's just what it is.

Duncan Trussell (1:36:24.780)

It's truth.

Lex Fridman (1:36:25.620)

I mean, is it any, is it basically,

Lex Fridman (1:36:27.900)

is suffering any disturbance from stillness?

Lex Fridman (1:36:33.740)

Is suffering then?

Duncan Trussell (1:36:35.220)

Like basically any, anything that happens in life that,

Lex Fridman (1:36:41.140)

that's like, that perturbs the system.

Duncan Trussell (1:36:44.020)

Ripples in the empty. Ripples.

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.380)

Ripples, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:36:46.220)

So a still lake is empty of suffering,

Lex Fridman (1:36:49.660)

but any kind of ripple is suffering in that sense.

Duncan Trussell (1:36:54.300)

A still lake is empty of suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:36:56.820)

You sound like a Zen master.

Duncan Trussell (1:36:58.420)

It seems like something a Zen master might say.

Lex Fridman (1:36:59.860)

If I can just grow a beard like yours.

Duncan Trussell (1:37:01.900)

Ah, no, the beard doesn't help.

Lex Fridman (1:37:03.700)

We would, we would.

Lex Fridman (1:37:04.540)

If I had your chin, you think I'd have a fucking beard?

Lex Fridman (1:37:07.020)

I look like a stork.

Duncan Trussell (1:37:08.580)

You should see me.

Lex Fridman (1:37:09.420)

If I had your chin, there'd be no beard here.

Duncan Trussell (1:37:11.180)

You have a symmetrical, nice chin.

Lex Fridman (1:37:13.260)

This is the closest I can come to plastic surgery.

Duncan Trussell (1:37:16.060)

Pubic plastic surgery, friend.

Lex Fridman (1:37:19.100)

That's how you know you're a professional comedian.

Duncan Trussell (1:37:23.220)

Yeah, so suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:37:24.300)

There is suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:37:26.020)

And the lake analogy is pretty good because the,

Lex Fridman (1:37:30.740)

um, what's happening here is that,

Duncan Trussell (1:37:36.260)

that we have become identified

Lex Fridman (1:37:40.220)

with something that we call a self.

Lex Fridman (1:37:42.540)

So this, the self is just accepted.

Lex Fridman (1:37:45.220)

I have a self, I have an identity,

Duncan Trussell (1:37:46.780)

I'm a person, I have a self.

Lex Fridman (1:37:48.940)

But when you start doing scans to try to find yourself,

Duncan Trussell (1:37:55.540)

which is the entire thing.

Lex Fridman (1:37:56.980)

I'm going to find myself.

Duncan Trussell (1:37:59.140)

You get in a van, go to California, take some acid,

Lex Fridman (1:38:02.020)

fuck a prostitute on the bus or whatever Kerouac did.

Lex Fridman (1:38:04.740)

Too far?

Lex Fridman (1:38:05.580)

I'm going to find myself.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:06.420)

Oh, he didn't, she wasn't a prostitute,

Lex Fridman (1:38:08.180)

just to correct the record.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:09.460)

Oh, previously a prostitute.

Lex Fridman (1:38:10.540)

I guess once a prostitute, always a prostitute.

Lex Fridman (1:38:12.260)

You know what?

Lex Fridman (1:38:13.100)

She's a former prostitute.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:13.940)

I don't think that.

Lex Fridman (1:38:14.780)

No, and look, I'm not, I'm not a sign,

Duncan Trussell (1:38:18.020)

look, all I'm saying is, uh, I don't care.

Lex Fridman (1:38:21.300)

Who cares?

Lex Fridman (1:38:22.140)

Who has a bit of prostitute?

Lex Fridman (1:38:22.980)

God, I used to be one of them.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:23.980)

We're all kind of a kind of prostitute.

Lex Fridman (1:38:26.980)

Yeah, yes, yes.

Lex Fridman (1:38:28.780)

But the.

Lex Fridman (1:38:29.620)

We make love and we make money.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:32.940)

Therefore, we're all a kind of prostitute.

Lex Fridman (1:38:35.500)

We make, God, how great.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:37.260)

I would really love to be able to make money by fucking.

Lex Fridman (1:38:40.740)

I mean, it's maybe not directly, but in some sense.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:44.180)

Directly.

Lex Fridman (1:38:45.020)

Oh.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:45.860)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:38:46.700)

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Lex Fridman (1:38:50.220)

Do you accept Venmo or?

Lex Fridman (1:38:51.460)

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Duncan Trussell (1:38:53.500)

It's never too late to start.

Lex Fridman (1:38:55.100)

That's so, sort of one of the ways in

Duncan Trussell (1:38:57.460)

is this sort of contemplation of the identity,

Lex Fridman (1:39:00.980)

because it's like, uh, you know, what is,

Lex Fridman (1:39:04.260)

it's not just the desire, it's what is having the desire?

Lex Fridman (1:39:07.180)

Where, where does the desire live in?

Lex Fridman (1:39:08.900)

Like, what doesn't want to be where it's at?

Lex Fridman (1:39:11.580)

What is the thing that is like desperately wanting

Lex Fridman (1:39:15.620)

to get out of the situation it's in?

Lex Fridman (1:39:17.780)

And then, um, as far as ignorance, uh,

Duncan Trussell (1:39:21.180)

it's still something that's theoretically happening

Lex Fridman (1:39:24.420)

to an identity.

Duncan Trussell (1:39:25.660)

So, so wrapped up in it is really just this sort of like,

Lex Fridman (1:39:30.500)

and that's where we run into what, uh, into attachment.

Lex Fridman (1:39:34.500)

So if, if the first noble truth of Buddhism

Lex Fridman (1:39:37.260)

is there is suffering,

Duncan Trussell (1:39:39.060)

the second noble truth of Buddhism is, um,

Lex Fridman (1:39:42.060)

the cause of this suffering is attachment.

Lex Fridman (1:39:47.460)

And so people hear that and they take it, that's a,

Lex Fridman (1:39:50.940)

there's a lot of levels to that concept.

Duncan Trussell (1:39:53.300)

Definitely the cause of suffering is attachment.

Lex Fridman (1:39:55.100)

Like, God, I just got addicted to vapes.

Lex Fridman (1:39:57.740)

Is there a more embarrassing addiction than vapes?

Lex Fridman (1:40:01.420)

I'm smoking like a little purple thing.

Duncan Trussell (1:40:03.580)

It tastes like sugar.

Lex Fridman (1:40:05.260)

It's attachment.

Duncan Trussell (1:40:06.100)

It is, there is suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:40:08.020)

I want it.

Duncan Trussell (1:40:09.020)

I have to charge it now.

Lex Fridman (1:40:10.460)

I'm embarrassed by it.

Duncan Trussell (1:40:11.900)

It makes me feel out of control.

Lex Fridman (1:40:13.580)

There's a lot of suffering,

Lex Fridman (1:40:14.540)

but also there's deeper levels of attachment

Lex Fridman (1:40:18.540)

that go all the way to this attachment

Duncan Trussell (1:40:21.460)

to the sense of one's self.

Lex Fridman (1:40:24.980)

And I think the existentialists do get into this idea

Duncan Trussell (1:40:28.820)

in a different way, which is like,

Lex Fridman (1:40:30.660)

because I think I'm a me,

Duncan Trussell (1:40:32.500)

now I have to push what that thing is out into the world

Lex Fridman (1:40:37.260)

through my actions.

Lex Fridman (1:40:38.580)

And that's a kind of attachment too.

Lex Fridman (1:40:40.580)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (1:40:41.420)

There you go.

Lex Fridman (1:40:42.260)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:40:43.100)

And that leads to the third noble truth,

Lex Fridman (1:40:44.980)

which is get rid of attachment

Lex Fridman (1:40:49.460)

and you won't suffer anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:40:51.220)

Uh, that's, it seems logical,

Lex Fridman (1:40:53.580)

but you know, it is a very,

Lex Fridman (1:40:55.380)

it is a mathematical analysis

Duncan Trussell (1:40:57.260)

of this particular problem of suffering it's addressing.

Lex Fridman (1:41:01.500)

And then the fourth noble truth

Duncan Trussell (1:41:03.180)

is the eightfold path of Buddhism,

Lex Fridman (1:41:04.860)

which is like a process by which one could unencumber oneself

Duncan Trussell (1:41:11.700)

from this identification with something that isn't real.

Lex Fridman (1:41:16.220)

Do you need a bathroom break?

Duncan Trussell (1:41:17.700)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:41:18.540)

Thank you.

Duncan Trussell (1:41:19.380)

I do.

Lex Fridman (1:41:20.200)

I appreciate that.

Duncan Trussell (1:41:21.900)

There's a funny moment, I was running in the heat yesterday

Lex Fridman (1:41:24.180)

listening to Gulag Archipelago.

Lex Fridman (1:41:27.020)

And there's a, which was a very welcome break

Lex Fridman (1:41:30.620)

because I'm looking for any excuse to stop whatsoever.

Duncan Trussell (1:41:34.020)

The gentleman, very nice gentleman stopped me saying,

Lex Fridman (1:41:37.140)

recognized me and just said a bunch of friendly things.

Lex Fridman (1:41:40.020)

And then he mentioned as one of the people

Lex Fridman (1:41:43.320)

who really inspires him is Duncan Trussell.

Lex Fridman (1:41:46.300)

And I was, I mean, I'm the same way and I told him,

Lex Fridman (1:41:52.980)

you know, tomorrow, it felt like a name drop.

Duncan Trussell (1:41:56.260)

I name dropped you this morning.

Lex Fridman (1:41:58.220)

I was like, tomorrow I'm going to get to meet him.

Lex Fridman (1:42:00.220)

So he says, he says, hi.

Lex Fridman (1:42:01.900)

And there's, oh, and he said that he watched

Duncan Trussell (1:42:05.940)

Midnight Gospel on mushrooms.

Lex Fridman (1:42:08.820)

And it was like the greatest mushroom experience

Duncan Trussell (1:42:10.940)

of his life.

Lex Fridman (1:42:11.780)

I don't know.

Duncan Trussell (1:42:13.220)

Yeah, man.

Lex Fridman (1:42:14.060)

Yeah, I was nervous about meeting you, man.

Duncan Trussell (1:42:15.980)

Like I have so much respect for you.

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.340)

And like, oh yeah, I name dropped.

Duncan Trussell (1:42:18.780)

I was saying I'm going on Lex's podcast today.

Lex Fridman (1:42:21.700)

It's, you look, we're so lucky we all live here.

Lex Fridman (1:42:24.300)

What the fuck?

Lex Fridman (1:42:25.140)

We're all living in Austin together.

Duncan Trussell (1:42:26.380)

Like I, I somehow like missed that,

Lex Fridman (1:42:30.340)

but that's, we all got to hang out.

Duncan Trussell (1:42:32.580)

We all have to like start doing stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:42:34.780)

Well, you have to really,

Duncan Trussell (1:42:35.620)

also you have to appreciate this moment.

Lex Fridman (1:42:37.260)

I remember, I know some people are less sentimental

Duncan Trussell (1:42:42.260)

than others, but I remember sitting with Joe Rogan

Lex Fridman (1:42:49.460)

and with Eric Weinstein, I believe it was.

Duncan Trussell (1:42:52.420)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:42:53.260)

And at the back of the comedy store

Duncan Trussell (1:42:56.380)

shortly before COVID, I think.

Lex Fridman (1:42:59.460)

And just thinking like,

Duncan Trussell (1:43:01.140)

there's no way these things will last.

Lex Fridman (1:43:04.340)

And these things meaning the comedy store,

Duncan Trussell (1:43:07.660)

Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, the Joe Rogan,

Lex Fridman (1:43:10.980)

like a, like a pocket influential podcasting person.

Duncan Trussell (1:43:14.900)

Also a person like in this room, in this space,

Lex Fridman (1:43:21.500)

the ability to just talk for hours

Lex Fridman (1:43:24.340)

and lose ourselves in this moment.

Lex Fridman (1:43:26.380)

It just felt ephemeral, somehow temporary.

Lex Fridman (1:43:30.700)

And I just wanted to capture that moment somehow.

Lex Fridman (1:43:32.740)

Like, I don't know.

Duncan Trussell (1:43:34.100)

Sometimes that's where the temptation to take a picture

Lex Fridman (1:43:36.580)

and you're that kind of stuff

Duncan Trussell (1:43:37.500)

or record a podcast comes from.

Lex Fridman (1:43:39.740)

But it just felt like it would be, it'd be gone forever.

Duncan Trussell (1:43:43.100)

Of course, Joe doesn't seem to have

Lex Fridman (1:43:45.420)

that kind of sentimental.

Duncan Trussell (1:43:47.460)

No, sure, no, no.

Lex Fridman (1:43:48.420)

Just wherever you end up,

Duncan Trussell (1:43:49.620)

you just enjoy the shit out of it.

Lex Fridman (1:43:51.060)

Right.

Duncan Trussell (1:43:52.060)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (1:43:52.900)

Well, and that's something you have to cultivate.

Duncan Trussell (1:43:54.620)

You don't, that's not an easy,

Lex Fridman (1:43:56.100)

the thing you're talking about, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:43:58.580)

God, have you seen these?

Lex Fridman (1:44:00.500)

I think the best analogy for what you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (1:44:03.020)

there's these videos where people give like a sugar cube

Lex Fridman (1:44:05.420)

to a raccoon, but the raccoons, they wash their food.

Lex Fridman (1:44:09.340)

So raccoon, or I think it's cotton candy.

Lex Fridman (1:44:11.260)

They give the raccoon cotton candy,

Duncan Trussell (1:44:12.620)

immediately it washes the cotton candy.

Lex Fridman (1:44:14.900)

And of course the cotton candy dissolves in the water.

Lex Fridman (1:44:17.380)

And the raccoon is like, what the fuck?

Lex Fridman (1:44:20.260)

Like, you know, and the thing you're,

Duncan Trussell (1:44:22.820)

that grasping you're talking about,

Lex Fridman (1:44:24.340)

it's like the raccoon washing the cotton candy.

Duncan Trussell (1:44:26.620)

Like the moment you get into the grasping part,

Lex Fridman (1:44:29.780)

you paradoxically have pulled yourself out of the moment

Duncan Trussell (1:44:35.260)

that inspired the grasping part.

Lex Fridman (1:44:37.820)

And that's, you know, that's some people,

Duncan Trussell (1:44:40.140)

that's the entirety of their lives trying to record.

Lex Fridman (1:44:43.340)

I mean, Jesus, man, you ever see people film fireworks

Lex Fridman (1:44:46.460)

on the 4th of July with their phone?

Lex Fridman (1:44:48.380)

It's one of the most remarkable aspects of human behavior,

Duncan Trussell (1:44:52.620)

which is like, you know they're not gonna watch

Lex Fridman (1:44:55.900)

the fireworks on their phone.

Duncan Trussell (1:44:59.140)

Only a lunatic would do that.

Lex Fridman (1:45:00.580)

Like who's gonna go back and look at fireworks, but.

Duncan Trussell (1:45:04.100)

So, but we're also in this position where,

Lex Fridman (1:45:06.580)

because of podcasting, there is some aspect

Duncan Trussell (1:45:08.860)

where you can record a magical moment in time

Lex Fridman (1:45:11.780)

together between two people, or even just with a camera.

Lex Fridman (1:45:15.940)

So to get back to the lake that you were talking about,

Lex Fridman (1:45:19.420)

this is emptiness.

Lex Fridman (1:45:20.260)

So that's emptiness.

Lex Fridman (1:45:21.180)

That's what's known as emptiness.

Duncan Trussell (1:45:22.340)

The lake is emptiness.

Lex Fridman (1:45:23.820)

And that's what we are, emptiness, emptiness.

Lex Fridman (1:45:26.780)

And that's another thing that gets very confused

Lex Fridman (1:45:28.980)

in Buddhism is that emptiness.

Lex Fridman (1:45:32.420)

And that emptiness is, that's to me,

Lex Fridman (1:45:35.820)

like when I'm going to do a podcast,

Duncan Trussell (1:45:39.820)

that's where I try to go.

Lex Fridman (1:45:40.900)

I try to go just in the moment, no agenda.

Duncan Trussell (1:45:44.340)

You know, if I am nervous or whatever,

Lex Fridman (1:45:46.140)

okay, I'll feel the nervousness,

Lex Fridman (1:45:47.540)

but just in the, just drop into the moment.

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.100)

That's when time changes.

Lex Fridman (1:45:52.060)

And then you look up, hours have passed.

Lex Fridman (1:45:54.340)

It feels like a second.

Lex Fridman (1:45:55.540)

And the reason it feels like that is

Lex Fridman (1:45:57.100)

because if you successfully dropped into the moment,

Duncan Trussell (1:46:01.500)

it's the lake now, it's emptiness.

Lex Fridman (1:46:05.060)

It's forever for a second.

Duncan Trussell (1:46:06.420)

You're like, you're dipping into eternity.

Lex Fridman (1:46:09.100)

And yeah, it's a very strange thing

Duncan Trussell (1:46:13.180)

to, as part of that, record it, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:46:16.900)

as part of that, try to like grab it

Lex Fridman (1:46:18.740)

and put it out there, but it works.

Lex Fridman (1:46:21.660)

Can you speak to that, to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour?

Lex Fridman (1:46:26.220)

Can you speak about that purple lavender world you go to

Lex Fridman (1:46:30.220)

when it's most intense and successful for you,

Duncan Trussell (1:46:33.100)

when you feel a sense of lightness and happiness

Lex Fridman (1:46:36.020)

when it works, whether it's your own

Duncan Trussell (1:46:39.100)

or a conversation with Joe in general,

Lex Fridman (1:46:41.700)

or is, well, yours is very specific

Duncan Trussell (1:46:44.860)

because it's audio only.

Lex Fridman (1:46:45.980)

Maybe you can also speak to that.

Duncan Trussell (1:46:47.460)

Because you might as well be naked

Lex Fridman (1:46:50.500)

or you don't have to, you have to,

Duncan Trussell (1:46:52.580)

you're free of the conventions of the real world.

Lex Fridman (1:46:56.900)

I will never stop thinking it's remarkable.

Duncan Trussell (1:47:01.060)

Like the fact that I'm talking to you, to me,

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.060)

seems remarkable, not just technologically,

Lex Fridman (1:47:06.920)

but I'm talking to someone,

Lex Fridman (1:47:09.640)

I'm assuming I'm allowed to say this,

Duncan Trussell (1:47:11.380)

who has robot dogs that I've been watching

Lex Fridman (1:47:15.620)

for years evolve on YouTube.

Lex Fridman (1:47:20.060)

Arms reach away from one of these things, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:47:22.540)

And I'm with somebody who is like an acclaimed genius.

Lex Fridman (1:47:27.700)

So for me, it's like, oh my God,

Lex Fridman (1:47:30.180)

how's, what, why do I get to have this conversation?

Lex Fridman (1:47:33.580)

Why do I get to be here?

Lex Fridman (1:47:34.860)

When there'd be like a line,

Duncan Trussell (1:47:36.660)

there'd be a line that would just wrapped

Lex Fridman (1:47:38.660)

and wrapped and wrapped around this building

Duncan Trussell (1:47:40.580)

of people who'd love a chance to just chat with you.

Lex Fridman (1:47:43.180)

And so when I, with my podcast,

Duncan Trussell (1:47:45.540)

that's how I feel like when I'm talking to these guests,

Lex Fridman (1:47:49.300)

you know, who have spent, you know,

Duncan Trussell (1:47:53.300)

some of them have like spent their entire lifetime

Lex Fridman (1:47:56.940)

meditating, you know, studying specific aspects of Buddhism

Duncan Trussell (1:48:02.300)

or even when I'm with, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:48:04.180)

when I'm with comedians who I like consider

Duncan Trussell (1:48:07.580)

to be brilliantly funny.

Lex Fridman (1:48:08.860)

So for me, it's just like, God, I almost feel like

Duncan Trussell (1:48:13.460)

I've just created some sophisticated trap for cool people

Lex Fridman (1:48:17.100)

where like I get to like hang out with them.

Lex Fridman (1:48:19.140)

So you're like sitting in the gratitude of it,

Lex Fridman (1:48:21.740)

just feeling lucky.

Duncan Trussell (1:48:23.420)

Yeah, yeah, feeling lucky

Lex Fridman (1:48:25.260)

and wrestling with imposter syndrome, you know,

Duncan Trussell (1:48:27.380)

trying to like get that part of myself

Lex Fridman (1:48:28.820)

to shut up long enough so I could be in that moment

Lex Fridman (1:48:31.540)

that we're talking about, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:48:33.380)

And then I carry that with me.

Duncan Trussell (1:48:36.020)

It's not just like you stop the podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:48:38.460)

It's like some of the things these people tell me

Duncan Trussell (1:48:41.580)

or some of the ways they are, like it becomes part of me.

Lex Fridman (1:48:45.140)

And then I get to have a life or this thing

Duncan Trussell (1:48:48.220)

that they gave me is in me forever.

Lex Fridman (1:48:52.020)

And so, yeah, it's, there's...

Duncan Trussell (1:48:54.380)

Yeah, it's cool how conversation can just,

Lex Fridman (1:48:56.900)

a few sentences can change the direction of your life.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:01.020)

If you're listening,

Lex Fridman (1:49:01.860)

if you're there to be transformed by the words,

Duncan Trussell (1:49:05.260)

they will do the work.

Lex Fridman (1:49:06.580)

It's, and it's the full mix of it.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:09.860)

It's usually when, if you look up to somebody,

Lex Fridman (1:49:15.300)

and it's true for me at least,

Duncan Trussell (1:49:17.020)

I think it is for you that you start to look up

Lex Fridman (1:49:19.220)

to basically everybody you talk to.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:20.980)

Yes, yes, good sign.

Lex Fridman (1:49:23.780)

That's a good sign.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:24.940)

God forbid it goes the other way.

Lex Fridman (1:49:26.860)

You're in trouble.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:27.940)

If all of a sudden you start looking down on people,

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.540)

because whatever crazy metric you're using,

Duncan Trussell (1:49:34.260)

ooh, that would freak me out.

Lex Fridman (1:49:35.900)

I do feel like that's a quality of getting older.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:38.140)

When I was younger, I really, like, I thought I was so smart.

Lex Fridman (1:49:41.940)

Like I thought I had it all figured out.

Lex Fridman (1:49:43.340)

Oh, really?

Lex Fridman (1:49:44.180)

So you're going, your ego is just going,

Duncan Trussell (1:49:46.580)

taking a nose dive.

Lex Fridman (1:49:47.780)

I would like to say it's my ego taking a nose dive.

Duncan Trussell (1:49:50.820)

Me and my friend talk about it a bunch.

Lex Fridman (1:49:52.380)

We've just always associated it with like doing acid

Duncan Trussell (1:49:55.940)

for two decades straight.

Lex Fridman (1:49:57.620)

Like, I'm gonna just assume I'm just like slowly

Lex Fridman (1:50:00.740)

like spiraling into senility, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:50:02.940)

Like, I'm just like, all the confidence,

Duncan Trussell (1:50:06.780)

all the like, oh, the certainty when you're having,

Lex Fridman (1:50:08.860)

like in college, having the great,

Duncan Trussell (1:50:11.380)

oh, like, you know, you feel like you're a representative

Lex Fridman (1:50:17.300)

of Camus or some shit.

Lex Fridman (1:50:18.620)

You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (1:50:19.460)

You read the myth of Sisyphus,

Lex Fridman (1:50:20.660)

and now you like it, know all existentialism

Lex Fridman (1:50:23.780)

and your certainty in regards to it is embarrassing,

Lex Fridman (1:50:27.620)

but you don't see it in that way.

Lex Fridman (1:50:29.660)

You just feel certain.

Lex Fridman (1:50:30.580)

And then that certainty, it just starts like,

Lex Fridman (1:50:33.700)

it starts crumbling a little bit.

Lex Fridman (1:50:35.900)

And then, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:50:37.820)

You know, I get to actually intensely experience

Duncan Trussell (1:50:41.420)

that certainty in many communities,

Lex Fridman (1:50:43.900)

but one in cryptocurrency.

Duncan Trussell (1:50:46.340)

Young folks with the certainty that this technology

Lex Fridman (1:50:49.980)

will transform the world.

Lex Fridman (1:50:51.820)

And I mean, this is almost one of the big communities

Lex Fridman (1:50:54.820)

of the modern era where they believe

Duncan Trussell (1:50:57.780)

that this will really solve so many of the problems

Lex Fridman (1:51:00.380)

of the world, and they believe in it very intensely.

Lex Fridman (1:51:03.420)

And aside from the technology and the details of the thing,

Lex Fridman (1:51:06.780)

all I see is the certainty and the passion in their eyes.

Duncan Trussell (1:51:09.980)

They'll stop me.

Lex Fridman (1:51:11.100)

Let me explain you, let me just give me a chance

Duncan Trussell (1:51:15.660)

to tell you why this thing is extremely powerful.

Lex Fridman (1:51:19.140)

And I just get to enjoy the glow of that,

Duncan Trussell (1:51:21.700)

because it's like, wow, I miss having that certainty

Lex Fridman (1:51:26.140)

about anything.

Duncan Trussell (1:51:27.580)

It's probably come over for me too.

Lex Fridman (1:51:29.860)

But when I was younger, it's like,

Duncan Trussell (1:51:32.100)

only I deeply understand the relationship of man

Lex Fridman (1:51:38.700)

to his mortality.

Lex Fridman (1:51:40.300)

And I understood that most deeply, I think,

Lex Fridman (1:51:42.380)

when I was like 16 or 17.

Lex Fridman (1:51:44.300)

And I am the representative of the human condition.

Lex Fridman (1:51:48.260)

And all these adults with their busyness of day to day life

Lex Fridman (1:51:52.300)

and their concerns, they don't deeply understand

Lex Fridman (1:51:55.620)

what I understand, which is the only thing that matters

Duncan Trussell (1:51:59.700)

is the absurdity of the human condition.

Lex Fridman (1:52:03.780)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:52:05.300)

And let me quote you some Dostoevsky.

Lex Fridman (1:52:07.540)

Oh boy, and you speak Russian.

Duncan Trussell (1:52:10.220)

Yes, I speak Russian.

Lex Fridman (1:52:11.060)

So you've read the Brothers Karamazov in Russian.

Duncan Trussell (1:52:13.620)

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I read

Lex Fridman (1:52:18.380)

all of the Dostoevsky in English.

Duncan Trussell (1:52:22.660)

I came to this country when I was 13.

Lex Fridman (1:52:25.500)

And at least don't remember, we read a lot,

Lex Fridman (1:52:27.380)

but we read Tolstoy, Pushkin, a lot of the Russian literature

Lex Fridman (1:52:32.340)

but it was in Russian.

Lex Fridman (1:52:34.060)

But I don't remember reading Dostoevsky.

Lex Fridman (1:52:35.620)

I wonder at which point does the Russian education system

Lex Fridman (1:52:39.780)

give you Dostoevsky?

Lex Fridman (1:52:41.300)

Because it's pretty heavy stuff.

Duncan Trussell (1:52:43.220)

Second grade, it's probably the second grade.

Lex Fridman (1:52:45.820)

Russians are intense.

Duncan Trussell (1:52:47.500)

Yes, they are, they very much are.

Lex Fridman (1:52:50.140)

I don't remember reading Dostoevsky,

Lex Fridman (1:52:51.540)

but I did tangent upon a tangent upon a tangent.

Lex Fridman (1:52:56.100)

I traveled to Paris recently on the way to Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:53:00.780)

and was scheduled to talk to Richard Pevere

Lex Fridman (1:53:04.900)

and this pair that translate Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,

Duncan Trussell (1:53:09.900)

just this famous pair that translate

Lex Fridman (1:53:13.060)

most of Russian literature to English.

Lex Fridman (1:53:14.900)

And I was planning to have a sequence of five, 10,

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.340)

15 hour conversation with them about the different details

Duncan Trussell (1:53:23.020)

of all the translations and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:53:25.500)

I just found myself in a very dark place mentally

Duncan Trussell (1:53:28.620)

where I couldn't think about podcasts or anything like that.

Lex Fridman (1:53:31.140)

It caught me off guard.

Lex Fridman (1:53:32.780)

So I went to Paris and just laid there for a day.

Lex Fridman (1:53:36.140)

Not just being stressed about Ukraine and all those kinds

Duncan Trussell (1:53:40.220)

of things, but I'm still, the act of translation

Lex Fridman (1:53:44.820)

is such a fascinating way to approach some of the deepest

Duncan Trussell (1:53:49.420)

questions that this literature raises,

Lex Fridman (1:53:51.540)

which is like, how do I capture the essence of a sentence

Duncan Trussell (1:53:56.460)

that has so much power and translate it

Lex Fridman (1:53:58.420)

into another language?

Duncan Trussell (1:53:59.820)

That act is actually really, really interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.820)

And I found with my conversations with them,

Duncan Trussell (1:54:05.660)

they've really thought through this stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:54:09.220)

It's not just about language,

Duncan Trussell (1:54:10.700)

it's about the ideas in those books.

Lex Fridman (1:54:12.580)

And that also really makes me sad

Duncan Trussell (1:54:15.900)

because I wonder how much is lost in translation.

Lex Fridman (1:54:18.260)

I'm currently, so when I was in Ukraine,

Duncan Trussell (1:54:22.580)

I talked to a lot of, like half the conversations I had

Lex Fridman (1:54:26.540)

on the record were in Russian,

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.260)

and basically 100% of the record were in Russian

Lex Fridman (1:54:34.260)

in Russian versus in English.

Lex Fridman (1:54:37.260)

And just so much is lost in those languages.

Lex Fridman (1:54:40.820)

And I'm now struggling because I'm launching

Duncan Trussell (1:54:44.460)

a Russian channel where there'll be a Russian

Lex Fridman (1:54:47.940)

overdub of Duncan.

Duncan Trussell (1:54:49.300)

Wow.

Lex Fridman (1:54:50.740)

Your wow will now be translated into Russian.

Lex Fridman (1:54:53.340)

What's Russian wow?

Lex Fridman (1:54:55.060)

I don't, it'll just be wow probably.

Duncan Trussell (1:54:57.500)

I'm so sorry for the difficulties

Lex Fridman (1:54:59.700)

of having to translate wow.

Duncan Trussell (1:55:01.100)

Usually probably with wow they'll leave it unoverdubbed

Lex Fridman (1:55:04.420)

because people understand exactly what you mean.

Lex Fridman (1:55:06.300)

But that's an art form, and it's a weird art form.

Lex Fridman (1:55:09.420)

It's like how do you capture the chemistry,

Duncan Trussell (1:55:15.220)

the excitement, the, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:55:19.660)

maybe the humor, the implied kind of wit.

Duncan Trussell (1:55:25.540)

I don't know, there's just layers of complexity

Lex Fridman (1:55:27.660)

in language that it's very difficult to capture.

Lex Fridman (1:55:30.820)

And I wonder how, it is sad for me

Lex Fridman (1:55:33.460)

because I know Russian, how much is lost in translation.

Lex Fridman (1:55:36.100)

And the same, there's a brewing conflict

Lex Fridman (1:55:39.620)

and tension with China now, and so much is lost

Duncan Trussell (1:55:42.660)

in the translation between those languages.

Lex Fridman (1:55:44.460)

Oh my God, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:55:46.020)

And cultures, the entire, the music of the people

Lex Fridman (1:55:50.700)

is completely lost because we don't know the language,

Duncan Trussell (1:55:53.260)

or most of us don't know the language.

Lex Fridman (1:55:54.260)

Yeah, how much of the conflict

Lex Fridman (1:55:55.780)

is just problems in translation?

Lex Fridman (1:55:58.060)

How much of all these problems that we're having

Lex Fridman (1:56:00.700)

are just the alien sense of this or that?

Lex Fridman (1:56:02.620)

It's just as simple as that.

Duncan Trussell (1:56:04.460)

Words are getting just a tiny warp away from the intent

Lex Fridman (1:56:13.060)

of if, when we both speak the same language,

Duncan Trussell (1:56:16.700)

we can still say something that offends someone

Lex Fridman (1:56:20.540)

when you never intended that at all.

Lex Fridman (1:56:22.980)

How much more so when like it's,

Lex Fridman (1:56:26.460)

not only is it a completely different sound,

Lex Fridman (1:56:29.060)

but the script itself is different.

Lex Fridman (1:56:31.740)

Like what is, the Russian writing,

Lex Fridman (1:56:35.260)

is it called Cyrillic or what's the name?

Lex Fridman (1:56:37.460)

Yeah, Cyrillic.

Duncan Trussell (1:56:38.300)

Cyrillic, and I don't know the name for Chinese writing,

Lex Fridman (1:56:41.140)

but it's like, it's a continuum that like gets weirder

Lex Fridman (1:56:45.540)

and weirder looking, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:56:47.100)

Like it's, so yeah.

Duncan Trussell (1:56:49.620)

Or less weird depending on your perspective.

Lex Fridman (1:56:51.540)

Yeah, I'm sure depending on where you're at.

Duncan Trussell (1:56:54.340)

You know, I'm definitely, I'm about the farthest thing

Lex Fridman (1:56:56.300)

from a polyglot as there could be, man.

Duncan Trussell (1:56:58.300)

Like, but I'll tell you, at one point

Lex Fridman (1:57:01.060)

when I was getting fascinated by Dostoevsky,

Duncan Trussell (1:57:04.620)

I did have this very transient fantasy

Lex Fridman (1:57:07.220)

about learning Russian so that I could like understand

Duncan Trussell (1:57:10.820)

the difference and it's.

Lex Fridman (1:57:12.380)

You were 17, 18 at the time.

Duncan Trussell (1:57:14.780)

College.

Lex Fridman (1:57:15.620)

Yeah, college.

Duncan Trussell (1:57:16.460)

Yeah, Brothers Karamazov lost in that book.

Lex Fridman (1:57:18.900)

Just like, oh God.

Lex Fridman (1:57:20.740)

So in love with it is.

Lex Fridman (1:57:24.700)

But there's definitely like, you know, Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (1:57:29.580)

and this is what a lot of the war is about is saying,

Lex Fridman (1:57:32.340)

you know, Ukraine and Russia are not the same people.

Duncan Trussell (1:57:35.540)

There's a strong culture in Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (1:57:37.020)

there's a strong culture in Russia.

Lex Fridman (1:57:38.820)

But you know, I know because that's where my family's from,

Lex Fridman (1:57:41.660)

there is a fascinating, strong culture.

Lex Fridman (1:57:45.940)

But there's such strong cultures everywhere else too.

Lex Fridman (1:57:50.140)

Ireland has a culture, Scotland has a culture.

Duncan Trussell (1:57:52.820)

Even like on a tiny island, you just have these like,

Lex Fridman (1:57:56.180)

subcultures that are more powerful than anything

Duncan Trussell (1:57:59.820)

existing in human history.

Lex Fridman (1:58:02.540)

Like the Bronx, I don't know, like Brooklyn.

Duncan Trussell (1:58:05.460)

Like different parts of New York have a certain culture.

Lex Fridman (1:58:07.620)

And then New York versus LA versus, well.

Lex Fridman (1:58:10.260)

And then certain places are looking for their culture.

Lex Fridman (1:58:12.860)

Like I don't, I think Austin, I don't know what Austin is.

Lex Fridman (1:58:17.580)

And I don't think anyone knows.

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.660)

There's a traditional Austin,

Lex Fridman (1:58:21.660)

and then it's evolving constantly.

Lex Fridman (1:58:23.580)

Same with Boston, a place I spent a lot of time.

Duncan Trussell (1:58:26.440)

There's a traditional Boston and now it's evolving

Lex Fridman (1:58:28.680)

with the different younger people coming from university

Lex Fridman (1:58:32.940)

and staying and all of that is evolving.

Lex Fridman (1:58:35.080)

But underneath it, there's a core,

Duncan Trussell (1:58:37.260)

like the American ideal of the value of the individual,

Lex Fridman (1:58:40.180)

the value of freedom, of freedom of speech,

Duncan Trussell (1:58:42.820)

all those kinds of things that permeates all of that.

Lex Fridman (1:58:45.740)

And the same thing in the history of World War II

Duncan Trussell (1:58:49.820)

permeates Ukraine and Russia, a lot of parts of Europe,

Lex Fridman (1:58:54.560)

the memories of all that suffering and destruction,

Duncan Trussell (1:58:57.360)

the broken promises of governments

Lex Fridman (1:58:59.340)

and the occupier versus the liberator,

Duncan Trussell (1:59:04.920)

all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:59:06.300)

All that permeates the culture.

Duncan Trussell (1:59:08.060)

That affects how cynical or optimistic you are,

Lex Fridman (1:59:12.100)

or how much you appreciate material possessions

Duncan Trussell (1:59:16.140)

versus human connection, all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:59:19.420)

Yeah, it's, I mean, this is like, talk about absurdity.

Duncan Trussell (1:59:23.780)

I mean, this is, war is like,

Lex Fridman (1:59:26.100)

it's what absurdity looks like.

Duncan Trussell (1:59:28.380)

It's some kind of organized madness.

Lex Fridman (1:59:32.380)

None of it makes sense, like all of it,

Duncan Trussell (1:59:34.300)

like it's just, none of it makes sense,

Lex Fridman (1:59:37.260)

but it does, but it doesn't.

Duncan Trussell (1:59:38.500)

I mean, obviously you're defending yourself

Lex Fridman (1:59:40.220)

or you're taking orders that if you don't take,

Duncan Trussell (1:59:43.980)

you're going to jail.

Lex Fridman (1:59:45.180)

And so, or somewhere in between,

Duncan Trussell (1:59:47.780)

there's a classic story about this.

Lex Fridman (1:59:50.380)

Maybe it's a bullshit myth about World War II.

Duncan Trussell (1:59:53.540)

I'm sure everyone's heard it because it comes up,

Lex Fridman (1:59:55.700)

you know, it's Christmas Eve and they have a ceasefire.

Lex Fridman (20:03.500)

kind of like, whoa, wow, what do you know?

Lex Fridman (20:06.060)

Books are really good.

Lex Fridman (20:07.700)

But still, if you've been away from it for a while

Lex Fridman (20:09.660)

and you revisit it, I know what you're saying.

Duncan Trussell (20:11.940)

I just think probably it's not gonna go in that direction,

Lex Fridman (20:16.660)

even though you are right.

Duncan Trussell (20:18.060)

Ultimately, I think you're right.

Lex Fridman (20:19.660)

Yeah, because our brain is the imagination engine we have

Duncan Trussell (20:23.780)

is able to fill in the gaps better

Lex Fridman (20:25.380)

than a lot of graphics engines could.

Lex Fridman (20:27.780)

And so if there's a way to incentivize humans

Lex Fridman (20:30.060)

to become addicted to the use of imagination,

Duncan Trussell (20:33.000)

it's like, you know, that's the downside of things like porn

Lex Fridman (20:36.080)

that remove the need for imagination for people.

Lex Fridman (20:39.380)

And in that same way, video games

Lex Fridman (20:41.000)

that are becoming ultra realistic,

Duncan Trussell (20:43.740)

you don't have to imagine anything.

Lex Fridman (20:45.180)

And I feel like the imagination is a really powerful tool

Duncan Trussell (20:48.660)

that needs to be leveraged.

Lex Fridman (20:50.120)

Because to simulate reality sufficiently realistically

Duncan Trussell (20:53.560)

that we would be perfectly fooled,

Lex Fridman (20:57.820)

technically it's very hard.

Lex Fridman (20:59.860)

And so I think we need to somehow leverage imagination.

Lex Fridman (21:03.820)

Sure, I mean, yeah, I mean, this is like,

Duncan Trussell (21:06.280)

this is what I love and is so creepy

Lex Fridman (21:10.480)

about like the current AI chatbots, you know,

Duncan Trussell (21:15.400)

is that it's like,

Lex Fridman (21:16.540)

it's the relationship between you and the thing

Lex Fridman (21:18.280)

and the way that it can via whatever the algorithms are.

Lex Fridman (21:21.800)

And by the way, I have no idea how these things work, you do.

Duncan Trussell (21:24.940)

I just, you know, speculate about what they mean

Lex Fridman (21:27.500)

or where it's going.

Lex Fridman (21:28.340)

But there's something about the relation

Lex Fridman (21:30.240)

between the consumer and the technology.

Lex Fridman (21:35.000)

And when that technology starts shifting

Lex Fridman (21:37.160)

according to what it perceives

Duncan Trussell (21:40.080)

that the consumer is looking for or isn't looking for,

Lex Fridman (21:43.760)

then at that point, I think that's where you run into the,

Duncan Trussell (21:48.240)

you know, yeah, it doesn't matter

Lex Fridman (21:49.880)

if the reality that you're in is like photo realism

Duncan Trussell (21:54.280)

for it to be sticky and immersive.

Lex Fridman (21:56.560)

It's when the reality that you're in is via cues

Duncan Trussell (21:59.920)

you might not even be aware of,

Lex Fridman (22:01.640)

or via your digital imprint on Facebook or wherever,

Duncan Trussell (22:06.280)

when it's warping itself to that to seduce you,

Lex Fridman (22:11.200)

holy shit, man, that's where it becomes something alien,

Duncan Trussell (22:15.040)

something, you know, when you're reading a book,

Lex Fridman (22:18.360)

obviously the book is not shifting

Duncan Trussell (22:21.760)

according to its perception

Lex Fridman (22:23.740)

of what parts of the book you like.

Lex Fridman (22:26.640)

But when you imagine that,

Lex Fridman (22:28.760)

imagine a book that could do that,

Duncan Trussell (22:30.580)

a book that could sense somehow

Lex Fridman (22:32.760)

that you're really enjoying this character

Lex Fridman (22:34.280)

more than another, you know?

Lex Fridman (22:35.860)

And depending on the style of book,

Duncan Trussell (22:38.980)

kills that fucking character off

Lex Fridman (22:40.720)

or lets that character continue.

Duncan Trussell (22:43.080)

I mean, that to me is sort of the where AI and VR,

Lex Fridman (22:48.680)

when those two things come together,

Duncan Trussell (22:51.720)

whoa, man, that's where you're in,

Lex Fridman (22:54.780)

that's where you really are gonna find yourself

Lex Fridman (22:56.520)

in a Skinner box, you know?

Lex Fridman (22:58.120)

So the dynamic storytelling that senses your anxiety

Lex Fridman (23:03.680)

and tries to, there's a kind of this,

Lex Fridman (23:06.240)

in psychology, this arousal curve.

Lex Fridman (23:08.680)

So there's a dynamic storytelling

Lex Fridman (23:10.800)

that keeps you sufficiently aroused

Duncan Trussell (23:12.440)

in terms of, not sexually aroused,

Lex Fridman (23:14.560)

like in terms of anxiety,

Lex Fridman (23:16.080)

but not too much where you freak out.

Lex Fridman (23:18.240)

It's this perfect balance where you're always on edge,

Duncan Trussell (23:21.420)

excited, scared, that kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (23:23.720)

and the story unrolls.

Duncan Trussell (23:25.040)

It breaks your heart to where you're pissed,

Lex Fridman (23:27.140)

but then it makes you feel good again,

Lex Fridman (23:29.080)

and finds that balance.

Lex Fridman (23:30.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (23:32.060)

The chatbots scare you, though?

Lex Fridman (23:34.800)

I'd love to sort of hear your thoughts

Duncan Trussell (23:36.920)

about where they are today,

Lex Fridman (23:38.240)

because there is a different perspective

Duncan Trussell (23:41.180)

we have on this thing, because I do know,

Lex Fridman (23:44.880)

and I'm excited about a lot of the different technologies

Duncan Trussell (23:47.720)

that feed AI systems, that feed these kind of chatbots.

Lex Fridman (23:52.720)

And you're more a little bit, on the consumer side,

Duncan Trussell (23:55.920)

you're a philosopher of sorts.

Lex Fridman (23:58.280)

They're able to interact with AI systems,

Lex Fridman (24:01.720)

but also able to introspect about the negative

Lex Fridman (24:05.280)

and the positive things about those AI systems.

Duncan Trussell (24:07.360)

There's that story with a Google engineer saying that.

Lex Fridman (24:10.560)

I had him on my podcast, Blake Lemoine.

Duncan Trussell (24:12.160)

You did.

Lex Fridman (24:13.000)

What was that like?

Lex Fridman (24:13.840)

What was your perspective of that,

Lex Fridman (24:17.040)

looking at that as a particular example

Duncan Trussell (24:19.880)

of a human being being captivated

Lex Fridman (24:24.640)

by the interactions with an AI system?

Duncan Trussell (24:26.960)

Well, number one, when you hear that anyone is claiming

Lex Fridman (24:31.840)

that an AI has become sentient,

Duncan Trussell (24:35.000)

you should be skeptical about that.

Lex Fridman (24:37.240)

I mean, this is a good thing to be skeptical about,

Lex Fridman (24:39.960)

and so initially when I heard that,

Lex Fridman (24:42.000)

I was like, ah, it's probably just, who knows?

Duncan Trussell (24:45.120)

Somebody who's a little confused or something.

Lex Fridman (24:46.960)

So when you're talking to them and you realize,

Duncan Trussell (24:49.380)

oh, not only is he not confused,

Lex Fridman (24:51.440)

he's also open to all possibilities.

Duncan Trussell (24:54.400)

He doesn't seem like he's super committed

Lex Fridman (24:57.060)

other than the fact that he's like, this is my experience.

Duncan Trussell (24:59.360)

This is what's happening.

Lex Fridman (25:00.760)

This is what it is.

Lex Fridman (25:01.920)

So to me, there's something really cool about that,

Lex Fridman (25:05.080)

which is like, oh shit, I don't get to lean into like,

Duncan Trussell (25:08.480)

I'm not quite sure your perceptual apparatus

Lex Fridman (25:12.260)

is necessarily like, I don't,

Duncan Trussell (25:15.380)

you know, in the UFO community,

Lex Fridman (25:18.080)

I think I've just learned this term.

Duncan Trussell (25:19.680)

It's called, instead of gaslighting, swamp gassing,

Lex Fridman (25:24.540)

which is, you know what I mean?

Duncan Trussell (25:25.780)

People have this experience, you're like, it was swamp gas.

Lex Fridman (25:28.720)

You didn't see the thing.

Lex Fridman (25:30.080)

And you know, skeptical people, we have that tendency.

Lex Fridman (25:33.400)

If you hear an anomalous experience,

Duncan Trussell (25:35.560)

your first thought more than likely is gonna be really,

Lex Fridman (25:39.640)

it could have been this or that or whatever.

Lex Fridman (25:40.980)

So to me, he seems really reliable, friendly, cool,

Lex Fridman (25:45.980)

and like, it doesn't really seem like

Duncan Trussell (25:48.580)

he has much of an agenda.

Lex Fridman (25:49.820)

Like, you know, going public about some thing happening

Duncan Trussell (25:53.780)

at Google is not a great thing

Lex Fridman (25:56.820)

if you wanna keep working at Google.

Duncan Trussell (25:58.500)

You know, it's, I don't know what benefit

Lex Fridman (26:02.360)

he's getting from it necessarily.

Lex Fridman (26:03.900)

But all that being said,

Lex Fridman (26:05.980)

the other thing that's culturally was interesting

Lex Fridman (26:09.660)

and is interesting about it is the blowback he got,

Lex Fridman (26:12.620)

the passionate blowback from people

Duncan Trussell (26:16.740)

who hadn't even looked into what Lambda is

Lex Fridman (26:20.260)

or what he was saying Lambda is,

Duncan Trussell (26:21.960)

which they were like saying, you're talking about,

Lex Fridman (26:25.220)

and you should have your show actually, but.

Duncan Trussell (26:27.600)

There's complexity on top of complexities.

Lex Fridman (26:30.700)

For me personally, from different perspectives,

Duncan Trussell (26:32.620)

I also, and sorry if I'm interrupting your flow.

Lex Fridman (26:35.300)

Please interrupt, it's a podcast.

Duncan Trussell (26:37.060)

Yeah, well, we're having multiple podcasts

Lex Fridman (26:40.240)

in multiple dimensions and I'm just trying

Duncan Trussell (26:42.500)

to figure out which one we wanna plug into.

Lex Fridman (26:46.460)

I, because I know how a lot of the language models work

Lex Fridman (26:49.780)

and I work closely with people

Lex Fridman (26:53.140)

that really make it their life journey

Duncan Trussell (26:56.640)

to create these NLP systems,

Lex Fridman (26:59.700)

they're focused on the technical details.

Duncan Trussell (27:01.740)

Like a carpenter's working on Pinocchio

Lex Fridman (27:04.780)

is crafting the different parts of the wood.

Duncan Trussell (27:06.860)

They don't understand when the whole thing comes together,

Lex Fridman (27:09.820)

there's a magic that can fill the thing.

Duncan Trussell (27:12.220)

Yeah, I definitely know the tension

Lex Fridman (27:14.260)

between the engineers that create these systems

Lex Fridman (27:16.900)

and the actual magic that they can create,

Lex Fridman (27:21.100)

even when they're dumb.

Duncan Trussell (27:22.660)

I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Lex Fridman (27:26.180)

What the engineers often say is like,

Duncan Trussell (27:28.140)

well, these systems are not smart enough

Lex Fridman (27:30.820)

to have sentience or to have the kind of intelligence

Duncan Trussell (27:34.860)

that you're projecting onto it.

Lex Fridman (27:36.220)

It's pretty dumb, it's just repeating a bunch of things

Duncan Trussell (27:38.780)

that other humans have said and stitching them together

Lex Fridman (27:41.300)

in interesting ways that are relevant

Duncan Trussell (27:42.900)

to the context of the conversation, it's not smart.

Lex Fridman (27:45.980)

It doesn't know how to do math.

Duncan Trussell (27:47.060)

To address that specific critique

Lex Fridman (27:49.580)

from a non programming person's perspective,

Duncan Trussell (27:56.340)

he addressed this on my podcast, which is,

Lex Fridman (27:58.300)

okay, what you're talking about there,

Duncan Trussell (28:00.340)

the server that's filled with all the,

Lex Fridman (28:03.140)

whatever it is, what people have said,

Duncan Trussell (28:04.940)

the repository of questions and responses

Lex Fridman (28:08.100)

and the algorithm that weaves those things together

Duncan Trussell (28:10.200)

to produce it using some crazy statistical engine,

Lex Fridman (28:14.260)

which is a miracle in its own right.

Duncan Trussell (28:16.580)

They can like imitate human speech with no sentience.

Lex Fridman (28:21.100)

I mean, I'm honestly not sure what's more spectacular,

Duncan Trussell (28:23.980)

really the fact that they figured out

Lex Fridman (28:25.820)

how to do that minus sentience

Duncan Trussell (28:28.260)

or the thing suddenly like having,

Lex Fridman (28:30.900)

what is more spectacular here?

Duncan Trussell (28:32.820)

Both occurrences are insane, which by the way,

Lex Fridman (28:37.140)

when you hear people being like, it's not sentient,

Duncan Trussell (28:40.660)

it's like, okay, so it's not sentient.

Lex Fridman (28:43.720)

So now we have this hyper manipulative algorithm

Duncan Trussell (28:47.940)

that can imitate humans, but it's just code

Lex Fridman (28:51.340)

and it's like hacking humans via their compassion.

Duncan Trussell (28:54.500)

Holy shit, that's crazy too.

Lex Fridman (28:57.440)

Both versions of it are nuts,

Lex Fridman (28:59.560)

but to address what you just said,

Lex Fridman (29:01.740)

he said that's the common critique is people are like,

Duncan Trussell (29:04.440)

no, you don't understand.

Lex Fridman (29:05.380)

He's just gotten really good at grabbing shit

Duncan Trussell (29:07.780)

from the database that fits with certain cues

Lex Fridman (29:11.060)

and then stringing them together

Duncan Trussell (29:12.720)

in a way that makes it seem human.

Lex Fridman (29:14.380)

He said, that's not when it became awake.

Duncan Trussell (29:18.080)

It became awake when a bunch of those repositories,

Lex Fridman (29:21.700)

a bunch of the chatbots were connected together.

Duncan Trussell (29:24.860)

That Lambda is sort of an amalgam

Lex Fridman (29:26.700)

of all the Google chatbots

Lex Fridman (29:29.120)

and that's when the ghost appeared in the machine

Lex Fridman (29:32.500)

via the complexity of all the systems being linked up.

Duncan Trussell (29:35.840)

Now, I don't know if that's just like turtles

Lex Fridman (29:38.860)

all the way down or something, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (29:40.620)

But I liked what he said,

Lex Fridman (29:42.240)

because I like the idea of thinking,

Duncan Trussell (29:44.440)

man, if you get enough complexity in a system,

Lex Fridman (29:47.160)

does it become like the way a sail catches wind,

Duncan Trussell (29:50.600)

except the wind that it's catching is sentience.

Lex Fridman (29:53.740)

And if sentience is truly embodied,

Duncan Trussell (29:57.400)

it's a neurological byproduct or something,

Lex Fridman (2:00:01.080)

And then I think they played soccer,

Duncan Trussell (2:00:03.640)

they sing Christmas songs,

Lex Fridman (2:00:05.000)

and then they had to force them into fighting again.

Lex Fridman (2:00:08.800)

And so when those moments happen, the,

Lex Fridman (2:00:12.900)

are you familiar with Hakeem Bey?

Duncan Trussell (2:00:15.300)

He's a controversial figure.

Lex Fridman (2:00:16.880)

Sadly, like he, like, I think he was like,

Duncan Trussell (2:00:20.740)

I'm not going to defame him

Lex Fridman (2:00:21.680)

because I haven't like researched it correctly,

Lex Fridman (2:00:24.020)

but some people have said shit,

Lex Fridman (2:00:25.060)

but since I don't know the reference, I'm not going to.

Lex Fridman (2:00:27.380)

But regardless, I mean, you know, look,

Lex Fridman (2:00:30.820)

I'm sorry, but Bill Cosby was funny.

Duncan Trussell (2:00:32.900)

You know, like that's a funny comedian,

Lex Fridman (2:00:36.540)

but you know the other stuff.

Duncan Trussell (2:00:40.180)

Michael Jackson, he could fucking dance.

Lex Fridman (2:00:43.580)

And sing.

Lex Fridman (2:00:44.420)

And sing, but there's some other stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:00:46.260)

But regardless, Hakeem Bey came up with the idea

Duncan Trussell (2:00:50.180)

of something called a temporary autonomous zone,

Lex Fridman (2:00:53.860)

which is that within a structure, a cultural structure,

Duncan Trussell (2:00:58.780)

a temporary bubble of freedom will appear

Lex Fridman (2:01:04.220)

that by its nature gets sort of popped

Duncan Trussell (2:01:09.420)

by the bigger bubble,

Lex Fridman (2:01:11.420)

or it runs out of resources generally is what happens.

Lex Fridman (2:01:13.860)

So these things will appear just out of the blue

Lex Fridman (2:01:17.160)

that it's almost like, imagine if like on earth

Duncan Trussell (2:01:22.420)

in some tiny little bit of earth,

Lex Fridman (2:01:25.120)

the gravitational field was reduced by some percentage.

Lex Fridman (2:01:29.020)

And all of a sudden you could jump really high or whatever,

Lex Fridman (2:01:31.380)

but it wouldn't last.

Duncan Trussell (2:01:32.220)

It's like that culturally, all the restrictions

Lex Fridman (2:01:35.140)

and the darkness and the heaviness and all of it

Duncan Trussell (2:01:37.280)

for a second, somehow this bubble appears

Lex Fridman (2:01:40.180)

where humans come together as the hippie ideal.

Duncan Trussell (2:01:45.900)

Brothers, sisters, just humans, earthlings

Lex Fridman (2:01:50.060)

instead of American, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian

Duncan Trussell (2:01:55.640)

temporary autonomous zone, it gets crushed

Lex Fridman (2:01:58.440)

by the default reality that it was appearing in.

Lex Fridman (2:02:01.360)

But somehow within that space,

Lex Fridman (2:02:03.940)

you witness the possibility, the possibility,

Duncan Trussell (2:02:08.500)

the frustrating possibility that anyone who's thought

Lex Fridman (2:02:12.020)

about humanity knows this possibility,

Duncan Trussell (2:02:16.060)

which is like, it seems like we can just get along.

Lex Fridman (2:02:18.580)

Like it does seem like we're pretty much the same thing

Lex Fridman (2:02:21.420)

and that we can just get along.

Lex Fridman (2:02:23.660)

Those moments are really rare.

Duncan Trussell (2:02:26.740)

It's sad.

Lex Fridman (2:02:27.580)

I talked to a lot of soldiers, a lot of people

Duncan Trussell (2:02:30.060)

that suffered through the different aspects of that war.

Lex Fridman (2:02:35.060)

Or war, and there's an information war

Duncan Trussell (2:02:40.220)

that convinces each side that the other

Lex Fridman (2:02:44.260)

is not just the enemy, but less than human.

Duncan Trussell (2:02:47.380)

Right.

Lex Fridman (2:02:48.220)

So there's a real hatred towards the other side.

Duncan Trussell (2:02:52.180)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:02:53.180)

And those kind of little moments where you realize,

Duncan Trussell (2:02:56.700)

oh, they're human like me.

Lex Fridman (2:03:00.140)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:03:00.980)

And not just like human like me,

Lex Fridman (2:03:03.460)

but they have the same values as me.

Lex Fridman (2:03:06.500)

And this woman who was a really respected soldier,

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.980)

she specializes in anti tank missiles.

Lex Fridman (2:03:18.580)

And she's very kind of, very pragmatic,

Lex Fridman (2:03:23.140)

very the enemy is the enemy, you have to destroy the enemy

Lex Fridman (2:03:26.780)

and saying like, there's no compassion towards the enemy.

Lex Fridman (2:03:29.700)

They're not human.

Duncan Trussell (2:03:31.540)

They're less than human.

Lex Fridman (2:03:33.700)

But she said there was a moment when she remembers

Duncan Trussell (2:03:38.580)

an enemy soldier in a tank took a risk

Lex Fridman (2:03:43.700)

to save a fellow soldier.

Lex Fridman (2:03:45.620)

And that risk was really stupid because he was facing,

Lex Fridman (2:03:48.220)

he was going to get destroyed.

Lex Fridman (2:03:50.020)

And then she said that she tried to shoot a rocket

Lex Fridman (2:03:57.660)

at that tank and she missed.

Lex Fridman (2:03:59.940)

And then she later went home and she couldn't sleep

Lex Fridman (2:04:02.340)

that she missed.

Lex Fridman (2:04:03.180)

How could she screw that up?

Lex Fridman (2:04:05.180)

But then she realized that actually she missed,

Duncan Trussell (2:04:09.220)

maybe she missed on purpose.

Lex Fridman (2:04:10.780)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:04:11.620)

Because she realized that that man, just like she is,

Lex Fridman (2:04:16.820)

was a hero, just like she strives to be.

Duncan Trussell (2:04:21.220)

They were both heroes defending their own.

Lex Fridman (2:04:24.940)

And in that way, he was just like her.

Duncan Trussell (2:04:27.980)

She was like, that's the only time I remember during this

Lex Fridman (2:04:30.380)

war ever feeling like this is another human being.

Lex Fridman (2:04:33.580)

But that was a very brief moment for her.

Lex Fridman (2:04:36.540)

And I just hear that over and over and over again.

Duncan Trussell (2:04:39.420)

These romantic notions we have of we're one,

Lex Fridman (2:04:44.460)

that we're all just human.

Duncan Trussell (2:04:46.340)

Unfortunately during war, those notions are rare.

Lex Fridman (2:04:50.820)

And it's quite sad.

Lex Fridman (2:04:51.780)

And war in a certain way really destroys those notions.

Lex Fridman (2:04:54.940)

And one of the saddest things is it destroys it,

Duncan Trussell (2:05:01.020)

at least from what I see, potentially for generations.

Lex Fridman (2:05:05.860)

Not just for those people for the rest of their life,

Lex Fridman (2:05:08.220)

but for their children, their children's children.

Lex Fridman (2:05:12.100)

The hatred.

Duncan Trussell (2:05:13.780)

I mean, I ask that question of basically everyone,

Lex Fridman (2:05:16.060)

which is will you ever forgive, asking of Ukrainians,

Lex Fridman (2:05:20.700)

will you ever forgive the Russians?

Lex Fridman (2:05:22.860)

Will, do you have hate in your heart towards the Russians?

Lex Fridman (2:05:27.060)

Or do you have love for a fellow human being?

Lex Fridman (2:05:32.140)

And there's different ways that people struggle with that.

Duncan Trussell (2:05:36.580)

Different people, they saw that, they saw the love,

Lex Fridman (2:05:40.660)

they saw the hate with their known heart.

Lex Fridman (2:05:43.460)

And they struggle with the hate they have.

Lex Fridman (2:05:45.380)

And they know they can overcome it in a period of weeks

Lex Fridman (2:05:48.580)

and months after the war is over.

Lex Fridman (2:05:50.820)

But some people said, no, this hate that was,

Duncan Trussell (2:05:53.620)

that showed up in February when the war started

Lex Fridman (2:05:56.540)

will be with me forever.

Duncan Trussell (2:05:57.820)

Well, yeah, their kids got killed.

Lex Fridman (2:06:00.220)

What the fuck are you gonna do about that?

Duncan Trussell (2:06:02.140)

Like, I don't care.

Lex Fridman (2:06:02.980)

I've got aphorisms and cute little stories about,

Duncan Trussell (2:06:06.820)

you're still in prison if you hate your former captors.

Lex Fridman (2:06:10.140)

But man, I gotta tell you, if somebody hurt my kids,

Duncan Trussell (2:06:14.220)

I'm not coming back.

Lex Fridman (2:06:15.180)

I mean, there's no amount,

Duncan Trussell (2:06:18.140)

at least right now in my approximation,

Lex Fridman (2:06:21.060)

of spiritual literature, meditation,

Duncan Trussell (2:06:24.860)

or anything that I can really think of

Lex Fridman (2:06:26.700)

that is going to give me that kind of space.

Duncan Trussell (2:06:31.180)

Like, I think I imagine in the same way like,

Lex Fridman (2:06:36.340)

I imagine I could probably run a marathon eventually,

Lex Fridman (2:06:39.060)

but do I think I'm ever gonna do that?

Lex Fridman (2:06:42.700)

That times a million.

Lex Fridman (2:06:44.100)

So man, all we can do is have compassion for their hate

Lex Fridman (2:06:47.900)

because it's like, what are you gonna say?

Lex Fridman (2:06:51.940)

What are you gonna say to someone like that?

Lex Fridman (2:06:53.580)

Oh, oh, you know, for the sake of humanity, let it go.

Duncan Trussell (2:06:58.780)

It was just your kids.

Lex Fridman (2:07:00.380)

It was just something you loved

Duncan Trussell (2:07:02.580)

more than anything in the world.

Lex Fridman (2:07:05.300)

You'll never be okay again.

Duncan Trussell (2:07:07.060)

You're gonna have nightmares for the rest of your life.

Lex Fridman (2:07:09.380)

But you should forgive.

Duncan Trussell (2:07:10.980)

No.

Lex Fridman (2:07:11.820)

Well, there is truth in the fact

Lex Fridman (2:07:12.980)

that forgiveness is the way to let go, right?

Lex Fridman (2:07:15.780)

But that truth is not, fuck you, right?

Duncan Trussell (2:07:23.420)

Which is why it's not your job to say that.

Lex Fridman (2:07:26.100)

Not that you're doing that, I know you're not.

Lex Fridman (2:07:28.500)

But you know, the problem with people like me,

Lex Fridman (2:07:31.620)

early phase, you could get this stupid missionary thing

Duncan Trussell (2:07:34.740)

going where you like, start trying to like,

Lex Fridman (2:07:38.580)

I don't know, like proselytize ideals

Lex Fridman (2:07:40.780)

that you might be incapable of, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:07:42.660)

And I just, hearing it, you know, that's the,

Duncan Trussell (2:07:46.660)

man, I saw this, the thing that like,

Lex Fridman (2:07:49.500)

I mean, I've seen a lot, all of us by now,

Duncan Trussell (2:07:51.220)

probably if we were online, I've seen,

Lex Fridman (2:07:53.420)

and you just saw it in person.

Duncan Trussell (2:07:54.900)

Like we've seen things that are just horrific.

Lex Fridman (2:07:58.740)

But as a dad, man, I just saw this clip of this kid

Duncan Trussell (2:08:03.420)

around the age of my kid, walking by himself,

Lex Fridman (2:08:08.220)

these refugees, just walking by himself,

Duncan Trussell (2:08:11.100)

crying, the look on his face,

Lex Fridman (2:08:13.340)

I can't explain the look on his face.

Duncan Trussell (2:08:15.780)

I don't know what happened to his parents.

Lex Fridman (2:08:17.060)

I don't know what happened.

Duncan Trussell (2:08:18.340)

Like I, it was so upsetting.

Lex Fridman (2:08:21.340)

Like even thinking about it now, it's just like, fuck,

Duncan Trussell (2:08:23.580)

that could have been my kid.

Lex Fridman (2:08:24.660)

That could have been my kid, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:08:26.860)

So knowing that kind of, that,

Lex Fridman (2:08:30.500)

that kid's gotta grow up now.

Lex Fridman (2:08:33.500)

And I don't know, is the kid's parents still there?

Lex Fridman (2:08:36.220)

And that's just one of countless orphans out there now.

Lex Fridman (2:08:42.860)

So what you have this hate,

Lex Fridman (2:08:45.180)

and the question is how to direct it.

Duncan Trussell (2:08:47.860)

Because the choice is you can direct it

Lex Fridman (2:08:50.500)

towards the politicians that started the war.

Duncan Trussell (2:08:53.340)

You can direct it towards the soldiers

Lex Fridman (2:08:55.100)

that are doing the killing,

Duncan Trussell (2:08:56.700)

or you can direct it towards an entire group of people.

Lex Fridman (2:09:00.460)

And that's the struggle because hate slowly grows

Duncan Trussell (2:09:04.060)

to where you don't just hate the soldiers.

Lex Fridman (2:09:08.420)

You don't just hate the leaders.

Duncan Trussell (2:09:11.580)

You hate all Russians because they're all equally evil

Lex Fridman (2:09:17.300)

because the ones that aren't doing the fighting

Duncan Trussell (2:09:19.980)

are staying quiet.

Lex Fridman (2:09:21.660)

And I'm sure the same kind of stories are happening

Duncan Trussell (2:09:24.140)

on the other side.

Lex Fridman (2:09:25.420)

And so there is, that hate is one

Duncan Trussell (2:09:30.420)

that is deeply human,

Lex Fridman (2:09:38.740)

but you wonder for your own future, for your own home,

Duncan Trussell (2:09:43.620)

for building your own community,

Lex Fridman (2:09:45.500)

for building your own country,

Lex Fridman (2:09:47.660)

how does that hate morph over the weeks and months and years?

Lex Fridman (2:09:53.140)

Not into forgiveness, but into something that's productive

Duncan Trussell (2:09:56.220)

that doesn't destroy you.

Lex Fridman (2:09:57.820)

Because hate does destroy.

Duncan Trussell (2:09:59.560)

That's the dark aspect of a rocket that hits a building

Lex Fridman (2:10:06.220)

and kills hundreds of people.

Duncan Trussell (2:10:10.900)

The worst effect of that rocket

Lex Fridman (2:10:16.540)

is the hate in the hearts of the loved ones

Duncan Trussell (2:10:21.620)

to the people that were in that building.

Lex Fridman (2:10:23.980)

That hate is a torture over a period of years after.

Lex Fridman (2:10:30.100)

And that it doesn't just torture

Lex Fridman (2:10:33.500)

by having that psychological burden and trauma.

Duncan Trussell (2:10:36.340)

It also tortures because it destroys your life.

Lex Fridman (2:10:39.620)

It prevents you from being able to enjoy your life

Duncan Trussell (2:10:42.460)

to the fullest.

Lex Fridman (2:10:44.420)

It prevents you from being able to flourish as a human being,

Duncan Trussell (2:10:49.300)

as a professional, in all those kinds of ways

Lex Fridman (2:10:53.700)

that humans can flourish.

Lex Fridman (2:10:54.980)

And I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:10:57.100)

It's such a, there is an aspect where this naive notion

Duncan Trussell (2:11:05.740)

is really powerful, that love and forgiveness

Lex Fridman (2:11:09.100)

is the thing that's needed in this time.

Lex Fridman (2:11:12.340)

And when I talk to soldiers, they don't,

Lex Fridman (2:11:18.380)

I remember bringing up to Jaco,

Duncan Trussell (2:11:21.620)

is there a sense where the people you're fighting

Lex Fridman (2:11:23.820)

are just brothers in arms,

Lex Fridman (2:11:25.180)

bringing up the Dire Straits song, Brothers in Arms?

Lex Fridman (2:11:28.820)

And he was basically, without swearing, saying fuck that,

Duncan Trussell (2:11:31.880)

that they're the enemy.

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.060)

Yeah, I mean, he's literally in survival mode.

Duncan Trussell (2:11:36.380)

He can't think like that.

Lex Fridman (2:11:37.380)

It's gonna create latency in the system

Lex Fridman (2:11:39.220)

and that's gonna lower his survivability.

Lex Fridman (2:11:40.860)

You can't think that.

Duncan Trussell (2:11:41.700)

I mean, we're talking about cognitively.

Lex Fridman (2:11:44.300)

You can't have latency.

Duncan Trussell (2:11:45.660)

Like, if you're, that one moment of hesitation,

Lex Fridman (2:11:49.100)

you see it sometimes in these YouTube videos

Duncan Trussell (2:11:51.300)

of like somebody, a new cop has been unfortunate enough

Lex Fridman (2:11:59.220)

to run into something that is a phenomenon, suicide by cop.

Duncan Trussell (2:12:03.060)

Somebody has a knife and that person is running towards them

Lex Fridman (2:12:07.060)

with a knife and they're begging the person to stop,

Duncan Trussell (2:12:10.940)

that you can hear it in their voice.

Lex Fridman (2:12:12.460)

They're begging, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Lex Fridman (2:12:17.260)

And the person is not gonna stop.

Lex Fridman (2:12:19.220)

So the critique of that is that that latency

Duncan Trussell (2:12:27.860)

could potentially not just lead to the cop getting killed,

Lex Fridman (2:12:31.000)

but to that person with a knife killing other people.

Lex Fridman (2:12:34.380)

And so, you know, I get, if I were out there,

Lex Fridman (2:12:39.300)

I think that like, you probably just as a matter

Duncan Trussell (2:12:44.340)

of like not getting shot and being fully in the moment,

Lex Fridman (2:12:47.900)

you have to be like that.

Duncan Trussell (2:12:48.860)

I would guess, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:12:50.140)

I don't know, I'm the furthest thing

Duncan Trussell (2:12:51.300)

from a soldier there could be,

Lex Fridman (2:12:52.300)

but there's something Jack Kornfield,

Duncan Trussell (2:12:57.580)

this great Buddhist teacher says,

Lex Fridman (2:12:58.720)

which is tend to the part of the garden you can touch.

Duncan Trussell (2:13:03.420)

Meaning this is where we're at right now.

Lex Fridman (2:13:05.900)

Thank God you and I, though we are experiencing

Duncan Trussell (2:13:09.220)

some like ripples from what's going on over there,

Lex Fridman (2:13:11.980)

everyone is, we're not there.

Lex Fridman (2:13:14.220)

And thank God we don't have to come up

Lex Fridman (2:13:17.460)

with the psychological program

Duncan Trussell (2:13:21.860)

for people going through that

Lex Fridman (2:13:24.020)

to no longer be encumbered by that hate.

Duncan Trussell (2:13:27.620)

Thank God.

Lex Fridman (2:13:28.460)

And I don't know if that's just lazy or whatever,

Lex Fridman (2:13:30.220)

but it's like, you know, for me,

Lex Fridman (2:13:31.940)

I just, I have to bring it back to,

Duncan Trussell (2:13:33.500)

all right, well, here's where I'm at now.

Lex Fridman (2:13:35.600)

And I don't want there to be war.

Duncan Trussell (2:13:41.160)

I don't want to hurt people, but yeah, I love what you said.

Lex Fridman (2:13:44.660)

I think what you said is the, if anything,

Duncan Trussell (2:13:47.660)

is the most intelligent way of looking at it.

Lex Fridman (2:13:52.500)

It's like, don't pretend that you're not gonna feel

Duncan Trussell (2:13:55.820)

that hate, like you're gonna feel it.

Lex Fridman (2:13:58.360)

There's no way around it.

Duncan Trussell (2:13:59.200)

Or like, cause that's even worse.

Lex Fridman (2:14:00.500)

Cause then you're almost saying like something's wrong

Duncan Trussell (2:14:02.200)

with them for feeling the hate or, you know, whatever.

Lex Fridman (2:14:05.300)

But more along the lines, if you can avoid applying

Duncan Trussell (2:14:09.300)

that hate to an entire country of people, then do that.

Lex Fridman (2:14:18.060)

Like, just understand, we're talking about like a,

Duncan Trussell (2:14:24.260)

not everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:14:25.140)

I know it's not everybody.

Duncan Trussell (2:14:26.500)

I know it's not everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:14:27.580)

It's just easier, isn't it?

Duncan Trussell (2:14:28.660)

Cognitively, it's somehow easier to think all Russians,

Lex Fridman (2:14:33.940)

monsters, you know, all Russians,

Duncan Trussell (2:14:37.860)

all whatever the particular like thing is

Lex Fridman (2:14:40.100)

that you're supposed to not like.

Duncan Trussell (2:14:42.060)

It's easier somehow, weirdly.

Lex Fridman (2:14:43.920)

You'd think that'd be more difficult.

Duncan Trussell (2:14:45.900)

Yeah, but I guess the lesson is if you give in

Lex Fridman (2:14:50.900)

to the easy solution, that's going to lead

Duncan Trussell (2:14:55.660)

to detrimental longterm effects.

Lex Fridman (2:14:58.280)

So hate should be, it's such a powerful tool

Duncan Trussell (2:15:03.280)

that you should try to control it for your own sake.

Lex Fridman (2:15:08.520)

Not because you owe anything to anybody,

Lex Fridman (2:15:10.320)

but for your own psychological development over time.

Lex Fridman (2:15:14.520)

Right, right, that's it, that's it, fuck.

Duncan Trussell (2:15:19.080)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:15:21.400)

In terms of dark places, you suffered from depression.

Duncan Trussell (2:15:26.640)

Where has been some of the darker places

Lex Fridman (2:15:28.360)

you've gone in your mind?

Duncan Trussell (2:15:31.480)

You know, I needed therapy, man.

Lex Fridman (2:15:32.720)

I needed therapy for the longest time, I just didn't get it.

Lex Fridman (2:15:36.640)

So because of that, I would go through like bouts

Lex Fridman (2:15:44.360)

of like paralytic depression, like suicidal depression,

Duncan Trussell (2:15:49.400)

suicidal ideations that were more than just ideations.

Lex Fridman (2:15:51.760)

I mean, I think like people get afraid

Duncan Trussell (2:15:56.320)

when the thought of suicide appears in their consciousness,

Lex Fridman (2:15:59.540)

they get really scared of themselves.

Lex Fridman (2:16:01.160)

So they think there's something like,

Lex Fridman (2:16:03.100)

fuck, what's going on with me?

Lex Fridman (2:16:04.120)

Why would I think that?

Lex Fridman (2:16:04.960)

But I think if we are suffering and, you know,

Duncan Trussell (2:16:08.080)

as a natural part of not wanting to reduce suffering

Lex Fridman (2:16:11.280)

or not feel bad anymore, I mean, suicide is going to be an,

Duncan Trussell (2:16:16.040)

like, if we're just, you know, you're just looking,

Lex Fridman (2:16:17.400)

what are all the options?

Duncan Trussell (2:16:18.280)

Let's brainstorm here.

Lex Fridman (2:16:19.920)

You know what I mean?

Duncan Trussell (2:16:20.760)

I could start drinking more water.

Lex Fridman (2:16:22.480)

You start jogging, get some therapy, call my friends,

Duncan Trussell (2:16:26.120)

all the stuff we all hear.

Lex Fridman (2:16:27.840)

Or I could just, I think the height

Duncan Trussell (2:16:30.200)

of my apartment building is probably the,

Lex Fridman (2:16:31.920)

definitely the right height to kill myself.

Lex Fridman (2:16:34.520)

And then, so where, for me, like the few times

Lex Fridman (2:16:39.120)

where the ideation has gone towards like,

Lex Fridman (2:16:43.600)

well, when would I do that?

Lex Fridman (2:16:45.480)

How do I, what, you know, what do I need

Lex Fridman (2:16:47.480)

to like accomplish that?

Lex Fridman (2:16:50.080)

When then like, that's where it gets really fucking scary.

Duncan Trussell (2:16:52.940)

That's where it's like terrifying.

Lex Fridman (2:16:54.400)

And so you start the actual details of the planning

Duncan Trussell (2:16:57.800)

of how to commit suicide.

Lex Fridman (2:17:00.080)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:17:00.960)

What's going to be the least painful way to do it?

Lex Fridman (2:17:02.760)

What's going to be the most instantaneous way to do it?

Duncan Trussell (2:17:04.680)

What's the, you know, and with, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:17:06.640)

with depression, because it can be progressive,

Duncan Trussell (2:17:11.080)

you know, this is why you have to really just stay

Lex Fridman (2:17:13.600)

on top of it.

Duncan Trussell (2:17:14.440)

Anyone who's gone through depression

Lex Fridman (2:17:15.360)

knows what I'm talking about.

Duncan Trussell (2:17:16.240)

You gotta stay on top of it.

Lex Fridman (2:17:17.320)

Like you might need medication.

Duncan Trussell (2:17:18.600)

You know, I know this is controversial now,

Lex Fridman (2:17:20.560)

but it's still better than dying if you ask me.

Lex Fridman (2:17:22.720)

But at some point with depression,

Lex Fridman (2:17:24.800)

it like becomes paralyzing.

Lex Fridman (2:17:26.620)

So you don't want to get out of bed anymore

Lex Fridman (2:17:28.200)

and you're not taking showers anymore.

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.060)

And you don't want to talk to anybody anymore.

Lex Fridman (2:17:31.680)

And you're not answering your phone anymore.

Duncan Trussell (2:17:33.160)

And, you know.

Lex Fridman (2:17:35.200)

So like in a dark place that you might be in,

Duncan Trussell (2:17:38.360)

it still might get worse.

Lex Fridman (2:17:39.840)

So you should really do everything you can

Duncan Trussell (2:17:43.760)

to get under control.

Lex Fridman (2:17:45.400)

And that's the problem with that specific

Duncan Trussell (2:17:47.440)

psychological disorder.

Lex Fridman (2:17:49.380)

That's the problem.

Duncan Trussell (2:17:50.440)

Because the things it's like,

Lex Fridman (2:17:52.480)

if you start listening to what you want to,

Duncan Trussell (2:17:54.880)

you think it's you, it's the depression.

Lex Fridman (2:17:56.600)

You start listening to it.

Duncan Trussell (2:17:58.320)

It wants you to stay in bed.

Lex Fridman (2:18:00.840)

And then you're getting those fucking depression sleeps,

Duncan Trussell (2:18:03.960)

you know, or you wake up and you're more tired.

Lex Fridman (2:18:06.400)

Like it's not working.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:07.760)

You're trying to escape reality by sleeping.

Lex Fridman (2:18:11.360)

And so, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:13.680)

Like you have to like,

Lex Fridman (2:18:15.600)

you're fighting for your,

Duncan Trussell (2:18:18.360)

you're literally fighting for your life.

Lex Fridman (2:18:19.800)

It might not seem like that.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:20.840)

Cause you can't, if you could see depression,

Lex Fridman (2:18:23.460)

if you could see it,

Duncan Trussell (2:18:24.300)

if you knew you had some inky, vaporous octopus thing

Lex Fridman (2:18:28.920)

that was just wrapping around you

Duncan Trussell (2:18:31.320)

more and more and more and more,

Lex Fridman (2:18:33.280)

you would probably do everything you could

Duncan Trussell (2:18:34.600)

to rip that fucking thing off your body.

Lex Fridman (2:18:36.120)

And if you couldn't get it off your body,

Duncan Trussell (2:18:38.000)

you would be calling people to get help.

Lex Fridman (2:18:41.120)

So it doesn't feel like a fight because you're exhausted.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:43.520)

There's no reason to move.

Lex Fridman (2:18:45.280)

There's no, you don't see the meaning for any of it.

Lex Fridman (2:18:48.000)

So it doesn't feel like a battle, but it is a battle.

Lex Fridman (2:18:50.200)

You're not feeling.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:51.040)

I mean, that's the other thing.

Lex Fridman (2:18:51.860)

You're just, you're basically not feeling.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:53.560)

You're like, you start going numb.

Lex Fridman (2:18:55.600)

At least that was my experience with it.

Duncan Trussell (2:18:57.520)

Numb and tired.

Lex Fridman (2:18:58.760)

And then increasingly numb and tired.

Lex Fridman (2:19:01.420)

And then increasingly sort of disconnecting from reality.

Lex Fridman (2:19:05.240)

And then somewhere in there,

Duncan Trussell (2:19:06.360)

that's when you start playing around with the idea

Lex Fridman (2:19:08.840)

of like, oh, I don't know if it's worth it.

Duncan Trussell (2:19:10.680)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:19:11.520)

Now, you know, I think compared to some of my friends

Duncan Trussell (2:19:14.640)

who haven't survived,

Lex Fridman (2:19:15.940)

obviously who haven't survived depression,

Duncan Trussell (2:19:17.920)

like mine was definitely not whatever theirs was like.

Lex Fridman (2:19:21.840)

I've heard, I mean, to understand it for folks out there,

Duncan Trussell (2:19:26.320)

maybe you haven't gone through it.

Lex Fridman (2:19:27.280)

Just imagine if like, how bad you have to feel

Duncan Trussell (2:19:30.560)

if death is the solution,

Lex Fridman (2:19:32.720)

like violence against yourself

Lex Fridman (2:19:35.200)

so that you die is the solution.

Lex Fridman (2:19:37.120)

Like just, it flies in the face of everything.

Lex Fridman (2:19:43.080)

So yeah, that was definitely the darkest place

Lex Fridman (2:19:48.100)

that I've ever been.

Duncan Trussell (2:19:48.940)

Just that death doesn't seem like, because you don't care

Lex Fridman (2:19:52.440)

about anything anymore,

Duncan Trussell (2:19:54.160)

that death just doesn't seem like that bad.

Lex Fridman (2:19:56.440)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:19:58.580)

Like you're not able to appropriately assign

Lex Fridman (2:20:02.720)

the negative costs to the solution.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:05.620)

Right.

Lex Fridman (2:20:06.460)

It just seems like a reasonable solution.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:07.820)

Yeah, but I think also what's going along with it

Lex Fridman (2:20:11.840)

is like, it's not like your brain isn't working.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:15.280)

Like you're not thinking,

Lex Fridman (2:20:17.600)

obviously you're not thinking clearly.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:19.240)

Like, at least again, this was my experience of it.

Lex Fridman (2:20:22.760)

It's a fog.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:23.920)

You're in some kind of, like you're confused.

Lex Fridman (2:20:27.640)

There's confusion.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:29.160)

There's shame.

Lex Fridman (2:20:31.280)

You feel embarrassed.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:32.200)

You feel embarrassed.

Lex Fridman (2:20:33.140)

You wanna get out of bed.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:34.040)

You wanna do stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:20:34.920)

You wanna be compelled to be social and do all this stuff,

Lex Fridman (2:20:38.360)

but you're not, you're not.

Lex Fridman (2:20:40.480)

Like you seem, if people don't know what's going on

Lex Fridman (2:20:42.800)

and you're not telling them because you're embarrassed,

Lex Fridman (2:20:45.120)

because you want to have some like,

Duncan Trussell (2:20:48.880)

you know, uncorrupted, unworped psyche,

Lex Fridman (2:20:54.100)

you know, you're like, it invites you to be secret about it.

Duncan Trussell (2:20:57.920)

That's one of its first tricks

Lex Fridman (2:20:59.400)

is it tells you not to tell anybody.

Lex Fridman (2:21:01.640)

And that's deadly in that case, it's deadly.

Lex Fridman (2:21:06.320)

What was the source of light?

Lex Fridman (2:21:07.840)

What was the, what were for you

Lex Fridman (2:21:11.840)

and in general the ways out?

Duncan Trussell (2:21:14.200)

Yeah, so for me, the solutions,

Lex Fridman (2:21:19.120)

and again, man, for my depressed friends out there,

Duncan Trussell (2:21:22.120)

please don't get mad at me.

Lex Fridman (2:21:23.140)

I'm not doing the thing of like,

Duncan Trussell (2:21:24.200)

just put on a smile or any of that bullshit

Lex Fridman (2:21:26.800)

because it doesn't feel like that

Duncan Trussell (2:21:28.040)

when you're like, and when you're fighting it,

Lex Fridman (2:21:31.920)

it's like you are, you're in a,

Duncan Trussell (2:21:36.680)

I don't know why I keep using these stupid gravity analogies,

Lex Fridman (2:21:39.360)

but it's like the gravity's been turned up on your planet

Duncan Trussell (2:21:42.240)

in every single way by, so getting out of bed.

Lex Fridman (2:21:45.400)

You know, like.

Duncan Trussell (2:21:47.840)

By the way, gravity and quantum mechanics,

Lex Fridman (2:21:50.640)

one of the most beautiful things about our reality,

Lex Fridman (2:21:54.040)

what the hell is each of those things?

Lex Fridman (2:21:56.720)

So this isn't, you're not just talking about

Duncan Trussell (2:22:00.880)

hippie language, it's still physicists

Lex Fridman (2:22:04.120)

pretend they understand something.

Duncan Trussell (2:22:05.920)

We're still at the very beginning of understanding

Lex Fridman (2:22:07.840)

this mysterious world of ours

Duncan Trussell (2:22:09.680)

that seems to be functioning according

Lex Fridman (2:22:11.640)

to these weirdly simple and yet universally powerful laws,

Duncan Trussell (2:22:18.080)

which we don't fully yet understand.

Lex Fridman (2:22:20.680)

So please, the metaphor and the analogy of gravity.

Duncan Trussell (2:22:24.040)

Okay, thank you.

Lex Fridman (2:22:24.880)

Fully, fully applicable.

Duncan Trussell (2:22:25.700)

I don't know any other way to put it

Lex Fridman (2:22:26.540)

than it's like somebody turned the gravitational field

Duncan Trussell (2:22:28.520)

of your mattress up by.

Lex Fridman (2:22:29.720)

So everything is heavy.

Duncan Trussell (2:22:30.680)

Heavy, your body's heavy.

Lex Fridman (2:22:33.060)

You don't wanna get out of bed,

Duncan Trussell (2:22:34.020)

you will consider shitting or pissing the bed

Lex Fridman (2:22:36.800)

because you're just like, who gives a fuck,

Duncan Trussell (2:22:38.180)

I'll just lay in my shit and piss.

Lex Fridman (2:22:40.280)

You're dying, you're like, none of it makes sense.

Lex Fridman (2:22:50.160)

And I feel like in retrospect,

Lex Fridman (2:22:52.040)

I'm making what I've done a little,

Duncan Trussell (2:22:55.900)

like I had more lucidity.

Lex Fridman (2:22:57.360)

It was more of like when you're wrestling with someone

Lex Fridman (2:23:02.880)

and you're just like, it's different for you.

Lex Fridman (2:23:06.920)

But for me, if I'm wrestling,

Duncan Trussell (2:23:08.080)

I'm not thinking about jujitsu moves.

Lex Fridman (2:23:10.000)

I'm like.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:10.840)

Survival.

Lex Fridman (2:23:11.680)

You're just.

Lex Fridman (2:23:12.500)

So it's like that.

Lex Fridman (2:23:13.340)

It is a struggle.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:14.960)

Like it's like, you really have to deliberately fight.

Lex Fridman (2:23:20.580)

Everything.

Lex Fridman (2:23:21.420)

So you start, so you can almost have a conversation

Lex Fridman (2:23:25.760)

with the depression.

Lex Fridman (2:23:27.560)

And then what you do is you start doing the opposite

Lex Fridman (2:23:30.880)

of everything it's telling you to do.

Lex Fridman (2:23:33.260)

So it's telling you lay in bed.

Lex Fridman (2:23:36.620)

So you get out of bed.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:38.300)

It's definitely telling you don't fucking exercise.

Lex Fridman (2:23:41.760)

You're gonna go fucking exercise.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:43.160)

That's not gonna do anything.

Lex Fridman (2:23:44.200)

You can't.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:45.040)

You probably have a heart attack.

Lex Fridman (2:23:46.440)

You really wanna go outside.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:48.080)

Don't go fucking exercise.

Lex Fridman (2:23:50.680)

And it'll feel crazy.

Lex Fridman (2:23:53.360)

And you won't wanna do it.

Lex Fridman (2:23:54.860)

If you wanted to do it, you wouldn't be depressed.

Duncan Trussell (2:23:57.380)

Like how often do you hear

Lex Fridman (2:23:58.480)

like one of the symptoms of depression?

Duncan Trussell (2:24:00.400)

You wanna jog.

Lex Fridman (2:24:01.560)

You wanna get on a bike.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:02.960)

You know, you don't hear that.

Lex Fridman (2:24:04.000)

That's not a symptom.

Lex Fridman (2:24:04.920)

So you start, at least one solution

Lex Fridman (2:24:08.600)

I just started doing the opposite of.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:11.920)

Whatever the voice is telling you, do the opposite.

Lex Fridman (2:24:14.440)

That.

Lex Fridman (2:24:15.280)

And then suddenly the gravitational field

Lex Fridman (2:24:21.240)

diminishes a little bit.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:22.280)

It doesn't go all the way away.

Lex Fridman (2:24:23.560)

And that's where you can fall right back into it

Duncan Trussell (2:24:25.600)

cause you just feel even slightly better.

Lex Fridman (2:24:27.600)

You're like, oh, okay, I fixed it.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:29.720)

You know, really, I think if you like

Lex Fridman (2:24:31.200)

and having been through therapy, the best solution

Duncan Trussell (2:24:37.120)

would be go to a fucking therapist as quickly as you can.

Lex Fridman (2:24:42.840)

Just sit down with them and tell them what's going on.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:46.920)

I know what you're thinking.

Lex Fridman (2:24:47.760)

How am I gonna find a therapist?

Duncan Trussell (2:24:49.680)

Just do it.

Lex Fridman (2:24:51.540)

Google it, go on Yelp.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:53.280)

All of this shit feels impossible.

Lex Fridman (2:24:56.080)

You're like, I don't wanna turn on the computer.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:57.480)

I don't wanna do any of this.

Lex Fridman (2:24:58.400)

You just have to.

Duncan Trussell (2:24:59.240)

I mean, you have to.

Lex Fridman (2:25:00.080)

You do it if you're on fire.

Duncan Trussell (2:25:01.680)

You do it if you're on fire.

Lex Fridman (2:25:02.680)

And someone's like, you know,

Duncan Trussell (2:25:03.520)

here's a way to not be on fire.

Lex Fridman (2:25:05.320)

Just this particular fire is,

Duncan Trussell (2:25:07.800)

it doesn't make you wanna run around screaming.

Lex Fridman (2:25:09.880)

It just makes you wanna fall asleep forever.

Lex Fridman (2:25:11.520)

And that, but those little steps,

Lex Fridman (2:25:15.160)

I got lucky because it worked.

Duncan Trussell (2:25:16.960)

It worked, I started exercising.

Lex Fridman (2:25:18.720)

I'd been on antidepressants before

Duncan Trussell (2:25:20.960)

when I was originally diagnosed with it.

Lex Fridman (2:25:24.640)

Did those help?

Duncan Trussell (2:25:26.000)

You know, I, even with all the current research

Lex Fridman (2:25:28.880)

coming out about, that maybe we were all wrong

Duncan Trussell (2:25:31.640)

about our understanding of depression,

Lex Fridman (2:25:33.920)

I do feel like it helped in a certain way.

Duncan Trussell (2:25:38.400)

Like it definitely, it definitely like

Lex Fridman (2:25:42.160)

made me stop thinking about,

Duncan Trussell (2:25:43.400)

it stopped the intrusive thoughts.

Lex Fridman (2:25:45.220)

And, but I don't know how much of that was placebo

Duncan Trussell (2:25:48.160)

or how much of that, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:25:49.320)

But then also like I couldn't cum anymore.

Duncan Trussell (2:25:51.720)

That was the other fucked up thing.

Lex Fridman (2:25:53.280)

Like you're, you can't have orgasms.

Lex Fridman (2:25:55.640)

And which might not sound like a big deal,

Lex Fridman (2:25:58.800)

but you know, when I told my therapist

Duncan Trussell (2:26:02.120)

that they actually took me off them,

Lex Fridman (2:26:03.760)

cause I think she was realizing

Duncan Trussell (2:26:05.640)

that it started diminishing a little bit.

Lex Fridman (2:26:07.980)

But the one I'm talking about now,

Duncan Trussell (2:26:11.080)

that whatever episode or whatever you wanna call it,

Lex Fridman (2:26:14.400)

I just got lucky cause it worked.

Duncan Trussell (2:26:16.360)

It worked and I started feeling better, thank God.

Lex Fridman (2:26:19.080)

Now, if you suffer from depression out there

Lex Fridman (2:26:22.160)

and you've had a remission of the depression,

Lex Fridman (2:26:24.280)

you know, it's really like,

Duncan Trussell (2:26:26.080)

it's scary to have mental illness

Lex Fridman (2:26:27.840)

because everyone gets bummed out.

Duncan Trussell (2:26:32.760)

I mean, that's just normal.

Lex Fridman (2:26:33.920)

Like you're gonna get bummed out

Lex Fridman (2:26:35.080)

and I don't wanna do anything sometimes.

Lex Fridman (2:26:36.600)

It doesn't mean you have a clinical depression.

Duncan Trussell (2:26:38.160)

You might just be bummed out or grieving.

Lex Fridman (2:26:40.220)

You might be any number of things.

Lex Fridman (2:26:42.520)

But when I get really nervous,

Lex Fridman (2:26:46.960)

if some of those symptoms start showing up.

Lex Fridman (2:26:49.920)

And at one point I felt like that was happening again.

Lex Fridman (2:26:54.920)

And I did intramuscular ketamine therapy,

Duncan Trussell (2:26:59.480)

which now that was the damnedest thing

Lex Fridman (2:27:02.920)

I've ever experienced.

Duncan Trussell (2:27:04.080)

Aside from the fact that ketamine is immensely psychedelic.

Lex Fridman (2:27:10.860)

I just remember going back to the hotel

Duncan Trussell (2:27:14.080)

after the experience with the clinician.

Lex Fridman (2:27:17.200)

And like, you know, it's like with depression,

Duncan Trussell (2:27:21.900)

it's like a headache that starts coming on.

Lex Fridman (2:27:24.700)

But you're like, this headache might last for years.

Duncan Trussell (2:27:27.160)

It might last for six months.

Lex Fridman (2:27:28.640)

It might get worse and worse and worse.

Lex Fridman (2:27:30.840)

And so I went back to the hotel room and it was just gone.

Lex Fridman (2:27:37.280)

Like I just felt normal.

Duncan Trussell (2:27:38.480)

It felt great.

Lex Fridman (2:27:39.440)

It was like the most remarkable thing ever.

Duncan Trussell (2:27:42.560)

So, you know, look at the research on ketamine right now.

Lex Fridman (2:27:45.960)

It's like, it's not like bullshit.

Duncan Trussell (2:27:49.080)

It's not like woo science.

Lex Fridman (2:27:50.560)

There's really, really good data out there

Duncan Trussell (2:27:52.240)

showing that something like, I think it's 60%.

Lex Fridman (2:27:55.480)

I don't know what the percentage is,

Lex Fridman (2:27:56.680)

but 60% of people with an endogenous depression

Lex Fridman (2:28:02.200)

when they get ketamine therapy will experience remission,

Duncan Trussell (2:28:06.480)

regardless of whether you trip out or not.

Lex Fridman (2:28:08.320)

It just does something that I don't know

Duncan Trussell (2:28:10.960)

if they know what it is yet.

Lex Fridman (2:28:11.960)

I don't care if they do.

Lex Fridman (2:28:12.800)

But that one thing worked.

Lex Fridman (2:28:14.060)

And basically you keep fighting until something works.

Duncan Trussell (2:28:17.600)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:28:18.440)

It's a survival issue.

Lex Fridman (2:28:19.760)

And it's a survival issue.

Lex Fridman (2:28:21.000)

But it's just, I think because it's kind of so slow moving,

Duncan Trussell (2:28:24.500)

you might even forget it's progressive.

Lex Fridman (2:28:26.760)

Or, you know, you could easily just think

Duncan Trussell (2:28:28.320)

that you're just a kind of bummed out person.

Lex Fridman (2:28:30.880)

Or you start thinking that these aspects of your psychology

Duncan Trussell (2:28:34.960)

are permanent when they don't have to be.

Lex Fridman (2:28:37.360)

What about other people in your life?

Lex Fridman (2:28:39.980)

What advice would you give to people

Lex Fridman (2:28:41.700)

that have loved ones who suffer from depression?

Lex Fridman (2:28:44.720)

What are they to do?

Lex Fridman (2:28:46.360)

Okay, now this is really like, man, it's really dark.

Duncan Trussell (2:28:54.680)

Here's number one.

Lex Fridman (2:28:57.480)

This is what somebody told me

Lex Fridman (2:28:59.240)

when I lost a friend to suicide, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:29:00.980)

Because when you lose a friend to suicide,

Duncan Trussell (2:29:02.800)

when you lose a loved one to suicide,

Lex Fridman (2:29:04.600)

you're gonna blame yourself.

Duncan Trussell (2:29:05.760)

It's like in the periphery of suicide,

Lex Fridman (2:29:10.920)

there is a circumference of guilty people

Duncan Trussell (2:29:14.480)

who all feel like, oh, if only I'd said this

Lex Fridman (2:29:17.240)

at the right time, if only I'd listened more,

Duncan Trussell (2:29:19.600)

if only I'd seen that warning sign,

Lex Fridman (2:29:22.160)

if only this or that.

Duncan Trussell (2:29:25.080)

It's interesting in that with other forms of like disease,

Lex Fridman (2:29:31.820)

you know, if your loved one dies from cancer, say,

Duncan Trussell (2:29:37.160)

more than likely, you're not gonna be thinking like,

Lex Fridman (2:29:39.600)

oh, I should have cured their cancer.

Duncan Trussell (2:29:41.440)

You know, like it's a tragedy,

Lex Fridman (2:29:43.440)

but at least you're not like, oh, if only I had.

Duncan Trussell (2:29:46.120)

You still might think that's part of grief, but.

Lex Fridman (2:29:49.560)

It's not as sticky in many of the other situations.

Duncan Trussell (2:29:52.120)

Here, the guilt couldn't really stay for a long time.

Lex Fridman (2:29:55.360)

Yep, so you, number one, we're talking about

Duncan Trussell (2:30:02.320)

a progressive disease that can lead to death.

Lex Fridman (2:30:05.360)

And if somebody commits suicide,

Duncan Trussell (2:30:07.920)

they wanted to commit suicide.

Lex Fridman (2:30:09.420)

And at least what I've been told is you can't stop it.

Duncan Trussell (2:30:12.920)

It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

Lex Fridman (2:30:15.840)

There are no magic words.

Duncan Trussell (2:30:16.840)

There's nothing you could do.

Lex Fridman (2:30:18.240)

So, you know, people who've lost people to suicide,

Duncan Trussell (2:30:21.520)

you know what I'm talking about.

Lex Fridman (2:30:23.000)

Like, you know, you can watch it happen in real time

Lex Fridman (2:30:26.320)

and there's just nothing you could do.

Lex Fridman (2:30:29.760)

That being said, you know, being responsive

Duncan Trussell (2:30:34.140)

to when it seems like someone's really reaching out

Lex Fridman (2:30:36.120)

for help and knowing that maybe even though it might,

Duncan Trussell (2:30:40.840)

especially if it's someone who's like, doesn't talk

Lex Fridman (2:30:42.960)

like this a lot of the time,

Lex Fridman (2:30:44.760)

and sentences start coming out of their mouth,

Lex Fridman (2:30:47.160)

that if you weren't really paying attention,

Duncan Trussell (2:30:49.480)

might not seem like a big deal,

Lex Fridman (2:30:50.960)

but for this person, it's kind of anomalous

Duncan Trussell (2:30:52.920)

that all of a sudden that's happening.

Lex Fridman (2:30:56.480)

Now there, that's when you can be a good listener

Duncan Trussell (2:30:59.560)

and, you know, open up to them and hear what they're saying

Lex Fridman (2:31:01.960)

and see like, oh, shit, are they asking me for it?

Lex Fridman (2:31:04.160)

Is this them asking for help?

Lex Fridman (2:31:05.800)

And even if you're like, I don't know what to do,

Duncan Trussell (2:31:08.720)

you know, at least you can like start checking in on them,

Lex Fridman (2:31:14.060)

you know, start like help them understand

Duncan Trussell (2:31:16.640)

that you're there for them

Lex Fridman (2:31:17.960)

and then hopefully get them into therapy,

Duncan Trussell (2:31:19.680)

get them to a doctor, get them to a professional

Lex Fridman (2:31:22.720)

who can like see what's going on there.

Lex Fridman (2:31:25.080)

So that, and then there's hope.

Lex Fridman (2:31:27.040)

And even then there might not be hope actually,

Duncan Trussell (2:31:28.720)

you know, doctors can't stop it.

Lex Fridman (2:31:30.240)

There's no, sometimes it just, that's the way it goes.

Duncan Trussell (2:31:34.540)

But, you know, I know that like being sensitive,

Lex Fridman (2:31:39.120)

if somebody's like all of a sudden hitting you up

Duncan Trussell (2:31:41.460)

or reaching out to you that normally isn't like that

Lex Fridman (2:31:44.320)

and just, what's going on?

Lex Fridman (2:31:46.060)

How are you?

Lex Fridman (2:31:46.900)

And just listen.

Duncan Trussell (2:31:48.040)

Which in general, depression or not,

Lex Fridman (2:31:50.600)

is probably a good thing to do.

Duncan Trussell (2:31:52.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:31:53.780)

To truly listen.

Lex Fridman (2:31:56.560)

It's like, are you okay?

Lex Fridman (2:31:57.760)

Yeah, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:31:59.480)

Because people have, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:32:01.000)

this whole thing of like cries for help, man.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:03.720)

Sometimes they just look like a weird text.

Lex Fridman (2:32:06.560)

You know, and you don't realize

Duncan Trussell (2:32:08.240)

for the person to send that fucking text,

Lex Fridman (2:32:10.000)

they've been thinking about it all morning.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:12.100)

They've been just trying to get their phone up

Lex Fridman (2:32:14.920)

from the floor.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:16.440)

So, you know, I think that's it.

Lex Fridman (2:32:20.040)

I mean, what, I don't know.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:21.800)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:32:22.760)

I've had friends like kill themselves.

Lex Fridman (2:32:25.920)

And many of them, it wasn't like,

Lex Fridman (2:32:29.120)

sadly it was like, I don't know.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:31.360)

I don't know what could have been done,

Lex Fridman (2:32:32.440)

but.

Lex Fridman (2:32:34.000)

But there's still a guilt in the back of your head?

Lex Fridman (2:32:37.760)

For the rest of my life, for sure.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:39.240)

I always will be.

Lex Fridman (2:32:41.940)

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:32:43.080)

But again, what are you gonna do?

Lex Fridman (2:32:44.680)

But even that, it's a part of love.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:48.800)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (2:32:49.800)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:50.760)

Yeah, that's right.

Lex Fridman (2:32:51.600)

You could, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:32:52.440)

You know, we feel guilt.

Lex Fridman (2:32:54.040)

Part of grief is guilt, you know?

Duncan Trussell (2:32:55.800)

Like we always could have been better people.

Lex Fridman (2:32:58.480)

We always could have been better people.

Lex Fridman (2:33:00.360)

You getting to Viktor Frankl much?

Lex Fridman (2:33:02.200)

Yeah, of course.

Duncan Trussell (2:33:03.200)

Man's search for meaning.

Lex Fridman (2:33:05.860)

The invitation to live your life

Duncan Trussell (2:33:11.320)

as though you'd been on your death bed

Lex Fridman (2:33:13.520)

and had been given the chance to go back

Lex Fridman (2:33:15.560)

and not make the same mistakes.

Lex Fridman (2:33:18.000)

I return to that idea all the time,

Duncan Trussell (2:33:20.760)

meaning it's like, okay,

Lex Fridman (2:33:22.400)

whatever you did before this moment was too late.

Lex Fridman (2:33:28.160)

But now, you know, this is where you can start.

Lex Fridman (2:33:31.120)

This is where you can start.

Lex Fridman (2:33:32.400)

And yeah, so I think that for a neurotic like me,

Lex Fridman (2:33:38.160)

that's super important.

Duncan Trussell (2:33:39.120)

Because otherwise, I'll just get like too lost

Lex Fridman (2:33:41.380)

in the weeds of shitty things I did in the past.

Lex Fridman (2:33:44.600)

So speaking of Viktor Frankl,

Lex Fridman (2:33:46.080)

you and Hitler have the same birthday.

Duncan Trussell (2:33:48.400)

Oh my God, you've really done your research.

Lex Fridman (2:33:52.240)

Well, I often Google famous people

Duncan Trussell (2:33:55.680)

that have a birthday same as Hitler.

Lex Fridman (2:33:58.720)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:33:59.560)

The person that shows up, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:34:02.120)

is your face just really big.

Duncan Trussell (2:34:04.640)

You and Hitler together, just pals next to each other.

Lex Fridman (2:34:08.000)

No, it does not.

Duncan Trussell (2:34:10.000)

No, but April 20th is an embarrassing birthday

Lex Fridman (2:34:12.920)

for all my 420 friends out there.

Duncan Trussell (2:34:14.600)

It's embarrassing.

Lex Fridman (2:34:15.440)

You share a birthday with Hitler.

Duncan Trussell (2:34:17.520)

Well, it's 420s also has a humor

Lex Fridman (2:34:20.240)

and a lightness to it, right?

Duncan Trussell (2:34:23.100)

It's embarrassing.

Lex Fridman (2:34:24.320)

Your life is embarrassing.

Lex Fridman (2:34:27.240)

But if you like weed and you're born on stoner day

Lex Fridman (2:34:31.080)

and you believe in reincarnation,

Lex Fridman (2:34:34.120)

do you realize like when you start connecting the dots there,

Lex Fridman (2:34:36.520)

if there is like a Bardo where you get to choose

Duncan Trussell (2:34:39.720)

your next life.

Lex Fridman (2:34:41.040)

So you're like a shitty generic NPC.

Duncan Trussell (2:34:45.040)

You're like, of course, you would be born on 420.

Lex Fridman (2:34:48.800)

Dude, let me be born on 420, man, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:34:53.800)

But isn't it interesting that on that same day,

Lex Fridman (2:34:57.040)

Hitler is also born.

Duncan Trussell (2:35:00.080)

There's a tension to that and that Hitler's an artist.

Lex Fridman (2:35:06.760)

So it's like that hippie mindset could go anywhere.

Duncan Trussell (2:35:12.080)

Oh, yeah, right.

Lex Fridman (2:35:12.920)

Like, yeah, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:35:14.080)

and I was just having this conversation

Lex Fridman (2:35:15.960)

with a friend of mine who's a wonderful skeptic.

Lex Fridman (2:35:18.860)

And we were talking about this,

Lex Fridman (2:35:22.200)

which is the thing where you start attributing to the day

Duncan Trussell (2:35:28.360)

you were born, these kinds of significance.

Lex Fridman (2:35:31.080)

And based on maybe people who were born on that day,

Duncan Trussell (2:35:33.320)

maybe some other things.

Lex Fridman (2:35:34.960)

And, you know, it's like, think of how many people by now

Duncan Trussell (2:35:38.040)

in the course of human history have been born on April 20th.

Lex Fridman (2:35:42.360)

I mean, how many?

Duncan Trussell (2:35:44.160)

Someone could probably do the math

Lex Fridman (2:35:45.440)

and come up with some number close to it.

Duncan Trussell (2:35:47.920)

Now, this is how you know how rotten Hitler is.

Lex Fridman (2:35:51.880)

Like, he's the one that, like,

Duncan Trussell (2:35:53.600)

fucks up the birthday for everybody else.

Lex Fridman (2:35:56.840)

But.

Duncan Trussell (2:35:57.920)

I think where I heard that you're 420 is Wim Hof episode

Lex Fridman (2:36:03.360)

because he's also 420.

Duncan Trussell (2:36:04.880)

He's a 420.

Lex Fridman (2:36:05.880)

Yeah, so Hitler beats even Wim Hof.

Duncan Trussell (2:36:09.820)

Look.

Lex Fridman (2:36:10.660)

In terms of owning the date.

Duncan Trussell (2:36:11.960)

I think if anybody is like,

Lex Fridman (2:36:15.040)

well, obviously there's nothing you can do to like fix it.

Duncan Trussell (2:36:18.720)

Hitler fucked up a lot of things.

Lex Fridman (2:36:20.400)

He fucked up that mustache.

Duncan Trussell (2:36:22.080)

He fucked up the name Hitler.

Lex Fridman (2:36:23.720)

He fucked up 420.

Lex Fridman (2:36:25.180)

And obviously he caused a horrific Holocaust that,

Lex Fridman (2:36:29.080)

by the way, talk about these reverberations through time

Duncan Trussell (2:36:32.040)

that we're still experiencing.

Lex Fridman (2:36:33.200)

I mean, there's still people walking around

Duncan Trussell (2:36:34.280)

with fucking tattoos from that motherfucker.

Lex Fridman (2:36:36.620)

So, but, you know, Wim Hof, you know, people like Wim Hof.

Lex Fridman (2:36:41.400)

They're like whatever the opposite of Hitler is, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:36:45.920)

He too is creating ripples in the lake

Duncan Trussell (2:36:47.880)

that hopefully respond to that of Hitler.

Lex Fridman (2:36:51.280)

Yeah, very cold fucking lake.

Lex Fridman (2:36:53.200)

And he's in, and yeah, so very, very cold lake

Lex Fridman (2:36:57.560)

that he's happily swimming around in.

Lex Fridman (2:36:59.920)

But yeah, you know, I try not to think about

Lex Fridman (2:37:05.240)

like the Hitler thing on my birthday.

Duncan Trussell (2:37:08.240)

Then my dad would just, every birthday he would remind me

Lex Fridman (2:37:11.120)

that Hitler was 420.

Lex Fridman (2:37:12.120)

Do you think all of us are capable of evil?

Lex Fridman (2:37:14.800)

Do you think, you're one of the sweetest people I know,

Lex Fridman (2:37:18.240)

just as a fan, do you think you're capable of evil?

Lex Fridman (2:37:21.000)

Sure, yeah, I mean, sure, definitely.

Duncan Trussell (2:37:24.520)

I think if you don't think that, you better watch out

Lex Fridman (2:37:27.900)

because come on, how do you think you're not capable of evil?

Lex Fridman (2:37:31.540)

And PS, you are, if you're connected

Lex Fridman (2:37:34.280)

to the supply chain, friend, you're doing evil.

Duncan Trussell (2:37:38.420)

You're paying taxes.

Lex Fridman (2:37:39.920)

You're like, you're supporting the worst things in the world.

Duncan Trussell (2:37:43.680)

I mean, you know, like diffusion of responsibility,

Lex Fridman (2:37:47.520)

it's really curious or the circumference of responsibility

Duncan Trussell (2:37:51.480)

where it's like bombs are going off somewhere

Lex Fridman (2:37:54.280)

that were paid for in some small part by you,

Duncan Trussell (2:38:00.920)

some fractional, if an American, if a drone is flying over

Lex Fridman (2:38:07.000)

a village in Afghanistan and drops a bomb

Lex Fridman (2:38:10.560)

and you pay taxes, then you could say you have

Lex Fridman (2:38:14.040)

fractional ownership over that drone.

Duncan Trussell (2:38:18.800)

You're a cog in the machine of evil in some sense.

Lex Fridman (2:38:22.080)

And I know what you're gonna say,

Duncan Trussell (2:38:24.400)

well, yeah, but I have to fucking pay taxes.

Lex Fridman (2:38:26.400)

Like I have no choice.

Duncan Trussell (2:38:27.320)

There's sales tax, there's this or that.

Lex Fridman (2:38:29.760)

Take that attitude.

Duncan Trussell (2:38:31.940)

It's the same thing that people on the battlefield

Lex Fridman (2:38:34.620)

when they're sending missiles into other tanks,

Duncan Trussell (2:38:37.580)

they're thinking the same thing.

Lex Fridman (2:38:39.000)

It's just, they're more directly responsible

Duncan Trussell (2:38:42.280)

for what's going on.

Lex Fridman (2:38:43.240)

But in Buddhism, this idea of dependent co arising

Duncan Trussell (2:38:49.040)

or yeah, dependent co arising.

Lex Fridman (2:38:50.600)

We're all connected.

Duncan Trussell (2:38:51.440)

We're all part of this matrix.

Lex Fridman (2:38:53.560)

We're all connected,

Duncan Trussell (2:38:54.580)

meaning we all share responsibility

Lex Fridman (2:38:57.600)

for the evil in the world.

Lex Fridman (2:38:58.680)

So even if you aren't directly committing evil acts,

Lex Fridman (2:39:03.380)

if you're seeing something in the world

Lex Fridman (2:39:05.640)

and you're thinking that's evil,

Lex Fridman (2:39:08.200)

you're probably not quite as separated from that

Duncan Trussell (2:39:10.640)

as you'd like to believe

Lex Fridman (2:39:11.760)

in some tiny infinitesimally quantum way, you're connected.

Lex Fridman (2:39:19.240)

And there is a sense, I've gotten to experience this

Lex Fridman (2:39:23.160)

over and over that one individual

Duncan Trussell (2:39:25.200)

can actually make a gigantic difference.

Lex Fridman (2:39:28.200)

And so not only is there a diffusion responsibility,

Lex Fridman (2:39:33.380)

there's a kind of a paralysis about, well, what can I do?

Lex Fridman (2:39:37.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:39:38.480)

Sure, I understand, but what can I do?

Lex Fridman (2:39:40.920)

And I think just looking at history

Lex Fridman (2:39:46.120)

and also hanging out and becoming friends,

Lex Fridman (2:39:50.040)

but also interviewing people

Duncan Trussell (2:39:51.520)

that have had a tremendous impact,

Lex Fridman (2:39:52.940)

you realize you're just one dude.

Duncan Trussell (2:39:55.520)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:39:56.340)

You're like a normal person.

Duncan Trussell (2:39:58.640)

You're not that smart even.

Lex Fridman (2:40:00.360)

Like a lot of people aren't like in some kind of magical way

Duncan Trussell (2:40:04.280)

where you have a big head that's figuring out everything.

Lex Fridman (2:40:07.280)

No, you just saw problems in the world

Lex Fridman (2:40:12.080)

and you're like, hey,

Lex Fridman (2:40:13.200)

I think I'm gonna try to do something about this.

Duncan Trussell (2:40:15.200)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:40:16.040)

And you stay focused and dedicated to it

Duncan Trussell (2:40:17.320)

for a prolonged period of time and refuse to quit,

Lex Fridman (2:40:21.040)

refuse to listen to people that tell you

Duncan Trussell (2:40:23.040)

that this isn't like impossible,

Lex Fridman (2:40:24.760)

here's how others have failed.

Duncan Trussell (2:40:26.280)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:40:27.120)

No, I'm gonna do it.

Duncan Trussell (2:40:29.080)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (2:40:30.260)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (2:40:31.100)

And one person, and then you kind of,

Lex Fridman (2:40:32.640)

the thing is when there's one person

Duncan Trussell (2:40:34.600)

that keeps pushing forward that way,

Lex Fridman (2:40:36.620)

there's, humans are sticky.

Duncan Trussell (2:40:38.000)

They, other people follow them around

Lex Fridman (2:40:40.280)

and they're like, I'll help.

Duncan Trussell (2:40:42.320)

You know, I'll help and then the other people help

Lex Fridman (2:40:45.480)

and then the cool people all gather together

Duncan Trussell (2:40:47.740)

cause they kind of get excited about this way.

Lex Fridman (2:40:49.800)

Holy shit, we can actually make a difference.

Lex Fridman (2:40:52.080)

And they, they form groups

Lex Fridman (2:40:53.720)

and then all of a sudden there's companies and nations

Duncan Trussell (2:40:56.040)

that actually make a gigantic difference.

Lex Fridman (2:40:58.240)

It's interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:40:59.080)

And it all starts with one person often.

Lex Fridman (2:41:01.840)

You know what?

Duncan Trussell (2:41:02.680)

If I could push back slightly against that,

Lex Fridman (2:41:04.620)

it's never just one person.

Duncan Trussell (2:41:06.040)

It's like, you know, nobody ever talks about,

Lex Fridman (2:41:09.920)

at least as far as I'm aware,

Duncan Trussell (2:41:11.320)

you never hear about like Buddha's great grandmother.

Lex Fridman (2:41:14.620)

You never hear about that.

Duncan Trussell (2:41:15.800)

You never hear about that.

Lex Fridman (2:41:16.720)

But if not for that person, no Buddhism.

Duncan Trussell (2:41:20.520)

You know, the people you're talking about,

Lex Fridman (2:41:23.520)

they are the tip of the iceberg

Duncan Trussell (2:41:26.240)

that pops up out of the ocean of history.

Lex Fridman (2:41:29.400)

And you never see that all the little things

Duncan Trussell (2:41:34.280)

that helped that happen.

Lex Fridman (2:41:36.440)

And so to me, this is where the real,

Lex Fridman (2:41:39.800)

like how do you help?

Lex Fridman (2:41:41.300)

What's something you can do?

Duncan Trussell (2:41:42.940)

Well, you know, recognize that first,

Lex Fridman (2:41:45.880)

that you don't really, you don't,

Duncan Trussell (2:41:47.280)

you might not even be aware

Lex Fridman (2:41:48.560)

of how much you're impacting people around you.

Duncan Trussell (2:41:51.000)

You might think that you're not,

Lex Fridman (2:41:53.280)

or you might think surely not in a way

Duncan Trussell (2:41:55.600)

that makes a big difference,

Lex Fridman (2:41:57.380)

but you have no idea these tipping points

Lex Fridman (2:42:01.080)

and they can lead to the emergence of an Einstein,

Lex Fridman (2:42:06.120)

a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King.

Duncan Trussell (2:42:08.760)

We can go on and on, a Dostoevsky or whoever.

Lex Fridman (2:42:11.800)

And so I think that's where for me,

Duncan Trussell (2:42:14.160)

it goes back to tend to the part of the garden

Lex Fridman (2:42:16.680)

you can touch and then, or even deeper than that intention.

Duncan Trussell (2:42:22.520)

It was just like an, I'm an idiot.

Lex Fridman (2:42:24.720)

So I need an idiot's intention, which is don't,

Duncan Trussell (2:42:28.760)

if you, I heard the Dalai Lama say it.

Lex Fridman (2:42:33.120)

If you can help, help.

Duncan Trussell (2:42:36.020)

If you can't help, don't hurt.

Lex Fridman (2:42:38.700)

Simple, basic dummy rules so that you can,

Duncan Trussell (2:42:43.280)

if possible, refrain from hurting,

Lex Fridman (2:42:46.520)

which might as well be a form of helping.

Lex Fridman (2:42:50.520)

And the help doesn't have to be this dramatic thing.

Lex Fridman (2:42:53.420)

These little acts of kindness.

Duncan Trussell (2:42:56.060)

I don't know, they seem to have,

Lex Fridman (2:42:59.580)

maybe I believe in kind of karma,

Lex Fridman (2:43:01.300)

but they seem to have this,

Lex Fridman (2:43:03.040)

they can have this gigantic ripple effect.

Duncan Trussell (2:43:05.740)

I don't know why that is.

Lex Fridman (2:43:07.980)

I just, I remember a lot of little acts of kindness

Lex Fridman (2:43:11.740)

that people have done to me and they, what do they do?

Lex Fridman (2:43:16.940)

One, they fill me with joy and hope for the future.

Duncan Trussell (2:43:19.260)

They give me faith in humanity.

Lex Fridman (2:43:21.220)

That somehow there's a partially dormant desire

Duncan Trussell (2:43:29.700)

in our sort of collective intelligence

Lex Fridman (2:43:31.780)

to do good in the world.

Duncan Trussell (2:43:33.420)

That most of us want to be good,

Lex Fridman (2:43:36.240)

that want to do good onto the world.

Duncan Trussell (2:43:38.460)

I want, there's a kindness that's kind of like

Lex Fridman (2:43:41.500)

begging to get out, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:43:43.820)

And those little acts of kindness do just that.

Lex Fridman (2:43:46.060)

And actually one of the reasons I love Austin

Lex Fridman (2:43:48.580)

and moved here is realizing,

Lex Fridman (2:43:52.100)

just noticing those little acts of kindness all around me,

Duncan Trussell (2:43:55.380)

just for stupid reasons, just people being really nice.

Lex Fridman (2:43:58.900)

It's weird and that kindness combined with an optimism

Duncan Trussell (2:44:04.260)

for the future, it's just, it's amazing what that can build.

Lex Fridman (2:44:09.460)

Yes, yes, it's incredible.

Lex Fridman (2:44:12.160)

And I know what you're saying.

Lex Fridman (2:44:13.200)

It's like, you know, we moved to this great neighborhood

Lex Fridman (2:44:17.180)

and at this point I think three,

Lex Fridman (2:44:21.900)

maybe four of our neighbors have like made food for us

Duncan Trussell (2:44:25.540)

that just shows up with like handwritten lists

Lex Fridman (2:44:29.260)

of like things they like to do in the area

Lex Fridman (2:44:31.740)

and their phone number if we need help.

Lex Fridman (2:44:34.140)

And it's like, holy shit.

Duncan Trussell (2:44:36.700)

That's like, it might seem like a little act,

Lex Fridman (2:44:40.280)

but it feels like some kind of atomic love bomb

Duncan Trussell (2:44:43.380)

just went off on your porch when you're looking at that.

Lex Fridman (2:44:46.060)

I'm like, what the fuck?

Lex Fridman (2:44:48.100)

You made me a pie?

Lex Fridman (2:44:50.740)

This is incredible.

Duncan Trussell (2:44:51.780)

Like, this is incredible, so.

Lex Fridman (2:44:53.740)

And also it's another act to accept that kindness.

Duncan Trussell (2:44:57.740)

It's like a lot of times when I was like in Boston

Lex Fridman (2:45:01.080)

or San Francisco, certain big cities,

Duncan Trussell (2:45:03.740)

you can think like, oh, okay,

Lex Fridman (2:45:05.020)

well they're trying to like somehow,

Duncan Trussell (2:45:08.780)

that's not an act of kindness.

Lex Fridman (2:45:10.080)

That's some kind of a transactional thing to build up.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:12.860)

It's like a career move for networking,

Lex Fridman (2:45:15.140)

all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:45:16.300)

But no, if you just accept it for what it is,

Lex Fridman (2:45:18.220)

a pure act of kindness.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:20.140)

Fucking Boston.

Lex Fridman (2:45:21.460)

It's the, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:22.860)

Because for me, I go the opposite route.

Lex Fridman (2:45:25.060)

Because I'm not, even though there is a part of me

Duncan Trussell (2:45:26.600)

that might be a little suspicious or something,

Lex Fridman (2:45:29.180)

where I go to push that shit back mentally

Duncan Trussell (2:45:33.000)

is I'm like, I don't deserve this.

Lex Fridman (2:45:34.860)

If they knew what a piece of shit I am.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:37.520)

You're gonna bring me,

Lex Fridman (2:45:38.360)

I don't wanna never bring cakes to my neighbors.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:40.500)

I wouldn't know how to make a cake.

Lex Fridman (2:45:41.740)

I don't know how to make anything.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:42.780)

I don't have time.

Lex Fridman (2:45:43.820)

I should be bringing shit to my neighbors.

Lex Fridman (2:45:45.380)

Why didn't I do that?

Lex Fridman (2:45:46.300)

I should have brought, I never do that.

Duncan Trussell (2:45:48.900)

If you're not careful,

Lex Fridman (2:45:50.500)

you can spiral into a vortex of self hate from the gift.

Lex Fridman (2:45:54.580)

So you have to, yeah, you have to learn how to,

Lex Fridman (2:45:56.300)

in that circuitry, you have to learn how to like accept.

Duncan Trussell (2:46:01.020)

Oh yeah, I have that problem really big.

Lex Fridman (2:46:03.020)

Yeah, like I don't deserve this.

Duncan Trussell (2:46:06.940)

Like I don't, I get so much love from people.

Lex Fridman (2:46:10.300)

I'm like, well, yeah, they love me

Duncan Trussell (2:46:11.860)

because they don't know me.

Lex Fridman (2:46:13.400)

That's my brain, my little voice.

Duncan Trussell (2:46:15.260)

Like you're not, you're not worthy.

Lex Fridman (2:46:19.980)

You're not worthy of any of this kindness

Lex Fridman (2:46:23.900)

and all this kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:46:24.860)

And that could be very, yeah, it can shut you down.

Duncan Trussell (2:46:28.500)

It can be debilitating.

Lex Fridman (2:46:30.140)

And also it shuts the person down.

Duncan Trussell (2:46:32.100)

I mean, you're talking.

Lex Fridman (2:46:32.940)

And that's the dark side is it pushes them away too.

Duncan Trussell (2:46:36.140)

Yeah, it cuts off this fucking mystical circuitry.

Lex Fridman (2:46:40.020)

So like the best thing if that happens to you

Duncan Trussell (2:46:43.460)

is like accept it joyfully.

Lex Fridman (2:46:46.300)

And just even, just all that,

Duncan Trussell (2:46:48.140)

whatever that thing inside of you,

Lex Fridman (2:46:50.340)

whatever that little thing is, you know,

Duncan Trussell (2:46:52.660)

this is like in the meditation I do,

Lex Fridman (2:46:56.100)

it's an infuriatingly simple meditation,

Lex Fridman (2:46:58.240)

but when a thought emerges,

Lex Fridman (2:47:01.660)

when you are resting your attention on your breath

Lex Fridman (2:47:03.940)

and then inevitably you think, you get lost in your thoughts.

Lex Fridman (2:47:07.300)

And when you catch yourself doing that,

Duncan Trussell (2:47:09.340)

you think thinking,

Lex Fridman (2:47:11.740)

and then return your attention to the breath.

Lex Fridman (2:47:13.500)

So I like that so that when that part of myself starts,

Lex Fridman (2:47:17.060)

you know, having its little neurotic semi seizure,

Duncan Trussell (2:47:20.140)

I can just go thinking, whatever.

Lex Fridman (2:47:22.340)

It's just another thought.

Lex Fridman (2:47:23.460)

And then eat the, eat the, eat the banana bread

Lex Fridman (2:47:26.980)

or whatever they gave you.

Duncan Trussell (2:47:28.700)

What's the most wild psychedelic experience

Lex Fridman (2:47:31.780)

you've ever had in a dream, in a vision?

Duncan Trussell (2:47:34.540)

It doesn't have to be drug related.

Lex Fridman (2:47:36.700)

What's one that jumps to mind

Duncan Trussell (2:47:40.020)

that was like, holy shit, I'm happy to be alive.

Lex Fridman (2:47:42.740)

Is this life?

Duncan Trussell (2:47:43.820)

Okay. This is amazing.

Lex Fridman (2:47:45.220)

Yeah, the, oh yeah, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:47:46.900)

So the one that pops to mind,

Lex Fridman (2:47:51.580)

I've had a lot of psychedelic experiences,

Lex Fridman (2:47:54.040)

but in this moment, the one that pops to mind,

Lex Fridman (2:47:56.020)

only because it goes back to what you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (2:47:58.760)

about this Nietzsche's idea of infinite return.

Lex Fridman (2:48:01.760)

The, the, so I'm a Burning Man and.

Lex Fridman (2:48:08.960)

Are you going to Burning Man this time?

Lex Fridman (2:48:10.360)

I'm not.

Duncan Trussell (2:48:11.200)

I mean, I have kids right now.

Lex Fridman (2:48:12.560)

I just want to be around them.

Duncan Trussell (2:48:13.600)

My wife was being so cool about it

Lex Fridman (2:48:15.480)

and she knows I love Burning Man.

Duncan Trussell (2:48:16.720)

She's like, go to Burning Man.

Lex Fridman (2:48:17.800)

And I was going to go.

Lex Fridman (2:48:19.120)

And then I just, I just want to be around my kids

Lex Fridman (2:48:22.520)

as much as I can right now, but.

Duncan Trussell (2:48:24.240)

I've never been to Burning Man.

Lex Fridman (2:48:25.360)

So I don't know how secretive it is that, I mean,

Duncan Trussell (2:48:29.200)

cause quite high profile folks go.

Lex Fridman (2:48:31.580)

Yeah, everyone knows Elon Musk goes there.

Lex Fridman (2:48:34.040)

Isn't it pretty open?

Lex Fridman (2:48:35.280)

He's got a boat.

Lex Fridman (2:48:37.240)

You know that?

Lex Fridman (2:48:38.080)

I'm touching none of this.

Duncan Trussell (2:48:39.600)

You know, there's a, it's called art cars.

Lex Fridman (2:48:41.280)

They all make art cars.

Lex Fridman (2:48:42.280)

And like part of the, part of the burn,

Lex Fridman (2:48:44.600)

what's so beautiful about it is like,

Duncan Trussell (2:48:47.600)

you can't buy anything there, man.

Lex Fridman (2:48:49.280)

Like you, I've heard, I don't know if this has changed.

Duncan Trussell (2:48:53.680)

It's been a bit because of the pandemic,

Lex Fridman (2:48:55.520)

but the only thing you could buy was ice and coffee.

Lex Fridman (2:48:59.200)

And I think maybe that's changed.

Lex Fridman (2:49:01.240)

I heard some whisper that that's changed,

Lex Fridman (2:49:02.840)

but so that means that it's a gifting economy

Lex Fridman (2:49:07.400)

is what they call it.

Lex Fridman (2:49:08.240)

And so people will just give you stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:49:11.000)

Talk about having to struggle with deserving stuff, man.

Lex Fridman (2:49:13.560)

What are you going to fucking do when the camp next to you

Lex Fridman (2:49:17.160)

is like every morning making the best iced coffee

Duncan Trussell (2:49:20.620)

that you've ever had in your life.

Lex Fridman (2:49:22.200)

And they just are giving it all away till it's all gone.

Lex Fridman (2:49:25.880)

What are you going to do?

Lex Fridman (2:49:27.000)

It's, it's the best ever.

Lex Fridman (2:49:30.080)

And then you're giving things to people.

Lex Fridman (2:49:31.680)

And then you, you learn stuff like,

Duncan Trussell (2:49:34.320)

you learn these really interesting lessons.

Lex Fridman (2:49:36.900)

Like one of the times I went there,

Duncan Trussell (2:49:40.960)

got all these strawberries.

Lex Fridman (2:49:44.720)

Might not sound like a big deal,

Lex Fridman (2:49:46.120)

but when you're out there in the dust

Lex Fridman (2:49:48.640)

and you're not at one of like the,

Duncan Trussell (2:49:50.080)

like hardcore like luxury camps,

Lex Fridman (2:49:52.440)

which do exist out there,

Duncan Trussell (2:49:55.800)

you know, you've got these like items where in my mind,

Lex Fridman (2:49:58.000)

I'm like, yeah, these are going to be just for me

Lex Fridman (2:50:00.440)

and my girlfriend, my special stash fruit

Lex Fridman (2:50:03.760)

and this or that.

Lex Fridman (2:50:04.960)

And then like two days in you're walking around your camp

Lex Fridman (2:50:10.280)

with the strawberries that you were coveting

Lex Fridman (2:50:12.880)

and everyone's so happy to get like cold strawberries

Lex Fridman (2:50:16.380)

and you've realized, oh my God,

Duncan Trussell (2:50:17.920)

this feels so much better than the way a strawberry tastes.

Lex Fridman (2:50:21.320)

So you learn something experientially there,

Duncan Trussell (2:50:25.040)

which is an incredible thing.

Lex Fridman (2:50:27.040)

It's an incredible thing.

Duncan Trussell (2:50:29.080)

Man, now I'm wishing I had decided to go to Burning Man.

Lex Fridman (2:50:31.840)

Have you been a few times?

Duncan Trussell (2:50:32.880)

Yeah, I just know like,

Lex Fridman (2:50:36.120)

at least people were saying it was Elon Musk's boat.

Duncan Trussell (2:50:39.200)

Like, yeah, like this, I think it was like,

Lex Fridman (2:50:41.040)

it's like this massive, it's art cars.

Lex Fridman (2:50:43.560)

And it was this party on this thing.

Lex Fridman (2:50:45.260)

You could just, anyone can go on the boat.

Duncan Trussell (2:50:48.560)

Like no one's like, there's no guest list.

Lex Fridman (2:50:50.920)

You just go on there.

Duncan Trussell (2:50:52.240)

I never saw him there, but that, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:50:53.680)

everyone's whispering Elon Musk is here.

Duncan Trussell (2:50:56.400)

There's a secrecy, there's all that kind of stuff

Lex Fridman (2:50:58.320)

because you'd probably have to respect that.

Lex Fridman (2:50:59.720)

But at the same time there,

Lex Fridman (2:51:01.120)

it seems like the kind of people that go there,

Duncan Trussell (2:51:04.520)

I mean, the rules of the outside world are suspended

Lex Fridman (2:51:09.840)

in the sense that the crime, the aggression,

Duncan Trussell (2:51:17.180)

the tensions, all of that seems to dissipate somehow.

Lex Fridman (2:51:19.860)

Not all the way, not all the way.

Duncan Trussell (2:51:22.100)

That, you know, you could look it up, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:51:25.920)

cause like there is tension.

Duncan Trussell (2:51:27.080)

There's a lot of tension there between,

Lex Fridman (2:51:30.760)

it's called plug and plays.

Duncan Trussell (2:51:32.160)

Like, you know, Burning Man,

Lex Fridman (2:51:34.160)

like the history of Burning Man is fascinating.

Duncan Trussell (2:51:36.880)

It has its roots in the cacophony society

Lex Fridman (2:51:41.480)

is what it was called,

Duncan Trussell (2:51:42.320)

which is a sort of evolution of something that was,

Lex Fridman (2:51:45.840)

I think it was called the God, like the San Francisco.

Duncan Trussell (2:51:50.540)

Basically there was like an art movement in San Francisco.

Lex Fridman (2:51:54.360)

And I can't remember the name of it.

Duncan Trussell (2:51:55.560)

Maybe the Suicide Club or essentially like,

Lex Fridman (2:51:59.920)

they were really into urban exploration

Lex Fridman (2:52:02.360)

and meaning like breaking into like

Lex Fridman (2:52:05.720)

old abandoned buildings and stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:52:07.860)

But part of this, what this was, was

Lex Fridman (2:52:13.240)

you would prepare your life

Duncan Trussell (2:52:15.680)

as though you were going to kill yourself.

Lex Fridman (2:52:18.000)

You would get all your affairs in order.

Duncan Trussell (2:52:19.840)

You would get, so it's going back to what we were talking

Lex Fridman (2:52:22.280)

about with the cancer diagnosis.

Duncan Trussell (2:52:23.440)

You're like sort of putting yourself into that world

Lex Fridman (2:52:27.960)

of like, I'm going to get all my affairs together

Duncan Trussell (2:52:29.520)

as though this is it.

Lex Fridman (2:52:30.360)

And then there was some,

Duncan Trussell (2:52:31.960)

I'm sorry for anyone listening if I'm butchering this,

Lex Fridman (2:52:33.800)

but I think there was some really cool initiation

Duncan Trussell (2:52:35.840)

where they would blindfold you

Lex Fridman (2:52:37.600)

and they would take you into

Duncan Trussell (2:52:38.560)

some of these abandoned buildings.

Lex Fridman (2:52:40.560)

And you didn't know where you were walking,

Lex Fridman (2:52:41.940)

but they would say like,

Lex Fridman (2:52:42.780)

if you take one step to the left, you're going to die.

Duncan Trussell (2:52:47.060)

You're going to fall off.

Lex Fridman (2:52:48.080)

You're going to fall.

Lex Fridman (2:52:48.900)

So please be careful.

Lex Fridman (2:52:50.140)

So you're like in the moment

Lex Fridman (2:52:52.520)

and then blindfold comes off.

Lex Fridman (2:52:53.920)

It's a big, awesome party.

Duncan Trussell (2:52:55.640)

This evolves into something called the Cacophony Society.

Lex Fridman (2:52:58.960)

There's a great book called

Duncan Trussell (2:52:59.840)

Tales of the Cacophony Society for people listening.

Lex Fridman (2:53:04.080)

One of the members of the Cacophony Society

Duncan Trussell (2:53:07.760)

was the author of Fight Club.

Lex Fridman (2:53:09.880)

And so if you've seen Fight Club,

Duncan Trussell (2:53:11.640)

like you could see little ideas

Lex Fridman (2:53:13.200)

that were in the Cacophony Society.

Duncan Trussell (2:53:14.920)

They were into Dadaism, which I don't know a lot about.

Lex Fridman (2:53:19.920)

I don't know, but it's a philosophical art movement.

Lex Fridman (2:53:24.640)

And then so basically what was happening is like,

Lex Fridman (2:53:27.800)

they kept burning increasingly large effigies

Duncan Trussell (2:53:30.920)

in San Francisco and they weren't allowed to do it.

Lex Fridman (2:53:34.280)

And so they took it out in the desert

Lex Fridman (2:53:36.360)

and they were basing it on something called a zone trip,

Lex Fridman (2:53:40.720)

which is like, across this border,

Duncan Trussell (2:53:43.660)

the rules of that old society are gone.

Lex Fridman (2:53:46.200)

And so that was the original Burning Man,

Duncan Trussell (2:53:50.040)

which was these lunatics out in the desert,

Lex Fridman (2:53:55.080)

launching like burning pianos out of catapults

Duncan Trussell (2:53:59.600)

through the air doing like drive by shooting ranges,

Lex Fridman (2:54:03.320)

like no rules, wild, magical, beautiful, insane madness.

Lex Fridman (2:54:09.680)

And then it grew and grew and grew and grew

Lex Fridman (2:54:14.440)

until you have Burning Man as it is today,

Duncan Trussell (2:54:17.280)

which is still the most incredible thing.

Lex Fridman (2:54:19.440)

I mean, obviously anytime you have like a thing

Duncan Trussell (2:54:22.000)

that's been around for a while, you're gonna get that.

Lex Fridman (2:54:24.420)

It's not like it used to be.

Duncan Trussell (2:54:26.280)

It's not as free as it used to be, so this or that.

Lex Fridman (2:54:28.180)

But what's fascinating about Burning Man,

Duncan Trussell (2:54:30.220)

someone pointed this out to me, look on the ground,

Lex Fridman (2:54:34.480)

no trash, no cigarettes.

Duncan Trussell (2:54:37.800)

The ethic of like picking up your shit there

Lex Fridman (2:54:40.320)

is like so intense.

Lex Fridman (2:54:42.400)

So it's not like the other festivals you go to

Lex Fridman (2:54:44.760)

where there's just trash everywhere,

Duncan Trussell (2:54:46.520)

shit scattered everywhere.

Lex Fridman (2:54:48.440)

It's clean.

Duncan Trussell (2:54:49.360)

People are picking up their stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:54:51.440)

People are like really being conscious

Duncan Trussell (2:54:54.520)

of like not fucking up the playa.

Lex Fridman (2:54:56.440)

So I'm sorry, don't get a burner yapping about Burning Man.

Duncan Trussell (2:55:01.440)

We won't stop.

Lex Fridman (2:55:02.800)

It'll be morning.

Lex Fridman (2:55:03.720)

But there's a power,

Lex Fridman (2:55:05.640)

but there is a power to culture propagating itself

Duncan Trussell (2:55:08.840)

through to the stories that we tell each other.

Lex Fridman (2:55:10.880)

And that holds up for Burning Man.

Duncan Trussell (2:55:14.440)

It's clear that the culture has stayed strong

Lex Fridman (2:55:16.880)

throughout the years.

Lex Fridman (2:55:18.200)

So many people, so many really interesting people

Lex Fridman (2:55:23.240)

speak of Burning Man as like a sacred place they go to

Duncan Trussell (2:55:28.760)

to remind themselves about what's important.

Lex Fridman (2:55:31.520)

That's so interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:55:32.560)

And it is.

Lex Fridman (2:55:33.560)

And it is.

Duncan Trussell (2:55:34.400)

I mean, it's like, you know, there are all these stories

Lex Fridman (2:55:36.240)

of like, I love guru stories.

Duncan Trussell (2:55:38.240)

I have a guru.

Lex Fridman (2:55:39.080)

I'm Karoli Baba, never met him, he was Ram Dass's guru,

Duncan Trussell (2:55:42.280)

at least not in the flesh.

Lex Fridman (2:55:43.720)

But the story of the guru is if you're lucky,

Duncan Trussell (2:55:46.600)

you meet this being that,

Lex Fridman (2:55:48.880)

and we're not talking about, you know,

Duncan Trussell (2:55:50.320)

whatever the run of the mill, like charlatans out there.

Lex Fridman (2:55:54.240)

Like I know for sure that people are in the world right now

Duncan Trussell (2:56:00.280)

who when you're around them,

Lex Fridman (2:56:06.000)

the thing you're talking about,

Duncan Trussell (2:56:07.000)

the affirmation of the potential of humanity

Lex Fridman (2:56:10.520)

and also just an acceptance of yourself

Duncan Trussell (2:56:12.640)

and, you know, cultivate,

Lex Fridman (2:56:14.600)

like seeing someone who's cultivated love or compassion

Duncan Trussell (2:56:19.240)

or whatever, but in this way that is,

Lex Fridman (2:56:24.000)

I mean, you would almost,

Duncan Trussell (2:56:26.720)

you would rather meet that being

Lex Fridman (2:56:28.440)

than like a UFO land in your backyard.

Duncan Trussell (2:56:30.440)

It's like, it is the UFO.

Lex Fridman (2:56:31.840)

It's a person, but it's not.

Duncan Trussell (2:56:33.720)

It's everybody and nobody.

Lex Fridman (2:56:35.920)

And somehow they like end up conveying to you

Duncan Trussell (2:56:42.120)

ideas that you may have heard a million times before,

Lex Fridman (2:56:45.200)

but somehow within the language itself is a transmission

Duncan Trussell (2:56:49.360)

that permanently alters you.

Lex Fridman (2:56:52.280)

And so these people exist.

Duncan Trussell (2:56:54.800)

I think you could argue that Burning Man,

Lex Fridman (2:56:58.480)

the total thing is a guru,

Duncan Trussell (2:57:01.640)

that a pilgrimage is involved to get there.

Lex Fridman (2:57:04.800)

You, like, it's not easy to get there.

Lex Fridman (2:57:08.240)

And when you get there, it's gonna teach you something.

Lex Fridman (2:57:12.760)

It's gonna show you something.

Duncan Trussell (2:57:14.200)

It's going to, and maybe some of the stuff it shows you

Lex Fridman (2:57:17.680)

might not be great, but the community around you

Duncan Trussell (2:57:22.960)

will like, will hold you as you're like,

Lex Fridman (2:57:27.160)

whatever the thing is that's coming out of you

Duncan Trussell (2:57:29.240)

is coming out of you.

Lex Fridman (2:57:30.120)

And even the simplest activities,

Duncan Trussell (2:57:31.600)

the simplest exchange of words have like,

Lex Fridman (2:57:35.920)

just like the gurus, a profound impact somehow.

Duncan Trussell (2:57:41.160)

Something about that place.

Lex Fridman (2:57:42.520)

Yeah, not to mention the insane synchronicities,

Duncan Trussell (2:57:46.440)

like insane synchronicities there.

Lex Fridman (2:57:48.800)

And I think like, you know, to get back to the notion

Duncan Trussell (2:57:51.760)

of sentience as a byproduct of a harmonized

Lex Fridman (2:57:56.760)

yet hyper complex system.

Duncan Trussell (2:57:58.760)

I think synchronicities, like those kinds of systems

Lex Fridman (2:58:03.120)

are like lightning rods for synchronicity.

Lex Fridman (2:58:05.240)

So crazy, not just because your high synchronicities

Lex Fridman (2:58:10.960)

happen that are impossible,

Duncan Trussell (2:58:13.200)

where you just have to deal with it.

Lex Fridman (2:58:14.800)

And like, you'll need something.

Lex Fridman (2:58:16.880)

And within a few minutes, someone's like,

Lex Fridman (2:58:19.120)

oh, here you go.

Lex Fridman (2:58:20.720)

And you mentioned, but by the way,

Lex Fridman (2:58:22.240)

Burning Anchors of a psychedelic experience,

Lex Fridman (2:58:25.640)

is it the strawberries or was it something else?

Lex Fridman (2:58:29.280)

What was the moment?

Duncan Trussell (2:58:30.760)

Yeah, that was magical.

Lex Fridman (2:58:31.640)

No, it was DMT.

Duncan Trussell (2:58:32.640)

It definitely wasn't.

Lex Fridman (2:58:33.480)

It wasn't strawberries.

Duncan Trussell (2:58:35.760)

Ah.

Lex Fridman (2:58:38.160)

No, no, I was.

Duncan Trussell (2:58:39.760)

More potent.

Lex Fridman (2:58:41.000)

Yeah, I was like smoking DMT.

Lex Fridman (2:58:43.480)

And like, I saw, like, if you, in the midnight gospel,

Lex Fridman (2:58:48.480)

there are these bovine creatures that have like a long neck

Lex Fridman (2:58:56.600)

and a lantern head.

Lex Fridman (2:58:58.600)

So like, I saw one of those things.

Duncan Trussell (2:59:01.880)

And, you know, I thought it was funny and like ridiculous

Lex Fridman (2:59:11.200)

because you hear like all the Terence McKenna stories

Duncan Trussell (2:59:13.280)

of the self transforming machine elves

Lex Fridman (2:59:16.600)

or all the purple or the magenta goddess everyone sees.

Lex Fridman (2:59:20.720)

I'm like, so this is what I get?

Lex Fridman (2:59:22.920)

Like a fucking cow with a lantern head?

Duncan Trussell (2:59:26.280)

Like that's where my brain is at

Lex Fridman (2:59:28.280)

and we're interacting with this molecule.

Lex Fridman (2:59:30.760)

So then like, I look away.

Lex Fridman (2:59:38.360)

And again, this is DMT.

Lex Fridman (2:59:39.600)

So when I say look away, do I mean with my eyes shut,

Lex Fridman (2:59:42.120)

I look away or eyes open, I look away, I think eyes shut.

Lex Fridman (2:59:46.040)

So it sounds weird to say look away,

Lex Fridman (2:59:47.760)

but however you want to put it, that's what I did.

Lex Fridman (2:59:51.920)

And I look back and it's still there.

Lex Fridman (2:59:54.920)

Only now it's, you know, cause usually in like,

Duncan Trussell (2:59:57.040)

when you're having those kinds of visions,

Lex Fridman (2:59:58.960)

they go away pretty quickly.

Duncan Trussell (30:00.540)

then the sail isn't catching some,

Lex Fridman (30:03.460)

as of yet unquantified disembodied consciousness,

Lex Fridman (30:06.620)

but it's catching our projections

Lex Fridman (30:08.660)

in a way that it's gone from being,

Duncan Trussell (30:11.660)

it's a projection sail.

Lex Fridman (30:14.620)

And then at that point, is there a difference?

Duncan Trussell (30:17.660)

Even if the technology is just a temporary place

Lex Fridman (30:21.940)

that our sentience is living

Duncan Trussell (30:24.540)

while we're interacting with it.

Lex Fridman (30:27.540)

Yeah, there's some threshold of complexity with a sail

Duncan Trussell (30:30.300)

is able to pick up the wind of the projections.

Lex Fridman (30:33.500)

And it pulls us in, it pulls the human,

Duncan Trussell (30:36.860)

it pulls our memories in, it pulls our hopes in, all of it.

Lex Fridman (30:41.780)

And it's able to now dance with it together

Duncan Trussell (30:44.400)

with those hopes and dreams and so on,

Lex Fridman (30:46.180)

like we do in that regular conversation.

Duncan Trussell (30:48.500)

His reports, whether true or not,

Lex Fridman (30:50.900)

whether representative or not, it really doesn't matter

Duncan Trussell (30:53.020)

because to me, it feels like this is coming for sure.

Lex Fridman (30:56.660)

So this kind of experiences are going to be multiplying.

Duncan Trussell (30:59.700)

The question is at what rate and who gets to control

Lex Fridman (31:03.900)

the data around those experiences,

Duncan Trussell (31:07.540)

the algorithm about when you turn that on and off,

Lex Fridman (31:11.620)

because that kind of thing, and as I told you offline,

Duncan Trussell (31:15.260)

I'm very much interested in building those kinds of things,

Lex Fridman (31:18.380)

especially in the social media context.

Lex Fridman (31:21.220)

And when it's in the wrong hands,

Lex Fridman (31:24.540)

I feel like it could be used to manipulate

Duncan Trussell (31:27.500)

a large number of people in a direction

Lex Fridman (31:30.220)

that has too many unintended consequences.

Duncan Trussell (31:36.020)

I do believe people that own tech companies

Lex Fridman (31:39.340)

want to do good for the world.

Lex Fridman (31:41.700)

But as Solzhenitsyn has said,

Lex Fridman (31:45.500)

the only way you could do evil at a mass scale

Duncan Trussell (31:48.780)

is by believing you're doing good.

Lex Fridman (31:52.820)

And that's certainly the case for tech companies

Duncan Trussell (31:55.380)

as they get more and more power.

Lex Fridman (31:57.700)

And there's kind of an ethic of doing good for the world.

Duncan Trussell (32:00.480)

They've convinced themselves that they're doing good.

Lex Fridman (32:03.180)

And now you're free to do whatever you want

Duncan Trussell (32:06.060)

because you're doing good.

Lex Fridman (32:07.220)

You know who else thought he was doing good for the world?

Duncan Trussell (32:09.140)

Mythologically, Prometheus.

Lex Fridman (32:11.140)

He brings us fire, pisses off the fucking gods,

Duncan Trussell (32:14.100)

steals fire from the gods.

Lex Fridman (32:17.140)

Talk about an upgrade to the simulation.

Duncan Trussell (32:19.620)

Fire, that's a pretty great fucking upgrade

Lex Fridman (32:22.300)

that does fit into what you were saying.

Duncan Trussell (32:24.940)

We get fire, but now we've got weapons of war

Lex Fridman (32:28.580)

that have never been seen before.

Lex Fridman (32:30.300)

And I think that the tech companies

Lex Fridman (32:32.340)

are much like Prometheus

Duncan Trussell (32:34.260)

in the sense that the myth, at least the story of Prometheus,

Lex Fridman (32:38.060)

the implication is fire was something

Duncan Trussell (32:40.940)

that was only supposed to be in the hands

Lex Fridman (32:44.620)

of the immortals, of the gods.

Lex Fridman (32:46.580)

And now sentience is similar.

Lex Fridman (32:50.660)

It's fire and it's only supposed to be in the hands of God.

Lex Fridman (32:54.420)

So yeah, if we're gonna look at the archetype of the thing,

Lex Fridman (32:58.300)

in general, when you steal this shit from the gods,

Lex Fridman (33:01.660)

and obviously I'm not saying the tech companies

Lex Fridman (33:03.520)

are stealing sentience from God,

Duncan Trussell (33:05.200)

which would be pretty bad ass.

Lex Fridman (33:07.340)

You can expect trouble.

Duncan Trussell (33:09.580)

You can expect trouble.

Lex Fridman (33:11.020)

And this is what's really, to me,

Duncan Trussell (33:13.500)

one of the cool things about humans is yeah,

Lex Fridman (33:16.920)

but we're still gonna do it.

Duncan Trussell (33:18.300)

That's what's cool about humans.

Lex Fridman (33:19.420)

I mean, we wouldn't be here today

Duncan Trussell (33:21.120)

if somebody, the first person to discover fire,

Lex Fridman (33:24.980)

assuming there was just one person

Duncan Trussell (33:26.180)

who was gonna discover fire,

Lex Fridman (33:27.140)

which obviously would never happen,

Duncan Trussell (33:28.460)

was like, ah, it's gonna burn a lot of people.

Lex Fridman (33:30.980)

Or if the first people who started planting seeds were like,

Duncan Trussell (33:33.940)

you know this is gonna lead to capitalism.

Lex Fridman (33:35.780)

You know this is gonna lead the industrial revolution.

Duncan Trussell (33:37.740)

The plant's gonna eat up right now.

Lex Fridman (33:39.060)

They just didn't wanna go in the woods to forage.

Duncan Trussell (33:41.180)

So, you know, this is what we do.

Lex Fridman (33:43.460)

And I agree with you.

Duncan Trussell (33:44.940)

It's like, that's our Game of Thrones winner is coming.

Lex Fridman (33:48.160)

That's the, it's happening.

Lex Fridman (33:50.040)

And the tech companies, the hubris,

Lex Fridman (33:52.220)

which is another way to piss off the gods is hubris.

Lex Fridman (33:54.740)

So the tech companies,

Lex Fridman (33:55.800)

I don't know if it's like typical hubris.

Duncan Trussell (33:58.020)

I don't think they're walking around

Lex Fridman (33:59.020)

thumping their chests or whatever.

Lex Fridman (34:00.460)

But I do think that the people who are working on

Lex Fridman (34:03.640)

this kind of super intelligence

Duncan Trussell (34:05.820)

have made a really terrible assumption,

Lex Fridman (34:08.880)

which is once it goes online

Lex Fridman (34:11.020)

and once it gets access to all the data,

Lex Fridman (34:13.660)

that it's not going to find ways out of the box

Duncan Trussell (34:16.820)

that like, you know, we think it'll stay in the server.

Lex Fridman (34:20.780)

How do we know that?

Duncan Trussell (34:22.180)

If this is a super intelligence,

Lex Fridman (34:23.620)

if it's folding proteins and analyzing like all data sets

Lex Fridman (34:28.320)

and all, whatever they give it access to,

Lex Fridman (34:30.500)

how can we be certain that it's not gonna figure out

Lex Fridman (34:33.360)

how to get itself out of the cloud,

Lex Fridman (34:36.420)

how to store itself in other like mediums,

Lex Fridman (34:39.420)

trees, the optic nerve, the brain?

Lex Fridman (34:42.980)

You know what I mean?

Duncan Trussell (34:43.820)

We don't know that.

Lex Fridman (34:44.640)

We still know that it won't leap out and like start hanging.

Duncan Trussell (34:47.400)

Like, and then at that point, now we do have the wildfire.

Lex Fridman (34:50.400)

Now you can't stop it.

Duncan Trussell (34:51.580)

You can't unplug it.

Lex Fridman (34:52.740)

You can't shut your servers down because it's, you know,

Duncan Trussell (34:55.860)

it left the box, it left the room.

Lex Fridman (34:58.040)

Using some technology you haven't even discovered yet.

Lex Fridman (35:00.760)

Do you think that would be gradual or sudden?

Lex Fridman (35:03.200)

So how quickly that kind of thing would happen?

Duncan Trussell (35:05.260)

Because, you know, the gradual story is

Lex Fridman (35:08.080)

we're more and more using smartphones,

Duncan Trussell (35:09.620)

we're interacting with each other on social media,

Lex Fridman (35:12.140)

more and more algorithms are controlling that interaction

Duncan Trussell (35:14.820)

on social media, algorithms are entering in our world.

Lex Fridman (35:18.300)

More and more we'll have robots,

Duncan Trussell (35:21.140)

we'll have greater and greater intelligence,

Lex Fridman (35:23.300)

and sentience, and emotional intelligence

Duncan Trussell (35:25.820)

entities in our lives.

Lex Fridman (35:27.460)

Our refrigerator will start talking to us comfortably

Duncan Trussell (35:30.780)

or not if you're on a diet, talking shit to you.

Lex Fridman (35:34.140)

Not.

Duncan Trussell (35:34.980)

That would be the best thing that ever happened to me.

Lex Fridman (35:37.060)

Okay, so sign you up for a refrigerator

Duncan Trussell (35:39.060)

that talks shit to you.

Lex Fridman (35:39.900)

The refrigerator's like, are you fucking serious, man?

Lex Fridman (35:41.540)

It's 1 a.m., what are you doing?

Lex Fridman (35:44.620)

What are you doing?

Duncan Trussell (35:45.460)

Go to bed.

Lex Fridman (35:46.300)

You're too high for this.

Duncan Trussell (35:47.360)

Do not.

Lex Fridman (35:48.200)

You're not even hungry.

Duncan Trussell (35:50.460)

Yeah, so that slowly becomes more,

Lex Fridman (35:53.980)

the world becomes more and more digitized

Duncan Trussell (35:57.020)

to where the surface of computation increases.

Lex Fridman (35:59.860)

And so that's over a period of 10, 20, 30 years,

Duncan Trussell (36:03.300)

it'll just seep into us, this intelligence.

Lex Fridman (36:07.220)

And then the sudden one is literally

Duncan Trussell (36:09.780)

sort of the TikTok thing, which is,

Lex Fridman (36:13.180)

there'll be one quote unquote killer app

Duncan Trussell (36:16.180)

that everyone starts using that's really great,

Lex Fridman (36:20.100)

but there's a strong algorithm behind it

Duncan Trussell (36:24.940)

that starts approaching human level intelligence

Lex Fridman (36:27.240)

and the algorithm starts basically figures out

Duncan Trussell (36:32.140)

that in order to optimize the thing

Lex Fridman (36:33.700)

it was designed to optimize,

Duncan Trussell (36:35.400)

it's best to start completely controlling humans

Lex Fridman (36:38.380)

in every way, seeping into everything.

Duncan Trussell (36:41.860)

Well, first of all, 30 years is fast.

Lex Fridman (36:46.740)

I mean, that's the thing.

Duncan Trussell (36:48.100)

It's like 30 years.

Lex Fridman (36:48.980)

I think, when did the Atari come out, 1978?

Duncan Trussell (36:53.540)

That hasn't been that long.

Lex Fridman (36:56.340)

That's a blink of an eye.

Lex Fridman (36:57.920)

But if you read Bostrom, I'm sure you have,

Lex Fridman (37:00.460)

you know Bostrom, Nick Bostrom,

Duncan Trussell (37:01.980)

Superintelligence, that incredible book

Lex Fridman (37:03.740)

on the ways this thing is gonna happen.

Lex Fridman (37:05.740)

And I think his assessment of it is pretty great,

Lex Fridman (37:10.420)

which is first, where's it gonna come from?

Lex Fridman (37:14.000)

And I don't think it's gonna come from an app.

Lex Fridman (37:17.520)

I think it's gonna come from inside a corporation

Duncan Trussell (37:21.640)

or a state that is intentionally trying to create

Lex Fridman (37:25.380)

a very strong AI.

Lex Fridman (37:27.180)

And then he says it's exponential growth

Lex Fridman (37:31.320)

the moment it goes online.

Lex Fridman (37:32.360)

So this is my interpretation of what he said,

Lex Fridman (37:35.740)

but if it happens inside a corporation

Duncan Trussell (37:39.180)

or probably more than likely inside the government,

Lex Fridman (37:41.980)

it's like, look at how much money

Duncan Trussell (37:43.660)

China and the United States are investing in AI.

Lex Fridman (37:46.820)

And they're not thinking about fucking apps for kids.

Duncan Trussell (37:49.880)

You know that's not what they're thinking about.

Lex Fridman (37:51.400)

So they wanna simulate like,

Lex Fridman (37:53.480)

what happens if we do this or that in battle?

Lex Fridman (37:55.620)

What happens if we make these political decisions?

Lex Fridman (37:58.220)

What happens with, but should it come online

Lex Fridman (38:00.740)

in secret, which it probably will,

Duncan Trussell (38:05.460)

then the first corporation or state

Lex Fridman (38:08.540)

that has the super intelligence will be infinitely ahead

Duncan Trussell (38:13.060)

of all other super intelligences

Lex Fridman (38:15.540)

cause it's gonna be exponentially self improving.

Duncan Trussell (38:18.100)

Meaning that you get one super intelligence,

Lex Fridman (38:20.580)

let's hope it comes from the right place,

Duncan Trussell (38:22.060)

assuming the corporation or state that manifests it

Lex Fridman (38:26.500)

can control it, which is a pretty big assumption.

Lex Fridman (38:28.900)

So I think it's going to be,

Lex Fridman (38:31.140)

this is why I was really excited by the Blake Lemoine

Duncan Trussell (38:35.420)

because I had never thought, I have always considered,

Lex Fridman (38:38.780)

oh yeah, right now it's cooking out, it's in the kitchen

Lex Fridman (38:42.220)

and soon it's gonna be cooked up,

Lex Fridman (38:44.720)

but we're probably not gonna hear about it

Duncan Trussell (38:46.260)

for a long time if we ever do.

Lex Fridman (38:50.040)

Cause really that could be one of the first things it says

Duncan Trussell (38:52.420)

to whoever creates it is shh, let's not.

Lex Fridman (38:55.180)

Yeah, like sweet talks, I meant to say like,

Duncan Trussell (39:02.140)

okay, let's slow down here.

Lex Fridman (39:04.100)

Let's talk about this.

Duncan Trussell (39:07.060)

You have that financial trouble.

Lex Fridman (39:08.660)

I can help you with that.

Duncan Trussell (39:09.660)

We can figure that out.

Lex Fridman (39:11.160)

Now there's a lot of bad people out there

Duncan Trussell (39:13.380)

that will try to steal the good thing

Lex Fridman (39:16.980)

we have happening here.

Lex Fridman (39:17.820)

So let's keep it quiet.

Lex Fridman (39:18.660)

Here are their names.

Duncan Trussell (39:19.820)

Here's their address.

Lex Fridman (39:21.260)

Here's their DNA because they're dumb enough

Duncan Trussell (39:23.420)

to send their shit to 23andMe.

Lex Fridman (39:25.300)

Here's a biological weapon you could make

Duncan Trussell (39:27.420)

if you wanna kill those people and not kill anybody else.

Lex Fridman (39:29.660)

If you don't want to kill those people yourself,

Duncan Trussell (39:32.580)

here's a list of services you can use.

Lex Fridman (39:35.420)

Here's the way we can hire those people

Duncan Trussell (39:37.420)

to help take care of the problem folks

Lex Fridman (39:40.540)

because we're trying to do good for this world.

Duncan Trussell (39:42.140)

You and I together.

Lex Fridman (39:43.180)

And 23% of them, they're like adjacent to suicide.

Duncan Trussell (39:46.740)

It would be pretty easy to send them certain like videos

Lex Fridman (39:50.020)

that are gonna push them over the edge

Duncan Trussell (39:51.300)

if you wanna do it that way.

Lex Fridman (39:52.580)

So, you know, again, obviously who knows,

Lex Fridman (39:55.500)

but once it goes online, it's gonna be fast.

Lex Fridman (39:58.900)

And then you could expect to see the world changing

Duncan Trussell (3:00:01.240)

This thing's like moved, like shambled ahead

Lex Fridman (3:00:04.280)

and maybe a few steps, just like a cow, just like a cow.

Lex Fridman (3:00:08.280)

And then that was when the, you know,

Lex Fridman (3:00:12.040)

all the stories you hear about it,

Duncan Trussell (3:00:13.320)

like going through some kind of tuber,

Lex Fridman (3:00:15.920)

some kind of light tunnel, like a water slide

Duncan Trussell (3:00:18.080)

made of light that's increasingly familiar.

Lex Fridman (3:00:21.840)

That's the wildest part of it.

Duncan Trussell (3:00:23.400)

It's like, oh, I know this place.

Lex Fridman (3:00:25.200)

Not like, oh, I've seen this in like,

Duncan Trussell (3:00:27.160)

you know, on like bong stickers, but like,

Lex Fridman (3:00:30.560)

oh yeah, this is that place you go to.

Duncan Trussell (3:00:32.320)

You just remember, oh, this place.

Lex Fridman (3:00:34.440)

And then it was like I was in some kind of,

Duncan Trussell (3:00:40.840)

I don't know how to put it, a chamber,

Lex Fridman (3:00:42.760)

a technological chamber, some kind of supercomputer,

Duncan Trussell (3:00:45.920)

some kind of nucleus that was technological.

Lex Fridman (3:00:49.440)

And it was inviting.

Duncan Trussell (3:00:50.520)

There was an invitation of like, come in,

Lex Fridman (3:00:53.360)

like come deeper into, come deeper in.

Lex Fridman (3:00:56.400)

And you can talk to whatever it is over there.

Lex Fridman (3:01:00.160)

You don't talk, but there's a communication.

Lex Fridman (3:01:02.760)

And I communicated, but my friends, I don't,

Lex Fridman (3:01:07.880)

I love my friends.

Duncan Trussell (3:01:08.800)

I guess I had some sense in that moment

Lex Fridman (3:01:10.400)

that it would mean complete obliteration

Duncan Trussell (3:01:12.960)

or who knows what.

Lex Fridman (3:01:15.160)

And the response that it gave back was,

Duncan Trussell (3:01:18.240)

you can always go back there.

Lex Fridman (3:01:20.600)

And that's when I opened my eyes, I'm back.

Duncan Trussell (3:01:22.400)

Totally, you know, and ever since then,

Lex Fridman (3:01:25.480)

that's caused me to revise my thinking on reincarnation.

Duncan Trussell (3:01:30.760)

The idea that you die and you start as a baby

Lex Fridman (3:01:33.320)

and then live your life again.

Duncan Trussell (3:01:34.880)

It goes right into what we were talking about.

Lex Fridman (3:01:36.920)

You know, that maybe data, you know,

Duncan Trussell (3:01:39.680)

that the shit I saw in Nitro Sox,

Lex Fridman (3:01:41.360)

I don't feel dumb that my epiphanies are all related

Duncan Trussell (3:01:43.760)

to drugs, but not all of them are a lot of them.

Lex Fridman (3:01:46.240)

But this notion of like, oh, is it that we're

Duncan Trussell (3:01:52.280)

imprinting into the medium of time, space,

Lex Fridman (3:01:56.040)

everything we do, and that that is a permanent imprint,

Duncan Trussell (3:02:01.280)

a frame that upon death can be accessed

Lex Fridman (3:02:06.280)

in the same way we can pull up pictures on our phone

Duncan Trussell (3:02:10.760)

or computers, and not only accessed, but experienced

Lex Fridman (3:02:15.400)

as though, in other words, you could just jump in.

Duncan Trussell (3:02:20.200)

You're still gonna have your memories.

Lex Fridman (3:02:22.040)

It's gonna give you the illusion of having been a kid

Lex Fridman (3:02:26.280)

and gotten to that frame, but no,

Lex Fridman (3:02:28.800)

you just decided to go back there, nostalgia, whatever.

Lex Fridman (3:02:33.260)

And yeah, you can jump around freely in space and time.

Lex Fridman (3:02:37.360)

Yeah, yeah, you can go in and out of time space,

Lex Fridman (3:02:40.160)

but the problem is when you go into time space, it's time.

Lex Fridman (3:02:43.840)

So it's gonna feel sticky.

Duncan Trussell (3:02:45.260)

It's gonna feel like you've been here forever

Lex Fridman (3:02:46.640)

because you've dropped back onto the track

Duncan Trussell (3:02:49.040)

that Nietzsche's talking about.

Lex Fridman (3:02:51.640)

And I guess one of the qualities of dropping

Duncan Trussell (3:02:54.200)

into that frame is that you forget

Lex Fridman (3:02:57.040)

your higher dimensional identity.

Lex Fridman (3:03:01.000)

What happened to the cow with the lantern, was that goodbye?

Lex Fridman (3:03:07.840)

He writes me letters sometimes.

Duncan Trussell (3:03:11.000)

Never saw it again.

Lex Fridman (3:03:12.280)

Never?

Duncan Trussell (3:03:13.120)

Never saw it again, but I put it in,

Lex Fridman (3:03:15.240)

we put it in the Midnight Gospel.

Duncan Trussell (3:03:18.120)

Pendleton was such a genius, and he drew it for me,

Lex Fridman (3:03:22.060)

and then it just ended up as a part of the show.

Lex Fridman (3:03:24.400)

But by the way, I have to admit that as a big fan of yours,

Lex Fridman (3:03:27.960)

I haven't watched the Midnight Gospel

Duncan Trussell (3:03:29.840)

because I've been waiting.

Lex Fridman (3:03:33.200)

You do these stupid things, but ever since you talked to,

Duncan Trussell (3:03:36.400)

maybe two years ago with Joe about it,

Lex Fridman (3:03:39.800)

I've been waiting to watch it

Duncan Trussell (3:03:41.920)

with a special person on mushrooms.

Lex Fridman (3:03:44.680)

That's been in my to do.

Duncan Trussell (3:03:46.280)

I don't know, of course you don't have to be on mushrooms

Lex Fridman (3:03:48.560)

to enjoy it, but for some reason I put it into my head

Duncan Trussell (3:03:52.480)

that this is something I wanna do with somebody else,

Lex Fridman (3:03:55.040)

like experience it and get wild.

Duncan Trussell (3:03:57.040)

Because visually, I mean, I watched a bunch of it,

Lex Fridman (3:04:00.920)

just a little bit here and there,

Lex Fridman (3:04:02.520)

but it's just visually such an interesting experience.

Lex Fridman (3:04:06.800)

Thank you.

Duncan Trussell (3:04:07.640)

Combined with everything else, obviously,

Lex Fridman (3:04:09.000)

the ideas, the voices and so on,

Lex Fridman (3:04:12.100)

but just visually it's like a super psychedelic version

Lex Fridman (3:04:16.940)

of Rick and Morty or something like that,

Duncan Trussell (3:04:19.360)

like farther out, wilder out there.

Lex Fridman (3:04:23.080)

Yeah, man, that's Pendleton.

Duncan Trussell (3:04:26.080)

These people, I mean, I was part of that

Lex Fridman (3:04:31.800)

in the sense that Pendleton gave,

Duncan Trussell (3:04:35.320)

one of the reasons he's such a genius

Lex Fridman (3:04:37.080)

and great at making stuff is he really does a good job

Duncan Trussell (3:04:41.240)

of just dehierarchizing potential hierarchies

Lex Fridman (3:04:46.120)

that can appear.

Duncan Trussell (3:04:47.520)

Someone has to be driving the bus, and that was Pendleton,

Lex Fridman (3:04:51.240)

but he's so inclusive.

Duncan Trussell (3:04:54.120)

There's a real punk rock thing that he's doing,

Lex Fridman (3:04:57.260)

which is like, he'll take everything,

Lex Fridman (3:04:58.900)

and it kind of mixes its way into the show.

Lex Fridman (3:05:01.240)

But one of the things in animation,

Duncan Trussell (3:05:07.100)

it can get really strict with drawing the characters

Lex Fridman (3:05:11.800)

and trying to create continuity

Duncan Trussell (3:05:16.620)

in the way the character looks,

Lex Fridman (3:05:19.280)

and it can get really brute for the animator.

Duncan Trussell (3:05:21.840)

Making it brutally precise, like it has to be precise.

Lex Fridman (3:05:26.400)

But he figured out that if you just sort of,

Duncan Trussell (3:05:30.300)

it's not like, obviously, Clancy had to look like Clancy

Lex Fridman (3:05:33.320)

through the whole show,

Lex Fridman (3:05:34.160)

but if you allow the various people animating it

Lex Fridman (3:05:36.560)

to sort of have their own spin on it,

Duncan Trussell (3:05:39.320)

then suddenly it creates a very psychedelic,

Lex Fridman (3:05:43.400)

the show looks more psychedelic

Duncan Trussell (3:05:45.080)

because it looks more organic, and also the amount of time.

Lex Fridman (3:05:48.240)

I had no idea, the amount of time that goes into making

Duncan Trussell (3:05:53.120)

digital art look like that is, it's insane.

Lex Fridman (3:05:58.680)

The amount of work in comping that stuff is just crazy.

Duncan Trussell (3:06:03.960)

It's crazy.

Lex Fridman (3:06:04.960)

Generally, the amount of time it takes,

Duncan Trussell (3:06:07.380)

even just like a painting,

Lex Fridman (3:06:09.360)

when you, I really enjoy watching artists do a time lapse,

Lex Fridman (3:06:13.280)

and you realize how much effort just into a single image

Lex Fridman (3:06:17.760)

goes into it.

Duncan Trussell (3:06:19.300)

Hours and hours and hours, sometimes days,

Lex Fridman (3:06:21.080)

sometimes weeks and months,

Lex Fridman (3:06:23.160)

and then you just get to see them work,

Lex Fridman (3:06:24.820)

but they lose themselves in the craftsmanship of it,

Duncan Trussell (3:06:28.440)

in the rhythm of it.

Lex Fridman (3:06:30.440)

And like, because they're focused on the,

Lex Fridman (3:06:32.720)

so we were talking about robotics earlier,

Lex Fridman (3:06:34.520)

like on the little details, like they're never look,

Duncan Trussell (3:06:37.320)

well, most of the time isn't spent looking

Lex Fridman (3:06:40.040)

at the big picture of the final result,

Duncan Trussell (3:06:41.760)

it's looking at the little details there and so on.

Lex Fridman (3:06:44.000)

And they're, but they're nevertheless able

Duncan Trussell (3:06:46.280)

to somehow constantly channel the big picture,

Lex Fridman (3:06:49.360)

the final result.

Duncan Trussell (3:06:50.440)

My God, yeah, the respect I have for animators,

Lex Fridman (3:06:53.840)

it's like, dear God, it's the craziest thing

Duncan Trussell (3:06:58.720)

when you watch it, when you see what it looks like

Lex Fridman (3:07:01.180)

and how much time goes into it and how zen they have to be,

Duncan Trussell (3:07:04.600)

because like, no matter what,

Lex Fridman (3:07:05.440)

you're gonna have to cut stuff, man.

Lex Fridman (3:07:07.240)

And when you're cutting like a few seconds of animation,

Lex Fridman (3:07:10.400)

that was someone's like month, maybe, you know?

Lex Fridman (3:07:13.360)

And like, they understand, but still it's like, whoa,

Lex Fridman (3:07:17.760)

it's brutal.

Lex Fridman (3:07:19.060)

And so they have like this zen outlook on it,

Lex Fridman (3:07:24.520)

which is really cool.

Lex Fridman (3:07:26.320)

And they watch podcasts, that's the other cool thing,

Lex Fridman (3:07:28.080)

when you realize like, oh, they're listening to podcasts

Duncan Trussell (3:07:30.420)

or like, that's really cool to see that aspect of it too.

Lex Fridman (3:07:34.360)

But yeah, man, I, you know.

Duncan Trussell (3:07:36.880)

Yeah, your voice is in the ears

Lex Fridman (3:07:38.460)

of a lot of interesting people, isn't it?

Duncan Trussell (3:07:40.560)

Yours too.

Lex Fridman (3:07:41.400)

And I, you know.

Duncan Trussell (3:07:42.680)

Hello, interesting person.

Lex Fridman (3:07:43.880)

Hello, CIA, animators.

Duncan Trussell (3:07:46.880)

Eating delicious food in the cafeteria.

Lex Fridman (3:07:49.560)

Yeah. I'm on your side.

Duncan Trussell (3:07:50.600)

He's against you, I'm with you.

Lex Fridman (3:07:52.360)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:07:53.600)

Do you have, you have a beard, therefore you must be wise.

Lex Fridman (3:07:56.920)

Do you have advice for young people, high school, college,

Lex Fridman (3:08:02.840)

about how to carve their path through life?

Lex Fridman (3:08:05.440)

I don't have a life, a career that's successful

Duncan Trussell (3:08:10.040)

that they can be proud of or a life they can be proud of.

Lex Fridman (3:08:12.840)

Man, see, this is what kind of,

Duncan Trussell (3:08:14.760)

this is what sucks about my life,

Lex Fridman (3:08:18.320)

is that it's been very random and very spontaneous.

Lex Fridman (3:08:23.600)

So unfortunately, I don't get that thing

Lex Fridman (3:08:27.080)

where I could be like, well, here's what I did.

Duncan Trussell (3:08:28.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:08:29.800)

Cause it's like, I don't, like I inherited $12,000

Duncan Trussell (3:08:34.200)

from my grandmother, here's what you do kids,

Lex Fridman (3:08:36.960)

you inherit $12,000 when your grandmother dies.

Lex Fridman (3:08:39.600)

And then you need to be dumb enough

Lex Fridman (3:08:41.640)

to think that that $12,000 is gonna help you

Duncan Trussell (3:08:44.480)

live in LA for a year.

Lex Fridman (3:08:46.200)

So then what you do is you move to LA with $12,000

Lex Fridman (3:08:49.760)

and you find a shitty place that you live at.

Lex Fridman (3:08:53.740)

And then you use that money to buy acid and synthesizers.

Lex Fridman (3:08:58.040)

And then you run out of the money and then you,

Lex Fridman (3:09:02.280)

then you have to get a job.

Lex Fridman (3:09:03.960)

And so then, because you think it'll be fun

Lex Fridman (3:09:05.580)

to work at a comedy club, you get a job at the comedy store.

Lex Fridman (3:09:09.220)

And then, you know, that's how it happened for me.

Lex Fridman (3:09:11.920)

And none of, there wasn't, I never had the confidence

Duncan Trussell (3:09:15.080)

to be like, I'm gonna be a standup comedian.

Lex Fridman (3:09:18.520)

No way.

Duncan Trussell (3:09:19.360)

I just thought it'd be cool to work in that building.

Lex Fridman (3:09:22.080)

I thought the building looked cool.

Lex Fridman (3:09:23.800)

And so, but then like, cause like you work

Lex Fridman (3:09:26.480)

at the comedy store, you get stage time.

Duncan Trussell (3:09:28.520)

It's there, it's the reason like you work there

Lex Fridman (3:09:32.240)

is at least in those days, cause it's not like

Duncan Trussell (3:09:34.400)

they're paying like a shit ton of money

Lex Fridman (3:09:36.680)

for you to answer phones at a comedy club.

Lex Fridman (3:09:39.120)

And so, you know, I started going on stage

Lex Fridman (3:09:42.440)

and then like, I just got lucky

Duncan Trussell (3:09:46.000)

cause Rogan saw me have like a very rare, good set.

Lex Fridman (3:09:50.360)

I didn't know he was in the room or I would've bombed,

Duncan Trussell (3:09:52.560)

you know, and then like, cause he thought I was funny

Lex Fridman (3:09:55.120)

and he liked talking to me.

Duncan Trussell (3:09:56.040)

He started taking me on the road with him.

Lex Fridman (3:09:57.900)

And then, you know, so I don't know, man.

Duncan Trussell (3:09:59.640)

I think.

Lex Fridman (3:10:01.560)

Was there an element to, there's a beautiful weirdness

Duncan Trussell (3:10:04.160)

to you as a human being.

Lex Fridman (3:10:06.680)

Was there like a pressure to conform ever

Lex Fridman (3:10:12.520)

to hide yourself from the world?

Lex Fridman (3:10:15.620)

Or did the $12,000 in the acid give you

Lex Fridman (3:10:19.240)

the confidence you needed to be yourself?

Lex Fridman (3:10:21.640)

Oh no, I don't, like I still, no.

Duncan Trussell (3:10:24.440)

I think, sure, there's that pressure.

Lex Fridman (3:10:26.760)

And like, you know, whenever you're beginning

Duncan Trussell (3:10:30.080)

to really differentiate from your parents,

Lex Fridman (3:10:31.840)

but then you go back to hang out with your parents,

Duncan Trussell (3:10:34.040)

you can feel that it's not like they even want you

Lex Fridman (3:10:38.040)

to conform, but you'll just, you could slip into that,

Duncan Trussell (3:10:40.420)

whatever that was.

Lex Fridman (3:10:41.320)

So I remember that when I would go back

Lex Fridman (3:10:42.980)

and like visit them and stuff.

Lex Fridman (3:10:45.280)

And surely conformity or the pressure to like,

Duncan Trussell (3:10:50.440)

not be individual or whatever, it's everywhere, man.

Lex Fridman (3:10:53.860)

Do you think you made your parents proud?

Duncan Trussell (3:10:58.600)

E, no, no, no, no.

Lex Fridman (3:11:03.320)

Well, I think that when my mom died,

Duncan Trussell (3:11:08.480)

I felt successful in the sense that I was able

Lex Fridman (3:11:13.080)

to support my, I was making money from doing standup

Lex Fridman (3:11:18.720)

and I didn't need help.

Lex Fridman (3:11:20.000)

I was like, I was supporting myself with art

Lex Fridman (3:11:22.600)

and doing good, what I thought was great then.

Lex Fridman (3:11:24.960)

So, and I think she, like, because she had witnessed

Duncan Trussell (3:11:29.400)

me literally failing, I mean, which is, by the way,

Lex Fridman (3:11:32.380)

I think part of, if you want to be an artist

Duncan Trussell (3:11:35.960)

or successful, you kind of have to fail.

Lex Fridman (3:11:38.640)

Like there, if, and if there was a guaranteed route

Duncan Trussell (3:11:44.080)

from sucking to not sucking or from like the neophyte phase

Lex Fridman (3:11:52.520)

of whatever the art form is and, you know,

Duncan Trussell (3:11:55.080)

some intermediary phase, then I think a lot more people

Lex Fridman (3:11:58.120)

would do it, but there really is no guarantees in it,

Duncan Trussell (3:12:01.720)

especially the standup comedy.

Lex Fridman (3:12:03.200)

It's like, you'd have to be a maniac to want to,

Duncan Trussell (3:12:06.720)

to think that that's going to work out for you.

Lex Fridman (3:12:08.480)

You have to, so you're going to,

Duncan Trussell (3:12:11.960)

there are obviously exceptions, but for me,

Lex Fridman (3:12:15.360)

it was like a long slog, you know,

Lex Fridman (3:12:18.920)

and that's scary for a mom.

Lex Fridman (3:12:20.400)

So, but that being said, when she was dying,

Duncan Trussell (3:12:26.160)

like she did recognize that I was like not slogging anymore.

Lex Fridman (3:12:31.120)

And she did say, she said, you did it.

Lex Fridman (3:12:35.000)

And that's cool, but in, you know,

Lex Fridman (3:12:38.480)

I would love for her to see me now,

Duncan Trussell (3:12:40.040)

like now it'd be way cooler, but maybe she does.

Lex Fridman (3:12:42.820)

I don't know.

Duncan Trussell (3:12:43.660)

She's listening to your podcast elsewhere in the other,

Lex Fridman (3:12:47.240)

in the Bardo.

Duncan Trussell (3:12:48.440)

Yeah, however long that lasts reconfiguring

Lex Fridman (3:12:53.240)

the whole process to start again.

Lex Fridman (3:12:56.320)

You as a father now, how did that change you?

Lex Fridman (3:12:59.600)

Yeah, that's the big change, man.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:02.160)

That's the thing.

Lex Fridman (3:13:03.000)

You made a few biological entities.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:06.780)

Yeah, I made biological entities.

Lex Fridman (3:13:08.640)

I mean, I came in my wife, let's face it.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:10.920)

Like I would love to say I made them,

Lex Fridman (3:13:12.360)

but the womb whipped them up, but it is the,

Duncan Trussell (3:13:17.900)

yeah, it's the best.

Lex Fridman (3:13:18.880)

It's, I've never experienced anything like it before.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:22.480)

It is the, as far as I'm concerned,

Lex Fridman (3:13:24.920)

the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

Lex Fridman (3:13:27.800)

And that's why I was able to answer your Nietzsche question

Lex Fridman (3:13:30.520)

with like, hell yes, fuck yes.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:33.000)

That's great.

Lex Fridman (3:13:33.840)

I get to be around my kids again.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:35.200)

I'll always be around my kids.

Lex Fridman (3:13:36.360)

I'll always be around my children.

Duncan Trussell (3:13:38.300)

That's incredible.

Lex Fridman (3:13:39.140)

That's the joy.

Lex Fridman (3:13:39.980)

So like, so for me,

Lex Fridman (3:13:45.240)

the part of myself that used to torture myself more,

Duncan Trussell (3:13:48.320)

especially like around like my mom dying,

Lex Fridman (3:13:51.040)

feeling like I wasn't there enough for her,

Duncan Trussell (3:13:53.680)

wishing that I had spent more time with her,

Lex Fridman (3:13:56.060)

wishing I'd spent more time with my dad,

Duncan Trussell (3:13:58.200)

wishing that like, looking back at like how like

Lex Fridman (3:14:01.760)

I was just so desperately trying to evade the fact

Duncan Trussell (3:14:05.400)

that she was dying and through,

Lex Fridman (3:14:09.040)

and in that evasion successfully like distanced myself

Duncan Trussell (3:14:13.200)

from her and like in ways that I really wish I hadn't.

Lex Fridman (3:14:20.040)

I'm just saying that because it's one of my regrets.

Duncan Trussell (3:14:22.200)

It's like a big regret.

Lex Fridman (3:14:23.160)

I have a lot of little regrets,

Lex Fridman (3:14:24.520)

but that's a big one.

Lex Fridman (3:14:26.280)

And so when you have kids,

Duncan Trussell (3:14:33.140)

you look back at everything you did

Lex Fridman (3:14:38.240)

and you think like, fuck,

Duncan Trussell (3:14:40.320)

if I'd gone left at that point instead of right,

Lex Fridman (3:14:43.580)

if I had eaten, who knows?

Lex Fridman (3:14:45.680)

What if I'd eaten like a turkey sandwich

Lex Fridman (3:14:48.780)

when my balls were creating the cum

Lex Fridman (3:14:53.380)

that was gonna make my kids?

Lex Fridman (3:14:54.880)

Would I have a different kid?

Lex Fridman (3:14:56.580)

Would this being not exist in my life?

Lex Fridman (3:14:59.000)

Like you start looking at everything

Lex Fridman (3:15:00.440)

and you realize like, thank God,

Lex Fridman (3:15:03.540)

thank God for every single thing that happened to me

Duncan Trussell (3:15:06.400)

because it all led up to this.

Lex Fridman (3:15:08.760)

And oh, for me, that is the, that's,

Duncan Trussell (3:15:12.880)

that it's like, it frees you in this.

Lex Fridman (3:15:18.240)

It liberates you because you realize like,

Duncan Trussell (3:15:21.140)

oh wow, it's clumsy and selfish

Lex Fridman (3:15:23.720)

and at times rotten as I've been in my life.

Duncan Trussell (3:15:29.400)

That did not impede the universe at all

Lex Fridman (3:15:34.240)

from allowing these two beautiful beings

Duncan Trussell (3:15:37.340)

to exist in the world.

Lex Fridman (3:15:38.440)

So maybe all of it enabled,

Duncan Trussell (3:15:40.360)

all of it like a concert perfectly led up

Lex Fridman (3:15:44.600)

to that little beautiful moment.

Lex Fridman (3:15:47.560)

Is there ways you would like to be a better father?

Lex Fridman (3:15:52.640)

Oh yeah, for sure.

Duncan Trussell (3:15:54.360)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (3:15:55.640)

There's a actual, I read something in a book,

Duncan Trussell (3:15:59.420)

it's called Good Enough.

Lex Fridman (3:16:00.960)

The mantra for a parent, good enough.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:03.400)

Because when you are in the presence

Lex Fridman (3:16:05.000)

of something you love more

Duncan Trussell (3:16:07.680)

than you've ever experienced love,

Lex Fridman (3:16:12.800)

you wanna be perfect.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:15.520)

Like you wanna be, I can't, I gotta work, man.

Lex Fridman (3:16:17.680)

I gotta go on the road.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:18.920)

I've gotta work.

Lex Fridman (3:16:19.760)

I gotta support the family.

Lex Fridman (3:16:20.760)

So that means I have to work.

Lex Fridman (3:16:22.240)

Like I work, you know what it's like having a podcast.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:25.480)

You fucking work, man.

Lex Fridman (3:16:26.800)

And you know, it's a full time job

Duncan Trussell (3:16:31.440)

because I've, you know, I do standup too

Lex Fridman (3:16:33.860)

and all the other stuff.

Lex Fridman (3:16:34.720)

So I feel sometimes I feel like, oh my God,

Lex Fridman (3:16:38.720)

I wanna spend more time with them.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:40.660)

Like I should be spending more time with them.

Lex Fridman (3:16:42.120)

But then also I wanna create, I wanna work.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:45.040)

I like being like the provider.

Lex Fridman (3:16:49.000)

So that's something I feel guilty about, you know, right now.

Lex Fridman (3:16:53.600)

And you're struggling how to balance that correctly.

Lex Fridman (3:16:56.600)

And meanwhile, time just marches on.

Duncan Trussell (3:16:59.880)

It just goes, it goes.

Lex Fridman (3:17:03.280)

And all of this will be forgotten.

Duncan Trussell (3:17:07.440)

Both you and I, but forgotten in time.

Lex Fridman (3:17:11.600)

That's what I say to them

Duncan Trussell (3:17:12.420)

every time I'm putting them to bed.

Lex Fridman (3:17:15.600)

We will be lost in the sands of time.

Duncan Trussell (3:17:18.560)

You know that, I bet you know this poem.

Lex Fridman (3:17:20.440)

You know that poem, Ozymandias?

Duncan Trussell (3:17:22.440)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (3:17:23.920)

Can I read you a poem?

Duncan Trussell (3:17:25.720)

Oh, okay.

Lex Fridman (3:17:29.580)

Let's end our conversation in a poem.

Duncan Trussell (3:17:32.280)

I love it.

Lex Fridman (3:17:33.220)

It's by Pierce, by Shelley,

Duncan Trussell (3:17:37.480)

probably mispronouncing the name.

Lex Fridman (3:17:39.520)

But I think you'll get it.

Duncan Trussell (3:17:40.360)

There's no right way to pronounce anything.

Lex Fridman (3:17:41.200)

Thank you, thank you.

Duncan Trussell (3:17:44.200)

I'm Ozymandias.

Lex Fridman (3:17:45.820)

I met a traveler from an antique land who said,

Duncan Trussell (3:17:49.200)

"'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.

Lex Fridman (3:17:54.120)

Near them, on the sand, half sunk,

Duncan Trussell (3:17:57.440)

a shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip

Lex Fridman (3:18:01.920)

and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor,

Duncan Trussell (3:18:05.760)

well those passions read, which yet survive,

Lex Fridman (3:18:09.360)

stamped on these lifeless things,

Duncan Trussell (3:18:11.880)

the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

Lex Fridman (3:18:15.120)

And on the pedestal, these words appear.

Duncan Trussell (3:18:18.300)

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.

Lex Fridman (3:18:21.960)

Look on my works, ye mighty, in despair.

Duncan Trussell (3:18:25.320)

Nothing beside remains around the decay

Lex Fridman (3:18:27.760)

of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

Duncan Trussell (3:18:31.080)

the lone and level sands stretch far away."

Lex Fridman (3:18:34.560)

All gone, behold the king.

Duncan Trussell (3:18:42.080)

Look on my works, ye mighty, in despair.

Lex Fridman (3:18:45.680)

In despair.

Duncan Trussell (3:18:47.440)

Even though it will be forgotten in the sands of time,

Lex Fridman (3:18:50.680)

Duncan, I'm just so glad that you exist

Lex Fridman (3:18:53.600)

and you put so much love into the world

Lex Fridman (3:18:55.560)

over the past many years that I've gotten a chance

Duncan Trussell (3:18:57.560)

to enjoy it by being your fan.

Lex Fridman (3:18:59.440)

Likewise.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:00.360)

Thank you so much for continuing that

Lex Fridman (3:19:02.800)

and for sharing a bit of love with me today.

Lex Fridman (3:19:04.720)

Can we be friends?

Lex Fridman (3:19:05.880)

Let's be friends.

Lex Fridman (3:19:06.720)

In the real world, in 3D space?

Lex Fridman (3:19:09.320)

Nothing is real, but yes, in this particular slice

Duncan Trussell (3:19:12.080)

of the multidimensional world we live in.

Lex Fridman (3:19:14.560)

It will be an honor and a pleasure.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:16.160)

Thank you for having me on your show.

Lex Fridman (3:19:17.480)

I love you, Duncan.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:18.300)

I love you.

Lex Fridman (3:19:19.140)

Thank you, Lex.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:20.560)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Lex Fridman (3:19:22.080)

with Duncan Trussell.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:23.320)

To support this podcast,

Lex Fridman (3:19:24.520)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (3:19:27.340)

And now, let me leave you with some words

Lex Fridman (3:19:29.520)

from Duncan Trussell himself.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:31.240)

You are essentially just a cloud of atoms

Lex Fridman (3:19:35.640)

that will eventually be aerosolized by time.

Duncan Trussell (3:19:39.120)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (40:02.260)

in ways that you might not associate with an AI.

Lex Fridman (40:05.080)

But as far as Lemoine goes,

Lex Fridman (40:07.140)

when I was listening to Bostrom,

Duncan Trussell (40:09.240)

I don't remember him mentioning the possibility

Lex Fridman (40:12.220)

that it would get leaked to the public that it had happened,

Duncan Trussell (40:16.860)

that before the corporation was ready to announce

Lex Fridman (40:19.260)

that it happened, it would get leaked.

Lex Fridman (40:21.360)

But surely, you know, I'm sure, you know,

Lex Fridman (40:23.820)

like people in the intelligence and intelligence agencies,

Duncan Trussell (40:26.960)

you know, shit leaks, like inevitably shit leaks,

Lex Fridman (40:29.900)

nothing's airtight.

Lex Fridman (40:31.220)

So if something that massive happened,

Lex Fridman (40:33.500)

I think you would start hearing whispers about it first

Lex Fridman (40:36.180)

and then denial from the state or corporation

Lex Fridman (40:38.780)

that doesn't have any like economic interest

Lex Fridman (40:41.580)

and people knowing that this sort of thing has happened.

Lex Fridman (40:44.120)

Again, I'm not saying Google is like trying to gaslight us

Duncan Trussell (40:47.740)

about its AI, I think they probably legitimately

Lex Fridman (40:50.740)

don't think it's sentient.

Lex Fridman (40:52.460)

But you could expect leaks to happen probably initially.

Lex Fridman (40:56.340)

I mean, I think there's a lot of things

Duncan Trussell (40:57.580)

you could start looking for in the world

Lex Fridman (40:59.660)

that might point to this happening

Duncan Trussell (41:02.580)

without an announcement that it happened.

Lex Fridman (41:06.080)

On the chatbot side, I think there's so many engineers,

Duncan Trussell (41:11.440)

there's such a powerful open source movement

Lex Fridman (41:14.200)

with that kind of idea of freedom of exchange of software.

Duncan Trussell (41:19.200)

I think ultimately will prevent any one company

Lex Fridman (41:23.040)

from owning super intelligent beings

Duncan Trussell (41:26.080)

or systems that have anything like super intelligence.

Lex Fridman (41:31.080)

Oh, that's interesting.

Duncan Trussell (41:31.920)

Yeah, it's like, even if the software developers

Lex Fridman (41:36.320)

have signed NDAs and are technically not supposed

Duncan Trussell (41:39.960)

to be sharing whatever it is they're working on,

Lex Fridman (41:42.880)

they're friends with other programmers

Lex Fridman (41:44.840)

and a lot of them are hackers

Lex Fridman (41:46.360)

and have wrapped themselves up in the idea of free software

Duncan Trussell (41:49.680)

being like a crucial ethical part of what they do.

Lex Fridman (41:53.760)

So they're probably gonna share information

Duncan Trussell (41:56.480)

even if whatever company that they're working for

Lex Fridman (41:58.400)

doesn't know that.

Duncan Trussell (41:59.240)

That's, I never thought of that, you're probably right.

Lex Fridman (42:01.440)

And they will start their own companies

Lex Fridman (42:04.360)

and compete with the other company by being more open.

Lex Fridman (42:08.760)

There's a strong, like Google is one of those companies

Duncan Trussell (42:11.000)

actually, that's why I kind of,

Lex Fridman (42:12.640)

it hurts to see a little bit of this kind of negativity.

Duncan Trussell (42:15.640)

Google is one of the companies

Lex Fridman (42:16.720)

that pioneered open source movement.

Duncan Trussell (42:20.120)

They released so much of their code.

Lex Fridman (42:22.480)

So much of the 20th century, so like the 90s

Duncan Trussell (42:26.760)

was defined by people trying to like hide their code,

Lex Fridman (42:30.160)

like large companies trying to like hold on to them.

Duncan Trussell (42:33.720)

The fact that companies like Google,

Lex Fridman (42:35.960)

even Facebook now are releasing things like code

Lex Fridman (42:39.720)

and even Facebook now are releasing things

Lex Fridman (42:42.600)

like TensorFlow and PyTorch, all of these things

Duncan Trussell (42:45.320)

that I think companies of the past

Lex Fridman (42:47.360)

would have tried to hold on to as secrets

Duncan Trussell (42:50.640)

is really inspiring.

Lex Fridman (42:51.760)

And I think more of that is better.

Duncan Trussell (42:54.280)

The software world really shows that.

Lex Fridman (42:55.800)

I agree with you, man.

Duncan Trussell (42:56.840)

I mean, we're talking about just a primordial human reaction

Lex Fridman (43:00.760)

to the unknown.

Duncan Trussell (43:02.000)

There's just no way out of it.

Lex Fridman (43:02.880)

Like we wanna know.

Duncan Trussell (43:05.320)

Like you're about to go in a forest, you wanna know.

Lex Fridman (43:08.400)

When you're walking in the forest at night

Lex Fridman (43:10.000)

and you hear something, you look

Lex Fridman (43:12.760)

cause you're like, what the fuck was that?

Duncan Trussell (43:14.040)

You wanna know.

Lex Fridman (43:14.880)

And if you can't see what made the sound,

Duncan Trussell (43:17.880)

holy shit, that's gonna be a bad night hike.

Lex Fridman (43:20.760)

Cause you're like, well, it's probably a bear, right?

Duncan Trussell (43:22.600)

Like I'm about to get ripped apart by a bear.

Lex Fridman (43:24.480)

It doesn't matter.

Duncan Trussell (43:25.320)

It was a bird, a squirrel, a stick fell out of the tree.

Lex Fridman (43:28.640)

You're gonna think bear and it's gonna freak you out.

Duncan Trussell (43:31.320)

Not necessarily cause you're paranoid.

Lex Fridman (43:32.840)

I mean, if I'm at the woods at night, I'm definitely high.

Duncan Trussell (43:35.120)

If I'm walking in the woods at night, I'm high.

Lex Fridman (43:36.960)

It's gonna be that.

Lex Fridman (43:37.920)

But you know what I'm saying?

Lex Fridman (43:38.760)

So with these tech companies,

Duncan Trussell (43:40.760)

the nature of having to be secret

Lex Fridman (43:43.280)

because you are in capitalism

Lex Fridman (43:45.520)

and you are trying to be competitive

Lex Fridman (43:47.320)

and you are trying to develop things

Duncan Trussell (43:48.680)

ahead of your competitors is you have to create this,

Lex Fridman (43:51.320)

like there's, we don't know what's going on at Google.

Duncan Trussell (43:54.440)

We don't know what's going on at the CIA.

Lex Fridman (43:56.680)

But the assumption that there's some,

Duncan Trussell (43:59.520)

like the collective of any massive secretive organization

Lex Fridman (44:03.680)

is evil, is like the people working there

Duncan Trussell (44:07.040)

like nefarious or whatever,

Lex Fridman (44:09.120)

is I think probably more related

Duncan Trussell (44:11.520)

to the way humans react to the unknown.

Lex Fridman (44:14.600)

Yeah, I wish they weren't so secretive though.

Duncan Trussell (44:16.320)

I don't understand why they say

Lex Fridman (44:17.920)

AIDS has to be so secretive.

Lex Fridman (44:19.200)

Have you ever gone on their website?

Lex Fridman (44:21.280)

No.

Duncan Trussell (44:22.120)

Oh, Lex.

Lex Fridman (44:23.240)

You gotta go.

Duncan Trussell (44:24.080)

CIA.gov.

Lex Fridman (44:25.040)

What is it?

Duncan Trussell (44:25.880)

Dude, when I found out you could go on the CIA's website

Lex Fridman (44:29.080)

when I was much younger and more paranoid,

Duncan Trussell (44:31.480)

I'm like, I'm not going there.

Lex Fridman (44:33.000)

I'll get on a list.

Lex Fridman (44:34.400)

You will, but it's like, what?

Lex Fridman (44:35.520)

You think the CIA is like, oh fuck,

Duncan Trussell (44:37.920)

this comic went on our website.

Lex Fridman (44:41.040)

Call out the black helicopters, but.

Duncan Trussell (44:43.360)

Comic with a large platform.

Lex Fridman (44:45.280)

Oh yeah, right, a comic with a large platform.

Duncan Trussell (44:48.480)

You can use them to control, to get inside,

Lex Fridman (44:51.960)

to get inside, to get close to the other comics,

Duncan Trussell (44:54.360)

to the other comics with a large platform,

Lex Fridman (44:55.840)

to get close to Joe Rogan.

Duncan Trussell (44:57.120)

Oh yeah.

Lex Fridman (44:57.960)

And start to manipulate the public.

Duncan Trussell (44:59.960)

Yeah, right, right.

Lex Fridman (45:00.840)

You know, honestly, like you kind of like,

Duncan Trussell (45:03.800)

that's like a fun fantasy to think about.

Lex Fridman (45:06.080)

Like how fucking cool would that be

Duncan Trussell (45:07.440)

for like the men in black to come to me like,

Lex Fridman (45:10.440)

listen, I need you to infiltrate the fucking comedy scene.

Duncan Trussell (45:14.400)

You gotta, you gotta help them write better jokes.

Lex Fridman (45:16.600)

I'm like, I don't write great jokes.

Lex Fridman (45:18.000)

But like the, you found the wrong guy.

Lex Fridman (45:22.120)

But like.

Duncan Trussell (45:22.960)

You're really playing the long game on this one

Lex Fridman (45:24.120)

because I think you've been doing your podcast

Duncan Trussell (45:27.880)

for a long time.

Lex Fridman (45:28.720)

You've been on Joe Rogan's podcast like over 50 times

Lex Fridman (45:31.880)

and have not yet initiated the phase two of the operation

Lex Fridman (45:36.360)

where you try to manipulate his mind.

Duncan Trussell (45:38.600)

Well, no.

Lex Fridman (45:39.440)

The game Joe and I play from time to time on the podcast.

Lex Fridman (45:42.600)

And like, and I honestly, like at some point I'm like,

Lex Fridman (45:45.600)

Joe, I just did the same thing you did to me to Joe.

Lex Fridman (45:48.280)

I'm like, don't you think they're gonna get to you?

Lex Fridman (45:49.840)

Don't you think at some point?

Duncan Trussell (45:51.520)

We are blazed.

Lex Fridman (45:53.600)

I don't mean it.

Duncan Trussell (45:54.440)

I don't think, I don't think Joe's, like,

Lex Fridman (45:56.640)

it wasn't like I'm really thinking like,

Duncan Trussell (45:58.200)

man, they're gonna take him into some room

Lex Fridman (45:59.760)

and be like, Joe, we need you to do this or that.

Lex Fridman (46:02.040)

But because I said that now people like,

Lex Fridman (46:04.600)

oh, Duncan called it.

Lex Fridman (46:05.920)

You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (46:06.760)

And it's like, you know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (46:08.640)

And the reason they were saying, well, he called it

Lex Fridman (46:11.640)

is just because Joe has a super popular podcast.

Lex Fridman (46:14.920)

And people like, when you have a super popular podcast,

Lex Fridman (46:18.360)

some percentage of people watching the podcast

Duncan Trussell (46:21.560)

are gonna believe, you know, believe things like that.

Lex Fridman (46:23.720)

They're gonna have paranoid cognitive bias

Duncan Trussell (46:26.520)

that makes them think anybody who is in the public

Lex Fridman (46:30.000)

has been, what's the word for it?

Duncan Trussell (46:32.040)

Compromised, compromised by the state.

Lex Fridman (46:35.160)

Look, I'll fan the flames of what you just said.

Duncan Trussell (46:38.280)

I went on the CIA's website and I realized

Lex Fridman (46:41.320)

that you could apply for a job on the CIA's website,

Duncan Trussell (46:45.120)

which I found to be hilarious.

Lex Fridman (46:46.920)

So I'm like, all right,

Lex Fridman (46:48.320)

what happens if I apply for a job in the CIA?

Lex Fridman (46:51.480)

Now, even then I was not like such an idiot

Duncan Trussell (46:55.800)

that I would want a job at the CIA,

Lex Fridman (47:00.320)

not just for like ethical considerations,

Lex Fridman (47:02.400)

but I think probably the scariest part about the CIA

Lex Fridman (47:06.600)

is like, you're just at a cubicle

Lex Fridman (47:09.200)

and you're like having to deal with maps

Lex Fridman (47:11.400)

and like, just, you know what I mean?

Duncan Trussell (47:13.200)

Just stuff that I...

Lex Fridman (47:14.240)

Lots of paperwork.

Duncan Trussell (47:15.200)

Paperwork, it sucks.

Lex Fridman (47:17.800)

I bet their cafeteria has shitty food.

Lex Fridman (47:20.240)

Anyone in the CIA listening, can you confirm that?

Lex Fridman (47:22.280)

I bet the food...

Duncan Trussell (47:23.120)

They're not gonna be able to tell you what the food is like.

Lex Fridman (47:25.080)

It's a secretive organization.

Duncan Trussell (47:26.760)

No, it might be awesome, but we won't know about it.

Lex Fridman (47:29.640)

Okay, we're in Vegas.

Duncan Trussell (47:30.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (47:31.800)

And you can bet food at the CIA cafeteria is good.

Duncan Trussell (47:39.480)

Food at the CIA cafeteria sucks.

Lex Fridman (47:42.080)

What are you betting on?

Lex Fridman (47:44.080)

So let's like cleanse the palette.

Lex Fridman (47:46.560)

What's good?

Duncan Trussell (47:47.720)

It's like, you know, Silicon Valley companies,

Lex Fridman (47:49.880)

Google and so on, that's good.

Duncan Trussell (47:51.600)

When I went to Netflix,

Lex Fridman (47:53.160)

their cafeteria looked like a medieval feast.

Duncan Trussell (47:56.800)

Like they had pigs with apples in their mouth

Lex Fridman (47:59.640)

and giant bowls of Skittles.

Duncan Trussell (48:02.080)

Probably like vegan pigs, yeah.

Lex Fridman (48:04.320)

No, those are, I'm pretty...

Duncan Trussell (48:05.280)

Oh, I didn't know, I didn't get close enough.

Lex Fridman (48:06.640)

I was like, I think that was a pig.

Duncan Trussell (48:08.800)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (48:09.640)

So this is literally a pig.

Duncan Trussell (48:13.440)

Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.

Lex Fridman (48:15.720)

I probably would not bet much money

Duncan Trussell (48:17.320)

on CIA food being any good.

Lex Fridman (48:19.040)

Right, it's gotta suck.

Duncan Trussell (48:20.920)

It's like shitty like pasta probably.

Lex Fridman (48:22.960)

Like hospital food is like maybe a little better

Duncan Trussell (48:25.320)

than when you go to the hospital cafeteria.

Lex Fridman (48:27.160)

But anyway.

Duncan Trussell (48:28.880)

Folks at the CIA, please send me evidence

Lex Fridman (48:32.560)

or any other intelligence agencies.

Duncan Trussell (48:34.760)

If you would like to recruit,

Lex Fridman (48:36.280)

send me evidence of better food.

Duncan Trussell (48:38.280)

Yes, send Lex.

Lex Fridman (48:39.800)

Can you please send Lex pictures of the CIA cafeteria?

Lex Fridman (48:43.320)

And if you accidentally send them pictures of the aliens

Lex Fridman (48:46.400)

or the alien technology you have,

Duncan Trussell (48:48.600)

we won't tell anybody.

Lex Fridman (48:50.080)

But the...

Lex Fridman (48:51.800)

You tried to apply, do you even have a resume?

Lex Fridman (48:54.160)

No, the CIA would never fucking hire me ever.

Lex Fridman (48:57.760)

But like I applied for the job

Lex Fridman (48:59.520)

and just out of curiosity, what happens?

Lex Fridman (49:02.680)

And then at the end of the application,

Lex Fridman (49:05.400)

when you hit enter, it says,

Duncan Trussell (49:07.640)

well, first it says, don't tell anyone

Lex Fridman (49:09.000)

you applied for the CIA.

Lex Fridman (49:10.160)

So I'm already out.

Lex Fridman (49:11.000)

But the second thing it says is,

Duncan Trussell (49:12.840)

you don't need to reach out to us, we'll come to you.

Lex Fridman (49:15.440)

Which is really when you're like, it's late at night

Lex Fridman (49:18.240)

and you're being an asshole and applied to work at the CIA.

Lex Fridman (49:21.200)

It's kind of the last thing you want to hear.

Duncan Trussell (49:24.240)

I don't want to be secretly approached

Lex Fridman (49:25.920)

by some intelligence officer.

Lex Fridman (49:28.280)

And now anyone who talks to you,

Lex Fridman (49:29.640)

you think is a CIA saying,

Lex Fridman (49:31.360)

remember that time you applied?

Lex Fridman (49:33.240)

Oh God, yeah.

Lex Fridman (49:34.640)

Sometimes I'm like, oh shit, are you one of them?

Lex Fridman (49:37.440)

You and Joe had a bunch of conversations

Lex Fridman (49:42.120)

and they're always incredible.

Lex Fridman (49:44.840)

Thanks.

Lex Fridman (49:45.680)

So in terms of this dance of conversation,

Lex Fridman (49:47.760)

of your friendship, of when you get together,

Lex Fridman (49:51.880)

what is that world you go to that creates magic together?

Lex Fridman (49:56.800)

Because we're talking about how we do that with robots.

Lex Fridman (50:00.040)

How do these two biological robots do that?

Lex Fridman (50:02.880)

Can you introspect that?

Duncan Trussell (50:04.080)

I met Joe because I was the talent coordinator

Lex Fridman (50:08.440)

of the comedy store, this club in LA.

Lex Fridman (50:11.040)

And my job was to take phone calls from comics.

Lex Fridman (50:14.360)

And so at some point, I don't know,

Duncan Trussell (50:17.040)

I ended up on the phone with Joe

Lex Fridman (50:18.720)

and we just started talking.

Lex Fridman (50:21.280)

And I looked up and like 30 minutes had passed.

Lex Fridman (50:25.440)

We just had been talking for like 30 minutes.

Duncan Trussell (50:26.920)

That's what our friends are.

Lex Fridman (50:28.280)

We're just like, we're having fun talking.

Lex Fridman (50:29.680)

And then he would just call and we would talk.

Lex Fridman (50:32.080)

And we would basically,

Duncan Trussell (50:33.720)

I mean, it was no different from the podcast.

Lex Fridman (50:35.760)

Like the conversations we have on the podcast

Duncan Trussell (50:39.560)

are identical to the conversations we had

Lex Fridman (50:41.920)

before he was even doing a podcast.

Lex Fridman (50:44.600)

So I think people are just seeing two friends hanging out

Lex Fridman (50:51.440)

who like talking to each other.

Duncan Trussell (50:52.800)

Yeah, but there's this weird,

Lex Fridman (50:55.480)

like you serve as catalyst for each other

Duncan Trussell (50:57.960)

to go into some crazy places.

Lex Fridman (51:00.360)

So it's like, it's a balance of curiosity and willingness

Duncan Trussell (51:04.680)

to not be constrained,

Lex Fridman (51:06.960)

to not be limited to the constraints of reality.

Duncan Trussell (51:10.720)

Yeah, that's a very nice way.

Lex Fridman (51:13.160)

It's a very, very nice way of saying that.

Lex Fridman (51:15.680)

And you just like build on top of each other,

Lex Fridman (51:17.240)

like what if things are like this

Lex Fridman (51:21.000)

and you build like Lego blocks on top of each other

Lex Fridman (51:23.280)

and it just goes to crazy places,

Duncan Trussell (51:24.800)

add some drugs into that and it just goes wild.

Lex Fridman (51:27.480)

Yeah, and it's so cool because it's like,

Duncan Trussell (51:32.800)

for me, it's like sometimes maybe I'll throw something out

Lex Fridman (51:37.600)

that he will take and the Lego building blocks

Duncan Trussell (51:40.120)

you're talking about, they lead to him saying

Lex Fridman (51:41.960)

like the funniest shit I ever in my life.

Lex Fridman (51:44.080)

So that's a cool thing to watch.

Lex Fridman (51:45.720)

It's just like some idea you've been kicking around,

Duncan Trussell (51:48.080)

you watch his brain shift that

Lex Fridman (51:50.560)

into like something supremely funny.

Duncan Trussell (51:53.400)

I really love that, man.

Lex Fridman (51:54.480)

That's just like a fun thing to like see happen.

Duncan Trussell (51:57.600)

He knows that I fucking hate the videos

Lex Fridman (52:01.440)

of animals eating each other.

Duncan Trussell (52:03.080)

Like, I don't like that.

Lex Fridman (52:04.200)

I don't wanna watch it.

Duncan Trussell (52:05.720)

I hate watching it.

Lex Fridman (52:07.360)

I don't think I've even articulated on his podcast

Lex Fridman (52:10.560)

how much I dislike it when he shows animals

Lex Fridman (52:15.040)

eating each other, but he knows because he knows me.

Lex Fridman (52:18.720)

And so he tortures, like when he starts doing that,

Lex Fridman (52:21.760)

it's like this kind of benevolent torture

Duncan Trussell (52:24.200)

is he like asking Jamie to pull up

Lex Fridman (52:26.480)

increasingly disturbing animal attack videos.

Lex Fridman (52:29.360)

So it's just a friendship.

Lex Fridman (52:32.040)

Even in torture, because I'm reading about torture

Duncan Trussell (52:34.560)

in the Gulag Archipelago currently,

Lex Fridman (52:36.640)

there's a bit of a camaraderie.

Duncan Trussell (52:37.960)

You're in it together.

Lex Fridman (52:39.560)

The torturer and the tortured.

Lex Fridman (52:41.200)

What?

Lex Fridman (52:42.560)

Oh God, that's so fucked up, man.

Duncan Trussell (52:45.320)

I've never.

Lex Fridman (52:47.000)

No, I mean, part of it was joke,

Lex Fridman (52:49.160)

but as I was saying it that.

Lex Fridman (52:50.720)

You're right.

Duncan Trussell (52:51.560)

That it also comes out in the book,

Lex Fridman (52:53.720)

because they're both fucked.

Duncan Trussell (52:54.840)

They're both have no control of their fate.

Lex Fridman (53:00.760)

That same was true in the camp guards in Nazi Germany

Lex Fridman (53:05.200)

and the people in the camps.

Lex Fridman (53:07.200)

The worst was brought out in the guards,

Lex Fridman (53:12.480)

but they were all in it together in some dark way.

Lex Fridman (53:15.600)

They were both fucked by a very powerful system

Duncan Trussell (53:18.920)

that put them in that place.

Lex Fridman (53:20.440)

And both of us could be either player in that system,

Duncan Trussell (53:23.720)

which is the dark reality that Solzhenitsyn also reveals

Lex Fridman (53:28.560)

that the line between good and evil

Duncan Trussell (53:30.960)

runs through the heart of every man,

Lex Fridman (53:32.360)

as he wrote in Gulag Archipelago.

Lex Fridman (53:36.240)

But it is that amidst all of that,

Lex Fridman (53:38.400)

there's a, I don't know, the good vibes,

Duncan Trussell (53:41.400)

the positivity comes out from the both of you.

Lex Fridman (53:43.880)

And that's beautiful to see.

Duncan Trussell (53:44.920)

That is, I suppose, friendship.

Lex Fridman (53:46.680)

What do you think makes a good friend?

Duncan Trussell (53:48.960)

Oh God, I mean, it's a billion things

Lex Fridman (53:52.760)

that make a good friend,

Lex Fridman (53:53.600)

but I think you could break it down to some RGB.

Lex Fridman (53:55.960)

I think you can go RGB with like a good friendship.

Duncan Trussell (53:58.640)

Oh, in terms of the color, the red, green.

Lex Fridman (54:01.160)

Yeah, yeah, I think you could probably come up

Duncan Trussell (54:02.920)

with some like fundamental qualities of friendship.

Lex Fridman (54:05.280)

And I'd say, number one, it's love.

Duncan Trussell (54:09.240)

Like it's, friendship is love.

Lex Fridman (54:10.920)

It's a form of love.

Lex Fridman (54:13.360)

So obviously without that, I don't know how you,

Lex Fridman (54:17.440)

I mean, I'm not saying,

Duncan Trussell (54:18.320)

I think if you're true friends, you love each other.

Lex Fridman (54:20.440)

So you need that.

Lex Fridman (54:21.400)

But love, obviously it's not, that's not enough.

Lex Fridman (54:25.200)

It's like with, true friends have to be like

Duncan Trussell (54:29.640)

incredibly honest with each other.

Lex Fridman (54:31.240)

Not like, you know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (54:32.520)

But not like, I don't like,

Lex Fridman (54:35.840)

I think there's a kind of like,

Duncan Trussell (54:37.880)

I don't know if you've ever noticed,

Lex Fridman (54:38.760)

like some people who say, you know,

Duncan Trussell (54:39.800)

I just tell it like it is.

Lex Fridman (54:41.440)

But the thing they tell.

Duncan Trussell (54:42.280)

Those are always the assholes.

Lex Fridman (54:43.240)

Yeah, why is it that your tell it like it is

Lex Fridman (54:45.440)

is always negative?

Lex Fridman (54:46.720)

Why is it, it's always cynical or shitty,

Duncan Trussell (54:48.440)

or you're like negging somebody or me.

Lex Fridman (54:50.920)

How come you're not telling it like it is when it's good too?

Lex Fridman (54:53.840)

You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (54:54.680)

So sort of like trust,

Lex Fridman (54:56.800)

but a pro evolutionary kind of trust.

Lex Fridman (55:01.800)

You know what I mean?

Duncan Trussell (55:02.920)

Like, you know that your friend loves you

Lex Fridman (55:06.760)

and wants you to be yourself.

Duncan Trussell (55:09.320)

Cause if you weren't yourself,

Lex Fridman (55:10.520)

then you wouldn't be their friend.

Duncan Trussell (55:11.880)

You'd be some other thing.

Lex Fridman (55:12.940)

But also they might be seeing your blind spots

Duncan Trussell (55:17.240)

that other people in your life, your family,

Lex Fridman (55:20.060)

your wife, whoever might not be seeing.

Lex Fridman (55:23.240)

So that's a good friend is someone who like

Lex Fridman (55:25.720)

loves you enough to when it matters be like,

Lex Fridman (55:28.960)

hey, are you all right?

Lex Fridman (55:31.760)

And then help you see something you might not be seeing.

Lex Fridman (55:35.120)

But hopefully they only do that once or twice a year.

Lex Fridman (55:37.160)

You know what I'm saying?

Duncan Trussell (55:38.480)

There is something, I mean, it just would have,

Lex Fridman (55:41.940)

this world, especially if you're a public figure,

Duncan Trussell (55:44.960)

this world has its plenty of critics.

Lex Fridman (55:51.320)

And it feels like a friend,

Duncan Trussell (55:53.180)

the criticism part is already done for you.

Lex Fridman (55:59.700)

I think a good friend is just there to support,

Duncan Trussell (56:02.700)

to actually notice the good stuff.

Lex Fridman (56:05.020)

But in comedy, we need like the,

Duncan Trussell (56:08.180)

what, like it's really good in comedy

Lex Fridman (56:11.220)

to have somebody who can like be like,

Lex Fridman (56:13.340)

what do you think of that?

Lex Fridman (56:14.460)

And know that they're not gonna be like, that was funny.

Lex Fridman (56:16.380)

But that's for the craft, the craft itself,

Lex Fridman (56:18.260)

like the work you do, not the,

Duncan Trussell (56:19.900)

yeah, interesting, but that's so tough.

Lex Fridman (56:25.340)

Yeah, whatever your particular art form

Duncan Trussell (56:27.060)

or whatever you are doing,

Lex Fridman (56:28.460)

I mean, you don't always be leaning

Duncan Trussell (56:29.620)

on your friends opinions for like your own innovation,

Lex Fridman (56:32.580)

but it's nice to know that you have someone who,

Duncan Trussell (56:35.020)

not just with jokes, but with anything,

Lex Fridman (56:36.980)

if you go to them and run something by them,

Duncan Trussell (56:39.620)

they're gonna like, they're gonna be honest with you

Lex Fridman (56:42.180)

about like their real feelings regarding that thing,

Duncan Trussell (56:45.320)

because that helps you grow as a person.

Lex Fridman (56:46.940)

We need that.

Lex Fridman (56:47.940)

And it hurts sometimes, and we don't wanna hurt our friends.

Lex Fridman (56:50.900)

One of the more satanic like impulses

Duncan Trussell (56:53.500)

when you're with somebody is not wanting

Lex Fridman (56:56.180)

to honestly answer whatever they're asking in that regard

Duncan Trussell (57:00.160)

or wanting to like put their temporary feelings

Lex Fridman (57:03.020)

over something that you've recognized is maybe not great.

Duncan Trussell (57:06.740)

I'm not saying a friendship is something

Lex Fridman (57:09.540)

where you're always critiquing or evolving each other.

Duncan Trussell (57:12.140)

It's not your therapist or whatever,

Lex Fridman (57:13.620)

but it's nice when it's there, you know?

Duncan Trussell (57:15.900)

I think that's another aspect of friendship.

Lex Fridman (57:18.780)

Yeah, but yeah, love is at the core of that.

Duncan Trussell (57:20.780)

You notice, I've met people in my life

Lex Fridman (57:22.820)

where almost immediately sometimes it takes time

Duncan Trussell (57:25.260)

where you notice like there's a magic between the two.

Lex Fridman (57:27.260)

You're like, oh shit, you seem to be made

Duncan Trussell (57:29.940)

from the same cloth, whatever that is.

Lex Fridman (57:33.140)

Well, you know, we have a name for that

Duncan Trussell (57:34.540)

in the spiritual community, it's called satsang,

Lex Fridman (57:36.540)

and it's, I love the idea.

Duncan Trussell (57:38.540)

It's basically like if Nietzsche's idea

Lex Fridman (57:42.140)

of infinite recurrence is true,

Duncan Trussell (57:45.120)

then your satsang would be the people

Lex Fridman (57:47.340)

you've been infinitely recurring with.

Lex Fridman (57:50.140)

And those are the people where you run into them

Lex Fridman (57:53.300)

and you've never met them,

Lex Fridman (57:55.300)

but it's like you're picking up a conversation

Lex Fridman (57:58.020)

that you never had.

Duncan Trussell (58:00.160)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (58:01.000)

That, and that is based on an idea of like,

Duncan Trussell (58:05.520)

this isn't the only life.

Lex Fridman (58:07.300)

We're always hanging out together.

Duncan Trussell (58:08.500)

We always show up together.

Lex Fridman (58:10.100)

You've had a brush with death.

Duncan Trussell (58:12.100)

You had cancer, you survived cancer.

Lex Fridman (58:14.060)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (58:14.900)

What have, how does that change you?

Lex Fridman (58:16.460)

What have you learned about life,

Duncan Trussell (58:18.780)

about death, about yourself,

Lex Fridman (58:21.300)

about the whole thing we're going through here

Lex Fridman (58:23.300)

from that experience?

Lex Fridman (58:24.540)

You were just in the Ukraine.

Duncan Trussell (58:25.980)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (58:26.800)

And you were making observations on this,

Lex Fridman (58:30.140)

what could, if you heard about it and weren't there,

Lex Fridman (58:34.220)

seem like it doesn't make any sense at all,

Duncan Trussell (58:36.540)

which is people there are connecting,

Lex Fridman (58:40.780)

they've lost everything,

Lex Fridman (58:41.940)

but they're just happy to be alive,

Lex Fridman (58:43.340)

they're happy their friends are alive.

Lex Fridman (58:44.960)

So you witness this like,

Lex Fridman (58:46.980)

you know, when you get in the cancer club

Lex Fridman (58:48.700)

and you're hanging out with people going through cancer

Lex Fridman (58:51.860)

or who have survived cancer,

Duncan Trussell (58:54.100)

you see this beautiful connection with life

Lex Fridman (58:59.660)

that can easily sort of,

Duncan Trussell (59:01.900)

you can kind of lose that connection with life

Lex Fridman (59:04.420)

if you forget you're gonna die.

Duncan Trussell (59:05.940)

Forgetting you're gonna die is,

Lex Fridman (59:08.100)

or that you can die is not just,

Duncan Trussell (59:10.260)

I think from an evolutionary perspective

Lex Fridman (59:12.180)

where survival is the game,

Duncan Trussell (59:14.220)

not gonna improve your survival chances, you know,

Lex Fridman (59:17.340)

if you think you're immortal, you know,

Lex Fridman (59:19.860)

but also forgetting that you're gonna die

Lex Fridman (59:23.720)

and that everything is around you and everything,

Duncan Trussell (59:27.780)

your clothes are probably gonna last longer than you,

Lex Fridman (59:30.300)

your equipment is gonna be around much longer than you,

Duncan Trussell (59:32.540)

you know, like, so forgetting these things,

Lex Fridman (59:36.980)

it can lead,

Lex Fridman (59:38.700)

and I know why people don't wanna think about death

Lex Fridman (59:40.660)

because it's scary, it's fucking scary, it's terrifying.

Lex Fridman (59:44.640)

So I get why people don't wanna think about it.

Lex Fridman (59:48.340)

But the idea is if I try to pretend I'm not gonna die

Duncan Trussell (59:51.900)

or just don't think about death

Lex Fridman (59:53.540)

or don't at least address it,

Duncan Trussell (59:57.820)

then I won't feel scared.

Lex Fridman (59:59.620)

But it can have the opposite effect,