Jamie Metzl: Lab Leak Theory - Lex Fridman 知识图谱

Lex Fridman (01:21.640)

in the description.

Lex Fridman (01:22.840)

And now, here's my conversation with Jamie Metzl.

Lex Fridman (01:27.600)

What is the probability in your mind

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that COVID 19 leaked from a lab?

Lex Fridman (01:32.080)

In your write up, I believe you said 85%.

Jamie Metzl (01:35.960)

I know it's just a percentage.

Lex Fridman (01:37.720)

We can't really be exact with these kinds of things,

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but it gives us a sense where your mind is,

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where your intuition is.

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So as it stands today, what would you say is that probability?

Lex Fridman (01:46.960)

I would stand by what I've been saying

Jamie Metzl (01:48.960)

since really the middle of last year.

Lex Fridman (01:51.940)

It's more likely and not, in my opinion,

Jamie Metzl (01:55.600)

that the pandemic stems

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from an accidental lab incident in Wuhan.

Jamie Metzl (01:59.400)

Is it 90%, is it 65%, I mean, that's kind of arbitrary.

Lex Fridman (02:04.200)

But when I stack up all of the available evidence

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and all of it on both sides is circumstantial,

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it weighs very significantly toward a lab incident origin.

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So before we dive into the specifics at a high level,

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what types of evidence, what intuition, what ideas

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are leading you to have that kind of estimate?

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Is it possible to kind of condense,

Jamie Metzl (02:28.000)

when you look at the wall of evidence before you,

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where's your source, the strongest source of your intuition?

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And I would have to say it's just logic

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and deductive reasoning.

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So before I make the case for why I think

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it's most likely a lab incident origin,

Jamie Metzl (02:44.960)

let's just say why it could be,

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and still could be a natural origin.

Jamie Metzl (02:49.400)

All of this is a natural origin in the sense

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that it's a bat virus backbone, horseshoe bat virus backbone.

Jamie Metzl (02:56.960)

Okay, I'm gonna keep pausing you to define stuff.

Lex Fridman (03:00.340)

So maybe it's useful to say, what do we mean by lab leak?

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What do we mean by natural origin?

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What do we mean by virus backbone?

Jamie Metzl (03:07.760)

Okay, great questions.

Lex Fridman (03:09.760)

So viruses come from somewhere.

Jamie Metzl (03:11.400)

Viruses have been around for 3.5 billion years,

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and they've been around for such a long time

Jamie Metzl (03:17.800)

because they are adaptive and they're growing

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and they're always changing and they're morphing.

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And that's why viruses are,

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I mean, they've been very successful and we are our victims.

Jamie Metzl (03:29.480)

Sometimes we're beneficiaries.

Lex Fridman (03:30.660)

We have viral DNA has morphed into our genomes,

Lex Fridman (03:34.760)

but now it's certainly in the case of COVID 19,

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we are victims of the success of viruses.

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And so when we talk about a backbone,

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so the SARS CoV2 virus, it has a history

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and these viruses don't come out of whole cloth.

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There are viruses that morph.

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And so we know that at some period,

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maybe 20 years ago or whatever,

Jamie Metzl (04:02.000)

the virus that is SARS CoV2 existed in horseshoe bats.

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It was a horseshoe bat virus and it evolved somewhere.

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And there are some people who say,

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there's no evidence of this,

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but it's a plausible theory

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based on how things have happened in the past.

Jamie Metzl (04:21.040)

Maybe that virus jumped from the horseshoe bat

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through some intermediate species.

Lex Fridman (04:27.120)

So it's like, let's say there's a bat

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and that it infects some other animal.

Jamie Metzl (04:31.780)

Let's say it's a pig or a raccoon dog or a civet cat.

Lex Fridman (04:36.200)

They're all pangolin.

Jamie Metzl (04:37.120)

They're all sorts of animals that have been considered.

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And then that virus adapts into that new host

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and it changes and grows.

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And then according to the quote unquote

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natural origins hypothesis,

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it jumps from that animal into humans.

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And so what you could imagine

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and some of the people who are making the case,

Jamie Metzl (04:57.000)

all of the people actually,

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who are making the case for a natural origin of the virus,

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what they're saying is it went from bat

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to some intermediate species.

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And then from that intermediate species, most likely,

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there's some people who say it went directly bat to human,

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but through some intermediate species.

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And then humans interacted with that species.

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And then it jumped from that, whatever it is to humans.

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And that's a very plausible theory.

Jamie Metzl (05:21.740)

It's just that there's no evidence for it.

Lex Fridman (05:23.320)

And the nature of the interaction is,

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do most people kind of suggest this at the wet markets?

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So the interaction of the humans with the animal

Jamie Metzl (05:32.540)

is in the form of it's either a live animal

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as being sold to be eaten or a recently live animal,

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but newly dead animal being sold to be eaten.

Lex Fridman (05:41.920)

That's certainly one very possible possibility,

Jamie Metzl (05:46.100)

a possible possibility, I don't know if that's a word.

Lex Fridman (05:48.900)

But the people who believe in the wet market origin,

Jamie Metzl (05:52.000)

that's what they're saying.

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So they had one of these animals,

Jamie Metzl (05:55.400)

they were cutting it up, let's say, in a market

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and maybe some of the blood got into somebody's,

Jamie Metzl (06:01.000)

maybe had a cut on their hand or maybe it was aerosolized

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and so somebody breathed it.

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And then that virus found this new host

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and that was the human host.

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But you could also have that happen in, let's say, a farm.

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So it's happened in the past that let's say

Jamie Metzl (06:17.880)

that there are farms and because of human encroachment

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into wild spaces, we're pushing our farms

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and our animal farms further and further

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into what used to be just natural habitats.

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And so it's happened in the past, for example,

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that there were bats roosting over pig pens

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and the bat droppings went into the pig pens.

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The viruses in those droppings infected the pigs

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and then the pigs infected the humans.

Lex Fridman (06:45.960)

And that's why it's a plausible theory.

Jamie Metzl (06:48.520)

It's just that there's basically no evidence for it.

Lex Fridman (06:51.980)

If it was the case that SARS CoV2 comes from this type

Jamie Metzl (06:56.660)

of interaction, as in most of the at least recent

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past outbreaks, we'd see evidence of that.

Jamie Metzl (07:03.160)

Viruses are messy.

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They're constantly undergoing Darwinian evolution

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and they're changing and it's not that they're just ready

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for prime time, ready to infect humans on day one.

Jamie Metzl (07:13.800)

Normally you can trace the viral evolution prior

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to the time when it infects humans.

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But for SARS CoV2, it just showed up on the scene

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ready to infect humans.

Lex Fridman (07:26.740)

And there's no history that anybody has found so far

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of that kind of viral evolution.

Jamie Metzl (07:33.040)

With the first SARS, you could track it

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by the genome sequencing that it was experimenting.

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And SARS CoV2 was very, very stable,

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meaning it had already adapted to humans

Jamie Metzl (07:47.540)

by the time it interacted with us.

Lex Fridman (07:49.760)

It's fully adapted.

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So with SARS, there's a rapid evolution

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when it first kind of hooks onto a human.

Jamie Metzl (07:58.520)

Yeah, because it's trying.

Lex Fridman (07:59.680)

Like a virus, its goal is to survive and replicate.

Jamie Metzl (08:02.440)

Yeah, no, it's true.

Lex Fridman (08:03.280)

It's like, oh, we're gonna try this.

Jamie Metzl (08:04.400)

Oh, that didn't work.

Lex Fridman (08:05.240)

We'll try it exactly like a startup.

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And so we don't see that.

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And so there are some people who say,

Jamie Metzl (08:11.960)

well, one hypothesis is you have a totally isolated

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group of humans, maybe in Southern China,

Jamie Metzl (08:18.880)

which is more than a thousand miles away from Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (08:22.860)

And maybe they're doing their animal farming

Jamie Metzl (08:26.840)

right next to these areas where there are these horseshoe bats.

Lex Fridman (08:31.920)

And maybe in this totally isolated place

Jamie Metzl (08:34.600)

that no one's ever heard of,

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they're not connected to any other place,

Jamie Metzl (08:37.860)

one person gets infected.

Lex Fridman (08:40.760)

And it doesn't spread to anybody else

Jamie Metzl (08:42.400)

because they're so isolated.

Lex Fridman (08:44.080)

They're like, I don't know.

Jamie Metzl (08:45.720)

I can't even imagine that this is the case.

Lex Fridman (08:48.120)

Then somebody gets in a car and drives all night,

Jamie Metzl (08:52.560)

more than a thousand miles through crappy roads

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to get to Wuhan, doesn't stop for anything,

Jamie Metzl (08:57.560)

doesn't infect anybody on the way.

Lex Fridman (08:59.120)

No one else in that person's village infects anyone.

Lex Fridman (09:01.880)

And then that person goes straight

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to the Huanan seafood market,

Jamie Metzl (09:05.720)

according to this, in my mind, not very credible theory,

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and then unloads his stuff and everybody gets infected.

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And they're only delivering those animals

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to the Wuhan market, which doesn't even sell very many

Jamie Metzl (09:18.800)

of these kinds of animals

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that are likely intermediate species and not anywhere else.

Lex Fridman (09:23.120)

So that's, I mean, it's a little bit of a straw man,

Lex Fridman (09:26.880)

but on top of that, the Chinese have sequenced

Jamie Metzl (09:29.200)

more than 80,000 animal samples,

Lex Fridman (09:32.420)

and there's no evidence of this type of viral evolution

Jamie Metzl (09:36.280)

that we would otherwise expect.

Lex Fridman (09:37.400)

Let's try to, at this moment, steel man the argument

Jamie Metzl (09:43.920)

for the natural origin of the virus.

Lex Fridman (09:46.400)

So just to clarify, so Wuhan is actually,

Jamie Metzl (09:50.240)

despite what it might sound like to people,

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is a pretty big city.

Jamie Metzl (09:53.920)

There's a lot of people that live in it.

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11 million.

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So not only is there, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

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there's other centers that do work on viruses,

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but there's also a giant number of markets.

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And everything we're talking about here

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is pretty close together.

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So when I kind of look at the geography of this,

Jamie Metzl (10:13.640)

I think when you zoom out, it's all Wuhan,

Lex Fridman (10:16.000)

but when you zoom in,

Jamie Metzl (10:17.280)

there's just a lot of interesting dynamics

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that could be happening and what the cases are popping up

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and what's being reported, all that kind of stuff.

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So I think the people that argue for the natural origin,

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and there's a few recent papers

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that come out arguing this,

Jamie Metzl (10:33.880)

it's kind of fascinating to watch this whole thing,

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but I think what they're arguing

Jamie Metzl (10:36.920)

is that there's this Hunan market

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that's one of the major markets, the wet markets in Wuhan,

Jamie Metzl (10:45.420)

that there's a bunch of cases

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that were reported from there.

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So if I look at, for example,

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the Michael Warby perspective that he wrote in Science,

Jamie Metzl (10:58.980)

he argues, he wrote this a few days ago,

Lex Fridman (11:01.940)

the predominance of early COVID cases linked to Hunan market,

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and this can't be dismissed as ascertainment bias,

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which I think is what people argue,

Jamie Metzl (11:11.120)

that you're just kind of focusing on this region

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because a lot of cases came,

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but there could be a huge number of other cases.

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So people who argue against this

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say that this is a later stage already.

Lex Fridman (11:24.880)

So he says no, he says this is the epicenter,

Lex Fridman (11:29.760)

and this is a clear evidence, circumstantial evidence,

Lex Fridman (11:36.500)

but evidence nevertheless

Jamie Metzl (11:37.920)

that this is where the jump happened to humans,

Lex Fridman (11:42.320)

the big explosion, maybe not case zero,

Jamie Metzl (11:44.720)

I don't know if he argues that, but the early cases.

Lex Fridman (11:47.400)

So what do you make of this whole idea?

Lex Fridman (11:49.160)

Can you steel man it before we talk about the alternative?

Lex Fridman (11:52.480)

And my goal here isn't to attack people on the other side,

Lex Fridman (11:56.160)

and my feeling is if there is evidence that's presented

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that should change my view,

Jamie Metzl (12:02.840)

I hope that I'll be open minded enough to change my view.

Lex Fridman (12:06.520)

And certainly Michael Warby is a thoughtful person,

Jamie Metzl (12:09.400)

a respected scientist,

Lex Fridman (12:11.200)

and I think this work is contributive work,

Lex Fridman (12:14.080)

but I just don't think that it's as significant

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as has been reported in the press.

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And so what his argument is,

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is that there is an early cluster in December of 2019

Jamie Metzl (12:30.420)

around the Huanan seafood market.

Lex Fridman (12:33.360)

And even though he himself argues

Jamie Metzl (12:36.400)

that the original breakthrough case,

Lex Fridman (12:39.560)

the original case, the index case

Jamie Metzl (12:41.520)

where the first person infected happened earlier,

Lex Fridman (12:46.160)

happened in October or November, so not in December.

Jamie Metzl (12:49.800)

His argument is, well, what are the odds

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that you would have this number, this cluster of cases

Jamie Metzl (12:56.480)

in the Huanan seafood market,

Lex Fridman (12:58.080)

and if the origin happened someplace else,

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wouldn't you expect other clusters?

Lex Fridman (13:03.280)

And it's not an entirely implausible argument,

Lex Fridman (13:06.160)

but there are reasons why I think

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that this is not nearly as determinative

Jamie Metzl (13:11.400)

as has been reported.

Lex Fridman (13:12.800)

And I certainly had a lot of,

Jamie Metzl (13:14.240)

I and others had tweeted a lot about this.

Lex Fridman (13:17.640)

And that is first, the people who were infected

Jamie Metzl (13:21.600)

in this cluster, it's not the earliest known virus

Lex Fridman (13:26.520)

of the SARS CoV2, it began mutating.

Lex Fridman (13:28.560)

So this is, it's not the original SARS CoV2 there.

Lex Fridman (13:31.840)

So it had to have happened someplace else.

Jamie Metzl (13:34.640)

Two, the people who were infected in the market

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weren't infected in the part of the market

Jamie Metzl (13:41.520)

where they had these kinds of animals

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that are considered to be candidates

Jamie Metzl (13:46.240)

as an intermediary species.

Lex Fridman (13:49.440)

And third, there was a bias,

Lex Fridman (13:51.760)

and actually I'll have four things.

Lex Fridman (13:53.160)

Third, there was a bias in the early assessment in China

Jamie Metzl (13:58.200)

of what they were looking for.

Lex Fridman (13:59.720)

They were asked, did you have exposure to the market?

Jamie Metzl (14:02.320)

Because I think in the early days

Lex Fridman (14:03.360)

when people were figuring things out,

Jamie Metzl (14:05.120)

that was one of the questions that was asked.

Lex Fridman (14:08.720)

And fourth, and probably most significantly,

Jamie Metzl (14:11.480)

we have so little information

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about those early cases in China,

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and that's really unfortunate.

Lex Fridman (14:18.520)

I know we'll talk about this later

Jamie Metzl (14:19.760)

because the Chinese government is preventing access

Lex Fridman (14:23.000)

to all of that information, which they have,

Jamie Metzl (14:26.080)

which could easily help us get to the bottom,

Lex Fridman (14:28.880)

at least know a ton more about how this pandemic started.

Lex Fridman (14:31.840)

And so this is, it's like grasping at straws

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in the dark with gloves on.

Jamie Metzl (14:38.440)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (14:39.660)

But to steel man the argument,

Jamie Metzl (14:41.720)

we have this evidence from this market,

Lex Fridman (14:45.040)

and yes, the Chinese government

Jamie Metzl (14:47.000)

has turned off the lights essentially,

Lex Fridman (14:48.960)

so we have very little data to work with,

Lex Fridman (14:51.320)

but this is the data we have.

Lex Fridman (14:53.440)

So who's to say that this data

Jamie Metzl (14:55.560)

doesn't represent a much bigger data set

Lex Fridman (14:58.880)

that a lot of people got infected at this market

Jamie Metzl (15:01.560)

where even at the parts, or especially at the parts

Lex Fridman (15:04.960)

where the infected meat was being sold?

Lex Fridman (15:09.160)

So that could be true, and it probably is true.

Lex Fridman (15:13.640)

The question is, is this the source?

Lex Fridman (15:16.840)

Is this the place where this began?

Lex Fridman (15:18.740)

Or was this just a place where it was amplified?

Lex Fridman (15:22.000)

And I certainly think that it's extremely likely

Lex Fridman (15:26.640)

that the Huanan seafood market was a point of amplification.

Lex Fridman (15:31.240)

And it's just answering a different question.

Lex Fridman (15:33.000)

Basically what you're saying is it's very difficult

Jamie Metzl (15:35.320)

to use the market as evidence for anything

Lex Fridman (15:38.200)

because it's probably not even the starting point.

Lex Fridman (15:42.720)

So it's just a good place for it to continue spreading.

Lex Fridman (15:45.800)

That's certainly my view.

Lex Fridman (15:47.560)

What Michael Warby's argument is, Marco, is that,

Lex Fridman (15:51.840)

well, what are the odds of that?

Jamie Metzl (15:53.140)

That we're seeing this amplification in the market.

Lex Fridman (15:57.000)

And if we, let me put it this way.

Jamie Metzl (16:00.240)

If we had all of the information,

Lex Fridman (16:02.520)

if the Chinese government hadn't blocked access

Jamie Metzl (16:06.000)

to all of this, because there's blood bank information,

Lex Fridman (16:08.480)

there's all sorts of information,

Lex Fridman (16:10.600)

and based on a full and complete understanding,

Lex Fridman (16:14.980)

we came to believe that all of the early cases

Jamie Metzl (16:18.360)

were at this market.

Lex Fridman (16:19.500)

I think that would be a stronger argument

Jamie Metzl (16:22.280)

than what this is so far.

Lex Fridman (16:23.980)

But everything leads to the fact that why is it

Jamie Metzl (16:26.720)

that the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (16:28.640)

which was, frankly, after a slow start,

Jamie Metzl (16:31.240)

the gold standard of doing viral tracking for SARS 1,

Lex Fridman (16:36.720)

why have they apparently done so little

Lex Fridman (16:39.840)

and shared so little?

Lex Fridman (16:41.140)

I think it asks, it begs a lot of questions.

Jamie Metzl (16:45.040)

Okay, so let's then talk about the Chinese government.

Lex Fridman (16:50.220)

There's several governments, right?

Lex Fridman (16:51.960)

So one is the local government of Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (16:55.560)

And not just the Chinese government.

Jamie Metzl (16:56.720)

Let's talk about government.

Lex Fridman (16:59.040)

No, let's talk about human nature.

Jamie Metzl (17:02.160)

Let's just keep zooming out.

Lex Fridman (17:03.480)

Let's talk about planet Earth.

Jamie Metzl (17:04.920)

No, so there's the Wuhan local government.

Lex Fridman (17:08.440)

There's the Chinese government led by Xi Jinping.

Lex Fridman (17:13.840)

And there's governments in general.

Lex Fridman (17:16.480)

I'm trying to empathize.

Lex Fridman (17:18.080)

So my father was involved with Chernobyl.

Lex Fridman (17:21.440)

I'm trying to put myself into the mind of local officials,

Jamie Metzl (17:25.680)

of people who are like,

Lex Fridman (17:27.120)

oh shit, there's a potential catastrophic event

Jamie Metzl (17:32.280)

happening here and it's my ass

Lex Fridman (17:36.320)

because there's incompetence all over the place.

Jamie Metzl (17:39.600)

Yeah, human nature is such that there's incompetence

Lex Fridman (17:41.600)

all over the place and you're always trying to cover it up.

Lex Fridman (17:44.600)

And so given that context,

Lex Fridman (17:48.320)

I want to lay out all the possible incompetence,

Jamie Metzl (17:52.720)

all the possible malevolence,

Lex Fridman (17:54.980)

all the possible geopolitical tensions here.

Lex Fridman (18:01.280)

All right, where in your sense did the coverup start?

Lex Fridman (18:06.400)

So there's this suspicious fact,

Jamie Metzl (18:13.280)

it seems like that the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (18:16.720)

had a public database of thousands

Jamie Metzl (18:19.200)

of sampled bad coronavirus sequences

Lex Fridman (18:22.640)

and that went offline in September of 2019.

Lex Fridman (18:26.320)

What's that about?

Lex Fridman (18:28.220)

So let me talk about that specific

Lex Fridman (18:30.560)

and then I'll also follow your path of zooming out

Lex Fridman (18:33.600)

and it's a really important.

Lex Fridman (18:34.560)

Is that a good starting point?

Lex Fridman (18:35.400)

It's a great starting point, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (18:37.080)

So but there's a bigger story

Lex Fridman (18:40.440)

but let me talk about that.

Lex Fridman (18:42.560)

So the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (18:46.500)

and we can go into the whole history

Jamie Metzl (18:48.080)

of the Wuhan Institute of Virology either now or later

Lex Fridman (18:50.360)

because I think it's very relevant to the story

Lex Fridman (18:52.220)

but let's focus for now on this database.

Lex Fridman (18:55.440)

They had a database of 22,000 viral samples

Lex Fridman (19:00.400)

and sequence information about viruses

Lex Fridman (19:02.840)

that they had collected.

Jamie Metzl (19:05.080)

Some of which, the collection of some of which

Lex Fridman (19:07.660)

was supported through funding from the NIH,

Jamie Metzl (19:10.400)

not a huge NIH through the EcoHealth Alliance.

Lex Fridman (19:12.800)

It's a relatively small amount, $600,000 but not nothing.

Jamie Metzl (19:18.080)

The goal of this database

Lex Fridman (19:20.880)

was so that we could understand viral evolution

Lex Fridman (19:24.400)

so that exactly for this kind of moment

Lex Fridman (19:27.360)

where we had an unknown virus,

Jamie Metzl (19:29.680)

we could say, well, is this like anything

Lex Fridman (19:31.960)

that we've seen before?

Lex Fridman (19:33.440)

And that would help us both understand what we're facing

Lex Fridman (19:35.880)

and be better able to respond.

Lex Fridman (19:39.420)

So this was a password protected public access database.

Lex Fridman (19:45.060)

In 2019, in September 2019,

Jamie Metzl (19:50.060)

it became inaccessible and then the whole,

Lex Fridman (19:52.620)

a few months later, the entire database disappeared.

Lex Fridman (19:55.900)

What the Chinese have said is that because there were

Lex Fridman (1:00:00.120)

But first, as Nietzsche said, let us look into the abyss

Lex Fridman (1:00:04.040)

and the games we'll play with monsters.

Lex Fridman (1:00:06.040)

That is colloquially called gain of function research.

Jamie Metzl (1:00:12.240)

Let me ask the kind of political sounding question,

Lex Fridman (1:00:14.680)

which is how people usually phrase it.

Jamie Metzl (1:00:16.840)

Did Anthony Fauci fund gain of function research

Lex Fridman (1:00:24.120)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Lex Fridman (1:00:26.800)

So it depends.

Lex Fridman (1:00:27.800)

I mean, I've obviously been very closely monitoring this.

Jamie Metzl (1:00:31.560)

I've spoken a lot about it.

Lex Fridman (1:00:32.800)

I've written about it.

Lex Fridman (1:00:34.680)

And it depends on, I mean, not to quote Bill Clinton,

Lex Fridman (1:00:37.800)

but to quote Bill Clinton, it depends on what

Jamie Metzl (1:00:39.920)

the definition of is is.

Lex Fridman (1:00:41.800)

And so if you use a common sense definition of gain of function,

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.640)

and by gain of function, there are lots of things

Lex Fridman (1:00:48.680)

like gene therapies that are gain of function.

Lex Fridman (1:00:50.640)

But here, what we mean is gain of function

Lex Fridman (1:00:52.680)

for pathogens potentially able to create human pandemics.

Lex Fridman (1:01:00.280)

But if you use the kind of common sense language,

Lex Fridman (1:01:04.040)

well, then he probably did.

Jamie Metzl (1:01:05.640)

If you use the technical language from a 2017 NIH

Lex Fridman (1:01:10.680)

document, and you read that language very narrowly,

Jamie Metzl (1:01:14.880)

I think you can make a credible argument that he did not.

Lex Fridman (1:01:19.400)

There's a question, though, and Francis Collins

Jamie Metzl (1:01:22.800)

talked about that in his interview with you.

Lex Fridman (1:01:25.640)

But then there's a question that we know from now

Jamie Metzl (1:01:28.760)

that we have the information of the reports submitted

Lex Fridman (1:01:31.760)

by EcoHealth Alliance to the NIH, and some of which

Jamie Metzl (1:01:36.320)

were late or not even delivered, that some of this research

Lex Fridman (1:01:40.440)

was done on MERS, Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome virus.

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.920)

And if that was the case, there is, I think,

Lex Fridman (1:01:49.160)

a colorable argument that that would be considered

Jamie Metzl (1:01:53.640)

gain of function research even by the narrow language

Lex Fridman (1:01:58.040)

of that 2017 document.

Lex Fridman (1:01:59.360)

But I definitely think, and I've said this repeatedly,

Lex Fridman (1:02:02.960)

that Rand Paul can be right, and Tony Fauci can be right.

Lex Fridman (1:02:08.080)

And the question is, how are we defining gain of function?

Lex Fridman (1:02:12.120)

And that's why I've always said the question in my mind

Jamie Metzl (1:02:14.480)

isn't, was it or wasn't it gain of function,

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.680)

as if that's like a binary thing, if not, grade,

Lex Fridman (1:02:22.280)

and if yes, guilty.

Lex Fridman (1:02:23.960)

The question is just, what work was being done at the Wuhan

Lex Fridman (1:02:27.200)

Institute of Virology?

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.760)

What role, if any, did US government funding

Lex Fridman (1:02:33.480)

play in supporting that work?

Lex Fridman (1:02:36.920)

And what rights do we all have as human beings

Lex Fridman (1:02:41.320)

and as American citizens and taxpayers

Lex Fridman (1:02:43.680)

to get all of the relevant information about that?

Lex Fridman (1:02:47.120)

So let's try to kind of dissect this.

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.200)

So who frustrates you more, Rand Paul or Anthony

Lex Fridman (1:02:55.160)

Fauci in his discussion or the discussion itself?

Lex Fridman (1:02:57.720)

So for example, gain of function is

Jamie Metzl (1:03:00.760)

a term that's kind of more used just

Lex Fridman (1:03:06.600)

to mean playing with viruses in the lab

Jamie Metzl (1:03:11.640)

to try to develop more dangerous viruses.

Lex Fridman (1:03:16.240)

Is this kind of research a good idea?

Jamie Metzl (1:03:22.200)

Is it also a good idea for us to talk about it in public,

Lex Fridman (1:03:26.840)

in the political way that it's been talked about?

Jamie Metzl (1:03:29.920)

Is it OK that US may have funded gain of function research

Lex Fridman (1:03:38.000)

elsewhere?

Jamie Metzl (1:03:39.040)

I mean, it's kind of assumed, just like with Bill Clinton,

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.600)

there was very little discussion of, I think,

Jamie Metzl (1:03:46.760)

correct me if I'm wrong, but whether it's

Lex Fridman (1:03:49.680)

OK for a president, male or female,

Jamie Metzl (1:03:54.120)

to have extramarital sex or is it

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.760)

OK for a president to have extramarital sex

Lex Fridman (1:04:04.000)

with people on his staff or her staff?

Lex Fridman (1:04:08.920)

It was more the discussion of lying, I think.

Lex Fridman (1:04:12.320)

It was, did you lie about having sex or not?

Lex Fridman (1:04:16.240)

And in this gain of function discussion,

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.360)

what frustrates me personally is there's not

Lex Fridman (1:04:21.240)

a deep philosophical discussion about whether we

Jamie Metzl (1:04:23.720)

should be doing this kind of research

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.760)

and what are the ethical lines, research on animals at all.

Jamie Metzl (1:04:32.360)

Those are fascinating questions.

Lex Fridman (1:04:33.640)

Instead, it's a gotcha thing.

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.480)

Did you or did you not fund research on gain of function?

Lex Fridman (1:04:40.440)

And did you fund, it's almost like a bioweapon.

Jamie Metzl (1:04:43.720)

Did you give money to China to develop this bioweapon that

Lex Fridman (1:04:47.920)

now attacked the rest of the world?

Lex Fridman (1:04:49.760)

So I mean, all those things are pretty frustrating,

Lex Fridman (1:04:52.800)

but is there, I think, the thing you

Jamie Metzl (1:04:56.000)

can untangle about Anthony Fauci and gain of function

Lex Fridman (1:04:59.160)

research in the United States and the EcoHealth Alliance

Lex Fridman (1:05:01.720)

and Wuhan Institute of Virology that's clarifying.

Lex Fridman (1:05:07.440)

What were the mistakes made?

Jamie Metzl (1:05:08.800)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (1:05:09.280)

So on gain of function, there actually

Jamie Metzl (1:05:11.600)

has been a lot of debate.

Lex Fridman (1:05:14.360)

I mentioned before in 2011, these first papers,

Jamie Metzl (1:05:18.000)

there was a big debate.

Lex Fridman (1:05:20.120)

Mark Lipsitch, who's formerly at Harvard now

Jamie Metzl (1:05:22.640)

with the US government working in the president's office,

Lex Fridman (1:05:26.960)

he led a thing called the Cambridge Group that

Jamie Metzl (1:05:29.840)

was highly critical of this work,

Lex Fridman (1:05:32.600)

basically saying we're creating monsters.

Jamie Metzl (1:05:35.720)

They had the funding pause in 2014.

Lex Fridman (1:05:39.200)

They spent three years putting together a framework,

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.720)

and then they lifted it in 2017.

Lex Fridman (1:05:45.280)

So we had a thoughtful conversation.

Jamie Metzl (1:05:47.200)

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Lex Fridman (1:05:48.760)

And I think that's where we are now.

Lex Fridman (1:05:50.880)

So I absolutely think that there are real issues

Lex Fridman (1:05:54.880)

with the relationship between the United States government

Lex Fridman (1:05:58.600)

and EcoHealth Alliance, and through that,

Lex Fridman (1:06:01.600)

the EcoHealth Alliance with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.280)

And one issue is just essential transparency,

Lex Fridman (1:06:08.240)

because as I see it, it's most likely the case

Jamie Metzl (1:06:10.960)

that we transferred a lot of our knowledge and plans and things

Lex Fridman (1:06:14.440)

to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.640)

And again, I'm sure that Xiaojiang Li is not herself

Lex Fridman (1:06:22.120)

a monster.

Jamie Metzl (1:06:23.000)

I'm sure of that, even though I've never met her.

Lex Fridman (1:06:26.160)

But there are just a different set of pressures

Jamie Metzl (1:06:29.080)

on people working in an authoritarian system

Lex Fridman (1:06:31.360)

than people who are working in other systems.

Jamie Metzl (1:06:33.360)

That doesn't mean it's entirely different.

Lex Fridman (1:06:36.480)

And so I absolutely think that we shouldn't give $1

Jamie Metzl (1:06:40.640)

to an organization, and certainly a virology institute,

Lex Fridman (1:06:44.000)

where you don't have full access to their records,

Jamie Metzl (1:06:47.800)

to their databases.

Lex Fridman (1:06:49.000)

We don't know what work is happening there.

Lex Fridman (1:06:52.480)

And I think that we need to have that kind of full examination.

Lex Fridman (1:06:57.360)

So I understand what Dr. Fauci is doing is saying,

Jamie Metzl (1:07:01.440)

hey, what I hear Dr. Fauci saying,

Lex Fridman (1:07:03.120)

what I hear from you, Rand Paul, is

Jamie Metzl (1:07:05.160)

you're accusing me of starting this pandemic.

Lex Fridman (1:07:08.760)

And you're using gain of function as a proxy for that.

Lex Fridman (1:07:11.400)

And we have, when there are Senate hearings,

Lex Fridman (1:07:13.320)

every senator gets five minutes.

Lex Fridman (1:07:15.280)

And the name of the game is to translate your five minutes

Lex Fridman (1:07:18.520)

into a clip that's going to run on the news.

Lex Fridman (1:07:22.080)

And so I get that there is that kind of gotcha.

Lex Fridman (1:07:25.920)

But I also think that Dr. Fauci and the National

Jamie Metzl (1:07:31.720)

Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the NIH

Lex Fridman (1:07:35.160)

should have been more transparent.

Jamie Metzl (1:07:37.080)

Because I think that in this day and age, where

Lex Fridman (1:07:41.160)

there are a lot of people poking around

Lex Fridman (1:07:42.880)

and this whole story of COVID origins,

Lex Fridman (1:07:45.320)

we would not be where we are if it

Jamie Metzl (1:07:47.720)

wasn't for a relatively small number of people.

Lex Fridman (1:07:51.080)

And I'm part of, there are two, as I know, two groups.

Jamie Metzl (1:07:54.720)

One is these internet sleuths known as Drastic.

Lex Fridman (1:07:57.960)

And a number of them are part of a group

Jamie Metzl (1:08:00.520)

that I'm part of called, it's not our official name,

Lex Fridman (1:08:03.160)

but called the Paris Group.

Jamie Metzl (1:08:04.280)

It's about two dozen experts around the world,

Lex Fridman (1:08:08.400)

but centered around some very high level French academics.

Lex Fridman (1:08:13.320)

So we've all been digging and meeting with each other

Lex Fridman (1:08:16.600)

regularly since last year.

Lex Fridman (1:08:19.520)

And our governments across the board, certainly China,

Lex Fridman (1:08:22.200)

but including the United States, haven't

Jamie Metzl (1:08:23.880)

been as transparent as they need to be.

Lex Fridman (1:08:27.320)

So definitely mistakes were made on all sides.

Lex Fridman (1:08:31.400)

And that's why for me from day one,

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.640)

I've been calling for a comprehensive investigation

Jamie Metzl (1:08:37.040)

into this issue that certainly obviously looks at China,

Lex Fridman (1:08:40.760)

but we have to look at ourselves.

Jamie Metzl (1:08:41.880)

We did not get this right.

Lex Fridman (1:08:43.440)

So do you, I'm just gonna put Rand Paul aside here.

Jamie Metzl (1:08:50.400)

Politician playing political games, it's very frustrating,

Lex Fridman (1:08:53.280)

but it is what it is on all sides.

Jamie Metzl (1:08:56.400)

Anthony Fauci, you think should have been more transparent

Lex Fridman (1:08:59.960)

and maybe more eloquent in expressing the complexity

Jamie Metzl (1:09:10.000)

of all of this, the uncertainty in all of this.

Lex Fridman (1:09:12.760)

Yeah, and I get that it's really hard to do that

Jamie Metzl (1:09:16.520)

because let's say you have one, you speak a paragraph

Lex Fridman (1:09:21.160)

and it's got four sentences.

Lex Fridman (1:09:23.120)

And one of those sentences is the thing

Lex Fridman (1:09:25.720)

that's going to be turned into Twitter.

Jamie Metzl (1:09:27.080)

All right, let me put it back.

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.280)

I get really, so I'll try not to be emotional about this,

Lex Fridman (1:09:32.480)

but I've heard Anthony Fauci a couple of times now

Lex Fridman (1:09:39.800)

say that he represents science.

Jamie Metzl (1:09:43.680)

I know what he means by that.

Lex Fridman (1:09:45.560)

He means in this political bickering,

Jamie Metzl (1:09:48.920)

all that kind of stuff that for a lot of people,

Lex Fridman (1:09:52.120)

he represents science, but words matter.

Lex Fridman (1:09:56.440)

And this isn't just clips.

Lex Fridman (1:09:58.600)

I mean, maybe I'm distinctly aware of that

Jamie Metzl (1:10:00.400)

doing this podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:10:01.880)

Yeah, I talked for hundreds of hours now,

Jamie Metzl (1:10:05.120)

maybe over a thousand hours,

Lex Fridman (1:10:07.200)

but I'm still careful with the words.

Jamie Metzl (1:10:11.520)

I'm trying not to be an asshole

Lex Fridman (1:10:13.160)

and I'm aware when I'm an asshole

Lex Fridman (1:10:14.840)

and I'll apologize for it.

Lex Fridman (1:10:17.640)

If the words I represent science left my mouth,

Jamie Metzl (1:10:21.360)

which they very well could,

Lex Fridman (1:10:23.680)

I would sure as hell be apologizing for it

Lex Fridman (1:10:26.040)

and not because I got in trouble,

Lex Fridman (1:10:29.120)

I would just feel bad about saying something like that.

Lex Fridman (1:10:31.480)

And even that little phrase, I represent science.

Lex Fridman (1:10:36.160)

No, Dr. Fauci, you do not represent science.

Jamie Metzl (1:10:39.120)

I love science, the millions of scientists

Lex Fridman (1:10:42.480)

that inspired me to get into it.

Jamie Metzl (1:10:45.160)

To fall in love with the scientific method

Lex Fridman (1:10:48.080)

in the exploration of ideas through the rigor of science,

Jamie Metzl (1:10:53.080)

that Anthony Fauci does not represent.

Lex Fridman (1:10:55.520)

He's one, I believe, great scientist of millions.

Jamie Metzl (1:10:59.880)

He does not represent anybody.

Lex Fridman (1:11:02.600)

He's just one scientist.

Lex Fridman (1:11:04.080)

And I think the greatness of a scientist

Lex Fridman (1:11:07.160)

is best exemplified in humility

Jamie Metzl (1:11:10.320)

because the scientific method basically says,

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.960)

you're standing before the fog, the mystery of it all,

Lex Fridman (1:11:19.200)

and slowly chipping away at the mystery.

Lex Fridman (1:11:22.640)

And it's embarrassing, it's humiliating

Lex Fridman (1:11:27.000)

how little you know, that's the experience.

Lex Fridman (1:11:29.360)

So the great scientists have to have humility to me.

Lex Fridman (1:11:33.000)

And especially in their communication,

Lex Fridman (1:11:34.880)

they have to have humility.

Lex Fridman (1:11:36.200)

And I mean, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:11:37.600)

and some of it is also words matter

Jamie Metzl (1:11:39.560)

because great leaders have to have the poetry of action.

Lex Fridman (1:11:45.640)

They have to be bold and inspire action

Jamie Metzl (1:11:49.640)

across millions of people.

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.720)

But you also have to, through that poetry of words,

Jamie Metzl (1:11:58.920)

express the complexity of the uncertainty

Lex Fridman (1:12:02.800)

you're operating under.

Jamie Metzl (1:12:04.280)

Be humble in the face of not being able

Lex Fridman (1:12:06.680)

to predict the future or understand the past,

Jamie Metzl (1:12:09.640)

or really know what's the right thing to do,

Lex Fridman (1:12:11.600)

but we have to do something.

Lex Fridman (1:12:13.320)

And through that, you have to be a great leader

Lex Fridman (1:12:16.680)

that inspires action.

Lex Fridman (1:12:17.960)

And some of that is just words.

Lex Fridman (1:12:20.120)

And he chose words poorly.

Jamie Metzl (1:12:22.000)

I mean, so I'm all torn about this.

Lex Fridman (1:12:25.440)

And then there's politicians, they're taking those words

Lex Fridman (1:12:28.200)

and magnifying them and playing games with them.

Lex Fridman (1:12:31.680)

And of course, that's a disincentive

Jamie Metzl (1:12:34.360)

for the people who do, the scientific leaders

Lex Fridman (1:12:37.760)

that step into the limelight to say any more words.

Lex Fridman (1:12:41.640)

So they kind of become more conservative

Lex Fridman (1:12:43.520)

with the words they use.

Jamie Metzl (1:12:45.360)

I mean, it just becomes a giant mess.

Lex Fridman (1:12:47.080)

But I think the solution is to ignore all of that

Lex Fridman (1:12:52.320)

and to be transparent, to be honest, to be vulnerable.

Lex Fridman (1:12:56.800)

And to express the full uncertainty

Jamie Metzl (1:13:01.600)

of what you're operating under,

Lex Fridman (1:13:03.600)

to present all the possible actions

Lex Fridman (1:13:05.880)

and to be honest about the mistakes they made in the past.

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.360)

I mean, there's something, even if you're not

Jamie Metzl (1:13:10.340)

directly responsible for those mistakes,

Lex Fridman (1:13:13.000)

taking responsibility for them is a way to win people over.

Jamie Metzl (1:13:18.020)

I don't think leaders realize this often

Lex Fridman (1:13:20.360)

in the modern age, in the internet age.

Jamie Metzl (1:13:23.200)

They can see through your bullshit.

Lex Fridman (1:13:24.920)

And it's really inspiring when you take ownership.

Lex Fridman (1:13:29.160)

So to do the thought experiment in public,

Lex Fridman (1:13:32.680)

do a thought experiment if there was a lab leak

Lex Fridman (1:13:35.320)

and then lay out all the funding, the EcoHealth Alliance,

Lex Fridman (1:13:38.960)

all the incredible science going on at the Wuhan Institute

Jamie Metzl (1:13:43.600)

of Virology and the NIH.

Lex Fridman (1:13:46.380)

Lay out all the possible ethical problems.

Jamie Metzl (1:13:48.480)

Lay out all the possible mistakes that could have been made

Lex Fridman (1:13:53.600)

and say like, this could have happened.

Lex Fridman (1:13:56.160)

And if this happened, here's the best way to respond to it

Lex Fridman (1:13:59.520)

and to prevent it in the future.

Lex Fridman (1:14:00.880)

And just lay all that complexity out.

Lex Fridman (1:14:02.880)

I wish we would have seen that.

Lex Fridman (1:14:06.040)

And I have hope that this conversation,

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.400)

conversations like it, your work,

Lex Fridman (1:14:11.800)

and books on this topic will inspire young people today

Lex Fridman (1:14:15.840)

when they become in the Anthony Fauci's role

Jamie Metzl (1:14:19.760)

to be much more transparent and much more humble

Lex Fridman (1:14:22.200)

and all those kinds of things.

Jamie Metzl (1:14:23.620)

That this is just a relic of the past

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.120)

when there's a person, no offense to me,

Jamie Metzl (1:14:28.000)

in a suit that has to stand up and speak

Lex Fridman (1:14:31.200)

with clarity and certainty.

Jamie Metzl (1:14:33.000)

I mean, that's just a relic of the past.

Lex Fridman (1:14:34.720)

Is my hope.

Jamie Metzl (1:14:39.360)

But...

Lex Fridman (1:14:40.200)

Do you mind if I...

Jamie Metzl (1:14:41.040)

Yeah, please.

Lex Fridman (1:14:41.880)

I agree with a great deal of what you said.

Lex Fridman (1:14:46.200)

And it's really unfortunate that our,

Lex Fridman (1:14:49.760)

certainly the Chinese government, as I said before,

Jamie Metzl (1:14:51.840)

our government wasn't as transparent

Lex Fridman (1:14:55.540)

as I feel they should have been,

Jamie Metzl (1:14:56.920)

particularly in the early days of the pandemic

Lex Fridman (1:14:59.600)

and particularly with regard to the issue

Jamie Metzl (1:15:02.000)

of pandemic origins.

Lex Fridman (1:15:03.400)

I mean, we know that Dr. Fauci was on calls

Jamie Metzl (1:15:06.760)

with people like Christian Anderson and Scripps and others

Lex Fridman (1:15:10.680)

in those early days, raising questions.

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.440)

Is this an engineered virus?

Lex Fridman (1:15:15.680)

There were a lot of questions.

Lex Fridman (1:15:17.480)

And it's kind of sad.

Lex Fridman (1:15:19.560)

I mean, as I mentioned before, I've been one,

Jamie Metzl (1:15:23.520)

I mean, and certainly there were others,

Lex Fridman (1:15:25.640)

but there weren't a lot of us,

Jamie Metzl (1:15:27.740)

of the people who from the earliest days of the pandemic

Lex Fridman (1:15:30.800)

were raising questions about, hey, not so fast here.

Lex Fridman (1:15:34.960)

And I launched my website on pandemic origins

Lex Fridman (1:15:38.560)

in April of last year, April, 2020.

Jamie Metzl (1:15:41.160)

It got a huge amount of attention.

Lex Fridman (1:15:42.580)

And actually my friend, Matt Pottinger,

Jamie Metzl (1:15:44.960)

who is the deputy national security advisor,

Lex Fridman (1:15:46.880)

when he was reaching out to people in the US government

Lex Fridman (1:15:50.440)

and in allied government saying,

Lex Fridman (1:15:51.840)

hey, we should look into this,

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.360)

what he was sending them was my website.

Lex Fridman (1:15:56.760)

It wasn't some US government information.

Lex Fridman (1:16:00.240)

And by the way, people should still go to the website.

Lex Fridman (1:16:02.720)

You keep updating it and it's an incredible resource.

Jamie Metzl (1:16:07.360)

Thank you, thank you, jamiemetzel.com.

Lex Fridman (1:16:10.760)

And it's really unfortunate that our governments

Lex Fridman (1:16:13.440)

and international institutions for pretty much all of 2020

Lex Fridman (1:16:18.320)

weren't doing their jobs of really probing this issue.

Jamie Metzl (1:16:22.520)

People were hiding behind this kind of false consensus.

Lex Fridman (1:16:26.520)

And I'm critical of many people,

Jamie Metzl (1:16:28.480)

even when I heard Francis Collins interview with you,

Lex Fridman (1:16:32.440)

I just felt, well, he wasn't as balanced

Jamie Metzl (1:16:35.280)

on the issue of COVID origins.

Lex Fridman (1:16:37.400)

Certainly Dr. Fauci could have in his conversation

Jamie Metzl (1:16:41.480)

with Rand Paul, it wasn't even a conversation,

Lex Fridman (1:16:43.380)

but in some process in the aftermath,

Jamie Metzl (1:16:46.600)

could have laid things out a bit better.

Lex Fridman (1:16:48.280)

He did say, and Francis Collins did say

Jamie Metzl (1:16:50.880)

that we don't know the origins and that was a shift

Lex Fridman (1:16:54.320)

and we need to have an investigation.

Lex Fridman (1:16:56.120)

So now, but having said all of that,

Lex Fridman (1:17:00.600)

I do kind of one, I have tremendous respect for Dr. Fauci

Jamie Metzl (1:17:04.940)

for the work that he's done on HIV AIDS.

Lex Fridman (1:17:06.880)

I mean, I have been vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine.

Jamie Metzl (1:17:10.920)

Dr. Fauci was a big part of the story

Lex Fridman (1:17:14.000)

of getting us these vaccines

Jamie Metzl (1:17:15.640)

that have saved millions and millions of lives.

Lex Fridman (1:17:19.440)

And so I don't think, I mean, there's a lot to this story.

Lex Fridman (1:17:23.200)

And then the second thing is it's really hard

Lex Fridman (1:17:26.480)

to be a public health expert

Jamie Metzl (1:17:28.440)

because you have your mission is public health.

Lex Fridman (1:17:32.120)

And so, and you have to, if you are leading

Jamie Metzl (1:17:35.100)

with all of your uncertainty,

Lex Fridman (1:17:37.800)

it's a really hard way to do things.

Lex Fridman (1:17:40.480)

And so like, even now, like if I go to CVS

Lex Fridman (1:17:43.680)

and I get a Tylenol, somebody has done a calculation

Jamie Metzl (1:17:47.960)

of how many people will die from taking Tylenol

Lex Fridman (1:17:51.520)

and they say, well, all right, we can live with that.

Lex Fridman (1:17:54.040)

And that's why we have regulation.

Lex Fridman (1:17:55.960)

And so all of us are doing kind of summaries.

Lex Fridman (1:17:59.120)

And then we have people in public health who are saying,

Lex Fridman (1:18:00.920)

wow, we've summed it all up and you should do X.

Jamie Metzl (1:18:04.880)

You should get your kids vaccinated for measles.

Lex Fridman (1:18:09.480)

You should not drive your car at a hundred miles an hour.

Jamie Metzl (1:18:12.920)

You should, don't drink lighter fluid,

Lex Fridman (1:18:15.240)

whatever these things are.

Lex Fridman (1:18:17.360)

And we want them to kind of give us broad guidelines.

Lex Fridman (1:18:20.960)

And yet now our information world is so fragmented

Jamie Metzl (1:18:25.200)

that if you're not being honest about something,

Lex Fridman (1:18:29.760)

something material, someone's going to find out

Lex Fridman (1:18:33.220)

and it's going to undermine your credibility.

Lex Fridman (1:18:35.000)

And so I agree with you that there's a greater requirement

Jamie Metzl (1:18:41.000)

for transparency now.

Lex Fridman (1:18:43.400)

Maybe there always has been,

Lex Fridman (1:18:44.480)

but there's an even greater requirement for it now

Lex Fridman (1:18:48.520)

because people want to trust that you're speaking honestly

Lex Fridman (1:18:53.640)

and that you're saying, well, here's what I know.

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.040)

And this is based on what I know,

Jamie Metzl (1:18:58.080)

here are the conclusions that I draw.

Lex Fridman (1:19:00.520)

But if it's just, and again, I don't think the words,

Jamie Metzl (1:19:03.440)

I'm science or whatever it was are the right words.

Lex Fridman (1:19:06.920)

But if it's just, trust me because of who I am,

Jamie Metzl (1:19:10.840)

I don't think that flies anywhere anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:19:14.720)

Can I just ask you about the Francis Collins interview

Jamie Metzl (1:19:18.040)

that I did, if you got a chance to hear that part.

Lex Fridman (1:19:20.000)

I think in the beginning we talk about the lab leak.

Lex Fridman (1:19:23.720)

What are your thoughts about his response,

Lex Fridman (1:19:25.880)

basically saying it's worthy of an investigation,

Lex Fridman (1:19:28.800)

but I mean, I don't know how you would interpret it.

Lex Fridman (1:19:33.480)

I see, it's funny because I heard it in the moment

Jamie Metzl (1:19:39.640)

as it's great for the head of NIH

Lex Fridman (1:19:44.360)

to be open minded on this.

Lex Fridman (1:19:46.800)

But then the internet and Mr. Joe Rogan

Lex Fridman (1:19:51.040)

and a bunch of friends and colleagues told me that,

Jamie Metzl (1:19:55.040)

yeah, well, that's too late and too little.

Lex Fridman (1:19:58.640)

Yeah, so first let me say, I've been on Joe's podcast twice

Lex Fridman (1:20:03.240)

and I love the guy, which doesn't mean that I agree

Lex Fridman (1:20:06.380)

with everything he does or says.

Lex Fridman (1:20:10.200)

And on this issue, and I'm normally a pretty calm

Lex Fridman (1:20:13.800)

and measured guy, and when you're just out running

Jamie Metzl (1:20:17.160)

with your AirPods on and you start yelling

Lex Fridman (1:20:21.120)

into the wind in Central Park,

Jamie Metzl (1:20:23.960)

nobody else knows why you're yelling, but well.

Lex Fridman (1:20:27.600)

So that you had such a moment?

Jamie Metzl (1:20:28.960)

I had a moment with Collins.

Lex Fridman (1:20:30.600)

And again, Francis Collins is someone I respect enormously.

Jamie Metzl (1:20:34.040)

I mean, I live a big chunk of my life living in the world

Lex Fridman (1:20:38.480)

of genetics and biotech and my book, Hacking Darwin

Jamie Metzl (1:20:42.480)

is about the future of human genetic engineering

Lex Fridman (1:20:45.160)

and his work on the Human Genome Project

Lex Fridman (1:20:47.200)

and so many other things have been fantastic.

Lex Fridman (1:20:49.240)

And I'm a huge fan of the work of NIH.

Lex Fridman (1:20:53.320)

And he was right to say that the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (1:20:56.080)

hasn't been forthcoming and we need to look into it.

Lex Fridman (1:20:58.720)

But then you asked him, well, how will we know?

Lex Fridman (1:21:01.920)

And then his answer was,

Jamie Metzl (1:21:03.700)

we need to find the intermediate host.

Lex Fridman (1:21:06.120)

Remember I said before, and so that made it clear

Jamie Metzl (1:21:09.240)

that he thought, well, we should have an investigation,

Lex Fridman (1:21:13.080)

but it comes from nature and we just need to find

Jamie Metzl (1:21:16.480)

that whatever it is, that intermediate animal host

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.240)

in the wild, and that'll tell us the story.

Lex Fridman (1:21:22.480)

So he already had the conclusion in mind

Lex Fridman (1:21:25.640)

and they're just waiting for the evidence

Jamie Metzl (1:21:27.320)

to support the conclusion.

Lex Fridman (1:21:28.400)

That was my feeling.

Jamie Metzl (1:21:29.680)

I felt like he was open in general, but he was tilting.

Lex Fridman (1:21:33.200)

And again, your first question was where do I fall?

Jamie Metzl (1:21:36.480)

He was like, I'm 85% or whatever it is, 80, 75, 90,

Lex Fridman (1:21:42.000)

whatever it is in the direction of a lab incident.

Jamie Metzl (1:21:45.000)

It made it feel that he was 90, 10 in the other direction,

Lex Fridman (1:21:49.720)

which is still means that he's open minded

Jamie Metzl (1:21:52.320)

about the possibility.

Lex Fridman (1:21:54.000)

And that's why, in my view, every single person

Jamie Metzl (1:21:58.000)

who talks about this issue,

Lex Fridman (1:21:59.520)

I think the right answer in my view is,

Jamie Metzl (1:22:02.560)

we don't know conclusively.

Lex Fridman (1:22:04.080)

In my, then this is my personal view,

Jamie Metzl (1:22:06.040)

the circumstantial evidence is strongly in favor

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.760)

of a lab incident origin,

Lex Fridman (1:22:10.120)

but that could immediately shift

Lex Fridman (1:22:11.760)

with additional information.

Jamie Metzl (1:22:13.920)

We need transparency, but we should come together

Lex Fridman (1:22:18.760)

in absolutely condemning the outrageous coverup

Jamie Metzl (1:22:23.400)

carried out by the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (1:22:25.360)

which to this day is preventing any meaningful investigation

Jamie Metzl (1:22:30.640)

into pandemic origins.

Lex Fridman (1:22:31.760)

We have, if you use the economist numbers,

Jamie Metzl (1:22:35.400)

15 million people who are dead as a result of this pandemic.

Lex Fridman (1:22:39.920)

And I believe that the actions of the Chinese government

Jamie Metzl (1:22:44.600)

are disgracing the memory of these 15 million dead.

Lex Fridman (1:22:50.160)

They're insulting the families and the billions of people

Jamie Metzl (1:22:54.840)

around the world who have suffered

Lex Fridman (1:22:56.480)

from this totally avoidable pandemic.

Lex Fridman (1:23:00.000)

And whatever the origin, the fact the criminal coverup

Lex Fridman (1:23:03.800)

carried out by the Chinese government,

Jamie Metzl (1:23:06.480)

which continues to this day, but most intensely

Lex Fridman (1:23:09.080)

in the first months following the outbreak,

Jamie Metzl (1:23:11.640)

that's the reason why we have so many dead.

Lex Fridman (1:23:16.320)

And certainly, as I was saying before,

Jamie Metzl (1:23:18.640)

I and a small number of others have been carrying this flame

Lex Fridman (1:23:22.480)

since early last year, but it's kind of crazy

Jamie Metzl (1:23:26.560)

that our governments haven't been demanding it.

Lex Fridman (1:23:29.320)

And we can talk about the World Health Organization process,

Jamie Metzl (1:23:33.080)

which was deeply compromised in the beginning.

Lex Fridman (1:23:35.560)

Now it's become much, much better.

Lex Fridman (1:23:38.440)

But again, it was the pressure of outsiders

Lex Fridman (1:23:42.520)

that played such an important role in shifting

Jamie Metzl (1:23:44.960)

our national and international institutions.

Lex Fridman (1:23:48.840)

And while that's better than nothing,

Jamie Metzl (1:23:50.400)

it would have been far better if our governments

Lex Fridman (1:23:53.320)

and international organizations

Jamie Metzl (1:23:55.000)

had done the right thing from the start.

Lex Fridman (1:23:56.400)

If I could just make a couple of comments about Joe Rogan.

Lex Fridman (1:24:04.920)

So there's a bunch of people in my life

Lex Fridman (1:24:08.600)

who have inspired me, who have taught me a lot,

Jamie Metzl (1:24:11.720)

who I even look up to, many of them are alive,

Lex Fridman (1:24:17.240)

most of them are dead.

Jamie Metzl (1:24:19.000)

I wanna say that Joe said a few critical words

Lex Fridman (1:24:22.640)

about the conversation with Francis Collins,

Jamie Metzl (1:24:24.680)

most of it offline, with a lot of great conversations

Lex Fridman (1:24:28.720)

about it, some he said publicly.

Lex Fridman (1:24:32.680)

And he was also critical to say that me asking hard questions

Lex Fridman (1:24:45.200)

in an interview is not my strong suit.

Lex Fridman (1:24:48.600)

And I really want to kind of respond to that,

Lex Fridman (1:24:53.240)

which I did privately as well, but publicly,

Jamie Metzl (1:24:56.720)

to say that Joe is 100% right on that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:01.280)

But that doesn't mean that always has to be the case.

Lex Fridman (1:25:04.560)

And that is definitely something I wanna work on.

Lex Fridman (1:25:06.680)

Because most of the conversations I have,

Jamie Metzl (1:25:08.760)

I wanna see the beautiful ideas in people's minds.

Lex Fridman (1:25:13.240)

But there's some times where you have to ask

Jamie Metzl (1:25:15.920)

the hard questions to bring out the beautiful ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:25:20.640)

And it's hard to do.

Jamie Metzl (1:25:23.000)

It's a skill.

Lex Fridman (1:25:24.040)

And Joe is very good at this.

Jamie Metzl (1:25:26.480)

He says the way he put it in his criticisms,

Lex Fridman (1:25:29.880)

and he does this in his conversations,

Jamie Metzl (1:25:31.640)

which is, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.760)

There's a kind of sense like,

Lex Fridman (1:25:36.520)

did you just say what you said?

Lex Fridman (1:25:38.640)

Let's make sure we get to the bottom,

Jamie Metzl (1:25:42.520)

we'll clarify what you mean.

Lex Fridman (1:25:44.320)

Because sometimes really big negative or difficult ideas

Jamie Metzl (1:25:54.840)

can be said as a quick aside in a sentence,

Lex Fridman (1:25:59.080)

like it's nothing, but it could be everything.

Lex Fridman (1:26:02.720)

And you wanna make sure you catch that

Lex Fridman (1:26:04.600)

and you talk about it.

Lex Fridman (1:26:06.360)

And not as a gotcha, not as a kinda way

Lex Fridman (1:26:10.760)

to destroy another human being,

Lex Fridman (1:26:12.400)

but to reveal something profound.

Lex Fridman (1:26:14.840)

And that's definitely something I wanna work on.

Jamie Metzl (1:26:16.960)

I also want to say that, as you said,

Lex Fridman (1:26:22.160)

you disagree with Joe on quite a lot of things.

Lex Fridman (1:26:24.480)

So for a long time, Joe was somebody

Lex Fridman (1:26:26.480)

that I was just a fan of and listened to.

Jamie Metzl (1:26:28.080)

He's now a good friend.

Lex Fridman (1:26:30.920)

And I would say we disagree more than we agree.

Lex Fridman (1:26:34.560)

And I love doing that.

Lex Fridman (1:26:38.160)

But at the same time, I learned from that.

Lex Fridman (1:26:41.680)

So it's like dual, like nobody in this world

Lex Fridman (1:26:46.560)

can tell me what to think.

Lex Fridman (1:26:48.720)

But I think everybody has a lesson to teach me.

Lex Fridman (1:26:54.240)

I think that's a good way to approach it.

Jamie Metzl (1:26:57.080)

Whenever somebody has words of criticism,

Lex Fridman (1:27:00.320)

I assume they're right and walk around with that idea

Jamie Metzl (1:27:05.240)

to really sort of empathize with that idea

Lex Fridman (1:27:07.360)

because there's a lesson there.

Lex Fridman (1:27:09.120)

And oftentimes, my understanding of a topic

Lex Fridman (1:27:18.400)

is altered completely or it becomes much more nuanced

Jamie Metzl (1:27:22.480)

or much richer for that kind of empathetic process.

Lex Fridman (1:27:27.160)

But definitely, I do not allow anybody

Jamie Metzl (1:27:31.440)

to tell me what to think, whether it's Joe Rogan

Lex Fridman (1:27:35.040)

or Fyodor Dostoevsky or Nietzsche or my parents

Jamie Metzl (1:27:39.120)

or the proverbial girlfriend, which I don't actually have.

Lex Fridman (1:27:47.920)

But she's still busting my balls.

Jamie Metzl (1:27:49.880)

Exactly, exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:27:51.280)

In my imagination, I have a girlfriend in Canada

Jamie Metzl (1:27:55.000)

that I have imagined, exactly, imagining conversations.

Lex Fridman (1:28:00.000)

So I want to mention that.

Lex Fridman (1:28:01.440)

But also, I don't know if you've gotten a chance

Lex Fridman (1:28:04.000)

to see this, but I'd love to also mention

Jamie Metzl (1:28:06.360)

this Twitter feud between two other interesting people,

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.760)

which is Brett Weinstein and Sam Harris

Jamie Metzl (1:28:15.800)

or Sam Harris and others in general.

Lex Fridman (1:28:18.480)

And it kind of breaks my heart that these two people

Jamie Metzl (1:28:22.120)

I listen to that are very thoughtful about a bunch of issues.

Lex Fridman (1:28:25.560)

Let's put COVID aside because people are very emotional

Jamie Metzl (1:28:29.160)

about this topic.

Lex Fridman (1:28:30.520)

I mean, I think they're deeply thoughtful and intelligent,

Jamie Metzl (1:28:37.520)

whether you agree with them or not.

Lex Fridman (1:28:39.040)

And I always learn something from their conversations.

Lex Fridman (1:28:42.080)

And they are legitimately or have been

Lex Fridman (1:28:44.480)

for a long time friends.

Lex Fridman (1:28:46.560)

And it's a little bit heartbreaking to me

Lex Fridman (1:28:49.400)

to see that they basically don't talk in private anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:28:53.320)

And there's occasional jabs on Twitter.

Lex Fridman (1:28:57.080)

And I hope that changes.

Jamie Metzl (1:29:00.080)

I hope that changes in general for COVID,

Lex Fridman (1:29:02.240)

that COVID brought out the, I would say,

Jamie Metzl (1:29:06.120)

the most emotional sides of people, the worst in people.

Lex Fridman (1:29:10.080)

And I think there hasn't been enough love

Lex Fridman (1:29:14.280)

and empathy and compassion.

Lex Fridman (1:29:16.600)

And to see two people from whom I've learned a lot,

Jamie Metzl (1:29:20.720)

whether it's Eric Weinstein, Brett Weinstein, Sam Harris,

Lex Fridman (1:29:23.720)

you can criticize them as much as you want,

Jamie Metzl (1:29:25.520)

their ideas as much as you want.

Lex Fridman (1:29:27.360)

But if you're not sufficiently open minded

Jamie Metzl (1:29:31.160)

to admit that you have a lot to learn

Lex Fridman (1:29:33.080)

from their conversations, I think you're not being honest.

Lex Fridman (1:29:37.720)

And so I do hope they have those conversations.

Lex Fridman (1:29:40.520)

And I hope we can kind of,

Jamie Metzl (1:29:42.040)

I think there's a lot of repairing to be done post COVID

Lex Fridman (1:29:45.840)

of relationships, of conversations.

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.600)

And I think empathy and love can help a lot there.

Lex Fridman (1:29:53.880)

This is also just a, I talked to Sam privately,

Lex Fridman (1:29:58.480)

but this is also a public call out

Lex Fridman (1:30:01.040)

to put a little bit more love in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:30:08.000)

And for these difficult conversations to happen.

Lex Fridman (1:30:14.160)

Because Brett Weinstein could be very wrong

Jamie Metzl (1:30:19.160)

about a bunch of topics here around COVID,

Lex Fridman (1:30:25.480)

but he could also be right.

Lex Fridman (1:30:27.440)

And the only way to find out

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.080)

is to have those conversations.

Jamie Metzl (1:30:31.200)

Because there's a lot of people listening

Lex Fridman (1:30:32.760)

to both Sam Harris and Brett Weinstein.

Lex Fridman (1:30:35.480)

And if you go into these silos

Lex Fridman (1:30:39.520)

where you just keep telling each other

Jamie Metzl (1:30:44.960)

that you are the possessors of truth

Lex Fridman (1:30:46.680)

and nobody else is the possessor of truth,

Lex Fridman (1:30:48.800)

what starts happening is you both lose track

Lex Fridman (1:30:53.520)

or the capability of arriving at the truth.

Jamie Metzl (1:30:56.080)

Because nobody's in the possession of the truth.

Lex Fridman (1:30:58.440)

So anyway, this is just a call out

Jamie Metzl (1:30:59.920)

that we should have a little bit more conversation,

Lex Fridman (1:31:01.560)

a little bit more love.

Jamie Metzl (1:31:02.400)

I totally agree.

Lex Fridman (1:31:04.240)

And both of those guys are guys who I respect.

Lex Fridman (1:31:08.000)

And as you know, Brett, and again, as I mentioned,

Lex Fridman (1:31:11.560)

they're just a handful of us,

Jamie Metzl (1:31:13.760)

who were the early people raising questions

Lex Fridman (1:31:16.320)

about the origins of this.

Jamie Metzl (1:31:17.640)

Of this pandemic, right.

Lex Fridman (1:31:19.520)

He was there also talking.

Lex Fridman (1:31:21.160)

So people have heard him speak quite a bit

Lex Fridman (1:31:24.000)

about any viral drugs and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:31:26.920)

But he was also raising concerns about lab leak early on.

Lex Fridman (1:31:30.600)

Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:31:31.440)

And so, but I completely agree with you

Lex Fridman (1:31:33.680)

that we don't have to agree with everybody,

Lex Fridman (1:31:37.440)

but it's great to have healthy conversations.

Lex Fridman (1:31:40.720)

That's how we grow.

Lex Fridman (1:31:42.120)

And absolutely, we live in a world where we're kind of,

Lex Fridman (1:31:46.680)

if we're not careful,

Jamie Metzl (1:31:47.680)

pushed into these little information pockets.

Lex Fridman (1:31:49.840)

And certainly on social media,

Jamie Metzl (1:31:51.720)

I have different parts of my life.

Lex Fridman (1:31:53.960)

One is focusing on issues of COVID origins.

Lex Fridman (1:31:58.560)

And then I have genetics and biotechnology.

Lex Fridman (1:32:00.920)

And then I have, which maybe we'll talk about later,

Jamie Metzl (1:32:02.960)

one shared world, which is about

Lex Fridman (1:32:04.200)

how do we build a safer future?

Lex Fridman (1:32:06.680)

And when I say critical things like the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (1:32:10.320)

we'd have to demand a full investigation

Jamie Metzl (1:32:12.880)

into pandemic origins.

Lex Fridman (1:32:14.120)

This is an outreach.

Jamie Metzl (1:32:15.080)

Then it's really popular.

Lex Fridman (1:32:16.640)

When I say, let's build a better future

Jamie Metzl (1:32:19.000)

for everyone in peace and love,

Lex Fridman (1:32:20.520)

it's like, wow, three people liked it.

Lex Fridman (1:32:22.920)

And one was my mother.

Lex Fridman (1:32:24.960)

And so I just feel like we need to build,

Jamie Metzl (1:32:27.960)

we used to have that connectivity just built in

Lex Fridman (1:32:32.000)

because we had these town squares

Lex Fridman (1:32:33.960)

and you couldn't get away from them.

Lex Fridman (1:32:35.960)

Now we can get away from them.

Lex Fridman (1:32:37.640)

So engaging with people who are of a different background

Lex Fridman (1:32:41.120)

is really essential.

Jamie Metzl (1:32:42.400)

I'm on Fox News sometimes three, four times a week.

Lex Fridman (1:32:47.960)

And I wouldn't, in my normal life,

Jamie Metzl (1:32:49.640)

I'm not watching that much of Fox News

Lex Fridman (1:32:53.440)

or even television more generally.

Lex Fridman (1:32:56.120)

But I just feel like if I just speak to people

Lex Fridman (1:32:58.840)

who are very similar to me, maybe it'll be comfortable.

Lex Fridman (1:33:03.840)

But what have I contributed?

Lex Fridman (1:33:05.640)

So I think we really have to have

Jamie Metzl (1:33:07.600)

those kinds of conversations and recognize

Lex Fridman (1:33:11.640)

that at the end of the day, most people want to be happy.

Jamie Metzl (1:33:15.800)

They want to live in a better world.

Lex Fridman (1:33:17.280)

They maybe have different paths to get there.

Lex Fridman (1:33:20.160)

But if we just break into camps

Lex Fridman (1:33:22.600)

that don't even connect with each other,

Jamie Metzl (1:33:24.680)

that's a much more dangerous world.

Lex Fridman (1:33:28.920)

Let's dive back into the difficult pool.

Jamie Metzl (1:33:32.680)

Just like you said, in the English speaking world,

Lex Fridman (1:33:36.800)

it seems popular, almost easy to demonize China.

Jamie Metzl (1:33:43.920)

The Chinese government, I should say.

Lex Fridman (1:33:46.920)

But even China, like there's this kind of gray area

Jamie Metzl (1:33:50.160)

that people just fall into.

Lex Fridman (1:33:52.320)

And I'm really uncomfortable with that.

Jamie Metzl (1:33:54.920)

Perhaps because in my mind, in my heart, in my blood

Lex Fridman (1:33:58.480)

are echoes of the Cold War and that kind of tension.

Lex Fridman (1:34:01.120)

But it feels like we almost desire conflict.

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.160)

So we see demons when there is none.

Lex Fridman (1:34:12.040)

So I'm a little cautious to demonize.

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.680)

But at the same time, you have to be honest.

Lex Fridman (1:34:18.120)

So it's like honest with the demons that are there

Lex Fridman (1:34:22.320)

and honest when they're not.

Jamie Metzl (1:34:25.360)

This is kind of a geopolitical therapy session of sorts.

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.280)

So let's keep talking about China

Jamie Metzl (1:34:31.760)

a little bit from different angles.

Lex Fridman (1:34:33.000)

So let's return to the director of the Center

Jamie Metzl (1:34:37.840)

of Emerging Infectious Disease

Lex Fridman (1:34:39.240)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Xi Zhengli,

Jamie Metzl (1:34:44.120)

colloquially referred to as Batwoman.

Lex Fridman (1:34:47.520)

So do you think she's lying?

Jamie Metzl (1:34:51.440)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:34:52.280)

Do you think she's being forced to lie?

Jamie Metzl (1:34:54.720)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:34:55.560)

I've known a bunch of virologists

Jamie Metzl (1:34:58.240)

in private and public conversation

Lex Fridman (1:35:00.200)

that respect her as a human being, as a scientist.

Jamie Metzl (1:35:03.520)

I respect her as a human being.

Lex Fridman (1:35:05.080)

Sorry, as a scientist, not a human being.

Jamie Metzl (1:35:07.080)

Because I think they don't know the human.

Lex Fridman (1:35:08.640)

They know the scientists.

Lex Fridman (1:35:09.520)

And they respect her a lot as a scientist.

Lex Fridman (1:35:11.360)

Yeah, I respect her.

Jamie Metzl (1:35:12.720)

I've never met her.

Lex Fridman (1:35:13.960)

We had one exchange, which I'll mention in a second

Jamie Metzl (1:35:16.160)

in a virtual forum.

Lex Fridman (1:35:17.640)

But I do respect her.

Jamie Metzl (1:35:18.800)

I actually think that she is somebody

Lex Fridman (1:35:20.560)

who has tried to do the right thing.

Jamie Metzl (1:35:23.120)

She was one of the heroes of tracking down

Lex Fridman (1:35:25.240)

the origins of SARS 1.

Lex Fridman (1:35:27.440)

And that was a major contribution.

Lex Fridman (1:35:31.160)

But as we talked about earlier,

Jamie Metzl (1:35:34.120)

it's a different thing living, being a scientist,

Lex Fridman (1:35:38.520)

or really kind of anything.

Jamie Metzl (1:35:40.640)

It's different being one of those people

Lex Fridman (1:35:43.960)

in an authoritarian society

Jamie Metzl (1:35:47.240)

than it is being in a different type of society.

Lex Fridman (1:35:50.520)

And so when Xi Zhengli said that the reason

Jamie Metzl (1:35:54.200)

the WIV database was taken offline in September 19

Lex Fridman (1:36:00.320)

was because of computer hacks,

Jamie Metzl (1:36:02.280)

I don't think that's the story.

Lex Fridman (1:36:03.960)

I don't think she thinks that's the story.

Jamie Metzl (1:36:07.560)

When I asked her in March of 2021, March of this year,

Lex Fridman (1:36:12.640)

in a Rutgers online forum,

Jamie Metzl (1:36:15.480)

when I asked her whether the Chinese military

Lex Fridman (1:36:18.280)

had any engagement with the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Jamie Metzl (1:36:22.200)

in any way, and she said, absolutely not, paraphrasing,

Lex Fridman (1:36:26.480)

I think she was lying.

Jamie Metzl (1:36:27.720)

Do I think that she had the ability to say,

Lex Fridman (1:36:30.720)

well, either one, yes, but I can't talk about it,

Jamie Metzl (1:36:34.440)

or I know there are a lot of things

Lex Fridman (1:36:36.560)

that are happening at this institute

Jamie Metzl (1:36:38.160)

that I don't know about, and that could be one.

Lex Fridman (1:36:42.080)

Could she have said that the personnel

Jamie Metzl (1:36:46.440)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (1:36:48.160)

have all had to go through classification training

Lex Fridman (1:36:52.880)

so that they can know about what can and can't be said?

Lex Fridman (1:36:57.600)

Like she could have said all those things,

Lex Fridman (1:36:59.520)

but she couldn't say all of those things.

Lex Fridman (1:37:01.920)

And I think that's why so many, at least in my view,

Lex Fridman (1:37:07.080)

so many people certainly in the Western world

Lex Fridman (1:37:11.080)

got this story wrong from the beginning,

Jamie Metzl (1:37:13.600)

because if your only prism was the science,

Lex Fridman (1:37:17.640)

and you just assumed this is a science question

Jamie Metzl (1:37:20.680)

to be left to the scientists,

Lex Fridman (1:37:22.680)

should Zhengli is just like any scientist

Jamie Metzl (1:37:26.000)

working in Switzerland or Norway,

Lex Fridman (1:37:29.280)

the Chinese government isn't interfering in any way,

Lex Fridman (1:37:33.360)

and we can trust them, that would lead you down one path.

Lex Fridman (1:37:37.280)

In my view, the reason why I progressed as I did

Jamie Metzl (1:37:40.680)

is I felt like I had two keys,

Lex Fridman (1:37:42.280)

and I had one key as I live in the science world

Jamie Metzl (1:37:45.960)

through my work with WHO and my books and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:37:50.120)

But I also have another part of my life

Jamie Metzl (1:37:52.280)

in the world of geopolitics as an Asia quote unquote expert

Lex Fridman (1:37:57.680)

and former National Security Council official

Lex Fridman (1:38:00.400)

and other things.

Lex Fridman (1:38:01.240)

And I felt for me, I needed both keys to open that door.

Lex Fridman (1:38:06.360)

But if I only had the science key,

Lex Fridman (1:38:08.960)

I wouldn't have had the level of doubt and suspicion

Jamie Metzl (1:38:11.960)

that I have.

Lex Fridman (1:38:12.920)

But if my starting point was only doubt and suspicion,

Jamie Metzl (1:38:16.000)

well, it's coming from China,

Lex Fridman (1:38:17.520)

it must be that the government is guilty,

Jamie Metzl (1:38:20.600)

like that wouldn't help either.

Lex Fridman (1:38:24.120)

I wonder what's in her mind,

Jamie Metzl (1:38:26.600)

whether it's fear or habit,

Lex Fridman (1:38:30.880)

because I think a lot of people in the former Soviet Union,

Jamie Metzl (1:38:35.760)

it's like Chernobyl, it's not really fear,

Lex Fridman (1:38:38.720)

it's almost like a momentum.

Jamie Metzl (1:38:40.600)

It's like the reason I showed up to this interview

Lex Fridman (1:38:45.200)

wearing clothes, as opposed to being naked.

Jamie Metzl (1:38:48.000)

It's like, all right.

Lex Fridman (1:38:51.120)

It's like, it's just all of us are doing the clothes thing.

Jamie Metzl (1:38:55.760)

Although there was a startup years ago called Naked News.

Lex Fridman (1:38:59.600)

Did you ever hear about that?

Jamie Metzl (1:39:00.440)

They just would read the exact news.

Lex Fridman (1:39:02.520)

With naked.

Jamie Metzl (1:39:03.360)

No, after each story, they'd take something off

Lex Fridman (1:39:06.160)

until the end, I don't think.

Jamie Metzl (1:39:08.120)

It's a good idea for a podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:39:09.600)

They have an IPO.

Jamie Metzl (1:39:10.640)

Stay tuned, next time I'm with Michael Miles.

Lex Fridman (1:39:13.560)

Yeah.

Jamie Metzl (1:39:14.400)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:39:16.960)

So what do you think,

Jamie Metzl (1:39:18.480)

I mean, because the reason I asked that question is,

Lex Fridman (1:39:22.360)

how do we kind of take steps to improve

Lex Fridman (1:39:25.680)

without any kind of revolutionary action?

Lex Fridman (1:39:27.960)

You could say, we need to inspire the Chinese people

Jamie Metzl (1:39:32.760)

to elect, to sort of revolutionize the system

Lex Fridman (1:39:37.760)

from within, but like, who are we to suggest that?

Jamie Metzl (1:39:42.760)

Because we have our flaws too.

Lex Fridman (1:39:44.760)

We should be working on our flaws as well.

Lex Fridman (1:39:47.320)

And so, but at the individual scientist level,

Lex Fridman (1:39:51.760)

what are the small acts of rebellion that could be done?

Lex Fridman (1:39:55.720)

How can we improve this?

Lex Fridman (1:39:57.960)

Well, so I don't know about small acts of rebellion,

Lex Fridman (1:40:01.760)

but I'll try to answer your question

Lex Fridman (1:40:03.920)

from a few different perspectives.

Lex Fridman (1:40:07.800)

So right now, actually, as we speak,

Lex Fridman (1:40:10.920)

there is a special session

Jamie Metzl (1:40:12.840)

of the World Health Assembly going on.

Lex Fridman (1:40:14.600)

And the World Health Assembly is the governing authority

Jamie Metzl (1:40:17.440)

over the World Health Organization,

Lex Fridman (1:40:19.240)

where it's represented by states and territories,

Jamie Metzl (1:40:22.440)

194 of them, tragically not including Taiwan,

Lex Fridman (1:40:26.800)

because of the Chinese government's assistance.

Lex Fridman (1:40:29.160)

But they're now beginning a process

Lex Fridman (1:40:31.360)

of trying to negotiate a global pandemic treaty

Jamie Metzl (1:40:35.320)

to try to have a better process

Lex Fridman (1:40:37.480)

for responding to crises exactly like we're in.

Lex Fridman (1:40:42.040)

But unfortunately, for the exact same reasons

Lex Fridman (1:40:45.440)

that we have failed, I mean, we had a similar process

Jamie Metzl (1:40:48.680)

after the first SARS, we set up what we thought

Lex Fridman (1:40:50.880)

was the best available system,

Lex Fridman (1:40:52.480)

and it has totally failed here.

Lex Fridman (1:40:55.280)

And it's failed here because of the inherent pathologies

Jamie Metzl (1:41:00.280)

of the Chinese government system.

Lex Fridman (1:41:02.760)

We are suffering from a pandemic that exists

Jamie Metzl (1:41:06.600)

because of the internal pathologies of the Chinese state.

Lex Fridman (1:41:11.200)

And that's why on one hand, I totally get this impulse.

Jamie Metzl (1:41:14.720)

Well, we do it our way, they do it their way.

Lex Fridman (1:41:17.760)

Who's to say that one way is better?

Lex Fridman (1:41:20.920)

And certainly right now in the United States,

Lex Fridman (1:41:23.320)

we're at each other's throats.

Jamie Metzl (1:41:25.040)

We have a hard time getting anything meaningful done.

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.800)

And I'm sure there are people who are saying,

Jamie Metzl (1:41:31.280)

well, that model looks appealing.

Lex Fridman (1:41:33.640)

But just as people could look to the United States

Lex Fridman (1:41:37.440)

and say, well, because the United States

Lex Fridman (1:41:39.200)

has such a massive reach, what we do domestically

Jamie Metzl (1:41:41.720)

has huge implications for the rest of the world,

Lex Fridman (1:41:44.720)

they become stakeholders in our politics.

Lex Fridman (1:41:48.160)

And that's why I think for a lot of years,

Lex Fridman (1:41:49.880)

people have just been looking at US politics,

Jamie Metzl (1:41:52.200)

not because it's interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:41:53.200)

but because the decisions that we make

Jamie Metzl (1:41:55.320)

have big implications for their lives.

Lex Fridman (1:41:58.080)

The same is true for ours.

Jamie Metzl (1:41:59.760)

You could say that the lack of civil and political rights

Lex Fridman (1:42:04.200)

in China is, I mean, it's up to the Chinese,

Jamie Metzl (1:42:08.680)

not even people, because they have no say,

Lex Fridman (1:42:10.360)

but to their government.

Lex Fridman (1:42:12.640)

And they weren't democratically elected,

Lex Fridman (1:42:14.280)

that they are recognized as the government.

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.680)

But some significant percentage of the 15 million people

Lex Fridman (1:42:23.480)

now dead from COVID are dead

Jamie Metzl (1:42:26.000)

because in the earliest days following the outbreak,

Lex Fridman (1:42:29.680)

whatever the origin, the voices of people

Jamie Metzl (1:42:33.040)

sounding the alarm were suppressed,

Lex Fridman (1:42:35.280)

that the Chinese government had an,

Jamie Metzl (1:42:37.240)

just like in Chernobyl, the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (1:42:39.560)

had a greater incentive to lie

Jamie Metzl (1:42:42.560)

to the international community than to tell the truth.

Lex Fridman (1:42:46.640)

And everybody was incentivized

Jamie Metzl (1:42:49.280)

to pretty much do the wrong thing.

Lex Fridman (1:42:51.920)

And so that's why I think one of the big messages

Jamie Metzl (1:42:55.200)

of this pandemic is that all of our fates

Lex Fridman (1:42:57.600)

are tied to everybody else's fates.

Lex Fridman (1:43:00.280)

And so while we can say and should say,

Lex Fridman (1:43:02.760)

well, let's focus on our own communities and our countries,

Jamie Metzl (1:43:06.480)

we're all stakeholders in what happens elsewhere.

Lex Fridman (1:43:09.960)

Can I ask you a weird question?

Lex Fridman (1:43:14.960)

So I'm gonna do a few podcast interviews

Lex Fridman (1:43:20.320)

with interesting people in Russia, in the Russian language,

Jamie Metzl (1:43:24.360)

because I could speak Russian.

Lex Fridman (1:43:27.280)

And a lot of those people have,

Jamie Metzl (1:43:30.800)

are not usually speaking in these kinds of formats.

Lex Fridman (1:43:36.560)

Do you think it's possible to interview Xi Jinping?

Lex Fridman (1:43:40.480)

Do you think it's possible to interview somebody like her

Lex Fridman (1:43:44.480)

or anyone in the Chinese government?

Jamie Metzl (1:43:47.320)

I think not.

Lex Fridman (1:43:49.720)

And I think the reason is

Jamie Metzl (1:43:52.520)

because I think they would, one,

Lex Fridman (1:43:54.640)

be uncomfortable being in any environment

Jamie Metzl (1:43:57.640)

where really unknown questions will be asked.

Lex Fridman (1:44:02.080)

And I actually, so as you know, on this topic,

Jamie Metzl (1:44:06.080)

the Chinese, as I mentioned earlier,

Lex Fridman (1:44:07.360)

the Chinese government has a gag order on Chinese scientists.

Jamie Metzl (1:44:10.800)

They can't speak without prior government approval.

Lex Fridman (1:44:13.000)

Xu Zhengli has been able to speak.

Lex Fridman (1:44:15.600)

And she's spoken at a number of forums.

Lex Fridman (1:44:17.160)

I mentioned this Rutgers event.

Lex Fridman (1:44:19.960)

What was the nature of that forum, the Rutgers event?

Lex Fridman (1:44:23.080)

All of them were kind of science conversations

Jamie Metzl (1:44:26.320)

about the pandemic, including the origins issue.

Lex Fridman (1:44:33.640)

But I think that she, in her response to my question,

Jamie Metzl (1:44:37.080)

it was kind of this funny thing.

Lex Fridman (1:44:38.680)

So they had this event organized by Rutgers.

Lex Fridman (1:44:42.680)

And I went on, there was an online event on Zoom,

Lex Fridman (1:44:45.680)

but I got on there and I just realized

Jamie Metzl (1:44:47.920)

it was very poorly organized.

Lex Fridman (1:44:49.480)

Like normally the controls that you would have

Jamie Metzl (1:44:51.720)

about who gets to chat to who, who gets to ask questions,

Lex Fridman (1:44:54.320)

none of them were set.

Lex Fridman (1:44:56.760)

And so I kind of couldn't believe it.

Lex Fridman (1:44:58.360)

I was just sitting at home in my neon green fleece

Lex Fridman (1:45:02.200)

and I just started sending chat messages to Xu Zhengli.

Lex Fridman (1:45:06.560)

So you could, anybody could send any.

Jamie Metzl (1:45:08.360)

Anybody could, it was insane.

Lex Fridman (1:45:09.720)

But I thought, wow, this is incredible.

Lex Fridman (1:45:11.680)

And so then it was unclear who got to ask questions.

Lex Fridman (1:45:16.040)

And so I was like posting questions

Lex Fridman (1:45:18.240)

and then I was sending chats to the organizers

Lex Fridman (1:45:20.680)

of the event saying, I really have a question.

Lex Fridman (1:45:24.400)

And first they said, well, you can submit your questions

Lex Fridman (1:45:27.360)

and we'll have submitted questions.

Lex Fridman (1:45:29.200)

And then if we have time, we'll open up.

Lex Fridman (1:45:31.160)

So I just, I mean, I just thought, well, what the hell?

Jamie Metzl (1:45:33.000)

I just sent messages to everybody.

Lex Fridman (1:45:34.680)

And then the event was already done.

Jamie Metzl (1:45:37.120)

They were 15 minutes over time.

Lex Fridman (1:45:39.400)

And then they said, all right,

Jamie Metzl (1:45:40.440)

we have time just for one question.

Lex Fridman (1:45:42.400)

And it's Jamie Metzl.

Lex Fridman (1:45:44.880)

And like, as I'm sitting there in my running clothes,

Lex Fridman (1:45:47.200)

like I wasn't, I was like multitasking and I heard my name.

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.440)

And so I went diving back and I asked this question

Lex Fridman (1:45:55.920)

about, did you know all of the work that was happening

Lex Fridman (1:46:00.200)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not just your work?

Lex Fridman (1:46:06.280)

And can you confirm that US intelligence has said

Jamie Metzl (1:46:10.520)

that the military played a role,

Lex Fridman (1:46:14.240)

was engaged with the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Lex Fridman (1:46:16.720)

Do you deny that the Chinese military was involved

Lex Fridman (1:46:19.120)

in any way with the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Lex Fridman (1:46:21.680)

And as I said before, she said, this is crazy.

Lex Fridman (1:46:24.760)

Absolutely not.

Jamie Metzl (1:46:26.240)

It got, it actually got,

Lex Fridman (1:46:27.200)

that one question got covered in the media

Jamie Metzl (1:46:29.000)

because it was like, I think an essential question.

Lex Fridman (1:46:32.240)

But I just think that since then, to my knowledge,

Jamie Metzl (1:46:35.200)

she's not been in any public forums,

Lex Fridman (1:46:38.280)

but that's why most people would be shocked

Jamie Metzl (1:46:41.160)

that to date there has been no comprehensive

Lex Fridman (1:46:43.640)

international investigation into pandemic origins.

Jamie Metzl (1:46:46.600)

There is no whistleblower provision.

Lex Fridman (1:46:49.000)

So if you're, my guess is there are at least tens,

Jamie Metzl (1:46:52.760)

maybe hundreds of people in China

Lex Fridman (1:46:55.200)

who have relevant information

Jamie Metzl (1:46:56.960)

about the origins of the pandemic who are terrified

Lex Fridman (1:47:00.120)

and don't dare share it.

Lex Fridman (1:47:01.840)

And let's just say somebody wanted

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.360)

to get that information out, to send it somewhere.

Jamie Metzl (1:47:08.480)

There's no official address.

Lex Fridman (1:47:10.440)

The WHO doesn't have that, nobody has that.

Lex Fridman (1:47:13.920)

And so I would love, I mean, you may as well ask.

Lex Fridman (1:47:16.640)

I don't think it's likely that there'll be a yes,

Lex Fridman (1:47:21.080)

but it could well be that there are defectors

Lex Fridman (1:47:23.640)

who will want to speak.

Lex Fridman (1:47:25.360)

So let me also push back on this idea.

Lex Fridman (1:47:29.240)

So one, I want to ask if the language barrier is a thing.

Jamie Metzl (1:47:33.400)

Because I've talked to,

Lex Fridman (1:47:34.720)

so I understand Russian culture, I think,

Jamie Metzl (1:47:38.360)

or not understand, this is the thing.

Lex Fridman (1:47:40.440)

I don't understand basically anything in this world.

Lex Fridman (1:47:45.440)

But I mean, I hear the music that is Russian culture

Lex Fridman (1:47:50.440)

and I enjoy it.

Jamie Metzl (1:47:51.840)

I don't hear that music for Chinese culture.

Lex Fridman (1:47:55.360)

It's just not something I've experienced.

Lex Fridman (1:47:57.000)

So it's a beautiful, rich, complex culture.

Lex Fridman (1:48:00.160)

And from my sense, it seems distant to me.

Jamie Metzl (1:48:05.160)

Like whenever I look, even like we mentioned offline Japan

Lex Fridman (1:48:10.760)

and so on, I probably don't even understand

Jamie Metzl (1:48:13.560)

Japanese culture.

Lex Fridman (1:48:14.440)

I believe I kind of do because I did martial arts

Jamie Metzl (1:48:16.760)

my whole life, but even that, it's just so distant.

Lex Fridman (1:48:20.200)

People who've lived in Japan, foreigners for like 20 years

Jamie Metzl (1:48:23.360)

say the exact same thing, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:48:25.240)

This makes me sad.

Jamie Metzl (1:48:26.200)

It makes me sad because I will never be able

Lex Fridman (1:48:29.280)

to fully appreciate the literature, the conversations,

Jamie Metzl (1:48:34.160)

the people, the little humor and the subtleties.

Lex Fridman (1:48:38.120)

And those are all essential to understand

Jamie Metzl (1:48:39.960)

even this cold topics of science.

Lex Fridman (1:48:43.760)

Because all of that is important to understand.

Lex Fridman (1:48:46.160)

So that's a question for me if you think

Lex Fridman (1:48:48.240)

language barriers a thing.

Lex Fridman (1:48:49.760)

But the other thing I just want to kind of comment on

Lex Fridman (1:48:52.120)

is the criticism of journalism that somebody like

Jamie Metzl (1:48:57.120)

Shi Zhengli or even Shi Zhengpeng, just anybody in China,

Lex Fridman (1:49:05.880)

very skeptical to have really conversations

Jamie Metzl (1:49:08.760)

with anybody in the western media.

Lex Fridman (1:49:11.400)

Because it's like what are the odds that they will try

Jamie Metzl (1:49:16.880)

to bring out the beautiful ideas in the person.

Lex Fridman (1:49:19.560)

And honestly, this is a harsh criticism.

Jamie Metzl (1:49:23.480)

I apologize, but I kind of mean it, is the journalists

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.360)

that have some of these high profile conversations

Jamie Metzl (1:49:34.040)

often don't do the work.

Lex Fridman (1:49:36.800)

They come off as not very intelligent.

Lex Fridman (1:49:39.480)

And I know they're intelligent people.

Lex Fridman (1:49:41.360)

They have not done the research.

Jamie Metzl (1:49:43.480)

They have not come up and like read a bunch of books.

Lex Fridman (1:49:46.520)

They have not even read the Wikipedia article.

Jamie Metzl (1:49:48.880)

Meaning put in the minimal effort to empathize,

Lex Fridman (1:49:52.480)

to try to understand the culture of the people,

Jamie Metzl (1:49:54.760)

all the complexities, all the different ideas in the spaces.

Lex Fridman (1:49:58.720)

Do all the incredible, not all,

Lex Fridman (1:50:00.920)

but some of the incredible work that you've done initially.

Lex Fridman (1:50:04.240)

Like that, you have to do that work to earn the right

Jamie Metzl (1:50:07.120)

to have a deep real conversation with some of these folks.

Lex Fridman (1:50:11.240)

And it's just disappointing to me

Jamie Metzl (1:50:13.360)

that journalists often don't do that work.

Lex Fridman (1:50:15.280)

Yeah, so on that, just first I completely agree with you.

Jamie Metzl (1:50:19.640)

I mean, there is just an incredible beauty

Lex Fridman (1:50:22.600)

in Chinese culture and I think all cultures,

Lex Fridman (1:50:25.240)

but certainly China has such a deep and rich history,

Lex Fridman (1:50:29.160)

amazing literature and art and just human beings.

Jamie Metzl (1:50:34.680)

I mean, I'm a massive critic of the Chinese government.

Lex Fridman (1:50:38.000)

I'm very vociferous about the really genocide in Xinjiang,

Jamie Metzl (1:50:42.720)

the absolute effort to destroy Tibetan culture,

Lex Fridman (1:50:46.560)

the destruction of democracy in Hong Kong,

Jamie Metzl (1:50:51.040)

incredibly illegal efforts to seize

Lex Fridman (1:50:54.160)

basically the entire South China Sea.

Lex Fridman (1:50:56.520)

And I could go on and on and on.

Lex Fridman (1:50:59.640)

But Chinese culture is fantastic.

Lex Fridman (1:51:02.680)

And I mean, I can't speak to every technical field,

Lex Fridman (1:51:05.720)

but just in terms of having journalists,

Lex Fridman (1:51:09.000)

and I'll speak to American journalists,

Lex Fridman (1:51:10.560)

people like Peter Hessler who have really invested the time

Jamie Metzl (1:51:14.880)

to live in China, to learn the language, learn the culture.

Lex Fridman (1:51:19.480)

Peter himself, who is maybe one of our best journalists

Jamie Metzl (1:51:22.920)

covering China from a soul level,

Lex Fridman (1:51:26.080)

he was kicked out of China.

Lex Fridman (1:51:27.920)

So it's very, very difficult.

Lex Fridman (1:51:30.440)

His stuff.

Jamie Metzl (1:51:31.280)

His stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:51:32.120)

Yeah, it's really, and so for me,

Jamie Metzl (1:51:32.960)

you talked about my website on pandemic origins.

Lex Fridman (1:51:36.640)

So when I launched it, I had it,

Jamie Metzl (1:51:38.880)

I'm not a Chinese speaker,

Lex Fridman (1:51:40.520)

but I had the entire site translated into Chinese

Lex Fridman (1:51:44.120)

and I have it up on my website just because I felt like,

Lex Fridman (1:51:48.040)

well, if somebody, I mean, the great firewall

Jamie Metzl (1:51:51.400)

makes it very, very difficult for people in China

Lex Fridman (1:51:53.760)

to access that kind of information.

Lex Fridman (1:51:56.320)

But I figured if somebody gets there

Lex Fridman (1:51:58.520)

and they wanna have it in their own language.

Lex Fridman (1:52:02.000)

But it's hard because the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (1:52:04.320)

is represented by these quote unquote wolf warriors,

Jamie Metzl (1:52:08.560)

which is, it's like these basic ruffians.

Lex Fridman (1:52:11.840)

And I personally was condemned by name

Jamie Metzl (1:52:15.440)

by the spokesman of the Chinese foreign ministry

Lex Fridman (1:52:17.560)

from the podium in Beijing.

Lex Fridman (1:52:20.680)

And so it's really hard because I absolutely think

Lex Fridman (1:52:25.160)

the American people and the Chinese people,

Jamie Metzl (1:52:27.800)

I mean, maybe all people, but we have so much in common.

Lex Fridman (1:52:31.280)

I mean, yes, China is an ancient civilization,

Lex Fridman (1:52:36.240)

but they kind of wiped out their own civilization

Lex Fridman (1:52:38.880)

in the great leap forward and cultural revolution.

Jamie Metzl (1:52:41.240)

They burned their scrolls, they smashed their artworks.

Lex Fridman (1:52:44.960)

And so it's a very young society,

Jamie Metzl (1:52:47.440)

kind of like America is a young society.

Lex Fridman (1:52:50.600)

So we have a lot in common.

Lex Fridman (1:52:53.760)

And if we just kind of got out of our own ways,

Lex Fridman (1:52:57.040)

we could have a beautiful relationship,

Lex Fridman (1:52:59.640)

but there's a lot of things that are happening.

Lex Fridman (1:53:01.960)

Certainly the United States feels responsible

Jamie Metzl (1:53:04.120)

to defend the post war international order

Lex Fridman (1:53:07.280)

that past generations helped build.

Lex Fridman (1:53:09.760)

And I'm a certain believer in that

Lex Fridman (1:53:11.800)

and China is challenging that and the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (1:53:16.600)

and they've shared that with that view

Lex Fridman (1:53:18.600)

with the Chinese people feel

Jamie Metzl (1:53:19.680)

that they haven't been adequately respected.

Lex Fridman (1:53:21.760)

And now they're building a massive nuclear arsenal

Lex Fridman (1:53:26.000)

and all these other things to try to position themselves

Lex Fridman (1:53:29.120)

in the world with an articulated goal

Jamie Metzl (1:53:31.160)

of being the lead country in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:53:33.040)

And that puts them at odds with the United States.

Lex Fridman (1:53:34.880)

So there are a lot of real reasons

Lex Fridman (1:53:37.560)

that we need to be honest about for division.

Lex Fridman (1:53:39.960)

But if that's all we focus on,

Lex Fridman (1:53:42.480)

if we don't say that there's another side of the story

Jamie Metzl (1:53:45.680)

that brings us together,

Lex Fridman (1:53:47.680)

we'll put ourselves on an inevitable glide path

Jamie Metzl (1:53:51.320)

to a terrible outcome.

Lex Fridman (1:53:53.480)

What do you make of Xi Jinping?

Lex Fridman (1:53:57.000)

So two questions.

Lex Fridman (1:53:57.920)

So one in general and two more on lab leak

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.280)

and his meeting with our president Biden

Lex Fridman (1:54:05.600)

in discussion of lab leak.

Lex Fridman (1:54:07.800)

So I feel that Xi Jinping has a very narrow goal

Lex Fridman (1:54:15.200)

articulated of establishing China

Jamie Metzl (1:54:17.640)

as the lead country in the world

Lex Fridman (1:54:20.120)

by the 100th anniversary of the founding

Jamie Metzl (1:54:22.880)

of the modern Chinese state.

Lex Fridman (1:54:26.360)

And it's ruthless and it's strategic.

Jamie Metzl (1:54:29.720)

There's a great book called The Long Game by Rush Doshi

Lex Fridman (1:54:33.680)

who's actually now working in the White House

Jamie Metzl (1:54:36.720)

about this goal and our pretty clearly articulated goal

Lex Fridman (1:54:41.360)

to subvert the post war international order

Lex Fridman (1:54:45.040)

and in China's interest.

Lex Fridman (1:54:47.200)

And maybe every leader wants to organize the world

Jamie Metzl (1:54:50.560)

around their interest.

Lex Fridman (1:54:51.480)

But I feel that his vision of what that entails

Jamie Metzl (1:54:56.320)

is not one that I think is shareable

Lex Fridman (1:54:59.120)

for the rest of the world.

Jamie Metzl (1:55:00.040)

I mean, the strength of the United States

Lex Fridman (1:55:01.600)

with all of our flaws is particularly

Jamie Metzl (1:55:04.480)

in that post war period,

Lex Fridman (1:55:06.840)

we put forward a model that was desirable

Jamie Metzl (1:55:10.280)

to a lot of people.

Lex Fridman (1:55:11.120)

Certainly it was desirable to people in Western Europe

Lex Fridman (1:55:13.640)

and then Eastern Europe and Japan and Korea.

Lex Fridman (1:55:17.800)

Doesn't mean it's perfect.

Jamie Metzl (1:55:18.800)

The United States is deeply flawed.

Lex Fridman (1:55:21.520)

As articulated to date,

Jamie Metzl (1:55:23.520)

I don't think most people and countries

Lex Fridman (1:55:26.760)

would like to live in a Sinocentric world.

Lex Fridman (1:55:30.280)

And so I certainly, as I mentioned before,

Lex Fridman (1:55:32.400)

I'm a huge critic of what Xi Jinping is doing,

Jamie Metzl (1:55:34.960)

the incredible brutality in Xinjiang,

Lex Fridman (1:55:39.240)

in Tibet and elsewhere.

Jamie Metzl (1:55:42.560)

Yeah, the censorship one gives me a lot of trouble

Lex Fridman (1:55:47.880)

on the science realm and just in journalism

Lex Fridman (1:55:51.120)

and just the world that prevents us

Lex Fridman (1:55:53.440)

from having conversations with each other.

Lex Fridman (1:55:56.200)

Do you know about the Winnie the Pooh thing?

Lex Fridman (1:55:58.640)

Yes, I mean, it's ridiculous.

Lex Fridman (1:56:01.040)

So to me, that's such a good illustration

Lex Fridman (1:56:03.680)

of censorship being petty.

Lex Fridman (1:56:08.240)

But censorship has to be petty

Lex Fridman (1:56:09.720)

because the goal of censorship,

Jamie Metzl (1:56:12.160)

maybe you experienced in the Soviet Union,

Lex Fridman (1:56:14.720)

is to get into your head.

Jamie Metzl (1:56:16.560)

Like if it's just censorship,

Lex Fridman (1:56:17.840)

like you say down with the state

Lex Fridman (1:56:20.720)

and like you can't say that,

Lex Fridman (1:56:22.720)

but you can say all the other things up to that point,

Jamie Metzl (1:56:26.200)

eventually people will feel empowered

Lex Fridman (1:56:28.520)

to say down with the state.

Lex Fridman (1:56:29.600)

And so I think the goal

Lex Fridman (1:56:30.960)

of this kind of authoritarian censorship

Jamie Metzl (1:56:33.760)

is to turn you into the censor.

Lex Fridman (1:56:36.200)

And so the...

Jamie Metzl (1:56:38.280)

Like self censor.

Lex Fridman (1:56:39.120)

Yeah, because they almost have to have you think,

Jamie Metzl (1:56:41.480)

well, if I'm gonna make any criticism,

Lex Fridman (1:56:44.520)

maybe they're gonna come and get me.

Lex Fridman (1:56:45.880)

So it's safer to not do it.

Lex Fridman (1:56:48.560)

I mean, I've traveled through North Korea

Jamie Metzl (1:56:50.280)

pretty extensively and I've seen that in its ultimate form,

Lex Fridman (1:56:53.480)

but that's what they're trying to do in China too.

Jamie Metzl (1:56:56.760)

Yeah, so for people who are not familiar,

Lex Fridman (1:57:00.080)

it's such a clear illustration

Jamie Metzl (1:57:01.680)

of just the pettiness of censorship

Lex Fridman (1:57:03.880)

and leaders, the corrupting nature of power.

Lex Fridman (1:57:07.200)

But there's a meme of Xi Jinping

Lex Fridman (1:57:10.880)

with, I guess, Barack Obama.

Lex Fridman (1:57:13.840)

And the meme is that he looks like Winnie the Pooh

Lex Fridman (1:57:18.400)

in that picture.

Lex Fridman (1:57:20.800)

And that was the President Xi Jinping

Lex Fridman (1:57:25.200)

looks like Winnie the Pooh.

Lex Fridman (1:57:26.400)

And I guess that became, because that got censored,

Lex Fridman (1:57:30.040)

like mentions of Winnie the Pooh got censored

Jamie Metzl (1:57:32.240)

all across China.

Lex Fridman (1:57:33.760)

Winnie the Pooh became the unknowing revolutionary hero

Jamie Metzl (1:57:38.200)

that represents freedom of speech and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:57:41.560)

But it's just such a absurd...

Jamie Metzl (1:57:44.800)

Because we spend so much time in this conversation

Lex Fridman (1:57:47.800)

talking about the censorship

Jamie Metzl (1:57:49.720)

that's a little bit more understandable to me,

Lex Fridman (1:57:52.400)

which is like, we messed up.

Lex Fridman (1:57:55.320)

And it wasn't, maybe it's almost understandable errors

Lex Fridman (1:57:59.680)

that happen in the progress of science.

Jamie Metzl (1:58:02.680)

I mean, you could always argue

Lex Fridman (1:58:05.520)

that there's a lot of mistakes along the way

Lex Fridman (1:58:09.160)

and the censorship along the way caused the big mistake.

Lex Fridman (1:58:11.920)

You can argue that same way for the Chernobyl.

Lex Fridman (1:58:14.320)

But those are sort of understandable and difficult topics.

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.280)

Like Winnie the Pooh.

Lex Fridman (1:58:19.800)

But in your message, it shows both sides of the story.

Lex Fridman (1:58:22.160)

I mean, one, how petty authoritarian censors have to be.

Lex Fridman (1:58:26.280)

And that's why the messaging from the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (1:58:29.160)

is so consistent.

Jamie Metzl (1:58:30.640)

No matter who you are,

Lex Fridman (1:58:32.480)

you have to be careful what you say.

Lex Fridman (1:58:33.960)

And that's why it's the story of Peng Shui,

Lex Fridman (1:58:37.200)

the tennis player.

Jamie Metzl (1:58:38.600)

She dared raise her voice in an individual way.

Lex Fridman (1:58:42.360)

Jack Ma, the richest man in China,

Jamie Metzl (1:58:46.840)

had a minor criticism of the Chinese government.

Lex Fridman (1:58:50.440)

He had basically disappeared from the public eye.

Jamie Metzl (1:58:54.560)

Fan Bingbing, who's like one of the leading

Lex Fridman (1:58:57.560)

Chinese movie stars,

Jamie Metzl (1:58:59.320)

she was seen as not loyal enough and she just vanished.

Lex Fridman (1:59:03.320)

And so the message is no matter who you are,

Jamie Metzl (1:59:06.240)

no matter what level,

Lex Fridman (1:59:08.080)

if you don't mind everything you say,

Jamie Metzl (1:59:11.520)

you could lose everything.

Lex Fridman (1:59:12.680)

I'm pretty hopeful, optimistic about a lot of things.

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.160)

And so for me, if the Chinese government stays

Lex Fridman (1:59:19.840)

with its current structure,

Jamie Metzl (1:59:21.160)

I think what I hope they start fixing

Lex Fridman (1:59:24.600)

is the freedom of speech.

Lex Fridman (1:59:26.600)

But they can't.

Lex Fridman (1:59:27.440)

I mean, the thing is if they open up freedom of speech

Jamie Metzl (1:59:32.200)

really in a meaningful way,

Lex Fridman (1:59:34.320)

they can't maintain their current form of government.

Lex Fridman (1:59:38.320)

And it's connected, as I was saying before,

Lex Fridman (1:59:40.320)

to the origins of the pandemic.

Jamie Metzl (1:59:42.520)

I mean, if my hypothesis was right,

Lex Fridman (1:59:45.040)

that was the big choice that the national government had.

Lex Fridman (1:59:48.840)

Do we really investigate the origins of the pandemic?

Lex Fridman (1:59:51.760)

Do we deliver a message that transparency is required,

Lex Fridman (1:59:55.600)

public transparency is required from local officials?

Lex Fridman (1:59:58.840)

If they do that, the entire system collapsed.

Jamie Metzl (20:00.060)

all kinds of computer attacks on this database

Lex Fridman (20:03.060)

but why would that happen in September 2019

Jamie Metzl (20:07.060)

before the pandemic, at least as far as we know.

Lex Fridman (20:11.500)

So just to clarify.

Jamie Metzl (20:13.580)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (20:14.460)

It went down to September 2019

Jamie Metzl (20:17.460)

just so we get the year straight.

Lex Fridman (20:19.700)

January 2020 is when the virus

Jamie Metzl (20:22.140)

really started getting the press.

Lex Fridman (20:25.980)

So we're talking about December 2019,

Jamie Metzl (20:29.020)

a lot of early infections happened.

Lex Fridman (20:30.980)

September 2019 is when this database goes down.

Jamie Metzl (20:34.900)

Just to clarify because you said it quickly,

Lex Fridman (20:37.260)

the Chinese government said

Jamie Metzl (20:39.580)

that their database was getting hacked.

Lex Fridman (20:44.900)

Therefore, Xu Zhengli, the director of this part

Jamie Metzl (20:48.660)

of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said that.

Lex Fridman (20:50.820)

Oh really, she was the one that said it?

Jamie Metzl (20:53.260)

She was the one who said it.

Lex Fridman (20:54.100)

Oh boy, I did not even know that part.

Jamie Metzl (20:56.420)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (20:57.240)

Well, she's an interesting character.

Jamie Metzl (20:58.620)

We'll talk about her.

Lex Fridman (20:59.460)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (21:00.300)

So the excuse is that it's getting cyber attacked a lot

Lex Fridman (21:07.700)

so we're gonna take it down without any further explanation

Jamie Metzl (21:10.820)

which seems very suspicious.

Lex Fridman (21:12.140)

And then this virus starts to emerge

Jamie Metzl (21:15.620)

in October, November, December.

Lex Fridman (21:17.500)

There's a lot of argument about that, but after.

Jamie Metzl (21:19.500)

Sorry to interrupt, but some people are saying

Lex Fridman (21:21.420)

that the first outbreak could have happened

Jamie Metzl (21:23.220)

as early as September.

Lex Fridman (21:25.140)

I think it's more likely it's October, November,

Lex Fridman (21:27.640)

but for the people who are saying that the first outbreak,

Lex Fridman (21:31.340)

the first incident of a known outbreak,

Jamie Metzl (21:34.940)

at least to somebody, happened in September,

Lex Fridman (21:37.360)

they make the argument, well, what if that also happened

Lex Fridman (21:40.440)

in mid September of 2019?

Lex Fridman (21:42.460)

I'm not prepared to go there,

Lex Fridman (21:43.800)

but there are some people who make that argument.

Lex Fridman (21:45.100)

But I think, again, if I were to put myself

Jamie Metzl (21:47.980)

in the mind of officials,

Lex Fridman (21:50.060)

whether it's officials within the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Jamie Metzl (21:53.740)

or Wuhan local officials,

Lex Fridman (21:58.020)

I think if I notice some major problem,

Jamie Metzl (22:02.020)

like somebody got sick,

Lex Fridman (22:04.460)

some sign of, oh shit, we screwed up,

Jamie Metzl (22:09.220)

that's when you kind of do the slow,

Lex Fridman (22:11.940)

there's like a Homer Simpson meme

Jamie Metzl (22:13.740)

where you slowly start backing out,

Lex Fridman (22:15.580)

and I would probably start hiding stuff.

Jamie Metzl (22:20.740)

CYA, yeah.

Lex Fridman (22:21.860)

Yeah, and then coming up with really shady excuses.

Jamie Metzl (22:25.980)

It's like you're in a relationship

Lex Fridman (22:27.900)

and your girlfriend wants to see your phone,

Lex Fridman (22:30.020)

and you're like, I'm sorry,

Lex Fridman (22:31.400)

I'm just getting attacked by the Russians now.

Jamie Metzl (22:33.540)

The cyber security issue, I can't.

Lex Fridman (22:35.340)

Yeah, I wish I could.

Jamie Metzl (22:36.820)

I wish I could, it's just unsafe right now.

Lex Fridman (22:39.780)

So would it be okay if I give you my kind of macro view

Jamie Metzl (22:42.820)

of the whole information space

Lex Fridman (22:44.620)

and why I believe this has been so contentious?

Jamie Metzl (22:50.660)

If I had to give my best guess,

Lex Fridman (22:52.460)

and I underline the word guess of what happened,

Lex Fridman (22:56.020)

and your background, your family background with Chernobyl

Lex Fridman (22:59.540)

I think is highly relevant here.

Lex Fridman (23:02.100)

So after the first SARS, there was a recognition

Lex Fridman (23:06.340)

that we needed to distribute knowledge about virology

Lex Fridman (23:09.860)

and epidemiology around the world,

Lex Fridman (23:11.660)

that people in China and Africa and Southeast Asia,

Jamie Metzl (23:14.900)

they were the frontline workers,

Lex Fridman (23:16.700)

and they needed to be doing a lot of the viral monitoring

Lex Fridman (23:20.620)

and assessment so that we could have an early alarm system.

Lex Fridman (23:25.660)

And that was why there was a lot of investment

Jamie Metzl (23:28.260)

in all of those places in building capacity

Lex Fridman (23:30.980)

and training people

Lex Fridman (23:31.980)

and helping to build institutional capacity.

Lex Fridman (23:34.620)

And the Chinese government,

Jamie Metzl (23:36.780)

they recognized that they needed to ramp things up.

Lex Fridman (23:40.540)

And then the World Health Organization

Lex Fridman (23:43.300)

and the World Health Assembly,

Lex Fridman (23:44.660)

they had their international health regulations

Jamie Metzl (23:47.620)

that were designed to create a stronger infrastructure.

Lex Fridman (23:50.140)

So that was the goal.

Jamie Metzl (23:52.540)

There were a lot of investments,

Lex Fridman (23:54.320)

and I know we'll talk later

Jamie Metzl (23:55.420)

about the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Lex Fridman (23:56.940)

and I won't go into that right now.

Lex Fridman (23:59.420)

So there was all of this distributed capacity.

Lex Fridman (24:02.620)

And so in the early days, there's a breakout in Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (24:07.300)

We don't know, is it September, October, November?

Lex Fridman (24:10.740)

Maybe December is when the local authorities

Jamie Metzl (24:14.640)

start to recognize that something's happening.

Lex Fridman (24:16.700)

But at some point in late 2019,

Jamie Metzl (24:19.260)

local officials in Wuhan understand that something is up.

Lex Fridman (24:23.580)

And exactly like in Chernobyl,

Jamie Metzl (24:26.060)

these guys exist within a hierarchical system,

Lex Fridman (24:29.220)

and they are going to be rewarded if good things happen,

Lex Fridman (24:32.340)

and they're going to be in big trouble

Lex Fridman (24:34.000)

if bad things happen under their watch.

Lex Fridman (24:36.280)

So their initial instinct is to squash it.

Lex Fridman (24:39.580)

And my guess is they think,

Jamie Metzl (24:42.200)

well, if we squash this information,

Lex Fridman (24:44.340)

we can most likely beat back this outbreak,

Jamie Metzl (24:47.180)

because lots of outbreaks happen all the time,

Lex Fridman (24:49.380)

including of SARS 1,

Jamie Metzl (24:51.500)

where there was multiple lab incidents

Lex Fridman (24:53.980)

out of a lab in Beijing.

Lex Fridman (24:56.860)

And so they start their coverup on day one.

Lex Fridman (24:59.820)

They start screening social media.

Jamie Metzl (25:02.620)

They send nasty letters to different doctors

Lex Fridman (25:06.180)

and others who are starting to speak up.

Lex Fridman (25:08.660)

But then it becomes clear that there's a bigger issue.

Lex Fridman (25:12.120)

And then the national government of China,

Jamie Metzl (25:14.820)

again, this is just a hypothesis,

Lex Fridman (25:17.500)

the national government gets involved.

Jamie Metzl (25:19.700)

They say, all right, this is getting much bigger.

Lex Fridman (25:21.920)

They go in and they realize

Jamie Metzl (25:24.100)

that we have a big problem on our hands.

Lex Fridman (25:26.200)

They relatively quickly know

Jamie Metzl (25:28.340)

that it's spreading human to human.

Lex Fridman (25:30.680)

And so the right thing for them to do then

Jamie Metzl (25:32.900)

is what the South African government is doing now

Lex Fridman (25:35.380)

is to say, we have this outbreak.

Jamie Metzl (25:37.860)

We don't know everything, but we know it's serious.

Lex Fridman (25:40.820)

We need help.

Lex Fridman (25:41.680)

But that's not the instinct of people in most governments

Lex Fridman (25:44.780)

and certainly not in authoritarian governments like China.

Lex Fridman (25:48.340)

And so the national government,

Lex Fridman (25:50.980)

they have a choice at that point.

Jamie Metzl (25:52.820)

They can do option one,

Lex Fridman (25:55.060)

which is what we would hear called the right thing,

Jamie Metzl (25:57.540)

which is total transparency.

Lex Fridman (25:59.620)

They criticize the local officials for having this coverup.

Lex Fridman (26:03.460)

And they say, now we're going to be totally transparent.

Lex Fridman (26:05.860)

But what does that do in a system

Lex Fridman (26:07.980)

like the former Soviet Union, like China now?

Lex Fridman (26:10.740)

If local officials say, wait a second,

Jamie Metzl (26:12.460)

I thought my job was to cover everything up,

Lex Fridman (26:15.940)

to support this alternative reality

Jamie Metzl (26:18.340)

that authoritarian systems need in order to survive.

Lex Fridman (26:22.280)

Well, now I'm gonna be held accountable

Jamie Metzl (26:23.860)

for if I'm not totally transparent,

Lex Fridman (26:26.740)

like your whole system would collapse.

Lex Fridman (26:29.420)

So the national government, they have that choice

Lex Fridman (26:32.580)

and their only choice according to the logic of their system

Jamie Metzl (26:37.260)

is to be all in on a coverup.

Lex Fridman (26:39.020)

And that's why they block the World Health Organization

Jamie Metzl (26:41.620)

from sending its team to Wuhan for over three weeks.

Lex Fridman (26:45.520)

They overtly lie to the World Health Organization

Jamie Metzl (26:48.580)

about human to human transmission.

Lex Fridman (26:51.280)

And then they begin their coverups.

Lex Fridman (26:53.580)

So they begin very, very quickly destroying samples,

Lex Fridman (26:56.900)

hiding records, they start imprisoning people

Jamie Metzl (26:59.860)

for asking basic questions.

Lex Fridman (27:02.900)

Soon after they establish a gag order,

Jamie Metzl (27:05.780)

preventing Chinese scientists from writing

Lex Fridman (27:08.060)

or saying anything about pandemic origins

Jamie Metzl (27:10.600)

without prior government approval.

Lex Fridman (27:12.200)

And what that does means that there isn't a lot of data,

Jamie Metzl (27:16.180)

there's not nearly enough data coming out of China.

Lex Fridman (27:19.300)

And so lots of responsible scientists outside of China

Jamie Metzl (27:22.860)

who are data driven say, well,

Lex Fridman (27:25.040)

I don't have enough information to draw conclusions.

Lex Fridman (27:29.300)

And then into that vacuum step a relatively small number

Lex Fridman (27:35.180)

of largely virologists, but also others,

Jamie Metzl (27:39.220)

respected scientists.

Lex Fridman (27:40.820)

And I know we'll talk about the, I think,

Jamie Metzl (27:43.220)

infamous Peter Daszak who say,

Lex Fridman (27:47.060)

well, without any real foundation in the evidence,

Jamie Metzl (27:52.780)

they say, we know pretty much this comes from nature

Lex Fridman (27:56.780)

and anyone who's raising the possibility

Jamie Metzl (28:00.300)

of a lab incident origin is a conspiracy theorist.

Lex Fridman (28:03.420)

So that message starts to percolate.

Lex Fridman (28:07.940)

And then in the United States, we have Donald Trump

Lex Fridman (28:11.620)

and he's starting to get criticized for America's failure

Jamie Metzl (28:15.440)

to respond, prepare for and respond adequately

Lex Fridman (28:17.680)

to the outbreak.

Lex Fridman (28:19.060)

And so he starts saying, well, I know first

Lex Fridman (28:22.900)

after praising Xi Jinping, he starts saying,

Jamie Metzl (28:25.160)

well, I know that China did it and the WHO did it

Lex Fridman (28:28.620)

and he's kind of pointing fingers at everybody but himself.

Lex Fridman (28:33.020)

And then we have a media here that had shifted

Lex Fridman (28:36.140)

from the traditional model of he said, she said journalism,

Lex Fridman (28:40.760)

so and so said X and so and so said Y

Lex Fridman (28:43.220)

and then we'll present both of those views.

Jamie Metzl (28:45.860)

With Donald Trump,

Lex Fridman (28:47.460)

he would make outlandish starting positions.

Lex Fridman (28:50.600)

So he would say, Lex is an ax murderer.

Lex Fridman (28:53.460)

And then in the early days, they would say,

Jamie Metzl (28:55.380)

Lex is an ax murderer, Lex's friend says

Lex Fridman (28:59.180)

he's not an ax murderer and we have a four day debate,

Lex Fridman (29:01.340)

is he or isn't he?

Lex Fridman (29:02.580)

And then at day four, someone would say,

Lex Fridman (29:04.660)

why are we having this debate at all?

Lex Fridman (29:06.820)

Because the original point is just is baseless.

Lex Fridman (29:11.780)

And so the media just got in the habit,

Lex Fridman (29:13.860)

here's what Trump said and here's why it's wrong.

Jamie Metzl (29:16.660)

It's very complicated to figure out

Lex Fridman (29:20.020)

what is the role of a politician?

Lex Fridman (29:21.620)

What is the role of a leader in this kind of game

Lex Fridman (29:23.900)

of politics?

Lex Fridman (29:25.580)

But certainly in when there's a tragedy,

Lex Fridman (29:29.620)

when there's a catastrophic event,

Lex Fridman (29:32.060)

what it takes to be a leader is to see clearly

Lex Fridman (29:35.300)

through the fog and to make big bold decisions

Jamie Metzl (29:38.760)

that does speak to the truth of things.

Lex Fridman (29:41.180)

And even if it's unpopular truth,

Jamie Metzl (29:44.300)

to listen to the people, to listen to all sides,

Lex Fridman (29:48.100)

to the opinions, to the controversial ideas

Lex Fridman (29:51.780)

and to see past all the bullshit,

Lex Fridman (29:54.660)

all the political bullshit and just speak to the people,

Jamie Metzl (29:59.220)

speak to the world and make bold, big decisions.

Lex Fridman (2:00:02.040)

Pretty much everybody in China has a relative

Jamie Metzl (2:00:06.600)

who has died as a result of the actions

Lex Fridman (2:00:09.800)

of the Communist Party,

Jamie Metzl (2:00:10.760)

particularly in the Great Leap Forward.

Lex Fridman (2:00:12.600)

It's nearly 50 million people died

Jamie Metzl (2:00:15.160)

as a result of Mao's disastrous policies.

Lex Fridman (2:00:18.560)

And yet why is Mao's picture still on Tiananmen Square

Lex Fridman (2:00:21.800)

and it's on the money?

Lex Fridman (2:00:23.520)

Because maintaining that fiction

Jamie Metzl (2:00:26.040)

is the foundation of the legitimacy of the Chinese state.

Lex Fridman (2:00:29.880)

If people were allowed, just say what you want.

Lex Fridman (2:00:32.280)

Do you really think Mao was such a great guy,

Lex Fridman (2:00:35.160)

even though your own relatives are dead as a result?

Lex Fridman (2:00:39.280)

Do you really buy even on this story

Lex Fridman (2:00:43.840)

that China did nothing wrong,

Jamie Metzl (2:00:45.240)

even though in the earliest days of the pandemic,

Lex Fridman (2:00:48.240)

these two, at least Chinese scientists themselves,

Jamie Metzl (2:00:51.120)

courageously issued a preprint paper

Lex Fridman (2:00:54.960)

that was later almost certainly forcibly retracted,

Jamie Metzl (2:00:58.600)

saying, well, this looks like this comes

Lex Fridman (2:01:00.360)

from one of the Wuhan labs that we're studying.

Jamie Metzl (2:01:03.320)

Like if you opened up that window,

Lex Fridman (2:01:06.880)

I think that the Chinese government

Jamie Metzl (2:01:09.640)

would not be able to continue in its current form.

Lex Fridman (2:01:12.400)

And that's why they cracked down at Tiananmen Square.

Jamie Metzl (2:01:14.960)

That's why with Feng Shui, the tennis player,

Lex Fridman (2:01:17.840)

if they had let her accuse somebody

Jamie Metzl (2:01:21.040)

from the Communist Party of sexual assault,

Lex Fridman (2:01:24.680)

and they said, okay, now people,

Jamie Metzl (2:01:26.960)

you can use social media

Lex Fridman (2:01:28.560)

and you can have your me too moment

Lex Fridman (2:01:30.600)

and let us know who in the Chinese Communist Party

Lex Fridman (2:01:34.600)

or your boss in a business has assaulted you.

Jamie Metzl (2:01:37.480)

Just like in every society,

Lex Fridman (2:01:38.720)

I'm sure there's tons of women

Jamie Metzl (2:01:40.040)

who've been sexually assaulted, manipulated, abused by men.

Lex Fridman (2:01:45.480)

And so I certainly hope

Jamie Metzl (2:01:48.480)

that there can be that kind of opening.

Lex Fridman (2:01:51.200)

But if I were an authoritarian dictator,

Jamie Metzl (2:01:54.300)

that's the thing I would be most afraid of.

Lex Fridman (2:01:56.640)

Yeah, dictator perhaps,

Lex Fridman (2:01:58.040)

but I think you can gradually increase the freedom of speech.

Lex Fridman (2:02:01.240)

So I think you can maintain control over the freedom

Jamie Metzl (2:02:04.840)

of press first.

Lex Fridman (2:02:06.160)

So control the press more,

Lex Fridman (2:02:08.320)

but let the lower levels sort of open up YouTube, right?

Lex Fridman (2:02:13.560)

Open up like where individual citizens can make content.

Jamie Metzl (2:02:17.000)

I mean, there's a lot of benefits to that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:19.100)

And then from an authoritarian perspective,

Jamie Metzl (2:02:22.760)

you can just say that's misinformation,

Lex Fridman (2:02:25.600)

that's conspiracy theories, all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (2:02:28.420)

But at least I think if you open up that freedom of speech

Lex Fridman (2:02:32.560)

at the level of the individual citizen,

Jamie Metzl (2:02:35.880)

that's good for entrepreneurship,

Lex Fridman (2:02:38.000)

for the development of ideas,

Jamie Metzl (2:02:39.600)

of exchange of ideas, all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:02:41.440)

I just think that increased the GDP of the country.

Lex Fridman (2:02:44.160)

So I think there's a lot of benefits.

Lex Fridman (2:02:46.080)

I feel like you can still play,

Jamie Metzl (2:02:48.360)

we're playing some like dark thoughts here,

Lex Fridman (2:02:50.800)

but I feel like you could still play the game of thrones,

Jamie Metzl (2:02:54.620)

still maintain power while giving freedom to the citizenry.

Lex Fridman (2:03:00.120)

Like I think just like with North Korea is a good example

Jamie Metzl (2:03:04.200)

of where cracking down too much

Lex Fridman (2:03:07.320)

can completely destroy your country.

Jamie Metzl (2:03:10.360)

Like there's some balance you can strike in your evil mind

Lex Fridman (2:03:14.520)

and still maintain authoritarian control over the country.

Jamie Metzl (2:03:17.400)

Obviously, it's not obvious,

Lex Fridman (2:03:20.960)

but I'm a big supporter of freedom of speech.

Jamie Metzl (2:03:24.080)

I mean, it seems to work really well.

Lex Fridman (2:03:26.560)

I don't know what the failure cases

Jamie Metzl (2:03:28.000)

for freedom of speech are.

Lex Fridman (2:03:30.420)

Probably we're experiencing them with Twitter

Lex Fridman (2:03:32.800)

and like where the nature of truth

Lex Fridman (2:03:34.320)

is being completely kind of flipped upside down.

Lex Fridman (2:03:38.960)

But it seems like on the whole,

Lex Fridman (2:03:41.640)

ability to defeat lies with more,

Jamie Metzl (2:03:47.280)

not through censorship, but through more conversations,

Lex Fridman (2:03:50.780)

more information is the right way to go.

Jamie Metzl (2:03:53.120)

Can I tell you a little story, true stories

Lex Fridman (2:03:54.720)

about North Korea?

Lex Fridman (2:03:56.000)

So a number of years ago, I was invited

Lex Fridman (2:03:58.560)

to be part of a small six person delegation

Jamie Metzl (2:04:01.720)

advising the government of North Korea

Lex Fridman (2:04:04.800)

on how to establish special economic zones

Jamie Metzl (2:04:07.360)

because other countries have used these SEZs

Lex Fridman (2:04:10.560)

as a way of building their economies.

Lex Fridman (2:04:13.000)

And when I was invited, I thought,

Lex Fridman (2:04:15.640)

well, maybe there's an opening.

Lex Fridman (2:04:17.900)

And I certainly believe in that.

Lex Fridman (2:04:19.980)

So we flew to China across the border into North Korea.

Lex Fridman (2:04:24.560)

And then we were met by our partners

Lex Fridman (2:04:27.360)

from the North Korean Development Organization.

Lex Fridman (2:04:30.060)

And then we zigzagged the country for almost two weeks

Lex Fridman (2:04:33.960)

visiting all these sites for where they were intended

Jamie Metzl (2:04:38.060)

to create these special economic zones.

Lex Fridman (2:04:39.840)

And in each site, they had their local officials

Lex Fridman (2:04:42.680)

and they had a map and they showed us where everything

Lex Fridman (2:04:45.320)

that was going to be built.

Lex Fridman (2:04:47.080)

And the other people who were like really technical experts

Lex Fridman (2:04:50.320)

on how to set up a special economic zone,

Jamie Metzl (2:04:52.120)

they were asking questions, well, like,

Lex Fridman (2:04:53.800)

should you put the entrance over here

Jamie Metzl (2:04:55.760)

or shouldn't you put it over there

Lex Fridman (2:04:56.960)

and what if there's flooding?

Lex Fridman (2:04:58.480)

And I kept asking just these basic questions,

Lex Fridman (2:05:00.480)

like, what do you think you're going to do here?

Lex Fridman (2:05:02.960)

Why do you think you can be competitive?

Lex Fridman (2:05:05.280)

Do you know anything about who you're competing against?

Jamie Metzl (2:05:07.880)

Are you empowering your workers to innovate

Lex Fridman (2:05:10.580)

because everybody else is innovating?

Lex Fridman (2:05:12.600)

So at the end of the trip, they flew us to Pyongyang

Lex Fridman (2:05:14.880)

and they put us in this,

Jamie Metzl (2:05:15.840)

it looked kind of like the United Nations.

Lex Fridman (2:05:17.480)

They probably had 500 people there

Lex Fridman (2:05:20.240)

and I gave a speech to them.

Lex Fridman (2:05:22.960)

I obviously was in English and it was translated

Lex Fridman (2:05:26.560)

and I figured, you know, I've come all this way,

Lex Fridman (2:05:29.920)

I'm just going to be honest.

Jamie Metzl (2:05:30.940)

If they arrest me for being honest, that's on them.

Lex Fridman (2:05:34.760)

And I said, I'm here because I believe

Jamie Metzl (2:05:38.000)

we can never give up hope,

Lex Fridman (2:05:39.700)

that we always have to try to connect.

Jamie Metzl (2:05:41.460)

I'm also here because I think that North Korea

Lex Fridman (2:05:45.440)

connecting to the world economy is an important first step.

Lex Fridman (2:05:50.240)

But having visited all of your special economic zone sites

Lex Fridman (2:05:52.680)

and having met with all of your, or many of your officials,

Jamie Metzl (2:05:56.100)

I don't think your plan has any chance of succeeding

Lex Fridman (2:05:59.440)

because you're trying to sell into a global market,

Lex Fridman (2:06:03.640)

but you need to have market information that,

Lex Fridman (2:06:07.520)

and I gave examples of GE and others

Jamie Metzl (2:06:10.920)

that the innovation can't only happen at one place.

Lex Fridman (2:06:14.640)

And if you want innovation to happen

Jamie Metzl (2:06:17.800)

from the people who are doing this,

Lex Fridman (2:06:19.360)

you have to empower them, they have to have access,

Jamie Metzl (2:06:22.400)

they have to have voice.

Lex Fridman (2:06:23.520)

I mean, nobody, I mean, the people after,

Jamie Metzl (2:06:28.600)

they kind of had to condemn me

Lex Fridman (2:06:30.160)

because what I was saying was challenging.

Lex Fridman (2:06:32.600)

So I certainly agree with you.

Lex Fridman (2:06:33.880)

And then just one side story of then that night,

Lex Fridman (2:06:37.800)

and it was just kind of bizarre

Lex Fridman (2:06:39.040)

because North Korea is, it's so desperately poor,

Lex Fridman (2:06:42.400)

but they were trying to impress us.

Lex Fridman (2:06:44.440)

And so we had these embarrassingly sumptuous banquets.

Lex Fridman (2:06:49.300)

And so for our final dinner that night,

Lex Fridman (2:06:51.600)

really it looked like something from Beauty and the Beast.

Jamie Metzl (2:06:54.760)

I mean, it was like China and waiters and tuxedos,

Lex Fridman (2:06:59.520)

and they had this beautiful dinner.

Lex Fridman (2:07:02.120)

And then afterwards,

Lex Fridman (2:07:04.240)

because we'd now spent two weeks

Jamie Metzl (2:07:05.580)

with our North Korean partners,

Lex Fridman (2:07:07.060)

they brought out this karaoke machine

Lex Fridman (2:07:08.980)

and our North Korean counterparts,

Lex Fridman (2:07:11.060)

they sang songs to us in Korean.

Lex Fridman (2:07:15.240)

And so I said, well, we want to reciprocate.

Lex Fridman (2:07:18.120)

Do you have any English songs on your karaoke machine?

Jamie Metzl (2:07:21.240)

It's North Korea, obviously they didn't.

Lex Fridman (2:07:23.320)

But there was, I said, well, I have an idea.

Lex Fridman (2:07:25.560)

And so there was one of the women

Lex Fridman (2:07:27.120)

who'd been part of the North Korean delegation.

Jamie Metzl (2:07:30.200)

She was able just to play the piano,

Lex Fridman (2:07:32.640)

just like you could hum a tune

Lex Fridman (2:07:34.400)

and she could play it on the piano.

Lex Fridman (2:07:36.160)

And so I said, all right, here's this tune,

Jamie Metzl (2:07:39.480)

which I whispered in her ear.

Lex Fridman (2:07:41.000)

When I give you the signal,

Jamie Metzl (2:07:42.420)

just play this tune over and over.

Lex Fridman (2:07:45.400)

And so I got these, I mean, there were the six of us

Lex Fridman (2:07:48.200)

and maybe 20 North Koreans,

Lex Fridman (2:07:49.640)

and we were all in a circle,

Lex Fridman (2:07:51.080)

so everybody hold hands and then put your right,

Lex Fridman (2:07:54.920)

just try to put your right foot in front of your left

Lex Fridman (2:07:57.600)

and then left foot in front of the right, going sideways.

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.560)

And I said, all right, hit it.

Lex Fridman (2:08:02.480)

And she played a North Korean version of Hava Nagila.

Lex Fridman (2:08:06.840)

And I think it was the first

Lex Fridman (2:08:08.120)

and only horror that they've ever done in North Korea.

Lex Fridman (2:08:11.680)

That's hilarious.

Jamie Metzl (2:08:12.500)

I survived.

Lex Fridman (2:08:13.340)

Was this recorded or no?

Jamie Metzl (2:08:14.220)

It was not.

Lex Fridman (2:08:15.060)

Oh, no.

Jamie Metzl (2:08:15.880)

Yeah, if they had free YouTube,

Lex Fridman (2:08:18.160)

this would have been a big one.

Jamie Metzl (2:08:19.520)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:08:21.520)

Let's return to the beginning

Lex Fridman (2:08:23.080)

and just patient zero.

Lex Fridman (2:08:28.520)

It's kind of always incredible to think

Jamie Metzl (2:08:30.760)

that there's one human at which it all started.

Lex Fridman (2:08:33.840)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:08:36.360)

Who do you think was patient zero?

Lex Fridman (2:08:38.760)

Do you think it was somebody that worked

Lex Fridman (2:08:42.640)

at Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Lex Fridman (2:08:47.400)

Do you think there was a leak of some other kind

Lex Fridman (2:08:52.440)

that led to the infection?

Lex Fridman (2:08:55.040)

What do we know?

Jamie Metzl (2:08:55.920)

Because there's this December 8th slash December 16th case

Lex Fridman (2:08:59.800)

of maybe you can describe what that is.

Lex Fridman (2:09:04.400)

And then there's like, what's his name?

Lex Fridman (2:09:09.960)

Michael Warobey has a nice timeline.

Jamie Metzl (2:09:12.960)

I'm sure you have a timeline.

Lex Fridman (2:09:14.480)

But he has a nice timeline that puts the average

Jamie Metzl (2:09:17.880)

at like November something, like 18th and November 16th

Lex Fridman (2:09:22.280)

as the average estimate for when the patient zero

Jamie Metzl (2:09:27.200)

got infected, when the first human infection happened.

Lex Fridman (2:09:30.360)

Yeah, so just two points.

Jamie Metzl (2:09:32.080)

One is it may be that there's infectee zero

Lex Fridman (2:09:36.560)

and patient zero.

Jamie Metzl (2:09:37.880)

It could be that the first person infected was asymptomatic

Lex Fridman (2:09:41.280)

because we know there's a lot of people

Jamie Metzl (2:09:42.440)

who are asymptomatic.

Lex Fridman (2:09:44.240)

And then there's the question of, well, who is patient zero?

Jamie Metzl (2:09:47.640)

Meaning the first person to present themselves

Lex Fridman (2:09:51.040)

in some kind of health facility

Jamie Metzl (2:09:53.600)

where that diagnosis could be made.

Lex Fridman (2:09:56.400)

So can we actually linger on that definition?

Jamie Metzl (2:09:58.640)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:09:59.480)

So is that to you a good definition of patient zero?

Jamie Metzl (2:10:02.600)

Okay, there's a bunch of stuff here

Lex Fridman (2:10:04.560)

because this virus is weird.

Lex Fridman (2:10:06.640)

So one is who gets infected, one who is infectious

Lex Fridman (2:10:11.120)

or the first person infect others.

Jamie Metzl (2:10:14.400)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:10:15.240)

And who shows up to a hospital.

Jamie Metzl (2:10:17.360)

Yeah, so I think that's why I'm calling the first person

Lex Fridman (2:10:19.480)

to show up to a hospital who's diagnosed with COVID 19.

Jamie Metzl (2:10:22.600)

I'm calling that person patient zero.

Lex Fridman (2:10:24.560)

There's also, there's somewhere the first person

Jamie Metzl (2:10:28.480)

to be infected.

Lex Fridman (2:10:29.760)

And that person maybe never showed up in a hospital

Jamie Metzl (2:10:32.800)

because maybe they were asymptomatic and never get sick,

Lex Fridman (2:10:36.400)

so got sick.

Lex Fridman (2:10:37.240)

So let me start with what I'm calling infectee zero.

Lex Fridman (2:10:40.560)

Here are some options.

Jamie Metzl (2:10:41.720)

I talked before about some person who was a villager

Lex Fridman (2:10:46.320)

and some remote village.

Jamie Metzl (2:10:47.720)

It's almost impossible to imagine, but possible to imagine

Lex Fridman (2:10:51.680)

because strange things happen.

Lex Fridman (2:10:54.000)

And that person somehow gets to Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (2:10:57.280)

By the way, just to still make that argument,

Jamie Metzl (2:11:00.400)

there's not an argument, it's a statement,

Lex Fridman (2:11:01.920)

but strange things happen all the time.

Jamie Metzl (2:11:05.440)

No, I agree.

Lex Fridman (2:11:06.280)

It doesn't mean that logic doesn't apply

Lex Fridman (2:11:09.160)

and probabilities don't apply, but we all,

Lex Fridman (2:11:11.400)

I mean, in general principle, everyone, if we were honest,

Jamie Metzl (2:11:16.400)

should be agnostic about everything.

Lex Fridman (2:11:19.000)

Like I think I'm Jamie, but is there a 0.01% chance

Lex Fridman (2:11:23.520)

or 0.001% chance that I'm not?

Lex Fridman (2:11:27.200)

But it could be.

Lex Fridman (2:11:28.200)

I mean, how would I know?

Lex Fridman (2:11:29.040)

But there's a large number of people arguing

Jamie Metzl (2:11:30.360)

about the meaning of the word I

Lex Fridman (2:11:31.880)

and that I'm Jamie.

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.080)

So exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.920)

What is consciousness?

Jamie Metzl (2:11:34.760)

Exactly, exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:11:35.600)

So we could spend another three hours going into that one.

Lex Fridman (2:11:39.160)

So one possibility is there's some remote villager.

Lex Fridman (2:11:42.120)

Another possibility is there's somehow bizarrely,

Jamie Metzl (2:11:47.600)

there are these infected animals

Lex Fridman (2:11:49.040)

that come from Southern China most likely.

Jamie Metzl (2:11:52.120)

They all, maybe there's only one of them that's infected,

Lex Fridman (2:11:55.800)

which how could that possibly be?

Lex Fridman (2:11:58.080)

And it's only sent to Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (2:11:59.840)

It's not sent anywhere else,

Jamie Metzl (2:12:02.840)

to any of the markets there or whatever.

Lex Fridman (2:12:04.160)

And then maybe somebody in a market is infected.

Jamie Metzl (2:12:06.760)

That's one remote possibility, but a possibility.

Lex Fridman (2:12:10.400)

Another is that researchers

Jamie Metzl (2:12:13.240)

from the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (2:12:15.640)

go down to Southern China.

Jamie Metzl (2:12:17.520)

We didn't, we haven't talked about it yet,

Lex Fridman (2:12:19.000)

but in 2012, there were six miners were sent

Jamie Metzl (2:12:22.960)

into a copper mine in Southern China and Yunnan province.

Lex Fridman (2:12:26.360)

All of them got very sick

Jamie Metzl (2:12:28.040)

with what now appear like COVID 19 like symptoms.

Lex Fridman (2:12:31.800)

Half of them died.

Jamie Metzl (2:12:34.280)

Blood samples from them were taken

Lex Fridman (2:12:37.560)

to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and elsewhere.

Lex Fridman (2:12:40.720)

And then after that, there were multiple site visits

Lex Fridman (2:12:45.720)

to that mine, collecting viral samples

Jamie Metzl (2:12:49.400)

that were brought to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Lex Fridman (2:12:52.560)

included among those samples were,

Jamie Metzl (2:12:55.960)

was this now infamous RETG 13 virus,

Lex Fridman (2:12:59.120)

which is among the genetically closest viruses

Jamie Metzl (2:13:02.240)

to SARS CoV2.

Lex Fridman (2:13:03.880)

There were other nine other or eight other viruses

Jamie Metzl (2:13:07.360)

that were collected from that mine

Lex Fridman (2:13:08.960)

that were presumably very similar to that.

Lex Fridman (2:13:11.760)

And again, we have no access to the information

Lex Fridman (2:13:14.720)

about those and many of the other,

Jamie Metzl (2:13:17.920)

most, almost all of the other viruses.

Lex Fridman (2:13:19.760)

So could it be that one of the people

Jamie Metzl (2:13:24.120)

who was sent from the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (2:13:26.280)

or the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control,

Jamie Metzl (2:13:29.680)

they went down there to collect

Lex Fridman (2:13:31.160)

and they got infected asymptomatically and brought it back?

Jamie Metzl (2:13:34.520)

Could it be that they were working on these viruses

Lex Fridman (2:13:37.320)

in the laboratory and there was an issue

Lex Fridman (2:13:40.320)

with waste disposal?

Lex Fridman (2:13:41.800)

And we know that the Wuhan CDC had a major problem

Jamie Metzl (2:13:45.120)

with waste disposal.

Lex Fridman (2:13:46.680)

And just before the pandemic,

Jamie Metzl (2:13:48.560)

one, they put out an RFP to fix their waste disposal.

Lex Fridman (2:13:53.720)

And in early 2019, they moved to their new site,

Jamie Metzl (2:13:59.120)

which was basically across the street

Lex Fridman (2:14:00.800)

from the Huanan Seafood Market.

Lex Fridman (2:14:03.920)

So could there have been issue of somebody infected

Lex Fridman (2:14:06.320)

in the lab of waste disposal?

Jamie Metzl (2:14:08.600)

Could a laboratory animal, their experiences

Lex Fridman (2:14:10.840)

in China, actually China just recently passed a law

Jamie Metzl (2:14:13.200)

saying it's illegal to sell laboratory animals

Lex Fridman (2:14:17.120)

in the market because there were scientists,

Jamie Metzl (2:14:19.760)

or one scientist who was selling laboratory animals

Lex Fridman (2:14:23.160)

in the market and people would just come and buy.

Jamie Metzl (2:14:27.280)

It's insane.

Lex Fridman (2:14:28.120)

So there's so many, there are so many scenarios,

Lex Fridman (2:14:31.160)

but if I, again, connect it to my 85% number,

Lex Fridman (2:14:35.000)

I think in the whole category of laboratory related incidents,

Jamie Metzl (2:14:39.880)

whether it's collection, waste,

Lex Fridman (2:14:42.120)

something connected to the lab,

Jamie Metzl (2:14:43.800)

I think that's the most likely,

Lex Fridman (2:14:46.720)

but there are other credible people

Jamie Metzl (2:14:49.200)

who would say they think it's not the most likely

Lex Fridman (2:14:52.040)

and I welcome their views

Lex Fridman (2:14:54.080)

and we need to have this conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:14:55.600)

So in your write up, but what's the URL?

Jamie Metzl (2:14:59.560)

Because I always find it by doing Jamie Metzl lab leak.

Lex Fridman (2:15:03.640)

It's probably the easiest, just Google that.

Jamie Metzl (2:15:05.640)

No, no, but if you just go to jamiemetzl.com,

Lex Fridman (2:15:08.120)

J A M I E M E T Z L dot com,

Jamie Metzl (2:15:11.960)

then they're just a thing, it's COVID origins.

Lex Fridman (2:15:15.120)

It's COVID origins.

Jamie Metzl (2:15:17.000)

Or you could just Google Jamie Metzl lab leak.

Lex Fridman (2:15:21.080)

Google search engine is such a powerful thing.

Jamie Metzl (2:15:23.160)

You mentioned in that write up that you don't think,

Lex Fridman (2:15:27.440)

this could be just me misreading it

Jamie Metzl (2:15:29.080)

or it's just slightly miswritten,

Lex Fridman (2:15:31.240)

but you don't think that the virus

Jamie Metzl (2:15:34.720)

is from that 2012 mind, which is fascinating,

Lex Fridman (2:15:38.120)

could be the backbone for SARS COVID too.

Lex Fridman (2:15:40.800)

So what I mean, just the specific virus,

Lex Fridman (2:15:43.800)

which I mentioned, RATG13,

Lex Fridman (2:15:45.920)

and there's a whole history of that

Lex Fridman (2:15:48.120)

because it had a different name and it looked,

Lex Fridman (2:15:51.360)

and Xiaojiang Li provided wrong information

Lex Fridman (2:15:54.920)

about when it had been sequenced.

Jamie Metzl (2:15:57.200)

I mean, there was a whole issue connected to that.

Lex Fridman (2:16:01.360)

But the genetic difference,

Jamie Metzl (2:16:02.880)

even though it's 96.2% similar to the SARS COVID2 virus,

Lex Fridman (2:16:10.100)

that's actually a significant difference,

Jamie Metzl (2:16:12.400)

even though that and a virus called Banal 52

Lex Fridman (2:16:17.600)

that was collected in Laos are the two most similar,

Jamie Metzl (2:16:20.200)

there still are differences.

Lex Fridman (2:16:22.320)

So I'm not saying RATG13 is the backbone,

Lex Fridman (2:16:25.720)

but is there, I believe there is a possibility

Lex Fridman (2:16:28.780)

that other viruses that were collected

Jamie Metzl (2:16:32.400)

either in that mine in Yunnan in Southern China

Lex Fridman (2:16:36.920)

or in Laos or Cambodia,

Jamie Metzl (2:16:39.360)

because that was with the EcoHealth Alliance

Lex Fridman (2:16:43.600)

proposals and documents.

Jamie Metzl (2:16:45.080)

Their plan was to collect viruses

Lex Fridman (2:16:48.680)

in Laos and Cambodia and elsewhere

Lex Fridman (2:16:51.180)

and bring them to the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (2:16:54.260)

so that there are people.

Jamie Metzl (2:16:55.640)

As a matter of fact, just when I was sitting here

Lex Fridman (2:16:57.200)

before this interview,

Jamie Metzl (2:17:01.000)

I got a message from somebody who was saying,

Lex Fridman (2:17:03.600)

well, Peter Daszak is telling everybody

Jamie Metzl (2:17:06.040)

that the viral sample, the Banal 52 from Laos

Lex Fridman (2:17:10.120)

proves that there's not a lab incident origin

Jamie Metzl (2:17:13.720)

of the pandemic.

Lex Fridman (2:17:14.560)

And it actually doesn't prove that at all

Jamie Metzl (2:17:17.060)

because these viruses were being collected

Lex Fridman (2:17:20.520)

in places like Laos and Cambodia

Lex Fridman (2:17:24.120)

and being brought to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (2:17:28.400)

Those are like early, early, like the prequel.

Lex Fridman (2:17:32.800)

So these are, they're not sufficiently similar

Lex Fridman (2:17:35.760)

to be a, to serve as a backbone,

Lex Fridman (2:17:37.400)

but they kind of tell a story

Lex Fridman (2:17:38.680)

that they could have been brought to the lab

Jamie Metzl (2:17:40.640)

through several processes, including genetic modification

Lex Fridman (2:17:44.980)

or through the natural evolution processes,

Jamie Metzl (2:17:47.560)

accelerated evolution, they could have arrived

Lex Fridman (2:17:49.680)

to something that has the spike protein

Lex Fridman (2:17:52.880)

and the cleavage, the foreign cleavage site

Lex Fridman (2:17:56.120)

and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:17:56.960)

So what I'm saying is the essential point

Lex Fridman (2:18:00.200)

is if we had access, if we knew everything

Jamie Metzl (2:18:03.440)

that was being, every virus that was being held

Lex Fridman (2:18:05.960)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan CDC,

Jamie Metzl (2:18:09.280)

we had full access.

Lex Fridman (2:18:10.640)

We had full access to everybody's lab notes.

Lex Fridman (2:18:13.840)

And we did just the kind of forensic investigation

Lex Fridman (2:18:16.720)

that has been so desperately required since day one.

Lex Fridman (2:18:21.360)

We'd be able to say, well, what did you have?

Lex Fridman (2:18:24.340)

Because if we knew, if it should come out,

Jamie Metzl (2:18:26.940)

that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had in its repository,

Lex Fridman (2:18:30.760)

prior to the outbreak, either SARS CoV2

Jamie Metzl (2:18:34.040)

or a reasonable precursor to it,

Lex Fridman (2:18:36.640)

that would prove the lab incident hypothesis.

Jamie Metzl (2:18:39.480)

In my mind, that's almost certainly why they are preventing

Lex Fridman (2:18:42.920)

any kind of meaningful investigation.

Lex Fridman (2:18:46.140)

So my hypothesis is not that what RITG13 says

Lex Fridman (2:18:51.840)

is because as I mentioned earlier,

Jamie Metzl (2:18:54.480)

the genetics of virus are constantly recombinating.

Lex Fridman (2:18:59.640)

So that what that means is if you have,

Jamie Metzl (2:19:01.880)

you don't have very many total outlier viruses

Lex Fridman (2:19:06.080)

in a bat community because these viruses

Jamie Metzl (2:19:08.660)

are always mixing and matching with each other.

Lex Fridman (2:19:11.240)

And so if you have RITG13, which is relatively similar

Jamie Metzl (2:19:16.080)

to SARS CoV2, there's a pretty decent likelihood

Lex Fridman (2:19:19.160)

there was other stuff that was collected

Jamie Metzl (2:19:22.680)

at this mine called Mojang Mine in Yunnan Province,

Lex Fridman (2:19:28.320)

maybe in Laos and Cambodia.

Lex Fridman (2:19:30.940)

And that's why we need to have that information.

Lex Fridman (2:19:36.300)

Do you think somebody knows who patient zero is

Lex Fridman (2:19:39.120)

within China?

Lex Fridman (2:19:39.960)

So do you think that is?

Jamie Metzl (2:19:40.880)

Well, there's two things.

Lex Fridman (2:19:42.080)

One is I think somebody and people probably know.

Lex Fridman (2:19:45.600)

And then two, it's been incredibly curious

Lex Fridman (2:19:47.740)

that the best virus chasers in the world are in China.

Lex Fridman (2:19:52.400)

And they are in Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (2:19:54.520)

And when we can talk about this deeply compromised,

Jamie Metzl (2:19:58.680)

now vastly improved World Health Organization process.

Lex Fridman (2:20:03.180)

But when they went there, the Chinese,

Jamie Metzl (2:20:05.440)

the local and national Chinese authorities say,

Lex Fridman (2:20:07.440)

oh, we haven't done, we haven't tested the samples

Jamie Metzl (2:20:10.640)

in our blood center.

Lex Fridman (2:20:11.920)

We haven't done any of this tracing.

Lex Fridman (2:20:13.600)

And these deeply compromised people

Lex Fridman (2:20:16.880)

who were part of the international part

Jamie Metzl (2:20:20.880)

of the joint study tour, when they came out with their,

Lex Fridman (2:20:25.080)

they had their visit earlier this year

Lex Fridman (2:20:26.480)

and came out with their report.

Lex Fridman (2:20:28.100)

They had in my mind, just an absurd letter

Jamie Metzl (2:20:32.200)

to the editor in nature saying,

Lex Fridman (2:20:34.180)

well, if we don't hurry back,

Jamie Metzl (2:20:35.760)

we're not gonna know what happened.

Lex Fridman (2:20:37.480)

Assuming that the people in China are like bumpkins

Jamie Metzl (2:20:41.460)

who on their own don't know how to trace the origin

Lex Fridman (2:20:44.080)

of a virus and the opposite is the case.

Lex Fridman (2:20:47.460)

So I think there are people in China

Lex Fridman (2:20:50.000)

who at least know a lot.

Jamie Metzl (2:20:51.960)

They know a lot more than they're saying.

Lex Fridman (2:20:55.160)

And at the best case scenario is the Chinese government

Jamie Metzl (2:20:59.000)

wants to prevent any investigation, including by them.

Lex Fridman (2:21:03.240)

The worst case scenario is that there are people

Jamie Metzl (2:21:06.520)

who already know.

Lex Fridman (2:21:07.340)

And that's why, again, my point from day one has been,

Jamie Metzl (2:21:10.320)

we need a comprehensive international investigation

Lex Fridman (2:21:14.800)

in Wuhan with full access to all relevant records,

Jamie Metzl (2:21:18.280)

samples and personnel.

Lex Fridman (2:21:19.360)

When this, again, deeply flawed.

Lex Fridman (2:21:22.160)

Can I give you a little history of this WHO process?

Lex Fridman (2:21:27.200)

Okay.

Jamie Metzl (2:21:28.280)

Who are the, that's funny.

Lex Fridman (2:21:32.360)

Who's on first?

Lex Fridman (2:21:33.520)

Who's on first?

Lex Fridman (2:21:34.440)

I'm so funny with the jokes.

Jamie Metzl (2:21:36.400)

Look at me go.

Lex Fridman (2:21:38.200)

Who are the WHO?

Lex Fridman (2:21:39.760)

So what is this organization?

Lex Fridman (2:21:41.460)

What is its purpose?

Lex Fridman (2:21:43.080)

What role did it play in the pandemic?

Lex Fridman (2:21:45.920)

It certainly was demonized in the realm of politics.

Jamie Metzl (2:21:49.520)

This is an institution that was supposed to save us

Lex Fridman (2:21:55.080)

from this pandemic.

Jamie Metzl (2:21:57.080)

A lot of people believe it failed.

Lex Fridman (2:21:58.960)

Has it failed?

Lex Fridman (2:22:00.280)

Why did it fail?

Lex Fridman (2:22:01.680)

And you said it's improving.

Lex Fridman (2:22:02.960)

How is it improving?

Lex Fridman (2:22:04.280)

Great.

Jamie Metzl (2:22:05.120)

All right.

Lex Fridman (2:22:05.940)

I hope you don't mind.

Jamie Metzl (2:22:06.780)

I'm gonna have to talk for a little bit of extra time.

Lex Fridman (2:22:08.840)

I love this.

Jamie Metzl (2:22:09.680)

I love this.

Lex Fridman (2:22:10.520)

Good, good, good, good.

Lex Fridman (2:22:12.080)

So the WHO is an absolutely essential organization

Lex Fridman (2:22:16.200)

created in 1948 in that wonderful period

Jamie Metzl (2:22:20.580)

after the Second World War

Lex Fridman (2:22:22.200)

when the United States and allied countries

Jamie Metzl (2:22:24.540)

asked the big bold questions,

Lex Fridman (2:22:27.200)

how do we build a safer world for everyone?

Lex Fridman (2:22:30.640)

And so that's the WHO.

Lex Fridman (2:22:33.340)

If we, although there are many critics of the WHO,

Jamie Metzl (2:22:36.780)

if we didn't have it, we would need to invent it

Lex Fridman (2:22:39.120)

because the whole nature of these big public health issues

Lex Fridman (2:22:44.120)

and certainly for pandemics, but all sorts of things

Lex Fridman (2:22:48.280)

is that they are transnational in nature.

Lex Fridman (2:22:50.880)

And so we cannot just build moats.

Lex Fridman (2:22:54.160)

We cannot build walls.

Jamie Metzl (2:22:55.700)

We're all connected to it.

Lex Fridman (2:22:56.960)

So that's the idea.

Jamie Metzl (2:22:59.540)

There's a political process because the United Nations

Lex Fridman (2:23:02.760)

and the WHO is part of it,

Jamie Metzl (2:23:06.480)

it exists within a political context.

Lex Fridman (2:23:08.840)

And so the current director general

Jamie Metzl (2:23:11.640)

of the World Health Organization

Lex Fridman (2:23:13.120)

who was just reelected for his second five year term

Jamie Metzl (2:23:16.880)

is Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Lex Fridman (2:23:20.220)

who is from Ethiopia, Tigrayan from Ethiopia.

Lex Fridman (2:23:25.220)

And in full disclosure, I have a lot of respect for Tedros.

Lex Fridman (2:23:31.100)

Tedros got his job.

Jamie Metzl (2:23:33.260)

He was not America's candidate.

Lex Fridman (2:23:35.360)

He was not Britain's candidate.

Jamie Metzl (2:23:37.160)

Our candidate was a guy named David Nabarro

Lex Fridman (2:23:39.920)

who I also know and have tremendous respect for.

Jamie Metzl (2:23:43.720)

China led the process of putting Tedros in this position.

Lex Fridman (2:23:50.560)

And in the earliest days of the pandemic,

Jamie Metzl (2:23:54.520)

Tedros, in my view,

Lex Fridman (2:23:55.920)

even though I have tremendous respect for him,

Jamie Metzl (2:23:57.760)

I think he made a mistake.

Lex Fridman (2:23:59.280)

The WHO doesn't have its own

Jamie Metzl (2:24:02.240)

independent surveillance network.

Lex Fridman (2:24:04.240)

It's not organized to have it

Lex Fridman (2:24:05.760)

and the states have not allowed it.

Lex Fridman (2:24:07.200)

So it's dependent on member states

Jamie Metzl (2:24:10.240)

for providing it information.

Lex Fridman (2:24:13.120)

And because it's a poorly funded organization

Jamie Metzl (2:24:17.060)

dependent on its bosses who are these governments,

Lex Fridman (2:24:20.460)

it's natural instinct isn't to condemn its bosses.

Jamie Metzl (2:24:24.680)

It's to say, well, let's quietly work with everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:24:28.240)

Having said that,

Jamie Metzl (2:24:29.360)

the Chinese government knowingly lied to Tedros.

Lex Fridman (2:24:33.280)

And Tedros, in repeating the position

Jamie Metzl (2:24:36.360)

of the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (2:24:37.200)

which incidentally I'll say Donald Trump

Jamie Metzl (2:24:39.400)

also did the exact same thing.

Lex Fridman (2:24:41.160)

Donald Trump had a private conversation with Xi Jinping

Lex Fridman (2:24:43.920)

and then repeated what Xi had told him.

Lex Fridman (2:24:48.520)

Both of them were wrong.

Jamie Metzl (2:24:51.400)

Dr. Tedros, I think when Chinese government was lying,

Lex Fridman (2:24:55.840)

knowingly lying,

Jamie Metzl (2:24:56.920)

saying there's no human to human transmission,

Lex Fridman (2:25:00.000)

Dr. Tedros said that.

Lex Fridman (2:25:01.100)

And even though within the World Health Organization,

Lex Fridman (2:25:04.820)

there were private critiques saying

Jamie Metzl (2:25:07.280)

China is now doing exactly what it did in SARS one,

Lex Fridman (2:25:10.500)

it's not providing access,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:11.920)

it's not providing information.

Lex Fridman (2:25:13.920)

Tedros's instinct because of his background,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:16.680)

because of his role and wrongly,

Lex Fridman (2:25:21.000)

was to have a more collaborative relationship with China,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:25.540)

particularly by making assertions

Lex Fridman (2:25:28.400)

based on the information that was wrong.

Jamie Metzl (2:25:30.360)

Don't call people liars,

Lex Fridman (2:25:32.120)

they're not gonna be happy with you.

Jamie Metzl (2:25:33.840)

They're not gonna be happy.

Lex Fridman (2:25:34.680)

And the job of the WHO isn't to condemn states,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:38.880)

it's to do the best possible job of addressing problems.

Lex Fridman (2:25:41.920)

And I think that the culture was,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:43.720)

well, let's do the most that we can.

Lex Fridman (2:25:45.840)

If we totally alienate China on day one,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:49.260)

we're in even worse shape than if we call them out for.

Lex Fridman (2:25:52.600)

Not exactly sure, by the way,

Jamie Metzl (2:25:54.280)

that maybe you can also steel man that argument.

Lex Fridman (2:25:58.160)

Like it's not completely obvious that that's

Jamie Metzl (2:26:00.520)

a terrible decision.

Lex Fridman (2:26:02.840)

Like if you and I were in that role,

Jamie Metzl (2:26:05.480)

we wouldn't make that decision.

Lex Fridman (2:26:06.880)

It's complicated because like,

Jamie Metzl (2:26:09.240)

you want China on your side to help solve this.

Lex Fridman (2:26:11.760)

So I would have made a different decision,

Jamie Metzl (2:26:14.500)

which is why I never would have been selected

Lex Fridman (2:26:17.560)

as the director general.

Jamie Metzl (2:26:18.680)

There's a selection criteria

Lex Fridman (2:26:20.640)

that everybody kind of needs to support you.

Lex Fridman (2:26:24.360)

And so, but let me just, this is just the beginning.

Lex Fridman (2:26:27.120)

Can you also just elaborate or kind of restate,

Lex Fridman (2:26:30.880)

what were the inaccuracies that you quickly mentioned?

Lex Fridman (2:26:34.320)

So human to human transmission, what were the things?

Lex Fridman (2:26:36.720)

So the most important, there were a few things.

Lex Fridman (2:26:41.360)

One, China didn't report the outbreak.

Jamie Metzl (2:26:46.400)

Two, they had the sequenced genome

Lex Fridman (2:26:49.840)

of the SARS CoV2 virus,

Lex Fridman (2:26:51.980)

and they didn't share it for two critical weeks.

Lex Fridman (2:26:55.880)

And when they did share it, it was inadvertent.

Jamie Metzl (2:26:59.280)

I mean, there was a very, very courageous scientist

Lex Fridman (2:27:01.780)

who essentially leaked it and was later punished

Jamie Metzl (2:27:04.800)

for leaking it, even though the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (2:27:06.500)

is now saying we were so great by releasing the sequenced.

Jamie Metzl (2:27:09.640)

Wait, I was really confused.

Lex Fridman (2:27:10.840)

Really?

Lex Fridman (2:27:11.680)

So I'm so clueless about this as most things.

Lex Fridman (2:27:15.080)

Because I thought, because there was a celebration of,

Jamie Metzl (2:27:19.340)

isn't this amazing that we got the sequence,

Lex Fridman (2:27:23.480)

that's amazing, and then the scientific community

Jamie Metzl (2:27:27.200)

across the world stepped up and were able to do

Lex Fridman (2:27:30.120)

a lot of stuff really quickly with that sharing.

Jamie Metzl (2:27:32.240)

Because I thought the Chinese government shared it.

Lex Fridman (2:27:34.500)

No, no, so they sat on it for two weeks.

Jamie Metzl (2:27:37.000)

When they shared it against their will, it was incredible.

Lex Fridman (2:27:40.640)

Moderna, 48 hours later after getting the information,

Jamie Metzl (2:27:45.440)

getting the sequenced genome, they had the formulation

Lex Fridman (2:27:48.200)

for what's now the Moderna COVID 19 vaccine.

Lex Fridman (2:27:51.960)

But that's two critical weeks.

Lex Fridman (2:27:55.240)

In those early days, they blocked the World Health

Jamie Metzl (2:27:59.320)

Organization from sending its experts to Wuhan

Lex Fridman (2:28:03.440)

for more than three weeks.

Jamie Metzl (2:28:04.940)

I said they lied about human to human transmission.

Lex Fridman (2:28:08.160)

During that time, they were aggressively enacting

Jamie Metzl (2:28:11.160)

their coverup, destroying records, hiding samples,

Lex Fridman (2:28:15.880)

imprisoning people who were asking tough questions.

Jamie Metzl (2:28:19.640)

They soon after established their gag order.

Lex Fridman (2:28:24.100)

They fought internally in the World Health Organization

Jamie Metzl (2:28:27.880)

to prevent the declaration of a global emergency.

Lex Fridman (2:28:32.080)

So China definitely, I mean, I couldn't be stronger

Jamie Metzl (2:28:36.120)

in my critique of China, particularly what it did

Lex Fridman (2:28:40.040)

in those early days, but it really, what it's doing

Jamie Metzl (2:28:42.320)

even to today is outrageous.

Lex Fridman (2:28:44.520)

So that was, so then there was the question of,

Lex Fridman (2:28:48.080)

well, how do we examine what actually happened?

Lex Fridman (2:28:51.280)

And the Prime Minister of Australia then and now,

Jamie Metzl (2:28:54.280)

Scott Morrison, was incredibly courageous.

Lex Fridman (2:28:57.000)

And he said, we need a full investigation.

Lex Fridman (2:28:59.620)

And because of that, the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (2:29:02.120)

attacked him personally and imposed trade sanctions

Jamie Metzl (2:29:05.920)

on Australia to try to, not just to punish Australia,

Lex Fridman (2:29:09.660)

but to deliver a message to every other country.

Jamie Metzl (2:29:12.160)

If you ask questions, we're going to punish you ruthlessly.

Lex Fridman (2:29:15.880)

And then that certainly was the message that was delivered.

Jamie Metzl (2:29:21.360)

The Australians brought that idea of a full investigation

Lex Fridman (2:29:24.800)

to the World Health Assembly in May of 2020.

Jamie Metzl (2:29:28.400)

As I mentioned before, the WHA is the governing authority

Lex Fridman (2:29:32.240)

above, of states above the World Health Organization.

Lex Fridman (2:29:36.520)

And so, but instead of passing a resolution calling

Lex Fridman (2:29:40.600)

for a full investigation, what ended up ironically

Lex Fridman (2:29:44.560)

and tragically passing with Chinese support

Lex Fridman (2:29:48.320)

was a mandate to have essentially

Jamie Metzl (2:29:50.480)

a Chinese controlled joint study,

Lex Fridman (2:29:54.040)

where half of the team, a little more than half of the team

Jamie Metzl (2:29:56.640)

was Chinese experts, government affiliated Chinese experts,

Lex Fridman (2:29:59.480)

and half were independent international experts

Lex Fridman (2:30:04.160)

but organized by the WHO.

Lex Fridman (2:30:08.360)

And then it took six months

Jamie Metzl (2:30:10.080)

to negotiate the terms of reference.

Lex Fridman (2:30:12.400)

And again, while China was doing all this coverup,

Jamie Metzl (2:30:14.960)

they delayed and delayed and delayed.

Lex Fridman (2:30:16.720)

And by the terms of reference that were negotiated,

Jamie Metzl (2:30:19.480)

China had veto power over who got to be a member

Lex Fridman (2:30:22.960)

of the international group.

Lex Fridman (2:30:25.840)

And that group was not entitled to access to raw data.

Lex Fridman (2:30:31.160)

The Chinese side would give them conclusions

Jamie Metzl (2:30:34.760)

based on their own analysis of the raw data,

Lex Fridman (2:30:37.640)

which was totally outrageous.

Lex Fridman (2:30:39.880)

So then, and I was a big, I and others,

Lex Fridman (2:30:43.400)

now friend of mine, although we've never met in person,

Jamie Metzl (2:30:46.160)

Gilles de Manouf in New Zealand,

Lex Fridman (2:30:48.080)

he did a great job of chronicling just the letter by letter

Jamie Metzl (2:30:51.560)

of the terms of reference.

Lex Fridman (2:30:54.400)

So then it took, now it's the January of this year,

Jamie Metzl (2:30:59.160)

January, 2021, this deeply flawed,

Lex Fridman (2:31:02.480)

deeply compromised international group is sent to Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (2:31:07.480)

So what's the connection between this group

Lex Fridman (2:31:09.440)

and the joint study?

Lex Fridman (2:31:10.320)

So the joint study, it had the Chinese side

Lex Fridman (2:31:12.280)

and the international side.

Lex Fridman (2:31:13.440)

So these international experts,

Lex Fridman (2:31:15.480)

then part of their examination was going

Jamie Metzl (2:31:18.200)

for one month to Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (2:31:19.880)

And the nature of the flaws of this international group.

Jamie Metzl (2:31:23.240)

It's okay, really important point.

Lex Fridman (2:31:24.920)

And I'm sorry, I wasn't clear on that.

Jamie Metzl (2:31:26.840)

Rather, the mandate of what they were doing

Lex Fridman (2:31:31.000)

was not to investigate the origins of the pandemic.

Jamie Metzl (2:31:34.920)

It was to have a joint study

Lex Fridman (2:31:37.640)

into the zoonotic origins of the virus,

Jamie Metzl (2:31:40.360)

which means, which was interpreted to mean

Lex Fridman (2:31:43.680)

the natural origins hypothesis.

Jamie Metzl (2:31:45.600)

They weren't empowered for a single hypothesis,

Lex Fridman (2:31:48.760)

not so that they weren't empowered

Jamie Metzl (2:31:51.240)

to examine the lab incident origin.

Lex Fridman (2:31:54.080)

They were there to look at the natural origin hypothesis.

Jamie Metzl (2:31:56.960)

To shop for some meat at some markets.

Lex Fridman (2:31:58.840)

Yeah, so that was, so then they were there for a month.

Jamie Metzl (2:32:03.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:32:04.400)

So out of the makeup of the team, guess who was?

Lex Fridman (2:32:09.680)

So the United States government proposed three experts

Lex Fridman (2:32:12.800)

for this team.

Jamie Metzl (2:32:13.640)

People who had a lot of background.

Lex Fridman (2:32:15.280)

This was the Trump administration.

Jamie Metzl (2:32:17.240)

People who had a lot of background,

Lex Fridman (2:32:19.720)

including in investigating lab incidents.

Jamie Metzl (2:32:23.000)

None of those people were accepted.

Lex Fridman (2:32:24.840)

The one American who was accepted.

Jamie Metzl (2:32:27.200)

Don't tell me it's Peter Daszak.

Lex Fridman (2:32:28.160)

Peter Daszak.

Jamie Metzl (2:32:29.120)

Peter Daszak, who had this funding relationship

Lex Fridman (2:32:33.200)

for many years with the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Jamie Metzl (2:32:35.600)

whose entire basically professional reputation

Lex Fridman (2:32:39.400)

was based on his collaboration with Shujang Li,

Jamie Metzl (2:32:43.240)

who had written the February, 2020 Lancet letter

Lex Fridman (2:32:47.680)

saying it comes from natural origin.

Lex Fridman (2:32:49.520)

And anybody who's suggesting otherwise

Lex Fridman (2:32:51.720)

is a conspiracy theorist.

Lex Fridman (2:32:53.320)

And who, at least according to me,

Lex Fridman (2:32:55.280)

had been at very, very least the opposite of transparent

Lex Fridman (2:33:00.200)

and at most engaged in a massive disinformation campaign.

Lex Fridman (2:33:03.400)

He is the one American who's on this.

Lex Fridman (2:33:07.800)

So they go there, they have one month in Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (2:33:10.880)

Two weeks of it are spent in quarantine

Jamie Metzl (2:33:14.280)

just in their hotel rooms.

Lex Fridman (2:33:15.960)

So then they have two weeks,

Lex Fridman (2:33:17.560)

but really it's just 10 working days.

Lex Fridman (2:33:20.120)

One of the earliest, and so then they're kind of,

Jamie Metzl (2:33:22.640)

we've all seen the pictures.

Lex Fridman (2:33:23.640)

They're traveling around Wuhan in little buses.

Jamie Metzl (2:33:27.520)

One of the first visits they have

Lex Fridman (2:33:30.480)

is to this museum exhibition on the,

Jamie Metzl (2:33:33.840)

it's basically a propaganda exhibition on the success,

Lex Fridman (2:33:37.680)

Xi Jinping and the success in fighting COVID.

Lex Fridman (2:33:40.320)

And they said, well, we had to show respect

Lex Fridman (2:33:41.960)

to our Chinese hosts.

Lex Fridman (2:33:42.800)

But I think what the Chinese hosts were saying is,

Lex Fridman (2:33:44.640)

let's just, I'm just gonna rub your noses in this.

Jamie Metzl (2:33:47.200)

You're gonna go where we tell you.

Lex Fridman (2:33:48.840)

You're gonna hear what we want you to hear.

Lex Fridman (2:33:53.160)

So they have that little short time.

Lex Fridman (2:33:54.360)

They spend a few hours.

Jamie Metzl (2:33:56.240)

They weren't in control of where the bus goes.

Lex Fridman (2:33:59.320)

No, I mean, they made recommendations.

Jamie Metzl (2:34:01.960)

Many of their recommendations were accepted,

Lex Fridman (2:34:05.240)

but like when they went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (2:34:08.800)

and some of them did,

Lex Fridman (2:34:10.440)

they weren't able to do any kind of audit

Jamie Metzl (2:34:13.040)

when they asked for access to raw data.

Lex Fridman (2:34:15.600)

They weren't provided that.

Jamie Metzl (2:34:18.680)

They were, it was, as I said in my 60 minutes interview,

Lex Fridman (2:34:22.600)

it was a chaperoned study tour.

Jamie Metzl (2:34:24.960)

It was not even remotely close to an investigation.

Lex Fridman (2:34:27.840)

And the thing they were looking at

Jamie Metzl (2:34:29.320)

wasn't the origins of the pandemic.

Lex Fridman (2:34:32.160)

It was the single hypothesis

Jamie Metzl (2:34:34.680)

of a quote unquote natural origins.

Lex Fridman (2:34:39.000)

Then, I mean, it was really so shocking for me.

Jamie Metzl (2:34:43.200)

On February 9 of this year in Wuhan,

Lex Fridman (2:34:46.720)

the Chinese government sets up a joint press event

Jamie Metzl (2:34:51.000)

where it's the Chinese side and the international side.

Lex Fridman (2:34:55.040)

And during that press event,

Jamie Metzl (2:34:58.000)

a guy named Peter Ben Embarek,

Lex Fridman (2:34:59.880)

and it's a little confusing.

Jamie Metzl (2:35:00.800)

He was basically the head of this delegation

Lex Fridman (2:35:04.160)

and he works for the WHO,

Jamie Metzl (2:35:06.160)

even though this was an independent committee,

Lex Fridman (2:35:09.440)

it was organized by the WHO.

Lex Fridman (2:35:11.720)

So Peter Ben Embarek gets up there and says,

Lex Fridman (2:35:16.160)

we think it's most likely it comes from nature.

Jamie Metzl (2:35:19.320)

Then he says, we think it's possible

Lex Fridman (2:35:22.080)

it comes through frozen food,

Jamie Metzl (2:35:23.720)

which is absolutely outrageous.

Lex Fridman (2:35:25.880)

I mean, it's basically preposterous.

Jamie Metzl (2:35:27.800)

Alena Chan calls this popsicle origins,

Lex Fridman (2:35:32.200)

but it's really, really unlikely.

Lex Fridman (2:35:34.360)

But then most significantly,

Lex Fridman (2:35:36.760)

he says that we've all agreed

Jamie Metzl (2:35:40.960)

that a lab incident origin is quote unquote

Lex Fridman (2:35:43.360)

extremely unlikely and shouldn't be investigated.

Jamie Metzl (2:35:47.800)

We later learned that the way they came up

Lex Fridman (2:35:50.720)

with that determination was by a show of hands vote

Jamie Metzl (2:35:54.480)

of the international experts and the Chinese experts.

Lex Fridman (2:35:57.920)

And the Chinese experts had to do their vote

Jamie Metzl (2:36:00.600)

in front of the Chinese government officials

Lex Fridman (2:36:03.280)

who were constantly there.

Lex Fridman (2:36:05.480)

So even if whatever they thought,

Lex Fridman (2:36:07.320)

there was no possibility that someone raises their hand

Lex Fridman (2:36:09.800)

and say, oh yeah, I think it's a lab origin.

Lex Fridman (2:36:12.280)

So that was outrageous thing number one.

Jamie Metzl (2:36:15.200)

Outrageous thing number two,

Lex Fridman (2:36:16.480)

which I mean, I'll come back to my response in February.

Jamie Metzl (2:36:21.040)

Outrageous thing number two is months later,

Lex Fridman (2:36:24.320)

Peter Benambarak does an interview on Danish television.

Lex Fridman (2:36:27.960)

And he says, actually I was lying about extremely unlikely

Lex Fridman (2:36:32.560)

because the Chinese side,

Jamie Metzl (2:36:34.320)

they didn't want any mention of a lab incident origin

Lex Fridman (2:36:38.120)

anywhere including in the report that later came out.

Lex Fridman (2:36:42.480)

And so the deal we made, even though he himself thought

Lex Fridman (2:36:46.200)

that at least some manifestation of a lab incident origin

Jamie Metzl (2:36:49.040)

was likely and that there should be an investigation,

Lex Fridman (2:36:53.200)

particularly he said, well, that's kind of weird

Jamie Metzl (2:36:54.800)

that the Wuhan CDC moved just across

Lex Fridman (2:36:57.280)

from the Huanan seafood market

Jamie Metzl (2:36:59.360)

just before the beginning of the pandemic.

Lex Fridman (2:37:03.920)

But he said as a horse trading deal

Jamie Metzl (2:37:06.680)

with the Chinese authorities,

Lex Fridman (2:37:08.480)

it shouldn't be that he agreed to say

Jamie Metzl (2:37:12.320)

it was extremely unlikely and shouldn't be investigated.

Lex Fridman (2:37:15.280)

So I was in actually in Colorado staying with my parents

Lex Fridman (2:37:18.840)

and I stayed up late watching this press event.

Lex Fridman (2:37:23.240)

And I was appalled because I knew after two weeks

Jamie Metzl (2:37:25.960)

there was no way they could possibly come to that conclusion.

Lex Fridman (2:37:29.680)

So I immediately sent a private message to Tedros,

Jamie Metzl (2:37:33.560)

the WHO director general, essentially saying

Lex Fridman (2:37:37.440)

there's no way they had enough access

Jamie Metzl (2:37:40.200)

to come to this conclusion.

Lex Fridman (2:37:42.440)

If the WHO doesn't distance itself from this,

Jamie Metzl (2:37:47.280)

the WHO itself is going to be in danger

Lex Fridman (2:37:49.880)

because it's going to be basically institutional capture

Jamie Metzl (2:37:53.160)

by the Chinese.

Lex Fridman (2:37:54.000)

This was repeating the Chinese government's

Jamie Metzl (2:37:56.400)

propaganda points.

Lex Fridman (2:37:57.640)

And Tedros sent me a really, again,

Lex Fridman (2:38:00.760)

why I have so much respect for Tedros,

Lex Fridman (2:38:02.080)

sent me a private note saying,

Jamie Metzl (2:38:04.320)

don't worry, we are determined to do the right thing.

Lex Fridman (2:38:08.440)

And so I got that private message.

Lex Fridman (2:38:10.000)

And again, I really like Tedros,

Lex Fridman (2:38:11.880)

but I thought, well, what are you gonna do?

Jamie Metzl (2:38:14.760)

Three days later, Tedros makes a public statement.

Lex Fridman (2:38:19.120)

And he says, I've heard this thing.

Jamie Metzl (2:38:23.000)

I don't think that this is a final answer.

Lex Fridman (2:38:25.400)

We need to have a full investigation into this process.

Jamie Metzl (2:38:29.320)

He then released two more statements

Lex Fridman (2:38:32.800)

saying we need to have a full investigation

Jamie Metzl (2:38:37.280)

with access to raw data.

Lex Fridman (2:38:38.520)

And we need a full audit of the Wuhan labs.

Lex Fridman (2:38:42.840)

So then that part was really, really great.

Lex Fridman (2:38:46.360)

But then this saga continues because,

Lex Fridman (2:38:49.200)

so I was part of a group, as I mentioned before,

Lex Fridman (2:38:51.760)

this Paris group.

Jamie Metzl (2:38:53.480)

It was about two dozen or so experts.

Lex Fridman (2:38:55.600)

And we'd been meeting since 2020 and having regular meetings.

Lex Fridman (2:39:00.000)

And we just present papers, present data,

Lex Fridman (2:39:02.200)

debate to try to really get to the bottom of things.

Lex Fridman (2:39:04.440)

And it was all private.

Lex Fridman (2:39:06.320)

So I went to this group and I said, look,

Jamie Metzl (2:39:09.160)

this playing field is now skewed.

Lex Fridman (2:39:12.880)

These guys, they've put out this thing,

Jamie Metzl (2:39:14.920)

lab incident origin, extremely unlikely.

Lex Fridman (2:39:16.840)

It's in every newspaper in the world.

Jamie Metzl (2:39:19.560)

We can't just be our own little private group

Lex Fridman (2:39:21.880)

talking to each other.

Lex Fridman (2:39:23.400)

So I led the political process of drafting

Lex Fridman (2:39:26.800)

what became four open letters that many of us signed,

Jamie Metzl (2:39:31.360)

most of us signed, that saying, all right,

Lex Fridman (2:39:35.000)

here's why this study group and the report are not credible.

Jamie Metzl (2:39:41.040)

Here's what's wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:39:42.400)

Here's what a full investigation would look like.

Jamie Metzl (2:39:45.840)

Here's a treasure map of all the resources

Lex Fridman (2:39:48.360)

where people can look.

Lex Fridman (2:39:50.480)

And we demand a comprehensive investigation.

Lex Fridman (2:39:52.800)

So those four open letters were in pretty much

Jamie Metzl (2:39:56.240)

every newspaper in the world.

Lex Fridman (2:39:58.520)

And it played a really significant role

Jamie Metzl (2:40:00.920)

along with some other things.

Lex Fridman (2:40:02.640)

There was later, there was a letter, a short letter

Jamie Metzl (2:40:05.920)

in Science making basically similar points

Lex Fridman (2:40:10.360)

in a much more condensed way.

Jamie Metzl (2:40:11.760)

There were some higher profile articles

Lex Fridman (2:40:14.600)

by Nicholas Wade and Nick Baker and others.

Lex Fridman (2:40:19.720)

And those collectively shifted the conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:40:24.440)

And then really impressively, the WHO,

Lex Fridman (2:40:29.320)

and with Tedros's leadership, did

Lex Fridman (2:40:30.880)

something that was really incredible.

Lex Fridman (2:40:33.520)

And that is earlier this year, they,

Lex Fridman (2:40:36.680)

meaning the leadership of the WHO, not the World Health

Jamie Metzl (2:40:39.520)

Assembly, but the leadership of the WHO,

Lex Fridman (2:40:43.400)

announced the establishment of what's

Jamie Metzl (2:40:45.600)

called SAGO, the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins

Lex Fridman (2:40:49.480)

of Novel Pathogens.

Lex Fridman (2:40:51.360)

And basically what they did was overrule their own governing

Lex Fridman (2:40:55.560)

board and say, we're going to create our own entity.

Lex Fridman (2:40:59.240)

So it basically dissolved that international, deeply flawed

Lex Fridman (2:41:03.120)

international joint study group.

Lex Fridman (2:41:04.440)

And a lot of those people, they have become very critical,

Lex Fridman (2:41:07.920)

like the Chinese of Tedros.

Lex Fridman (2:41:11.040)

So then they had an open call for nominations

Lex Fridman (2:41:15.200)

to be part of SAGO.

Lex Fridman (2:41:17.520)

And so a lot of people put in their nominations.

Lex Fridman (2:41:23.080)

They selected 26 people.

Lex Fridman (2:41:25.440)

But our group, we had a meeting, and we

Lex Fridman (2:41:27.360)

were unhappy with that list of 26.

Jamie Metzl (2:41:30.800)

It still felt skewed toward the natural origin hypothesis.

Lex Fridman (2:41:35.200)

So again, I drafted, and we worked on together,

Jamie Metzl (2:41:38.440)

an open letter which we submitted to the WHO saying,

Lex Fridman (2:41:42.640)

we think this list, it's a step in the right direction,

Lex Fridman (2:41:45.200)

but it's not good enough.

Lex Fridman (2:41:46.680)

And we call on these three people to be removed,

Lex Fridman (2:41:50.600)

and we have these three people who we think should be added.

Lex Fridman (2:41:53.920)

Incredibly, and I was in private touch

Jamie Metzl (2:41:56.560)

with the WHO, after announcing the 26 people,

Lex Fridman (2:42:00.280)

the WHO said, we're reopening the process, so send in more.

Lex Fridman (2:42:04.840)

And so then they added two more people, one of whom

Lex Fridman (2:42:08.600)

is an expert in the auditing of lab incidents.

Lex Fridman (2:42:13.840)

And then one of the, so they added those two.

Lex Fridman (2:42:17.040)

And then when they just released the list of people

Jamie Metzl (2:42:20.280)

who are part of SAGO, this one woman,

Lex Fridman (2:42:23.120)

a highly respected Dutch virologist named Marion Koopmans,

Jamie Metzl (2:42:26.760)

who had been part of that deeply flawed and compromised

Lex Fridman (2:42:30.840)

international study group, who had called,

Jamie Metzl (2:42:33.960)

who has consistently called a lab incident origin, quote,

Lex Fridman (2:42:36.680)

unquote, a debunked conspiracy theory.

Jamie Metzl (2:42:39.320)

As of now, her name is not on the list.

Lex Fridman (2:42:42.720)

We haven't seen any announcements.

Lex Fridman (2:42:44.760)

So I summary, and I'm sorry to go on for so long

Lex Fridman (2:42:48.040)

and to be so animated about this,

Jamie Metzl (2:42:49.520)

I genuinely feel that the WHO is trying to do the right thing.

Lex Fridman (2:42:55.640)

But they exist within a political context.

Lex Fridman (2:42:59.440)

And they're pushing at the edges,

Lex Fridman (2:43:03.680)

but there's only so far that they can go.

Lex Fridman (2:43:07.520)

And that's why we definitely need

Lex Fridman (2:43:10.080)

to have full accountability for the WHO.

Jamie Metzl (2:43:12.440)

We need to expand the mandate to WHO.

Lex Fridman (2:43:14.800)

But we need to recognize that states have a big role.

Lex Fridman (2:43:18.080)

And China is an incredibly influential state

Lex Fridman (2:43:21.440)

that's doing everything possible to prevent

Jamie Metzl (2:43:24.560)

the kind of full investigation into pandemic origins

Lex Fridman (2:43:27.320)

that's so desperately required.

Jamie Metzl (2:43:28.800)

Well, it sounds like the leadership

Lex Fridman (2:43:31.080)

made all the difference in the WHO.

Lex Fridman (2:43:34.160)

So like the way to change the momentum of large institutions

Lex Fridman (2:43:37.120)

is through the leadership.

Jamie Metzl (2:43:38.840)

Leadership and empowerment, as I mentioned,

Lex Fridman (2:43:42.560)

the World Health Assembly is meeting now.

Lex Fridman (2:43:45.040)

And I think that it shouldn't be that we require superhumans.

Lex Fridman (2:43:50.720)

And there are some people who are big critics of WHO.

Jamie Metzl (2:43:53.720)

The leader of the WHO in SARS 1 was definitely more aggressive.

Lex Fridman (2:44:00.440)

She had a different set of powers at that time.

Lex Fridman (2:44:05.520)

But it can't be entirely, we definitely

Lex Fridman (2:44:08.920)

need strong willed, aggressive, independent people

Jamie Metzl (2:44:12.560)

in these kinds of roles.

Lex Fridman (2:44:14.480)

We also need a more empowered WHO.

Jamie Metzl (2:44:17.840)

Like when the Chinese government in the earliest days

Lex Fridman (2:44:20.520)

of the pandemic said, we're just not

Jamie Metzl (2:44:23.360)

going to allow you to send a team to collect

Lex Fridman (2:44:26.120)

your own information.

Lex Fridman (2:44:27.000)

And we're not going to allow you to have

Lex Fridman (2:44:30.760)

any kind of independent surveillance,

Jamie Metzl (2:44:34.120)

there was very little that the WHO could do because

Lex Fridman (2:44:38.280)

of the limitations of its mandate.

Lex Fridman (2:44:40.600)

And we can't just say we're going to have a WHO that only

Lex Fridman (2:44:44.040)

compromises Chinese sovereignty.

Jamie Metzl (2:44:46.240)

If we want to have a powerful WHO,

Lex Fridman (2:44:48.520)

we should say we have emergency teams when the director

Jamie Metzl (2:44:54.440)

general says an emergency team needs to go somewhere.

Lex Fridman (2:44:57.720)

If they aren't allowed to go there that day,

Jamie Metzl (2:45:00.440)

you could say there's an immediate referral

Lex Fridman (2:45:02.480)

to the Security Council.

Jamie Metzl (2:45:03.640)

There needs to be something.

Lex Fridman (2:45:05.760)

But we have all these demands, rightfully,

Lex Fridman (2:45:09.160)

so of the WHO, which doesn't have the authorities.

Lex Fridman (2:45:13.240)

The WHO itself only controls 20% of its own budget.

Lex Fridman (2:45:16.240)

So the governments are saying, we're

Lex Fridman (2:45:17.680)

going to give you money to do this or that.

Lex Fridman (2:45:21.640)

So we need a stronger WHO to protect us,

Lex Fridman (2:45:27.160)

but we also have to build that.

Lex Fridman (2:45:28.920)

So looking a little bit into the future,

Lex Fridman (2:45:33.000)

let's first step into the past, sort

Jamie Metzl (2:45:35.080)

of the philosophical question about China.

Lex Fridman (2:45:39.640)

If you were to put yourself in the shoes of the Chinese

Jamie Metzl (2:45:43.520)

government, if they were to be more transparent,

Lex Fridman (2:45:49.400)

how should they be more transparent?

Jamie Metzl (2:45:51.520)

Because it's easier to say, we want to see this.

Lex Fridman (2:45:57.720)

But from a perspective of government,

Lex Fridman (2:45:59.280)

and not just the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (2:46:00.720)

but a government on WHO's geographic territory,

Jamie Metzl (2:46:07.880)

say it's a lab leak, a lab leak occurred

Lex Fridman (2:46:11.280)

that has resulted in trillions of dollars of loss,

Jamie Metzl (2:46:16.200)

countless of lives, just all kinds of damage to the world.

Lex Fridman (2:46:24.120)

If they were to admit or show data

Jamie Metzl (2:46:27.760)

that could serve as evidence for a lab leak,

Lex Fridman (2:46:31.200)

that's something that people could, in the worst case,

Jamie Metzl (2:46:35.720)

start wars over, or in the most likely case,

Lex Fridman (2:46:41.200)

just constantly bring that up at every turn,

Jamie Metzl (2:46:45.960)

making you powerless in negotiations.

Lex Fridman (2:46:50.280)

Whenever you want to do something

Jamie Metzl (2:46:51.880)

in geopolitical sense, the United States

Lex Fridman (2:46:54.880)

will bring up, oh, remember that time

Lex Fridman (2:46:57.120)

you cost us trillions of dollars because of your fuck up?

Lex Fridman (2:47:01.480)

So what is the incentive for the Chinese government

Lex Fridman (2:47:05.440)

to be transparent?

Lex Fridman (2:47:07.400)

And if it is to be transparent, how should it do it?

Lex Fridman (2:47:11.520)

So there's a bunch of people.

Lex Fridman (2:47:14.160)

The reason I'm talking to you, as opposed

Jamie Metzl (2:47:17.040)

to a bunch of other folks, because you

Lex Fridman (2:47:19.960)

are kindhearted and thoughtful and open minded

Lex Fridman (2:47:22.800)

and really respected.

Lex Fridman (2:47:24.520)

There's a bunch of people that are talking about lab leak

Jamie Metzl (2:47:27.520)

that are a little bit less interested in building

Lex Fridman (2:47:31.480)

a better world and more interested in pointing out

Jamie Metzl (2:47:34.840)

the emperor has no clothes.

Lex Fridman (2:47:36.160)

They want step one, which is saying, basically,

Jamie Metzl (2:47:40.480)

tearing down the bullshitters.

Lex Fridman (2:47:43.560)

They don't want to do the further steps of building.

Lex Fridman (2:47:48.360)

And so as the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (2:47:50.520)

I would be nervous about being transparent with anybody that

Jamie Metzl (2:47:53.960)

just wants to tear our power centers, our power

Lex Fridman (2:47:58.280)

structures down.

Jamie Metzl (2:47:59.120)

Anyway, that's a long way to ask,

Lex Fridman (2:48:01.600)

how should the Chinese government be transparent now

Lex Fridman (2:48:06.320)

and in the future?

Lex Fridman (2:48:08.480)

So maybe I'll break that down into a few sub questions.

Jamie Metzl (2:48:12.200)

The first is, what should, in an ideal world,

Lex Fridman (2:48:15.760)

what should the Chinese government do?

Lex Fridman (2:48:17.560)

And that's pretty straightforward.

Lex Fridman (2:48:20.120)

They should be totally transparent.

Jamie Metzl (2:48:22.600)

The South African government now,

Lex Fridman (2:48:24.600)

there is an outbreak of this Omicron variant.

Lex Fridman (2:48:27.880)

And the South African government has done what we would want.

Lex Fridman (2:48:31.120)

A government to do is say, hey, there's an outbreak.

Jamie Metzl (2:48:33.240)

We don't have all of the information.

Lex Fridman (2:48:35.600)

We need help.

Jamie Metzl (2:48:36.520)

We want to alert the world.

Lex Fridman (2:48:38.520)

And in some ways, they're being punished for it

Jamie Metzl (2:48:41.000)

through these travel bans.

Lex Fridman (2:48:42.040)

But it's a separate topic.

Lex Fridman (2:48:43.680)

But I actually think short term travel bans actually

Lex Fridman (2:48:46.480)

are not a terrible idea.

Jamie Metzl (2:48:49.040)

They should have, on day one, they

Lex Fridman (2:48:51.960)

should have allowed WHO experts in.

Jamie Metzl (2:48:55.000)

They should have shared information.

Lex Fridman (2:48:57.200)

They should have allowed a full and comprehensive

Jamie Metzl (2:49:00.200)

investigation with international partnerships

Lex Fridman (2:49:04.240)

to understand what went wrong.

Jamie Metzl (2:49:07.920)

They should have shared their raw data.

Lex Fridman (2:49:10.560)

They should have allowed their scientists

Jamie Metzl (2:49:12.880)

to speak and write publicly.

Lex Fridman (2:49:14.720)

Because nobody knows more about this stuff,

Jamie Metzl (2:49:17.040)

certainly in the early days, than their scientists do.

Lex Fridman (2:49:20.560)

So it's relatively easy to say what they should do.

Lex Fridman (2:49:26.480)

It's a hard question to say, well, what would happen?

Lex Fridman (2:49:29.520)

Let's just say tomorrow, we prove for certain

Jamie Metzl (2:49:35.240)

that this pandemic stems both from an accidental lab

Lex Fridman (2:49:38.640)

incident and then from what I've consistently

Jamie Metzl (2:49:40.960)

called a criminal cover up.

Lex Fridman (2:49:42.880)

Because the cover up has done, in many ways,

Jamie Metzl (2:49:46.280)

as much or more damage than the incident.

Lex Fridman (2:49:49.880)

Well, what happens?

Jamie Metzl (2:49:50.840)

You could easily imagine Xi Jinping has had two terms

Lex Fridman (2:49:54.120)

as the leader of China.

Lex Fridman (2:49:57.760)

And he can now have unlimited terms.

Lex Fridman (2:49:59.920)

Well, they've changed the rules for that.

Lex Fridman (2:50:01.920)

But he's got a lot of enemies.

Lex Fridman (2:50:03.600)

I mean, there are a lot of people who are waiting in line

Jamie Metzl (2:50:06.040)

to step up.

Lex Fridman (2:50:07.680)

So is there a chance that Xi Jinping could be deposed

Lex Fridman (2:50:11.200)

if it was proven that this comes from a lab?

Lex Fridman (2:50:13.240)

And I think there's a real possibility.

Jamie Metzl (2:50:15.520)

Would people in the United States Congress, for example,

Lex Fridman (2:50:19.400)

demand reparations from China?

Lex Fridman (2:50:21.920)

So we've had $4.5 trillion of stimulus,

Lex Fridman (2:50:26.280)

all of the economic losses, and we owe a lot of money

Jamie Metzl (2:50:29.840)

to China from our debt.

Lex Fridman (2:50:32.960)

I'm quite certain that members of Congress

Jamie Metzl (2:50:35.520)

would say, we're just going to wipe that out.

Lex Fridman (2:50:37.640)

It would destroy the global financial system,

Lex Fridman (2:50:39.880)

but I think they would be extremely likely.

Lex Fridman (2:50:42.320)

Would other countries, like India,

Jamie Metzl (2:50:44.400)

that have lost millions of people

Lex Fridman (2:50:47.760)

and had terrible economic damages,

Lex Fridman (2:50:50.680)

would they demand reparations?

Lex Fridman (2:50:53.360)

So I think from a Chinese perspective,

Jamie Metzl (2:50:55.760)

starting from now, it would have

Lex Fridman (2:50:58.120)

major geopolitical implications.

Lex Fridman (2:51:00.560)

And go back to Chernobyl, there was

Lex Fridman (2:51:03.600)

a reason why the Soviet Union went to such length

Jamie Metzl (2:51:06.800)

to cover things up.

Lex Fridman (2:51:08.280)

And when it came out, I mean, there are different theories,

Lex Fridman (2:51:11.520)

but certainly Chernobyl played some role

Lex Fridman (2:51:15.840)

in the end of communist power in the Soviet Union.

Lex Fridman (2:51:21.280)

So the Chinese are very, very aware of that.

Lex Fridman (2:51:25.320)

But the difference, of course, with Chernobyl,

Jamie Metzl (2:51:27.360)

the damage to the rest of the world

Lex Fridman (2:51:28.680)

was not nearly as significant as it was with COVID.

Lex Fridman (2:51:32.040)

So you say that the coverup is a crime,

Lex Fridman (2:51:34.520)

but everything you just described,

Jamie Metzl (2:51:37.720)

the response of the rest of the world,

Lex Fridman (2:51:40.800)

is, I could say, unfair.

Jamie Metzl (2:51:45.040)

Well, it's not...

Lex Fridman (2:51:46.320)

So, okay, if we say the best possible version of the story,

Jamie Metzl (2:51:50.640)

you know, lab leaks happen, they shouldn't happen,

Lex Fridman (2:51:55.400)

but they happen.

Lex Fridman (2:51:57.760)

And how is that on the Chinese government?

Lex Fridman (2:52:02.280)

I mean, what's a good example?

Jamie Metzl (2:52:04.000)

Well, the Union Carbide.

Lex Fridman (2:52:05.040)

Union Carbide, there was this American company

Jamie Metzl (2:52:07.440)

operating in India, they had this leak,

Lex Fridman (2:52:10.280)

all these people were killed.

Jamie Metzl (2:52:12.600)

The company admitted responsibility.

Lex Fridman (2:52:15.080)

I was working in the White House

Jamie Metzl (2:52:17.480)

when the United States government, in my view,

Lex Fridman (2:52:19.480)

which I know to be the case,

Lex Fridman (2:52:20.960)

but other people in China think differently,

Lex Fridman (2:52:23.440)

bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Lex Fridman (2:52:25.480)

And so the United States government

Lex Fridman (2:52:27.720)

allowed a full investigation,

Jamie Metzl (2:52:29.560)

then we paid reparations to the families.

Lex Fridman (2:52:34.280)

And so to your question, if I were,

Jamie Metzl (2:52:36.880)

let's just say I were the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (2:52:39.600)

not, I mean, kind of an idealized version

Jamie Metzl (2:52:42.080)

of the Chinese government.

Lex Fridman (2:52:43.760)

And let's just say that they had come to the conclusion

Jamie Metzl (2:52:46.960)

that it was a lab incident.

Lex Fridman (2:52:49.000)

And let's just say they knew that even if

Jamie Metzl (2:52:52.800)

they continued to cover it up,

Lex Fridman (2:52:55.080)

eventually this information would come out.

Jamie Metzl (2:52:58.640)

I mean, maybe there was a whistleblower,

Lex Fridman (2:53:00.160)

maybe they knew of some evidence

Jamie Metzl (2:53:01.960)

that we didn't know about or something.

Lex Fridman (2:53:05.240)

What would I do starting right now?

Lex Fridman (2:53:09.160)

What I would do is I would hold a press conference

Lex Fridman (2:53:12.560)

and I would say, we had this terrible accident.

Jamie Metzl (2:53:16.840)

The reason why we were doing this research

Lex Fridman (2:53:19.520)

in Wuhan and elsewhere is that we had SARS one

Lex Fridman (2:53:23.320)

and we felt a responsibility to do everything possible

Lex Fridman (2:53:26.400)

to prevent that kind of terrible thing happening again

Jamie Metzl (2:53:29.400)

for our country and for the world.

Lex Fridman (2:53:31.480)

That was why we collaborated with France,

Jamie Metzl (2:53:34.480)

with the United States in building up those capacities.

Lex Fridman (2:53:38.400)

We know that nothing is perfect,

Lex Fridman (2:53:40.480)

but we're a sovereign country and we have our own system.

Lex Fridman (2:53:42.800)

And so we had to adapt our systems

Lex Fridman (2:53:45.720)

so that they made sense internally.

Lex Fridman (2:53:49.400)

When this outbreak began, we didn't know how it started.

Lex Fridman (2:53:53.960)

And that was why we wanted to look into things.

Lex Fridman (2:53:57.680)

When the process of investigating became so political,

Jamie Metzl (2:54:01.400)

it gave us pause and we were worried that our enemies

Lex Fridman (2:54:04.680)

were trying to use this investigation

Jamie Metzl (2:54:07.440)

in order to undermine us.

Lex Fridman (2:54:09.520)

Having said that, now that we've dug deeper,

Jamie Metzl (2:54:13.680)

we have recognized because we have access

Lex Fridman (2:54:16.640)

to additional information that we didn't have then,

Jamie Metzl (2:54:19.480)

that this pandemic started from an accidental lab incident.

Lex Fridman (2:54:23.520)

And we feel really terribly about that.

Lex Fridman (2:54:25.800)

And we know that we were very aggressive

Lex Fridman (2:54:28.440)

in covering up information in the beginning,

Lex Fridman (2:54:31.040)

but the reason we were doing that is because we thoroughly,

Lex Fridman (2:54:34.320)

we fully believe that it came from a natural origin.

Jamie Metzl (2:54:37.600)

Now that we see otherwise, we feel terribly.

Lex Fridman (2:54:41.280)

Therefore, we're doing a few different things.

Jamie Metzl (2:54:44.880)

One is we are committing ourselves

Lex Fridman (2:54:48.160)

to establishing a stronger WHO, a new pandemic treaty

Jamie Metzl (2:54:54.000)

that addresses the major challenges that we face

Lex Fridman (2:54:57.800)

and allows the World Health Organization

Jamie Metzl (2:55:00.960)

to pierce the veil of absolute sovereignty

Lex Fridman (2:55:03.680)

because we know that when these pandemics happen,

Jamie Metzl (2:55:06.840)

they affect everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:55:08.680)

We are also putting, and you can pick your number,

Lex Fridman (2:55:11.920)

but let's start with five trillion US dollars,

Lex Fridman (2:55:15.280)

some massive amount, into a fund

Jamie Metzl (2:55:19.560)

that we will be distributing to the victims of COVID 19

Lex Fridman (2:55:24.480)

and their, and their.

Lex Fridman (2:55:26.040)

China would do that?

Lex Fridman (2:55:27.560)

This is a fantasy speech.

Lex Fridman (2:55:29.440)

But I disagree with your, I mean, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:55:34.160)

So you think China has a responsibility?

Jamie Metzl (2:55:36.880)

Well, so it's not the, like just a lab leak.

Lex Fridman (2:55:40.480)

Like if China on day one had said we have this outbreak,

Jamie Metzl (2:55:45.120)

we don't know where it came from,

Lex Fridman (2:55:47.080)

we want to have a full investigation,

Jamie Metzl (2:55:50.120)

we call on international,

Lex Fridman (2:55:52.120)

responsible international partners

Jamie Metzl (2:55:53.840)

to join us in that process,

Lex Fridman (2:55:55.640)

and we're going to do everything in our power

Jamie Metzl (2:55:58.000)

to share the relevant information

Lex Fridman (2:56:00.360)

because however this started, we're all victims.

Jamie Metzl (2:56:03.200)

That's a totally different story

Lex Fridman (2:56:05.120)

than punishing Australia, preventing the WHO,

Jamie Metzl (2:56:08.840)

blocking any investigation,

Lex Fridman (2:56:10.640)

condemning people who are trying to look, and so that's.

Lex Fridman (2:56:13.920)

So cover up for a couple weeks,

Lex Fridman (2:56:16.880)

you can understand maybe,

Jamie Metzl (2:56:18.600)

because there's so much uncertainty.

Lex Fridman (2:56:20.480)

You're like, oh, let's hide all the Winnie the Pooh pictures

Jamie Metzl (2:56:24.600)

while we figure this out.

Lex Fridman (2:56:26.040)

But the moment you really figure out what happened,

Jamie Metzl (2:56:30.320)

you always, as a Jew I can say this,

Lex Fridman (2:56:32.320)

always find like a blame the Jews kind of situation

Jamie Metzl (2:56:35.280)

a little bit, just a little bit.

Lex Fridman (2:56:36.600)

Be like, all right, it's not us.

Jamie Metzl (2:56:38.440)

I'm just kidding.

Lex Fridman (2:56:41.000)

But be proactive in saying.

Jamie Metzl (2:56:44.680)

Just to start here, but the joke about that is

Lex Fridman (2:56:47.640)

there's a big problem because a lot of people

Jamie Metzl (2:56:50.120)

have to leave the Jewish socialist conspiracy

Lex Fridman (2:56:53.080)

to make it for the Jewish capitalist conspiracy meeting.

Jamie Metzl (2:56:56.080)

I love it.

Lex Fridman (2:56:59.000)

So I would say not five trillion,

Lex Fridman (2:57:01.680)

but some large amount,

Lex Fridman (2:57:03.440)

and I would really focus on the future,

Jamie Metzl (2:57:05.200)

which is every time we talk about the lab leak,

Lex Fridman (2:57:09.280)

the unfortunate thing is I feel like people

Jamie Metzl (2:57:11.760)

don't focus enough about the future.

Lex Fridman (2:57:13.360)

To me, the lab leak is important

Jamie Metzl (2:57:16.200)

because we want to construct a kind of framework

Lex Fridman (2:57:20.200)

of thinking and a global conversation

Jamie Metzl (2:57:23.720)

that minimizes the damage done by future lab leaks,

Lex Fridman (2:57:28.400)

which will almost certainly happen.

Lex Fridman (2:57:30.800)

And so to me, any lab leak is about the future.

Lex Fridman (2:57:35.920)

I would launch a giant investment in saying

Jamie Metzl (2:57:40.080)

we're going to create a testing infrastructure,

Lex Fridman (2:57:43.480)

like all of this kind of infrastructure investments

Jamie Metzl (2:57:46.800)

that help minimize the damage of a lab leak

Lex Fridman (2:57:49.560)

here and the rest of the world.

Lex Fridman (2:57:51.320)

So the challenge with that is one,

Lex Fridman (2:57:54.480)

it's hard to imagine a fully accountable future system

Jamie Metzl (2:57:58.440)

to prevent these kinds of terrible pandemics

Lex Fridman (2:58:01.960)

that's built upon obfuscation and coverup

Jamie Metzl (2:58:06.000)

regarding the origins of this worst pandemic in a century.

Lex Fridman (2:58:09.600)

So it's just like that foundation isn't strong enough.

Jamie Metzl (2:58:14.360)

Second, China across the fields of science

Lex Fridman (2:58:17.840)

is looking to leapfrog the rest of the world.

Lex Fridman (2:58:20.760)

So China now has current plans to build BSL4 labs

Lex Fridman (2:58:25.160)

in every of its province.

Jamie Metzl (2:58:27.120)

Yeah, they're scaling up the.

Lex Fridman (2:58:28.640)

Scaling up everything ends up with the plan on leading.

Lex Fridman (2:58:32.400)

And that's why, again, I was saying before,

Lex Fridman (2:58:33.720)

I think there's a lot of similarity between this story,

Jamie Metzl (2:58:36.720)

at least as I see it, at least the most probable case,

Lex Fridman (2:58:40.240)

and these other areas where China gets knowledge

Lex Fridman (2:58:42.680)

and then tries to leapfrog.

Lex Fridman (2:58:44.160)

It's the same with AI and autonomous killer robots.

Jamie Metzl (2:58:48.400)

It's the same with human genome editing,

Lex Fridman (2:58:50.320)

with animal experimentations, with so many,

Jamie Metzl (2:58:52.800)

basically all areas of advanced science.

Lex Fridman (2:58:58.040)

So the question is, would China stop in that process?

Lex Fridman (2:59:01.800)

And then third, it's a little bit

Lex Fridman (2:59:05.600)

of a historical background,

Lex Fridman (2:59:07.040)

but defending national sovereignty

Lex Fridman (2:59:10.640)

is one of the core principles of,

Jamie Metzl (2:59:13.480)

certainly of the Chinese state.

Lex Fridman (2:59:16.080)

And the historical issue is,

Jamie Metzl (2:59:18.480)

for those of us who come from the West,

Lex Fridman (2:59:21.200)

I mean, one of the lessons of the postwar planners

Jamie Metzl (2:59:24.040)

was that absolute national sovereignty

Lex Fridman (2:59:26.960)

was actually a major feeder

Jamie Metzl (2:59:29.720)

into the first and second world wars,

Lex Fridman (2:59:31.440)

that we had all these conflicting states.

Lex Fridman (2:59:34.320)

And therefore the logic of the postwar system

Lex Fridman (2:59:37.440)

is we need to in some ways pool sovereignty

Jamie Metzl (2:59:39.640)

that's like the EU and have transnational organizations

Lex Fridman (2:59:44.440)

like the UN organizations

Lex Fridman (2:59:46.000)

and the Bretton Woods organizations.

Lex Fridman (2:59:47.840)

For most Asian states,

Lex Fridman (2:59:49.560)

and also even for some African,

Lex Fridman (2:59:51.800)

and the people who were kind of

Jamie Metzl (2:59:52.880)

on the colonized side of history,

Lex Fridman (2:59:55.520)

sovereignty was the thing that was denied them.

Jamie Metzl (2:59:58.720)

That was the thing that they want,

Lex Fridman (30:02.700)

That's probably what was needed in terms of leadership.

Lex Fridman (30:04.860)

And I'm not so willing to criticize whether it's Joe Biden

Lex Fridman (30:09.140)

or Donald Trump on this.

Jamie Metzl (30:11.300)

I think most people cannot be great leaders,

Lex Fridman (30:15.780)

but that's why when great leaders step up,

Jamie Metzl (30:18.620)

we write books about them.

Lex Fridman (30:20.260)

And I agree.

Lex Fridman (30:21.220)

And even though, I mean, I think of myself

Lex Fridman (30:24.740)

as a progressive person, I certainly was a critic

Jamie Metzl (30:27.940)

of a lot of what President Trump did.

Lex Fridman (30:33.420)

But on this particular case,

Jamie Metzl (30:36.160)

even though he may have said it in an uncouth way,

Lex Fridman (30:39.420)

Donald Trump was actually, in my view, right.

Jamie Metzl (30:43.620)

I mean, when he said, hey, let's look at this lab.

Lex Fridman (30:46.660)

I mean, he said, I have evidence, I can't tell you.

Jamie Metzl (30:48.640)

I don't think he even had the evidence.

Lex Fridman (30:51.300)

But his intuition that this probably comes from a lab,

Jamie Metzl (30:55.440)

in my view was a correct intuition.

Lex Fridman (30:58.140)

And certainly I started speaking up

Jamie Metzl (31:00.000)

about pandemic origins early in 2019.

Lex Fridman (31:04.420)

And my friends, my democratic friends were brutal with me

Lex Fridman (31:08.740)

saying, what are you doing?

Lex Fridman (31:09.740)

You're supporting Trump in an election year.

Lex Fridman (31:11.780)

And I said, just because Donald Trump is saying something

Lex Fridman (31:15.460)

doesn't mean that I need to oppose it.

Jamie Metzl (31:17.980)

If Donald Trump says something that I think is correct,

Lex Fridman (31:21.820)

well, I wanna say it's correct,

Jamie Metzl (31:22.940)

just as if he says something that I don't like,

Lex Fridman (31:25.260)

I'm gonna speak up about that.

Jamie Metzl (31:26.880)

Good, you walked through the fire.

Lex Fridman (31:28.540)

So that's, you laid out the story here.

Lex Fridman (31:31.920)

And I think in many ways it's a human story.

Lex Fridman (31:36.520)

It's a story of politics, it's a story of human nature.

Lex Fridman (31:40.380)

But let's talk about the story of the virus.

Lex Fridman (31:45.740)

And let's talk about the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (31:48.340)

So maybe this is a good time to try to talk about

Lex Fridman (31:51.940)

its history, about its origins,

Jamie Metzl (31:53.540)

about what kind of stuff it works on,

Lex Fridman (31:55.920)

about biosafety levels, and about Batwoman.

Jamie Metzl (32:00.780)

Yeah, Xu Zhengli, yes.

Lex Fridman (32:02.820)

Xu Zhengli.

Lex Fridman (32:03.780)

So what is the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Lex Fridman (32:06.540)

when did it start?

Jamie Metzl (32:07.540)

Yeah, so it's a great question.

Lex Fridman (32:09.060)

So after SARS 1, which was in the early 2000, 2003, 2004,

Jamie Metzl (32:15.820)

there was this effort to enhance,

Lex Fridman (32:20.100)

as I mentioned before, global capacity, including in China.

Lex Fridman (32:23.820)

So the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (32:25.520)

had been around for decades before then.

Lex Fridman (32:29.220)

But there was an agreement between the French

Lex Fridman (32:32.100)

and the Chinese governments to build the largest BSL4 lab,

Jamie Metzl (32:37.100)

BSL4 lab, so biosafety level four.

Lex Fridman (32:39.940)

So in these what are called high containment labs,

Jamie Metzl (32:42.380)

there's level four, which is the highest level.

Lex Fridman (32:44.500)

And people have seen that on TV and elsewhere,

Jamie Metzl (32:47.340)

where you have the people in the different suits

Lex Fridman (32:50.780)

and all of these protections.

Lex Fridman (32:51.900)

And then there's level three, which is still very serious,

Lex Fridman (32:56.900)

but not as much as level four.

Lex Fridman (32:58.820)

And then level two is just kind of goggles and some gloves

Lex Fridman (33:03.220)

and maybe a face mask, much less.

Lex Fridman (33:05.700)

So the French and the Chinese governments agreed

Lex Fridman (33:10.300)

that France would help build the first

Lex Fridman (33:13.500)

and still the largest BSL4 plus some mobile BSL3 labs.

Lex Fridman (33:20.140)

And they were going to do it in Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (33:22.220)

And Wuhan is kind of like China's Chicago.

Lex Fridman (33:24.980)

And I had actually been, it's a different story.

Jamie Metzl (33:26.740)

I'd been in Wuhan relatively not that long

Lex Fridman (33:30.660)

before the pandemic broke out.

Lex Fridman (33:32.920)

And that was why I knew that Wuhan,

Lex Fridman (33:34.900)

it's not some backwater where there are a bunch of yokels

Jamie Metzl (33:37.380)

eating bats for dinner every night.

Lex Fridman (33:40.260)

This is a really sophisticated, wealthy, highly educated

Lex Fridman (33:44.260)

and cultured city.

Lex Fridman (33:45.840)

And so I knew that it wasn't like

Jamie Metzl (33:48.420)

that even the one on seafood market

Lex Fridman (33:50.340)

wasn't like some of these seafood markets

Jamie Metzl (33:52.820)

that they have in Southern China or in Cambodia,

Lex Fridman (33:55.060)

where I lived for two years.

Jamie Metzl (33:57.140)

I mean, it was a totally different thing.

Lex Fridman (33:59.300)

I'm gonna have to talk to you about some of the,

Jamie Metzl (34:01.340)

including the Wuhan market,

Lex Fridman (34:02.660)

just some of the wild food going on here.

Jamie Metzl (34:04.660)

Because you've traveled that part of the world.

Lex Fridman (34:06.340)

But let's not get there.

Jamie Metzl (34:07.180)

Let's not get distracted.

Lex Fridman (34:08.860)

Good, as I was telling you, Lex, before,

Lex Fridman (34:11.100)

and this is maybe an advertisement,

Lex Fridman (34:13.780)

is having now listened to a number of your podcasts

Jamie Metzl (34:18.020)

when I'm doing long ultra training runs

Lex Fridman (34:20.380)

or driving in the mountains.

Jamie Metzl (34:22.260)

Like the really, because in the beginning,

Lex Fridman (34:23.660)

we have to talk about whatever it is is the topic.

Lex Fridman (34:26.080)

But the really good stuff happens later.

Lex Fridman (34:28.340)

So stay tuned. So friends,

Jamie Metzl (34:29.180)

you should listen to the end.

Lex Fridman (34:31.340)

I have to say, as I was telling you before,

Jamie Metzl (34:34.900)

like when I heard your long podcast with Jérôme Lanier

Lex Fridman (34:37.780)

and he talked about his mother at the very end,

Jamie Metzl (34:41.140)

I mean, just beautiful stuff.

Lex Fridman (34:42.740)

So I don't know whether I can match beautiful stuff,

Lex Fridman (34:45.500)

but I'm gonna do my best.

Lex Fridman (34:47.980)

You're gonna have to find out.

Jamie Metzl (34:49.140)

Exactly, stay tuned.

Lex Fridman (34:52.700)

So France had this agreement

Jamie Metzl (34:54.900)

that they were going to help design and help build

Lex Fridman (34:57.900)

this BSL4 lab in Wuhan.

Lex Fridman (35:01.060)

And it was going to be with French standards,

Lex Fridman (35:04.900)

and there were going to be 50 French experts

Jamie Metzl (35:07.540)

who were going to work there

Lex Fridman (35:09.420)

and supervise the work that happened

Jamie Metzl (35:12.700)

even after the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (35:16.060)

in the new location started operating.

Lex Fridman (35:22.140)

But then when they started building it,

Lex Fridman (35:24.460)

the French contractors, the French overseers

Jamie Metzl (35:28.540)

were increasingly appalled

Lex Fridman (35:31.500)

that they had less and less control,

Jamie Metzl (35:33.420)

that the Chinese contractors were swapping out new things,

Lex Fridman (35:37.140)

it wasn't built up to French standards,

Lex Fridman (35:39.620)

so much that at the end, when it was finally built,

Lex Fridman (35:44.180)

the person who was the vice chairman of the project

Lex Fridman (35:47.860)

and a leading French industrialist named Marieau

Lex Fridman (35:51.380)

refused to sign off.

Lex Fridman (35:52.980)

And he said, we can't support,

Lex Fridman (35:55.620)

we have no idea what this is,

Jamie Metzl (35:58.220)

whether it's safe or not.

Lex Fridman (36:00.220)

And when this lab opened,

Jamie Metzl (36:02.980)

remember it was supposed to have 50 French experts,

Lex Fridman (36:05.980)

it had one French expert.

Lex Fridman (36:07.900)

And so the French were really disgusted.

Lex Fridman (36:11.340)

And actually when the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (36:14.740)

and its new location opened in 2018, two things happened.

Lex Fridman (36:19.460)

One, French intelligence privately approached

Jamie Metzl (36:22.100)

US intelligence saying, we have a lot of concerns

Lex Fridman (36:25.100)

about the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Jamie Metzl (36:27.260)

about its safety, and we don't even know

Lex Fridman (36:29.220)

who's operating there,

Lex Fridman (36:30.380)

is it being used as a dual use facility?

Lex Fridman (36:34.020)

And also in 2018, the US embassy in Beijing

Jamie Metzl (36:38.540)

sent some people down to Wuhan to go and look at,

Lex Fridman (36:42.220)

well, at this laboratory.

Lex Fridman (36:44.500)

And they wrote a scathing cable that Josh Rogin

Lex Fridman (36:48.500)

from the Washington Post later got his hands on saying,

Jamie Metzl (36:52.540)

this is really unsafe,

Lex Fridman (36:54.140)

they're doing work on dangerous bat coronaviruses

Jamie Metzl (36:58.740)

in conditions where a leak is possible.

Lex Fridman (37:02.700)

And so then you mentioned Shujing Li,

Lex Fridman (37:05.660)

and I'll connect that to these virologists

Lex Fridman (37:08.620)

who I was talking about.

Lex Fridman (37:11.100)

So there's a very credible thesis

Lex Fridman (37:14.220)

that because these pathogenic outbreaks happen

Jamie Metzl (37:17.780)

in other parts of the world,

Lex Fridman (37:19.740)

having partnerships with experts in those parts of the world

Jamie Metzl (37:24.660)

must be a foundation of our efforts.

Lex Fridman (37:28.020)

We can't just bring everything home

Jamie Metzl (37:29.980)

because we know that viruses don't care about borders

Lex Fridman (37:32.940)

and boundaries, and so if something happens there,

Jamie Metzl (37:34.980)

it's going to come here.

Lex Fridman (37:36.180)

So very correctly, we have all kinds of partnerships

Jamie Metzl (37:41.660)

with experts in these labs,

Lex Fridman (37:43.980)

and Shujing Li was one of those partners.

Lex Fridman (37:47.260)

And her closest relationship was with Peter Daszak,

Lex Fridman (37:51.380)

who's a British, I think now American,

Lex Fridman (37:53.980)

but the president of a thing called EcoHealth Alliance,

Lex Fridman (37:57.580)

which was getting money from NIH.

Lex Fridman (37:59.220)

And basically, EcoHealth Alliance

Lex Fridman (38:01.780)

was a pass through organization.

Lex Fridman (38:03.420)

And over the years, it was only about $600,000.

Lex Fridman (38:06.580)

So almost all of her funding

Jamie Metzl (38:07.980)

came from the Chinese government,

Lex Fridman (38:09.260)

but there's a little bit that came from the United States.

Lex Fridman (38:11.780)

And so she became their kind of leading expert

Lex Fridman (38:15.140)

and the point of contact

Jamie Metzl (38:17.620)

between the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (38:20.220)

and certainly Peter Daszak, but also with others.

Lex Fridman (38:25.900)

And that was why in the earliest days of the outbreak,

Lex Fridman (38:28.860)

I didn't mention that,

Jamie Metzl (38:30.340)

I did mention that there were these virologists

Lex Fridman (38:32.860)

who had this fake certainty

Jamie Metzl (38:34.940)

that they knew it came from nature

Lex Fridman (38:36.620)

and it didn't come from a lab

Lex Fridman (38:38.860)

and they called people like me conspiracy theorists

Lex Fridman (38:41.340)

just for raising that possibility.

Lex Fridman (38:43.860)

But when Peter Daszak was organizing that effort

Lex Fridman (38:46.820)

in February of 2020,

Lex Fridman (38:50.020)

what he said is we need to rally

Lex Fridman (38:52.460)

behind our Chinese colleagues.

Lex Fridman (38:54.100)

And the basic idea was

Lex Fridman (38:56.820)

these international collaborations are under threat.

Lex Fridman (38:59.660)

And I think it was because of that,

Lex Fridman (39:01.300)

because Peter Daszak's basically his major contribution

Jamie Metzl (39:06.340)

as a scientist was just tacking his name

Lex Fridman (39:09.180)

on work that Shujang Li had largely done.

Jamie Metzl (39:12.940)

He was defending a lot,

Lex Fridman (39:14.420)

certainly for himself and his organization.

Lex Fridman (39:16.820)

So you think EcoHealth Alliance and Peter

Lex Fridman (39:20.620)

is less about money,

Jamie Metzl (39:21.980)

it's more about kind of almost like legacy

Lex Fridman (39:24.740)

because you're so attached to this work?

Lex Fridman (39:26.660)

Is it just on a human level?

Lex Fridman (39:27.860)

I think so.

Jamie Metzl (39:29.060)

I mean, I've been criticized for being actually,

Lex Fridman (39:31.860)

I'm certainly a big critic of Peter Daszak,

Lex Fridman (39:34.780)

but I've been criticized by some for being too lenient.

Lex Fridman (39:38.460)

I mean, it's so easy to say,

Jamie Metzl (39:39.940)

oh, somebody they're like an evil ogre

Lex Fridman (39:43.140)

and just trying to do evil

Lex Fridman (39:45.460)

and cackling in their closet or whatever.

Lex Fridman (39:49.700)

But I think for most of us,

Jamie Metzl (39:51.140)

even those of us who do terrible, horrible things,

Lex Fridman (39:55.460)

the story that we tell ourselves

Lex Fridman (39:57.620)

and we really believe is that we're doing the thing

Lex Fridman (3:00:00.040)

that the European power is denied.

Lex Fridman (3:00:01.880)

And so the idea of giving up sovereignty

Lex Fridman (3:00:04.720)

was the absolute opposite.

Lex Fridman (3:00:07.040)

And so that's why China is,

Lex Fridman (3:00:10.120)

and again, I mentioned this Rush Doshi book.

Jamie Metzl (3:00:12.400)

It's not that China is trying to strengthen

Lex Fridman (3:00:15.120)

this rules based international order,

Jamie Metzl (3:00:17.200)

which is based on the principle

Lex Fridman (3:00:19.040)

that while there are certain things that we share

Lex Fridman (3:00:21.240)

and how do we build a governance system

Lex Fridman (3:00:23.800)

to protect those things,

Lex Fridman (3:00:25.680)

what it seems to be doing is trying

Lex Fridman (3:00:27.800)

to advance its own sovereignty.

Lex Fridman (3:00:31.320)

And so I think I agree with you,

Lex Fridman (3:00:33.040)

but I don't think that we can just go forward

Jamie Metzl (3:00:37.080)

without some accountability for the.

Lex Fridman (3:00:39.640)

So the coverup was a big problem.

Jamie Metzl (3:00:41.480)

It's like, I often,

Lex Fridman (3:00:44.080)

I find myself playing devil's advocate

Jamie Metzl (3:00:46.560)

because I'm trying to sort of empathize

Lex Fridman (3:00:49.520)

and then I forget that like two or three people

Jamie Metzl (3:00:54.280)

listen to this thing and then they're like,

Lex Fridman (3:00:55.900)

look, Lex is defending the Chinese government

Jamie Metzl (3:00:58.880)

with their coverup.

Lex Fridman (3:00:59.720)

No, I'm not, I'm just trying to understand.

Jamie Metzl (3:01:05.000)

I mean, it's the same reason I'm reading Mein Kampf now

Lex Fridman (3:01:08.040)

is like you have to really understand the minds of people

Jamie Metzl (3:01:13.040)

as if I too could have done that.

Lex Fridman (3:01:18.360)

You know, you have to understand

Jamie Metzl (3:01:19.660)

that we're all the same to some degree

Lex Fridman (3:01:22.800)

and that kind of empathy is required

Jamie Metzl (3:01:25.300)

to figure out solutions for the future.

Lex Fridman (3:01:29.640)

It's just in empathizing with the Chinese government

Jamie Metzl (3:01:32.620)

in this whole situation,

Lex Fridman (3:01:35.120)

I'm still not sure I understand

Lex Fridman (3:01:38.220)

how to minimize the chance of a coverup in the future,

Lex Fridman (3:01:41.840)

whether for China or for the United States.

Jamie Metzl (3:01:44.040)

If the virus started in the United States,

Lex Fridman (3:01:45.700)

I'm not exactly sure we would be

Jamie Metzl (3:01:49.380)

with all the emphasis we put on freedom of speech,

Lex Fridman (3:01:52.480)

with all the emphasis we put on freedom of the press

Lex Fridman (3:01:57.920)

and access to the press,

Lex Fridman (3:02:00.480)

the sort of all aspects of government.

Jamie Metzl (3:02:02.680)

I'm not sure the US government

Lex Fridman (3:02:04.080)

wouldn't do the similar kind of coverup.

Jamie Metzl (3:02:06.040)

Let me put it this way.

Lex Fridman (3:02:07.280)

So we're in Texas now doing this interview.

Jamie Metzl (3:02:09.900)

Imagine there's a kind of horseshoe bat

Lex Fridman (3:02:13.560)

that we'll call the Texas Horseshoe Bat and the Texas.

Jamie Metzl (3:02:18.580)

There's a lot of bats in Austin,

Lex Fridman (3:02:19.820)

but it's a whole thing. It's true, it's true.

Lex Fridman (3:02:21.960)

And so let's just say that the Texas Horseshoe Bats

Lex Fridman (3:02:25.560)

only exist in Texas, but in Montana,

Jamie Metzl (3:02:30.400)

we have a thing, it's called

Lex Fridman (3:02:32.680)

the Montana Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (3:02:36.240)

And at the Montana Institute of Virology,

Lex Fridman (3:02:38.860)

they have the world's largest collection

Jamie Metzl (3:02:41.440)

of Texas Horseshoe Bats, including horseshoe bats

Lex Fridman (3:02:45.600)

that are associated with a previous global pandemic

Jamie Metzl (3:02:51.400)

called the Texas Horseshoe Bat pandemic.

Lex Fridman (3:02:55.000)

And let's just say that people in Montana,

Jamie Metzl (3:02:58.880)

in the same town where this

Lex Fridman (3:03:00.520)

Montana Institute of Virology is,

Jamie Metzl (3:03:03.320)

start getting a version of this

Lex Fridman (3:03:06.860)

Texas Horseshoe Bat syndrome

Jamie Metzl (3:03:09.960)

that is genetically relatively similar

Lex Fridman (3:03:13.600)

to the outbreak in Texas.

Jamie Metzl (3:03:15.240)

There are no horseshoe bats there.

Lex Fridman (3:03:18.040)

And the government says, it's your same point,

Jamie Metzl (3:03:21.360)

Alina's point about the unicorns,

Lex Fridman (3:03:23.280)

like nothing to see here, just move along.

Jamie Metzl (3:03:28.280)

Would Joe Rogan and Brett Weinstein and Josh Rogan,

Lex Fridman (3:03:34.320)

would they say, oh, I guess, I just think that.

Jamie Metzl (3:03:36.720)

No, no, but the point is the government going to say it.

Lex Fridman (3:03:40.560)

So, Joe Rogan is a comedian.

Jamie Metzl (3:03:45.040)

Brett Weinstein is a podcaster.

Lex Fridman (3:03:48.880)

The point is, what we want is not just those folks

Jamie Metzl (3:03:53.480)

to have the freedom to speak, that's important.

Lex Fridman (3:03:56.220)

But you want the government to have the transparent,

Jamie Metzl (3:03:58.400)

like, I don't think Joe Rogan is enough

Lex Fridman (3:04:02.360)

to hold the government accountable.

Jamie Metzl (3:04:04.360)

I think they're going to do their thing anyway.

Lex Fridman (3:04:06.800)

But I think that's our system,

Lex Fridman (3:04:09.080)

and that was the genius of the founding fathers.

Lex Fridman (3:04:12.320)

Is that enough?

Jamie Metzl (3:04:13.240)

That the government probably is going to have

Lex Fridman (3:04:16.040)

a lot of instincts to do the wrong thing.

Jamie Metzl (3:04:18.240)

That was the experience in England before.

Lex Fridman (3:04:22.360)

And so that's why we have free speech,

Jamie Metzl (3:04:25.800)

to hold the government accountable.

Lex Fridman (3:04:27.160)

I mean, I'm kind of broadly a gun control person,

Lex Fridman (3:04:30.160)

but the people who say, well,

Lex Fridman (3:04:31.540)

we need to have broad gun rights.

Jamie Metzl (3:04:34.640)

As somebody who's now in Texas, I am offended.

Lex Fridman (3:04:39.040)

But their argument is, look,

Jamie Metzl (3:04:40.400)

we don't fully trust the government.

Lex Fridman (3:04:42.920)

If the government, just like we fought against the British,

Jamie Metzl (3:04:47.440)

if the government's wrong,

Lex Fridman (3:04:48.520)

we want to at least have some authority.

Lex Fridman (3:04:51.040)

So that's our system, is to have that kind of voice.

Lex Fridman (3:04:53.640)

And that is the public voice actually balances.

Jamie Metzl (3:04:57.600)

Because every government, as you correctly said,

Lex Fridman (3:05:00.080)

every government has the same instincts.

Lex Fridman (3:05:02.880)

And that's why we have, and it's imperfect here,

Lex Fridman (3:05:06.480)

but kind of these ideas of separation of powers,

Jamie Metzl (3:05:08.640)

of inalienable rights, so that we can have,

Lex Fridman (3:05:11.280)

it's almost like a vast market where we can have balance.

Lex Fridman (3:05:14.620)

So you think if a lab leak occurred in the United States,

Lex Fridman (3:05:18.900)

what probability would you put some kind of public report

Lex Fridman (3:05:24.120)

led by Rand Paul would come out saying this was a lab leak?

Lex Fridman (3:05:29.120)

You have good confidence that that would happen?

Jamie Metzl (3:05:31.600)

I have pretty decent confidence.

Lex Fridman (3:05:32.440)

And the reason I say, I mentioned that I'm a,

Jamie Metzl (3:05:35.160)

I think of myself, I'm sure I'm not anymore,

Lex Fridman (3:05:37.240)

because as I get older, but as a progressive person,

Jamie Metzl (3:05:39.840)

I'm a Democrat and I worked in Democratic administrations,

Lex Fridman (3:05:44.280)

worked for President Clinton on the National Security Council.

Lex Fridman (3:05:47.760)

But my kind of best friend in the United States Senate,

Lex Fridman (3:05:52.520)

who I talk to all the time,

Jamie Metzl (3:05:55.560)

is a Senator from Kansas named Roger Marshall.

Lex Fridman (3:05:59.400)

And Roger, I mean, if you just lined up our positions

Jamie Metzl (3:06:03.320)

on all sorts of things, we're radically different.

Lex Fridman (3:06:08.480)

But we have a great relationship.

Jamie Metzl (3:06:11.640)

We talk all the time and we share a commitment to saying,

Lex Fridman (3:06:16.080)

well, let's ask the tough questions about how this started.

Lex Fridman (3:06:20.120)

And again, if we had,

Lex Fridman (3:06:22.600)

like what is the United States government?

Jamie Metzl (3:06:24.280)

Yeah, it's the executive branch, but there's also Congress.

Lex Fridman (3:06:27.280)

And Congress, you talk about Rand Paul,

Lex Fridman (3:06:29.880)

and as a former executive branch worker,

Lex Fridman (3:06:33.480)

when I was on the National Security Council,

Lex Fridman (3:06:35.560)

and I guess technically when I was at the State Department,

Lex Fridman (3:06:38.880)

all of this stuff, all of this process,

Jamie Metzl (3:06:40.800)

it just seems like a pain in the ass.

Lex Fridman (3:06:42.600)

It's like these Fers, they're just attacking us.

Jamie Metzl (3:06:46.680)

We tried to do this thing with,

Lex Fridman (3:06:48.360)

we had all the best intentions

Lex Fridman (3:06:49.840)

and now they're holding hearings

Lex Fridman (3:06:50.960)

and they're trying to box us in and whatever.

Lex Fridman (3:06:53.680)

But that's our process.

Lex Fridman (3:06:55.040)

And there's like a form of accountability as chaotic,

Jamie Metzl (3:06:58.260)

as crazy as it is.

Lex Fridman (3:07:00.640)

And so it makes it really difficult.

Jamie Metzl (3:07:03.400)

I mean, we have other problems of just chaos

Lex Fridman (3:07:05.640)

and everybody doing their own thing,

Lex Fridman (3:07:07.580)

but it makes it difficult to have

Lex Fridman (3:07:09.840)

the kind of systematic coverup.

Lex Fridman (3:07:11.620)

And again, all of that is predicated on my hypothesis,

Lex Fridman (3:07:15.900)

not fully proven, although I think likely

Jamie Metzl (3:07:18.600)

that there is a lab incident origin of this pandemic.

Lex Fridman (3:07:22.960)

Well, I mean, we're having like several layers

Jamie Metzl (3:07:25.800)

of conversation, but I think whether lab leak hypothesis

Lex Fridman (3:07:31.800)

is true or not, it does seem that the likelihood

Jamie Metzl (3:07:36.640)

of a coverup, if it leaked from a lab is high.

Lex Fridman (3:07:41.880)

That's the more important conversation to be having.

Jamie Metzl (3:07:45.360)

Well, you could argue a lot of things,

Lex Fridman (3:07:48.000)

but to me arguably, that's the more important conversation

Jamie Metzl (3:07:51.480)

is about what is the likelihood of a coverup.

Lex Fridman (3:07:53.720)

100%, like in my mind, there is a legitimate debate

Jamie Metzl (3:07:59.400)

about the origins of the pandemic.

Lex Fridman (3:08:01.920)

There are people who I respect,

Jamie Metzl (3:08:04.080)

who I don't necessarily agree with,

Lex Fridman (3:08:06.360)

people like Stuart Neal, who's a virologist in the UK,

Jamie Metzl (3:08:10.040)

who's been very open minded, engaged in productive debate

Lex Fridman (3:08:14.880)

about the origin and you know where I stand.

Jamie Metzl (3:08:18.200)

There is and can be no debate about whether

Lex Fridman (3:08:23.200)

or not there has been a coverup.

Jamie Metzl (3:08:25.240)

There has been a coverup.

Lex Fridman (3:08:26.400)

There is in my mind, no credible argument

Jamie Metzl (3:08:29.600)

that there hasn't been a coverup.

Lex Fridman (3:08:31.340)

And I mean, we can just see it in the regulations,

Jamie Metzl (3:08:35.440)

in the lack of access.

Lex Fridman (3:08:37.120)

There's an incredible woman named Zhang Zhan,

Jamie Metzl (3:08:40.480)

who is a Chinese, we have to call her a citizen journalist

Lex Fridman (3:08:44.240)

because everything is controlled by the state.

Lex Fridman (3:08:46.060)

But in the early days of the pandemic,

Lex Fridman (3:08:47.720)

she went to Wuhan, started taking videos and posting them.

Jamie Metzl (3:08:52.040)

She was imprisoned for picking quarrels,

Lex Fridman (3:08:54.920)

which is kind of a catchall.

Lex Fridman (3:08:57.440)

And now she's engaged in a hunger strike

Lex Fridman (3:09:00.260)

and she's near death.

Lex Fridman (3:09:02.000)

And so there's no question that there has been a coverup

Lex Fridman (3:09:06.680)

and there's no question in my mind

Jamie Metzl (3:09:08.280)

that that coverup is responsible

Lex Fridman (3:09:10.400)

for a significant percentage of the total deaths

Jamie Metzl (3:09:13.920)

due to COVID 19.

Lex Fridman (3:09:15.040)

In a pivot, can I talk to you about sex?

Jamie Metzl (3:09:22.040)

Let's roll.

Lex Fridman (3:09:23.400)

Okay, so you're the author of a book, Hacking Darwin.

Lex Fridman (3:09:29.120)

So humans have used sex, allegedly, as I've read about,

Lex Fridman (3:09:36.200)

to mix genetic information to produce offspring

Lex Fridman (3:09:41.200)

and through that kind of process adapted their environment.

Lex Fridman (3:09:49.920)

Lex, you mentioned earlier about

Jamie Metzl (3:09:51.880)

you're asking tough questions

Lex Fridman (3:09:53.680)

and people pushing you to ask tough questions.

Lex Fridman (3:09:56.640)

Is it okay if I just?

Lex Fridman (3:09:57.680)

So you said, have done this as I've read about.

Jamie Metzl (3:10:01.240)

As I've read about on the internet, yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:10:03.400)

All I'm saying, as a person sitting with you,

Jamie Metzl (3:10:06.280)

to people who would be open minded in experimenting

Lex Fridman (3:10:11.360)

of, as I've read about, to reality,

Lex Fridman (3:10:13.680)

what I would say is Lex Friedman is handsome, charming.

Lex Fridman (3:10:19.880)

He's really a great guy.

Jamie Metzl (3:10:23.960)

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Lex Fridman (3:10:24.800)

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Lex Fridman (3:10:26.760)

So I was reading about this last night.

Lex Fridman (3:10:28.720)

I was gonna tweet it, but then I'm like,

Jamie Metzl (3:10:30.080)

this is going to be misinterpreted.

Lex Fridman (3:10:32.360)

But this is why I like podcasts,

Jamie Metzl (3:10:36.080)

because I can say stuff like this.

Lex Fridman (3:10:40.160)

It's kind of incredible to me that the average human male

Jamie Metzl (3:10:45.480)

produces 500 billion plus sperm cells in their lifetime.

Lex Fridman (3:10:52.760)

Each one of those are genetically unique.

Jamie Metzl (3:10:57.360)

They can produce unique humans.

Lex Fridman (3:10:59.880)

Each one of them, 500 billion,

Jamie Metzl (3:11:01.840)

there's 100 billion people who's ever lived.

Lex Fridman (3:11:06.440)

Maybe 110, whatever, whatever the number is.

Lex Fridman (3:11:09.400)

So it's five times the number of people who ever lived

Lex Fridman (3:11:12.360)

is produced by each male of genetic information.

Lex Fridman (3:11:18.400)

So those are all possible trajectories of lives

Lex Fridman (3:11:20.760)

that could have lived.

Jamie Metzl (3:11:22.400)

Those are all little people that could have been.

Lex Fridman (3:11:25.520)

And all the possible stories.

Jamie Metzl (3:11:28.160)

All the Hitlers and Einsteins

Lex Fridman (3:11:31.040)

that could have been created.

Lex Fridman (3:11:32.240)

And all that, I mean, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (3:11:34.160)

this kind of, you're painting this possible future,

Lex Fridman (3:11:38.320)

and we get to see only one little string of that.

Lex Fridman (3:11:40.720)

I mean, I suppose the magic of that

Jamie Metzl (3:11:43.400)

is also captured by the, in the space of physics,

Lex Fridman (3:11:47.320)

having multiple dimensions

Lex Fridman (3:11:49.720)

and the many worlds hypothesis of quantum mechanics,

Lex Fridman (3:11:53.440)

the interpretation that we're basically just,

Jamie Metzl (3:11:57.760)

at every point, there's an infinite offspring

Lex Fridman (3:12:02.280)

of universes that are created.

Lex Fridman (3:12:04.760)

But I don't know, that's just like a magic

Lex Fridman (3:12:06.720)

of this game of genetics that we're playing.

Lex Fridman (3:12:11.800)

And the winning sperm is not the fastest.

Lex Fridman (3:12:16.680)

The winning sperm is basically the luckiest,

Jamie Metzl (3:12:19.400)

has the right timing.

Lex Fridman (3:12:21.080)

So it's not, I also got into this whole,

Jamie Metzl (3:12:24.880)

I started reading papers about like,

Lex Fridman (3:12:29.400)

is there something to be said

Lex Fridman (3:12:30.680)

about who wins the race, right, genetically?

Lex Fridman (3:12:34.040)

So it's fascinating, because there's studies

Jamie Metzl (3:12:36.040)

in animals and so on to answer that question,

Lex Fridman (3:12:38.480)

because it's interesting, because I'm a winner, right?

Jamie Metzl (3:12:41.720)

I won, I won a race.

Lex Fridman (3:12:43.720)

And so you want to know, what does that say about me

Jamie Metzl (3:12:46.560)

in this fascinating genetic race against,

Lex Fridman (3:12:50.760)

I think, what is it, 200 million others, I think.

Lex Fridman (3:12:54.320)

So one pool of sperm cells is about something

Lex Fridman (3:13:01.080)

like 200 million, it could be, yes.

Lex Fridman (3:13:04.480)

But that, millions, I thought it was much lower than that.

Lex Fridman (3:13:08.040)

So like that, those are all brothers and sisters of mine,

Lex Fridman (3:13:13.360)

and I beat them all out, I won.

Lex Fridman (3:13:16.560)

And so it's interesting to know,

Jamie Metzl (3:13:21.280)

there's a temptation to say I'm somehow better than them,

Lex Fridman (3:13:24.120)

right, and now that goes into the next stage

Jamie Metzl (3:13:28.320)

of something we're deeply thinking about,

Lex Fridman (3:13:33.160)

which is if we have more control now

Jamie Metzl (3:13:38.800)

over the winning genetic code that becomes offspring,

Lex Fridman (3:13:44.800)

if we have first not even control,

Jamie Metzl (3:13:46.600)

just information and then control,

Lex Fridman (3:13:50.280)

what do you think that world looks like

Jamie Metzl (3:13:53.160)

from a biological perspective

Lex Fridman (3:13:54.960)

and from an ethical perspective

Lex Fridman (3:13:56.520)

when we start getting more information and more control?

Lex Fridman (3:14:00.760)

Yeah, great question.

Lex Fridman (3:14:02.320)

So first, on the sperm, there can be up to

Lex Fridman (3:14:05.880)

about 1.2 billion sperm cells in a male ejaculation.

Lex Fridman (3:14:10.600)

So as I mentioned in Hacking Darwin,

Lex Fridman (3:14:13.200)

male sperm, it's kind of a dime a dozen

Jamie Metzl (3:14:15.400)

with all the guys in all the world

Lex Fridman (3:14:18.400)

just doing whatever they do with it.

Lex Fridman (3:14:20.320)

And it's an open question how competitive,

Lex Fridman (3:14:25.640)

I mean, there is an element of luck

Lex Fridman (3:14:27.800)

and there is an element of competition,

Lex Fridman (3:14:31.120)

and it's an open question how much that competition

Jamie Metzl (3:14:36.120)

impacts the outcome or whether it's just luck,

Lex Fridman (3:14:39.600)

but my guess is there's some combination

Jamie Metzl (3:14:42.200)

of fitness and luck.

Lex Fridman (3:14:44.560)

But you're absolutely right that all of those other

Jamie Metzl (3:14:48.000)

sperm cells in the ejaculation,

Lex Fridman (3:14:51.280)

if that's how the union of the sperm and egg is happening,

Jamie Metzl (3:14:55.800)

all of them represent a different future.

Lex Fridman (3:14:59.360)

And there's a wonderful book called Invisible Cities

Jamie Metzl (3:15:03.800)

by Italo Calvino, and he even talks about a city

Lex Fridman (3:15:08.080)

as something like this where everybody,

Jamie Metzl (3:15:10.280)

you have your life,

Lex Fridman (3:15:12.160)

but then you have all these alternate lives

Lex Fridman (3:15:14.240)

and every time you make any decision,

Lex Fridman (3:15:16.480)

you're kind of, and so, but in this Invisible Cities,

Jamie Metzl (3:15:19.280)

there's a little string that goes toward that alternate life

Lex Fridman (3:15:23.280)

and then the city becomes this weaving

Jamie Metzl (3:15:25.520)

of all the strings of people's real lives

Lex Fridman (3:15:28.960)

and the alternate lives that they could have taken

Jamie Metzl (3:15:31.680)

had they made any other different steps.

Lex Fridman (3:15:34.000)

So that part, it's like a deep philosophical question.

Jamie Metzl (3:15:37.600)

It's not just for us, it's for all of,

Lex Fridman (3:15:39.480)

I mean, it's baked into evolutionary biology.

Jamie Metzl (3:15:43.280)

It's just what are the different strategies

Lex Fridman (3:15:45.280)

for different species to achieve fitness?

Lex Fridman (3:15:48.400)

And there's some of the different corals or other fish

Lex Fridman (3:15:52.000)

where they just kind of release the eggs into the water

Lex Fridman (3:15:55.320)

and there's all different kinds of ways.

Lex Fridman (3:15:58.880)

And then you're right in my book, Hacking Darwin,

Lex Fridman (3:16:03.120)

and it's the full title is Hacking Darwin,

Lex Fridman (3:16:04.840)

Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity.

Jamie Metzl (3:16:08.600)

I kind of go deep into exploring

Lex Fridman (3:16:12.360)

the big picture implications of the future

Jamie Metzl (3:16:15.360)

of human reproduction.

Lex Fridman (3:16:17.920)

We are already participating

Jamie Metzl (3:16:20.880)

in a revolutionary transformation,

Lex Fridman (3:16:23.400)

not just because of the diagnostics that we have,

Jamie Metzl (3:16:26.320)

things like ultrasound, but because now

Lex Fridman (3:16:29.440)

an increasing number of us are being born

Jamie Metzl (3:16:31.960)

through in vitro fertilization,

Lex Fridman (3:16:33.800)

which means the eggs are extracted from the mother,

Jamie Metzl (3:16:36.520)

they're fertilized by the father's sperm in vitro in a lab,

Lex Fridman (3:16:41.160)

and then reimplanted in the mother.

Jamie Metzl (3:16:45.080)

On top of that, there's a somewhat newer,

Lex Fridman (3:16:48.800)

but still now older technology

Jamie Metzl (3:16:52.720)

called preimplantation genetic testing.

Lex Fridman (3:16:55.520)

And so as everyone knows from high school biology,

Jamie Metzl (3:16:58.600)

you have the fertilized egg,

Lex Fridman (3:17:01.320)

and then it goes one cell to two cells

Jamie Metzl (3:17:03.920)

to four to eight and whatever.

Lex Fridman (3:17:05.240)

And after around five days in this PGT process,

Jamie Metzl (3:17:09.560)

a few cells are extracted.

Lex Fridman (3:17:12.160)

So let's say you have 10 fertilized eggs,

Jamie Metzl (3:17:15.400)

early stage embryos, a few cells are extracted from each,

Lex Fridman (3:17:18.480)

and those cells, if they would,

Jamie Metzl (3:17:21.200)

the ones that are extracted

Lex Fridman (3:17:22.120)

would end up becoming the placenta.

Lex Fridman (3:17:25.000)

But every one of our cells has, other than a few,

Lex Fridman (3:17:28.600)

has our full genome.

Lex Fridman (3:17:30.960)

And so then you sequence those cells

Lex Fridman (3:17:33.040)

and with preimplantation genetic testing now,

Lex Fridman (3:17:36.400)

what you can do is you can screen out deadly single gel,

Lex Fridman (3:17:41.520)

a single gene mutation disorders,

Jamie Metzl (3:17:44.280)

things that could be deadly or life ruining.

Lex Fridman (3:17:47.120)

And so people use it to determine

Jamie Metzl (3:17:49.400)

which of those 10 early stage embryos

Lex Fridman (3:17:53.240)

to implant in a mother.

Jamie Metzl (3:17:55.680)

As we shift towards a much greater understanding

Lex Fridman (3:17:59.000)

of genetics, and that is part of our,

Jamie Metzl (3:18:01.480)

just the broader genetics revolution,

Lex Fridman (3:18:04.160)

but within that, in our transition from personalized

Jamie Metzl (3:18:07.760)

to precision healthcare, more and more of us

Lex Fridman (3:18:10.400)

are going to have our whole genome sequenced

Jamie Metzl (3:18:12.400)

because it's gonna be the foundation

Lex Fridman (3:18:13.920)

of getting personalized healthcare.

Jamie Metzl (3:18:16.000)

We're going to have already millions, but very soon,

Lex Fridman (3:18:19.360)

billions of people who've had their whole genome sequenced.

Lex Fridman (3:18:22.840)

And then we'll have big databases

Lex Fridman (3:18:24.920)

of people's genetic genotypic information

Lex Fridman (3:18:27.640)

and life or phenotypic information.

Lex Fridman (3:18:30.040)

And using, coming into your area,

Jamie Metzl (3:18:32.280)

our tools of machine learning and data analytics,

Lex Fridman (3:18:35.120)

we're going to be able to increasingly understand

Jamie Metzl (3:18:38.360)

patterns of genetic expression, even though we're all.

Lex Fridman (3:18:41.160)

So predict how the genetic information will get expressed.

Jamie Metzl (3:18:44.320)

Correct. Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:18:45.920)

Never perfectly perhaps, but more and more,

Jamie Metzl (3:18:48.880)

always more and more.

Lex Fridman (3:18:50.440)

And so with that information, we aren't going to just be,

Jamie Metzl (3:18:54.480)

even now, we aren't going to just be selecting based on

Lex Fridman (3:18:59.480)

which of these 10 early stage embryos

Jamie Metzl (3:19:02.120)

is carrying a deadly genetic disorder,

Lex Fridman (3:19:04.640)

but we can, we'll be able to know everything

Jamie Metzl (3:19:06.880)

that can be partly or entirely predicted by genetics.

Lex Fridman (3:19:12.240)

And there's a lot of our humanity

Jamie Metzl (3:19:14.560)

that fits into that category.

Lex Fridman (3:19:17.200)

And certainly simple traits like height and eye color

Lex Fridman (3:19:22.360)

and things like that.

Lex Fridman (3:19:23.760)

I mean, height is not at all simple,

Lex Fridman (3:19:25.400)

but it's, if you have good nutrition,

Lex Fridman (3:19:28.760)

it's entirely or mostly genetic.

Lex Fridman (3:19:31.320)

But even personality traits and personality styles,

Lex Fridman (3:19:34.280)

there are a lot of things that we see just as the experience,

Jamie Metzl (3:19:37.360)

the beauty of life that are partly have a genetic foundation.

Lex Fridman (3:19:42.000)

And so whatever part of these traits are definable

Lex Fridman (3:19:47.240)

and influenced by genetics,

Lex Fridman (3:19:49.880)

we're going to have greater and greater predictability

Jamie Metzl (3:19:53.120)

within a range.

Lex Fridman (3:19:54.520)

And so selecting those embryos will be informed

Jamie Metzl (3:19:59.880)

by that kind of knowledge.

Lex Fridman (3:20:02.440)

And that's why in Hacking Darwin,

Jamie Metzl (3:20:04.520)

I talk about embryo selection as being a key driver

Lex Fridman (3:20:09.280)

of the future of human evolution.

Lex Fridman (3:20:11.560)

But then on top of that, there is in 2012,

Lex Fridman (3:20:15.240)

Shinya Yamanaka, an amazing Japanese scientist

Jamie Metzl (3:20:19.760)

won the Nobel Prize for developing a process

Lex Fridman (3:20:22.960)

for creating what are called induced pluripotent stem cells,

Jamie Metzl (3:20:26.400)

IPS cells.

Lex Fridman (3:20:27.640)

And what IPS cells are is you can induce an adult cell

Jamie Metzl (3:20:31.760)

to go back in evolutionary time and become a stem cell.

Lex Fridman (3:20:35.200)

And a stem cell is like when we're a fertilized egg,

Jamie Metzl (3:20:39.600)

like our entire blueprint is in that one cell

Lex Fridman (3:20:42.640)

and that cell can be anything,

Lex Fridman (3:20:44.160)

but then it starts to, our cells start to specialize.

Lex Fridman (3:20:48.120)

And that's why we have skin cells and blood cells

Lex Fridman (3:20:50.440)

and all the different types of things.

Lex Fridman (3:20:51.560)

So with the Yamanaka process,

Jamie Metzl (3:20:54.640)

we can induce an adult cell to become a stem cell.

Lex Fridman (3:20:59.880)

So the relevance to this story is what you can do.

Lex Fridman (3:21:02.960)

And it works now in animal models.

Lex Fridman (3:21:05.080)

And as far as I know, it hasn't yet been done in humans,

Lex Fridman (3:21:08.240)

but it works pretty well in animal models.

Lex Fridman (3:21:11.080)

You take any adult cell,

Lex Fridman (3:21:12.280)

but skin cells are probably the easiest.

Lex Fridman (3:21:15.960)

You induce this skin cell into a stem cell.

Lex Fridman (3:21:19.760)

And if you just take a little skin graft,

Lex Fridman (3:21:21.640)

it would have millions of cells.

Jamie Metzl (3:21:23.760)

You induce those skin cells into stem cells.

Lex Fridman (3:21:26.760)

Then you induce those stem cells into egg precursor cells.

Jamie Metzl (3:21:31.480)

Then you induce those egg precursor cells into eggs,

Lex Fridman (3:21:35.880)

egg cells.

Jamie Metzl (3:21:37.120)

Then because we have this massive overabundance

Lex Fridman (3:21:41.080)

of male sperm, then you could fertilize,

Jamie Metzl (3:21:45.280)

let's call it 10,000 of the mother's eggs.

Lex Fridman (3:21:49.600)

So you have 10,000 eggs, which are fertilized.

Jamie Metzl (3:21:52.680)

Sounds like a party.

Lex Fridman (3:21:53.680)

Yeah.

Jamie Metzl (3:21:54.520)

Then you have an automated process

Lex Fridman (3:21:58.160)

for what I mentioned before

Jamie Metzl (3:22:00.560)

in preimplantation genetic testing,

Lex Fridman (3:22:02.280)

you grow them all for five days,

Jamie Metzl (3:22:04.080)

you extract a few cells from each, you test them.

Lex Fridman (3:22:07.080)

And that's why I had a piece in the New York Times

Jamie Metzl (3:22:09.000)

a couple of years ago,

Lex Fridman (3:22:09.920)

imagining what it would be like to go to a fertility clinic

Jamie Metzl (3:22:12.880)

in the year 2050.

Lex Fridman (3:22:14.560)

And the choice is not.

Jamie Metzl (3:22:15.400)

No humans involved.

Lex Fridman (3:22:16.400)

Yeah.

Jamie Metzl (3:22:17.240)

Well, no, no, there are, but the choice is not,

Lex Fridman (3:22:19.400)

do you want a kid who does or doesn't have,

Jamie Metzl (3:22:22.760)

let's call it Tay Sachs.

Lex Fridman (3:22:25.400)

It's a whole range of possibilities,

Jamie Metzl (3:22:28.600)

including very intimate traits

Lex Fridman (3:22:33.360)

like height, IQ, personality style.

Jamie Metzl (3:22:35.880)

It doesn't mean you can predict everything,

Lex Fridman (3:22:37.840)

but it means there will be increasing predictability.

Lex Fridman (3:22:41.320)

So if you're choosing from 10,000 eggs,

Lex Fridman (3:22:45.200)

fertilized eggs, early stage embryos,

Jamie Metzl (3:22:47.520)

that's a lot of choice.

Lex Fridman (3:22:49.520)

And on top of that,

Jamie Metzl (3:22:52.040)

then we have the new technology of human genome editing.

Lex Fridman (3:22:57.840)

Many people have heard of CRISPR,

Lex Fridman (3:23:00.040)

but what I say is if you think of human genome editing

Lex Fridman (3:23:02.600)

as a pie, sorry, human genome engineering as a pie,

Jamie Metzl (3:23:07.320)

genome editing is a slice

Lex Fridman (3:23:08.920)

and CRISPR is just a sliver of that slice.

Jamie Metzl (3:23:11.360)

It's just one of our tools for genome editing

Lex Fridman (3:23:13.840)

and things are getting better and better.

Jamie Metzl (3:23:16.440)

Then you can go in and change.

Lex Fridman (3:23:20.320)

Let's say, I mean, again, it starts simple.

Jamie Metzl (3:23:23.000)

A small number of genes,

Lex Fridman (3:23:24.640)

let's say you've selected from among the one of 10

Jamie Metzl (3:23:27.680)

or the one of 10,000,

Lex Fridman (3:23:29.840)

but there are a number of changes

Jamie Metzl (3:23:31.160)

that you would like to make to achieve some kind of outcome.

Lex Fridman (3:23:33.760)

And biology is incredibly complex

Lex Fridman (3:23:36.080)

and it's not that one gene does one thing.

Lex Fridman (3:23:38.440)

One gene does probably a lot of things simultaneously,

Jamie Metzl (3:23:42.400)

which is why the decision about changing one gene

Lex Fridman (3:23:45.280)

if it's causing deathly harm is easier

Jamie Metzl (3:23:48.280)

than when we think about the complexity of biology.

Lex Fridman (3:23:51.880)

But then the machine learning

Jamie Metzl (3:23:52.720)

gets better and better at predicting

Lex Fridman (3:23:54.560)

the full complexity of biology.

Lex Fridman (3:23:55.840)

So as one gets better,

Lex Fridman (3:23:58.280)

then you're editing your ability to reliably edit

Jamie Metzl (3:24:03.000)

such that the conclusions are predictable,

Lex Fridman (3:24:04.880)

it gets better and better.

Lex Fridman (3:24:05.720)

So those two are coupled together.

Lex Fridman (3:24:07.240)

You got it, that's exactly it.

Lex Fridman (3:24:08.840)

And then, so that's why, and people would say,

Lex Fridman (3:24:11.160)

well, that, I mean, I wrote about that

Jamie Metzl (3:24:12.960)

in my two science fiction novels,

Lex Fridman (3:24:15.480)

Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata years ago,

Lex Fridman (3:24:18.200)

and especially with Genesis Code, I wrote about that.

Lex Fridman (3:24:20.760)

And as a sci fi,

Lex Fridman (3:24:22.880)

and I had actually testified before Congress,

Lex Fridman (3:24:25.760)

but now 15 years ago saying,

Jamie Metzl (3:24:27.320)

here's what the future looks like.

Lex Fridman (3:24:30.440)

But even I, and in my first edition of Hacking Darwin,

Jamie Metzl (3:24:35.440)

when it was already in production,

Lex Fridman (3:24:38.560)

and then in November 2018,

Jamie Metzl (3:24:41.840)

this scientist, Hojong Kui, announced in Hong Kong

Lex Fridman (3:24:47.240)

that the world's first two, and later three,

Jamie Metzl (3:24:50.320)

CRISPR babies had been born,

Lex Fridman (3:24:51.720)

which he had genetically altered,

Lex Fridman (3:24:53.760)

and misguided, in my view, and dangerous view,

Lex Fridman (3:24:57.920)

dangerous goal of making it so they would have

Jamie Metzl (3:25:02.920)

increased resistance to HIV.

Lex Fridman (3:25:07.040)

And so I called my publisher,

Lex Fridman (3:25:09.200)

and I said, I've got good news and bad news.

Lex Fridman (3:25:11.720)

I'll start with the bad news,

Jamie Metzl (3:25:13.000)

is that the world's first CRISPR babies have been born,

Lex Fridman (3:25:17.080)

and so we need to pull my book out of production,

Jamie Metzl (3:25:21.000)

because you can't have a book on the future

Lex Fridman (3:25:22.800)

of human genetic engineering,

Lex Fridman (3:25:24.840)

and have it not mention the first CRISPR babies

Lex Fridman (3:25:27.400)

that had been born.

Lex Fridman (3:25:28.680)

But the good news is, in the book,

Lex Fridman (3:25:31.480)

I had predicted that it's going to happen,

Lex Fridman (3:25:34.440)

and it's going to happen in China, and here's why.

Lex Fridman (3:25:37.760)

And all we need to do is add a few more sentences,

Lex Fridman (3:25:42.200)

and that was the hardback,

Lex Fridman (3:25:43.360)

and then I updated it more in the paperback,

Jamie Metzl (3:25:45.240)

saying, and it happened, and it was announced on this day.

Lex Fridman (3:25:48.760)

Yeah.

Jamie Metzl (3:25:50.080)

Well, then let's fast forward.

Lex Fridman (3:25:52.960)

Given your predictions are slowly becoming reality,

Jamie Metzl (3:25:59.680)

let's talk about some philosophy,

Lex Fridman (3:26:01.240)

and ethics, I suppose.

Lex Fridman (3:26:03.640)

So I can, I'm not being too self deprecating here,

Lex Fridman (3:26:07.800)

and saying if my parents had the choice,

Jamie Metzl (3:26:14.360)

I would be probably less likely to come out the winner.

Lex Fridman (3:26:18.400)

We're all weird, and I'm certainly a very distinctly

Jamie Metzl (3:26:23.440)

weird specimen of the human species.

Lex Fridman (3:26:26.920)

I can give the full long list of flaws,

Lex Fridman (3:26:29.760)

and we can be very poetic of saying those are features,

Lex Fridman (3:26:33.320)

and so on, but they're not.

Jamie Metzl (3:26:37.400)

If you look at the menu.

Lex Fridman (3:26:40.160)

Again, for these women who are listening,

Jamie Metzl (3:26:42.640)

apropos of your thing,

Lex Fridman (3:26:43.760)

they're all kind of charming individualities.

Jamie Metzl (3:26:47.280)

Yes, that's beautiful, that's one, yes, thank you.

Lex Fridman (3:26:50.240)

But anyway, but on the full sort of individual,

Lex Fridman (3:26:52.960)

let's say IQ alone, right?

Lex Fridman (3:26:55.040)

That what do we do about a world

Jamie Metzl (3:27:02.800)

where IQ could be selected on a menu

Lex Fridman (3:27:09.080)

when you're having children?

Lex Fridman (3:27:13.680)

What concerns you about that world?

Lex Fridman (3:27:15.680)

What excites you about that world?

Lex Fridman (3:27:17.920)

Are there certain metrics that excite you more than others?

Lex Fridman (3:27:25.240)

IQ has been a source of,

Jamie Metzl (3:27:31.440)

I don't know, I'm not sure IQ as a measure,

Lex Fridman (3:27:36.120)

flawed as it is, has been used to celebrate

Jamie Metzl (3:27:40.880)

the successes of the human species

Lex Fridman (3:27:43.680)

nearly as much as has been used to divide people,

Jamie Metzl (3:27:47.120)

to say negative things about people,

Lex Fridman (3:27:51.680)

to make negative claims about people.

Lex Fridman (3:27:54.120)

And in that same way, it seems like

Lex Fridman (3:27:57.040)

when there's a selection, a genetic selection based on IQ,

Jamie Metzl (3:28:01.480)

you can start now having classes of citizenry,

Lex Fridman (3:28:05.160)

like further divide, you know, the rich get richer.

Jamie Metzl (3:28:09.920)

You know, it'll be very rich people

Lex Fridman (3:28:12.120)

that'll be able to do kind of fine selection of IQ

Lex Fridman (3:28:16.440)

and they will start forming these classes

Lex Fridman (3:28:22.040)

of super intelligent people.

Lex Fridman (3:28:23.960)

And those super intelligent people in their minds

Lex Fridman (3:28:26.320)

would of course be the right people

Jamie Metzl (3:28:27.760)

to be making global authoritarian decisions

Lex Fridman (3:28:30.560)

about everybody else, all the usual aspects of human nature,

Lex Fridman (3:28:33.960)

but now magnified with the new tools of technology.

Lex Fridman (3:28:38.280)

Anyway, all that to say is what's exciting to you?

Lex Fridman (3:28:42.480)

What's concerning to you?

Lex Fridman (3:28:44.280)

It's a great question and just stepping into the IQ,

Jamie Metzl (3:28:48.880)

we'll call it a quagmire for now,

Lex Fridman (3:28:51.880)

it raises a lot of big issues which are complicated.

Jamie Metzl (3:28:57.600)

Maybe you've listened to Sam Harris's interview

Lex Fridman (3:29:02.200)

with Charles Murray and then that spawned

Jamie Metzl (3:29:05.000)

kind of a whole industry of debate.

Lex Fridman (3:29:10.000)

So first, just the background of IQ

Lex Fridman (3:29:13.320)

and it's from the early 20th century

Lex Fridman (3:29:16.400)

and there was the idea that we can measure

Jamie Metzl (3:29:19.080)

people's general intelligence

Lex Fridman (3:29:21.200)

and there are so many different kinds of intelligence.

Jamie Metzl (3:29:23.700)

This was measuring a specific thing.

Lex Fridman (3:29:25.640)

So my feeling is that IQ is not a perfect measure

Jamie Metzl (3:29:30.400)

of intelligence, but it's a perfect measure of IQ.

Lex Fridman (3:29:33.400)

Like it's measuring what it's measuring,

Lex Fridman (3:29:35.440)

but that thing correlates to a lot of things

Lex Fridman (3:29:40.000)

which are rewarded in our society.

Lex Fridman (3:29:43.440)

So every study of IQ has shown that people

Lex Fridman (3:29:47.680)

with higher IQs, they make more money,

Jamie Metzl (3:29:51.080)

they live longer, they have more stable relationships.

Lex Fridman (3:29:53.920)

I mean, that could be something in the testing,

Lex Fridman (3:29:56.600)

but as Sam Harris has talked about a lot,

Lex Fridman (3:30:00.560)

you could line up all of these kind of IQ

Lex Fridman (3:30:03.840)

and IQ like tests correlate with each other.

Lex Fridman (3:30:07.160)

So the people who score high on one, score high on all

Jamie Metzl (3:30:10.280)

of them and people think that IQ tests are like a thing

Lex Fridman (3:30:15.040)

like the Earl of Dorchester is coming for dinner.

Jamie Metzl (3:30:18.800)

Does he have two forks or three forks

Lex Fridman (3:30:21.320)

or something like that?

Jamie Metzl (3:30:22.160)

It's not that a lot of them are things

Lex Fridman (3:30:24.420)

that I think a lot of us would recognize are relevant.

Lex Fridman (3:30:27.820)

Just like how much stuff can you memorize?

Lex Fridman (3:30:30.640)

If you see some shapes, how can you position them

Lex Fridman (3:30:33.560)

and things like that.

Lex Fridman (3:30:36.000)

And so IQ, I mean, it really hit its stride

Lex Fridman (3:30:38.720)

and certainly in the second world war

Lex Fridman (3:30:40.720)

when our governments were processing a lot of people

Lex Fridman (3:30:43.560)

and trying to figure out who to put in what jobs.

Lex Fridman (3:30:47.080)

So that's the starting point.

Jamie Metzl (3:30:48.840)

Let me start first with the negatives.

Lex Fridman (3:30:53.000)

That our societies, when we talk about diversity

Jamie Metzl (3:30:56.680)

in Darwinian terms, it's not like diversity

Lex Fridman (3:31:00.440)

is from Darwinian terms.

Jamie Metzl (3:31:01.920)

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if we have some moths

Lex Fridman (3:31:05.840)

of different colors because it'll be really fun

Jamie Metzl (3:31:08.300)

to have different colored moths.

Lex Fridman (3:31:10.120)

Diversity is the sole survival strategy of our species

Lex Fridman (3:31:14.680)

and of every species.

Lex Fridman (3:31:15.920)

And it's impossible to predict what diversity

Jamie Metzl (3:31:21.100)

is going to be rewarded.

Lex Fridman (3:31:22.880)

And I've said this before, if you went down

Lex Fridman (3:31:25.380)

and you spoke T. rex and you spoke to the dinosaurs

Lex Fridman (3:31:29.560)

and said, hey, you can select your kids,

Lex Fridman (3:31:31.840)

what criteria do you want?

Lex Fridman (3:31:33.380)

And they say, oh, yeah, sharp teeth, cruel fangs,

Jamie Metzl (3:31:37.560)

roar, whatever it is that makes you a great T. rex.

Lex Fridman (3:31:42.380)

But the answer from an evolutionary perspective,

Jamie Metzl (3:31:46.240)

from an earth perspective was, oh, it's much better

Lex Fridman (3:31:48.200)

to be like a cockroach or an alligator

Jamie Metzl (3:31:50.800)

or some little nothing or a little shrew

Lex Fridman (3:31:54.640)

because the dinosaurs are gonna get wiped out

Jamie Metzl (3:31:57.440)

when the asteroid hits.

Lex Fridman (3:31:58.840)

And so there's no better or worse in evolution.

Jamie Metzl (3:32:01.900)

There's just better or worse suited for a given environment.

Lex Fridman (3:32:05.800)

And when that environment changes,

Jamie Metzl (3:32:07.640)

the best suited person from the old system

Lex Fridman (3:32:11.600)

could be the worst suited person for the new one.

Lex Fridman (3:32:14.040)

So if we start selecting for the things

Lex Fridman (3:32:17.060)

that we value the most, including things like IQ,

Lex Fridman (3:32:21.720)

but even disease resistance, I mean, this is well known,

Lex Fridman (3:32:26.320)

but people who are recessive carrier of sickle cell disease

Jamie Metzl (3:32:32.240)

have increased resistance to malaria,

Lex Fridman (3:32:34.160)

which is the biggest reason why that trait

Jamie Metzl (3:32:37.480)

hasn't just disappeared given how deadly

Lex Fridman (3:32:41.400)

sickle cell disease is.

Jamie Metzl (3:32:43.880)

Biology is incredibly complex.

Lex Fridman (3:32:46.080)

We understand such a tiny percentage of it

Jamie Metzl (3:32:49.360)

that we need to have, in your words,

Lex Fridman (3:32:50.960)

just a level of humility.

Jamie Metzl (3:32:53.880)

There are huge equity issues as you've articulated.

Lex Fridman (3:32:56.520)

Let's just say that it is the case that in our society,

Jamie Metzl (3:32:59.720)

IQ and IQ like traits are highly rewarded.

Lex Fridman (3:33:05.080)

There is an equity issue, but it works in both ways.

Jamie Metzl (3:33:08.120)

Because my guess is, let's just say that we had a society

Lex Fridman (3:33:11.120)

where we were doing genome sequencing

Jamie Metzl (3:33:13.400)

of everybody who was born.

Lex Fridman (3:33:15.360)

And we had some predictive model to predict IQ.

Lex Fridman (3:33:18.740)

And we had decided as a society that IQ

Lex Fridman (3:33:22.360)

was going to be what we were going to select for.

Jamie Metzl (3:33:24.320)

We were gonna put the highest IQ people

Lex Fridman (3:33:26.240)

in these different roles.

Jamie Metzl (3:33:28.640)

I guarantee you the people in those roles

Lex Fridman (3:33:31.520)

would not be the people who are legacy admissions to Harvard.

Jamie Metzl (3:33:36.000)

They would very likely be people who are born in slums,

Lex Fridman (3:33:40.800)

people who are born with no opportunity or in refugee camps

Jamie Metzl (3:33:44.080)

who are just wasting away because we've thrown them away.

Lex Fridman (3:33:49.080)

And so it's an easy, like it's the idea of just being able

Jamie Metzl (3:33:54.880)

to look under the hood of our humanity

Lex Fridman (3:33:57.920)

is really scary for everybody.

Lex Fridman (3:34:01.520)

And it should be.

Lex Fridman (3:34:02.360)

I mean, I'm also an Ashkenazi Jew.

Jamie Metzl (3:34:05.400)

My father was born in Austria.

Lex Fridman (3:34:07.360)

My father and grandparents came here as refugees.

Jamie Metzl (3:34:10.400)

After the war, most of that side of the family was killed.

Lex Fridman (3:34:14.120)

So I get what it means to be on the other,

Jamie Metzl (3:34:19.120)

I mean, you said you're reading Mein Kampf,

Lex Fridman (3:34:19.960)

on the other side of the story when someone said,

Jamie Metzl (3:34:22.120)

well, here's what's good and you're not good.

Lex Fridman (3:34:25.240)

And therefore you're, so I totally get that.

Jamie Metzl (3:34:29.080)

Having said that, I do believe that we're moving toward

Lex Fridman (3:34:35.080)

a new way of procreating.

Lex Fridman (3:34:37.640)

And we're going to have to decide what are the values

Lex Fridman (3:34:40.680)

that we would like to realize through that process?

Jamie Metzl (3:34:45.120)

Is it randomness, which is what we currently have now,

Lex Fridman (3:34:48.240)

which is not totally random

Jamie Metzl (3:34:49.760)

because we have a sort of mating through colleges

Lex Fridman (3:34:52.040)

and other things.

Lex Fridman (3:34:54.120)

But if it's.

Lex Fridman (3:34:54.960)

Wait, mating through what?

Lex Fridman (3:34:55.800)

Colleges?

Lex Fridman (3:34:56.640)

Sort of like if you go, if you go to Harvard or whatever,

Lex Fridman (3:35:01.320)

and your wife also goes to Harvard, it's like, it's.

Lex Fridman (3:35:05.040)

So it's location based mating.

Jamie Metzl (3:35:07.880)

Well, it's not location, it's selection.

Lex Fridman (3:35:09.800)

It's like there are selections that are made

Jamie Metzl (3:35:11.760)

about who gets to a certain place.

Lex Fridman (3:35:14.400)

And when like, it's like Harvard admissions is a filter.

Lex Fridman (3:35:17.360)

So we're going to have to decide what are the values

Lex Fridman (3:35:19.600)

that we want to realize through this process

Jamie Metzl (3:35:21.400)

because diversity has, it's just baked into our biology.

Lex Fridman (3:35:24.880)

We're the first species ever that has the opportunity

Jamie Metzl (3:35:28.360)

to make choices about things that were otherwise baked

Lex Fridman (3:35:32.360)

into our biology.

Lex Fridman (3:35:33.720)

And there's a real danger that if we make bad choices,

Lex Fridman (3:35:37.520)

even with good intentions, it could even drive us

Jamie Metzl (3:35:40.880)

toward extinction and certainly undermine our humanity.

Lex Fridman (3:35:45.120)

And that's why I always say, and like I said,

Jamie Metzl (3:35:47.200)

I'm deeply involved with WHO and other things,

Lex Fridman (3:35:50.160)

that these aren't conversations about science.

Jamie Metzl (3:35:53.040)

They're conversations.

Lex Fridman (3:35:54.040)

Science brings us to the conversation,

Lex Fridman (3:35:56.160)

but the conversation is about values and ethics.

Lex Fridman (3:35:58.280)

As you described, that world is wide open.

Jamie Metzl (3:36:00.480)

It's not even a subtly different world.

Lex Fridman (3:36:04.920)

That world is fundamentally different

Jamie Metzl (3:36:06.640)

from anything we understand about life on Earth

Lex Fridman (3:36:09.720)

because natural selection, this random process,

Jamie Metzl (3:36:15.080)

is so fundamental how we think about life.

Lex Fridman (3:36:18.920)

Being able to program, I mean, it has a chance to,

Jamie Metzl (3:36:23.360)

I mean, it'll probably make my question

Lex Fridman (3:36:25.840)

about the ethical concerns around IQ based selection

Jamie Metzl (3:36:29.880)

just meaningless because it'll change the nature of identity.

Lex Fridman (3:36:37.960)

It's possible it will dissolve identity

Jamie Metzl (3:36:41.760)

because we take so much pride in all the different

Lex Fridman (3:36:45.680)

characteristics that make us who we are.

Jamie Metzl (3:36:48.640)

Whenever you have some control over those characteristics,

Lex Fridman (3:36:51.960)

those characteristics start losing meaning.

Lex Fridman (3:36:55.200)

And what may start gaining meaning is the ideas

Lex Fridman (3:36:58.600)

inside our heads, for example,

Jamie Metzl (3:37:00.600)

versus like the details of like,

Lex Fridman (3:37:05.760)

is it a Commodore 64, is it a PC, is it a Mac?

Jamie Metzl (3:37:10.680)

It's gonna be less important than the software

Lex Fridman (3:37:12.760)

that runs on it.

Lex Fridman (3:37:14.280)

So we can more and more be operating in the digital space

Lex Fridman (3:37:17.080)

and the identity could be something

Jamie Metzl (3:37:18.400)

that borrows multiple bodies.

Lex Fridman (3:37:20.360)

Like the legacy of our ideas may become more important

Jamie Metzl (3:37:24.760)

than the details of our physical embodiment.

Lex Fridman (3:37:28.480)

Like it, I mean, I'm saying perhaps

Jamie Metzl (3:37:30.440)

ridiculous sounding things, but the point is

Lex Fridman (3:37:33.720)

it will bring up so many new ethical concerns

Jamie Metzl (3:37:38.040)

that our narrow minded thinking about

Lex Fridman (3:37:40.160)

the current ethical concerns would not apply.

Lex Fridman (3:37:43.720)

So it's, but it's important to think about

Lex Fridman (3:37:46.200)

all this kind of stuff, like actively.

Lex Fridman (3:37:49.160)

What are the right conversations to be having now?

Lex Fridman (3:37:51.560)

Because it feels like it's an ongoing conversation

Jamie Metzl (3:37:56.200)

that then continually evolves, like with NIH involved.

Lex Fridman (3:37:59.680)

Like do you do experiments with animals?

Lex Fridman (3:38:03.400)

Do you build these brain organoids?

Lex Fridman (3:38:06.200)

Do you, like through that process you described

Jamie Metzl (3:38:08.320)

with the stem cells, like do you experiment

Lex Fridman (3:38:10.640)

with a bunch of organisms to see how genetic material,

Lex Fridman (3:38:16.040)

what form that actually takes,

Lex Fridman (3:38:18.080)

how to minimize the chance of cancer

Lex Fridman (3:38:19.520)

and all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (3:38:20.480)

What are the negative consequences of that?

Lex Fridman (3:38:22.640)

What are the positive consequences?

Lex Fridman (3:38:24.840)

Yeah, it's a fascinating world.

Jamie Metzl (3:38:26.920)

It's a really fascinating world.

Lex Fridman (3:38:28.240)

Yeah, and then, but those conversations

Jamie Metzl (3:38:29.720)

are just so essential.

Lex Fridman (3:38:32.200)

Like we have to be talking about ethics.

Lex Fridman (3:38:34.280)

And then that raises the question of who is the we?

Lex Fridman (3:38:37.400)

And coming back to your conversation

Jamie Metzl (3:38:39.800)

about science communication,

Lex Fridman (3:38:41.960)

maybe there was a time earlier

Jamie Metzl (3:38:44.120)

when these conversations needed to be,

Lex Fridman (3:38:46.440)

were held among a small number of experts

Jamie Metzl (3:38:49.360)

who made decisions on behalf of everybody else.

Lex Fridman (3:38:53.120)

But what we're talking about here

Jamie Metzl (3:38:54.800)

is really the future of our species.

Lex Fridman (3:38:57.080)

And I think that conversation is too important

Jamie Metzl (3:39:01.120)

to be left just to experts and government officials.

Lex Fridman (3:39:04.960)

So I mentioned that I'm a member,

Jamie Metzl (3:39:06.840)

we just ended our work after two years

Lex Fridman (3:39:09.040)

of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee

Jamie Metzl (3:39:11.560)

on Human Genome Editing.

Lex Fridman (3:39:13.200)

And my big push in that process

Jamie Metzl (3:39:16.440)

was to have education, engagement and empowerment

Lex Fridman (3:39:21.080)

of the broad public to bring,

Jamie Metzl (3:39:23.040)

not just bring people into the conversation

Lex Fridman (3:39:25.920)

with the tools to be able to engage,

Lex Fridman (3:39:29.240)

but also into the decision making process.

Lex Fridman (3:39:31.880)

And that's, it's a real shift.

Lex Fridman (3:39:33.680)

And there are countries that are doing it

Lex Fridman (3:39:35.920)

better than others.

Jamie Metzl (3:39:37.120)

I mean, Denmark is obviously a much smaller country

Lex Fridman (3:39:39.560)

than the United States,

Lex Fridman (3:39:40.800)

but they have a really well developed infrastructure

Lex Fridman (3:39:44.320)

for public engagement

Jamie Metzl (3:39:46.360)

around really complicated scientific issues.

Lex Fridman (3:39:49.040)

And I just think that we have to,

Jamie Metzl (3:39:50.960)

like it's great that we have Twitter

Lex Fridman (3:39:53.400)

and all these other things,

Lex Fridman (3:39:55.120)

but we need structured conversations

Lex Fridman (3:39:58.440)

where we can really bring people together

Lex Fridman (3:40:00.480)

and listen to each other,

Lex Fridman (3:40:02.360)

which feels like it's harder than ever.

Lex Fridman (3:40:06.360)

But even now in this process

Lex Fridman (3:40:08.360)

where all these people are shouting at each other,

Jamie Metzl (3:40:11.320)

at least there are a bunch of people

Lex Fridman (3:40:12.800)

who are in the conversation.

Lex Fridman (3:40:14.520)

So it's, we have a foundation,

Lex Fridman (3:40:16.520)

but we just really need to do more work.

Lex Fridman (3:40:20.400)

And again, and again, and again,

Lex Fridman (3:40:21.760)

it's about ethics and values

Jamie Metzl (3:40:24.880)

because we're at an age,

Lex Fridman (3:40:27.200)

and this has become a cliche

Jamie Metzl (3:40:28.760)

of exponential technological change.

Lex Fridman (3:40:31.360)

And so the rate of change is faster going forward

Jamie Metzl (3:40:35.440)

than it has been in the past.

Lex Fridman (3:40:36.640)

So in our minds, we underappreciate

Lex Fridman (3:40:39.000)

how quickly things are changing and will change.

Lex Fridman (3:40:43.520)

And if we're not careful,

Jamie Metzl (3:40:44.600)

if we don't know who we are and what our values are,

Lex Fridman (3:40:48.640)

we're going to get lost.

Lex Fridman (3:40:49.760)

And we don't have to know technology.

Lex Fridman (3:40:52.240)

We have to know who we are.

Jamie Metzl (3:40:53.720)

I mean, our values are hard won over thousands of years.

Lex Fridman (3:40:58.880)

No matter how new the technology is,

Jamie Metzl (3:41:01.040)

we shouldn't and can't jettison our values

Lex Fridman (3:41:04.440)

because that is our primary navigational tool.

Jamie Metzl (3:41:08.360)

Absurd question.

Lex Fridman (3:41:09.760)

Because we were saying that sexual reproduction

Jamie Metzl (3:41:15.440)

is not the best way to define the offspring.

Lex Fridman (3:41:17.800)

You think there'll be a day when humans stop having sex?

Jamie Metzl (3:41:21.440)

I don't think we'll stop having sex

Lex Fridman (3:41:23.240)

because it's so enjoyable,

Lex Fridman (3:41:26.400)

but we may significantly stop having sex for reproduction.

Lex Fridman (3:41:30.880)

Even today, most human sex is not for making babies.

Jamie Metzl (3:41:35.080)

It's for other things,

Lex Fridman (3:41:36.200)

whether it's pleasure or love or pair bonding or whatever.

Jamie Metzl (3:41:40.800)

Intimacy.

Lex Fridman (3:41:41.640)

Intimacy.

Jamie Metzl (3:41:42.480)

I mean, some people do it for intimacy.

Lex Fridman (3:41:44.440)

Some people do it for pleasure with strangers.

Jamie Metzl (3:41:46.960)

I feel like the people that do it for pleasure,

Lex Fridman (3:41:48.880)

I feel like there will be better ways

Lex Fridman (3:41:50.920)

to achieve that same chemical pleasure, right?

Lex Fridman (3:41:54.640)

You know, there's just so many different kinds of people.

Jamie Metzl (3:41:57.560)

I just saw this on television,

Lex Fridman (3:42:00.040)

but there are people who put on those big bunny outfits

Lex Fridman (3:42:02.640)

and go and have sex with other people.

Lex Fridman (3:42:04.320)

I mean, there's just like an unlimited number

Jamie Metzl (3:42:06.640)

of different kinds of people.

Lex Fridman (3:42:07.960)

I think they're called,

Lex Fridman (3:42:09.480)

so I remember hearing about this,

Lex Fridman (3:42:10.960)

I think Dan Savage is a podcast.

Jamie Metzl (3:42:14.080)

I think they're called Furries.

Lex Fridman (3:42:16.680)

Furries.

Jamie Metzl (3:42:17.520)

Furries.

Lex Fridman (3:42:18.360)

Furry parties.

Jamie Metzl (3:42:19.200)

Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (3:42:20.040)

So they're just...

Jamie Metzl (3:42:20.880)

I love people.

Lex Fridman (3:42:21.720)

Yeah, well, that's like the thing.

Jamie Metzl (3:42:24.440)

It's like, whenever you hear these words,

Lex Fridman (3:42:25.760)

it's like, humans.

Jamie Metzl (3:42:27.320)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:42:28.160)

What will they think of next?

Jamie Metzl (3:42:30.000)

So, but I do think that,

Lex Fridman (3:42:31.160)

and I write about this in Hacking Darwin,

Jamie Metzl (3:42:33.760)

that as people come to believe that having,

Lex Fridman (3:42:39.680)

that making children through the application of science

Jamie Metzl (3:42:43.000)

is safer and more beneficial

Lex Fridman (3:42:46.080)

than having children through sex,

Jamie Metzl (3:42:48.760)

we'll start to see a shift over time

Lex Fridman (3:42:52.120)

toward reproduction through science.

Jamie Metzl (3:42:54.400)

We'll still have sex for all the same great reasons

Lex Fridman (3:42:58.760)

that we do it now,

Jamie Metzl (3:43:00.400)

it's just reproduction less and less through the act of sex.

Lex Fridman (3:43:04.720)

Man, it's such a fascinating future.

Jamie Metzl (3:43:08.360)

Because as somebody, I value flaws.

Lex Fridman (3:43:11.160)

I think it's the good will hunting,

Jamie Metzl (3:43:17.120)

that's the good stuff.

Lex Fridman (3:43:18.520)

The flaws, the weird quirks of humans,

Jamie Metzl (3:43:21.880)

that's what makes us who we are, the weird.

Lex Fridman (3:43:25.360)

The weird is the beautiful.

Lex Fridman (3:43:26.640)

And I, there's a fear of optimization that I...

Lex Fridman (3:43:33.000)

You should have it.

Jamie Metzl (3:43:33.840)

I mean, it's very healthy.

Lex Fridman (3:43:35.440)

And I think that's, I was saying before,

Jamie Metzl (3:43:36.800)

that's the danger of all of this selection

Lex Fridman (3:43:39.880)

is that we make selections just based on social norms

Jamie Metzl (3:43:44.320)

that are so deeply internal

Lex Fridman (3:43:47.440)

that they feel like they're eternal truths.

Lex Fridman (3:43:51.120)

And so we talked about selecting for IQ.

Lex Fridman (3:43:54.520)

What about selecting for a kind heart?

Jamie Metzl (3:43:56.760)

Like there are lots of them.

Lex Fridman (3:43:57.760)

You talked about Hitler and Mein Kampf.

Jamie Metzl (3:43:59.480)

Hitler had certainly had a high IQ,

Lex Fridman (3:44:03.040)

I guess is higher than average IQ.

Jamie Metzl (3:44:06.120)

If we just select,

Lex Fridman (3:44:07.920)

I mean, that's why I was saying before,

Jamie Metzl (3:44:11.000)

diversity is baked into our biology.

Lex Fridman (3:44:13.440)

But the key lesson, and I've said this many times before,

Jamie Metzl (3:44:16.080)

the key lesson of this moment in our history

Lex Fridman (3:44:18.960)

is that after nearly 4 billion years of evolution,

Jamie Metzl (3:44:22.680)

our one species suddenly has the unique

Lex Fridman (3:44:26.280)

and increasing ability to read, write,

Lex Fridman (3:44:28.040)

and hack the code of life.

Lex Fridman (3:44:30.200)

And so as we apply these godlike powers

Jamie Metzl (3:44:34.080)

that we've now assumed for ourselves,

Lex Fridman (3:44:37.960)

we better be pretty careful

Jamie Metzl (3:44:39.840)

because it's so easy to make mistakes,

Lex Fridman (3:44:44.120)

particularly mistakes that are guided

Jamie Metzl (3:44:47.080)

by our best intentions.

Lex Fridman (3:44:49.640)

To jump briefly back onto lab leak,

Lex Fridman (3:44:52.160)

and I swear there's a reason for that,

Lex Fridman (3:44:55.680)

what did you think about the Jon Stewart,

Jamie Metzl (3:44:59.200)

this moment, I forget when it was, maybe a few months ago,

Lex Fridman (3:45:02.440)

in the summer, I think, of 2021,

Jamie Metzl (3:45:05.200)

where he went on Colbert Report,

Lex Fridman (3:45:07.880)

or not the Colbert Report, sorry,

Jamie Metzl (3:45:09.320)

the Stephen Colbert's, whatever his show is.

Lex Fridman (3:45:13.320)

But again, Jon Stewart reminded us

Lex Fridman (3:45:15.680)

how valuable his wit and brilliance

Lex Fridman (3:45:18.840)

within the humor was for our culture.

Lex Fridman (3:45:22.200)

And so he did this whole bit

Lex Fridman (3:45:24.480)

that highlighted the common sense nature

Jamie Metzl (3:45:27.440)

about what was the metaphor he used

Lex Fridman (3:45:30.000)

about the Hershey factory in Pennsylvania.

Lex Fridman (3:45:33.080)

So what'd you think about that whole bit?

Lex Fridman (3:45:34.800)

I loved it.

Lex Fridman (3:45:36.520)

And so not to be overly self referential,

Lex Fridman (3:45:40.920)

but it's hard not to be overly self referential

Jamie Metzl (3:45:43.160)

when you're doing a, however long we are,

Lex Fridman (3:45:45.000)

five hour interview about yourself,

Jamie Metzl (3:45:47.560)

which it reminds me of when you had Bret Weinstein on,

Lex Fridman (3:45:50.600)

he said, I have no ego,

Lex Fridman (3:45:52.520)

but these 57 people have screwed me over,

Lex Fridman (3:45:55.000)

and I deserve credit.

Jamie Metzl (3:45:56.760)

It's hard.

Lex Fridman (3:45:57.600)

So I am a person, I will confess, it's enjoyable.

Jamie Metzl (3:46:02.640)

Some people feel different.

Lex Fridman (3:46:03.480)

I kind of like talking about all this stuff

Lex Fridman (3:46:06.120)

and talking, period.

Lex Fridman (3:46:08.920)

So for me, in the earliest,

Jamie Metzl (3:46:10.480)

I remember those early days of when the pandemic started,

Lex Fridman (3:46:13.720)

I was just sitting down,

Jamie Metzl (3:46:14.720)

it was late January, early February, 2020,

Lex Fridman (3:46:17.120)

and I just was laying out all of the evidence

Jamie Metzl (3:46:20.040)

just that I could collect,

Lex Fridman (3:46:22.320)

trying to say, make sense of where does this come from?

Lex Fridman (3:46:26.240)

And it was just logic.

Lex Fridman (3:46:28.880)

I mean, it was all of the things that Jon Stewart said,

Jamie Metzl (3:46:32.920)

which in some overly wordy form

Lex Fridman (3:46:36.200)

were all at that time on my website.

Jamie Metzl (3:46:38.440)

Like, what are the odds of having this outbreak

Lex Fridman (3:46:42.640)

of a bat coronavirus more than a thousand miles away

Jamie Metzl (3:46:45.720)

from where these bats have their natural habitat,

Lex Fridman (3:46:48.960)

where they have this largest collection

Jamie Metzl (3:46:52.320)

of these bat coronaviruses in the world,

Lex Fridman (3:46:54.920)

and they're doing all these very aggressive

Jamie Metzl (3:46:58.280)

research projects to make them more aggressive.

Lex Fridman (3:47:01.920)

And then you have the outbreak of a virus

Jamie Metzl (3:47:04.080)

that's primed for human to human transmission.

Lex Fridman (3:47:09.400)

It was just logic was my first step.

Lex Fridman (3:47:12.360)

And I kept gathering the information.

Lex Fridman (3:47:17.320)

But Jon Stewart distilled that

Jamie Metzl (3:47:19.880)

in a way that just everybody got.

Lex Fridman (3:47:23.120)

And I think that, like, I loved it.

Lex Fridman (3:47:26.120)

And I just think that there's a way of reaching people.

Lex Fridman (3:47:28.800)

It's the reason why I write science fiction

Jamie Metzl (3:47:31.280)

in addition to thinking and writing about the science

Lex Fridman (3:47:34.000)

is that we kind of have to reach people where they are.

Lex Fridman (3:47:37.440)

And I just thought it was just,

Lex Fridman (3:47:40.160)

there was a lot of depth, I thought,

Lex Fridman (3:47:42.480)

and maybe that's too self serving,

Lex Fridman (3:47:46.400)

but like in the analysis,

Lex Fridman (3:47:48.560)

but he captured that into those things about,

Lex Fridman (3:47:54.080)

it's like the, whatever, the outbreak of chewy goodness

Jamie Metzl (3:47:58.760)

near the Hershey factory.

Lex Fridman (3:48:00.240)

I wonder where that came from.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:01.720)

Yeah, there's the humor, there's metaphor.

Lex Fridman (3:48:05.000)

Also the, like, sticking with the joke

Jamie Metzl (3:48:07.760)

when the audience is,

Lex Fridman (3:48:12.000)

the audience is Stephen Colbert.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:13.800)

He was, like, resisting it.

Lex Fridman (3:48:16.120)

He was very uncomfortable with it.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:17.600)

Maybe that was part of the bit, I'm not sure,

Lex Fridman (3:48:19.960)

but it didn't look like it.

Lex Fridman (3:48:21.760)

So Stephen in that moment kind of represented

Lex Fridman (3:48:24.000)

the discomfort of the scientific community, I think.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:26.560)

It's kind of interesting, that whole dynamic.

Lex Fridman (3:48:28.640)

And I think that was a pivotal moment.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:32.880)

That just, like, highlights the value of comedy,

Lex Fridman (3:48:35.560)

the value of, like, when Joe Rogan says,

Jamie Metzl (3:48:39.920)

I'm just a comedian.

Lex Fridman (3:48:42.360)

I mean, that's such a funny thing to say.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:46.000)

It's like saying I'm just a podcaster

Lex Fridman (3:48:48.120)

or I'm just a writer, I'm just a, you know.

Jamie Metzl (3:48:51.760)

That ability in so few words

Lex Fridman (3:48:55.920)

to express what everybody else is thinking,

Jamie Metzl (3:49:00.560)

it's so refreshing.

Lex Fridman (3:49:02.520)

And I wish the scientific communicators would do that too.

Jamie Metzl (3:49:06.320)

A little humor, a little humor.

Lex Fridman (3:49:08.280)

I mean, that's what I love Elon Musk very much.

Jamie Metzl (3:49:10.560)

So, like, the way he communicates is, like,

Lex Fridman (3:49:13.360)

it's so refreshing for a CEO of a major company,

Jamie Metzl (3:49:18.960)

several major companies, to just have a sense of humor

Lex Fridman (3:49:22.520)

and say ridiculous shit every once in a while.

Jamie Metzl (3:49:24.840)

That's so, there's something to that.

Lex Fridman (3:49:26.960)

Like, it shakes up the whole conversation

Jamie Metzl (3:49:29.560)

to where it gives you freedom to, like, think publicly.

Lex Fridman (3:49:33.760)

If you're always trying to say the proper thing,

Jamie Metzl (3:49:36.920)

you lose the freedom to think, to reason out,

Lex Fridman (3:49:40.240)

to be authentic and genuine.

Jamie Metzl (3:49:42.720)

When you allow yourself the freedom

Lex Fridman (3:49:44.960)

to regularly say stupid shit,

Jamie Metzl (3:49:48.000)

have fun, make fun of yourself,

Lex Fridman (3:49:51.680)

I think you give yourself freedom

Jamie Metzl (3:49:53.120)

to really be a great scientist.

Lex Fridman (3:49:55.760)

Honestly, I think scientists have a lot to learn

Jamie Metzl (3:49:58.960)

from comedians.

Lex Fridman (3:50:00.080)

Well, for sure.

Jamie Metzl (3:50:00.920)

I think we all do about just distilling and communicating

Lex Fridman (3:50:05.360)

in ways that people can hear.

Jamie Metzl (3:50:07.280)

Like, a lot of us say things and people just can't hear them

Lex Fridman (3:50:10.440)

either because of the way we're saying them

Jamie Metzl (3:50:12.040)

or where they are, but.

Lex Fridman (3:50:14.440)

And like I said before, I'm a big fan of Joe Rogan.

Jamie Metzl (3:50:19.360)

I've been on his show twice.

Lex Fridman (3:50:20.880)

And when Francis Collins was in his conversation with you,

Jamie Metzl (3:50:25.400)

he said, which I think makes sense,

Lex Fridman (3:50:27.840)

is that when somebody has that kind of platform

Lex Fridman (3:50:31.000)

and people rightly or wrongly who follow them

Lex Fridman (3:50:34.040)

and look to them for guidance,

Jamie Metzl (3:50:36.960)

I do think that there is some responsibility

Lex Fridman (3:50:40.760)

for people in those roles to make whatever judgment

Jamie Metzl (3:50:45.000)

that they make and to share that.

Lex Fridman (3:50:47.200)

And as I mentioned to you when we were off mic,

Jamie Metzl (3:50:50.640)

Sanjay Gupta is a very close friend of mine.

Lex Fridman (3:50:53.200)

We've been friends for many years

Lex Fridman (3:50:54.840)

and I fully supported Sanjay's instinct

Lex Fridman (3:50:58.400)

to go on the Joe Rogan show.

Jamie Metzl (3:51:02.160)

I thought it was great.

Lex Fridman (3:51:05.200)

At the end of that whole conversation, Joe said,

Lex Fridman (3:51:09.280)

well, I'm just a comedian, what do I know?

Lex Fridman (3:51:12.240)

And I just felt that, yes, Joe Rogan is a comedian.

Jamie Metzl (3:51:16.440)

I wouldn't say just a comedian among other things.

Lex Fridman (3:51:20.440)

But I also felt that he had a responsibility

Jamie Metzl (3:51:23.720)

for just saying whatever he believed,

Lex Fridman (3:51:25.280)

even if he believed or believes as I think is the case

Jamie Metzl (3:51:30.040)

that ivermectin should be studied more,

Lex Fridman (3:51:32.960)

which I certainly agree.

Lex Fridman (3:51:34.880)

And that healthy people shouldn't get vaccinated,

Lex Fridman (3:51:40.080)

healthy young people, which I don't agree.

Jamie Metzl (3:51:42.560)

I just felt at the end of that conversation to say,

Lex Fridman (3:51:44.840)

well, I'm just a comedian, what do I know?

Jamie Metzl (3:51:47.520)

I feel like it didn't fully integrate the power

Lex Fridman (3:51:51.960)

that a person like Joe Rogan has to set the agenda.

Lex Fridman (3:51:55.200)

So I think the reason he says I'm just a comedian

Lex Fridman (3:51:58.360)

is the same reason I say I'm an idiot,

Jamie Metzl (3:52:00.480)

which I truly believe.

Lex Fridman (3:52:02.080)

I can explain exactly what I mean by that,

Lex Fridman (3:52:03.800)

but it's more for him, or in this case for me,

Lex Fridman (3:52:09.680)

to just keep yourself humble.

Jamie Metzl (3:52:11.080)

Because I think it's a slippery slope

Lex Fridman (3:52:14.720)

when you think you have a responsibility

Jamie Metzl (3:52:16.440)

to then think you actually have an authority,

Lex Fridman (3:52:21.000)

because a lot of people listen to you,

Jamie Metzl (3:52:22.720)

you think you have an authority

Lex Fridman (3:52:24.000)

to actually speak to those people

Lex Fridman (3:52:26.560)

and you have enough authority

Lex Fridman (3:52:27.840)

to know what the hell you're talking about.

Lex Fridman (3:52:29.840)

And I think there's just the humility

Lex Fridman (3:52:31.840)

to just kind of make it fun of yourself

Jamie Metzl (3:52:34.040)

that's extremely valuable.

Lex Fridman (3:52:35.800)

And saying I'm just a comedian I think is a reminder

Jamie Metzl (3:52:40.200)

to himself that he's often full of shit, so are all of us.

Lex Fridman (3:52:48.000)

And so that's a really powerful way for himself

Jamie Metzl (3:52:51.200)

to keep himself humble.

Lex Fridman (3:52:53.560)

I mean, I think that's really useful

Jamie Metzl (3:52:55.600)

in some kind of way for people in general

Lex Fridman (3:52:57.880)

to make fun of themselves a little bit,

Jamie Metzl (3:53:00.720)

in whatever way that means.

Lex Fridman (3:53:02.120)

And saying I'm just a comedian is just one way to do that.

Jamie Metzl (3:53:04.960)

Now that coupled that with the responsibility

Lex Fridman (3:53:07.360)

of doing the research and really having an open mind

Lex Fridman (3:53:10.960)

and all those kinds of stuff,

Lex Fridman (3:53:12.200)

I think that's something Joe does really well

Jamie Metzl (3:53:15.360)

on a lot of topics, but he can't do that on everything.

Lex Fridman (3:53:18.320)

And so it's up to people to decide

Lex Fridman (3:53:22.240)

how well he does it on certain topics and not others.

Lex Fridman (3:53:26.400)

But how do you think Sanjay did in that conversation?

Lex Fridman (3:53:29.120)

So I know I'm gonna get myself into trouble here

Lex Fridman (3:53:31.960)

because Sanjay is a very close friend.

Jamie Metzl (3:53:35.240)

Joe, my personal interaction with him

Lex Fridman (3:53:38.080)

has been our two interviews,

Lex Fridman (3:53:39.520)

but it's like my interview with now,

Lex Fridman (3:53:41.000)

sit down with somebody for four hours,

Jamie Metzl (3:53:43.120)

it's a lot and great and then private communication.

Lex Fridman (3:53:48.800)

So I am personally more sympathetic to the arguments

Jamie Metzl (3:53:53.880)

that Sanjay was making or trying to make.

Lex Fridman (3:53:58.080)

I believe that the threat of the virus

Jamie Metzl (3:54:01.000)

is greater than the threat of the vaccine.

Lex Fridman (3:54:03.920)

That doesn't mean that we can guarantee 100% safety

Jamie Metzl (3:54:08.560)

for the vaccine,

Lex Fridman (3:54:09.520)

but these are really well tolerated vaccines.

Lex Fridman (3:54:13.360)

And we know for all the reasons we've been talking about

Lex Fridman (3:54:15.320)

that this is a really scary virus

Lex Fridman (3:54:18.120)

and particularly the mRNA vaccines,

Lex Fridman (3:54:20.560)

what they're basically doing is getting your body

Jamie Metzl (3:54:23.040)

to replicate a tiny little piece of the virus,

Lex Fridman (3:54:25.800)

the spike protein and then your body responds to that.

Lex Fridman (3:54:29.720)

And so that's a much less of an insult to your body

Lex Fridman (3:54:34.560)

than being infected by the virus.

Lex Fridman (3:54:37.040)

So I'm more sympathetic to the people who say,

Lex Fridman (3:54:41.080)

well, everybody should get vaccinated,

Lex Fridman (3:54:44.720)

but people who've already been infected,

Lex Fridman (3:54:47.680)

we should study whether they need to be vaccinated or not.

Jamie Metzl (3:54:52.560)

Having said all of that, I felt that

Lex Fridman (3:54:57.320)

that Joe Rogan won the debate.

Jamie Metzl (3:54:59.600)

I mean, it was, and the reason that I felt

Lex Fridman (3:55:02.240)

that he won the debate was they were kind of,

Jamie Metzl (3:55:05.760)

they had two different categories of arguments.

Lex Fridman (3:55:08.240)

So Sanjay, what he was trying to do,

Jamie Metzl (3:55:11.520)

which I totally respect was saying,

Lex Fridman (3:55:13.240)

there's so much animosity between the,

Jamie Metzl (3:55:15.600)

on these different sides, let's lower the temperature.

Lex Fridman (3:55:17.640)

Let's model that we can have a respectful dialogue

Jamie Metzl (3:55:22.560)

with each other where we can actually listen.

Lex Fridman (3:55:24.640)

And Sanjay, again, I've known him for many years.

Jamie Metzl (3:55:27.120)

He's a very empathic, humble,

Lex Fridman (3:55:30.400)

just an all around wonderful human being,

Lex Fridman (3:55:33.680)

and I really love him.

Lex Fridman (3:55:35.760)

And so he was making cases that were based on

Jamie Metzl (3:55:38.400)

kind of averages, studies and things like that.

Lex Fridman (3:55:41.160)

And Joe was saying, well, I know a guy whose sister's cousin

Jamie Metzl (3:55:45.720)

had this experience.

Lex Fridman (3:55:48.080)

And I'm sure that it's all true in the sense

Jamie Metzl (3:55:51.000)

that we have millions of people who are getting vaccinated

Lex Fridman (3:55:54.280)

and different things.

Lex Fridman (3:55:56.200)

And what Sanjay should have said was,

Lex Fridman (3:55:59.120)

I know that's anecdote.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:01.360)

Here's another anecdote of like when Francis Collins

Lex Fridman (3:56:04.440)

was with you and he talked about the world wrestling guy

Jamie Metzl (3:56:07.840)

who was like 6.6 and a big muscly guy,

Lex Fridman (3:56:10.280)

and then he got COVID and he was anti vaccine,

Lex Fridman (3:56:12.840)

and then he got COVID and almost died.

Lex Fridman (3:56:14.400)

And he said, I'm gonna.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:15.240)

By the way, I don't know if you know this part.

Lex Fridman (3:56:17.920)

No.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:18.760)

Oh, this is funny.

Lex Fridman (3:56:19.580)

Joe's gonna listen to this.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:20.680)

He's gonna be laughing.

Lex Fridman (3:56:21.960)

Does Joe listen like to the four hours of this

Lex Fridman (3:56:24.640)

in addition to the three hours of his interviews every day?

Lex Fridman (3:56:28.320)

No, not every day, but he listens to a lot of these.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:30.800)

I love it.

Lex Fridman (3:56:31.640)

And we talk about it.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:32.460)

I love it.

Lex Fridman (3:56:33.300)

We argue about it.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:34.140)

Hi, Joe.

Lex Fridman (3:56:34.960)

Hey, Joe.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:35.800)

We love you, Joe.

Lex Fridman (3:56:37.560)

So that particular case,

Jamie Metzl (3:56:40.240)

I don't know why Francis said what he said there,

Lex Fridman (3:56:43.220)

but that's not accurate.

Lex Fridman (3:56:45.100)

Oh, really?

Lex Fridman (3:56:45.960)

So the wrestler never, he didn't almost die.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:50.800)

He was no big deal at all for him.

Lex Fridman (3:56:53.120)

And he said that to him.

Jamie Metzl (3:56:54.480)

I think, I'm not sure.

Lex Fridman (3:56:56.880)

I think something got mixed up in Francis's memory.

Jamie Metzl (3:57:00.200)

There was another case he must've been like,

Lex Fridman (3:57:02.320)

cause I don't imagine he would bring that case up

Lex Fridman (3:57:05.360)

and just like make it up, you know, cause like why?

Lex Fridman (3:57:09.400)

But he, that was not at all,

Jamie Metzl (3:57:11.540)

like that was a pretty public case.

Lex Fridman (3:57:13.160)

He had an interview with him, that wrestler,

Jamie Metzl (3:57:16.480)

he was just fine.

Lex Fridman (3:57:17.480)

So that anecdotal case, I mean,

Jamie Metzl (3:57:19.760)

Francis should not have done that.

Lex Fridman (3:57:21.040)

So if I have any, so I have a bunch of criticism

Jamie Metzl (3:57:24.320)

of how that went.

Lex Fridman (3:57:26.200)

People who criticize that interview,

Jamie Metzl (3:57:28.680)

I feel like don't give enough respect

Lex Fridman (3:57:32.320)

to the full range of things

Jamie Metzl (3:57:33.840)

that Francis Collins has done in his career.

Lex Fridman (3:57:35.760)

He's an incredible scientist.

Lex Fridman (3:57:37.400)

And I also think a really good human being.

Lex Fridman (3:57:40.120)

But yes, that conversation was flawed in many ways.

Lex Fridman (3:57:44.640)

And one of them was why,

Lex Fridman (3:57:47.840)

when you're trying to present some kind of critical,

Jamie Metzl (3:57:53.800)

like criticize Joe Rogan,

Lex Fridman (3:57:56.480)

why bring up anecdotal evidence at all?

Lex Fridman (3:57:58.720)

And if you do bring up anecdotal evidence,

Lex Fridman (3:58:02.040)

which is not scientific, if you're a scientist,

Jamie Metzl (3:58:04.040)

you should not be using anecdotal evidence.

Lex Fridman (3:58:06.160)

If you do bring it up,

Lex Fridman (3:58:07.980)

why bring up one that's first not true

Lex Fridman (3:58:12.400)

and you know it's not true?

Lex Fridman (3:58:15.400)

So I know, pretend, so you don't know it's not true.

Lex Fridman (3:58:18.600)

So yes, that would find another case where, exactly.

Lex Fridman (3:58:23.200)

So the basic thing coming back

Lex Fridman (3:58:24.840)

to Sanjay and Joe's conversation

Jamie Metzl (3:58:28.080)

was that Sanjay was trying to use statistical evidence

Lex Fridman (3:58:31.620)

and Joe was using anecdotal evidence.

Lex Fridman (3:58:33.600)

And so I think that for Sanjay,

Lex Fridman (3:58:36.040)

and there are all kinds of things where there are debates

Jamie Metzl (3:58:39.320)

where often the person who's better at debating

Lex Fridman (3:58:42.800)

wins the debate regardless of the topic.

Lex Fridman (3:58:46.960)

So I think what Sanjay could have done,

Lex Fridman (3:58:49.560)

and Sanjay is such a smart guy,

Jamie Metzl (3:58:53.000)

is to say, well, that's an anecdote,

Lex Fridman (3:58:55.920)

here's another anecdote.

Lex Fridman (3:58:57.520)

And there are lots of different anecdotes.

Lex Fridman (3:59:00.040)

And there certainly are people who have taken the vaccine

Lex Fridman (3:59:03.680)

and have had problems that could reasonably be traced

Lex Fridman (3:59:07.120)

to the vaccines.

Lex Fridman (3:59:08.280)

And there certainly are lots of people, I would argue,

Lex Fridman (3:59:11.200)

more people who've not had the vaccine,

Lex Fridman (3:59:14.180)

but who've gotten COVID and have either died

Lex Fridman (3:59:16.400)

or our hospitals are now full of people

Jamie Metzl (3:59:19.200)

who weren't vaccinated.

Lex Fridman (3:59:20.440)

And in many ways, I mean, our emergency rooms

Jamie Metzl (3:59:23.040)

are full of unvaccinated people here in the United States.

Lex Fridman (3:59:26.220)

So I think what Sanjay could have done,

Lex Fridman (3:59:28.720)

but there was a conflict between wanting to kind of

Lex Fridman (3:59:32.920)

win the debate and wanting to take the temperature down.

Lex Fridman (3:59:36.840)

And what he could have done is to say,

Lex Fridman (3:59:39.500)

well, here's an anecdote, I have a counter anecdote

Lex Fridman (3:59:42.280)

and we can go on all day,

Lex Fridman (3:59:43.680)

but here's what the statistics show.

Lex Fridman (3:59:46.320)

And I think that was the thing.

Lex Fridman (3:59:48.480)

So I think it's a healthy conversation.

Jamie Metzl (3:59:50.360)

We can't, I mean, there are a lot of people

Lex Fridman (3:59:52.640)

who are afraid of the vaccine.

Jamie Metzl (3:59:55.240)

There are a lot of people who don't trust

Lex Fridman (3:59:56.680)

the scientific establishment

Lex Fridman (3:59:58.280)

and lots of them have good reason.

Lex Fridman (40:01.060)

that we most believe in.

Jamie Metzl (40:02.540)

I mean, I did my PhD dissertation

Lex Fridman (40:04.540)

on the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Jamie Metzl (40:06.780)

They genuinely saw themselves as idealists.

Lex Fridman (40:09.940)

They thought, well, we need to make radical change

Jamie Metzl (40:13.860)

to build a better future.

Lex Fridman (40:15.660)

And what they described as,

Jamie Metzl (40:17.740)

that they felt was radical change

Lex Fridman (40:19.100)

was a monstrous atrocities by us.

Lex Fridman (40:21.900)

So the criticism here of Peter

Lex Fridman (40:26.980)

is that he was a part of an organization

Jamie Metzl (40:31.820)

that was kind of, well, funding an effort

Lex Fridman (40:36.460)

that was an unsafe implementation

Jamie Metzl (40:39.020)

of a biosafety level four laboratory.

Lex Fridman (40:42.060)

Well, a few things.

Lex Fridman (40:43.340)

So what he thought he was doing was,

Lex Fridman (40:47.980)

and then what he thought he was doing

Jamie Metzl (40:49.580)

is itself highly controversial

Lex Fridman (40:51.700)

because there's one there that in 2011,

Jamie Metzl (40:56.340)

there were, I know you've talked about this

Lex Fridman (40:57.860)

with other guests, but in 2011,

Jamie Metzl (41:00.620)

there were the first published papers

Lex Fridman (41:04.020)

on this now infamous gain of function research.

Lex Fridman (41:07.500)

And basically what they did,

Lex Fridman (41:10.540)

both in different labs and certainly in the United States,

Jamie Metzl (41:14.620)

in Wisconsin and in the Netherlands,

Lex Fridman (41:18.660)

was they had a bird flu virus

Jamie Metzl (41:21.980)

that was very dangerous, but not massively transmissive.

Lex Fridman (41:28.540)

And they had a gain of function process

Jamie Metzl (41:31.620)

through what's called serial passage,

Lex Fridman (41:33.660)

which means basically passing advice,

Jamie Metzl (41:35.620)

like natural selection, but forcing natural selection

Lex Fridman (41:39.260)

by just passing a virus through different cell cultures

Lex Fridman (41:42.500)

and then selecting for what it is that you want.

Lex Fridman (41:46.340)

So relatively easily, they took this deadly,

Lex Fridman (41:49.500)

but not massively transmissive virus

Lex Fridman (41:51.900)

and turned it into, in a lab,

Jamie Metzl (41:53.940)

a deadly and transmissive virus.

Lex Fridman (41:57.380)

And that showed that this is really dangerous.

Lex Fridman (41:59.580)

And so there were, at that point,

Lex Fridman (42:01.220)

there was a huge controversy.

Jamie Metzl (42:03.060)

There were some people, like Richard Ebright

Lex Fridman (42:07.140)

and Mark Lipsitch at Harvard,

Jamie Metzl (42:09.580)

who were saying that this is really dangerous.

Lex Fridman (42:12.500)

We're in the idea that we need to create monsters

Jamie Metzl (42:16.900)

to study monsters.

Lex Fridman (42:17.900)

I think maybe even you have said that in the past.

Jamie Metzl (42:21.180)

It doesn't make sense

Lex Fridman (42:22.340)

because there's an unlimited number of monsters.

Lex Fridman (42:24.660)

And so what are we gonna do?

Lex Fridman (42:25.820)

Create an unlimited number of monsters.

Lex Fridman (42:27.500)

And if we do that,

Lex Fridman (42:28.460)

eventually the monsters are going to get out.

Jamie Metzl (42:31.460)

Then there was the Peter Daszak camp,

Lex Fridman (42:33.660)

and he got a lot of funding,

Jamie Metzl (42:35.460)

particularly from the United States,

Lex Fridman (42:37.260)

who said, well, and certainly Collins and Fauci

Jamie Metzl (42:40.340)

were supportive of this.

Lex Fridman (42:42.020)

And they thought, well, there's a safe way

Jamie Metzl (42:44.660)

to go out into the world

Lex Fridman (42:46.380)

to collect the world's most dangerous viruses

Lex Fridman (42:49.620)

and to poke and prod them

Lex Fridman (42:52.180)

to figure out how they might mutate,

Lex Fridman (42:54.260)

how they might become more dangerous

Lex Fridman (42:56.420)

with the goal of predicting future pandemics.

Lex Fridman (43:01.580)

And that certainly never happened

Lex Fridman (43:03.660)

with the goal of creating vaccines and treatments.

Lex Fridman (43:07.980)

And that largely never happened,

Lex Fridman (43:11.180)

but that was, so Peter Daszak kind of epitomized

Jamie Metzl (43:14.380)

that second approach.

Lex Fridman (43:18.180)

And as you've talked about in the past,

Jamie Metzl (43:20.980)

in 2014, there was a funding moratorium

Lex Fridman (43:24.100)

in the United States, and then in 2017, that was lifted.

Jamie Metzl (43:27.940)

It didn't affect the funding

Lex Fridman (43:29.100)

that went to the EcoHealth Alliance.

Lex Fridman (43:33.380)

So when this happened in the beginning,

Lex Fridman (43:37.020)

and again, coming back to Peter's motivations,

Jamie Metzl (43:40.060)

I don't think, here's the best case scenario for Peter.

Lex Fridman (43:44.020)

I'm gonna give you what I imagine he was thinking,

Lex Fridman (43:47.100)

and then I'll tell you what I actually think.

Lex Fridman (43:49.740)

So I think here's what he's thinking.

Jamie Metzl (43:51.740)

This is most likely a natural origin outbreak.

Lex Fridman (43:56.340)

Just like SARS one, again, in Peter's hypothetical mind,

Jamie Metzl (44:00.420)

just like SARS one, this is most likely a natural outbreak.

Lex Fridman (44:04.540)

We need to have an international coalition

Jamie Metzl (44:06.980)

in order to fight it.

Lex Fridman (44:08.700)

If we allow these political attacks

Jamie Metzl (44:11.980)

to undermine our Chinese counterparts

Lex Fridman (44:14.180)

and the trust in these relationships

Jamie Metzl (44:16.220)

that we've built over many years,

Lex Fridman (44:18.500)

we're really screwed because they have

Jamie Metzl (44:20.660)

the most local knowledge of these outbreaks.

Lex Fridman (44:23.780)

And even though, and this guy gets a lot more complicated,

Jamie Metzl (44:27.700)

even though there are basic questions

Lex Fridman (44:30.700)

that anybody would ask and that Shujing Li herself did ask

Jamie Metzl (44:34.700)

about the origins of this pandemic,

Lex Fridman (44:37.700)

even though Peter Daszak, and I'll describe this

Jamie Metzl (44:40.900)

in a moment, had secret information that we didn't have,

Lex Fridman (44:44.980)

that in my mind massively increases the possibility

Jamie Metzl (44:48.340)

of a lab incident origin, I, Peter Daszak,

Lex Fridman (44:52.340)

would like to guide the public conversation

Jamie Metzl (44:55.860)

in the direction where I think it should go

Lex Fridman (44:58.860)

and in support of the kind of international collaboration

Jamie Metzl (45:03.580)

that I think is necessary.

Lex Fridman (45:04.660)

That's a strong, positive discussion

Jamie Metzl (45:06.260)

because it's true that there's a lot of political BS

Lex Fridman (45:11.940)

and a lot of kind of just bickering and lies

Jamie Metzl (45:16.940)

as we've talked about.

Lex Fridman (45:18.940)

And so it's very convenient to say, you know what?

Jamie Metzl (45:21.100)

Let's just ignore all of these quote unquote lies

Lex Fridman (45:24.080)

and my favorite word, misinformation.

Lex Fridman (45:27.140)

And then because the way out from this serious pandemic

Lex Fridman (45:31.780)

is for us to work together.

Lex Fridman (45:33.420)

So let's strengthen our partnerships

Lex Fridman (45:36.260)

and everything else is just like noise.

Jamie Metzl (45:38.460)

Yeah, so let's, and so then now I wanna do

Lex Fridman (45:41.020)

my personal indictment of Peter Daszak

Jamie Metzl (45:43.460)

because that's my view, but I wanted to fairly.

Lex Fridman (45:46.380)

That's nice.

Jamie Metzl (45:47.220)

Because I think that we all tell ourselves stories

Lex Fridman (45:51.700)

and also when you're a science communicator,

Jamie Metzl (45:56.380)

you can't in your public communications

Lex Fridman (45:59.220)

give every doubt that you have or every nuance,

Jamie Metzl (46:03.300)

you kind of have to summarize things.

Lex Fridman (46:05.820)

And so I think that he was, again,

Jamie Metzl (46:07.580)

in this benign interpretation trying to summarize

Lex Fridman (46:10.780)

in the way that he thought the conversations should go.

Jamie Metzl (46:14.100)

Here's my indictment of Peter Daszak.

Lex Fridman (46:16.700)

And I feel like a Brutus here,

Lex Fridman (46:20.940)

but I have not come here to praise Peter Daszak

Lex Fridman (46:26.060)

because while Peter Daszak was doing all of this

Lex Fridman (46:29.260)

and making all of these statements about,

Lex Fridman (46:31.660)

well, we pretty much know it's a natural origin.

Jamie Metzl (46:34.380)

Then there was this February, 2020 Lancet letter

Lex Fridman (46:38.140)

where it turns out, and we only knew this later

Jamie Metzl (46:40.940)

that he was highly manipulative.

Lex Fridman (46:42.820)

So he was recruiting all of these people.

Jamie Metzl (46:45.260)

He drafted the infamous letter calling people like me,

Lex Fridman (46:48.940)

conspiracy theorists.

Jamie Metzl (46:50.620)

He then wrote to people like Ralph Barak and Linfa Wang,

Lex Fridman (46:54.500)

who are also very high profile virologists saying,

Jamie Metzl (46:57.180)

well, let's not put our names on it.

Lex Fridman (46:59.060)

So it doesn't look like we're doing it,

Jamie Metzl (47:01.900)

even though they were doing it.

Lex Fridman (47:04.500)

He didn't disclose a lot of information that they had.

Jamie Metzl (47:09.380)

It was a strategic move.

Lex Fridman (47:10.820)

So just in case people are not familiar,

Jamie Metzl (47:13.700)

February, 2020, Lancet letter was TLDR,

Lex Fridman (47:20.100)

is a lab leak hypothesis, is a conspiracy theory.

Jamie Metzl (47:24.900)

Essentially, yes.

Lex Fridman (47:26.620)

So like with the authority of science,

Jamie Metzl (47:29.580)

not saying like it's highly likely,

Lex Fridman (47:32.300)

saying it's obvious, duh, it's natural origin.

Jamie Metzl (47:37.300)

Everybody else is just,

Lex Fridman (47:40.780)

everything else is just misinformation.

Lex Fridman (47:42.780)

And look, there's a bunch of really smart people

Lex Fridman (47:44.900)

that signed this, therefore it's true.

Jamie Metzl (47:46.380)

Yeah, not only that, so there were the people

Lex Fridman (47:49.540)

who, 27 people signed that letter.

Lex Fridman (47:51.700)

And then after President Trump cut funding

Lex Fridman (47:54.380)

to EcoHealth Alliance, then he organized 77 Nobel laureates

Jamie Metzl (47:58.980)

to have a public letter criticizing that.

Lex Fridman (48:01.700)

But what Peter knew then that we didn't fully know

Jamie Metzl (48:06.420)

is that in March of 2018, EcoHealth Alliance,

Lex Fridman (48:10.980)

in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (48:13.660)

and others, had applied for a $14 million grant to DARPA,

Lex Fridman (48:19.340)

which is kind of like the VC side of the venture capital

Jamie Metzl (48:23.300)

side of the Defense Department.

Lex Fridman (48:25.540)

They're kind of, where they do kind of big ideas.

Jamie Metzl (48:29.380)

By the way, as a tiny tangent,

Lex Fridman (48:31.180)

I've gotten a lot of funding from DARPA.

Jamie Metzl (48:33.940)

They fund a lot of excellent robotics research.

Lex Fridman (48:36.340)

And DARPA is incredible.

Lex Fridman (48:37.700)

And among the things that they applied for

Lex Fridman (48:39.940)

is that we, meaning Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Jamie Metzl (48:42.420)

is gonna go and it's gonna collect

Lex Fridman (48:44.980)

the most dangerous bat coronaviruses in Southern China.

Lex Fridman (48:49.420)

And then we, as this group,

Lex Fridman (48:52.340)

are going to genetically engineer these viruses

Jamie Metzl (48:56.620)

to insert a furin cleavage site.

Lex Fridman (48:59.780)

So I think when everyone's now seen the image

Jamie Metzl (49:02.620)

of the SARS CoV2 virus, it has these little spike proteins,

Lex Fridman (49:06.320)

these little things that stick out,

Jamie Metzl (49:07.940)

which is why they call it a coronavirus.

Lex Fridman (49:09.900)

Within that spike protein are these furin cleavage sites,

Jamie Metzl (49:12.400)

which basically help with the virus

Lex Fridman (49:14.840)

getting access into our cells.

Lex Fridman (49:18.060)

And they were going to genetically engineer

Lex Fridman (49:20.140)

these furin cleavage sites into these bat coronaviruses,

Jamie Metzl (49:24.180)

the serbicoviruses.

Lex Fridman (49:26.380)

And then, and so then a year and a half later,

Lex Fridman (49:30.700)

what do we see?

Lex Fridman (49:31.720)

We see a bat coronavirus with a furin cleavage site

Jamie Metzl (49:36.740)

unlike anything that we've ever seen before

Lex Fridman (49:39.840)

in that category of SARS like coronaviruses.

Jamie Metzl (49:44.200)

That, well, yes, I mean, the DARPA very correctly

Lex Fridman (49:49.060)

didn't support that application.

Jamie Metzl (49:50.900)

Well, let's actually, let's like pause on that.

Lex Fridman (49:53.140)

So for a lot of people, that's like the smoking gun.

Jamie Metzl (49:56.100)

Okay, let's talk about this 2018 proposal to DARPA.

Lex Fridman (4:00:00.000)

I mean, it's not just people think of like Trump Republicans.

Jamie Metzl (4:00:04.520)

There are lots of people in the African American community

Lex Fridman (4:00:08.600)

who've had a historical terrible experience

Jamie Metzl (4:00:11.920)

with the Tuskegee and all sorts of things.

Lex Fridman (4:00:14.400)

So they don't trust the messages

Jamie Metzl (4:00:16.920)

that were being delivered.

Lex Fridman (4:00:18.120)

I live in New York City and we had a piece

Jamie Metzl (4:00:21.440)

in the New York Times where in the earliest days

Lex Fridman (4:00:23.840)

of the vaccines, there was this big movement,

Jamie Metzl (4:00:25.920)

let's make sure that the poorest people in the city

Lex Fridman (4:00:28.960)

have first access to the vaccines

Jamie Metzl (4:00:31.920)

because they're the ones, they have higher density

Lex Fridman (4:00:35.200)

in their homes, they're relying on public transport.

Lex Fridman (4:00:37.920)

So there was this whole liberal effort.

Lex Fridman (4:00:39.400)

And then in the black community in New York,

Jamie Metzl (4:00:42.440)

according to the New York Times,

Lex Fridman (4:00:43.520)

there was very low acceptance of the vaccines

Lex Fridman (4:00:46.320)

and they interviewed people in that article.

Lex Fridman (4:00:48.040)

And they said, well, if the white people want us

Jamie Metzl (4:00:51.480)

to have it first, there must be something wrong with it.

Lex Fridman (4:00:54.640)

They must be doing something.

Lex Fridman (4:00:56.720)

And so we have to listen to each other.

Lex Fridman (4:00:59.840)

Like I would never, I have a disrespect for everybody.

Lex Fridman (4:01:04.720)

And if somebody is cautious about the vaccine

Lex Fridman (4:01:07.880)

for themselves or for their children,

Jamie Metzl (4:01:10.320)

we have to listen to them.

Lex Fridman (4:01:12.320)

At the same time, public health

Jamie Metzl (4:01:15.960)

is about creating public health.

Lex Fridman (4:01:19.160)

And there's no doubt, I think Joe was absolutely right

Jamie Metzl (4:01:23.160)

that older people, obese people are at greater risk

Lex Fridman (4:01:28.240)

for being harmed or killed by COVID 19

Jamie Metzl (4:01:32.840)

than young, healthy people.

Lex Fridman (4:01:34.560)

But by everybody getting vaccinated,

Jamie Metzl (4:01:38.160)

we reduce the risk to everybody else.

Lex Fridman (4:01:41.240)

And so I feel like, like with everything,

Jamie Metzl (4:01:43.720)

there's the individual benefit argument

Lex Fridman (4:01:46.680)

and then there's the community argument.

Lex Fridman (4:01:49.360)

And I absolutely think our community.

Lex Fridman (4:01:50.480)

Expressing that clearly that there's a difference between

Jamie Metzl (4:01:53.320)

the individual health and freedoms

Lex Fridman (4:01:56.400)

and the community health and freedoms

Lex Fridman (4:01:59.160)

and steel manning each side of this.

Lex Fridman (4:02:01.920)

One of the problems that people don't do enough of

Lex Fridman (4:02:05.160)

is be able to, so how do you steel man an argument?

Lex Fridman (4:02:08.720)

You describe that argument in the best possible way.

Jamie Metzl (4:02:12.640)

You have to first understand that argument.

Lex Fridman (4:02:14.520)

Let's go to the noncontroversial thing like Flat Earth.

Jamie Metzl (4:02:17.880)

Like most people, most colleagues of mine at MIT

Lex Fridman (4:02:23.800)

don't even read about like the full argument

Jamie Metzl (4:02:28.880)

that the Flat Earthers make.

Lex Fridman (4:02:31.080)

I feel it's disingenuous for people in the physics community

Jamie Metzl (4:02:37.000)

to roll their eyes at Flat Earthers

Lex Fridman (4:02:39.640)

if they haven't read their arguments.

Jamie Metzl (4:02:42.200)

You should feel bad that you didn't read their arguments.

Lex Fridman (4:02:46.120)

And like it's the rolling of the eyes that's a big problem.

Jamie Metzl (4:02:50.680)

You haven't read it.

Lex Fridman (4:02:51.960)

Your intuition says that these are a bunch of crazy people.

Jamie Metzl (4:02:55.280)

Okay, but you haven't earned the right to roll your eyes.

Lex Fridman (4:02:59.480)

You've earned your right to maybe not read it,

Lex Fridman (4:03:03.640)

but then don't have an opinion.

Lex Fridman (4:03:05.000)

Don't roll your eyes, don't do any of that dismissive stuff.

Lex Fridman (4:03:07.720)

And the same thing in the scientific community

Lex Fridman (4:03:11.200)

around COVID and so on, there's often this kind of saying,

Jamie Metzl (4:03:14.360)

oh God, that's conspiracy theories, that's misinformation

Lex Fridman (4:03:17.720)

without actually looking into what they're saying.

Jamie Metzl (4:03:20.320)

If you haven't looked into what they're saying,

Lex Fridman (4:03:22.400)

then don't talk about it.

Jamie Metzl (4:03:23.880)

Like if you're a scientific leader and the communicator,

Lex Fridman (4:03:26.280)

you need to look into it.

Jamie Metzl (4:03:27.560)

It's not that much effort.

Lex Fridman (4:03:28.640)

I totally agree.

Lex Fridman (4:03:29.720)

And I think that humility,

Lex Fridman (4:03:31.040)

it's a constant theme of your podcasts and I love that.

Lex Fridman (4:03:35.160)

And so after the conversation debate,

Lex Fridman (4:03:39.040)

whatever it was between Sanjay and Joe,

Jamie Metzl (4:03:42.960)

I reached out on Twitter to someone I've never met

Lex Fridman (4:03:45.840)

in person, but I'm in touch privately

Jamie Metzl (4:03:47.920)

to a guy named Daniel Griffin,

Lex Fridman (4:03:49.680)

who's a professor at Columbia Medical School

Lex Fridman (4:03:54.720)

and just so smart there.

Lex Fridman (4:03:56.160)

He gives regular updates on COVID 19

Jamie Metzl (4:04:00.880)

on a thing called TWIV this week in virology.

Lex Fridman (4:04:03.680)

I'm a critic of TWIV for its coverage of origins.

Lex Fridman (4:04:09.640)

But on this issue, I'm just having regular updates.

Lex Fridman (4:04:12.200)

Daniel is great.

Lex Fridman (4:04:13.640)

And so I said to him,

Lex Fridman (4:04:15.480)

I said, why don't we have an honest process

Jamie Metzl (4:04:20.680)

to get the people who are raising concerns

Lex Fridman (4:04:22.920)

about the vaccines in their own words

Lex Fridman (4:04:25.680)

to raise what are their concerns?

Lex Fridman (4:04:28.400)

And then let's do our best job of saying,

Jamie Metzl (4:04:32.080)

well, here are these concerns.

Lex Fridman (4:04:34.040)

And then here is our evidence making a counterclaim

Lex Fridman (4:04:38.400)

and here are links to if you want to look at the studies

Lex Fridman (4:04:41.800)

upon which these claims are made, here they are.

Lex Fridman (4:04:45.200)

And Daniel, who's incredibly busy,

Lex Fridman (4:04:47.560)

I mean, he reads every, I mean, it seems every paper

Jamie Metzl (4:04:51.800)

that comes out every week and it's unbelievable.

Lex Fridman (4:04:55.640)

But he sent me a link to the CDC Q&A page

Jamie Metzl (4:05:00.560)

on the CDC website.

Lex Fridman (4:05:02.920)

And it wasn't that, it was people who were,

Jamie Metzl (4:05:05.800)

I mean, it was written by people like me

Lex Fridman (4:05:07.800)

who were convinced in the benefit of these vaccines.

Lex Fridman (4:05:13.400)

So the questions were framed, they were kind of like,

Lex Fridman (4:05:16.920)

they weren't really the framing

Jamie Metzl (4:05:19.720)

of the people with the concerns.

Lex Fridman (4:05:21.640)

They were framing of people

Jamie Metzl (4:05:22.600)

who were just kind of imagining something else.

Lex Fridman (4:05:25.200)

I mean, you always talk about kind of humility

Lex Fridman (4:05:27.440)

and active listening.

Lex Fridman (4:05:29.280)

I know you don't mean, and it doesn't mean

Jamie Metzl (4:05:31.800)

that we don't stand for something.

Lex Fridman (4:05:33.400)

Like I certainly am a strong proponent of vaccines

Lex Fridman (4:05:36.640)

and masks and all of those things.

Lex Fridman (4:05:39.760)

But if we don't hear other people,

Jamie Metzl (4:05:42.160)

if we don't let them hear their voice in the conversation,

Lex Fridman (4:05:47.080)

if it's just saying, well, you may think this

Lex Fridman (4:05:49.040)

and here's why it's wrong, the argument may be right.

Lex Fridman (4:05:52.440)

It'll just never break through.

Jamie Metzl (4:05:53.800)

By the way, my interpretation of Joe and Sanjay,

Lex Fridman (4:05:56.200)

I listened to that conversation without looking at Twitter

Jamie Metzl (4:05:58.840)

or the internet and I thought that was a great conversation

Lex Fridman (4:06:01.960)

and I thought Sanjay actually really succeeded

Jamie Metzl (4:06:04.680)

in bringing the temperature down.

Lex Fridman (4:06:05.800)

To me, the goal was bringing the temperature down.

Jamie Metzl (4:06:08.600)

I didn't even think of it as a debate.

Lex Fridman (4:06:10.120)

I was like, oh, cool, this isn't gonna be some weird,

Jamie Metzl (4:06:13.000)

it's like two friendly people talking.

Lex Fridman (4:06:15.200)

And then I look at the internet

Lex Fridman (4:06:16.840)

and then the internet says, Joe Rogan slammed Sanjay

Lex Fridman (4:06:20.200)

like as if it was a heated debate that Joe won.

Lex Fridman (4:06:24.520)

And it's like, all right,

Lex Fridman (4:06:26.040)

it's really the temperature being brought down.

Jamie Metzl (4:06:30.080)

Real conversation between two humans.

Lex Fridman (4:06:32.080)

That wasn't really a debate.

Jamie Metzl (4:06:34.160)

It was just a conversation and that was a success.

Lex Fridman (4:06:38.480)

I definitely think it was a success,

Lex Fridman (4:06:40.960)

but I also felt that a takeaway,

Lex Fridman (4:06:47.720)

and again, because this is something that I don't agree with,

Jamie Metzl (4:06:51.440)

even though I have great, as I've said, respect for Joe,

Lex Fridman (4:06:54.360)

I think a reasonable person listening to that conversation

Jamie Metzl (4:06:58.320)

would come away with the conclusion

Lex Fridman (4:07:00.680)

that all in all these vaccines are a good thing,

Lex Fridman (4:07:05.120)

but if you're young and healthy, you probably don't need it.

Lex Fridman (4:07:11.000)

And I just felt that there was a stronger case to be made,

Jamie Metzl (4:07:16.200)

even though Sanjay made it.

Lex Fridman (4:07:17.440)

It wasn't that Sanjay didn't make it.

Jamie Metzl (4:07:19.400)

It was just that in the flow of that conversation,

Lex Fridman (4:07:22.160)

I felt that the case for the vaccines

Lex Fridman (4:07:26.120)

and the vaccines both as an individual choice

Lex Fridman (4:07:28.960)

and then certainly again, as I said before,

Jamie Metzl (4:07:31.000)

I think that while people can be afraid of the vaccines,

Lex Fridman (4:07:34.960)

the virus itself is much scarier

Lex Fridman (4:07:37.560)

and we're seeing it now in real time

Lex Fridman (4:07:40.760)

with these variations and variants.

Jamie Metzl (4:07:43.840)

I just felt that that was kind of the rough takeaway

Lex Fridman (4:07:47.680)

from that conversation.

Lex Fridman (4:07:50.760)

And I felt that Sanjay, again, whom I love,

Lex Fridman (4:07:54.120)

I felt it could have made his case a little bit stronger.

Lex Fridman (4:07:56.760)

So the thing he succeeded is he didn't come off

Lex Fridman (4:08:00.200)

as like a science expert looking down at everybody,

Jamie Metzl (4:08:07.120)

talking down to everybody.

Lex Fridman (4:08:09.120)

So he succeeded in that, which is very respectful.

Lex Fridman (4:08:12.000)

But I also think sort of making the case

Lex Fridman (4:08:15.240)

for taking the vaccine when you're a young, healthy person,

Jamie Metzl (4:08:19.240)

when you're sitting across from Joe Rogan

Lex Fridman (4:08:22.040)

is like a high difficulty on the video game level.

Jamie Metzl (4:08:26.080)

For sure.

Lex Fridman (4:08:26.920)

So it's difficult to do.

Jamie Metzl (4:08:30.200)

Yeah, for sure. It's difficult to do.

Lex Fridman (4:08:31.520)

And also it's difficult to do

Jamie Metzl (4:08:32.840)

because it's not as simple as like, look at the data.

Lex Fridman (4:08:38.960)

There's a lot of data to go through here.

Lex Fridman (4:08:42.840)

And there's also a lot of non data stuff,

Lex Fridman (4:08:45.720)

like the fact that, first of all,

Jamie Metzl (4:08:48.600)

questioning the sources of the data,

Lex Fridman (4:08:50.120)

the quality of the data,

Jamie Metzl (4:08:51.680)

because it's also disappointing about COVID

Lex Fridman (4:08:54.040)

is that the quality of the data is not great.

Lex Fridman (4:08:56.440)

But also questioning all the motivations

Lex Fridman (4:09:00.640)

of the different parties involved,

Jamie Metzl (4:09:02.520)

whether it's major organizations

Lex Fridman (4:09:04.280)

that developed the vaccine,

Jamie Metzl (4:09:05.400)

whether it's major institutions like NIH or NIAID

Lex Fridman (4:09:09.920)

that are sort of communicating to us about the vaccine,

Jamie Metzl (4:09:12.520)

whether it's the CDC and the WHO,

Lex Fridman (4:09:15.640)

whether it's the Biden or the Trump administration,

Jamie Metzl (4:09:18.180)

whether it's China and all those kinds of things,

Lex Fridman (4:09:20.320)

you have to, that's part of the conversation here.

Jamie Metzl (4:09:24.160)

I mean, vaccination is not just a public health tool.

Lex Fridman (4:09:28.760)

It's also a tool for a government

Jamie Metzl (4:09:30.480)

to gain more control over the populace.

Lex Fridman (4:09:33.480)

Like, there's a lot of truth to that too.

Jamie Metzl (4:09:36.320)

Things that have a lot of benefit

Lex Fridman (4:09:40.040)

can also be used as a Trojan horse

Jamie Metzl (4:09:44.280)

to increase bureaucracy and control.

Lex Fridman (4:09:47.320)

But that has to be on the table for a conversation.

Jamie Metzl (4:09:49.960)

I think it has to be on the conversation.

Lex Fridman (4:09:52.080)

But your parents, when they were in the Soviet Union

Lex Fridman (4:09:56.640)

and here in the United States,

Lex Fridman (4:09:57.920)

and actually it was a big collaboration

Jamie Metzl (4:09:59.600)

between US and Soviet Union,

Lex Fridman (4:10:02.160)

when the polio vaccine came out,

Jamie Metzl (4:10:04.200)

there were people all around the world

Lex Fridman (4:10:06.160)

who had a different life trajectory,

Jamie Metzl (4:10:08.400)

no longer living in fear.

Lex Fridman (4:10:09.900)

And all of these people who were paralyzed

Jamie Metzl (4:10:11.880)

or killed from polio, smallpox has been eradicated.

Lex Fridman (4:10:15.960)

It was one of the great successes in human history.

Lex Fridman (4:10:20.280)

And while it for sure is true that you could imagine

Lex Fridman (4:10:23.320)

some kind of fraudulent vaccination effort,

Lex Fridman (4:10:27.800)

but here I genuinely think,

Lex Fridman (4:10:30.040)

I mean, whatever the number, 15 million, 16 million

Jamie Metzl (4:10:33.200)

is the economist number of dead from COVID 19,

Lex Fridman (4:10:37.080)

many, many, many more people would be dead

Lex Fridman (4:10:39.800)

but for these vaccines.

Lex Fridman (4:10:41.780)

And so I get that any activity

Jamie Metzl (4:10:44.360)

that needs to be coordinated by a central government

Lex Fridman (4:10:47.720)

has the potential to increase bureaucracy

Lex Fridman (4:10:50.680)

and increase control.

Lex Fridman (4:10:53.640)

But there are certain things that central governments do,

Jamie Metzl (4:10:57.900)

like the development, particularly these mRNA vaccines,

Lex Fridman (4:11:00.880)

which it's purely a US government victory.

Jamie Metzl (4:11:05.080)

I mean, it was huge DARPA funding

Lex Fridman (4:11:08.020)

and then the National Institute for Allergy

Lex Fridman (4:11:11.040)

and Infectious Disease, NIH funding.

Lex Fridman (4:11:13.540)

I mean, this was a public private partnership throughout

Lex Fridman (4:11:17.080)

and that we got a working vaccine 11 months was a miracle.

Lex Fridman (4:11:21.120)

So I, yeah.

Jamie Metzl (4:11:21.960)

It's not purely a victory.

Lex Fridman (4:11:24.320)

Again, you have to be open minded.

Jamie Metzl (4:11:26.160)

I'm with you here playing a bit of devil's advocate,

Lex Fridman (4:11:30.400)

but the people who discuss any viral drugs

Jamie Metzl (4:11:32.640)

like ivermectin and other alternatives

Lex Fridman (4:11:34.840)

would say that the extreme focus on the vaccine

Jamie Metzl (4:11:39.040)

distracted us from considering other possibilities.

Lex Fridman (4:11:42.120)

And saying that this is purely a success

Jamie Metzl (4:11:46.080)

is distracting from the story

Lex Fridman (4:11:48.080)

that there could have been other solutions.

Lex Fridman (4:11:50.660)

So yes, it's a huge success

Lex Fridman (4:11:52.400)

that the vaccine was developed so quickly

Lex Fridman (4:11:55.980)

and surprisingly way more effective than it was hoped for.

Lex Fridman (4:12:02.200)

But there could have been other solutions

Lex Fridman (4:12:04.520)

and they completely distracted from us from that.

Lex Fridman (4:12:08.040)

In fact, it distracted us from looking into a bunch of things

Jamie Metzl (4:12:11.640)

like the lab leak.

Lex Fridman (4:12:12.960)

And so it's not a pure victory.

Lex Fridman (4:12:15.720)

And there's a lot of people that criticize

Lex Fridman (4:12:18.160)

the overreach of government and all of this.

Jamie Metzl (4:12:20.680)

That one of the things that makes the United States great

Lex Fridman (4:12:24.480)

is the individualism and the hesitancy to ideas of mandates.

Jamie Metzl (4:12:31.560)

Even if the mandates on mass will have a positive,

Lex Fridman (4:12:35.180)

even strongly positive result,

Jamie Metzl (4:12:37.320)

many Americans will still say no.

Lex Fridman (4:12:43.000)

Because in the long arc of history,

Jamie Metzl (4:12:46.840)

saying no in that moment will actually lead

Lex Fridman (4:12:49.740)

to a better country and a better world.

Lex Fridman (4:12:53.680)

So that's a messed up aspect of America,

Lex Fridman (4:12:57.360)

but it's also a beautiful part.

Jamie Metzl (4:12:59.960)

We're skeptical even about good things.

Lex Fridman (4:13:03.900)

I agree and certainly we should all be cautious

Jamie Metzl (4:13:08.280)

about government overreach, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (4:13:11.560)

And it happens in all kinds of scenarios

Jamie Metzl (4:13:14.560)

with incarceration with a thousand things.

Lex Fridman (4:13:17.400)

And we also should be afraid of government underreach

Jamie Metzl (4:13:21.000)

that if there is a problem that could be solved

Lex Fridman (4:13:24.060)

by governments and that's why we have governments

Jamie Metzl (4:13:26.120)

in the first place is that there's just certain things

Lex Fridman (4:13:28.200)

that individuals can't do on their own.

Lex Fridman (4:13:31.100)

And that's why we pool our resources

Lex Fridman (4:13:34.000)

and we, in some ways, sacrifice our rights

Jamie Metzl (4:13:38.200)

for this common thing.

Lex Fridman (4:13:39.160)

And that's why we don't have, hopefully,

Jamie Metzl (4:13:41.200)

people, murderers marauding

Lex Fridman (4:13:42.960)

or people driving 200 miles down the street.

Jamie Metzl (4:13:45.480)

We have a process for arriving at a set of common rules.

Lex Fridman (4:13:49.880)

And so, while I fully agree that we need to respect

Lex Fridman (4:13:52.720)

and we need to listen, we need to find that right balance.

Lex Fridman (4:13:56.440)

And you've raised the magic I word, ivermectin.

Lex Fridman (4:14:00.020)

And so, an ivermectin, like my view has always been,

Lex Fridman (4:14:06.340)

ivermectin could be effective, it could not be effective.

Jamie Metzl (4:14:09.620)

Let's study it through a full process.

Lex Fridman (4:14:12.080)

And when you had Francis Collins with you,

Jamie Metzl (4:14:14.420)

even while he was making up stories about this wrestler,

Lex Fridman (4:14:19.900)

he was saying, yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (4:14:22.140)

But he was saying that they're going to do

Lex Fridman (4:14:25.180)

a full randomized highest level trial of ivermectin.

Lex Fridman (4:14:28.520)

And if ivermectin works,

Lex Fridman (4:14:30.140)

then that's another tool in our toolbox.

Lex Fridman (4:14:32.780)

And I think we should.

Lex Fridman (4:14:34.020)

And I think that Sanjay was absolutely correct

Jamie Metzl (4:14:37.760)

to concede the point to Joe,

Lex Fridman (4:14:40.700)

that it was disingenuous for people,

Jamie Metzl (4:14:43.180)

including people on CNN,

Lex Fridman (4:14:45.220)

to say that ivermectin is for livestock.

Lex Fridman (4:14:48.980)

And so, I definitely think that we have to,

Lex Fridman (4:14:53.260)

like we have to have some kind of process

Jamie Metzl (4:14:55.500)

that allows us to come together.

Lex Fridman (4:14:57.540)

And I totally agree that the great strength of America

Jamie Metzl (4:15:01.860)

is that we empower individuals.

Lex Fridman (4:15:03.480)

It's the history of our frontier mentality in our country.

Lex Fridman (4:15:06.900)

So we, I 100% agree that we have to allow that,

Lex Fridman (4:15:11.460)

even if sometimes it creates messy processes

Lex Fridman (4:15:15.580)

and uncomfortable feelings and all those sorts of things.

Lex Fridman (4:15:19.940)

You are an ultra marathon runner.

Jamie Metzl (4:15:22.660)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (4:15:23.500)

What are you running from?

Jamie Metzl (4:15:27.180)

No.

Lex Fridman (4:15:28.020)

It's the right, it's the funny thing is,

Lex Fridman (4:15:30.660)

so I'm an ultra marathoner and I've done 13 Ironmans.

Lex Fridman (4:15:34.180)

And people say, oh my God, that's amazing.

Jamie Metzl (4:15:36.300)

13 Ironmans.

Lex Fridman (4:15:37.140)

And what I always say, no, one Ironman is impressive.

Jamie Metzl (4:15:41.060)

13 Ironmans, there's something effing wrong with you.

Lex Fridman (4:15:44.340)

We just need to figure out what it is.

Jamie Metzl (4:15:45.740)

Yeah, there's some demons you're trying to work through.

Lex Fridman (4:15:48.500)

I mean, well, you're doing the work though.

Jamie Metzl (4:15:49.980)

Most people just kind of let the demons sit in the attic.

Lex Fridman (4:15:53.980)

No, what have you learned about yourself,

Jamie Metzl (4:15:57.260)

about your mind, about your body, about life,

Lex Fridman (4:16:00.260)

from taking your body limit in that kind of way

Lex Fridman (4:16:05.380)

to running those kinds of distances?

Lex Fridman (4:16:07.020)

Well, it's a great question.

Lex Fridman (4:16:08.220)

And I know that you are also kind of exploring

Lex Fridman (4:16:10.140)

the limits of the physical.

Lex Fridman (4:16:12.540)

And so for me in doing the Ironmans and the ultra marathons,

Lex Fridman (4:16:17.260)

it's always the same kind of lesson,

Jamie Metzl (4:16:20.420)

which is just when you think you have nothing left,

Lex Fridman (4:16:25.540)

you actually have a ton left.

Jamie Metzl (4:16:27.900)

There are a lot of resources that are there

Lex Fridman (4:16:31.180)

if you call on them.

Lex Fridman (4:16:32.860)

And the ability to call on them has to be cultivated.

Lex Fridman (4:16:38.580)

And so for me, especially in the Ironman,

Lex Fridman (4:16:42.420)

and Ironman in many ways is harder than the ultra marathons

Lex Fridman (4:16:45.900)

because I'll be at, I mean, it's 140 miles.

Jamie Metzl (4:16:48.180)

I'll be at a 100 mile, 120, having done the swim

Lex Fridman (4:16:52.900)

and then the bike and I'll be whatever,

Jamie Metzl (4:16:56.100)

six miles into the run.

Lex Fridman (4:16:58.420)

And I'll think, I feel like shit.

Jamie Metzl (4:17:01.420)

I have nothing left.

Lex Fridman (4:17:02.940)

How am I possibly gonna run 20 miles more?

Lex Fridman (4:17:07.740)

But there's always more.

Lex Fridman (4:17:10.580)

And I think that for me, these extreme sports

Jamie Metzl (4:17:15.500)

are my process of exploring what's possible.

Lex Fridman (4:17:21.100)

And I feel like it applies in so many different areas

Jamie Metzl (4:17:25.220)

of life where you're kind of pushing

Lex Fridman (4:17:28.140)

and it feels like the limit.

Lex Fridman (4:17:30.540)

And one of my friend of mine,

Lex Fridman (4:17:33.140)

who I just have so much respect for,

Jamie Metzl (4:17:35.820)

who actually be a great guest

Lex Fridman (4:17:37.300)

if you haven't already interviewed him is Charlie Angle.

Lex Fridman (4:17:41.300)

And Charlie, he was a drug addict.

Lex Fridman (4:17:44.180)

He was in prison, his life was total shit.

Lex Fridman (4:17:48.140)

And somehow, and I can't remember the full story,

Lex Fridman (4:17:50.940)

he just started running around the prison yard.

Lex Fridman (4:17:55.660)

And it's like Forrest Gump.

Lex Fridman (4:17:56.500)

And he just kept running and running.

Lex Fridman (4:17:59.220)

And then he got out of prison and he kept running

Lex Fridman (4:18:02.380)

and he started doing ultra marathons,

Jamie Metzl (4:18:04.820)

started inspiring all these other people.

Lex Fridman (4:18:07.660)

Now he's written all these books.

Jamie Metzl (4:18:09.060)

As a matter of fact, we just spoke a few months ago

Lex Fridman (4:18:12.500)

that he's planning on running from the Dead Sea

Jamie Metzl (4:18:18.140)

to somehow to the top of Mount Everest,

Lex Fridman (4:18:20.420)

from the lowest point to the highest point on earth.

Lex Fridman (4:18:23.500)

And I said, well, why are you stopping there?

Lex Fridman (4:18:25.980)

Why don't you get whatever camera in

Lex Fridman (4:18:29.420)

and go down to the lowest part of the ocean,

Lex Fridman (4:18:32.220)

go to the lowest part of the ocean

Lex Fridman (4:18:34.020)

and then talk to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos

Lex Fridman (4:18:38.260)

and go to the kind of the highest place

Jamie Metzl (4:18:40.220)

than the stratosphere you can get.

Lex Fridman (4:18:42.180)

But it's this thing of possibility.

Lex Fridman (4:18:44.700)

And I just feel like so many of us and myself included,

Lex Fridman (4:18:49.140)

we get stuck in a sense of what we think is our range.

Lex Fridman (4:18:54.620)

And if we're not careful, that can become our range.

Lex Fridman (4:18:57.820)

And that's why for me in all of life,

Jamie Metzl (4:19:00.900)

it's all about like we've been talking about,

Lex Fridman (4:19:02.500)

challenging the limits, challenging assumptions,

Jamie Metzl (4:19:06.260)

challenging ourselves and hopefully,

Lex Fridman (4:19:09.540)

we do it in a way that kind of doesn't hurt anybody.

Jamie Metzl (4:19:12.940)

When I'm at the Ironman, they have all these little kids

Lex Fridman (4:19:15.900)

and they'll have these little shirts

Lex Fridman (4:19:17.060)

and it'll say like, my dad is a hero

Lex Fridman (4:19:19.220)

and have the little Ironman logo.

Lex Fridman (4:19:21.060)

And I wanna say, it's like, no,

Lex Fridman (4:19:22.860)

your dad is actually a narcissistic dick

Jamie Metzl (4:19:25.300)

who goes on eight mile bike rides every Sunday

Lex Fridman (4:19:29.540)

rather than spend time with you.

Lex Fridman (4:19:31.540)

And so we shouldn't hurt anybody.

Lex Fridman (4:19:34.020)

But for me, and also I just find it very enjoyable

Lex Fridman (4:19:38.700)

and I hope I'm not disclosing too much

Lex Fridman (4:19:41.340)

about our conversation before we went live

Jamie Metzl (4:19:44.060)

where you're doing so many different things

Lex Fridman (4:19:46.020)

with running and your martial arts.

Lex Fridman (4:19:48.740)

And I encouraged you to do ultra marathons

Lex Fridman (4:19:53.620)

because there's so many great ones in Texas.

Jamie Metzl (4:19:55.220)

It's actually surprisingly a very enjoyable way

Lex Fridman (4:19:58.900)

to spend a day.

Lex Fridman (4:19:59.740)

Like how would you recommend?

Lex Fridman (4:20:01.100)

So yeah, for people who might not know,

Jamie Metzl (4:20:03.420)

I've never actually even run a marathon.

Lex Fridman (4:20:05.060)

I've run 22 miles in one time at most.

Jamie Metzl (4:20:08.420)

I did a four by four by 48 challenge with David Goggins

Lex Fridman (4:20:13.860)

where you run four miles every four hours.

Jamie Metzl (4:20:16.340)

Is it different as less to do with the distance

Lex Fridman (4:20:19.380)

and more to do with the sleep deprivation.

Lex Fridman (4:20:21.620)

What advice would you give to a first time ultra marathon

Lex Fridman (4:20:24.220)

or like me trying to run 50 or more miles

Jamie Metzl (4:20:27.180)

or for anybody else interested

Lex Fridman (4:20:30.260)

in this kind of exploration of their range?

Lex Fridman (4:20:32.340)

What I always tell is the same advice is register.

Lex Fridman (4:20:36.940)

Pick your timeline of when you think you can be ready.

Jamie Metzl (4:20:39.540)

Make it, depending on where you are now,

Lex Fridman (4:20:41.140)

make it six months, make a year,

Lex Fridman (4:20:43.100)

and then register for the race.

Lex Fridman (4:20:45.300)

And then once you're registered,

Lex Fridman (4:20:47.060)

just work back from there, what's it going to take?

Lex Fridman (4:20:49.820)

But one of the things for people who are just getting going,

Jamie Metzl (4:20:52.780)

you really do need to make sure

Lex Fridman (4:20:53.980)

that your body is ready for it.

Lex Fridman (4:20:55.940)

And so particularly, and particularly as we get older,

Lex Fridman (4:20:59.100)

strengthening is really important.

Lex Fridman (4:21:02.660)

So I'll do a plug for my brother, Jordan Metzl.

Lex Fridman (4:21:06.260)

He's a doctor at hospital for special surgery,

Lex Fridman (4:21:08.380)

but his whole thing is functional strength.

Lex Fridman (4:21:10.740)

And so, and people know about,

Lex Fridman (4:21:12.740)

and you can actually even go to his website.

Lex Fridman (4:21:15.140)

You can just Google Jordan Metzl Iron Strength,

Lex Fridman (4:21:17.420)

but it's all about like burpees

Lex Fridman (4:21:19.180)

and just building your muscular strength

Lex Fridman (4:21:21.380)

so that you don't get injured as you increase.

Lex Fridman (4:21:25.060)

And then just increase your mileage with,

Jamie Metzl (4:21:27.740)

in some steady way, make sure that you take rest days

Lex Fridman (4:21:31.340)

and listen to your body because people like you

Jamie Metzl (4:21:34.540)

who are just very kind of mind over matter,

Lex Fridman (4:21:37.140)

like you were telling me before about you have an injury,

Lex Fridman (4:21:39.460)

but you kind of run a little bit differently.

Lex Fridman (4:21:41.780)

And we need to listen to our bodies

Jamie Metzl (4:21:44.420)

because our bodies are communicating.

Lex Fridman (4:21:48.980)

But I think it was kind of little by little magic is possible.

Lex Fridman (4:21:53.460)

And what I will say is,

Lex Fridman (4:21:54.780)

and I also have done lots and lots of marathons,

Lex Fridman (4:21:58.300)

and I always tell people that the ultra marathons,

Lex Fridman (4:22:01.620)

at least the ones that I do,

Lex Fridman (4:22:02.540)

and I shouldn't misrepresent myself.

Lex Fridman (4:22:04.100)

I mean, there are people who do 500 mile races.

Jamie Metzl (4:22:07.540)

The ones that I do are 50K mountain trail runs,

Lex Fridman (4:22:11.220)

which is 32 miles.

Lex Fridman (4:22:12.620)

So I do the kind of the easier side of ultras,

Lex Fridman (4:22:17.900)

but it's actually much easier than a marathon

Jamie Metzl (4:22:19.820)

because some of the mountain ones,

Lex Fridman (4:22:21.940)

sometimes it's so steep that you can't,

Jamie Metzl (4:22:25.540)

you have to walk it

Lex Fridman (4:22:26.900)

because walking is faster than running.

Lex Fridman (4:22:29.180)

And every four or five miles in the supported races,

Lex Fridman (4:22:32.140)

you stop and eat blintzes and foiled potatoes.

Jamie Metzl (4:22:35.500)

It's actually quite enjoyable.

Lex Fridman (4:22:36.820)

But as I started to tell you before we went live,

Lex Fridman (4:22:42.100)

so I've done for lots of years,

Lex Fridman (4:22:43.860)

these 50K mountain trail runs,

Lex Fridman (4:22:45.540)

and I was going to Taiwan a number of years ago

Lex Fridman (4:22:48.220)

for something else.

Lex Fridman (4:22:49.300)

And I thought, well, wouldn't it be fun

Lex Fridman (4:22:50.860)

to do an ultra marathon in Taiwan?

Jamie Metzl (4:22:53.020)

I looked and that the weekend after my visit,

Lex Fridman (4:22:56.940)

there was a marathon.

Jamie Metzl (4:22:57.940)

It was called the,

Lex Fridman (4:22:59.060)

every ultra marathon, it was called the Taiwan Beast.

Lex Fridman (4:23:01.820)

And I figured, oh, beasts, what are they talking about?

Lex Fridman (4:23:03.980)

It's 50K mountain trail,

Lex Fridman (4:23:05.180)

and I've done a million of them.

Lex Fridman (4:23:06.580)

And then I went to register.

Lex Fridman (4:23:07.840)

And then as part of registration,

Lex Fridman (4:23:09.300)

they said, you need to have all of this equipment.

Lex Fridman (4:23:11.500)

And it was all this like wilderness survival equipment.

Lex Fridman (4:23:14.940)

And I was thinking, God, these Taiwanese,

Lex Fridman (4:23:17.460)

but what a bunch of wimps.

Lex Fridman (4:23:18.940)

You have to carry, give me a break, 50K mountain trail.

Lex Fridman (4:23:22.340)

So I get there and the race starts

Lex Fridman (4:23:24.500)

at like 4.30 in the morning in the middle of nowhere.

Lex Fridman (4:23:27.540)

And you have to wear headlamps

Lex Fridman (4:23:28.620)

and everyone's carrying all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (4:23:29.820)

And you kind of go running out into the rainforest.

Lex Fridman (4:23:34.820)

It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my,

Jamie Metzl (4:23:36.740)

it took 19 hours.

Lex Fridman (4:23:38.180)

There were maybe 15 cliff faces, like a real cliff.

Lex Fridman (4:23:41.540)

And somebody had dangled like a little piece of string.

Lex Fridman (4:23:44.500)

And so you had to hold onto the string with one hand

Jamie Metzl (4:23:46.900)

while it was in the pouring rain, climb up these cliffs.

Lex Fridman (4:23:49.380)

There were maybe 20 river crossings,

Lex Fridman (4:23:52.740)

but not just like a little stream, like a torrential river.

Lex Fridman (4:23:57.100)

There were some things where it was so steep

Jamie Metzl (4:24:00.140)

that everyone was just climbing up

Lex Fridman (4:24:02.060)

and then you'd slide all the way down and climb up.

Lex Fridman (4:24:03.980)

And there were people who I met on the way out there

Lex Fridman (4:24:07.060)

who were saying, oh yeah,

Jamie Metzl (4:24:07.900)

I did the Sahara 500 kilometer race.

Lex Fridman (4:24:11.540)

And those people were just sprawled out.

Jamie Metzl (4:24:15.220)

A lot of them didn't finish.

Lex Fridman (4:24:17.460)

So that was the hardest thing I've ever.

Lex Fridman (4:24:19.780)

So how do you get through something like that?

Lex Fridman (4:24:22.060)

You just, one step at a time?

Lex Fridman (4:24:23.600)

Was there, do you remember, is there a?

Lex Fridman (4:24:26.380)

Yeah.

Jamie Metzl (4:24:27.220)

Is there a dark moments

Lex Fridman (4:24:28.500)

or is it kind of all spread out thinly?

Jamie Metzl (4:24:31.140)

It wasn't really dark moments.

Lex Fridman (4:24:34.100)

I mean, there was one thing where I'd been running so long

Jamie Metzl (4:24:36.620)

I thought, well, I must almost be done.

Lex Fridman (4:24:39.020)

And then I found out I had like 15 miles more.

Lex Fridman (4:24:44.700)

But I guess with all of these things,

Lex Fridman (4:24:48.420)

it's the messages that we tell ourselves.

Lex Fridman (4:24:51.700)

And so for me, it's like the message I always tell myself

Lex Fridman (4:24:55.500)

is quitting isn't an option.

Jamie Metzl (4:24:58.740)

I mean, once in a while you kind of have to quit

Lex Fridman (4:25:00.700)

if like, listen to the universe,

Jamie Metzl (4:25:02.420)

if whatever, you're gonna kill yourself or something.

Lex Fridman (4:25:04.800)

But for me, it was just, whatever it takes,

Jamie Metzl (4:25:08.500)

there's no way I'm stopping.

Lex Fridman (4:25:10.140)

And if I have to go up this muddy hill 20 times

Jamie Metzl (4:25:14.220)

because I keep sliding, I'm sure there's a way.

Lex Fridman (4:25:17.760)

It's probably a personality flaw.

Lex Fridman (4:25:21.540)

Where does your love for chocolate come from?

Lex Fridman (4:25:23.880)

Oh, it's a great question.

Lex Fridman (4:25:24.940)

And in both of my Joe Rogan interviews,

Lex Fridman (4:25:27.420)

that's the first question that he asked.

Lex Fridman (4:25:29.020)

So I'm glad that we've gotten to that.

Lex Fridman (4:25:30.940)

So one, I've always loved chocolate.

Lex Fridman (4:25:33.900)

And I call it like a secret, but now that I keep telling,

Lex Fridman (4:25:37.900)

if you keep telling the same secret,

Jamie Metzl (4:25:39.540)

it's actually no longer a secret,

Lex Fridman (4:25:42.060)

that I have a secret, which is not secret

Jamie Metzl (4:25:45.180)

because I'm telling you on a podcast,

Lex Fridman (4:25:47.740)

life as a chocolate shaman.

Lex Fridman (4:25:50.140)

And so when I give keynotes at tech conferences,

Lex Fridman (4:25:53.540)

I always say, I'm happy to give a keynote,

Lex Fridman (4:25:55.580)

but I want to lead a sacred cacao ceremony in the night.

Lex Fridman (4:25:59.040)

I'm actually, believe it or not,

Jamie Metzl (4:26:00.580)

the official chocolate shaman

Lex Fridman (4:26:02.580)

of what used to be called exponential medicine,

Jamie Metzl (4:26:05.180)

which is part of Singularity University.

Lex Fridman (4:26:06.700)

Now, my friend Daniel Kraft who runs it,

Jamie Metzl (4:26:09.620)

it's going to be called NextMed.

Lex Fridman (4:26:12.620)

And so, but I'll have to go back.

Jamie Metzl (4:26:14.820)

As I was going to Berlin a lot of years ago,

Lex Fridman (4:26:19.460)

and I've always loved chocolate,

Jamie Metzl (4:26:20.560)

I was going to Berlin to give a keynote

Lex Fridman (4:26:23.780)

at a big conference called TOA, Tech Open Air.

Lex Fridman (4:26:28.420)

And so when I got there, the first night,

Lex Fridman (4:26:31.820)

I was supposed to give a talk,

Lex Fridman (4:26:33.020)

but there had been some mix up.

Lex Fridman (4:26:34.540)

They'd forgotten to reserve the room.

Lex Fridman (4:26:36.700)

And so the talk got canceled.

Lex Fridman (4:26:38.340)

And in the brochure, they had all these different events

Jamie Metzl (4:26:41.300)

around Berlin that you could go to.

Lex Fridman (4:26:44.060)

And one of them was a cacao ceremony.

Lex Fridman (4:26:46.260)

And so I went there and actually met somebody,

Lex Fridman (4:26:49.660)

Viviana, who is still a friend,

Lex Fridman (4:26:52.100)

but I met, going in there,

Lex Fridman (4:26:53.460)

and there was this cacao ceremony.

Jamie Metzl (4:26:54.740)

These kind of hippie dudes.

Lex Fridman (4:26:56.640)

And then everybody got the cacao.

Lex Fridman (4:26:59.700)

And then they said, all right,

Lex Fridman (4:27:01.060)

as they talked a little bit about the process,

Lex Fridman (4:27:03.180)

and then they said, all right,

Lex Fridman (4:27:04.020)

everyone just stand and kind of,

Jamie Metzl (4:27:06.620)

we're going to spin around in a circle for 45 minutes.

Lex Fridman (4:27:09.580)

And so I spun around in the circle for like 10 minutes,

Lex Fridman (4:27:12.900)

but then I had to leave

Lex Fridman (4:27:14.140)

because I had to go to something else.

Lex Fridman (4:27:15.880)

And so that, I thought that was that.

Lex Fridman (4:27:18.500)

But then I saw Viviana the next day,

Lex Fridman (4:27:21.100)

and I said, well, how did the cacao ceremony go?

Lex Fridman (4:27:23.260)

And she showed me these pictures

Jamie Metzl (4:27:25.340)

of all of these people, mostly naked,

Lex Fridman (4:27:28.420)

like it turned into chaos.

Jamie Metzl (4:27:30.620)

Oh, that's awesome.

Lex Fridman (4:27:31.460)

And it was like, oh, and so let me get this straight.

Jamie Metzl (4:27:33.700)

People drank chocolate,

Lex Fridman (4:27:35.620)

then they spun around in a circle,

Lex Fridman (4:27:37.700)

and something else happened.

Lex Fridman (4:27:39.200)

And anyway, so then two days later,

Jamie Metzl (4:27:41.420)

I was invited to another cacao ceremony,

Lex Fridman (4:27:43.820)

which was also actually part of this Toa.

Lex Fridman (4:27:46.380)

And that was kind of more structured,

Lex Fridman (4:27:48.660)

and it was more sane because it was part of this thing.

Lex Fridman (4:27:51.180)

And at the end of that, I had this,

Lex Fridman (4:27:53.700)

I thought one, the greatest thing ever,

Jamie Metzl (4:27:56.900)

a sacred cacao ceremony,

Lex Fridman (4:27:58.540)

like you drink chocolate milk and everybody's free.

Lex Fridman (4:28:01.500)

And I love that idea because I've never done drugs,

Lex Fridman (4:28:05.700)

I don't drink.

Lex Fridman (4:28:07.180)

But just part of it is because I think whatever,

Lex Fridman (4:28:09.400)

like I was saying with the ultra running,

Jamie Metzl (4:28:12.020)

all of the possibilities are within us

Lex Fridman (4:28:14.100)

if we can get out of our own way.

Lex Fridman (4:28:16.820)

And then I thought, well, you know,

Lex Fridman (4:28:17.740)

I think I can do a better job

Jamie Metzl (4:28:20.180)

than what I experienced in Berlin.

Lex Fridman (4:28:22.300)

So I came back and I thought, all right,

Jamie Metzl (4:28:23.520)

I'm gonna get accredited as a cacao shaman.

Lex Fridman (4:28:26.140)

And this will shock you.

Jamie Metzl (4:28:27.560)

Because I know if you're gonna be like a rabbi

Lex Fridman (4:28:30.180)

or a priest or something, there's some process.

Lex Fridman (4:28:32.040)

But shockingly, there's no official process

Lex Fridman (4:28:35.100)

to become a chocolate shaman.

Lex Fridman (4:28:38.140)

And so I thought, all right, well, you know,

Lex Fridman (4:28:40.540)

I'm just gonna train myself.

Lex Fridman (4:28:42.180)

And when I'm ready, I'm gonna declare my chocolate shamanism.

Lex Fridman (4:28:45.180)

So I started studying different things.

Lex Fridman (4:28:47.380)

And when I was ready, I just said,

Lex Fridman (4:28:50.320)

now I'm a chocolate shaman, self declared.

Jamie Metzl (4:28:52.780)

Self declared.

Lex Fridman (4:28:53.620)

And so, but I do these ceremonies

Lex Fridman (4:28:55.500)

and I've done them at tech conferences.

Lex Fridman (4:28:58.340)

I did one in Soho House in New York.

Jamie Metzl (4:29:01.060)

I've done it at a place Rancho La Puerta in Mexico.

Lex Fridman (4:29:04.180)

And every time it's the same thing.

Jamie Metzl (4:29:05.980)

Because it just, if people are given a license to be free,

Lex Fridman (4:29:10.220)

just to, it doesn't matter, and what I always say is,

Jamie Metzl (4:29:13.420)

you're here for a sacred cacao ceremony,

Lex Fridman (4:29:15.260)

but the truth is there's no such thing as sacred cacao.

Lex Fridman (4:29:18.340)

And there's no sacred mountains

Lex Fridman (4:29:19.700)

and there's no sacred people and there's no sacred plants.

Jamie Metzl (4:29:22.420)

Because nothing is sacred if we don't attribute,

Lex Fridman (4:29:25.780)

ascribe sacredness to it.

Lex Fridman (4:29:28.820)

But if we recognize that everything is sacred,

Lex Fridman (4:29:32.420)

then we'll live different lives.

Lex Fridman (4:29:33.700)

And for the purpose of this ceremony,

Lex Fridman (4:29:36.180)

we're just gonna say, all right,

Jamie Metzl (4:29:37.620)

we're gonna focus on this cacao,

Lex Fridman (4:29:39.940)

which actually has been used ceremonially for 5,000 years.

Jamie Metzl (4:29:43.420)

It has all these wonderful properties.

Lex Fridman (4:29:47.020)

But it's just people who get that license

Lex Fridman (4:29:49.480)

and then they're just free and people are dancing

Lex Fridman (4:29:52.260)

and all sorts of things.

Lex Fridman (4:29:53.100)

Is the goal to celebrate life in general?

Lex Fridman (4:29:57.140)

Is it to celebrate the senses, like taste?

Lex Fridman (4:30:00.640)

Is it to celebrate yourself, each other?

Lex Fridman (4:30:03.020)

What is there?

Jamie Metzl (4:30:04.100)

I think the core is gratitude and just appreciation.

Lex Fridman (4:30:09.020)

All the experiences in life?

Jamie Metzl (4:30:10.460)

Yeah, just of being alive,

Lex Fridman (4:30:12.460)

of just living in this sacred world

Jamie Metzl (4:30:15.100)

where we have all these things

Lex Fridman (4:30:16.340)

that we don't even pay any attention to.

Jamie Metzl (4:30:19.540)

My friend, A.J. Jacobs, he had a wonderful book

Lex Fridman (4:30:23.080)

that I use the spirit of it in the ceremonies,

Jamie Metzl (4:30:27.020)

not the exactly, but he was in a restaurant in New York,

Lex Fridman (4:30:31.060)

a coffee shop, and his child said,

Lex Fridman (4:30:33.220)

hey, where does the coffee come from?

Lex Fridman (4:30:35.020)

And he's like a wonderful big thinker.

Lex Fridman (4:30:38.820)

And he started really answering that question.

Lex Fridman (4:30:41.060)

Well, here's where the beans come from,

Lex Fridman (4:30:42.700)

but how did the beans get here

Lex Fridman (4:30:44.300)

and who painted the yellow line on the street

Lex Fridman (4:30:46.260)

so the truck didn't crash and who made the cup?

Lex Fridman (4:30:50.140)

And he spent a year making a full spreadsheet

Jamie Metzl (4:30:53.120)

of all of the people who in one way or another

Lex Fridman (4:30:56.460)

played some role in that one cup of coffee.

Lex Fridman (4:31:00.300)

And he traveled all around the world thanking them.

Lex Fridman (4:31:03.500)

Like, it's like, thank you for painting

Jamie Metzl (4:31:05.100)

the yellow line on the road.

Lex Fridman (4:31:06.900)

And so for me with the cacao, part of when I do

Jamie Metzl (4:31:09.700)

these ceremonies is just to say like,

Lex Fridman (4:31:12.060)

you're drinking this cacao, but there's a person

Jamie Metzl (4:31:15.220)

who planted the seed, there's a person

Lex Fridman (4:31:16.860)

who watered the plant, there's a person,

Lex Fridman (4:31:19.020)

and I just think that level of awareness,

Lex Fridman (4:31:22.420)

and it's true with anything.

Jamie Metzl (4:31:24.260)

Like you have in front of you a stuffed hedgehog, so.

Lex Fridman (4:31:27.980)

Somebody made that.

Jamie Metzl (4:31:28.860)

I love it, it's great.

Lex Fridman (4:31:30.220)

But like, if we just said, all right,

Lex Fridman (4:31:32.140)

where does this stuffed hedgehog come from?

Lex Fridman (4:31:35.200)

We would have a full story of globalization,

Jamie Metzl (4:31:38.980)

of the interconnection of people all around the world

Lex Fridman (4:31:42.120)

doing all sorts of things of human imagination.

Jamie Metzl (4:31:45.140)

It's beyond our capacity and our daily,

Lex Fridman (4:31:47.380)

we'd go insane if every day,

Jamie Metzl (4:31:49.580)

like we're speaking into a microphone,

Lex Fridman (4:31:51.260)

well, what are the hundreds of years of technology

Lex Fridman (4:31:54.540)

that make this possible?

Lex Fridman (4:31:56.060)

But if just once in a while, we just focus on one thing

Lex Fridman (4:31:59.140)

and say, this thing is sacred.

Lex Fridman (4:32:01.940)

And because I'm recognizing that

Lex Fridman (4:32:04.100)

and I'm having an appreciation for the world around me,

Lex Fridman (4:32:07.020)

it just kind of makes my life feel more sacred.

Jamie Metzl (4:32:10.420)

It makes me recognize my connection to others.

Lex Fridman (4:32:12.480)

So that's the gist of it.

Jamie Metzl (4:32:14.700)

Yeah, it's funny, I often look at

Lex Fridman (4:32:19.660)

things in this world and moments and just am in awe

Jamie Metzl (4:32:24.800)

of the full

Lex Fridman (4:32:27.700)

universe that brought that to be.

Jamie Metzl (4:32:33.780)

In a similar way as you're saying,

Lex Fridman (4:32:35.620)

but I don't as often think about exactly what you're saying,

Jamie Metzl (4:32:38.940)

which is the number of people behind every little thing

Lex Fridman (4:32:41.580)

we get to enjoy.

Jamie Metzl (4:32:43.060)

I mean, yeah, this hedgehog, this microphone,

Lex Fridman (4:32:46.540)

like directly, like thousands of people involved.

Jamie Metzl (4:32:49.600)

Millions.

Lex Fridman (4:32:50.440)

And then indirectly, it's millions.

Jamie Metzl (4:32:52.140)

Like, and they're all like this microphone

Lex Fridman (4:32:59.260)

that there's like artists, essentially,

Jamie Metzl (4:33:01.820)

like people who made it their life's work,

Lex Fridman (4:33:04.100)

all the costs, like from the factories to the manufacturer,

Jamie Metzl (4:33:07.420)

there's families that the production of this microphone

Lex Fridman (4:33:11.620)

and this hedgehog are fed because of the skill

Jamie Metzl (4:33:14.860)

of this human that helped contribute to that development.

Lex Fridman (4:33:18.780)

Yeah, it's.

Lex Fridman (4:33:20.060)

And like Isaac Newton and John von Neumann

Lex Fridman (4:33:22.420)

are in this microphone.

Jamie Metzl (4:33:24.420)

They're standing on the shoulders of giants

Lex Fridman (4:33:26.180)

and we're standing on their shoulders.

Lex Fridman (4:33:28.600)

And somebody will be standing on ours.

Lex Fridman (4:33:34.100)

You mentioned One Shared World, what is it?

Jamie Metzl (4:33:40.000)

Well, thanks for asking.

Lex Fridman (4:33:41.060)

And by the way, what I will say is the people

Jamie Metzl (4:33:42.980)

who are listening, this is so incredible

Lex Fridman (4:33:46.220)

and I'm so thrilled to have this kind of long conversation.

Jamie Metzl (4:33:49.540)

Hello, person who's listening past the five hour mark.

Lex Fridman (4:33:54.260)

Thanks, mom.

Jamie Metzl (4:33:56.840)

I salute you.

Lex Fridman (4:33:58.200)

Somebody was like sleeping for the first four hours

Lex Fridman (4:34:00.780)

and just woke up.

Lex Fridman (4:34:01.740)

Now's the good stuff, I've been saving it.

Jamie Metzl (4:34:04.700)

But, and I have to say that so much of our lives

Lex Fridman (4:34:09.220)

is forced into these short bursts

Jamie Metzl (4:34:11.220)

that I'm just so appreciative to have the chance

Lex Fridman (4:34:14.180)

to have this conversation.

Lex Fridman (4:34:15.740)

So thank you for that.

Lex Fridman (4:34:16.580)

Some people would say five hours is short, so.

Jamie Metzl (4:34:18.700)

You know, let's go.

Lex Fridman (4:34:20.740)

And yeah, that's what my girlfriend says.

Jamie Metzl (4:34:25.780)

Like if I was like captured and tortured

Lex Fridman (4:34:29.260)

and they were gonna interrogate me,

Jamie Metzl (4:34:30.820)

it's like at the end they'd say, all right.

Lex Fridman (4:34:32.700)

No, we're sick of this guy, we quit.

Jamie Metzl (4:34:35.500)

Let him go.

Lex Fridman (4:34:36.340)

I love it.

Lex Fridman (4:34:37.300)

So background on One Shared World.

Lex Fridman (4:34:39.940)

I mentioned I'm on a faculty for Singularity University.

Jamie Metzl (4:34:43.140)

In the earliest days of the pandemic,

Lex Fridman (4:34:45.300)

I was invited to give a talk on whether the tools

Jamie Metzl (4:34:48.580)

of the genetics and biotech revolutions

Lex Fridman (4:34:50.340)

were a match for the outbreak.

Lex Fridman (4:34:52.820)

And my view was then as now

Lex Fridman (4:34:55.100)

that the answer to that question is yes.

Lex Fridman (4:34:57.460)

But I woke up that morning

Lex Fridman (4:34:58.940)

and I felt that that wasn't the most important talk

Jamie Metzl (4:35:02.700)

that I could give.

Lex Fridman (4:35:03.540)

There was something else that was more pressing for me.

Lex Fridman (4:35:06.060)

And that was the realization,

Lex Fridman (4:35:08.220)

they were asking the question,

Lex Fridman (4:35:09.100)

well, why weren't we prepared for this pandemic?

Lex Fridman (4:35:12.020)

Because we could have been, we weren't.

Lex Fridman (4:35:14.420)

And why can't, and because of that,

Lex Fridman (4:35:17.020)

why can't we respond adequately to this outbreak?

Lex Fridman (4:35:23.020)

And then there was the thing, well,

Lex Fridman (4:35:24.580)

if we, even if we respond somehow miraculously

Jamie Metzl (4:35:27.740)

overcome this pandemic, it's a pyrrhic victory

Lex Fridman (4:35:31.460)

if we don't prepare ourselves to respond

Jamie Metzl (4:35:35.540)

to the broader category of pandemics,

Lex Fridman (4:35:37.580)

particularly as we enter the age of synthetic biology.

Lex Fridman (4:35:40.700)

But if somehow miraculously we solve that problem,

Lex Fridman (4:35:44.900)

but we don't solve the problem of climate change,

Lex Fridman (4:35:47.380)

well, kind of who cares?

Lex Fridman (4:35:48.220)

We didn't have a pandemic,

Lex Fridman (4:35:49.220)

but we wiped everybody out from climate change.

Lex Fridman (4:35:51.500)

And let's just say, you get where this is going,

Jamie Metzl (4:35:55.020)

that we organize ourselves and we solve climate change.

Lex Fridman (4:35:58.660)

And then we have a nuclear war

Jamie Metzl (4:36:00.620)

because everybody's, particularly China now,

Lex Fridman (4:36:03.060)

but US, the former Soviet Union

Jamie Metzl (4:36:05.180)

are building all these nuclear weapons.

Lex Fridman (4:36:07.100)

Who cares that we solved climate change

Jamie Metzl (4:36:09.060)

because we're all gone anyway.

Lex Fridman (4:36:10.460)

And the meta category, bringing all of those things together

Jamie Metzl (4:36:14.900)

was this mismatch between the increasingly global

Lex Fridman (4:36:19.700)

and shared nature of the biggest challenges that we face

Lex Fridman (4:36:24.020)

and our inability to solve that entire category of problems.

Lex Fridman (4:36:29.420)

And there's a historical issue,

Jamie Metzl (4:36:32.220)

which is that prior to the 30 Years War in the 17th century,

Lex Fridman (4:36:36.500)

we had all these different kinds of sovereignty

Lex Fridman (4:36:38.900)

and religious and different kinds

Lex Fridman (4:36:41.100)

of organizational principles and everybody got in this war.

Lex Fridman (4:36:44.100)

And in this series of treaties

Lex Fridman (4:36:46.780)

that together are called the Peace of Westphalia,

Jamie Metzl (4:36:50.420)

the framework for the modern,

Lex Fridman (4:36:52.980)

what we now understand as the modern nation state was laid.

Lex Fridman (4:36:55.780)

And then through colonialism and other means

Lex Fridman (4:36:58.540)

that idea of a state is what it is today,

Jamie Metzl (4:37:03.180)

spread throughout the world.

Lex Fridman (4:37:05.980)

Then through particularly the late 19th

Lex Fridman (4:37:09.580)

and early 20th century,

Lex Fridman (4:37:10.980)

we realized how unstable that system was

Jamie Metzl (4:37:14.140)

because you always had these jockeying

Lex Fridman (4:37:16.420)

between sovereign states and some were rising

Lex Fridman (4:37:18.300)

and some were falling and you ended up in war.

Lex Fridman (4:37:21.020)

And that was the genius of the generations

Jamie Metzl (4:37:23.380)

who came together in 1945 in San Francisco

Lex Fridman (4:37:25.900)

and the planning had even started before then,

Jamie Metzl (4:37:28.220)

who said, well, we can't just have that world,

Lex Fridman (4:37:30.900)

we need to have an overlay.

Lex Fridman (4:37:32.580)

And we talked about the UN and the WHO

Lex Fridman (4:37:34.900)

of systems which transcend our national sovereignties.

Jamie Metzl (4:37:39.780)

They don't get rid of them, but they transcend them

Lex Fridman (4:37:42.220)

so we can solve this category of problems.

Lex Fridman (4:37:44.660)

But we're now reaching a point where our reach as humans,

Lex Fridman (4:37:47.740)

even individually, but collectively is so great

Jamie Metzl (4:37:51.020)

that there's a mismatch between, as I said,

Lex Fridman (4:37:52.540)

the nature of the problems

Lex Fridman (4:37:53.820)

and the ability to solve those problems.

Lex Fridman (4:37:57.980)

And unless we can address

Jamie Metzl (4:38:00.180)

that broader global collective action problem,

Lex Fridman (4:38:03.820)

we're going to extinct ourselves.

Lex Fridman (4:38:05.340)

And we see these different, what I call verticals,

Lex Fridman (4:38:08.180)

whether it's climate change

Jamie Metzl (4:38:09.500)

or trying to prevent a nuclear weapons proliferation

Lex Fridman (4:38:13.100)

or anything else, but none of those can succeed.

Lex Fridman (4:38:16.260)

And frankly, it doesn't even matter if one succeeds

Lex Fridman (4:38:18.940)

because all of them have the potential

Jamie Metzl (4:38:21.660)

to lead to extinction level events.

Lex Fridman (4:38:25.340)

So I gave that talk and that talk went viral.

Jamie Metzl (4:38:30.020)

I stayed up all night the next night and I drafted,

Lex Fridman (4:38:32.940)

I think it was like an insanity,

Lex Fridman (4:38:35.140)

but I think a lot of us were manic

Lex Fridman (4:38:36.860)

in those early days of the pandemics

Jamie Metzl (4:38:38.900)

wanting to do something.

Lex Fridman (4:38:40.180)

And so I stayed up all night and I drafted

Lex Fridman (4:38:42.220)

what I called a declaration of global interdependence.

Lex Fridman (4:38:45.460)

And I posted that on my website, my jamiemuscle.com.

Jamie Metzl (4:38:48.620)

It's still there.

Lex Fridman (4:38:49.620)

And that went viral.

Lex Fridman (4:38:51.780)

And so then I called a meeting just on the people

Lex Fridman (4:38:54.140)

on my personal email list.

Lex Fridman (4:38:56.300)

And so we had people from 25 countries.

Lex Fridman (4:38:59.620)

There were all of these people

Jamie Metzl (4:39:00.900)

who were having the same thing.

Lex Fridman (4:39:02.500)

There's something wrong in the world.

Jamie Metzl (4:39:03.940)

They wanted to be part of a process of fixing it.

Lex Fridman (4:39:07.700)

And so it was a crazy 35 days

Jamie Metzl (4:39:10.500)

where we broke into eight different working groups.

Lex Fridman (4:39:12.940)

We had an amazing team that helped redraft

Lex Fridman (4:39:16.060)

what became the declaration of interdependence,

Lex Fridman (4:39:18.740)

which is now in 20 languages.

Jamie Metzl (4:39:21.460)

We laid out a work plan.

Lex Fridman (4:39:23.380)

We founded this organization called One Shared World.

Jamie Metzl (4:39:27.020)

The URL is oneshared.world.

Lex Fridman (4:39:28.940)

And it's just been this incredible journey.

Jamie Metzl (4:39:31.500)

We now have people who are participating

Lex Fridman (4:39:33.100)

in one way or another from 120 different countries.

Jamie Metzl (4:39:36.940)

We have our public events exploring these issues,

Lex Fridman (4:39:40.340)

get millions of viewers.

Jamie Metzl (4:39:43.020)

We have world leaders who are participating.

Lex Fridman (4:39:46.660)

So the vision is to work on some of these big problems,

Jamie Metzl (4:39:51.260)

arbitrary number of problems that present themselves

Lex Fridman (4:39:53.500)

in the world that face all of human civilization

Lex Fridman (4:39:56.420)

and to be able to work together.

Lex Fridman (4:39:58.100)

Well, that is, but there's a macro, a meta problem,

Jamie Metzl (4:40:02.180)

which is the global collective action problem.

Lex Fridman (4:40:04.580)

And so the idea is even if we just focus on the verticals,

Jamie Metzl (4:40:10.020)

on the manifestations of the global collective action

Lex Fridman (4:40:12.500)

problem, there'll be an infinite number of those things.

Lex Fridman (4:40:16.460)

So while we work on those things,

Lex Fridman (4:40:18.860)

like climate change, pandemics, WMD and other things,

Jamie Metzl (4:40:22.700)

we also have to ask the bigger questions

Lex Fridman (4:40:25.220)

of why can't we solve this category of problems.

Lex Fridman (4:40:27.380)

And the idea is, at least from my observation,

Lex Fridman (4:40:30.100)

is that whenever big decisions are being made,

Jamie Metzl (4:40:34.980)

our national leaders and corporate leaders

Lex Fridman (4:40:37.620)

are doing exactly what we've hired them to do.

Jamie Metzl (4:40:40.460)

They're maximizing for national interest,

Lex Fridman (4:40:43.620)

even, or corporate interests,

Jamie Metzl (4:40:45.020)

even at the expense of everybody.

Lex Fridman (4:40:48.460)

And so it's not that we wanna get rid of states.

Jamie Metzl (4:40:50.420)

States are essential in our world system.

Lex Fridman (4:40:52.660)

It's not we wanna undermine the UN,

Jamie Metzl (4:40:54.300)

which is also essential, but massively underperforming.

Lex Fridman (4:40:57.860)

What we wanna do is to create

Jamie Metzl (4:40:59.260)

an empowered global constituency of people

Lex Fridman (4:41:02.300)

who are demanding that their leaders at all levels

Jamie Metzl (4:41:06.180)

just do a better job of balancing

Lex Fridman (4:41:09.060)

broader and narrower interests.

Jamie Metzl (4:41:10.540)

I see.

Lex Fridman (4:41:11.380)

So this is more like a,

Jamie Metzl (4:41:14.740)

make it more symmetric in terms of power.

Lex Fridman (4:41:17.780)

It's holding accountable the nations, the leaders.

Jamie Metzl (4:41:22.780)

The leaders.

Lex Fridman (4:41:23.940)

The problem is nations are powerful.

Jamie Metzl (4:41:26.900)

We talked about China quite a bit.

Lex Fridman (4:41:29.260)

How do you have an organizations of citizens of Earth

Jamie Metzl (4:41:33.940)

that can solve this collective problem

Lex Fridman (4:41:36.860)

that holds China accountable?

Jamie Metzl (4:41:39.180)

It's difficult, because UN,

Lex Fridman (4:41:41.540)

you could say a lot of things,

Lex Fridman (4:41:42.740)

but to call it effective is hard.

Lex Fridman (4:41:45.540)

You know, the internet almost is a kind of representation

Jamie Metzl (4:41:50.300)

of a collective force that holds nations accountable.

Lex Fridman (4:41:57.260)

Not to give Twitter too much credit,

Lex Fridman (4:41:58.780)

but social networks, broadly speaking.

Lex Fridman (4:42:03.380)

So you have hope that it's possible

Jamie Metzl (4:42:05.260)

to build such collections of humans that resist China.

Lex Fridman (4:42:10.700)

Not necessarily resist China,

Lex Fridman (4:42:12.740)

but human, I mean, our cultures change over time.

Lex Fridman (4:42:16.900)

I mean, the idea of the modern nation state

Jamie Metzl (4:42:20.060)

would not have made sense to people

Lex Fridman (4:42:22.460)

in the 13th or 14th century.

Jamie Metzl (4:42:24.500)

The idea that became the United Nations.

Lex Fridman (4:42:28.260)

I mean, it had its earliest days in the philosophies of Kant.

Jamie Metzl (4:42:33.540)

It took a long time for these ideas to be realized.

Lex Fridman (4:42:39.820)

And so the idea, and we're far from successful.

Jamie Metzl (4:42:44.420)

I mean, we've had little minor successes,

Lex Fridman (4:42:46.940)

which we're very proud of.

Jamie Metzl (4:42:47.820)

We got the G20 leaders to incorporate the language

Lex Fridman (4:42:51.180)

that we provided on addressing the needs

Jamie Metzl (4:42:53.580)

of the world's most vulnerable populations

Lex Fridman (4:42:56.140)

into the final summit communique

Jamie Metzl (4:42:59.620)

from the G20 summit in Riyadh.

Lex Fridman (4:43:01.740)

This year, we're just on the verge

Jamie Metzl (4:43:03.700)

of having our language pat on the same issue,

Lex Fridman (4:43:07.220)

ensuring everyone on earth has access to safe water,

Jamie Metzl (4:43:10.100)

basic sanitation and hygiene,

Lex Fridman (4:43:11.500)

and essential pandemic protection by 2030

Jamie Metzl (4:43:14.580)

passed as part of a resolution in the United Nations

Lex Fridman (4:43:18.380)

General Assembly.

Lex Fridman (4:43:19.220)

And we're primarily, I mean, it's young people

Lex Fridman (4:43:22.100)

all around the world.

Lex Fridman (4:43:23.540)

And when I told them in the beginning of this year,

Lex Fridman (4:43:26.060)

this is our goal.

Jamie Metzl (4:43:26.900)

We're gonna get the UN General Assembly

Lex Fridman (4:43:28.980)

to pass a resolution with our language in it.

Jamie Metzl (4:43:32.300)

I mean, first, I think they all thought it was insane,

Lex Fridman (4:43:35.020)

but they were too young and inexperienced

Jamie Metzl (4:43:38.180)

to know how insane it was.

Lex Fridman (4:43:39.860)

But now these young people are just so excited

Jamie Metzl (4:43:42.140)

that it's actually happening.

Lex Fridman (4:43:43.740)

So what we're trying to do is really to create a movement,

Jamie Metzl (4:43:48.860)

which we don't feel that we need to do from scratch

Lex Fridman (4:43:51.580)

because there are a lot of movements.

Jamie Metzl (4:43:53.100)

Like right now, we just had the Glasgow G20,

Lex Fridman (4:43:56.660)

I mean, I'm sorry, the Glasgow Climate Change Cup 26,

Lex Fridman (4:44:00.380)

and then Greta Thunberg, who has a huge following

Lex Fridman (4:44:03.060)

and who is an amazing young woman,

Lex Fridman (4:44:05.780)

but I was kind of disappointed in what she said afterwards.

Lex Fridman (4:44:08.940)

It became like a meme on Twitter, which was blah, blah, blah.

Lex Fridman (4:44:13.060)

And basically it was like, blah, blah, blah,

Lex Fridman (4:44:15.100)

these old people are just screwing around

Lex Fridman (4:44:17.500)

and it's a waste of time.

Lex Fridman (4:44:18.860)

And definitely the critique is merited,

Lex Fridman (4:44:22.300)

but young people have never been more empowered,

Lex Fridman (4:44:25.660)

educated, connected than they are now.

Lex Fridman (4:44:29.260)

And so we've had a process with One Shared World

Lex Fridman (4:44:36.180)

where we partnered with the Model United Nations,

Jamie Metzl (4:44:39.660)

the Aga Khan Foundation, the India Sanitation Coalition.

Lex Fridman (4:44:42.260)

And what we did is say, all right, we have this goal,

Jamie Metzl (4:44:44.460)

water sanitation, hygiene, and pandemic protection

Lex Fridman (4:44:46.980)

for everyone on earth by 2030.

Lex Fridman (4:44:49.420)

And we had debates and consultations

Lex Fridman (4:44:52.100)

using the Model UN framework all around the world

Jamie Metzl (4:44:54.980)

in multiple languages.

Lex Fridman (4:44:56.860)

And we said, come up with a plan

Jamie Metzl (4:44:58.420)

for how this could be achieved.

Lex Fridman (4:44:59.620)

And these brilliant young people in every country,

Jamie Metzl (4:45:02.660)

not every country, most countries,

Lex Fridman (4:45:04.820)

they all contributed, then we had a plan.

Jamie Metzl (4:45:06.940)

Then I recruited friends of mine,

Lex Fridman (4:45:08.980)

like my friend Hans Carrell in Sweden,

Jamie Metzl (4:45:11.260)

who's the former chief counsel of the whole United Nations,

Lex Fridman (4:45:14.900)

and asked him and others to work with these young people

Lex Fridman (4:45:18.420)

and representatives to turn that

Lex Fridman (4:45:20.820)

into what looks exactly like a UN resolution.

Jamie Metzl (4:45:24.780)

It's just written by a bunch of kids all around the world.

Lex Fridman (4:45:28.380)

We then sent that to every permanent representative,

Jamie Metzl (4:45:31.660)

every government representative at the UN.

Lex Fridman (4:45:34.260)

And that was why working

Jamie Metzl (4:45:35.580)

with the German and Spanish governments,

Lex Fridman (4:45:37.180)

why the language is centralized from that document

Jamie Metzl (4:45:40.060)

is about to pass the UN.

Lex Fridman (4:45:41.900)

And it doesn't mean that just passing

Jamie Metzl (4:45:43.460)

a UN General Assembly resolution changes anything,

Lex Fridman (4:45:46.540)

but we think that there's a model of engaging people,

Jamie Metzl (4:45:49.860)

just like you're talking about,

Lex Fridman (4:45:50.820)

these people who are outside

Jamie Metzl (4:45:53.100)

of the traditional power structures

Lex Fridman (4:45:55.380)

and who want to have a voice.

Lex Fridman (4:45:57.940)

But I think we need to give a little bit of structure

Lex Fridman (4:46:00.020)

because just going, I'm a big fan of Global Citizen,

Lex Fridman (4:46:03.860)

but just going to a Global Citizen concert

Lex Fridman (4:46:06.740)

and waving your iPhone back and forth

Lex Fridman (4:46:09.020)

and tweeting about it isn't enough

Lex Fridman (4:46:11.660)

to drive the kind of change that's required.

Jamie Metzl (4:46:14.300)

We need to come together, even in untraditional ways,

Lex Fridman (4:46:17.860)

and articulate the change we want

Lex Fridman (4:46:20.020)

and build popular movements to make that happen.

Lex Fridman (4:46:22.900)

And popular means scale and movements at scale

Jamie Metzl (4:46:26.500)

that actually, at the individual level, do something

Lex Fridman (4:46:30.420)

and that's then magnified with the scale

Jamie Metzl (4:46:33.380)

to actually have significant impact.

Lex Fridman (4:46:35.300)

I mean, at its best, you hear a lot of folks talk

Jamie Metzl (4:46:39.700)

about the various cryptocurrencies as possibly helping.

Lex Fridman (4:46:44.500)

You have young people get involved

Jamie Metzl (4:46:46.980)

in challenging the power structures

Lex Fridman (4:46:49.380)

by challenging the monetary system.

Lex Fridman (4:46:51.220)

And there's, some of it is number go up,

Lex Fridman (4:46:56.580)

people get excited when they can make a little bit of money,

Lex Fridman (4:47:00.940)

but that's actually almost like an entry point

Lex Fridman (4:47:04.820)

because then you almost feel empowered.

Lex Fridman (4:47:07.660)

And because of that, you start to think

Lex Fridman (4:47:10.180)

about some of these philosophical ideas

Jamie Metzl (4:47:11.980)

that I, as a young person, have the power

Lex Fridman (4:47:15.220)

to change the world.

Jamie Metzl (4:47:16.740)

All of these senior folks in the position of power,

Lex Fridman (4:47:20.780)

they were, first of all, they were once young

Lex Fridman (4:47:24.220)

and powerless like me.

Lex Fridman (4:47:26.220)

And I could be part of the next generation

Jamie Metzl (4:47:29.420)

that makes a change.

Lex Fridman (4:47:30.260)

Well, all the things I see that are wrong

Jamie Metzl (4:47:32.060)

with the world, I can make it better.

Lex Fridman (4:47:34.620)

And it's very true that the overly powerful nations

Jamie Metzl (4:47:39.980)

of the world could be a relic of the past.

Lex Fridman (4:47:43.380)

That could be a 20th century and before idea

Jamie Metzl (4:47:47.940)

that was tried, created a lot of benefit,

Lex Fridman (4:47:52.580)

but we also saw the problems with that kind of world,

Jamie Metzl (4:47:56.580)

extreme nationalism.

Lex Fridman (4:47:58.980)

We see the benefits and the problems of the Cold War.

Jamie Metzl (4:48:02.660)

Arguably Cold War got us to the moon,

Lex Fridman (4:48:06.460)

but there could be other, a lot of other different

Jamie Metzl (4:48:08.580)

mechanisms that inspired competition,

Lex Fridman (4:48:11.220)

especially friendly competition between nations

Jamie Metzl (4:48:13.860)

versus adversarial competition that resulted

Lex Fridman (4:48:16.420)

in the response to COVID, for example,

Jamie Metzl (4:48:18.140)

with China and the United States and Russia

Lex Fridman (4:48:20.540)

and the secrecy, the censorship.

Jamie Metzl (4:48:25.900)

Yeah, and all the things that are basically

Lex Fridman (4:48:27.700)

against the spirit of science

Lex Fridman (4:48:31.420)

and resulted in the loss of trillions of dollars

Lex Fridman (4:48:34.100)

and the cost of countless lives.

Lex Fridman (4:48:37.620)

What gives you hope about the future, Jamie?

Lex Fridman (4:48:41.540)

Well, one of the things, you mentioned cryptocurrency

Lex Fridman (4:48:45.060)

and then as you know better than most,

Lex Fridman (4:48:47.900)

there's cryptocurrency and then underneath

Jamie Metzl (4:48:50.300)

the cryptocurrency, there's the blockchain

Lex Fridman (4:48:52.260)

and the distributed ledger.

Lex Fridman (4:48:54.100)

And then like we talked about, there are all these

Lex Fridman (4:48:56.380)

young people who are able to connect with each other,

Jamie Metzl (4:49:00.100)

to organize in new ways.

Lex Fridman (4:49:03.220)

And I work with these young people every single day

Jamie Metzl (4:49:07.100)

through One Shared World primarily,

Lex Fridman (4:49:09.460)

but also other things.

Lex Fridman (4:49:11.220)

And there's so much optimism.

Lex Fridman (4:49:13.180)

There's so much hope that I just have a lot of faith

Jamie Metzl (4:49:18.900)

that we're gonna figure something out.

Lex Fridman (4:49:20.620)

I'm an optimist by nature.

Lex Fridman (4:49:23.940)

And that doesn't mean that we need to be blind

Lex Fridman (4:49:26.700)

to the dangers.

Jamie Metzl (4:49:27.540)

There are very, very real dangers,

Lex Fridman (4:49:30.420)

but just given half the chance, people wanna be good.

Jamie Metzl (4:49:34.740)

People want to do the right thing.

Lex Fridman (4:49:37.180)

And I do believe that there's a role,

Jamie Metzl (4:49:40.060)

maybe there's a role for the at least near term

Lex Fridman (4:49:42.940)

for governments, but there's always a role for leadership.

Lex Fridman (4:49:46.780)

And I'm, I guess like a Gramscian in the sense

Lex Fridman (4:49:50.500)

that I think that we need to create frameworks

Lex Fridman (4:49:53.980)

and structures that allow leaders to emerge.

Lex Fridman (4:49:58.620)

And we need to build norms so that the leaders who emerge

Jamie Metzl (4:50:02.940)

are leaders who call on us, inspire our best instincts

Lex Fridman (4:50:08.180)

and not drive us toward our worst.

Lex Fridman (4:50:10.900)

But I really see a lot of hope.

Lex Fridman (4:50:13.740)

And when you say this all the time in your podcast,

Lex Fridman (4:50:19.460)

and you may even be more optimistic to me

Lex Fridman (4:50:21.780)

as you look at the darkest moments of human history

Lex Fridman (4:50:24.820)

and see hope, but we're kind of a crazy, wonderful species.

Lex Fridman (4:50:29.740)

I mean, yes, we figured out ways to slaughter each other

Jamie Metzl (4:50:32.500)

at scale, but we've come up with these wonderful philosophies

Lex Fridman (4:50:36.100)

about love and all of those things.

Lex Fridman (4:50:38.580)

And yeah, maybe the Bonobos have some love

Lex Fridman (4:50:41.980)

in their cultures, but this,

Jamie Metzl (4:50:43.940)

we're kind of a wonderful magical species.

Lex Fridman (4:50:46.180)

And if we just can create enough of an infrastructure,

Jamie Metzl (4:50:49.980)

doesn't need to be and shouldn't be controlling,

Lex Fridman (4:50:52.100)

just enough of an infrastructure

Lex Fridman (4:50:54.100)

so that people are stakeholders,

Lex Fridman (4:50:56.500)

feel like they're stakeholders

Jamie Metzl (4:50:57.740)

in contributing to a positive story,

Lex Fridman (4:51:00.340)

I just really feel the sky is the limit.

Lex Fridman (4:51:04.500)

So if there's somebody who's young right now,

Lex Fridman (4:51:06.900)

somebody in high school, somebody in college

Jamie Metzl (4:51:08.740)

listening to you, you've done a lot of incredible things.

Lex Fridman (4:51:12.380)

You're respected by a lot of the elites.

Jamie Metzl (4:51:17.380)

You're respected by the people.

Lex Fridman (4:51:20.860)

So you're both able to sort of speak to all groups,

Jamie Metzl (4:51:26.820)

walk through the fire, like you mentioned

Lex Fridman (4:51:29.860)

with the slab leak.

Lex Fridman (4:51:32.460)

What advice would you give to young kids today

Lex Fridman (4:51:36.740)

that are inspired by your story?

Jamie Metzl (4:51:38.540)

Well, thank you.

Lex Fridman (4:51:39.660)

I mean, I think there's one, there's lots of,

Jamie Metzl (4:51:41.780)

I'm honored if anybody is inspired,

Lex Fridman (4:51:44.300)

but it's the same thing as I said with the science

Jamie Metzl (4:51:48.300)

that it's all about values.

Lex Fridman (4:51:50.020)

The core of everything is knowing who you are.

Lex Fridman (4:51:54.020)

And so yes, I mean, there's the broader thing

Lex Fridman (4:51:56.460)

of follow your passions, a creative mind

Lex Fridman (4:52:01.460)

and an inquisitive mind is the core of everything

Lex Fridman (4:52:03.820)

because the knowledge base is constantly sharing.

Lex Fridman (4:52:06.540)

So learning how to learn,

Lex Fridman (4:52:09.020)

but at the core of everything is investing

Jamie Metzl (4:52:13.020)

in knowing who you are and what you stand for.

Lex Fridman (4:52:16.500)

Because that's the way, that's the path

Jamie Metzl (4:52:21.500)

to leading a meaningful life, to contributing,

Lex Fridman (4:52:24.460)

to not feeling alienated from your life as you get older.

Lex Fridman (4:52:28.820)

And just like you live, it's an ongoing process

Lex Fridman (4:52:34.180)

and we all make mistakes

Lex Fridman (4:52:35.740)

and we all kind of travel down wrong paths

Lex Fridman (4:52:38.700)

and just have some love for yourself

Lex Fridman (4:52:41.420)

and recognize that just at every,

Lex Fridman (4:52:44.300)

like I was saying with the Ironman,

Jamie Metzl (4:52:46.500)

just when you think there's no possibility

Lex Fridman (4:52:50.260)

that you can go on, there's a 100% possibility

Jamie Metzl (4:52:54.540)

that you can go on.

Lex Fridman (4:52:55.460)

And just when you think that nothing better

Jamie Metzl (4:52:58.060)

will happen to you, there's a 100% chance

Lex Fridman (4:53:02.020)

that something better will happen to you.

Jamie Metzl (4:53:03.660)

You just gotta keep going.

Lex Fridman (4:53:05.700)

Jamie, I've been a fan of yours.

Jamie Metzl (4:53:08.740)

I think first heard you on Joe Rogan Experience,

Lex Fridman (4:53:11.980)

but I've been following your work,

Jamie Metzl (4:53:13.860)

your bold, fearless work with speaking about the lab leak

Lex Fridman (4:53:18.580)

and everything you represent

Jamie Metzl (4:53:20.420)

from your brilliance to your kindness.

Lex Fridman (4:53:23.020)

And the fact that you spent your valuable time with me today

Lex Fridman (4:53:27.140)

and now I officially made you miss your flight.

Lex Fridman (4:53:31.620)

And the fact that you said that

Jamie Metzl (4:53:34.220)

whether you were being nice or not,

Lex Fridman (4:53:35.740)

I don't know that you will be okay with that

Jamie Metzl (4:53:38.260)

means the world to me.

Lex Fridman (4:53:39.420)

And I'm really honored that you spent your time with me today.

Jamie Metzl (4:53:42.180)

Well, really, it's been such a great pleasure

Lex Fridman (4:53:44.980)

and thank you for creating a forum

Jamie Metzl (4:53:48.100)

to have these kinds of long conversations.

Lex Fridman (4:53:51.020)

So I really enjoyed it and thank you.

Lex Fridman (4:53:53.860)

And if anybody has now listened for,

Lex Fridman (4:53:58.340)

what's it been, five and a half hours?

Jamie Metzl (4:53:59.900)

Yep.

Lex Fridman (4:54:00.740)

Thank you for listening.

Jamie Metzl (4:54:01.820)

Welcome to Five Hour Club.

Lex Fridman (4:54:03.940)

Represent.

Jamie Metzl (4:54:04.780)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (4:54:06.340)

Thank you, Jamie.

Jamie Metzl (4:54:07.180)

Thanks, Lex.

Lex Fridman (4:54:09.100)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Jamie Metzl (4:54:10.620)

with Jamie Metzl.

Lex Fridman (4:54:11.900)

To support this podcast,

Jamie Metzl (4:54:13.220)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (4:54:16.100)

And now let me leave you some words from Richard Feynman

Jamie Metzl (4:54:19.580)

about science and religion,

Lex Fridman (4:54:21.660)

which I think also applies to science and geopolitics

Jamie Metzl (4:54:24.860)

because I believe scientists have the responsibility

Lex Fridman (4:54:27.340)

to think broadly about the world

Lex Fridman (4:54:29.220)

so that they may understand the bigger impact

Lex Fridman (4:54:31.620)

of their inventions.

Jamie Metzl (4:54:33.540)

The quote goes like this,

Lex Fridman (4:54:34.940)

In this age of specialization,

Jamie Metzl (4:54:37.660)

men who thoroughly know one field

Lex Fridman (4:54:39.580)

are often incompetent to discuss another.

Jamie Metzl (4:54:42.940)

The old problems,

Lex Fridman (4:54:44.140)

such as the relation of science and religion,

Jamie Metzl (4:54:46.340)

are still with us

Lex Fridman (4:54:47.700)

and I believe present as difficult dilemmas as ever,

Lex Fridman (4:54:51.660)

but they are not often publicly discussed

Lex Fridman (4:54:54.020)

because of the limitations of specialization.

Jamie Metzl (4:54:57.780)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (50:02.240)

So I guess who's drafted the proposal?

Jamie Metzl (50:04.180)

Is it EcoHealth, but the proposal is to do research.

Lex Fridman (50:09.260)

EcoHealth is technically a US funded organization.

Jamie Metzl (50:14.660)

Primarily.

Lex Fridman (50:15.500)

And then the idea was to do work

Jamie Metzl (50:18.500)

at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (50:20.860)

With, yeah, so it was.

Jamie Metzl (50:22.340)

With EcoHealth.

Lex Fridman (50:23.160)

Yes, so EcoHealth, basically the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Jamie Metzl (50:26.980)

was gonna go and they were gonna collect these viruses

Lex Fridman (50:29.900)

and store them at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Lex Fridman (50:31.860)

But they're also gonna do the actual task.

Lex Fridman (50:33.660)

According, it's a really important point.

Jamie Metzl (50:35.500)

According to their proposal, the actual work

Lex Fridman (50:38.580)

was going to be done at the lab of Ralph Barak

Jamie Metzl (50:41.780)

at the University of North Carolina,

Lex Fridman (50:43.420)

who's probably the world's leading expert on coronaviruses.

Lex Fridman (50:47.860)

And so we know that DARPA didn't fund that work.

Lex Fridman (50:54.080)

We know, I think quite well that Ralph Barak's lab,

Jamie Metzl (50:59.080)

in part because it was not funded by DARPA,

Lex Fridman (51:04.080)

they didn't do that specific work.

Lex Fridman (51:06.200)

What we don't know is, well, what work was done

Lex Fridman (51:10.200)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Jamie Metzl (51:12.400)

because WIV was part of this proposal.

Lex Fridman (51:15.600)

They had access to all of the plans.

Jamie Metzl (51:18.280)

They had done, they had their own capacity

Lex Fridman (51:21.000)

and they had already done a lot of work

Jamie Metzl (51:23.520)

in genetically altering this exact category of viruses.

Lex Fridman (51:28.760)

They had created chimeric mixed viruses.

Jamie Metzl (51:33.240)

They had mastered pretty much all of the steps

Lex Fridman (51:37.680)

in order to achieve this thing that they applied

Jamie Metzl (51:39.920)

for funding with EcoHealth to do.

Lex Fridman (51:42.720)

And so the question is, did the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (51:47.720)

go through with that research anyway?

Lex Fridman (51:50.320)

And in my mind, that's a very, very real possibility.

Jamie Metzl (51:53.760)

It would certainly explain

Lex Fridman (51:54.600)

why they're giving no information.

Lex Fridman (51:57.000)

And as you know, I've been a member

Lex Fridman (51:59.920)

of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee

Jamie Metzl (52:02.520)

on Human Genome Editing, which Dr. Tedros created

Lex Fridman (52:06.000)

in the aftermath of the announcement

Jamie Metzl (52:07.720)

of the world's first CRISPR babies.

Lex Fridman (52:10.160)

And it was just basically the first time

Lex Fridman (52:11.760)

and it was just basically the exact same story.

Lex Fridman (52:14.320)

So Ho Chiang Kui, a Chinese scientist,

Jamie Metzl (52:16.720)

it was not a first tier scientist,

Lex Fridman (52:18.160)

but a perfectly adequate second tier scientist,

Jamie Metzl (52:21.240)

came to the United States, learned all of these capacities,

Lex Fridman (52:23.840)

went back to China and said,

Jamie Metzl (52:25.180)

well, there's a much more permissive environment.

Lex Fridman (52:28.160)

I'm gonna be a world leader.

Jamie Metzl (52:30.560)

I'm gonna establish both myself and China.

Lex Fridman (52:33.280)

So in every scientific field, we're seeing this same thing

Jamie Metzl (52:37.280)

where you kind of learn a model and then you do it in China.

Lex Fridman (52:41.540)

So is it possible that the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (52:45.640)

with this exact game plan was doing it anyway?

Lex Fridman (52:49.920)

Do we, possible?

Jamie Metzl (52:51.800)

We have no clue what work was being done

Lex Fridman (52:55.080)

at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Jamie Metzl (52:56.880)

It seems extremely likely

Lex Fridman (52:59.840)

that at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Lex Fridman (53:02.080)

and this is certainly the US government position,

Lex Fridman (53:04.520)

there was the work that was being done in Dr. Hsu's lab,

Lex Fridman (53:08.320)

but that wasn't the whole WIV.

Lex Fridman (53:10.320)

We know, at least according to the United States government,

Jamie Metzl (53:12.600)

that there was the Chinese military,

Lex Fridman (53:14.180)

that PLA was doing work there.

Jamie Metzl (53:17.560)

Were they doing this kind of work, not to create a bioweapon,

Lex Fridman (53:22.140)

but in order to understand these viruses,

Lex Fridman (53:25.120)

maybe to develop vaccines and treatments?

Lex Fridman (53:28.280)

It seems like a very, very logical possibility.

Lex Fridman (53:33.160)

And then, so we know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lex Fridman (53:36.280)

had all of the skills.

Jamie Metzl (53:37.600)

We know that they were part of this proposal.

Lex Fridman (53:40.640)

And then you have Peter Daszak, who knows all of this,

Jamie Metzl (53:43.760)

that at that time, in February of 2020, we didn't know.

Lex Fridman (53:47.360)

But then he comes swinging out of the gate,

Jamie Metzl (53:49.560)

saying anybody who's raising this possibility

Lex Fridman (53:52.600)

of a lab incident origin is a conspiracy theorist.

Jamie Metzl (53:57.000)

I mean, it really makes him look, in my mind,

Lex Fridman (54:00.480)

very, very bad.

Lex Fridman (54:01.400)

And yet, not to at least be somewhat open minded on this,

Lex Fridman (54:04.480)

because he knows all the details.

Jamie Metzl (54:06.080)

He knows that it's not 0%.

Lex Fridman (54:08.960)

I mean, there's no way in his mind could you even argue that.

Lex Fridman (54:12.040)

So it's potential because of the bias,

Lex Fridman (54:14.160)

because of your focus.

Jamie Metzl (54:16.120)

I mean, it could be the Anthony Fauci masks thing,

Lex Fridman (54:20.240)

whereas he knows there's some significant probability

Jamie Metzl (54:23.280)

that this is happening.

Lex Fridman (54:24.200)

But in order to preserve good relations

Jamie Metzl (54:28.680)

with our Chinese colleagues,

Lex Fridman (54:30.120)

we want to make sure we tell a certain kind of narrative.

Lex Fridman (54:33.000)

So it's not really lying.

Lex Fridman (54:34.720)

It's doing the best possible action at this time

Jamie Metzl (54:39.200)

to help the world.

Lex Fridman (54:40.400)

Not that this already happened.

Lex Fridman (54:42.160)

But that's how like...

Lex Fridman (54:43.760)

I think it's quite likely that that was the story

Jamie Metzl (54:47.480)

that he was telling himself.

Lex Fridman (54:49.440)

But it's that lack of transparency, in my mind,

Jamie Metzl (54:55.280)

is fraudulent, that we were struggling

Lex Fridman (54:59.320)

to understand something that we didn't understand.

Lex Fridman (55:02.520)

And that I just think that people who possess

Lex Fridman (55:05.280)

that kind of information, especially when the existence,

Jamie Metzl (55:10.040)

like the entire career of Peter Daszak

Lex Fridman (55:12.280)

is based on US taxpayers,

Jamie Metzl (55:14.320)

there's a debt that comes with that.

Lex Fridman (55:16.760)

And that debt is honesty and transparency.

Lex Fridman (55:19.040)

And for all of us, and you talked about

Lex Fridman (55:21.000)

your girlfriend checking your phone.

Jamie Metzl (55:22.880)

For all of us, being honest and transparent

Lex Fridman (55:26.280)

in the most difficult times is really difficult.

Jamie Metzl (55:29.240)

If it were easy, everybody would do it.

Lex Fridman (55:31.360)

And I just feel that Peter was the opposite of transparent

Lex Fridman (55:37.400)

and then went on the offensive.

Lex Fridman (55:39.800)

And then had the gall of joining,

Jamie Metzl (55:44.400)

I know we can talk about this,

Lex Fridman (55:46.080)

this highly compromised joint study process

Jamie Metzl (55:51.560)

with the international experts

Lex Fridman (55:54.360)

and their Chinese government counterparts.

Lex Fridman (55:56.640)

And used that as a way of furthering

Lex Fridman (55:59.960)

this, in my mind, fraudulent narrative

Jamie Metzl (56:05.040)

that it almost certainly came from natural origins

Lex Fridman (56:09.040)

and a lab origin was extremely unlikely.

Jamie Metzl (56:12.760)

Just to stick briefly on the proposal to wrap that up,

Lex Fridman (56:15.920)

because I do think, in a kind of John Stewart way,

Jamie Metzl (56:22.000)

if you heard that a bit yet,

Lex Fridman (56:25.440)

sort of kind of like common sense way,

Jamie Metzl (56:30.480)

the 2018 proposal to DARPA from EcoHealth Alliance

Lex Fridman (56:35.400)

and Wuhan Institute of Virology,

Jamie Metzl (56:38.240)

just seems like a bit of a smoking gun to me, like that.

Lex Fridman (56:43.680)

So there's this excellent book that people should read

Jamie Metzl (56:46.800)

called Viral, The Search for the Origin of COVID 19.

Lex Fridman (56:50.280)

Matt Ridley and Alena Chan, I think Alena is in MIT.

Jamie Metzl (56:54.480)

Probably. At the Broad, yeah.

Lex Fridman (56:55.760)

At Broad Institute, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (56:57.800)

So she, I heard her in an interview

Lex Fridman (57:00.840)

give this analogy of unicorns.

Lex Fridman (57:04.040)

And where basically somebody writes a proposal

Lex Fridman (57:09.200)

to add horns to horses, the proposal is rejected.

Lex Fridman (57:14.520)

And then a couple of years later or a year later,

Lex Fridman (57:17.800)

a unicorn shows up.

Jamie Metzl (57:19.920)

In the place where they're proposing to do it.

Lex Fridman (57:23.240)

I mean, that's so, I had.

Lex Fridman (57:24.080)

And then everyone's like, it's natural origin.

Lex Fridman (57:26.800)

It's like, it's possible it's natural origin.

Jamie Metzl (57:29.000)

Like we haven't detected a unicorn yet.

Lex Fridman (57:31.000)

And this is the first time we've detected a unicorn.

Jamie Metzl (57:33.720)

Or it could be this massive organization

Lex Fridman (57:36.800)

that was planning, is fully equipped,

Jamie Metzl (57:39.520)

has like a history of being able to do this stuff,

Lex Fridman (57:42.840)

has the world experts to do it, has the funding,

Jamie Metzl (57:45.120)

has the motivation to add horns to horses.

Lex Fridman (57:48.600)

And now a unicorn shows up and they're saying, nope.

Jamie Metzl (57:52.160)

Definitely natural.

Lex Fridman (57:54.360)

That connects to your first question

Lex Fridman (57:56.800)

of how do I get to my 85%?

Lex Fridman (57:59.160)

And here's a summary of that answer.

Lex Fridman (58:03.080)

And so it's what I said in my 60 Minutes interview

Lex Fridman (58:06.280)

a long time ago, of all the gin joints

Lex Fridman (58:07.960)

and all the towns and all the world,

Lex Fridman (58:09.240)

the quote from Casablanca.

Lex Fridman (58:11.800)

And so of all the places in the world

Lex Fridman (58:14.600)

where we have an outbreak of a SARS like bat coronavirus,

Jamie Metzl (58:19.600)

it's not in the area of the natural habitat

Lex Fridman (58:23.320)

of the horseshoe bats.

Jamie Metzl (58:25.400)

It's the one city in China

Lex Fridman (58:28.920)

with the first and largest level four virology lab,

Jamie Metzl (58:33.080)

which actually wasn't even using it.

Lex Fridman (58:34.680)

They were doing level three and level two for this work,

Jamie Metzl (58:38.160)

where they had the world's largest collection

Lex Fridman (58:39.840)

of bat coronaviruses,

Jamie Metzl (58:41.960)

where they were doing aggressive experiments

Lex Fridman (58:45.200)

designed to make these scary viruses scarier,

Jamie Metzl (58:49.760)

where they had been part of an application

Lex Fridman (58:52.960)

to insert a furin cleavage site,

Jamie Metzl (58:56.040)

able to infect human cells.

Lex Fridman (58:59.920)

And when the outbreak happened,

Jamie Metzl (59:02.960)

we had a virus that was ready for action to infect humans.

Lex Fridman (59:07.120)

And to this day, better able to infect humans

Jamie Metzl (59:09.800)

than any other species, including bats.

Lex Fridman (59:13.440)

And then from day one, there's this massive coverup.

Lex Fridman (59:17.400)

And then on top of that,

Lex Fridman (59:19.080)

in spite of lots of efforts by lots of people,

Jamie Metzl (59:21.880)

there's basically no evidence

Lex Fridman (59:24.680)

for the natural origin hypothesis.

Jamie Metzl (59:27.280)

Everything that I've described just now is circumstantial,

Lex Fridman (59:29.920)

but there's a certain point

Jamie Metzl (59:31.760)

where you add up the circumstances

Lex Fridman (59:34.240)

and you see this seems pretty, pretty likely.

Jamie Metzl (59:37.520)

I mean, if we're getting to 100%,

Lex Fridman (59:39.560)

we are not at 100% by any means.

Jamie Metzl (59:42.160)

There still is a possibility of a natural origin.

Lex Fridman (59:45.320)

And if we find that, great.

Lex Fridman (59:46.840)

But from everything that I know,

Lex Fridman (59:48.920)

that's how I get to my 85.

Lex Fridman (59:50.600)

And we'll talk about why this matters

Lex Fridman (59:53.960)

in the political sense, in the human sense,

Jamie Metzl (59:56.320)

in the science, in the realm of science,

Lex Fridman (59:59.040)

all of those factors.