Niall Ferguson: History of Money, Power, War, and Truth
历史与文明政治与社会技术与编程音乐与艺术生物与进化
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historymoneydonwaruniversitygoingfinancialhumansaidintellectualthoughtcenturyacademichopegotbritainideasscienceimportantaustin
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🎙️ 完整对话（3223 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Neil Ferguson,
以下是与尼尔·弗格森的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:02.640)
one of the great historians of our time,
我们这个时代最伟大的历史学家之一，
Lex Fridman (00:04.960)
at times controversial and always brilliant,
时而充满争议，时而才华横溢，
Lex Fridman (00:07.660)
whether you agree with him or not.
不管你是否同意他的观点。
Lex Fridman (00:09.760)
He's an author of 16 books on topics covering
他是 16 本书的作者，主题涵盖
Niall Ferguson (00:13.840)
the history of money, power, war, pandemics, and empire.
金钱、权力、战争、流行病和帝国的历史。
Lex Fridman (00:18.440)
Previously at Harvard, currently at Stanford,
之前就读于哈佛大学，现在就读于斯坦福大学，
Lex Fridman (00:21.360)
and today launching a new university here in Austin, Texas
今天在德克萨斯州奥斯汀开设了一所新大学
Lex Fridman (00:25.920)
called the University of Austin,
名为奥斯汀大学，
Niall Ferguson (00:28.680)
a new institution built from the ground up
一个从头开始建立的新机构
Lex Fridman (00:31.840)
to encourage open inquiry and discourse
鼓励公开询问和讨论
Niall Ferguson (00:34.520)
by both thinkers and doers,
无论是思想家还是实干家，
Lex Fridman (00:36.240)
from philosophers and historians
来自哲学家和历史学家
Niall Ferguson (00:38.120)
to scientists and engineers,
对于科学家和工程师来说，
Lex Fridman (00:40.200)
embracing debate, dissent, and self examination,
拥抱辩论、异议和自我审视，
Niall Ferguson (00:43.900)
free to speak, to disagree, to think,
自由发言、自由表达意见、自由思考、
Lex Fridman (00:46.880)
to explore truly novel ideas.
探索真正新颖的想法。
Niall Ferguson (00:49.740)
The advisory board includes Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt,
顾问委员会包括 Steven Pinker、Jonathan Haidt、
Lex Fridman (00:53.120)
and many other amazing people with one exception, me.
和许多其他了不起的人，但只有一个例外，那就是我。
Niall Ferguson (00:58.120)
I was graciously invited to be on the advisory board,
我被盛情邀请加入顾问委员会，
Lex Fridman (01:01.240)
which I accepted in the hope of doing my small part
Niall Ferguson (01:04.320)
in helping build the future of education and open discourse,
Lex Fridman (01:08.060)
especially in the fields of artificial intelligence,
Niall Ferguson (01:10.480)
robotics, and computing.
Lex Fridman (01:12.200)
We spend the first hour of this conversation
Niall Ferguson (01:14.460)
talking about this new university
Lex Fridman (01:16.560)
before switching to talking about
Niall Ferguson (01:18.880)
some of the darkest moments in human history
Lex Fridman (01:21.080)
and what they reveal about human nature.
Niall Ferguson (01:24.520)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
Lex Fridman (01:26.500)
To support it, please check out our sponsors
Niall Ferguson (01:28.660)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (01:29.920)
And now, here's my conversation with Neil Ferguson.
Niall Ferguson (01:35.040)
You are one of the great historians of our time,
Lex Fridman (01:37.280)
respected, sometimes controversial.
Niall Ferguson (01:40.100)
You have flourished in some of the best universities
Lex Fridman (01:42.160)
in the world, from NYU to London School of Economics,
Niall Ferguson (01:45.180)
to Harvard, and now to Hoover Institution at Stanford.
Lex Fridman (01:49.480)
Before we talk about the history of money, war, and power,
Niall Ferguson (01:53.220)
let us talk about a new university.
Lex Fridman (01:55.740)
You're a part of launching here in Austin, Texas.
Niall Ferguson (01:59.720)
It is called University of Austin, UATX.
Lex Fridman (02:04.880)
What is its mission, its goals, its plan?
Niall Ferguson (02:09.320)
I think it's pretty obvious to a lot of people
Lex Fridman (02:13.960)
in higher education that there's a problem.
Lex Fridman (02:17.600)
And that problem manifests itself
Lex Fridman (02:19.480)
in a great many different ways.
Lex Fridman (02:22.060)
But I would sum up the problem
Lex Fridman (02:24.240)
as being a drastic chilling of the atmosphere
Niall Ferguson (02:30.560)
that constrains free speech, free exchange,
Lex Fridman (02:34.480)
even free thought.
Lex Fridman (02:36.680)
And I had never anticipated
Lex Fridman (02:38.440)
that this would happen in my lifetime.
Niall Ferguson (02:40.360)
My academic career began in Oxford in the 1980s
Lex Fridman (02:43.080)
when anything went.
Niall Ferguson (02:45.520)
One sensed that a university was a place
Lex Fridman (02:48.000)
where one could risk saying the unsayable
Lex Fridman (02:51.280)
and debate the undebatable.
Lex Fridman (02:54.320)
So the fact that in a relatively short space of time,
Niall Ferguson (02:58.640)
a variety of ideas, critical race theory or wokeism,
Lex Fridman (03:02.160)
whatever you want to call it,
Niall Ferguson (03:02.980)
a variety of ideas have come along
Lex Fridman (03:04.880)
that seek to limit and quite drastically limit
Lex Fridman (03:08.040)
what we can talk about strikes me as deeply unhealthy.
Lex Fridman (03:12.600)
And I'm not sure, and I've thought about this
Niall Ferguson (03:14.500)
for a long time, you can fix it
Lex Fridman (03:15.880)
with the existing institutions.
Niall Ferguson (03:18.680)
I think you need to create a new one.
Lex Fridman (03:20.080)
And so after much deliberation,
Niall Ferguson (03:22.480)
we decided to do it.
Lex Fridman (03:24.000)
And I think it's a hugely timely opportunity
Niall Ferguson (03:29.960)
to do what people used to do in this country,
Lex Fridman (03:33.080)
which was to create new institutions.
Niall Ferguson (03:34.640)
I mean, that used to be the default setting of America.
Lex Fridman (03:37.520)
We sort of stopped doing that.
Niall Ferguson (03:38.600)
I mean, I look back and I thought,
Lex Fridman (03:39.560)
why are there no new universities?
Niall Ferguson (03:41.840)
Or at least if there are,
Lex Fridman (03:42.960)
why do they have so little impact?
Niall Ferguson (03:45.080)
It seems like we have the billionaires,
Lex Fridman (03:48.000)
we have the need, let's do it.
Lex Fridman (03:50.440)
So you still believe in institutions,
Lex Fridman (03:53.080)
in the university, in the ideal of the university?
Niall Ferguson (03:56.040)
I believe passionately in that ideal.
Lex Fridman (03:59.200)
There's a reason they've been around for nearly a millennium.
Niall Ferguson (04:02.780)
There is a unique thing that happens
Lex Fridman (04:08.420)
on a university campus when it's done right.
Lex Fridman (04:11.960)
And that is the transfer of knowledge between generations.
Lex Fridman (04:16.580)
That is a very sacred activity.
Lex Fridman (04:18.320)
And it seems to withstand major changes in technology.
Lex Fridman (04:22.840)
So this form that we call the university predates
Niall Ferguson (04:25.700)
the printing press, survive the printing press,
Lex Fridman (04:29.620)
continue to function through the scientific revolution,
Niall Ferguson (04:32.080)
the enlightenment, the industrial revolution to this day.
Lex Fridman (04:37.320)
And I think it's because,
Niall Ferguson (04:39.320)
maybe because of evolutionary psychology,
Lex Fridman (04:41.580)
we need to be together in one relatively confined space
Niall Ferguson (04:48.720)
when we're in our late teens and early twenties
Lex Fridman (04:51.840)
for the knowledge transfer between the generations
Niall Ferguson (04:54.420)
to happen.
Lex Fridman (04:56.320)
That's my feeling about this,
Lex Fridman (04:58.200)
but in order for it to work well,
Lex Fridman (05:00.720)
there needs to be very few constraints.
Niall Ferguson (05:03.680)
There needs to be a sense
Lex Fridman (05:05.720)
that one can take intellectual risk.
Niall Ferguson (05:07.880)
Remember, people in their late teens and early twenties
Lex Fridman (05:10.760)
are adults, but they're inexperienced adults.
Lex Fridman (05:14.220)
And if I look back on my own time as an undergraduate,
Lex Fridman (05:17.720)
saying stupid things was my MO.
Niall Ferguson (05:21.680)
My way to finding good ideas
Lex Fridman (05:24.960)
was through a minefield of bad ideas.
Niall Ferguson (05:28.720)
I feel so sorry for people like me today,
Lex Fridman (05:33.260)
people age 18, 19, 20 today,
Niall Ferguson (05:36.120)
who are intellectually very curious
Lex Fridman (05:40.480)
ambitious, but inexperienced
Niall Ferguson (05:42.960)
because the minefields today are absolutely lethal.
Lex Fridman (05:47.880)
And one wrong foot and it's cancellation.
Niall Ferguson (05:52.080)
I said this to Peter Thiel the other day,
Lex Fridman (05:54.380)
imagine being us now.
Niall Ferguson (05:57.000)
I mean, we were obnoxious undergraduates.
Lex Fridman (06:01.200)
There's nothing that Peter did at Stanford
Niall Ferguson (06:03.520)
that Andrew Sullivan and I were not doing at Oxford.
Lex Fridman (06:06.400)
And perhaps we were even worse,
Lex Fridman (06:08.040)
but it was so not career ending
Lex Fridman (06:11.680)
to be an absolutely insufferable,
Niall Ferguson (06:17.200)
obnoxious undergraduate then.
Lex Fridman (06:21.040)
Today, if people like us exist today,
Niall Ferguson (06:24.520)
they must live in a state of constant anxiety
Lex Fridman (06:28.240)
that they're going to be outed for some heretical statement
Niall Ferguson (06:32.880)
that they made five years ago on social media.
Lex Fridman (06:35.260)
So part of what motivates me
Niall Ferguson (06:37.360)
is the desire to give the me's of today a shot
Lex Fridman (06:42.760)
at free thinking and really,
Niall Ferguson (06:46.800)
I'd call it aggressive learning,
Lex Fridman (06:51.800)
learning where you're really pushed.
Lex Fridman (06:54.320)
And I just think that stopped happening
Lex Fridman (06:56.360)
on the major campuses because whether at Harvard
Niall Ferguson (06:59.440)
where I used to teach or at Stanford where I'm now based,
Lex Fridman (07:02.680)
I sense a kind of suffocating atmosphere of self censorship
Niall Ferguson (07:07.080)
that means people are afraid
Lex Fridman (07:09.560)
to take even minimal risk in class.
Niall Ferguson (07:12.480)
I mean, just take, for example,
Lex Fridman (07:14.720)
a survey that was published earlier this year
Niall Ferguson (07:17.720)
that revealed this is of undergraduates
Lex Fridman (07:20.360)
in four year programs in the US.
Niall Ferguson (07:23.760)
85% of self described liberal students
Lex Fridman (07:26.600)
said they would report a professor
Niall Ferguson (07:28.760)
to the university administration
Lex Fridman (07:30.800)
if he or she said something they considered offensive.
Lex Fridman (07:33.760)
And something like 75% said they do it
Lex Fridman (07:36.560)
to a fellow undergraduate.
Niall Ferguson (07:38.080)
That's the kind of culture
Lex Fridman (07:39.700)
that's evolved in our universities.
Lex Fridman (07:41.740)
So we need a new university in which none of that is true,
Lex Fridman (07:44.760)
in which you can speak your mind, say stupid things,
Niall Ferguson (07:48.120)
get it completely wrong and live to tell the tale.
Lex Fridman (07:52.460)
There's a lot more going on, I think,
Niall Ferguson (07:54.280)
because when you start thinking about
Lex Fridman (07:56.280)
what's wrong with a modern university,
Niall Ferguson (07:58.340)
many, many more things suggest themselves.
Lex Fridman (08:01.800)
And I think there's an opportunity here
Niall Ferguson (08:03.520)
to build something that's radically new in some ways
Lex Fridman (08:06.980)
and radically traditional in other ways.
Niall Ferguson (08:10.120)
For example, I have a strong preference
Lex Fridman (08:11.880)
for the tutorial system that you see at Oxford and Cambridge,
Niall Ferguson (08:15.400)
which is small group teaching
Lex Fridman (08:17.760)
and highly Socratic in its structure.
Niall Ferguson (08:21.320)
I think it'd be great to bring that to the United States
Lex Fridman (08:23.640)
where it doesn't really exist.
Lex Fridman (08:25.760)
But at the same time,
Lex Fridman (08:26.600)
I think we should be doing some very 21st century things,
Niall Ferguson (08:30.880)
making sure that while people are reading and studying
Lex Fridman (08:33.960)
classic works, they're also going to be immersed
Niall Ferguson (08:37.400)
in the real world of technological innovation,
Lex Fridman (08:41.680)
a world that you know very well.
Lex Fridman (08:44.280)
And I'd love to get a synthesis of the ancient and classical,
Lex Fridman (08:49.640)
which we're gradually letting fade away
Niall Ferguson (08:52.280)
with the novel and technological.
Lex Fridman (08:55.520)
So we wanna produce people who can simultaneously
Niall Ferguson (08:58.560)
talk intelligently about Adam Smith,
Lex Fridman (09:02.560)
or for that matter, Shakespeare or Proust,
Lex Fridman (09:06.440)
and have a conversation with you about where AI is going
Lex Fridman (09:11.560)
and how long it will be before I can get driven here
Niall Ferguson (09:14.920)
by a self driving vehicle,
Lex Fridman (09:17.040)
allowing me to have my lunch and prepare
Niall Ferguson (09:18.800)
rather than focus on the other crazy people on the road.
Lex Fridman (09:22.280)
So that's the dream that we can create something
Niall Ferguson (09:25.320)
which is partly classical and partly 21st century.
Lex Fridman (09:29.200)
And we look around and we don't see it.
Niall Ferguson (09:31.120)
If you don't see an institution
Lex Fridman (09:33.000)
that you really think should exist,
Niall Ferguson (09:35.080)
I think you have a more responsibility to create it.
Lex Fridman (09:38.080)
So you're thinking including something bigger
Niall Ferguson (09:41.960)
than just liberal education,
Lex Fridman (09:43.200)
also including science, engineering and technology.
Niall Ferguson (09:46.080)
I should also comment that I mostly stay out of politics
Lex Fridman (09:51.080)
and out of some of these aspects of liberal education
Niall Ferguson (09:55.680)
that's kind of been the most controversial
Lex Fridman (09:57.480)
and difficult within the university.
Lex Fridman (09:59.560)
But there is a kind of ripple effect of fear
Lex Fridman (10:04.480)
within that space into science and engineering
Lex Fridman (10:08.920)
and technology that I think has a nature
Lex Fridman (10:14.480)
that's difficult to describe.
Niall Ferguson (10:16.160)
It doesn't have a controversial nature.
Lex Fridman (10:17.680)
It just has a nature of fear
Niall Ferguson (10:19.360)
where you're not, you mentioned saying stupid stuff
Lex Fridman (10:22.560)
as a young 20 year old.
Niall Ferguson (10:27.200)
For example, deep learning, machine learning
Lex Fridman (10:30.080)
is really popular in the computer science now
Niall Ferguson (10:32.760)
as an approach for creating artificial intelligence systems.
Lex Fridman (10:36.000)
It is controversial in that space
Niall Ferguson (10:40.000)
to say that anything against machine learning,
Lex Fridman (10:43.640)
saying, sort of exploring ideas that saying
Niall Ferguson (10:46.440)
this is going to lead to a dead end.
Lex Fridman (10:49.600)
Now, that takes some guts to do as a young 20 year old
Niall Ferguson (10:54.120)
within a classroom to think like that,
Lex Fridman (10:57.320)
to raise that question in a machine learning course.
Niall Ferguson (10:59.720)
It sounds ridiculous because it's like
Lex Fridman (11:01.360)
who's going to complain about this?
Lex Fridman (11:03.800)
But the fear that starts in a course on history
Lex Fridman (11:10.160)
or on some course that covers society,
Niall Ferguson (11:13.560)
the fear ripples and affects those students
Lex Fridman (11:16.920)
that are asking big out of the box questions
Niall Ferguson (11:18.840)
about engineering, about computer science.
Lex Fridman (11:22.080)
And there's a lot, there's like linear algebra
Niall Ferguson (11:24.480)
that's not going to change,
Lex Fridman (11:26.160)
but then there's like applied linear algebra,
Niall Ferguson (11:29.120)
which is machine learning.
Lex Fridman (11:30.160)
And that's when robots and real systems touch human beings.
Lex Fridman (11:34.920)
And that's when you have to ask yourself
Lex Fridman (11:36.800)
these difficult questions about humanity,
Niall Ferguson (11:39.960)
even in the engineering and science and technology courses.
Lex Fridman (11:42.960)
And these are not separate worlds in two senses.
Niall Ferguson (11:46.400)
I've just taken delivery of my copy of the book
Lex Fridman (11:50.040)
that Eric Schmidt and Henry Kissinger have coauthored
Niall Ferguson (11:53.640)
on artificial intelligence,
Lex Fridman (11:55.000)
the central question of which is,
Lex Fridman (11:56.600)
what does this mean for us broadly?
Lex Fridman (11:59.640)
But they're not separate worlds in C.P. Snow's sense
Niall Ferguson (12:04.080)
of the chasm between science and arts,
Lex Fridman (12:07.040)
because on a university campus,
Niall Ferguson (12:09.800)
everything is contagious from a novel coronavirus
Lex Fridman (12:13.640)
to the behaviors that are occurring
Niall Ferguson (12:16.320)
in the English department.
Lex Fridman (12:18.360)
Those behaviors, if denunciation becomes a norm,
Niall Ferguson (12:23.360)
undergraduate denounces professor,
Lex Fridman (12:25.160)
teaching assistant denounces undergraduate,
Niall Ferguson (12:27.040)
those behaviors are contagious
Lex Fridman (12:28.240)
and will spread inextricably first to social science
Lex Fridman (12:31.000)
and then to natural sciences.
Lex Fridman (12:32.480)
And I think that's part of the reason why
Niall Ferguson (12:35.960)
when this started to happen,
Lex Fridman (12:37.360)
when we started to get the origins of disinvitation
Lex Fridman (12:40.840)
and cancel culture,
Lex Fridman (12:42.360)
it was not just a few conservative professors
Niall Ferguson (12:45.480)
in the humanities who had to worry,
Lex Fridman (12:47.280)
everybody had to worry,
Niall Ferguson (12:48.560)
because eventually it was going to come
Lex Fridman (12:51.600)
even to the most apparently hard stem part of the campus.
Niall Ferguson (12:57.680)
It's contagious.
Lex Fridman (12:58.880)
This is something Nicholas Christakis should look at
Niall Ferguson (13:00.880)
because he's very good at looking at the way
Lex Fridman (13:03.200)
in which social networks like the ones that exist
Niall Ferguson (13:06.080)
in a university can spread everything.
Lex Fridman (13:08.720)
But I think when we look back and ask,
Lex Fridman (13:10.560)
why did wokeism spread so rapidly
Lex Fridman (13:13.560)
and rapidly out of humanities
Lex Fridman (13:15.600)
into other parts of universities?
Lex Fridman (13:17.160)
And why did it spread across the country
Lex Fridman (13:19.560)
and beyond the United States
Lex Fridman (13:21.600)
to the other English speaking universities?
Niall Ferguson (13:23.440)
It's because it's a contagion.
Lex Fridman (13:25.680)
And these behaviors are contagious.
Niall Ferguson (13:28.520)
The president of a university I won't name said to me
Lex Fridman (13:32.680)
that he receives every day at least one denunciation,
Niall Ferguson (13:37.520)
one call for somebody or other to be fired
Lex Fridman (13:40.880)
for something that they said.
Niall Ferguson (13:43.080)
That's the crazy kind of totalitarianism light
Lex Fridman (13:46.880)
that now exists in our universities.
Lex Fridman (13:50.600)
And of course the people who want to downplay this say,
Lex Fridman (13:52.760)
oh, well, there only have been a hundred and something
Niall Ferguson (13:54.760)
in disinvitations or,
Lex Fridman (13:56.280)
oh, there really aren't that many cases.
Lex Fridman (13:57.920)
But the point is that the famous events,
Lex Fridman (14:00.400)
the events that get the attention
Niall Ferguson (14:02.520)
are responsible for a general chilling
Lex Fridman (14:05.040)
that as you say, spreads to every part of the university
Lex Fridman (14:07.880)
and creates a very familiar culture
Lex Fridman (14:10.840)
in which people are afraid to say what they think.
Niall Ferguson (14:13.440)
Self censorship, look at the heterodox academy data on this
Lex Fridman (14:16.880)
grows and grows.
Lex Fridman (14:17.880)
So now a majority of students will say,
Lex Fridman (14:20.400)
this is clear from the latest heterodox academy surveys,
Niall Ferguson (14:23.000)
we are scared to say what we think
Lex Fridman (14:24.760)
in case we get denounced, in case we get canceled.
Lex Fridman (14:28.560)
But that's just not the correct atmosphere
Lex Fridman (14:31.320)
for a university in a free society.
Niall Ferguson (14:33.960)
To me, what's really creepy
Lex Fridman (14:36.600)
is how many of the behaviors I see
Niall Ferguson (14:39.120)
on university campuses today are reminiscent
Lex Fridman (14:41.600)
of the way that people used to behave in the Soviet Union
Niall Ferguson (14:44.720)
or in the Soviet block or in Maoist China.
Lex Fridman (14:47.280)
The sort of totalitarianism light
Niall Ferguson (14:49.760)
that I think we're contending with here,
Lex Fridman (14:52.760)
which manifests itself as denunciations,
Niall Ferguson (14:56.480)
people informing on superiors.
Lex Fridman (14:59.680)
Some people using it for career advantage.
Niall Ferguson (15:02.800)
Other people reduced to helpless desperate apology
Lex Fridman (15:07.080)
to try to exonerate themselves.
Niall Ferguson (15:09.000)
People disappearing metaphorically, if not literally.
Lex Fridman (15:12.440)
All of this is so reminiscent of the totalitarian regimes
Niall Ferguson (15:16.080)
that I studied earlier in my career
Lex Fridman (15:17.760)
that it makes me feel sick.
Lex Fridman (15:20.120)
And what makes me really feel sick
Lex Fridman (15:21.480)
is that the people doing this stuff,
Niall Ferguson (15:23.680)
the people who write the letters of denunciation
Lex Fridman (15:26.520)
are apparently unaware that they're behaving exactly
Niall Ferguson (15:29.280)
like people in Stalin's Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (15:31.200)
They don't know that.
Lex Fridman (15:32.600)
So they clearly have,
Lex Fridman (15:33.720)
there's been a massive educational failure.
Niall Ferguson (15:36.040)
If somebody can write an anonymous
Lex Fridman (15:37.680)
or non anonymous letter of denunciation and not feel shame.
Niall Ferguson (15:41.200)
I mean, you should feel morally completely contaminated
Lex Fridman (15:44.600)
as you're doing that, but people haven't been taught
Niall Ferguson (15:47.560)
the realities of totalitarianism.
Lex Fridman (15:49.760)
For all these reasons, I think you need to try
Niall Ferguson (15:52.600)
at least to create a new institution
Lex Fridman (15:54.840)
where those pathologies will be structurally excluded.
Lex Fridman (16:01.840)
So maybe a difficult question.
Lex Fridman (16:04.080)
Maybe you'll push back on this,
Lex Fridman (16:06.040)
but you're widely seen politically as a conservative.
Lex Fridman (16:09.160)
Hoover Institution is politically conservative.
Lex Fridman (16:12.440)
What is the role of politics at the University of Austin?
Lex Fridman (16:15.920)
Because some of the ideas, people listening to this,
Niall Ferguson (16:18.760)
when they hear the ideas you're expressing,
Lex Fridman (16:21.280)
they may think there's a lean to these ideas.
Niall Ferguson (16:23.960)
There's a conservative lean to these ideas.
Lex Fridman (16:26.200)
Is there such a lean?
Niall Ferguson (16:28.320)
There will certainly be people who say that
Lex Fridman (16:30.160)
because the standard mode of trying to discredit
Niall Ferguson (16:34.760)
any new initiative is to say,
Lex Fridman (16:36.600)
oh, this is a sinister conservative plot.
Lex Fridman (16:41.840)
But one of our cofounders, Heather Heying,
Lex Fridman (16:45.600)
is definitely not a conservative.
Niall Ferguson (16:49.160)
She's as committed to the idea of academic freedom as I am.
Lex Fridman (16:53.280)
But I think on political issues,
Niall Ferguson (16:54.680)
we probably agree on almost nothing.
Lex Fridman (16:57.320)
And at least I would guess.
Lex Fridman (17:00.240)
But politics, Max Weber made this point a long time ago,
Lex Fridman (17:04.720)
that politics really should stop at the threshold
Niall Ferguson (17:07.320)
of the classroom, of the lecture hall.
Lex Fridman (17:09.720)
And in my career, I've always tried to make sure
Niall Ferguson (17:11.920)
that when I'm teaching,
Lex Fridman (17:13.680)
it's not clear where I stand politically,
Niall Ferguson (17:17.960)
though of course undergraduates
Lex Fridman (17:19.640)
insatiably curiously want to know,
Lex Fridman (17:22.120)
but it shouldn't be clear from what I say
Lex Fridman (17:24.600)
because indoctrination on a political basis
Niall Ferguson (17:28.000)
is an abuse of the power of the professor,
Lex Fridman (17:30.840)
as Weber rightly said.
Lex Fridman (17:32.920)
So I think one of the key principles
Lex Fridman (17:35.920)
of the University of Austin will be
Niall Ferguson (17:38.280)
that Weberian principle that politics
Lex Fridman (17:40.640)
is not an appropriate subject
Niall Ferguson (17:45.040)
for the lecture hall, for the classroom.
Lex Fridman (17:48.320)
And we should pursue truth
Lex Fridman (17:51.400)
and enshrine liberty of thought.
Lex Fridman (17:56.560)
If that's a political issue, then I can't help you.
Niall Ferguson (17:58.720)
I mean, if you're against freedom of thought,
Lex Fridman (18:01.040)
then we don't really have much of a discussion to have.
Lex Fridman (18:04.840)
And clearly there are some people
Lex Fridman (18:06.000)
who politically seem quite hostile to it.
Lex Fridman (18:08.240)
But my sense is that there are plenty
Lex Fridman (18:10.560)
of people on the left in academia.
Niall Ferguson (18:12.400)
I think of that interesting partnership
Lex Fridman (18:14.440)
between Cornel West and Robbie George,
Niall Ferguson (18:18.200)
which has been institutionalized in the Academic Freedom Alliance.
Lex Fridman (18:22.320)
It's bipartisan, this issue.
Niall Ferguson (18:23.960)
It really, really is.
Lex Fridman (18:25.320)
After all, 50 years ago, it was the left
Niall Ferguson (18:28.080)
that was in favor of free speech.
Lex Fridman (18:30.400)
The right still has an anti free speech element to it.
Niall Ferguson (18:33.880)
Look how quickly they're out to ban critical race theory.
Lex Fridman (18:37.080)
Critical race theory won't be banned
Niall Ferguson (18:38.480)
at the University of Texas.
Lex Fridman (18:39.880)
Wokism won't be banned.
Niall Ferguson (18:41.880)
Everything will be up for discussion,
Lex Fridman (18:44.000)
but the rules of engagement will be clear.
Niall Ferguson (18:46.040)
Chicago principles, those will be enforced.
Lex Fridman (18:49.360)
And if you have to give a lecture on,
Niall Ferguson (18:53.520)
well, let's just take a recent example,
Lex Fridman (18:56.400)
the Dorian Abbott case.
Niall Ferguson (18:57.800)
If you're giving a lecture on astrophysics,
Lex Fridman (19:02.040)
but it turns out that in some different venue
Niall Ferguson (19:04.760)
you express skepticism about affirmative action,
Lex Fridman (19:08.160)
well, it doesn't matter.
Niall Ferguson (19:09.280)
It's irrelevant.
Lex Fridman (19:10.160)
We want to know what your thoughts are on astrophysics
Niall Ferguson (19:13.040)
cause that's what you're supposed to be giving a lecture on.
Lex Fridman (19:16.120)
That used to be understood.
Niall Ferguson (19:17.720)
I mean, at the Oxford of the 1980s,
Lex Fridman (19:19.320)
there were communists and there were ultra Tories.
Niall Ferguson (19:22.920)
At Cambridge, there were people who were so reactionary
Lex Fridman (19:25.800)
that they celebrated Franco's birthday,
Lex Fridman (19:28.200)
but they were also out and out communists
Lex Fridman (19:30.240)
down the road at King's College.
Niall Ferguson (19:32.720)
The understanding was that that kind of intellectual diversity
Lex Fridman (19:36.200)
was part and parcel of university life.
Lex Fridman (19:38.880)
And frankly, for an undergraduate,
Lex Fridman (19:40.000)
it was great fun to cross the road
Lex Fridman (19:42.000)
and go from outright conservatism,
Lex Fridman (19:45.320)
ultra Torism to communism.
Niall Ferguson (19:47.680)
One learns a lot that way.
Lex Fridman (19:50.000)
But the issue is when you're promoting
Niall Ferguson (19:52.320)
or hiring or tenuring people,
Lex Fridman (19:54.840)
their politics is not relevant.
Niall Ferguson (19:57.440)
It really isn't.
Lex Fridman (19:59.040)
And when it started to become relevant,
Niall Ferguson (1:00:02.160)
of creating a new university because heaven knows,
Lex Fridman (1:00:04.680)
Peter and I have been discussing this idea for years
Lex Fridman (1:00:06.560)
and he's always said, well, no, we thought about this
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.440)
and it just isn't gonna work.
Lex Fridman (1:00:09.360)
But I really think we've got a responsibility to do this.
Lex Fridman (1:00:15.120)
Well, Steve's been on this podcast before.
Niall Ferguson (1:00:17.000)
We've spoken a few times, so I'll send this to him.
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.800)
I hope he does actually get behind it as well.
Lex Fridman (1:00:22.200)
So I'm super excited by the ideas
Lex Fridman (1:00:26.200)
that we've been talking about that this effort represents
Lex Fridman (1:00:29.600)
and what ripple effect it has on the rest of society.
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.800)
So thank you.
Niall Ferguson (1:00:33.640)
That was a time beautifully spent.
Lex Fridman (1:00:36.240)
And I'm really grateful for the fortune
Niall Ferguson (1:00:41.400)
of getting a chance to talk to you
Lex Fridman (1:00:43.600)
at this moment in history
Niall Ferguson (1:00:45.320)
because I've been a big fan of your work
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.800)
and the reason I wanted to talk to you today
Niall Ferguson (1:00:50.440)
is about all the excellent books you've written
Lex Fridman (1:00:53.960)
about various aspects of history through money, war,
Niall Ferguson (1:00:58.120)
power, pandemics, all of that.
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.560)
But I'm glad that we got a chance to talk about this,
Niall Ferguson (1:01:04.360)
which is not looking at history, it's looking at the future.
Lex Fridman (1:01:07.960)
This is a beautiful little fortuitous moment.
Niall Ferguson (1:01:12.400)
I appreciate you talking about it.
Lex Fridman (1:01:15.280)
In the book, Ascent of Money,
Niall Ferguson (1:01:17.800)
you give a history of the world through the lens of money.
Lex Fridman (1:01:21.560)
If the financial system is a evolutionary nature,
Niall Ferguson (1:01:24.680)
much like life on earth,
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.160)
what is the origin of money on earth?
Niall Ferguson (1:01:28.720)
The origin of money predates coins.
Lex Fridman (1:01:33.080)
Most people kind of assume I'll talk about coins,
Lex Fridman (1:01:35.720)
but coins are relatively late developments.
Lex Fridman (1:01:40.080)
Back in ancient Mesopotamia,
Lex Fridman (1:01:41.960)
so I don't know, 5,000 years ago,
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.120)
there were relations between creditors and debtors.
Niall Ferguson (1:01:49.280)
There are even in the simplest economy
Lex Fridman (1:01:52.240)
because of the way in which agriculture works.
Niall Ferguson (1:01:55.840)
Hey, I need to plant these seeds,
Lex Fridman (1:01:58.760)
but I'm not gonna have crops for X months.
Lex Fridman (1:02:01.440)
So we have clay tablets
Lex Fridman (1:02:03.440)
in which simple debt transactions are inscribed.
Niall Ferguson (1:02:07.440)
I remember looking at great numbers of these
Lex Fridman (1:02:09.440)
in the British Museum
Niall Ferguson (1:02:10.280)
when I was writing The Ascent of Money.
Lex Fridman (1:02:12.800)
And that's really the beginning of money.
Niall Ferguson (1:02:15.840)
The minute you start recording a relationship
Lex Fridman (1:02:18.800)
between a creditor and a debtor,
Niall Ferguson (1:02:19.920)
you have something that is quasi money.
Lex Fridman (1:02:22.520)
And that is probably what these
Niall Ferguson (1:02:23.520)
clay tablets mostly denoted.
Lex Fridman (1:02:28.520)
From that point on,
Niall Ferguson (1:02:30.520)
there's a great evolutionary experiment
Lex Fridman (1:02:32.960)
to see what the most convenient way is
Niall Ferguson (1:02:36.760)
to record relations between creditors and debtors.
Lex Fridman (1:02:42.960)
And what emerges in the time of the ancient Greeks
Niall Ferguson (1:02:47.960)
are coins, metal, tokens,
Lex Fridman (1:02:51.640)
sometimes a valuable metal, sometimes not,
Niall Ferguson (1:02:55.640)
usually bearing the imprint of a state or a monarch.
Lex Fridman (1:02:59.320)
And that's the sort of more familiar form of money
Niall Ferguson (1:03:03.320)
that we still use today for very, very small transactions.
Lex Fridman (1:03:07.320)
I expect coins will all be gone
Niall Ferguson (1:03:09.640)
by the time my youngest son is my age,
Lex Fridman (1:03:12.720)
but the money that I have is still there.
Niall Ferguson (1:03:15.720)
My youngest son is my age,
Lex Fridman (1:03:18.080)
but they're a last remnant of a very, very old way
Niall Ferguson (1:03:21.040)
of doing simple transactions.
Lex Fridman (1:03:24.320)
And when you say coins, you mean physical coins.
Niall Ferguson (1:03:27.840)
I'm talking about coins have been rebranded
Lex Fridman (1:03:30.640)
in the digital space as well.
Niall Ferguson (1:03:31.480)
Yeah, not coin based coins, actual coin coins.
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.120)
You know, the ones that jangle in your pocket
Lex Fridman (1:03:36.400)
and you kind of don't know quite what to do with
Lex Fridman (1:03:38.520)
once you have some.
Lex Fridman (1:03:39.800)
So that became an incredibly pervasive form
Lex Fridman (1:03:44.800)
of paying for things.
Niall Ferguson (1:03:47.360)
Money's just a, it's just a crystallization
Lex Fridman (1:03:50.000)
of a relationship between a debtor and a creditor.
Lex Fridman (1:03:52.000)
And the coins are just very fungible.
Lex Fridman (1:03:55.120)
Whereas a clay tablet relates to a specific transaction,
Niall Ferguson (1:03:58.800)
coins are generic and fungible.
Lex Fridman (1:04:00.320)
They can be used in any transaction.
Lex Fridman (1:04:02.200)
So that was an important evolutionary advance.
Lex Fridman (1:04:05.040)
If you think of financial history,
Lex Fridman (1:04:06.360)
and this was the point of the ascent of money,
Lex Fridman (1:04:08.240)
as an evolutionary story, there are punctuated equilibria.
Niall Ferguson (1:04:12.520)
People get by with coins for a long time,
Lex Fridman (1:04:15.440)
despite their defects as a means of payment,
Niall Ferguson (1:04:19.080)
such as that they can be debased, they can be clipped.
Lex Fridman (1:04:23.120)
It's very hard to avoid fake or debased money
Niall Ferguson (1:04:27.160)
entering the system.
Lex Fridman (1:04:28.760)
But coinage is still kind of the basis of payments
Niall Ferguson (1:04:31.800)
all the way through the Roman Empire,
Lex Fridman (1:04:34.200)
out the other end into the so called dark ages.
Niall Ferguson (1:04:36.960)
It's still how most things are settled
Lex Fridman (1:04:39.400)
in cash transactions in the early 1300s.
Niall Ferguson (1:04:43.880)
You don't get a big shift until after the Black Death,
Lex Fridman (1:04:47.800)
when there's such a need to monetize the economy
Niall Ferguson (1:04:50.920)
because of chronic labor shortages
Lex Fridman (1:04:52.440)
and feudalism begins to unravel,
Niall Ferguson (1:04:54.720)
that you just don't have a sufficient amount of coinage.
Lex Fridman (1:04:58.880)
And so you get bills of exchange.
Lex Fridman (1:05:00.240)
And I'm really into bills of exchange,
Lex Fridman (1:05:03.600)
because, and this I hope will capture your listeners
Lex Fridman (1:05:07.560)
and viewers imaginations,
Lex Fridman (1:05:10.360)
when they start using bills of exchange,
Niall Ferguson (1:05:13.240)
which are really just pieces of paper saying,
Lex Fridman (1:05:17.240)
I owe you over a three month period
Niall Ferguson (1:05:19.360)
while goods are in transit from Florence to London,
Lex Fridman (1:05:23.880)
you get the first peer to peer payment system,
Niall Ferguson (1:05:27.960)
which is network verified,
Lex Fridman (1:05:29.640)
because they're not coins,
Niall Ferguson (1:05:31.320)
they don't have a King's head on them.
Lex Fridman (1:05:33.480)
They're just pieces of paper.
Lex Fridman (1:05:35.320)
And the verification comes in the form of signatures.
Lex Fridman (1:05:38.320)
And you need ultimately some kind of guarantee
Niall Ferguson (1:05:42.680)
if I write an IOU to you, bills of exchange,
Lex Fridman (1:05:46.560)
I mean, you don't really know me that well,
Niall Ferguson (1:05:48.320)
we only just met.
Lex Fridman (1:05:49.400)
So you might wanna get endorsed by, I don't know,
Niall Ferguson (1:05:52.080)
somebody really credit worthy like Elon.
Lex Fridman (1:05:54.960)
And so we actually can see in the late 14th century
Niall Ferguson (1:05:58.200)
in Northern Italy and England and elsewhere,
Lex Fridman (1:06:00.960)
the evolution of a peer to peer network system
Niall Ferguson (1:06:04.560)
of payment.
Lex Fridman (1:06:06.240)
And that's actually how world trade grows,
Niall Ferguson (1:06:09.240)
because you just couldn't settle
Lex Fridman (1:06:11.160)
long oceanic transactions with coinage.
Niall Ferguson (1:06:14.040)
It just wasn't practical.
Lex Fridman (1:06:15.720)
All those treasure chests full of the balloons,
Niall Ferguson (1:06:18.320)
which were part of the way in which the Spanish empire worked
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.120)
really inefficient.
Lex Fridman (1:06:22.640)
So bills of exchange are an exciting part of the story.
Lex Fridman (1:06:26.240)
And they illustrate something I should have made more clear
Niall Ferguson (1:06:29.520)
in the ascent of money,
Lex Fridman (1:06:31.280)
that not everything used in payment needs to be money.
Niall Ferguson (1:06:36.080)
Classically, economists will tell you, oh, well, money,
Lex Fridman (1:06:39.000)
money has three different functions.
Lex Fridman (1:06:41.320)
It's you've heard this a zillion times, right?
Lex Fridman (1:06:43.320)
It's a unit of account, it's a store of value,
Lex Fridman (1:06:46.280)
and it's a medium of exchange.
Lex Fridman (1:06:49.200)
Now, there are three or four things
Niall Ferguson (1:06:51.560)
that are worth saying about this, and I'll just say two.
Lex Fridman (1:06:53.840)
One, it may be that those three things are a trilemma,
Lex Fridman (1:06:57.120)
and it's very difficult for anything to be all of them.
Lex Fridman (1:06:59.480)
This point was made by my Hoover colleague,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:01.920)
Manny Rincon Cruz last year,
Lex Fridman (1:07:03.440)
and I still wish he would write this up as a paper
Niall Ferguson (1:07:05.680)
because it's a great insight.
Lex Fridman (1:07:07.680)
The second thing that's really interesting to me
Niall Ferguson (1:07:09.760)
is that payments don't need to be money.
Lex Fridman (1:07:12.880)
And if we go around, as economists love to do,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:16.120)
saying, well, Bitcoin's not money
Lex Fridman (1:07:17.880)
because it doesn't fulfill these criteria,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:20.680)
we're missing the point
Lex Fridman (1:07:21.720)
that you could build a system of payments,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:24.560)
which I think is how we should think about crypto
Lex Fridman (1:07:26.840)
that isn't money, doesn't need to be money.
Niall Ferguson (1:07:29.120)
It's like bills of exchange.
Lex Fridman (1:07:30.560)
It's network based verification,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:33.600)
peer to peer transactions without third party verification.
Lex Fridman (1:07:38.000)
When it hit me the other day
Niall Ferguson (1:07:39.240)
that we actually have this precedent for crypto,
Lex Fridman (1:07:41.480)
I got quite excited and thought,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:43.560)
I wish I had written that in the Ascent of Money.
Lex Fridman (1:07:46.560)
Can you sort of from a first principles,
Niall Ferguson (1:07:48.760)
like almost like a physics perspective,
Lex Fridman (1:07:51.800)
or maybe a human perspective,
Lex Fridman (1:07:54.160)
describe where does the value of money come from?
Lex Fridman (1:07:58.720)
Like where is it actually, where is it?
Lex Fridman (1:08:01.520)
So it's a sheet of paper or it's coins,
Lex Fridman (1:08:04.720)
but it feels like in a platonic sense,
Niall Ferguson (1:08:08.080)
there's some kind of thing
Lex Fridman (1:08:09.200)
that's actually storing the value.
Niall Ferguson (1:08:11.160)
As us, a bunch of ants are dancing around and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:08:15.240)
I come from a family of physicists.
Niall Ferguson (1:08:17.360)
I'm the black sheep of the family.
Lex Fridman (1:08:18.560)
My mother's a physicist, my sister is.
Lex Fridman (1:08:21.120)
And so when you asked me to explain something
Lex Fridman (1:08:23.360)
in physics terms, I get a kind of little part of me dies
Niall Ferguson (1:08:27.360)
because I know I'll fail.
Lex Fridman (1:08:30.360)
But in truth, it doesn't really matter
Lex Fridman (1:08:33.000)
what we decide money is going to be.
Lex Fridman (1:08:36.400)
And anything can record, crystallize
Niall Ferguson (1:08:41.400)
the relationship between the creditor and the debtor.
Lex Fridman (1:08:46.080)
It could be a piece of paper, it can be a piece of metal.
Niall Ferguson (1:08:48.360)
It can be nothing, can just be a digital entry.
Lex Fridman (1:08:51.760)
It's trust that we're really talking about here.
Niall Ferguson (1:08:56.440)
We are not just trusting one another.
Lex Fridman (1:08:59.680)
We may not, but we are trusting the money.
Lex Fridman (1:09:03.800)
So whatever we use to represent
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.760)
the creditor debtor relationship,
Niall Ferguson (1:09:10.200)
whether it's a banknote or a coin or whatever,
Lex Fridman (1:09:13.160)
it does depend on us both trusting it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:19.240)
And that doesn't always pertain.
Lex Fridman (1:09:21.640)
What we see in episodes of inflation,
Niall Ferguson (1:09:25.080)
especially episodes of hyperinflation,
Lex Fridman (1:09:26.880)
is a crisis of trust, a crisis of confidence
Niall Ferguson (1:09:29.920)
in the means of payments.
Lex Fridman (1:09:33.000)
And this is very traumatic for the societies
Niall Ferguson (1:09:34.920)
to which it happens.
Lex Fridman (1:09:38.080)
By and large, human beings,
Niall Ferguson (1:09:40.000)
particularly once you have a rule of law system
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.040)
of the sort that evolved in the West
Lex Fridman (1:09:44.680)
and then became generalized,
Lex Fridman (1:09:46.560)
are predisposed to trust one another.
Lex Fridman (1:09:49.640)
And the default setting is to trust money.
Lex Fridman (1:09:52.560)
Even when it depreciates at a quite steady rate
Niall Ferguson (1:09:54.960)
as the US dollar has done pretty much uninterruptedly
Lex Fridman (1:10:00.080)
since the 1960s, it takes quite a big disruption
Niall Ferguson (1:10:05.360)
for money to lose that trust.
Lex Fridman (1:10:07.520)
But I think essentially what money should be thought of as
Niall Ferguson (1:10:11.720)
is a series of tokens that can take any form we like
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.880)
and can be purely digital,
Niall Ferguson (1:10:18.200)
which represent our transactions as creditors and debtors.
Lex Fridman (1:10:23.200)
And the whole thing depends on our collective trust to work.
Niall Ferguson (1:10:27.600)
I had to explain this to Stephen Colbert once
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.840)
in the Colbert Show, the old show that was actually funny.
Lex Fridman (1:10:33.520)
And it was a great moment when he said,
Lex Fridman (1:10:38.800)
so Neil, could I be money?
Lex Fridman (1:10:41.880)
And I said, yes, we could settle a debt
Lex Fridman (1:10:47.080)
with a human being that was quite common in much of history,
Lex Fridman (1:10:50.600)
but it's not the most convenient form of money.
Lex Fridman (1:10:55.040)
Money has to be convenient.
Niall Ferguson (1:10:56.960)
That's why when they worked out
Lex Fridman (1:10:58.920)
how to make payments with cell phones,
Niall Ferguson (1:11:00.840)
the Chinese simply went straight there from bank accounts.
Lex Fridman (1:11:04.680)
They skipped out credit cards.
Niall Ferguson (1:11:06.160)
You won't see credit cards in China,
Lex Fridman (1:11:08.120)
except in the hands of naive tourists.
Lex Fridman (1:11:10.760)
How much can this trust bear
Lex Fridman (1:11:14.280)
in terms of us humans with our human nature testing it?
Niall Ferguson (1:11:18.080)
I guess the surprising thing is the thing works.
Lex Fridman (1:11:21.960)
A bunch of self interested ants running around
Niall Ferguson (1:11:25.520)
trading in trust.
Lex Fridman (1:11:27.360)
And it seems to work except for a bunch of moments
Niall Ferguson (1:11:31.200)
in human history when there's hyperinflation,
Lex Fridman (1:11:33.120)
like you mentioned.
Lex Fridman (1:11:34.280)
And it's just kind of amazing.
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.480)
It's kind of amazing that us humans,
Niall Ferguson (1:11:40.440)
if I were to be optimistic and sort of hopeful
Lex Fridman (1:11:42.520)
about human nature, it gives me a sense
Niall Ferguson (1:11:45.000)
that people want to lean on each other.
Lex Fridman (1:11:49.240)
They want to trust.
Niall Ferguson (1:11:51.240)
That's certainly, I would say probably now,
Lex Fridman (1:11:54.840)
a widely shared view amongst evolutionary psychologists,
Niall Ferguson (1:11:59.680)
network scientists.
Lex Fridman (1:12:00.960)
It's one of Nicholas Christakis's argument
Niall Ferguson (1:12:03.840)
in a recent book.
Lex Fridman (1:12:05.760)
I know economic history broadly bears this out,
Lex Fridman (1:12:08.960)
but you have to be cautious.
Lex Fridman (1:12:12.160)
The cases where the system works are familiar to us.
Niall Ferguson (1:12:18.560)
Because those are the states and the eras
Lex Fridman (1:12:23.640)
that produce a lot of written records.
Lex Fridman (1:12:26.480)
But when the system of trust collapses
Lex Fridman (1:12:30.280)
and the monetary system collapses with it,
Niall Ferguson (1:12:32.480)
there's generally quite a paucity of records.
Lex Fridman (1:12:35.040)
I found that when I was writing Doom.
Lex Fridman (1:12:38.240)
And so we slightly are biased in favor of the periods
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.120)
when trust prevailed and the system functioned.
Niall Ferguson (1:12:47.040)
It's very easy to point to a great many episodes
Lex Fridman (1:12:50.840)
of very, very intense monetary chaos,
Niall Ferguson (1:12:53.480)
even in the relatively recent past.
Lex Fridman (1:12:55.960)
In the wake of the First World War,
Niall Ferguson (1:12:58.760)
multiple currencies, not just the German currency,
Lex Fridman (1:13:01.280)
multiple currencies were completely destroyed.
Niall Ferguson (1:13:03.560)
The Russian currency, the Polish currency.
Lex Fridman (1:13:05.880)
There were currency disasters all over
Niall Ferguson (1:13:08.720)
Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1920s.
Lex Fridman (1:13:12.440)
And that was partly because over the course
Niall Ferguson (1:13:16.440)
of the 19th century, a system had evolved
Lex Fridman (1:13:18.720)
in which trust was based on gold
Lex Fridman (1:13:22.640)
and rules that were supposedly applied by central banks.
Lex Fridman (1:13:27.920)
That system, which produced relative price stability
Niall Ferguson (1:13:32.160)
over the 19th century, fell apart
Lex Fridman (1:13:35.160)
as a result of the First World War.
Lex Fridman (1:13:36.720)
And as soon as it was gone, as soon as there was no longer
Lex Fridman (1:13:40.200)
a clear link between those banknotes and coins and gold,
Niall Ferguson (1:13:44.960)
the whole thing went completely haywire.
Lex Fridman (1:13:47.280)
And I think we should remember that the extent
Niall Ferguson (1:13:50.040)
of the monetary chaos from certainly 1918
Lex Fridman (1:13:54.240)
all the way through to the late 1940s.
Niall Ferguson (1:13:56.480)
I mean, the German currency was destroyed
Lex Fridman (1:13:57.920)
not once but twice in that period.
Lex Fridman (1:14:00.080)
And that was one of the most advanced economies
Lex Fridman (1:14:01.800)
in the world.
Niall Ferguson (1:14:02.760)
In the United States, there were periods
Lex Fridman (1:14:06.200)
of intensely deep deflation.
Niall Ferguson (1:14:09.520)
Prices fell by a third in the Great Depression.
Lex Fridman (1:14:12.880)
And then very serious price volatility
Niall Ferguson (1:14:15.280)
in the immediate post World War II period.
Lex Fridman (1:14:17.280)
So it's a bit of an illusion.
Niall Ferguson (1:14:19.960)
Maybe it's an illusion for people who've spent most
Lex Fridman (1:14:24.240)
of their lives in the last 20 years.
Niall Ferguson (1:14:26.560)
We've had a period of exceptional price stability
Lex Fridman (1:14:29.480)
since this century began in which a regime
Niall Ferguson (1:14:34.480)
of central bank independence and inflation targeting
Lex Fridman (1:14:37.800)
appeared to generate steady below 2% inflation
Niall Ferguson (1:14:42.360)
in much of the developed world.
Lex Fridman (1:14:43.600)
It was a bit too low for the central bankers liking.
Lex Fridman (1:14:46.440)
And that became a problem in the financial crisis.
Lex Fridman (1:14:49.120)
But we've avoided major price instability
Niall Ferguson (1:14:52.960)
for the better part of 20 years.
Lex Fridman (1:14:54.800)
In most of the world, there haven't really been
Niall Ferguson (1:14:56.080)
that many very high inflation episodes
Lex Fridman (1:14:59.200)
and hardly any hyperinflationary episodes.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:00.920)
Venezuela's one of the very few, Zimbabwe's another.
Lex Fridman (1:15:03.960)
But if you take a 100 year view or a 200 year view,
Niall Ferguson (1:15:06.480)
or if you want to take a 500 year view,
Lex Fridman (1:15:08.600)
you realize that quite often the system doesn't work.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:12.720)
If you go back to the 17th century,
Lex Fridman (1:15:14.680)
there were multiple competing systems of coinage.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:17.640)
There had been a great inflation that had begun
Lex Fridman (1:15:19.600)
the previous century.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:21.560)
The price revolution caused mainly by the rise
Lex Fridman (1:15:24.760)
and caused mainly by the arrival of new world silver.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:28.960)
I think financial history is a bit messier
Lex Fridman (1:15:31.760)
than one might think.
Lex Fridman (1:15:33.760)
And the more one studies it, the more one realizes
Lex Fridman (1:15:37.600)
the need for the evolution.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:40.200)
The reason bills of exchange came along
Lex Fridman (1:15:41.960)
was because the coinage systems had stopped working.
Niall Ferguson (1:15:45.000)
The reason that banknotes started to become used
Lex Fridman (1:15:47.720)
more generally first in the American colonies
Niall Ferguson (1:15:50.080)
in the 17th century, then more widely in the 18th century
Lex Fridman (1:15:52.320)
was just that they were more convenient than any other way
Niall Ferguson (1:15:56.120)
of paying for things.
Lex Fridman (1:15:57.320)
We had to invent the bond market in the 18th century
Niall Ferguson (1:16:00.480)
to cope with the problem of public debt,
Lex Fridman (1:16:02.200)
which up until that point had been a recurrent source
Niall Ferguson (1:16:04.600)
of instability.
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.880)
And then we invented equity finance
Niall Ferguson (1:16:10.000)
because bonds were not enough.
Lex Fridman (1:16:12.840)
So I would prefer to think of the financial history
Niall Ferguson (1:16:16.400)
as a series of crises really that are resolved
Lex Fridman (1:16:18.920)
by innovations and in the most recent episode,
Niall Ferguson (1:16:22.640)
very exciting episode of financial history,
Lex Fridman (1:16:25.040)
something called Bitcoin initiated a new financial
Niall Ferguson (1:16:29.240)
or monetary revolution in response, I think,
Lex Fridman (1:16:31.880)
to the growing crisis of the fiat money system.
Lex Fridman (1:16:36.080)
Can you speak to that?
Lex Fridman (1:16:37.640)
So what do you think about Bitcoin?
Lex Fridman (1:16:41.680)
What do you think it is a response to?
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.440)
What are the growing problems of the fiat system?
Lex Fridman (1:16:46.400)
What is this moment in human history
Lex Fridman (1:16:49.400)
that is full of challenges that Bitcoin
Lex Fridman (1:16:52.160)
and cryptocurrency is trying to overcome?
Lex Fridman (1:16:55.240)
I don't think Bitcoin was devised by Satoshi,
Niall Ferguson (1:17:00.800)
whoever he was, for fear of a breakdown
Lex Fridman (1:17:06.200)
of the fiat currencies.
Niall Ferguson (1:17:08.440)
If it was, it was a very far sighted enterprise
Lex Fridman (1:17:11.200)
because certainly in 2008,
Niall Ferguson (1:17:12.560)
when the first Bitcoin paper appeared,
Lex Fridman (1:17:14.320)
it wasn't very likely that a wave of inflation was coming.
Niall Ferguson (1:17:18.080)
If anything, there was more reason
Lex Fridman (1:17:20.360)
to fear deflation at that point.
Niall Ferguson (1:17:22.240)
I think it would be more accurate to say
Lex Fridman (1:17:26.360)
that with the advent of the internet,
Niall Ferguson (1:17:28.800)
there was a need for a means of payment
Lex Fridman (1:17:31.160)
native to the internet,
Niall Ferguson (1:17:33.280)
typing your credit card number into a random website.
Lex Fridman (1:17:36.280)
It's not the way to pay for things on the internet.
Lex Fridman (1:17:40.240)
And I'd rather think of Bitcoin as the first iteration,
Lex Fridman (1:17:43.560)
the first attempt to solve the problem
Niall Ferguson (1:17:45.160)
of how do we pay for things
Lex Fridman (1:17:46.320)
in what we must learn to call the metaverse,
Lex Fridman (1:17:48.800)
but let's just call it the internet for old time's sake.
Lex Fridman (1:17:52.520)
And ever since that initial innovation,
Niall Ferguson (1:17:56.040)
the realization that you could use computing power
Lex Fridman (1:17:58.600)
and cryptography to create peer to peer payments
Niall Ferguson (1:18:01.720)
without third party verification,
Lex Fridman (1:18:04.160)
a revolution has been gathering momentum
Niall Ferguson (1:18:07.160)
that poses a very profound threat
Lex Fridman (1:18:08.920)
to the existing legacy system of banks and fiat currencies.
Niall Ferguson (1:18:13.240)
Most money in the world today is made by banks,
Lex Fridman (1:18:15.600)
not central banks, banks.
Niall Ferguson (1:18:17.760)
That's what most money is, it's entries in bank accounts.
Lex Fridman (1:18:21.840)
And what Bitcoin represents
Niall Ferguson (1:18:24.840)
is an alternative mode of payment
Lex Fridman (1:18:27.040)
that really ought to render banks obsolete.
Niall Ferguson (1:18:31.720)
I think this financial revolution
Lex Fridman (1:18:33.560)
has got past the point at which it can be killed.
Niall Ferguson (1:18:37.480)
It was vulnerable in the early years,
Lex Fridman (1:18:39.720)
but it now has sufficient adoption
Lex Fridman (1:18:42.400)
and has generated sufficient additional layers.
Lex Fridman (1:18:45.480)
I mean, Ethereum was in many ways
Niall Ferguson (1:18:47.400)
the more important innovation
Lex Fridman (1:18:48.880)
because you can build a whole system of payments
Lex Fridman (1:18:52.280)
and ultimately smart contracts on top of ether.
Lex Fridman (1:18:55.000)
I think we've now reached the point
Niall Ferguson (1:18:56.280)
that it's pretty hard to imagine it all being killed.
Lex Fridman (1:18:59.800)
And it's just survived an amazing thing,
Niall Ferguson (1:19:01.640)
which was the Chinese shutting down mining
Lex Fridman (1:19:03.640)
and shutting down everything.
Lex Fridman (1:19:04.560)
And still here we are, in fact, cryptos thriving.
Lex Fridman (1:19:09.200)
What we don't know is how much damage
Niall Ferguson (1:19:13.200)
ill judged regulatory interventions are going to do
Lex Fridman (1:19:16.880)
to this financial revolution.
Niall Ferguson (1:19:19.040)
Left to its own devices,
Lex Fridman (1:19:20.680)
I think decentralized finance provides
Niall Ferguson (1:19:24.200)
the native monetary and financial system for the internet.
Lex Fridman (1:19:29.120)
And the more time we spend in the metaverse,
Niall Ferguson (1:19:32.360)
the more use we will make of it.
Lex Fridman (1:19:34.440)
The next things that will happen, I think,
Niall Ferguson (1:19:36.440)
will be that tokens in game spaces like Roblox
Lex Fridman (1:19:40.360)
will become fungible.
Niall Ferguson (1:19:42.520)
As my nine year old spends a lot more time
Lex Fridman (1:19:45.000)
playing on computer games than I ever did,
Niall Ferguson (1:19:47.720)
I can see that entertainment
Lex Fridman (1:19:49.560)
is becoming a game driven phenomenon.
Lex Fridman (1:19:52.480)
And in the game space, you need skins for your avatar.
Lex Fridman (1:19:56.640)
The economics of the internet, it's evolving very fast.
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.040)
And in parallel,
Lex Fridman (1:20:02.040)
you can see this payments revolution happening.
Niall Ferguson (1:20:04.920)
I think that all goes naturally very well
Lex Fridman (1:20:08.720)
and generates an enormous amount of wealth in the process.
Niall Ferguson (1:20:13.000)
The problem is there are people in Washington
Lex Fridman (1:20:17.160)
with an overwhelming urge to intervene
Lex Fridman (1:20:20.400)
and disrupt this evolutionary process.
Lex Fridman (1:20:25.240)
Partly, I think out of a muddled sense
Niall Ferguson (1:20:28.280)
that there must be a lot of nefarious things going on.
Lex Fridman (1:20:31.680)
If we don't step in, many more will go on.
Niall Ferguson (1:20:34.280)
This, I think, greatly exaggerates
Lex Fridman (1:20:35.880)
how much criminal activity is in fact going on in the space.
Lex Fridman (1:20:39.600)
But there's also the vested interests at work.
Lex Fridman (1:20:42.520)
It was odd to me, maybe not odd,
Niall Ferguson (1:20:45.960)
perhaps it wasn't surprising,
Lex Fridman (1:20:47.080)
that the Bank for International Settlements
Niall Ferguson (1:20:48.840)
earlier this year published a report,
Lex Fridman (1:20:52.040)
one chapter of which said this must all go, must all stop.
Niall Ferguson (1:20:55.680)
It's all gotta be shut down
Lex Fridman (1:20:57.520)
and it's gotta be replaced by central bank digital currency.
Lex Fridman (1:21:00.920)
And Martin Wolf in the Financial Times read this
Lex Fridman (1:21:02.800)
and said, I agree with this.
Lex Fridman (1:21:04.400)
And one suddenly realized that the banks are clever.
Lex Fridman (1:21:07.280)
They had achieved the intellectual counterattack
Niall Ferguson (1:21:11.880)
with almost no fingerprints on the weapon.
Lex Fridman (1:21:15.640)
I think central bank digital currency is a terrible idea.
Niall Ferguson (1:21:18.960)
I can't imagine why we would want to copy a Chinese model
Lex Fridman (1:21:22.600)
that essentially takes all transactions
Lex Fridman (1:21:25.200)
and puts them directly under the surveillance
Lex Fridman (1:21:26.960)
of a central government institution.
Lex Fridman (1:21:28.320)
But that suddenly is a serious counterproposal.
Lex Fridman (1:21:34.480)
So on the one side, we have a relatively decentralized,
Niall Ferguson (1:21:39.320)
technologically innovative internet native system
Lex Fridman (1:21:44.040)
of payments that has the possibility to evolve,
Niall Ferguson (1:21:46.840)
to produce a full set of smart contracts,
Lex Fridman (1:21:51.160)
reducing enormously the transaction costs
Niall Ferguson (1:21:54.120)
that we currently encounter in the financial world
Lex Fridman (1:21:56.080)
because it gets rid of all those middlemen
Niall Ferguson (1:21:57.760)
who take their cut every time you take out a mortgage
Lex Fridman (1:22:00.600)
or whatever it is.
Niall Ferguson (1:22:01.720)
That's one alternative.
Lex Fridman (1:22:03.560)
But on the other side, we have a highly centralized system
Niall Ferguson (1:22:06.440)
in which transactions will by default
Lex Fridman (1:22:08.400)
be under the surveillance of the central bank.
Niall Ferguson (1:22:10.760)
It seems like an easy choice to me,
Lex Fridman (1:22:12.360)
but hey, I have this thing about personal liberty.
Lex Fridman (1:22:15.960)
So that's where we are.
Lex Fridman (1:22:17.760)
I don't think that the regulators can kill web three.
Niall Ferguson (1:22:22.680)
I think we're supposed to call it web three
Lex Fridman (1:22:24.080)
because crypto is now an obsolescent term.
Niall Ferguson (1:22:26.720)
They can't kill it,
Lex Fridman (1:22:28.160)
but they can definitely make it difficult
Lex Fridman (1:22:30.360)
and throw a lot of sand into the machine.
Lex Fridman (1:22:33.520)
And I think worst of all,
Niall Ferguson (1:22:35.200)
they can spoil the evolutionary story
Lex Fridman (1:22:37.680)
by creating central bank digital currency
Niall Ferguson (1:22:40.680)
that I don't think we really need.
Lex Fridman (1:22:42.960)
Or we certainly don't need it in the Chinese form.
Lex Fridman (1:22:48.520)
Do you think Bitcoin has a strong chance
Lex Fridman (1:22:51.720)
to take over the world?
Lex Fridman (1:22:53.320)
So become the primary,
Lex Fridman (1:22:57.040)
you mentioned the three things that make money, money,
Niall Ferguson (1:23:00.480)
become the primary methodology
Lex Fridman (1:23:02.720)
by which we store wealth, we exchange.
Niall Ferguson (1:23:05.880)
No.
Lex Fridman (1:23:07.160)
No, I think what Bitcoin is,
Niall Ferguson (1:23:09.600)
this was a phrase that I got from my friend,
Lex Fridman (1:23:12.160)
Matt McLennan at First Eagle,
Niall Ferguson (1:23:13.880)
an option on digital gold.
Lex Fridman (1:23:15.760)
So it's the gold of the system,
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.520)
but currently behaves like an option.
Lex Fridman (1:23:20.720)
That's why it's quite volatile
Niall Ferguson (1:23:22.360)
because we don't really know
Lex Fridman (1:23:23.800)
if this brave new world of crypto is gonna work.
Lex Fridman (1:23:29.280)
But if it does work, then Bitcoin is the gold
Lex Fridman (1:23:31.240)
because of the finite supply.
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.440)
What role we need gold to play in the metaverse
Lex Fridman (1:23:37.280)
isn't quite clear.
Niall Ferguson (1:23:38.880)
I love that you're using the term metaverse.
Lex Fridman (1:23:40.720)
This is great.
Niall Ferguson (1:23:41.600)
Well, I just like the metaversity
Lex Fridman (1:23:43.760)
as the antithesis of what we're trying to do in Austin.
Lex Fridman (1:23:48.400)
But can you imagine I'm using it sarcastically?
Lex Fridman (1:23:52.320)
I come from Glasgow where all novel words
Niall Ferguson (1:23:54.520)
have to be used sarcastically.
Lex Fridman (1:23:55.760)
So the metaverse, sarcastic.
Lex Fridman (1:23:57.560)
But see, the beauty about humor and sarcasm
Lex Fridman (1:24:00.360)
is that the joke becomes reality.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:03.520)
I mean, it's like using the word Big Bang
Lex Fridman (1:24:05.800)
to describe the origins of the universe.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:07.560)
It becomes like that.
Lex Fridman (1:24:09.440)
It will.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:10.280)
After a while, it's in the textbooks
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.800)
and nobody's laughing.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:12.880)
Yeah, well, that's exactly right.
Lex Fridman (1:24:14.320)
Humor is sticky.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:16.440)
Yeah, I'm on the side of humor,
Lex Fridman (1:24:18.760)
but it is a dangerous activity these days.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:21.400)
Anyway, I think Bitcoin is the option of digital gold.
Lex Fridman (1:24:25.360)
The role it plays is probably not so much store of value.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:31.080)
Right now, it's just nicely not very correlated asset
Lex Fridman (1:24:33.840)
in your portfolio.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:35.240)
When I updated the Ascent of Money,
Lex Fridman (1:24:36.840)
which was in 2018, 10 years after it came out,
Niall Ferguson (1:24:40.120)
I wrote a new chapter in which I said,
Lex Fridman (1:24:43.360)
Bitcoin, which had just sold off after its 2017 bubble,
Niall Ferguson (1:24:48.200)
will rise again through adoption
Lex Fridman (1:24:51.320)
because if every millionaire in the world
Niall Ferguson (1:24:54.200)
has 0.2% of his or her wealth in Bitcoin,
Lex Fridman (1:24:57.840)
the price should be $15,000.
Niall Ferguson (1:24:59.960)
If it's 1%, it's $75,000.
Lex Fridman (1:25:03.360)
And it might not even stay at 1%
Niall Ferguson (1:25:06.080)
because, I mean, look at its recent performance.
Lex Fridman (1:25:08.200)
If your exposure to global stocks had been hedged
Niall Ferguson (1:25:13.040)
with a significant crypto holding,
Lex Fridman (1:25:16.280)
you would have aced the last few months.
Lex Fridman (1:25:19.240)
So I think the non correlation property
Lex Fridman (1:25:23.080)
is very, very important in driving adoption.
Lex Fridman (1:25:26.200)
And the volatility also drives adoption
Lex Fridman (1:25:28.280)
if you're a sophisticated investor.
Lex Fridman (1:25:31.040)
So I think the adoption drives Bitcoin up
Lex Fridman (1:25:35.520)
because it's the option of digital gold,
Lex Fridman (1:25:37.200)
but it's also just this nicely not very correlated asset
Lex Fridman (1:25:40.080)
that you wanna hold.
Lex Fridman (1:25:41.680)
In a world where, what the hell?
Lex Fridman (1:25:43.920)
I mean, the central bank's gonna tighten.
Niall Ferguson (1:25:46.400)
We've come through this massively disruptive effort
Lex Fridman (1:25:48.600)
of the pandemic, public debt soared,
Niall Ferguson (1:25:51.640)
money printing soared.
Lex Fridman (1:25:54.760)
You could hang around with your bonds
Lex Fridman (1:25:56.760)
and wait for the euthanasia of the Rontier.
Lex Fridman (1:25:59.920)
You can hang on to your tech stocks
Lex Fridman (1:26:01.840)
and just hope there isn't a massive correction
Lex Fridman (1:26:03.760)
or dot, dot, dot.
Niall Ferguson (1:26:05.160)
Well, and it seems like a fairly obvious strategy
Lex Fridman (1:26:07.840)
to make sure that you have at least some crypto
Niall Ferguson (1:26:10.680)
for the coming year, given what we likely have to face.
Lex Fridman (1:26:15.840)
I think what's really interesting is that
Niall Ferguson (1:26:17.720)
on top of Ethereum,
Lex Fridman (1:26:20.080)
a more elaborate financial system is being built.
Niall Ferguson (1:26:26.520)
Stable coins are the interesting puzzle for me
Lex Fridman (1:26:32.320)
because we need off ramps.
Niall Ferguson (1:26:34.360)
Ultimately, you and I have to pay taxes in US dollars.
Lex Fridman (1:26:39.680)
And there's no getting away from that.
Niall Ferguson (1:26:43.400)
The IRS is gonna let us hold crypto
Lex Fridman (1:26:45.560)
as long as we pay our taxes.
Lex Fridman (1:26:48.000)
And the only question in my mind is
Lex Fridman (1:26:50.400)
what's the optimal off ramp to make those taxes,
Lex Fridman (1:26:54.760)
make those tax payments?
Lex Fridman (1:26:57.080)
Probably it shouldn't be a currency invented by Facebook.
Niall Ferguson (1:27:01.240)
Never struck me as the best solution to this problem.
Lex Fridman (1:27:05.240)
Maybe it's some kind of Fed coin
Niall Ferguson (1:27:09.520)
or maybe one of the existing algorithmic stable coins
Lex Fridman (1:27:12.800)
does the job.
Lex Fridman (1:27:13.640)
But we clearly need some stable off ramp.
Lex Fridman (1:27:16.520)
So you don't think it's possible for the IRS
Niall Ferguson (1:27:18.640)
within the next decade to be accepting Bitcoin
Lex Fridman (1:27:21.000)
as tax payments?
Niall Ferguson (1:27:22.560)
I doubt that.
Lex Fridman (1:27:24.040)
Having dealt with the IRS now
Niall Ferguson (1:27:25.960)
since when did I first come here, 2002,
Lex Fridman (1:27:29.920)
it's hard to think of an institution less likely
Niall Ferguson (1:27:32.240)
to leap into the 21st century when it comes to payments.
Lex Fridman (1:27:37.240)
No, I think we'll be tolerated, crypto world will be tolerated
Niall Ferguson (1:27:44.240)
as long as we pay our taxes.
Lex Fridman (1:27:46.120)
And it's important that we're already at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:27:48.840)
And then the next question becomes,
Lex Fridman (1:27:50.160)
well, does Gary Gensler define everything as a security?
Lex Fridman (1:27:53.480)
And do we then have to go through endless
Lex Fridman (1:27:56.680)
regulatory contortions to satisfy the SEC?
Niall Ferguson (1:28:00.120)
There's a whole bunch of uncertainties
Lex Fridman (1:28:03.240)
that the administrative state excels at creating
Niall Ferguson (1:28:06.000)
because that's just how the administrative state works.
Lex Fridman (1:28:09.120)
You'll do something new.
Niall Ferguson (1:28:10.480)
Hmm, I'll decide whether that's a security
Lex Fridman (1:28:13.520)
but don't expect me to define it for you.
Niall Ferguson (1:28:15.680)
I'll decide in an arbitrary way and then you'll owe me money.
Lex Fridman (1:28:18.960)
So all of this is going to be very annoying.
Lex Fridman (1:28:21.080)
And for people who are trying to run exchanges
Lex Fridman (1:28:25.160)
or innovate in the space, these regulations will be annoying.
Lex Fridman (1:28:29.200)
But the problem with FinTech is it's different from tech,
Lex Fridman (1:28:31.960)
broadly defined.
Niall Ferguson (1:28:33.760)
When tech got into eCommerce with Amazon,
Lex Fridman (1:28:36.960)
when it got into social networking with Facebook,
Niall Ferguson (1:28:40.320)
there wasn't a huge regulatory jungle to navigate.
Lex Fridman (1:28:43.600)
But welcome to the world of finance,
Niall Ferguson (1:28:45.600)
which has always been a jungle of regulation
Lex Fridman (1:28:48.800)
because the regulation is there to basically entrench
Niall Ferguson (1:28:53.440)
the incumbents.
Lex Fridman (1:28:54.240)
That's what it's for.
Lex Fridman (1:28:56.040)
So it'll be a much tougher fight than the fights
Lex Fridman (1:28:59.840)
we've seen of other aspects of the tech revolution
Niall Ferguson (1:29:04.840)
because the incumbents are there and they see the threat.
Lex Fridman (1:29:09.600)
And in the end, Satoshi said it very explicitly.
Niall Ferguson (1:29:13.040)
It's peer to peer payment without third party verification.
Lex Fridman (1:29:15.720)
And all the third parties are going, wait, what?
Niall Ferguson (1:29:18.120)
We're the third parties.
Lex Fridman (1:29:20.480)
So there is a connection between power and money.
Niall Ferguson (1:29:24.800)
You've mentioned World War I from the perspective of money.
Lex Fridman (1:29:29.080)
So power, money, war, authoritarian regimes.
Niall Ferguson (1:29:35.680)
From the perspective of money,
Lex Fridman (1:29:37.280)
do you have hope that cryptocurrency can help resist war,
Niall Ferguson (1:29:42.080)
can help resist the negative effects
Lex Fridman (1:29:46.200)
of authoritarian regimes?
Lex Fridman (1:29:48.920)
Or is that a silly hope?
Lex Fridman (1:29:50.360)
Wars happen because the people who have the power
Niall Ferguson (1:29:57.360)
to command armed forces miscalculate.
Lex Fridman (1:30:02.840)
That's generally what happens.
Lex Fridman (1:30:06.840)
And we will have a big war in the near future
Lex Fridman (1:30:09.400)
if both the Chinese government and the US government
Niall Ferguson (1:30:12.600)
miscalculates and they unleash lethal force on one another.
Lex Fridman (1:30:17.560)
And there's nothing that any financial institution
Niall Ferguson (1:30:20.400)
can do to stop that any more than the Rothschilds
Lex Fridman (1:30:24.480)
could stop World War I.
Lex Fridman (1:30:26.480)
And they were then the biggest bank in the world by far
Lex Fridman (1:30:28.880)
with massive international financial influence.
Lex Fridman (1:30:32.720)
So let's accept that war is in a different domain.
Lex Fridman (1:30:38.080)
War would impact the financial world massively
Niall Ferguson (1:30:42.200)
if it were a war between the United States and China
Lex Fridman (1:30:44.720)
because there's still a huge China trade on.
Niall Ferguson (1:30:49.560)
Wall Street is long China, Europe is long China.
Lex Fridman (1:30:54.120)
So the conflict that I can foresee in the future
Niall Ferguson (1:30:56.760)
is one that's highly financially disruptive.
Lex Fridman (1:31:00.120)
Where does crypto fit in?
Niall Ferguson (1:31:02.560)
Crypto's obvious utility in the short run
Lex Fridman (1:31:07.040)
is as a store of wealth, of transferable wealth
Niall Ferguson (1:31:11.040)
for people who live in a world
Lex Fridman (1:31:12.960)
of transferable wealth for people who live
Niall Ferguson (1:31:15.720)
in dangerous places with failing,
Lex Fridman (1:31:18.880)
not just failing money, but failing rule of law.
Niall Ferguson (1:31:21.680)
That's why in Latin America,
Lex Fridman (1:31:22.960)
there's so much interest in crypto
Niall Ferguson (1:31:24.680)
because Latin Americans have a lot of monetary history
Lex Fridman (1:31:26.800)
to look back on and not much of it is good.
Lex Fridman (1:31:30.160)
So I think that the short run problem that crypto solves
Lex Fridman (1:31:35.240)
is, and this goes back to the digital gold point,
Niall Ferguson (1:31:39.280)
if you are in a dangerous place with weak rule of law
Lex Fridman (1:31:43.160)
and weak property rights,
Niall Ferguson (1:31:44.840)
here is a new and better way to have portable wealth.
Lex Fridman (1:31:51.400)
I think the next question to ask is,
Niall Ferguson (1:31:56.200)
would you want to be long crypto
Lex Fridman (1:31:59.000)
in the event of World War III?
Niall Ferguson (1:32:02.200)
What's interesting about that question
Lex Fridman (1:32:03.720)
is that World War III would likely have
Niall Ferguson (1:32:05.400)
a significant cyber dimension to it.
Lex Fridman (1:32:07.600)
And I don't want to be 100% in crypto
Niall Ferguson (1:32:10.200)
if they crash the internet,
Lex Fridman (1:32:13.280)
which between them, China and Russia might be able to do.
Niall Ferguson (1:32:17.720)
That's a fascinating question,
Lex Fridman (1:32:19.280)
whether you want to be holding physical gold
Niall Ferguson (1:32:22.040)
or digital gold in the event of World War III.
Lex Fridman (1:32:25.360)
The smart person who studied history
Niall Ferguson (1:32:27.160)
definitely wants a bit of both.
Lex Fridman (1:32:29.760)
And so let's imagine World War III
Niall Ferguson (1:32:33.400)
has a very, very severe cyber component
Lex Fridman (1:32:35.960)
to it with high levels of disruption.
Niall Ferguson (1:32:38.640)
Yeah, you'd be glad of the old shiny stuff at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:32:43.480)
So diversification still seems like
Niall Ferguson (1:32:47.040)
the most important truth of financial history.
Lex Fridman (1:32:52.040)
And what is crypto?
Niall Ferguson (1:32:53.520)
It's just this wonderful new source of diversification,
Lex Fridman (1:32:56.600)
but you'd be nuts to be 100% in Bitcoin.
Niall Ferguson (1:32:59.800)
I mean, I have some friends
Lex Fridman (1:33:02.040)
who are probably quite close to that.
Niall Ferguson (1:33:04.040)
Close to 100%, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:33:05.360)
I'd mar the balls of steel.
Niall Ferguson (1:33:11.880)
Yeah, in whatever way that balls of steel takes form.
Lex Fridman (1:33:18.160)
You mentioned smart contracts.
Lex Fridman (1:33:20.120)
What are your thoughts about,
Lex Fridman (1:33:21.760)
in the context of the history of money,
Niall Ferguson (1:33:23.640)
about Ethereum, about smart contracts,
Lex Fridman (1:33:25.640)
about kind of more systematic at scale
Lex Fridman (1:33:30.640)
formalization of agreements between humans?
Lex Fridman (1:33:33.460)
Well, I think it must be the case
Niall Ferguson (1:33:40.580)
that a lot of the complexity in a mortgage is redundant.
Lex Fridman (1:33:49.100)
That when we are confronted with pages and pages
Lex Fridman (1:33:51.860)
and pages and pages of small prints,
Lex Fridman (1:33:55.340)
we're seeing some manifestation
Niall Ferguson (1:33:58.060)
of the late stage regulatory state.
Lex Fridman (1:34:01.180)
The transaction itself is quite simple.
Lex Fridman (1:34:04.700)
And most of the verbiage is just ass covering by regulators.
Lex Fridman (1:34:09.620)
So I think the smart contract,
Niall Ferguson (1:34:12.380)
although I'm sure lawyers will email me
Lex Fridman (1:34:16.020)
and tell me I'm wrong,
Niall Ferguson (1:34:17.700)
can deal with a lot of the plain vanilla
Lex Fridman (1:34:20.380)
and maybe not so plain transactions that we want to do
Lex Fridman (1:34:24.080)
and eliminate yet more intermediaries.
Lex Fridman (1:34:28.600)
That's my kind of working assumption.
Lex Fridman (1:34:31.940)
And given that a lot of financial transactions
Lex Fridman (1:34:37.900)
have the potential at least to be simplified,
Niall Ferguson (1:34:41.740)
automated, turned into smart contracts,
Lex Fridman (1:34:45.380)
that's probably where the future goes.
Niall Ferguson (1:34:48.380)
I can't see an obvious reason
Lex Fridman (1:34:49.820)
why my range of different financial needs,
Niall Ferguson (1:34:54.100)
let's think about insurance, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:34:56.540)
will continue to be met with instruments
Niall Ferguson (1:35:00.940)
that in some ways are 100 years old.
Lex Fridman (1:35:05.580)
So I think we're still at an early stage
Niall Ferguson (1:35:08.620)
of a financial revolution that will greatly streamline
Lex Fridman (1:35:12.420)
how we take care of all those financial needs that we have,
Niall Ferguson (1:35:17.100)
mortgages and insurance leap to mind.
Lex Fridman (1:35:20.020)
Most households are penalized
Niall Ferguson (1:35:23.380)
for being financially poorly educated
Lex Fridman (1:35:27.100)
and confronted with oligopolistic
Niall Ferguson (1:35:29.660)
financial services providers.
Lex Fridman (1:35:31.620)
So you kind of leave college already in debt.
Lex Fridman (1:35:35.740)
So you start in debt servitude
Lex Fridman (1:35:40.340)
and then you got to somehow lever up
Niall Ferguson (1:35:43.380)
to buy a home if you can,
Lex Fridman (1:35:45.260)
because everybody's kind of telling you you should do that.
Lex Fridman (1:35:47.500)
So you and your spouse,
Lex Fridman (1:35:50.380)
you are getting even more leveraged
Lex Fridman (1:35:53.100)
and your long one asset class called real estate,
Lex Fridman (1:35:57.400)
which is super illiquid.
Niall Ferguson (1:35:59.540)
I mean, already I'm crying inside at the thought
Lex Fridman (1:36:03.980)
of describing so many households financial predicament
Niall Ferguson (1:36:07.540)
in that way, and I'm not done with them yet
Lex Fridman (1:36:09.060)
because, oh, by the way,
Niall Ferguson (1:36:10.660)
there's all this insurance you have to take out
Lex Fridman (1:36:13.180)
and here are the providers that are willing to insure you
Lex Fridman (1:36:15.380)
and here are the premiums you're gonna be paying,
Lex Fridman (1:36:17.740)
which are kind of presented to you.
Niall Ferguson (1:36:19.280)
That's your car insurance, that's your home insurance.
Lex Fridman (1:36:22.220)
And if you're here, it's the earthquake insurance.
Lex Fridman (1:36:23.820)
And pretty soon you're just bleeding money
Lex Fridman (1:36:26.460)
in a bunch of monthly payments to the mortgage lender,
Niall Ferguson (1:36:30.940)
to the insurer, to all the other people that lent you money.
Lex Fridman (1:36:35.620)
And let's look at your balance sheet, it sucks.
Niall Ferguson (1:36:39.340)
There's this great big chunk of real estate
Lex Fridman (1:36:41.220)
and what else have you really got on there?
Lex Fridman (1:36:43.660)
And the other side is a bunch of debt,
Lex Fridman (1:36:45.340)
which is probably paying too high interest.
Niall Ferguson (1:36:48.340)
The typical household in the median kind of range
Lex Fridman (1:36:52.440)
is at the mercy of oligopolistic
Niall Ferguson (1:36:56.040)
financial services providers.
Lex Fridman (1:36:57.620)
Go down further in the social scale
Lex Fridman (1:37:01.220)
and people are outside the financial system altogether.
Lex Fridman (1:37:03.780)
And those poor folks have to rely on bank notes
Lex Fridman (1:37:07.520)
and informal lending with huge punitive rates.
Lex Fridman (1:37:10.940)
We have to do better than this.
Niall Ferguson (1:37:12.100)
This has to be improved upon.
Lex Fridman (1:37:15.300)
And I think what's exciting about our time
Niall Ferguson (1:37:17.380)
is that technology now exists that didn't exist
Lex Fridman (1:37:20.220)
when I wrote The Ascent of Money to solve these problems.
Niall Ferguson (1:37:22.660)
When I wrote The Ascent of Money, which was in 2008,
Lex Fridman (1:37:26.380)
you couldn't really solve the problem I've just described.
Niall Ferguson (1:37:30.380)
Certainly you couldn't solve it
Lex Fridman (1:37:31.620)
with something like microfinance.
Niall Ferguson (1:37:32.980)
That was obviously not viable.
Lex Fridman (1:37:35.760)
The interest rates were high,
Niall Ferguson (1:37:38.100)
the transaction costs were crazy, but now we have solutions
Lex Fridman (1:37:42.020)
and the solutions are extremely exciting.
Lex Fridman (1:37:43.980)
So FinTech is this great force for good
Lex Fridman (1:37:46.140)
that brings people into the financial system
Lex Fridman (1:37:48.820)
and reduces transaction costs.
Lex Fridman (1:37:50.900)
Crypto is part of it, but it's just part of it.
Niall Ferguson (1:37:53.220)
There's a much broader story of FinTech going on here
Lex Fridman (1:37:55.880)
where suddenly you get financial services on your phone,
Niall Ferguson (1:38:00.640)
don't cost nearly as much as they did
Lex Fridman (1:38:03.480)
when there had to be a bricks and mortar building
Niall Ferguson (1:38:05.100)
on main street that you kind of went humbly
Lex Fridman (1:38:08.220)
and beseeched to lend you money.
Niall Ferguson (1:38:10.420)
I'm excited about that
Lex Fridman (1:38:11.620)
because it seems to me very socially transformative.
Niall Ferguson (1:38:14.740)
I'll give you one other example of what's great.
Lex Fridman (1:38:17.660)
The people who really get sculpted in our financial system
Niall Ferguson (1:38:21.580)
are senders and receivers of remittances,
Lex Fridman (1:38:25.800)
which are often amongst the poorest families in the world.
Niall Ferguson (1:38:29.060)
The people who are like my wife's family in East Africa
Lex Fridman (1:38:32.380)
really kind of hand to mouth.
Lex Fridman (1:38:34.500)
And if you send money to East Africa
Lex Fridman (1:38:36.460)
or the Philippines or Central America,
Niall Ferguson (1:38:39.060)
it's the transaction costs are awful.
Lex Fridman (1:38:41.840)
I'm talking to you, Western Union.
Niall Ferguson (1:38:44.680)
We're going to solve that problem.
Lex Fridman (1:38:47.680)
So 10 years from now,
Niall Ferguson (1:38:48.760)
the transaction costs will just be negligible
Lex Fridman (1:38:51.080)
and the money will go to the people who need it
Niall Ferguson (1:38:53.160)
rather than to rent seeking financial institutions.
Lex Fridman (1:38:55.760)
So I'm on the side of the revolution with this
Niall Ferguson (1:38:57.520)
because I think the incumbent financial institutions globally
Lex Fridman (1:39:01.240)
are doing a pretty terrible job
Lex Fridman (1:39:03.280)
and middle class and lower class families lose out.
Lex Fridman (1:39:08.040)
And thankfully, technologically,
Niall Ferguson (1:39:10.040)
technology allows us to fix this.
Lex Fridman (1:39:11.960)
Yeah, so FinTech can remove a lot of inefficiencies
Niall Ferguson (1:39:14.120)
in the system.
Lex Fridman (1:39:15.160)
I'm super excited myself,
Niall Ferguson (1:39:16.800)
maybe as a machine learning person in data oracles.
Lex Fridman (1:39:20.000)
So converting a lot of our physical world into data
Lex Fridman (1:39:25.280)
and have smart contracts on top of that.
Lex Fridman (1:39:27.160)
So that no longer is there's this fuzziness
Niall Ferguson (1:39:30.520)
about what is the concrete nature of the agreements.
Lex Fridman (1:39:34.560)
You can tie your agreement to weather.
Niall Ferguson (1:39:37.760)
You can tie your agreement to the behavior
Lex Fridman (1:39:40.760)
of certain kinds of financial systems.
Niall Ferguson (1:39:44.080)
You can tie your behavior to, I don't know,
Lex Fridman (1:39:47.480)
I mean, all kinds of things.
Niall Ferguson (1:39:48.560)
You can connect it to the body
Lex Fridman (1:39:50.080)
in terms of human sensory information.
Niall Ferguson (1:39:53.800)
Like you can make an agreement
Lex Fridman (1:39:56.120)
that if you don't lose five pounds in the next month,
Niall Ferguson (1:40:01.120)
you're going to pay me $1,000 or something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:40:03.360)
I don't know.
Niall Ferguson (1:40:04.200)
It's a stupid example, but it's not going to happen.
Lex Fridman (1:40:06.760)
It's a good example, but it's not
Niall Ferguson (1:40:08.200)
because like you can create all kinds of services
Lex Fridman (1:40:10.840)
on top of that.
Niall Ferguson (1:40:11.680)
You can just create all kinds of interesting applications
Lex Fridman (1:40:15.120)
that completely revolutionize how humans transact.
Niall Ferguson (1:40:19.800)
I think, of course, we don't want to create a world
Lex Fridman (1:40:26.280)
of Chinese style social credit
Niall Ferguson (1:40:29.640)
in which our behavior becomes so transparent
Lex Fridman (1:40:34.480)
to providers of financial services,
Niall Ferguson (1:40:36.960)
particularly insurers that when I try to go into the pub,
Lex Fridman (1:40:42.080)
I'm stopped from doing so.
Niall Ferguson (1:40:44.920)
Every time you take a drink, your insurance goes up.
Lex Fridman (1:40:47.240)
Right, or my credit card wouldn't work
Niall Ferguson (1:40:51.400)
in certain restaurants because they serve ribeye steak.
Lex Fridman (1:40:56.160)
I fear that world because I see it being built in China.
Lex Fridman (1:40:59.160)
And we must at all costs make sure
Lex Fridman (1:41:02.960)
that the Western world has something distinctive to offer.
Niall Ferguson (1:41:07.560)
It can't just be, oh, it's the same as in China.
Lex Fridman (1:41:09.920)
Only the data go to five tech companies
Niall Ferguson (1:41:13.600)
rather than to Xi Jinping.
Lex Fridman (1:41:16.920)
So I think that the way we need to steer this world
Niall Ferguson (1:41:21.720)
is in the way that our data are by default
Lex Fridman (1:41:26.720)
are by default vaulted on our devices
Lex Fridman (1:41:31.120)
and we choose when to release the data
Lex Fridman (1:41:36.400)
rather than the default setting
Niall Ferguson (1:41:38.000)
being that the data are available.
Lex Fridman (1:41:40.080)
That's important, I think,
Niall Ferguson (1:41:41.120)
because it was one of the biggest mistakes
Lex Fridman (1:41:43.040)
of the evolution of the internet
Niall Ferguson (1:41:45.440)
that in a way the default was to let our data be plundered.
Lex Fridman (1:41:50.080)
It's hard to undo that,
Lex Fridman (1:41:51.160)
but I think we can at least create a new regime
Lex Fridman (1:41:56.080)
that in future makes privacy default
Niall Ferguson (1:41:59.680)
rather than open access default.
Lex Fridman (1:42:04.120)
In the book, Doom, The Politics of Catastrophe,
Niall Ferguson (1:42:07.960)
your newest book, you describe wars, pandemics
Lex Fridman (1:42:11.880)
and the terrible disasters in human history,
Niall Ferguson (1:42:15.280)
which stands out to you as the worst
Lex Fridman (1:42:17.920)
in terms of how much it shook the world
Lex Fridman (1:42:21.000)
and the human spirit.
Lex Fridman (1:42:22.280)
I am glad I was not around in the mid 14th century
Niall Ferguson (1:42:27.760)
when the bubonic plague swept across Eurasia.
Lex Fridman (1:42:32.520)
As far as we can see, that was history's worst pandemic.
Niall Ferguson (1:42:36.960)
Maybe there was a comparably bad one
Lex Fridman (1:42:38.920)
in the reign of the emperor Justinian,
Lex Fridman (1:42:42.280)
but there's some reason to think it wasn't as bad.
Lex Fridman (1:42:45.840)
And the more we learn about the 14th century,
Niall Ferguson (1:42:50.040)
the more we realize that it really was across Eurasia
Lex Fridman (1:42:53.360)
and the mortality was 30% in some places,
Niall Ferguson (1:42:57.720)
50% in some places higher.
Lex Fridman (1:43:00.480)
There were whole towns that were just emptied.
Lex Fridman (1:43:03.640)
And when one reads about the Black Death,
Lex Fridman (1:43:06.520)
it's an unimaginable nightmare of death
Lex Fridman (1:43:12.040)
and madness in the death with flagellant orders
Lex Fridman (1:43:17.040)
wandering from town to town.
Niall Ferguson (1:43:18.800)
Town to town seeking to ward off divine retribution
Lex Fridman (1:43:22.760)
by flogging themselves,
Niall Ferguson (1:43:24.840)
people turning on the local Jewish communities
Lex Fridman (1:43:27.000)
as if it's somehow their fault.
Niall Ferguson (1:43:28.920)
That must have been a nightmarish time.
Lex Fridman (1:43:32.400)
If you ask me for an also random runner up,
Niall Ferguson (1:43:36.600)
it would be World War II in Eastern Europe.
Lex Fridman (1:43:42.160)
And in many ways, it might have been worse
Niall Ferguson (1:43:46.280)
because for a medieval peasant,
Lex Fridman (1:43:50.400)
the sense of being on the wrong side of divine retribution
Niall Ferguson (1:43:53.760)
must have been overpowering.
Lex Fridman (1:43:56.800)
In the mid 20th century,
Niall Ferguson (1:43:59.400)
you knew that this was manmade murder
Lex Fridman (1:44:04.200)
on a massive industrial scale.
Niall Ferguson (1:44:06.960)
If one reads Grossman's Life and Fate,
Lex Fridman (1:44:10.560)
just to take one example,
Niall Ferguson (1:44:12.880)
one enters a hellscape
Lex Fridman (1:44:15.320)
that it's extremely hard to imagine oneself in.
Lex Fridman (1:44:21.360)
So these are two of the great disasters of human history.
Lex Fridman (1:44:24.800)
And if we did have a time machine,
Niall Ferguson (1:44:27.360)
if one really were able to transport people back
Lex Fridman (1:44:30.240)
and give them a glimpse of these times,
Niall Ferguson (1:44:34.800)
I think the post traumatic stress would be enormous.
Lex Fridman (1:44:37.400)
People would come back from those trips
Niall Ferguson (1:44:39.680)
even if it was a one day excursion with guaranteed survival
Lex Fridman (1:44:44.400)
in a state of utter shock.
Niall Ferguson (1:44:48.120)
You often explore counterfactual and hypothetical history,
Lex Fridman (1:44:51.200)
which is a fascinating thing to do,
Niall Ferguson (1:44:53.680)
sometimes to a controversial degree.
Lex Fridman (1:44:57.200)
And again, you walk through that fire gracefully.
Lex Fridman (1:45:01.640)
So let me ask maybe about World War II or in general,
Lex Fridman (1:45:08.400)
what key moments in history of the 20th century
Lex Fridman (1:45:12.360)
do you think if something else happened at those moments,
Lex Fridman (1:45:15.840)
we could have avoided some of the big atrocities,
Niall Ferguson (1:45:18.200)
Stalin's Baltimore, Hitler's Holocaust,
Lex Fridman (1:45:21.160)
Mao's Great Chinese Famine?
Niall Ferguson (1:45:25.640)
The great turning point in world history
Lex Fridman (1:45:28.600)
is August the 2nd, 1914,
Niall Ferguson (1:45:33.840)
when the British cabinet decides to intervene
Lex Fridman (1:45:38.560)
and what would have been a European war
Niall Ferguson (1:45:43.600)
becomes a world war.
Lex Fridman (1:45:46.000)
And with British intervention,
Niall Ferguson (1:45:47.320)
it becomes a massively larger and more protracted conflict.
Lex Fridman (1:45:51.760)
So very early in my career,
Niall Ferguson (1:45:53.240)
I became very preoccupied with the deliberations
Lex Fridman (1:45:55.720)
on that day and the surprising decision
Niall Ferguson (1:46:00.720)
that a liberal cabinet took to go to war,
Lex Fridman (1:46:04.520)
which you might not have bet on that morning
Niall Ferguson (1:46:06.480)
because there seemed to be a majority of cabinet members
Lex Fridman (1:46:10.680)
who would be disinclined and only a minority,
Niall Ferguson (1:46:12.960)
including Winston Churchill, who wanted to go to war.
Lex Fridman (1:46:15.280)
So that's one turning point.
Niall Ferguson (1:46:16.760)
I often wish I could get my time machine working
Lex Fridman (1:46:20.160)
and go back and say, wait, stop.
Niall Ferguson (1:46:22.640)
Just think about what you're going to do.
Lex Fridman (1:46:24.320)
And by the way, let me show you a video of Europe in 1918.
Lex Fridman (1:46:28.920)
So that's one.
Lex Fridman (1:46:29.800)
Can we linger on that one?
Niall Ferguson (1:46:31.520)
That one, a lot of people push back on you
Lex Fridman (1:46:37.880)
because it's so difficult.
Lex Fridman (1:46:40.560)
So the idea is, if I could try to summarize,
Lex Fridman (1:46:43.760)
and you're the first person that made me think
Niall Ferguson (1:46:46.440)
about this very uncomfortable thought,
Lex Fridman (1:46:50.400)
which is the ideas in World War I,
Niall Ferguson (1:46:54.360)
it would be a better world if Britain stayed out of the war
Lex Fridman (1:46:58.960)
and Germany won.
Niall Ferguson (1:47:00.520)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:47:03.880)
Thinking now in retrospect at the whole story
Niall Ferguson (1:47:06.960)
of the 20th century,
Lex Fridman (1:47:08.000)
thinking about Stalin's rule of 30 years,
Niall Ferguson (1:47:11.960)
thinking about Hitler's rise to power
Lex Fridman (1:47:14.560)
and the atrocities of the Holocaust,
Lex Fridman (1:47:18.360)
but also like you said on the Eastern front,
Lex Fridman (1:47:21.360)
the death of tens of millions of people through the war
Lex Fridman (1:47:25.960)
and also sort of the political prisoners
Lex Fridman (1:47:28.600)
and the suffering connected to communism,
Niall Ferguson (1:47:30.680)
connected to fascism, all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:47:34.040)
Well, that's one heck of an example
Niall Ferguson (1:47:37.880)
of why you're just like fearless
Lex Fridman (1:47:39.480)
in this particular style
Niall Ferguson (1:47:42.000)
of exploring counterfactual history.
Lex Fridman (1:47:44.120)
So can you elaborate on that idea
Lex Fridman (1:47:47.360)
and maybe why this was such an important day
Lex Fridman (1:47:50.200)
in human history?
Niall Ferguson (1:47:52.160)
This argument was central to my book, The Pity of War.
Lex Fridman (1:47:55.080)
I also did an essay in virtual history about this
Lex Fridman (1:47:58.360)
and it's always amused me that from around that time,
Lex Fridman (1:48:01.160)
I began to be called a conservative historian
Niall Ferguson (1:48:03.200)
because it's actually a very left wing argument.
Lex Fridman (1:48:05.520)
The people in 1914 who thought Britain should stay
Niall Ferguson (1:48:07.880)
at the war were the left of the Labour Party,
Lex Fridman (1:48:10.520)
who split to become the Independent Labour Party.
Lex Fridman (1:48:14.240)
What would have happened?
Lex Fridman (1:48:16.080)
Well, first of all, Britain was not ready for war in 1914.
Niall Ferguson (1:48:19.920)
There had not been conscription.
Lex Fridman (1:48:21.080)
The army was tiny.
Lex Fridman (1:48:23.080)
So Britain had failed to deter Germany.
Lex Fridman (1:48:25.600)
The Germans took the decision
Niall Ferguson (1:48:27.000)
that they could risk going through Belgium
Lex Fridman (1:48:30.960)
using the Schlieffen Plan to fight their two front war.
Niall Ferguson (1:48:34.520)
They calculated that Britain's intervention
Lex Fridman (1:48:37.520)
would either not happen or not matter.
Niall Ferguson (1:48:41.080)
If Britain had been strategically committed
Lex Fridman (1:48:46.360)
to preventing Germany winning a war in Europe,
Niall Ferguson (1:48:48.920)
they should have introduced conscription 10 years before,
Lex Fridman (1:48:51.240)
had a meaningful land army
Lex Fridman (1:48:53.440)
and that would have deterred the Germans.
Lex Fridman (1:48:55.760)
So the Liberal government provided the worst of both worlds,
Niall Ferguson (1:48:59.280)
a commitment that was more or less secret to intervene
Lex Fridman (1:49:03.320)
that the public didn't know about.
Niall Ferguson (1:49:05.440)
In fact, much of the Liberal Party didn't know about,
Lex Fridman (1:49:07.600)
but without really the means
Niall Ferguson (1:49:09.520)
to make that intervention effective,
Lex Fridman (1:49:11.280)
a tiny army with just a few divisions.
Lex Fridman (1:49:14.280)
So it was perfectly reasonable to argue
Lex Fridman (1:49:16.040)
as a number of people did on August the 2nd, 1914,
Niall Ferguson (1:49:19.680)
that Britain should not intervene.
Lex Fridman (1:49:21.560)
After all, Britain had not immediately intervened
Niall Ferguson (1:49:23.520)
against the French Revolutionary armies back in the 1790s.
Lex Fridman (1:49:27.160)
It had played an offshore role, ultimately intervening,
Lex Fridman (1:49:30.440)
but not immediately intervening.
Lex Fridman (1:49:32.800)
If Britain had stayed out,
Niall Ferguson (1:49:35.280)
I don't think that France would have collapsed immediately
Lex Fridman (1:49:38.400)
as it had in 1870.
Niall Ferguson (1:49:40.360)
The French held up remarkably well
Lex Fridman (1:49:42.360)
to catastrophic casualties
Niall Ferguson (1:49:44.400)
in the first six months of the First World War.
Lex Fridman (1:49:47.760)
But by 1916, I don't see how France could have kept going
Niall Ferguson (1:49:52.360)
if Britain had not joined the war.
Lex Fridman (1:49:54.840)
And I think the war would have been over perhaps
Niall Ferguson (1:49:56.920)
at some point in 1916.
Lex Fridman (1:49:59.160)
We know that Germany's aims
Niall Ferguson (1:50:00.520)
would have been significantly limited
Lex Fridman (1:50:02.320)
because they would have needed to keep Britain out.
Niall Ferguson (1:50:04.480)
If they'd succeeded in keeping Britain out,
Lex Fridman (1:50:06.160)
they'd have had to keep Britain out.
Lex Fridman (1:50:07.680)
And the way to keep Britain out was obviously
Lex Fridman (1:50:09.160)
not to make any annexation of Belgium,
Niall Ferguson (1:50:11.880)
to limit German war aims,
Lex Fridman (1:50:14.080)
particularly to limit them to Eastern Europe.
Lex Fridman (1:50:16.520)
And from Britain's point of view, what was not to like?
Lex Fridman (1:50:19.120)
So the Russian Empire is defeated
Niall Ferguson (1:50:21.600)
along with France.
Lex Fridman (1:50:24.560)
What does that really change?
Niall Ferguson (1:50:27.520)
If the Germans are sensible
Lex Fridman (1:50:29.800)
and we can see what this might've looked like,
Niall Ferguson (1:50:33.840)
they focus on Eastern Europe,
Lex Fridman (1:50:35.880)
they take chunks of the Russian Empire,
Niall Ferguson (1:50:38.440)
perhaps they create as they did
Lex Fridman (1:50:40.600)
in the piece of Brest Litovsk,
Niall Ferguson (1:50:44.400)
an independent or quasi independent Poland.
Lex Fridman (1:50:47.120)
In no way does that pose a threat to the British Empire.
Niall Ferguson (1:50:49.400)
In fact, it's a good thing.
Lex Fridman (1:50:52.080)
Britain never had had a particularly good relationship
Niall Ferguson (1:50:54.400)
with the Russian Empire after all.
Lex Fridman (1:50:57.200)
The key point here is that the Germany that emerges
Niall Ferguson (1:51:00.280)
from victory in 1916 has a kind of European union.
Lex Fridman (1:51:05.000)
It's the dominant power of an enlarged Germany
Niall Ferguson (1:51:09.080)
with a significant middle Europa,
Lex Fridman (1:51:12.880)
whatever you want to call it,
Niall Ferguson (1:51:13.800)
customs union type arrangement with neighboring countries,
Lex Fridman (1:51:17.360)
including one suspects, Austria, Hungary.
Niall Ferguson (1:51:22.120)
That is a very different world from the world of 1917, 18.
Lex Fridman (1:51:27.360)
The protraction of the war for a further two years,
Niall Ferguson (1:51:32.000)
it's globalization,
Lex Fridman (1:51:33.200)
which Britain's intervention made inevitable.
Niall Ferguson (1:51:36.880)
As Philip Zelikow showed in his recent book
Lex Fridman (1:51:39.400)
on the failure to make peace in 1916,
Niall Ferguson (1:51:43.480)
Woodrow Wilson tried and failed to intervene
Lex Fridman (1:51:46.040)
and broker a peace in 1916.
Lex Fridman (1:51:47.720)
So I'm not the only counterfactualist here.
Lex Fridman (1:51:50.800)
The extension of the war for a further two years
Niall Ferguson (1:51:53.400)
with escalating slaughter, the death toll rose
Lex Fridman (1:51:56.120)
because the industrial capacity of the armies grew greater.
Niall Ferguson (1:52:00.480)
That's what condemns us to the Bolshevik revolution.
Lex Fridman (1:52:04.400)
And it's what condemns us ultimately to Nazism
Niall Ferguson (1:52:08.920)
because it's out of the experience of defeat in 1918
Lex Fridman (1:52:13.760)
as Hitler makes clear in Mein Kampf
Niall Ferguson (1:52:15.600)
that he becomes radicalized and enters the political realm.
Lex Fridman (1:52:21.560)
Take out those additional years of war
Lex Fridman (1:52:23.920)
and Hitler's just a failed artist.
Lex Fridman (1:52:26.160)
It's the end of the war that turns him into the demagogue.
Niall Ferguson (1:52:33.840)
You asked what are the things
Lex Fridman (1:52:34.920)
that avoid the totalitarian states.
Niall Ferguson (1:52:38.880)
As I've said,
Lex Fridman (1:52:39.720)
British nonintervention for me is the most plausible
Lex Fridman (1:52:42.840)
and it takes out all of that malignant history
Lex Fridman (1:52:45.760)
that follows from the Bolshevik revolution.
Niall Ferguson (1:52:48.280)
It's very hard for me to see how Lenin gets anywhere
Lex Fridman (1:52:51.000)
if the war is over.
Niall Ferguson (1:52:53.760)
That looks like the opportunity
Lex Fridman (1:52:55.280)
for the constitutional elements,
Niall Ferguson (1:52:59.800)
the liberal elements in Russia.
Lex Fridman (1:53:02.600)
There are other moments at which you can imagine history
Niall Ferguson (1:53:05.800)
taking a different path.
Lex Fridman (1:53:07.480)
If the provisional government in Russia
Niall Ferguson (1:53:11.160)
had been more ruthless,
Lex Fridman (1:53:13.880)
it was very lenient towards the Bolsheviks,
Lex Fridman (1:53:15.960)
but if it had just rounded them up
Lex Fridman (1:53:17.600)
and shot the Bolshevik leadership,
Niall Ferguson (1:53:19.280)
that would have certainly cut the Bolshevik revolution off.
Lex Fridman (1:53:23.520)
One looks back on the conduct of the Russian liberals
Niall Ferguson (1:53:27.720)
with the kind of despair at their failure
Lex Fridman (1:53:30.720)
to see the scale of the threat that they faced
Lex Fridman (1:53:33.240)
and the ruthlessness that the Bolshevik leadership
Lex Fridman (1:53:35.280)
would evince. There's a counterfactual in Germany,
Niall Ferguson (1:53:38.720)
which is interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:53:40.520)
I think the Weimar Republic destroyed itself
Niall Ferguson (1:53:43.480)
in two disastrous economic calamities,
Lex Fridman (1:53:48.480)
the inflation and then the deflation.
Niall Ferguson (1:53:51.400)
It's difficult for me to imagine Hitler
Lex Fridman (1:53:53.320)
getting to be Reich Chancellor
Niall Ferguson (1:53:56.760)
without those huge economic disasters.
Lex Fridman (1:53:59.680)
So another part of my early work explored
Niall Ferguson (1:54:02.400)
alternative policy options that the German Republic,
Lex Fridman (1:54:06.360)
the Weimar Republic might have pursued.
Niall Ferguson (1:54:09.840)
There are other contingencies that spring to mind.
Lex Fridman (1:54:12.760)
In 1936 or 38, I think more plausibly 38,
Niall Ferguson (1:54:17.440)
Britain should have gone to war.
Lex Fridman (1:54:19.840)
The great mistake was Munich.
Niall Ferguson (1:54:23.360)
Hitler was in an extremely vulnerable position in 1938,
Lex Fridman (1:54:27.560)
because remember, he didn't have Russia squared away
Niall Ferguson (1:54:30.120)
as he would in 1938.
Lex Fridman (1:54:31.640)
As he would in 1939.
Niall Ferguson (1:54:33.880)
Chamberlain's mistake was to fold instead of going for war
Lex Fridman (1:54:39.560)
as Churchill rightly saw.
Lex Fridman (1:54:41.160)
And there was a magical opportunity there
Lex Fridman (1:54:44.360)
that would have played into the hands
Niall Ferguson (1:54:45.520)
of the German military opposition and conservatives
Lex Fridman (1:54:48.160)
to snuff Hitler out over Czechoslovakia.
Niall Ferguson (1:54:52.960)
I could go on.
Lex Fridman (1:54:53.800)
The point is that history is not some inexorable narrative,
Niall Ferguson (1:54:59.040)
which can only end one way.
Lex Fridman (1:55:01.200)
It's a garden of forking paths.
Lex Fridman (1:55:03.720)
And many, many junctions in the road,
Lex Fridman (1:55:09.160)
there were choices that could have averted
Niall Ferguson (1:55:11.880)
the calamities of the mid 20th century.
Lex Fridman (1:55:14.360)
I have to ask you about this moment,
Niall Ferguson (1:55:16.360)
before you said I could go on,
Lex Fridman (1:55:18.080)
this moment of Chamberlain and Hitler,
Niall Ferguson (1:55:20.560)
snuff Hitler out in terms of Czechoslovakia.
Lex Fridman (1:55:25.280)
And we'll return to the book Doom on this point.
Lex Fridman (1:55:29.040)
What does it take to be a great leader
Lex Fridman (1:55:32.280)
in the room with Hitler,
Niall Ferguson (1:55:33.640)
or in the same time and space as Hitler,
Lex Fridman (1:55:38.800)
to snuff him out, to make the right decisions?
Lex Fridman (1:55:44.000)
So it sounds like you put quite a bit of a blame
Lex Fridman (1:55:46.760)
on the man, Chamberlain,
Lex Fridman (1:55:49.040)
and give credit to somebody like a Churchill.
Lex Fridman (1:55:53.360)
So what is the difference?
Lex Fridman (1:55:54.280)
Where's that line?
Lex Fridman (1:55:55.400)
You've also written a book about Henry Kissinger,
Niall Ferguson (1:55:58.920)
who's an interesting sort of person
Lex Fridman (1:56:01.200)
that's been throughout many difficult decisions
Niall Ferguson (1:56:04.800)
in the games of power.
Lex Fridman (1:56:06.200)
So what does it take to be a great leader in that moment?
Niall Ferguson (1:56:08.520)
That particular moment, sorry to keep talking,
Lex Fridman (1:56:10.640)
is fascinating to me,
Niall Ferguson (1:56:12.280)
because it feels like it's man on man conversations
Lex Fridman (1:56:15.760)
that define history.
Niall Ferguson (1:56:17.680)
Well, Hitler was bluffing.
Lex Fridman (1:56:19.600)
He really wasn't ready for war in 1938.
Niall Ferguson (1:56:21.760)
The German economy was clearly not ready for war in 1938.
Lex Fridman (1:56:25.720)
And Chamberlain made a fundamental miscalculation
Niall Ferguson (1:56:31.120)
along with his advisors,
Lex Fridman (1:56:32.360)
because it wasn't all Chamberlain.
Niall Ferguson (1:56:33.720)
He was in many ways articulating the establishment view.
Lex Fridman (1:56:39.760)
And I tried to show in a book called War of the World
Lex Fridman (1:56:41.480)
how that establishment worked.
Lex Fridman (1:56:42.800)
It extended through the BBC, into the aristocracy,
Niall Ferguson (1:56:46.160)
to Oxford.
Lex Fridman (1:56:47.000)
There was an establishment view.
Niall Ferguson (1:56:48.080)
Chamberlain personified it.
Lex Fridman (1:56:49.800)
Churchill was seen as a warmonger.
Niall Ferguson (1:56:53.080)
He was at his lowest point of popularity in 1938.
Lex Fridman (1:56:56.280)
But what is it that Chamberlain gets wrong?
Niall Ferguson (1:56:59.080)
Because it's conceptual.
Lex Fridman (1:57:00.760)
Chamberlain is persuaded that Britain has to play for time
Niall Ferguson (1:57:03.680)
because Britain is not ready for war in 1938.
Lex Fridman (1:57:06.800)
He fails to see that the time that he gets,
Niall Ferguson (1:57:09.800)
that he buys at Munich is also available to Hitler.
Lex Fridman (1:57:13.520)
Everybody gets the time
Lex Fridman (1:57:15.200)
and Hitler's able to do much more with it
Lex Fridman (1:57:17.000)
because Hitler strikes the pact with Stalin
Niall Ferguson (1:57:19.840)
that guarantees that Germany can fight a war
Lex Fridman (1:57:23.640)
on one front in 1939.
Lex Fridman (1:57:25.920)
What does Chamberlain do?
Lex Fridman (1:57:26.840)
Build some more aircraft.
Lex Fridman (1:57:28.760)
So the great mistake of the strategy of appeasement
Lex Fridman (1:57:31.320)
was to play for time.
Niall Ferguson (1:57:32.800)
I mean, they knew war was coming,
Lex Fridman (1:57:34.120)
but they were playing for time,
Niall Ferguson (1:57:35.080)
not realizing that Hitler got the time too.
Lex Fridman (1:57:39.160)
And after he partitioned Czechoslovakia,
Niall Ferguson (1:57:42.000)
he was in a much stronger position,
Lex Fridman (1:57:43.760)
not least because of all the resources
Niall Ferguson (1:57:45.400)
that they were able to plunder from Czechoslovakia.
Lex Fridman (1:57:50.760)
So that was the conceptual mistake.
Niall Ferguson (1:57:52.720)
Churchill played an heroic role in pointing out
Lex Fridman (1:57:58.320)
this mistake and predicting accurately
Niall Ferguson (1:58:00.960)
that it would lead to war on worse terms.
Lex Fridman (1:58:04.080)
What does it take?
Niall Ferguson (1:58:05.680)
It takes a distinct courage to be unpopular.
Lex Fridman (1:58:11.360)
And Churchill was deeply unpopular at that point.
Niall Ferguson (1:58:13.640)
People would listen to him in the House of Commons
Lex Fridman (1:58:16.480)
in silence.
Niall Ferguson (1:58:17.760)
On one occasion, Lady Astor shouted, rubbish.
Lex Fridman (1:58:22.960)
So he went through a period of being hated on.
Niall Ferguson (1:58:26.480)
The other thing that made Churchill a formidable leader
Lex Fridman (1:58:29.080)
was that he always applied history to the problem.
Lex Fridman (1:58:32.720)
And that's why he gets it right.
Lex Fridman (1:58:35.080)
He sees the historical problem
Niall Ferguson (1:58:37.360)
much more clearly than Chamberlain.
Lex Fridman (1:58:39.880)
So I think if you go back to 1938,
Niall Ferguson (1:58:44.320)
there's no realistic counterfactual
Lex Fridman (1:58:45.920)
in which Churchill's in government in 1938.
Niall Ferguson (1:58:48.000)
You have to have France collapse
Lex Fridman (1:58:49.800)
for Churchill to come into government.
Lex Fridman (1:58:51.880)
But you can certainly imagine a Tory elite
Lex Fridman (1:58:57.240)
that's thinking more clearly about the likely dynamics.
Niall Ferguson (1:59:02.360)
They haven't seen this, I guess, problem of conjecture,
Lex Fridman (1:59:06.320)
to take a phrase from Kissinger,
Niall Ferguson (1:59:08.880)
which is that whatever they're doing in postponing the war
Lex Fridman (1:59:13.800)
has the potential to create
Niall Ferguson (1:59:16.640)
a worse starting point for the war.
Lex Fridman (1:59:20.160)
It would have been risky in 1938,
Lex Fridman (1:59:21.920)
but it was a way better situation
Lex Fridman (1:59:23.640)
than they ended up with in 1939, a year later.
Niall Ferguson (1:59:27.280)
You asked about Kissinger,
Lex Fridman (1:59:28.200)
and I've learned a lot from reading Kissinger
Lex Fridman (1:59:31.200)
and talking to Kissinger since I embarked
Lex Fridman (1:59:33.960)
on writing his biography a great many years ago.
Lex Fridman (1:59:37.120)
So I think one of the most important things I've learned
Lex Fridman (1:59:42.040)
is that you can apply history to contemporary problems.
Niall Ferguson (1:59:46.600)
It may be the most important tool that we have
Lex Fridman (1:59:49.720)
in that kind of decision making.
Niall Ferguson (1:59:52.800)
You have to do it quite ruthlessly and rigorously.
Lex Fridman (1:59:58.640)
And in the moment of crisis, you have to take risk.
Lex Fridman (20:01.520)
and I remember this coming up
Lex Fridman (20:03.320)
at the Harvard history department late in my time there,
Niall Ferguson (20:06.800)
I felt deeply, deeply uneasy
Lex Fridman (20:09.080)
that we were having conversations
Niall Ferguson (20:11.560)
that amounted to, well, we can't hire X person
Lex Fridman (20:15.760)
despite their obvious academic qualifications
Niall Ferguson (20:19.960)
because of some political issue.
Lex Fridman (20:24.120)
That's not what should happen at a healthy university.
Niall Ferguson (20:28.520)
Some practical questions.
Lex Fridman (20:31.800)
Will University of Austin be a physical in person university
Lex Fridman (20:36.160)
or virtual university?
Lex Fridman (20:38.040)
What are some in that aspect where the classroom is?
Niall Ferguson (20:42.360)
It will be a real space institution.
Lex Fridman (20:46.920)
There may be an online dimension to it
Niall Ferguson (20:50.640)
because there clearly are a lot of things
Lex Fridman (20:52.280)
that you can do via the internet.
Lex Fridman (20:56.360)
But the core activity of teaching and learning
Lex Fridman (21:00.160)
I think requires real space.
Lex Fridman (21:02.000)
And I've thought about this a long time,
Lex Fridman (21:03.880)
debated Sebastian Thrun about this many, many years ago
Niall Ferguson (21:07.360)
when he was a complete believer in,
Lex Fridman (21:09.520)
let's call it the metaversity to go with the metaverse.
Lex Fridman (21:12.000)
I mean, the metaversity was going to happen, wasn't it?
Lex Fridman (21:14.040)
But I never really believed in the metaversity.
Niall Ferguson (21:16.920)
I didn't do MOOCs because I just didn't think you'd,
Lex Fridman (21:20.000)
A, be able to retain the attention,
Niall Ferguson (21:22.240)
B, be able to cope with the scaled grading that was involved.
Lex Fridman (21:27.040)
I think there's a reason universities have been around
Niall Ferguson (21:29.920)
in their form for about a millennium.
Lex Fridman (21:32.240)
You kind of need to all be in the same place.
Lex Fridman (21:34.520)
So I think answer to that question
Lex Fridman (21:36.880)
definitely a campus in the Austin area.
Niall Ferguson (21:39.960)
That's where we'll start.
Lex Fridman (21:41.760)
And if we can allow some of our content
Niall Ferguson (21:45.120)
to be available online, great, we'll certainly do that.
Lex Fridman (21:48.560)
Another question is what kind of courses
Lex Fridman (21:50.880)
and programming will it offer?
Lex Fridman (21:52.520)
Is that something you can speak to?
Lex Fridman (21:54.080)
What's your vision here?
Lex Fridman (21:55.720)
We think that we need to begin more like a startup
Niall Ferguson (22:00.520)
than like a full service university from day one.
Lex Fridman (22:05.080)
So our vision is that we start with a summer school,
Niall Ferguson (22:09.320)
which will offer provocatively the forbidden courses.
Lex Fridman (22:12.480)
We want, I think, to begin by giving a platform
Niall Ferguson (22:18.440)
to the professors who've been most subject
Lex Fridman (22:21.880)
to council culture and also to give an opportunity
Niall Ferguson (22:23.960)
to students who want to hear them to come.
Lex Fridman (22:25.760)
So we'll start with a summer school
Niall Ferguson (22:27.160)
that will be somewhat in the tradition
Lex Fridman (22:30.040)
of those institutions in the interwar period
Niall Ferguson (22:33.320)
that were havens for refugees.
Lex Fridman (22:34.840)
So we're dealing here with the internal refugees
Niall Ferguson (22:37.400)
of the work era.
Lex Fridman (22:39.800)
We'll start there.
Niall Ferguson (22:41.400)
It'll be an opportunity to test out some content,
Lex Fridman (22:45.520)
see what students will come and spend time in Austin to hear.
Lex Fridman (22:51.240)
So that's part A.
Lex Fridman (22:52.520)
That's the sort of, if you like, the launch product.
Lex Fridman (22:56.160)
And then we go straight to a master's program.
Lex Fridman (23:00.320)
I don't think you can go to undergraduate education
Niall Ferguson (23:03.400)
right away because the established brands
Lex Fridman (23:06.680)
in undergraduate education are offering something
Niall Ferguson (23:09.280)
it's impossible to compete with initially
Lex Fridman (23:11.040)
because they have the brand, Harvard, Yale, Stanford,
Lex Fridman (23:14.880)
and they offer also this peer network,
Lex Fridman (23:19.040)
which is part of the reason people want so badly
Niall Ferguson (23:21.720)
to go to those places, not really the professors,
Lex Fridman (23:24.120)
it's the classmates.
Lex Fridman (23:25.560)
So we don't wanna compete there initially.
Lex Fridman (23:28.160)
Where there is, I think, room for new entrance
Niall Ferguson (23:31.240)
is in a master's program.
Lex Fridman (23:35.000)
And the first one will be in entrepreneurship
Lex Fridman (23:37.880)
and leadership.
Lex Fridman (23:39.520)
Because I think there's a huge hunger
Niall Ferguson (23:42.400)
amongst people who want to get into,
Lex Fridman (23:44.160)
particularly the technology world,
Niall Ferguson (23:46.040)
to learn about those things.
Lex Fridman (23:47.120)
And they know they're not really going to learn
Niall Ferguson (23:48.880)
about them at business schools.
Lex Fridman (23:50.760)
The people who are not going to teach them leadership
Lex Fridman (23:53.160)
and entrepreneurship are professors.
Lex Fridman (23:55.560)
So we want to create something that will be a little like
Niall Ferguson (23:59.480)
the very successful Schwarzman program in China,
Lex Fridman (24:02.680)
which was come and spend a year in China
Lex Fridman (24:05.160)
and find out about China.
Lex Fridman (24:07.560)
We'll be doing the same, essentially saying,
Niall Ferguson (24:09.520)
come and spend a year and find out about technology.
Lex Fridman (24:12.320)
And there'll be a mix of academic content.
Niall Ferguson (24:15.240)
We want people to understand some of the first principles
Lex Fridman (24:18.000)
of what they're studying.
Niall Ferguson (24:19.520)
There are first principles of entrepreneurship
Lex Fridman (24:21.680)
and leadership, but we also want them to spend time with
Niall Ferguson (24:24.200)
people like one of our cofounders, Joe Lonsdale,
Lex Fridman (24:26.440)
who's been a hugely successful venture capitalist
Lex Fridman (24:30.040)
and learn directly from people like him.
Lex Fridman (24:33.240)
So that's the kind of initial offering.
Niall Ferguson (24:35.800)
I think there are other master's programs
Lex Fridman (24:37.720)
that we will look to roll out quite quickly.
Niall Ferguson (24:39.880)
I have a particular passion for a master's
Lex Fridman (24:42.600)
in applied history or politics in applied history.
Niall Ferguson (24:45.520)
I'm a historian driven crazy by the tendency
Lex Fridman (24:48.720)
of academic historians to drift away from
Lex Fridman (24:51.640)
what seemed to me the important questions
Lex Fridman (24:53.720)
and certainly to drift away from addressing
Niall Ferguson (24:56.400)
policy relevant questions.
Lex Fridman (24:57.840)
So I would love to be involved in a master's
Niall Ferguson (25:01.080)
in applied history.
Lex Fridman (25:02.760)
And we'll build some programs like that
Niall Ferguson (25:06.000)
before we get to the full liberal arts experience
Lex Fridman (25:11.480)
that we envisage for an undergraduate program.
Lex Fridman (25:15.000)
And that undergraduate program is an exciting one
Lex Fridman (25:17.080)
cause I think we can be innovative there too.
Niall Ferguson (25:19.680)
I would say two years would be spent doing
Lex Fridman (25:22.680)
some very classical and difficult classical things,
Niall Ferguson (25:26.640)
bridging those old divides between arts and sciences.
Lex Fridman (25:30.960)
But then there would also be in the second half
Niall Ferguson (25:34.920)
in the junior and senior years,
Lex Fridman (25:37.520)
something somewhat more of an apprenticeship
Niall Ferguson (25:41.080)
where we'll have centers, including a center
Lex Fridman (25:43.560)
for technology engineering mathematics
Niall Ferguson (25:47.680)
that will be designed to help people make that transition
Lex Fridman (25:51.760)
from the theoretical to the practical.
Lex Fridman (25:54.800)
So that's the vision.
Lex Fridman (25:57.000)
And I think like any early stage idea
Niall Ferguson (26:02.000)
we'll doubtless tweak it as we go along.
Lex Fridman (26:04.240)
We'll find things that work and things that don't work.
Lex Fridman (26:07.360)
But I have a very clear sense in my own mind
Lex Fridman (26:10.360)
of how this should look five years from now.
Lex Fridman (26:14.000)
And I don't know about you.
Lex Fridman (26:14.840)
I mean, I'm unusual as an academic
Niall Ferguson (26:16.800)
cause I quite like starting new institutions
Lex Fridman (26:18.800)
and I've done a bit of it in my career.
Niall Ferguson (26:22.320)
You got to kind of know what it should look like
Lex Fridman (26:25.200)
after the first four or five years
Niall Ferguson (26:27.160)
to get out of bed in the morning
Lex Fridman (26:28.680)
and put up with all the kind of hassles of doing it.
Niall Ferguson (26:31.920)
Not least the inevitable flack that we were bound to take
Lex Fridman (26:35.920)
from the educational establishment.
Lex Fridman (26:39.120)
And I was graciously invited to be an advisor
Lex Fridman (26:41.960)
to this University of Austin.
Lex Fridman (26:45.200)
And the reason I would love to help
Lex Fridman (26:49.440)
in whatever way I can is several.
Lex Fridman (26:52.720)
So one, I would love to see Austin,
Lex Fridman (26:55.360)
the physical location flourish intellectually
Lex Fridman (26:58.880)
and especially in the space of science and engineering.
Lex Fridman (27:03.320)
That's really exciting to me.
Niall Ferguson (27:05.320)
Another reason is I am still a research scientist at MIT.
Lex Fridman (27:09.760)
I still love MIT and I see this effort
Niall Ferguson (27:14.760)
that you're launching as a beacon
Lex Fridman (27:19.800)
that leads the way to the other elite institutions
Niall Ferguson (27:23.120)
in the world.
Lex Fridman (27:24.440)
I think too many of my colleagues
Lex Fridman (27:26.480)
and especially in robotics kind of see,
Lex Fridman (27:31.760)
don't see robotics as a humanities problem.
Lex Fridman (27:35.880)
But to me, robotics and AI will define much of our world
Lex Fridman (27:40.880)
in the next century.
Lex Fridman (27:41.800)
And for, not to consider all the deep psychological,
Lex Fridman (27:46.800)
sociological, human problems associated with that.
Niall Ferguson (27:51.800)
To have real open conversations, to say stupid things,
Lex Fridman (27:55.800)
to challenge the ideas that,
Niall Ferguson (27:59.640)
of how companies are being run, for example.
Lex Fridman (28:03.120)
That is the safe space.
Niall Ferguson (28:05.000)
It's very difficult to talk about the different
Lex Fridman (28:08.600)
questions about technology when you're employed
Niall Ferguson (28:11.160)
by Facebook or Google and so on.
Lex Fridman (28:13.800)
The university is the place to have those conversations.
Niall Ferguson (28:17.080)
That's right, and we're hugely excited
Lex Fridman (28:18.720)
that you want to be one of our advisors.
Niall Ferguson (28:21.080)
We need a broad and an eclectic group of people.
Lex Fridman (28:26.080)
And I'm excited by the way that group has developed.
Niall Ferguson (28:31.080)
It has some of the, some of my favorite intellectuals
Lex Fridman (28:33.960)
are there, Steve Pinker,
Niall Ferguson (28:36.600)
for example, but we're also making sure
Lex Fridman (28:40.280)
that we have people with experience in academic leadership.
Lex Fridman (28:46.960)
And so it's a happy coalition of the willing,
Lex Fridman (28:51.960)
looking to try to build something new,
Niall Ferguson (28:54.600)
which as you say, will be complimentary
Lex Fridman (28:56.800)
to the existing and established institutions.
Niall Ferguson (29:00.280)
I think of the academic world as a network.
Lex Fridman (29:04.200)
I've moved from some major hubs in the network to others,
Lex Fridman (29:10.000)
but I've always felt that we do our best work,
Lex Fridman (29:13.720)
not in a silo called Oxford, but in a silo
Niall Ferguson (29:17.680)
that is really a hub connected to Stanford,
Lex Fridman (29:21.000)
connected to Harvard, connected to MIT.
Niall Ferguson (29:24.400)
One of the reasons I moved to the United States
Lex Fridman (29:26.360)
was that I sensed that there was more intellectual action
Niall Ferguson (29:30.280)
in my original field of expertise, financial history.
Lex Fridman (29:35.760)
And that was right.
Niall Ferguson (29:37.280)
It was a good move.
Lex Fridman (29:39.000)
I think I'd have stagnated if I'd stayed at Oxford.
Lex Fridman (29:43.040)
But at the same time, I haven't lost connection with Oxford.
Lex Fridman (29:46.400)
I recently went and gave a lecture there
Niall Ferguson (29:48.800)
in honor of Sir Roger Scruton,
Lex Fridman (29:50.480)
one of the great conservative philosophers.
Lex Fridman (29:52.840)
And the burden of my lecture was the idea
Lex Fridman (29:56.800)
of the Anglosphere, which appealed a lot to Roger,
Lex Fridman (2:00:03.360)
So Kissinger often says in his early work,
Lex Fridman (2:00:08.400)
the temptation of the bureaucrat is to wait for more data,
Lex Fridman (2:00:12.240)
but ultimately the decision making
Lex Fridman (2:00:14.520)
that we do under uncertainty can't be based on data.
Niall Ferguson (2:00:18.480)
The problem of conjecture is
Lex Fridman (2:00:19.920)
that you could take an action now and incur some cost,
Niall Ferguson (2:00:24.800)
an avert disaster, but you'll get no thanks for it
Lex Fridman (2:00:28.720)
because nobody is grateful for an averted disaster.
Lex Fridman (2:00:32.120)
And nobody goes around saying, wasn't it wonderful
Lex Fridman (2:00:34.480)
how we didn't have another 9 11.
Niall Ferguson (2:00:38.280)
On the other hand, you can do nothing,
Lex Fridman (2:00:40.760)
incur no upfront costs and hope for the best.
Lex Fridman (2:00:44.120)
And you might get lucky, the disaster might not happen.
Lex Fridman (2:00:47.440)
That's in a democratic system, the much easier path to take.
Lex Fridman (2:00:54.280)
And I think that the essence of leadership is to be ready
Lex Fridman (2:00:59.520)
to take that upfront cost, avert the disaster
Lex Fridman (2:01:02.000)
and accept that you won't get gratitude.
Lex Fridman (2:01:05.360)
If I may make a comment, an aside about Henry Kissinger.
Lex Fridman (2:01:10.400)
So he, I think at 98 years old currently has still got it.
Lex Fridman (2:01:16.320)
He's brilliant.
Niall Ferguson (2:01:17.720)
It's very, very impressive.
Lex Fridman (2:01:19.000)
I can only hope that my brain has the same durability
Niall Ferguson (2:01:23.280)
that his does because it's a formidable intellect
Lex Fridman (2:01:26.080)
and it's still in as sharp form as it was 50 years ago.
Lex Fridman (2:01:31.080)
So you mentioned Eric Schmidt's in his book
Lex Fridman (2:01:34.200)
and he reached out to me that he wanted to do this podcast.
Lex Fridman (2:01:37.960)
And I know Eric Schmidt, I've spoken to him before.
Lex Fridman (2:01:41.320)
I like him a lot, obviously.
Lex Fridman (2:01:44.000)
So they said, we could do a podcast for 40 minutes
Lex Fridman (2:01:48.160)
with Eric, 40 minutes with Eric and Henry together
Lex Fridman (2:01:52.640)
and 40 minutes with Henry.
Lex Fridman (2:01:54.960)
So those are three different conversations.
Lex Fridman (2:01:58.040)
And I had to like, I had to do some soul searching
Lex Fridman (2:02:00.920)
because I said, fine, 40 minutes with Eric.
Niall Ferguson (2:02:02.840)
We'll probably talk many times again.
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.800)
Fine, let's talk about this AI book together
Niall Ferguson (2:02:07.520)
for 40 minutes.
Lex Fridman (2:02:09.240)
But I said, what I wrote to them is that I would hate myself
Niall Ferguson (2:02:12.760)
if I only have 40 minutes to talk to Henry Kissinger.
Lex Fridman (2:02:16.640)
And so I had to hold my ground, went back and forth
Lex Fridman (2:02:18.840)
and in the end decided to part ways over this.
Lex Fridman (2:02:21.160)
And I sometimes think about this kind of difficult decision
Lex Fridman (2:02:25.840)
in the podcasting space of when do you walk away?
Lex Fridman (2:02:34.920)
Because there's a particular world leader
Niall Ferguson (2:02:38.960)
that I've mentioned in the past
Lex Fridman (2:02:40.560)
where the conversation is very likely to happen.
Lex Fridman (2:02:43.960)
And as it happens, those conversations could often be,
Lex Fridman (2:02:50.760)
unfortunately this person only has 30 minutes now.
Niall Ferguson (2:02:53.360)
I know we agreed for three hours, but unfortunately,
Lex Fridman (2:02:56.000)
and you have to decide, do I stand my ground on this point?
Niall Ferguson (2:03:01.000)
I suppose that's the thing that journalists
Lex Fridman (2:03:03.160)
have to think about, right?
Niall Ferguson (2:03:04.520)
Like, do I hold onto my integrity
Lex Fridman (2:03:09.920)
in whatever form that takes?
Lex Fridman (2:03:11.400)
And do I stay my ground
Lex Fridman (2:03:12.520)
even if I lose a fascinating opportunity?
Niall Ferguson (2:03:16.120)
Anyway, it's something I thought about
Lex Fridman (2:03:17.960)
and something I think about.
Lex Fridman (2:03:19.720)
And with Henry Kissinger, I mean,
Lex Fridman (2:03:21.680)
he's had a million amazing conversations in your biography,
Lex Fridman (2:03:25.720)
so it's not like something is lost,
Lex Fridman (2:03:27.240)
but it was still nevertheless to me
Niall Ferguson (2:03:28.880)
some soul searching that I had to do
Lex Fridman (2:03:30.760)
as a kind of practice for what to me
Niall Ferguson (2:03:34.560)
is a higher stakes conversation.
Lex Fridman (2:03:36.800)
I'll just mention it as Vladimir Putin.
Niall Ferguson (2:03:40.080)
I can have a conversation with him
Lex Fridman (2:03:41.720)
unlike any conversation he's ever had,
Niall Ferguson (2:03:44.400)
partially because I'm a fluent Russian speaker,
Lex Fridman (2:03:47.800)
partially because I'm messed up in the head
Niall Ferguson (2:03:49.600)
in certain kinds of ways that make
Lex Fridman (2:03:50.880)
for an interesting dynamic,
Niall Ferguson (2:03:52.760)
because we're both Judo people,
Lex Fridman (2:03:54.400)
we both are certain kinds of human beings
Niall Ferguson (2:03:58.560)
that can have a much deeper apolitical conversation.
Lex Fridman (2:04:02.120)
I have to ask to stay on the topic of leadership.
Niall Ferguson (2:04:05.880)
You've, in your book, Doom,
Lex Fridman (2:04:08.360)
have talked about wars, pandemics throughout human history,
Lex Fridman (2:04:13.320)
and in some sense, saying that all of these disasters
Lex Fridman (2:04:18.480)
are manmade.
Lex Fridman (2:04:20.240)
So humans have a role in terms of the magnitude
Lex Fridman (2:04:23.560)
of the effect that they have on human civilization.
Niall Ferguson (2:04:27.800)
Without taking cheap political shots,
Lex Fridman (2:04:30.200)
can we talk about COVID 19?
Lex Fridman (2:04:33.240)
How will history remember the COVID 19 pandemic?
Lex Fridman (2:04:38.040)
What were the successes,
Lex Fridman (2:04:39.880)
what were the failures of leadership of man, of humans?
Lex Fridman (2:04:44.880)
Doom was a book that I was planning to write
Niall Ferguson (2:04:49.560)
before the pandemic struck.
Lex Fridman (2:04:52.320)
As a history of the future based in large measure
Niall Ferguson (2:04:55.840)
on science fiction.
Lex Fridman (2:04:57.680)
It had occurred to me in 2019
Niall Ferguson (2:04:59.400)
that I had spent too long not reading science fiction,
Lex Fridman (2:05:02.360)
and so I decided I would liven up my intake
Niall Ferguson (2:05:08.880)
by getting off history for a bit and reading science fiction.
Lex Fridman (2:05:12.040)
Because history is great at telling you about the perennial
Niall Ferguson (2:05:14.960)
problems of power.
Lex Fridman (2:05:16.440)
Putin is always interesting on history.
Niall Ferguson (2:05:18.800)
He's become something of a historian recently
Lex Fridman (2:05:21.200)
with his essays and lectures.
Lex Fridman (2:05:23.720)
But what history is bad at telling you is,
Lex Fridman (2:05:25.480)
well, what will the effects of discontinuity
Lex Fridman (2:05:27.960)
of technology be?
Lex Fridman (2:05:29.720)
And so I thought I need some science fiction
Niall Ferguson (2:05:31.360)
to think more about this,
Lex Fridman (2:05:32.480)
because I'm tending to miss the importance
Niall Ferguson (2:05:36.360)
of technological discontinuity.
Lex Fridman (2:05:39.480)
If you read a lot of science fiction,
Niall Ferguson (2:05:41.280)
you read a lot of plague books,
Lex Fridman (2:05:43.800)
because science fiction writers are really quite fond
Niall Ferguson (2:05:46.960)
of the plague scenario.
Lex Fridman (2:05:48.520)
So the world ends in many ways in science fiction,
Lex Fridman (2:05:50.800)
but one of the most popular is the lethal pandemic.
Lex Fridman (2:05:52.960)
So when the first email came to me,
Niall Ferguson (2:05:56.680)
I think it was on January the 3rd
Lex Fridman (2:05:58.160)
from my medical friend, Justin Stebbing,
Niall Ferguson (2:06:00.200)
funny pneumonia in Wuhan, my antennae began to tingle
Lex Fridman (2:06:05.440)
because it was just like one of those science fiction books
Niall Ferguson (2:06:08.520)
that begins in just that moment.
Lex Fridman (2:06:10.440)
It begins in just that way.
Niall Ferguson (2:06:14.640)
In a pandemic, as Larry Brilliant,
Lex Fridman (2:06:18.840)
the epidemiologist said many years ago,
Niall Ferguson (2:06:20.840)
the key is early detection and early action.
Lex Fridman (2:06:25.440)
That's how you deal with a novel pathogen.
Lex Fridman (2:06:28.800)
And almost no Western country did that.
Lex Fridman (2:06:31.840)
We know it was doable because the Taiwanese
Lex Fridman (2:06:33.840)
and the South Koreans did it, and they did it very well.
Lex Fridman (2:06:36.760)
But really no Western country got this right.
Niall Ferguson (2:06:40.560)
Some were unlucky because super spreader events
Lex Fridman (2:06:43.160)
happened earlier than in other countries.
Niall Ferguson (2:06:45.400)
Italy was hit very hard very early.
Lex Fridman (2:06:47.720)
For other countries, the real disaster came quite late.
Niall Ferguson (2:06:50.280)
Russia, which has only relatively recently
Lex Fridman (2:06:53.240)
had a really bad experience.
Niall Ferguson (2:06:56.560)
The lesson for me is quite different from the one
Lex Fridman (2:06:59.760)
that most journalists thought they were learning last year.
Niall Ferguson (2:07:03.120)
Most journalists last year thought,
Lex Fridman (2:07:05.640)
Trump is a terrible president.
Niall Ferguson (2:07:07.680)
He's saying a lot of crazy things.
Lex Fridman (2:07:10.080)
It's his fault that we have high excess mortality
Niall Ferguson (2:07:12.640)
in the United States.
Lex Fridman (2:07:14.480)
The same argument was being made by journalists in Britain,
Niall Ferguson (2:07:17.440)
Boris Johnson, dot, dot, dot,
Lex Fridman (2:07:19.280)
Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, dot, dot, dot,
Niall Ferguson (2:07:21.680)
even India, Narendra Modi, the same argument.
Lex Fridman (2:07:26.400)
And I think this argument is wrong in a few ways.
Niall Ferguson (2:07:30.120)
It's true that the populist leaders said many crazy things,
Lex Fridman (2:07:34.600)
and broadly speaking gave poor guidance
Niall Ferguson (2:07:37.520)
to their populations.
Lex Fridman (2:07:40.760)
But I don't think it's true to say
Niall Ferguson (2:07:43.520)
that with different leaders,
Lex Fridman (2:07:44.680)
these countries would have done significantly better
Niall Ferguson (2:07:46.960)
if Joe Biden had magically been president a year earlier.
Lex Fridman (2:07:50.440)
I don't think the US would have done much better
Niall Ferguson (2:07:52.440)
because the things that caused excess mortality last year
Lex Fridman (2:07:55.600)
weren't presidential decisions.
Niall Ferguson (2:07:57.080)
They were utter failure of CDC to provide testing.
Lex Fridman (2:08:00.960)
That definitely wasn't Trump's fault.
Niall Ferguson (2:08:03.000)
Scott Gottlieb's book makes that very clear.
Lex Fridman (2:08:04.920)
It's just been published recently.
Niall Ferguson (2:08:06.880)
We utterly failed to use technology for contact tracing,
Lex Fridman (2:08:10.200)
which the Koreans did very well.
Niall Ferguson (2:08:12.600)
We didn't really quarantine anybody seriously.
Lex Fridman (2:08:16.640)
There was no enforcement of quarantine.
Lex Fridman (2:08:19.160)
And we exposed the elderly to the virus
Lex Fridman (2:08:21.120)
as quickly as possible in elderly care homes.
Lex Fridman (2:08:23.520)
And these things had very little to do
Lex Fridman (2:08:25.760)
with presidential incompetence.
Lex Fridman (2:08:28.120)
So I think leadership is of somewhat marginal importance
Lex Fridman (2:08:33.680)
in a crisis like this,
Niall Ferguson (2:08:34.720)
because what you really need
Lex Fridman (2:08:35.640)
is your public health bureaucracy to get it right.
Lex Fridman (2:08:38.120)
And very few Western public health bureaucracies
Lex Fridman (2:08:40.560)
got it right.
Lex Fridman (2:08:42.200)
Could the president have given better leadership?
Lex Fridman (2:08:45.440)
Yes.
Niall Ferguson (2:08:47.080)
His correct strategy, however,
Lex Fridman (2:08:49.400)
was to learn from Barack Obama's playbook
Niall Ferguson (2:08:52.760)
with the opioid epidemic.
Lex Fridman (2:08:55.200)
The opioid epidemic killed as many people
Niall Ferguson (2:08:58.040)
Obama's watch as COVID did on Trump's watch.
Lex Fridman (2:09:01.840)
And it was worse in a sense
Niall Ferguson (2:09:03.160)
because it only happened in the US.
Lex Fridman (2:09:05.040)
And each year it killed more people
Niall Ferguson (2:09:06.920)
than the year before, over eight years.
Lex Fridman (2:09:09.200)
Nobody to my knowledge has ever seriously blamed Obama
Niall Ferguson (2:09:12.640)
for the opioid epidemic.
Lex Fridman (2:09:14.760)
Trump's mistake was to put himself front and center
Niall Ferguson (2:09:17.560)
of the response to claim that he had some unique insight
Lex Fridman (2:09:21.040)
into the pandemic and to say with every passing week,
Niall Ferguson (2:09:24.800)
more and more foolish things
Lex Fridman (2:09:26.080)
until even a significant portion of people
Niall Ferguson (2:09:29.160)
who'd voted for him in 2016 realized that he'd blown it,
Lex Fridman (2:09:32.080)
which was why he lost the election.
Niall Ferguson (2:09:34.160)
The correct strategy was actually to make Mike Pence
Lex Fridman (2:09:37.920)
the pandemic czar and get the hell out of the way.
Niall Ferguson (2:09:41.000)
That's what my advice to Trump would have been.
Lex Fridman (2:09:42.760)
In fact, it was in February of last year.
Lex Fridman (2:09:45.720)
So the mistake was to try to lead,
Lex Fridman (2:09:49.960)
but actually leadership in a pandemic
Niall Ferguson (2:09:52.560)
is almost a contradiction in terms.
Lex Fridman (2:09:54.080)
What you really need is your public health bureaucracy
Niall Ferguson (2:09:56.680)
not to fuck it up.
Lex Fridman (2:09:58.360)
And they really, really fucked it up.
Lex Fridman (2:10:00.440)
And that was then all blamed on Trump.
Lex Fridman (2:10:02.960)
Jim Fallows writes a piece in the Atlantic that says,
Niall Ferguson (2:10:05.400)
well, being the president's like flying a light aircraft,
Lex Fridman (2:10:07.760)
it's pilot error.
Lex Fridman (2:10:09.000)
And I read that piece and I thought,
Lex Fridman (2:10:10.520)
does he really after all the years he spent writing
Lex Fridman (2:10:13.160)
think that being president is like flying a light aircraft?
Lex Fridman (2:10:16.160)
I mean, it's really nothing like flying a light aircraft.
Niall Ferguson (2:10:19.160)
Being president is you sit on top of a vast bureaucracy
Lex Fridman (2:10:22.360)
with how many different agencies, 60, 70,
Niall Ferguson (2:10:24.400)
we've all lost count.
Lex Fridman (2:10:25.920)
And you're surrounded by advisors,
Niall Ferguson (2:10:27.720)
at least a quarter of whom are saying, this is a disaster.
Lex Fridman (2:10:30.600)
We have to close the borders.
Lex Fridman (2:10:31.760)
And the others are saying, no, no,
Lex Fridman (2:10:33.520)
we have to keep the economy going.
Niall Ferguson (2:10:34.680)
That's what you're running on in November.
Lex Fridman (2:10:37.120)
So being a president in a pandemic
Niall Ferguson (2:10:39.160)
is a very unenviable position
Lex Fridman (2:10:42.000)
because you actually can't really determine
Niall Ferguson (2:10:45.440)
whether your public health bureaucracy
Lex Fridman (2:10:47.240)
will get it right or not.
Niall Ferguson (2:10:48.320)
You don't think to push back on that,
Lex Fridman (2:10:50.360)
just like being Churchill in a war is difficult.
Lex Fridman (2:10:54.120)
So leaving Trump by an aside,
Lex Fridman (2:10:57.040)
what I would love to see from a president
Niall Ferguson (2:10:58.920)
is somebody who makes great speeches
Lex Fridman (2:11:03.240)
and arouses the public to push the bureaucracy,
Niall Ferguson (2:11:06.400)
the public health bureaucracy,
Lex Fridman (2:11:08.200)
to get their shit together,
Niall Ferguson (2:11:09.760)
to fire certain kinds of people.
Lex Fridman (2:11:11.560)
I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm a big fan of powerful speeches,
Niall Ferguson (2:11:15.160)
especially in the modern age with the internet.
Lex Fridman (2:11:17.360)
It can really move people.
Niall Ferguson (2:11:19.520)
Instead, the lack of speeches
Lex Fridman (2:11:23.080)
resulted in certain kinds of forces
Niall Ferguson (2:11:27.520)
amplifying division over whether to wear masks or not,
Lex Fridman (2:11:31.360)
or it's almost like the public picked some random topic
Niall Ferguson (2:11:35.840)
over which to divide themselves.
Lex Fridman (2:11:37.640)
And there was like a complete indecision,
Niall Ferguson (2:11:39.800)
which is really what it was,
Lex Fridman (2:11:41.360)
fear of uncertainty materializing itself
Niall Ferguson (2:11:45.200)
in some kind of division.
Lex Fridman (2:11:46.400)
And then you almost like busy yourself
Niall Ferguson (2:11:48.960)
with the red versus blue politics,
Lex Fridman (2:11:50.960)
as opposed to some, I don't know,
Niall Ferguson (2:11:52.480)
FDR type character just stands and say,
Lex Fridman (2:11:57.640)
fuck all this bullshit that we're hearing.
Niall Ferguson (2:11:59.840)
We're going to manufacture 5 billion tests.
Lex Fridman (2:12:02.680)
This is what America is great at.
Niall Ferguson (2:12:04.280)
We're going to build
Lex Fridman (2:12:05.600)
the greatest testing infrastructure ever built,
Niall Ferguson (2:12:08.760)
or something, or even with the vaccine development.
Lex Fridman (2:12:12.520)
But that was what I was about to interject.
Niall Ferguson (2:12:15.240)
In a pandemic, the most important thing is the vaccine.
Lex Fridman (2:12:18.400)
If you get that right,
Niall Ferguson (2:12:19.520)
then you should be forgiven for much else.
Lex Fridman (2:12:21.560)
And that was the one thing
Niall Ferguson (2:12:22.400)
the Trump administration got right,
Lex Fridman (2:12:23.840)
because they went around the bureaucracy
Niall Ferguson (2:12:27.480)
with Operation Warp Speed
Lex Fridman (2:12:28.840)
and achieved a really major success.
Lex Fridman (2:12:33.240)
So I think the paradox of the 2020 story
Lex Fridman (2:12:40.080)
in the United States is that the one thing that mattered most
Niall Ferguson (2:12:43.040)
the Trump administration got right,
Lex Fridman (2:12:45.680)
and it got so much else wrong
Niall Ferguson (2:12:47.600)
that was sort of marginal,
Lex Fridman (2:12:49.080)
that we were left with the impression
Niall Ferguson (2:12:50.980)
that Trump had been to blame for the whole disaster,
Lex Fridman (2:12:53.920)
which wasn't really quite right.
Niall Ferguson (2:12:56.360)
Sure, it would have been great
Lex Fridman (2:12:57.500)
if we did Operation Warp Speed for testing,
Lex Fridman (2:12:59.960)
but ultimately vaccines are more important than tests.
Lex Fridman (2:13:02.920)
And this brings me to the question
Niall Ferguson (2:13:06.960)
that you raised there of polarization and why that happened.
Lex Fridman (2:13:11.740)
Now, in a book called The Square and the Tower,
Niall Ferguson (2:13:13.960)
I argued that it would be very costly for the United States
Lex Fridman (2:13:17.140)
to allow the public sphere to continue to be dominated
Niall Ferguson (2:13:20.720)
by a handful of big tech companies,
Lex Fridman (2:13:22.440)
that this ultimately would have more adverse effects
Niall Ferguson (2:13:25.280)
than simply contested elections.
Lex Fridman (2:13:27.400)
And I think we saw over the past 18 months
Niall Ferguson (2:13:31.280)
just how bad this could be,
Lex Fridman (2:13:32.800)
because the odd thing about this country
Niall Ferguson (2:13:37.720)
is that we came up with vaccines with 90 plus percent efficacy
Lex Fridman (2:13:42.260)
and about 20% of people refused to get them
Lex Fridman (2:13:44.920)
and still do refuse for reasons that seem best explained
Lex Fridman (2:13:52.400)
in terms of the anti vaccine network,
Niall Ferguson (2:13:54.200)
which has been embedded on the internet for a long time,
Lex Fridman (2:13:56.920)
predating the pandemic.
Niall Ferguson (2:13:58.620)
Renny DiResta wrote about this pre 2020.
Lex Fridman (2:14:02.480)
And this anti vaccine network has turned out
Niall Ferguson (2:14:04.760)
to kill maybe 200,000 Americans
Lex Fridman (2:14:07.000)
who could have been vaccinated,
Lex Fridman (2:14:08.220)
but were persuaded through magical thinking
Lex Fridman (2:14:11.080)
that the vaccine was riskier than the virus.
Niall Ferguson (2:14:14.000)
Whereas you don't need to be an epidemiologist,
Lex Fridman (2:14:17.000)
you don't need to be a medical scientist
Niall Ferguson (2:14:18.400)
to know that the virus is about two orders
Lex Fridman (2:14:20.640)
of magnitude riskier than the vaccine.
Lex Fridman (2:14:23.880)
So again, leadership could definitely have been better.
Lex Fridman (2:14:30.000)
But the politicization of everything
Niall Ferguson (2:14:33.600)
was not Trump's doing alone.
Lex Fridman (2:14:35.440)
It happened because our public sphere has been dominated
Niall Ferguson (2:14:39.760)
by a handful of platforms whose business model
Lex Fridman (2:14:43.920)
inherently promotes polarization,
Niall Ferguson (2:14:46.040)
inherently promotes fake news and extreme views,
Lex Fridman (2:14:49.080)
because those are the things that get the eyeballs
Niall Ferguson (2:14:51.380)
on the screens and sell the ads.
Lex Fridman (2:14:53.180)
I mean, this is now a commonplace.
Lex Fridman (2:14:55.120)
But when one thinks about the cost
Lex Fridman (2:14:57.300)
of allowing this kind of thing to happen,
Niall Ferguson (2:15:01.840)
it's now a very high human cost.
Lex Fridman (2:15:04.120)
And we were foolish to leave uncorrected
Niall Ferguson (2:15:06.960)
these structural problems in the public sphere
Lex Fridman (2:15:09.280)
that were already very clearly visible in 2016.
Lex Fridman (2:15:12.800)
And you described that, like you mentioned,
Lex Fridman (2:15:16.080)
that there's these networks that are almost like
Niall Ferguson (2:15:18.280)
laying dormant, waiting for their time in the sun,
Lex Fridman (2:15:22.820)
and they stepped forward in this case.
Lex Fridman (2:15:25.360)
And that those network effects just disservice catalyst
Lex Fridman (2:15:30.120)
for whatever the bad parts of human nature.
Niall Ferguson (2:15:34.460)
I do hope that there's kinds of networks
Lex Fridman (2:15:36.360)
that emphasize the better angels of our nature,
Niall Ferguson (2:15:38.720)
to quote Steven Pinker.
Lex Fridman (2:15:40.800)
It's just clearly, and we know this
Niall Ferguson (2:15:43.560)
from all the revelations of the Facebook whistleblower,
Lex Fridman (2:15:46.400)
there is clearly a very clear tension
Niall Ferguson (2:15:49.800)
between the business model of a company like Facebook
Lex Fridman (2:15:54.160)
and the public good, and they know that.
Niall Ferguson (2:15:57.720)
I just talked to the founder of Instagram.
Lex Fridman (2:16:00.320)
Yes, that's the case, but it's not,
Niall Ferguson (2:16:03.880)
from a technology perspective,
Lex Fridman (2:16:06.280)
absolutely true of any kind of social network.
Niall Ferguson (2:16:08.560)
I think it's possible to build,
Lex Fridman (2:16:09.900)
actually I think it's not just possible,
Niall Ferguson (2:16:12.080)
I think it's pretty easy if you set that as the goal,
Lex Fridman (2:16:15.020)
to build social networks
Niall Ferguson (2:16:16.840)
that don't have these negative effects.
Lex Fridman (2:16:20.680)
Right, but if the business model is we sell ads,
Lex Fridman (2:16:26.120)
and the way you sell ads is to maximize user engagement,
Lex Fridman (2:16:30.200)
then the algorithm is biased
Niall Ferguson (2:16:31.680)
in favor of fake news and extreme views.
Lex Fridman (2:16:33.880)
So it's not the ads, a lot of people blame the ads.
Niall Ferguson (2:16:36.560)
The problem I think is the engagement,
Lex Fridman (2:16:40.360)
and the engagement is just the easiest,
Niall Ferguson (2:16:42.040)
the dumbest way to sell the ads.
Lex Fridman (2:16:43.880)
I think there's much different metrics
Niall Ferguson (2:16:46.120)
that could be used to make a lot more money
Lex Fridman (2:16:48.760)
than the engagement in the long term.
Niall Ferguson (2:16:50.960)
It has more to do with planning for the long term,
Lex Fridman (2:16:53.440)
so optimizing the selling of ads
Niall Ferguson (2:16:56.680)
to make people happy with themselves in the long term,
Lex Fridman (2:17:01.680)
as opposed to some kind of addicted like dopamine feeling.
Lex Fridman (2:17:07.360)
And so that's, to me that has to do with metrics
Lex Fridman (2:17:09.960)
and measuring things correctly
Lex Fridman (2:17:11.320)
and sort of also creating a culture
Lex Fridman (2:17:13.520)
with what's valued to have difficult conversations
Niall Ferguson (2:17:16.760)
about what we're doing with society,
Lex Fridman (2:17:18.400)
all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (2:17:19.560)
And I think once you have those conversations,
Lex Fridman (2:17:22.000)
this takes us back to the University of Austin,
Niall Ferguson (2:17:23.800)
kind of once you have those difficult human conversations,
Lex Fridman (2:17:27.060)
you can design the technology that will actually make
Niall Ferguson (2:17:30.000)
for help people grow,
Lex Fridman (2:17:32.560)
become the best version of themselves,
Niall Ferguson (2:17:34.240)
help them be happy in the long term.
Lex Fridman (2:17:36.840)
What gives you hope about the future?
Niall Ferguson (2:17:41.880)
As somebody who studied some of the darker moments
Lex Fridman (2:17:44.520)
of human history, what gives you hope?
Niall Ferguson (2:17:49.200)
A couple of things.
Lex Fridman (2:17:52.540)
First of all, the United States
Niall Ferguson (2:17:56.520)
has a very unique operating system.
Lex Fridman (2:17:58.860)
Which was very well designed by the founders
Niall Ferguson (2:18:02.200)
who'd thought a lot about history
Lex Fridman (2:18:03.640)
and realized it would take quite a novel design
Niall Ferguson (2:18:07.880)
to prevent the republic going the way of all republics
Lex Fridman (2:18:10.920)
because republics tend to end up as tyrannies
Niall Ferguson (2:18:12.920)
for reasons that were well established
Lex Fridman (2:18:14.980)
by the time of the Renaissance.
Lex Fridman (2:18:16.920)
And it gives me hope that this design has worked very well
Lex Fridman (2:18:20.680)
and withstood an enormous stress test in the last year.
Niall Ferguson (2:18:25.580)
I became an American in 2018, I think one of the most
Lex Fridman (2:18:31.360)
important features of this operating system
Niall Ferguson (2:18:34.440)
is that it is the magnet for talent.
Lex Fridman (2:18:38.860)
Here we sit, part of the immigration story
Niall Ferguson (2:18:45.640)
in a darkened room with funny accents.
Lex Fridman (2:18:50.040)
A Scot and a Russian walk into a recording studio
Lex Fridman (2:18:54.480)
and talk about America, it's very much like a joke.
Lex Fridman (2:18:58.000)
And Elon's a South African and so on,
Lex Fridman (2:18:59.800)
and Teal is a German.
Lex Fridman (2:19:00.760)
And we're extraordinarily fortunate
Niall Ferguson (2:19:03.760)
that the natives let us come and play
Lex Fridman (2:19:07.140)
and play in a way that we could not
Niall Ferguson (2:19:09.760)
in our countries of birth.
Lex Fridman (2:19:12.040)
And as long as the United States continues
Niall Ferguson (2:19:14.360)
to exploit that superpower, that it is the talent magnet,
Lex Fridman (2:19:18.760)
then it should out innovate
Niall Ferguson (2:19:20.760)
the totalitarian competition every time.
Lex Fridman (2:19:24.300)
So that's one reason for being an optimist.
Niall Ferguson (2:19:30.460)
Another reason, and it's quite a historical reason
Lex Fridman (2:19:33.200)
as you would expect from me.
Niall Ferguson (2:19:35.640)
Another reason that I'm optimistic
Lex Fridman (2:19:39.040)
is that my kids give me a great deal of hope.
Niall Ferguson (2:19:45.080)
They range in age from 27 down to four,
Lex Fridman (2:19:48.720)
but each of them in their different way
Niall Ferguson (2:19:52.760)
seems to be finding a way through this crazy time of ours
Lex Fridman (2:19:58.800)
without losing contact with that culture
Lex Fridman (2:20:04.840)
and civilization that I hold dear.
Lex Fridman (2:20:08.080)
I don't want to live in the metaverse
Niall Ferguson (2:20:10.040)
as Mark Zuckerberg imagines it.
Lex Fridman (2:20:12.660)
To me, that's a kind of ghastly hell.
Niall Ferguson (2:20:15.920)
I think Western civilization is the best civilization.
Lex Fridman (2:20:20.920)
And I think that almost all the truths
Niall Ferguson (2:20:23.860)
about the human condition can be found
Lex Fridman (2:20:27.440)
in Western literature, art, and music.
Lex Fridman (2:20:34.320)
And I think also that the civilization
Lex Fridman (2:20:36.960)
that produced the scientific revolution
Niall Ferguson (2:20:38.960)
has produced the great problem solving tool
Lex Fridman (2:20:42.840)
that eluded the other civilizations
Niall Ferguson (2:20:44.640)
that never really cracked science.
Lex Fridman (2:20:47.480)
And what gives me hope is that
Niall Ferguson (2:20:50.720)
despite all the temptations and distractions
Lex Fridman (2:20:53.600)
that their generation had to contend with,
Niall Ferguson (2:20:57.440)
my children in their different ways
Lex Fridman (2:20:58.920)
have found their way to literature
Lex Fridman (2:21:03.040)
and to art and to music, and they are civilized.
Lex Fridman (2:21:09.280)
And I don't claim much of the credit for that,
Niall Ferguson (2:21:14.040)
I've done my best,
Lex Fridman (2:21:15.160)
but I think it's deeply encouraging
Niall Ferguson (2:21:17.880)
that they found their way to the things
Lex Fridman (2:21:21.580)
that I think are indispensable for a happy life,
Niall Ferguson (2:21:25.200)
a fulfilled life.
Lex Fridman (2:21:26.560)
Nobody, I think, can be truly fulfilled
Niall Ferguson (2:21:30.240)
if they're cut off from the great body
Lex Fridman (2:21:32.100)
of Western literature, for example.
Niall Ferguson (2:21:34.320)
I've thought a lot about Elon's argument
Lex Fridman (2:21:38.240)
that we might be in a simulation.
Niall Ferguson (2:21:41.600)
No, no, there is a simulation, it's called literature.
Lex Fridman (2:21:44.980)
And we just have to decide whether or not to enter it.
Niall Ferguson (2:21:49.160)
I'm currently in the midst of the later stages
Lex Fridman (2:21:53.320)
of Proust's great A l´heure échec du temps perdu,
Lex Fridman (2:21:57.360)
and Proust's observation of human relationships
Lex Fridman (2:22:01.480)
is perhaps more meticulous than that of any other writer.
Lex Fridman (2:22:05.720)
And it's impossible not to find yourself identifying
Lex Fridman (2:22:09.520)
with Marcel and his obsessive, jealous relationships,
Niall Ferguson (2:22:14.440)
particularly with Albertine.
Lex Fridman (2:22:17.380)
It's the simulation.
Lex Fridman (2:22:18.480)
And you decide, I think, as a sentient being,
Lex Fridman (2:22:23.520)
how far to, in your own life,
Niall Ferguson (2:22:26.960)
reenact these more profound experiences
Lex Fridman (2:22:30.480)
that others have written down.
Niall Ferguson (2:22:31.960)
One of my earliest literary simulations
Lex Fridman (2:22:34.320)
was to reenact Jack Kerouac's Trippin on the Road
Niall Ferguson (2:22:37.480)
when I was 17, culminating in getting very wasted
Lex Fridman (2:22:40.680)
in the Hanging Gardens of Xochimilco, not to be missed.
Lex Fridman (2:22:44.840)
And it hit me, just as I was reading Proust,
Lex Fridman (2:22:48.720)
that that's really how to live a rich life,
Niall Ferguson (2:22:51.160)
that one lives life, but one lives it
Lex Fridman (2:22:53.720)
juxtaposing one's own experience
Niall Ferguson (2:22:56.280)
against the more refined experiences of the great writers.
Lex Fridman (2:23:00.440)
So it gives me hope that my children do that a bit.
Lex Fridman (2:23:04.400)
Do you include the Russian authors in the canon?
Lex Fridman (2:23:09.400)
Yes, I don't read Russian,
Lex Fridman (2:23:12.920)
but I was entirely obsessed
Lex Fridman (2:23:14.880)
with Russian literature as a schoolboy.
Niall Ferguson (2:23:17.160)
I read my way through Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev,
Lex Fridman (2:23:22.200)
I, Chekhov.
Niall Ferguson (2:23:24.840)
I think of all of those writers,
Lex Fridman (2:23:29.960)
Tolstoy had the biggest impact
Niall Ferguson (2:23:31.600)
because at the end of War and Peace,
Lex Fridman (2:23:33.340)
there's this great essay on historical determinism,
Niall Ferguson (2:23:36.020)
which I think was the reason I became a historian.
Lex Fridman (2:23:39.680)
But I'm really temperamentally a kind of Turgenev person,
Niall Ferguson (2:23:46.940)
oddly enough.
Lex Fridman (2:23:48.140)
I think if you haven't read those novelists,
Niall Ferguson (2:23:51.060)
I mean, you can't really be a complete human being
Lex Fridman (2:23:54.160)
if you haven't read the Brothers Karamazov.
Niall Ferguson (2:23:57.740)
You're not really, you're not grown up.
Lex Fridman (2:24:00.960)
And so I think in many ways,
Niall Ferguson (2:24:02.840)
those are the greatest novels.
Lex Fridman (2:24:05.960)
Raskolnikov, remember Raskolnikov's Nightmare
Niall Ferguson (2:24:09.440)
at the end of Crime and Punishment,
Lex Fridman (2:24:12.240)
in which he imagines in his dream
Niall Ferguson (2:24:15.320)
a world in which a terrible virus spreads.
Lex Fridman (2:24:19.420)
Do you remember this?
Lex Fridman (2:24:20.640)
And this virus has the effect of making every individual
Lex Fridman (2:24:23.560)
think that what he believes is right.
Lex Fridman (2:24:27.640)
And in this self righteousness,
Lex Fridman (2:24:31.960)
people fall on one another and commit appalling violence.
Niall Ferguson (2:24:36.920)
That's Raskolnikov's Nightmare, and it's a prophecy.
Lex Fridman (2:24:39.580)
It's a terrible prophecy of Russia's future.
Niall Ferguson (2:24:44.040)
Yeah, and coupled with that is probably the,
Lex Fridman (2:24:47.800)
I also like the French, the existentialists, all that.
Niall Ferguson (2:24:50.520)
The full spectrum and German's Hermann Hesse
Lex Fridman (2:24:53.880)
and just that range of human thought
Niall Ferguson (2:24:57.100)
as expressed in the literature is fascinating.
Lex Fridman (2:24:58.680)
I really love your idea that the simulation,
Niall Ferguson (2:25:04.520)
like one way to live life
Lex Fridman (2:25:08.200)
is to kind of explore these other worlds
Lex Fridman (2:25:11.840)
and borrow from them wisdom
Lex Fridman (2:25:14.940)
that you then just map onto your own lives.
Niall Ferguson (2:25:17.560)
You almost like stitch together your life
Lex Fridman (2:25:20.120)
with these kind of pieces from literature.
Niall Ferguson (2:25:22.360)
The highly educated person is constantly struck by illusion.
Lex Fridman (2:25:27.360)
Everything is an illusion to something that one has read.
Lex Fridman (2:25:32.400)
And that is the simulation.
Lex Fridman (2:25:34.880)
That's what the real metaverse is.
Niall Ferguson (2:25:38.200)
It's the imaginary world that we enter when we read,
Lex Fridman (2:25:42.040)
empathize, and then recognize in our daily lives
Niall Ferguson (2:25:45.780)
some scrap of the shared experience
Lex Fridman (2:25:48.960)
that literature gives us.
Niall Ferguson (2:25:51.020)
Yeah, I think I've aspired to be the idiot
Lex Fridman (2:25:54.320)
from Prince Mishkin from Dostoevsky
Lex Fridman (2:25:57.280)
and in aspiring to be that,
Lex Fridman (2:25:59.800)
I have become the idiot, I feel, at least in part.
Niall Ferguson (2:26:06.640)
What, you mentioned the human condition,
Lex Fridman (2:26:09.240)
does love have to do?
Lex Fridman (2:26:12.400)
What role does it play in the human condition?
Lex Fridman (2:26:15.080)
Friendship, love.
Niall Ferguson (2:26:20.240)
Love is the drug.
Lex Fridman (2:26:24.160)
Love is, this was the great Roxy music line
Niall Ferguson (2:26:32.640)
that Brian Ferry wrote.
Lex Fridman (2:26:33.980)
And love is the most powerful
Lex Fridman (2:26:37.320)
and dangerous of all the drugs.
Lex Fridman (2:26:41.120)
The driving force that overrides our reason.
Lex Fridman (2:26:46.120)
And of course, it is the primal urge.
Lex Fridman (2:26:53.120)
So what a civilized society has to do
Niall Ferguson (2:26:57.120)
is to prevent that drug, that primal force
Lex Fridman (2:27:00.800)
from creating mayhem.
Lex Fridman (2:27:03.680)
So there have to be rules like monogamy
Lex Fridman (2:27:08.000)
and rituals like marriage that reign love in.
Lex Fridman (2:27:13.000)
And make the addicts at least more or less under control.
Lex Fridman (2:27:21.000)
And I think that's part of why I'm a romantic
Niall Ferguson (2:27:27.000)
rather than a Steve Pinker, enlightenment rationalist.
Lex Fridman (2:27:32.320)
Because the romantics realized that love was the drug.
Niall Ferguson (2:27:37.800)
It's like,
Lex Fridman (2:27:39.120)
the difference in sensibility between Handel and Wagner.
Lex Fridman (2:27:45.760)
And I had a Wagnerian phase when I was an undergraduate.
Lex Fridman (2:27:49.160)
And I still remember thinking that in,
Niall Ferguson (2:27:54.520)
as old as Lieberstod,
Lex Fridman (2:27:56.560)
that Wagner had got the closest to sex
Niall Ferguson (2:27:59.000)
that anybody had ever got in music,
Lex Fridman (2:28:03.280)
or perhaps to love.
Niall Ferguson (2:28:05.120)
I'm lucky that I love my wife and that we were,
Lex Fridman (2:28:12.360)
by the time we met, you know, smart enough to understand
Niall Ferguson (2:28:18.080)
that love is a drug that you have to kind of take
Lex Fridman (2:28:22.080)
in certain careful ways.
Lex Fridman (2:28:25.520)
And that it works best in the context of a stable relationship
Lex Fridman (2:28:30.520)
it works best in the context of a stable family.
Niall Ferguson (2:28:36.600)
That's the key thing.
Lex Fridman (2:28:38.200)
That one has to sort of take the drug
Lex Fridman (2:28:40.560)
and then submit to the conventions
Lex Fridman (2:28:44.400)
of marriage and family life.
Niall Ferguson (2:28:47.360)
I think in that respect, I'm a kind of tamed romantic.
Lex Fridman (2:28:55.680)
Tamed romantic.
Niall Ferguson (2:28:56.680)
That's how I'd like to think of myself.
Lex Fridman (2:28:58.000)
The degree to which your romanticism is tamed
Niall Ferguson (2:29:01.040)
can be then channeled into productive work.
Lex Fridman (2:29:03.320)
That's why you are a historian and a writer
Niall Ferguson (2:29:05.560)
is the best that love is channeled through the writing.
Lex Fridman (2:29:08.040)
So if you're going to be addicted to anything,
Niall Ferguson (2:29:09.760)
be addicted to work.
Lex Fridman (2:29:12.360)
I mean, we're all addictive,
Lex Fridman (2:29:13.600)
but the thing about workaholism
Lex Fridman (2:29:15.680)
is that it is the most productive addiction.
Lex Fridman (2:29:19.840)
And rather that than drugs or booze.
Lex Fridman (2:29:22.880)
So yes, I'm always trying to channel my anxieties
Niall Ferguson (2:29:27.480)
into work.
Lex Fridman (2:29:28.800)
I learned that at a relatively early age,
Niall Ferguson (2:29:31.320)
it's a sort of massively productive way
Lex Fridman (2:29:33.640)
of coping with the inner demons.
Lex Fridman (2:29:36.560)
And again, we should teach kids that
Lex Fridman (2:29:39.360)
because let's come back to our earlier conversation
Niall Ferguson (2:29:42.960)
about universities.
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.800)
Part of what happens at university
Niall Ferguson (2:29:45.120)
is that adolescents have to overcome all the inner demons.
Lex Fridman (2:29:49.400)
And these include deep insecurity
Niall Ferguson (2:29:52.760)
about one's appearance, about one's intellect,
Lex Fridman (2:29:55.600)
and then madly raging hormones
Niall Ferguson (2:29:58.240)
that cause you to behave like a complete fool
Lex Fridman (2:30:00.520)
with the people to whom you're sexually attracted.
Niall Ferguson (2:30:03.120)
All of this is going on in the university.
Lex Fridman (2:30:05.520)
How can it be a safe space?
Niall Ferguson (2:30:07.080)
It's a completely dangerous space by definition.
Lex Fridman (2:30:11.840)
So yeah, I learned teaching young people
Lex Fridman (2:30:13.560)
how to manage these storms,
Lex Fridman (2:30:16.920)
that's part of the job.
Lex Fridman (2:30:18.120)
And we're really not allowed to do that anymore
Lex Fridman (2:30:20.800)
because we can't talk about these things
Niall Ferguson (2:30:22.120)
for fear of the Title IX officers kicking down the door
Lex Fridman (2:30:24.680)
and dragging us off in chains.
Lex Fridman (2:30:26.880)
And like you said, hard work
Lex Fridman (2:30:28.760)
and something you call work ethic in civilization
Niall Ferguson (2:30:35.800)
is a pretty effective way to achieve, I think,
Lex Fridman (2:30:39.320)
a kind of happiness in a world that's full of anxiety.
Niall Ferguson (2:30:42.120)
Or at least exhaustion so that you sleep well.
Lex Fridman (2:30:46.680)
Well, there is beauty to the exhaustion too.
Niall Ferguson (2:30:49.320)
That's why running, there's manual work
Lex Fridman (2:30:52.600)
that some part of us is built for that.
Niall Ferguson (2:30:55.280)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:30:56.120)
I mean, we are products of evolution
Lex Fridman (2:30:59.560)
and our adaptation to a technological world
Lex Fridman (2:31:03.480)
is a very imperfect one.
Lex Fridman (2:31:04.720)
So hence the kind of masochistic urge to run.
Lex Fridman (2:31:11.080)
I like outdoor exercise.
Niall Ferguson (2:31:14.160)
I don't really like gyms.
Lex Fridman (2:31:16.240)
So I'll go for long punishing runs in woodland,
Niall Ferguson (2:31:21.240)
hike up hills.
Lex Fridman (2:31:24.280)
I like swimming in lakes and in the sea
Niall Ferguson (2:31:27.920)
because there just has to be that physical activity
Lex Fridman (2:31:32.720)
in order to do the good mental work.
Lex Fridman (2:31:34.680)
And so it's all about trying to do the best work.
Lex Fridman (2:31:39.960)
That's my sense that we have
Niall Ferguson (2:31:43.760)
some random allocation of talent.
Lex Fridman (2:31:45.760)
You kind of figure out what it is
Niall Ferguson (2:31:47.320)
that you're relatively good at
Lex Fridman (2:31:48.960)
and you try to do that well.
Niall Ferguson (2:31:51.240)
I think my father encouraged me to think that way.
Lex Fridman (2:31:55.120)
And you don't mind about being average at the other stuff.
Niall Ferguson (2:31:58.520)
The kind of sick thing
Lex Fridman (2:31:59.680)
is to try to be brilliant at everything.
Niall Ferguson (2:32:01.280)
I hate those people.
Lex Fridman (2:32:02.760)
Should really not worry too much
Niall Ferguson (2:32:04.960)
if you're just an average double bass player, which I am,
Lex Fridman (2:32:08.480)
or kind of average skier, which I definitely am.
Niall Ferguson (2:32:12.160)
Doing those things okay
Lex Fridman (2:32:13.560)
is part of leading a rich and fulfilling life.
Niall Ferguson (2:32:16.640)
I was not a good actor,
Lex Fridman (2:32:19.000)
but I got a lot out of acting as an undergraduate.
Niall Ferguson (2:32:22.800)
Turned out after three years of experimentation at Oxford
Lex Fridman (2:32:25.680)
that I was, broadly speaking,
Niall Ferguson (2:32:27.720)
better at writing history essays than my peers.
Lex Fridman (2:32:32.880)
And that was my edge.
Niall Ferguson (2:32:34.280)
That was my comparative advantage.
Lex Fridman (2:32:35.800)
And so I've just tried to make a living
Niall Ferguson (2:32:37.840)
from that slight edge.
Lex Fridman (2:32:40.280)
Yeah, that's a beautiful way to describe a life.
Lex Fridman (2:32:44.600)
Is there a meaning to this thing?
Lex Fridman (2:32:46.440)
Is there a meaning to life?
Lex Fridman (2:32:47.920)
What is the meaning of life?
Lex Fridman (2:32:49.880)
I was brought up by a physicist and a physician.
Niall Ferguson (2:32:54.360)
They were more or less committed atheists
Lex Fridman (2:32:56.560)
who had left the Church of Scotland
Niall Ferguson (2:32:59.440)
as a protest against sectarianism in Glasgow.
Lex Fridman (2:33:03.400)
And so my sister and I were told from an early age
Niall Ferguson (2:33:05.600)
life was a cosmic accident, and that was it.
Lex Fridman (2:33:10.600)
There was no great meaning to it, and I can't really
Niall Ferguson (2:33:18.120)
get past that.
Lex Fridman (2:33:19.840)
Isn't there beauty to being an accident at a cosmic scale?
Niall Ferguson (2:33:24.440)
Yes, I wasn't taught to feel negative about that.
Lex Fridman (2:33:27.840)
And if anything, it was a frivolous insight
Niall Ferguson (2:33:32.360)
that the whole thing was a kind of joke.
Lex Fridman (2:33:34.840)
And I think that atheism isn't really a basis
Niall Ferguson (2:33:40.440)
for ordering a society, but it's been all right for me.
Lex Fridman (2:33:46.720)
I don't have a kind of sense of a missing religious faith.
Niall Ferguson (2:33:53.440)
For me, however, there's clearly some embedded
Lex Fridman (2:33:59.520)
Christian ethics in the way my parents lived.
Lex Fridman (2:34:03.800)
And so we were kind of atheist Calvinists
Lex Fridman (2:34:08.360)
who had kind of deposed God, but carried on behaving
Niall Ferguson (2:34:11.520)
as if we were members of the elect in a moral universe.
Lex Fridman (2:34:14.280)
So that's kind of the state of mind that I was left in.
Lex Fridman (2:34:21.160)
And I think that we aren't really around long enough
Lex Fridman (2:34:29.280)
to claim that our individual lives have meaning.
Lex Fridman (2:34:31.960)
But what Edmund Burke said is true.
Lex Fridman (2:34:35.720)
The real social contract is between the generations,
Niall Ferguson (2:34:38.640)
between the dead, the living, and the unborn.
Lex Fridman (2:34:41.120)
And the meaning of life is, for me at least,
Niall Ferguson (2:34:45.720)
to live in a way that honors the dead,
Lex Fridman (2:34:48.120)
seeks to learn from their accumulated wisdom
Niall Ferguson (2:34:50.520)
because they do still outnumber us.
Lex Fridman (2:34:52.120)
They outnumber the living by quite a significant margin.
Lex Fridman (2:34:55.960)
And then to be mindful of the unborn
Lex Fridman (2:34:58.720)
and our responsibility to them.
Niall Ferguson (2:35:03.560)
Writing books is a way of communicating with the unborn.
Lex Fridman (2:35:07.800)
It may or may not succeed, and probably won't succeed
Niall Ferguson (2:35:10.720)
if my books are never assigned
Lex Fridman (2:35:12.160)
by work professors in the future.
Lex Fridman (2:35:14.520)
So what we have to do is more than just write books
Lex Fridman (2:35:16.760)
and record podcasts, there have to be institutions.
Niall Ferguson (2:35:20.560)
I'm 57 now.
Lex Fridman (2:35:22.280)
I realized recently that succession planning
Niall Ferguson (2:35:25.200)
had to be the main focus of the next 20 years
Lex Fridman (2:35:29.000)
because there are things that I really care about
Niall Ferguson (2:35:33.960)
that I want future generations to have access to.
Lex Fridman (2:35:38.040)
And so the meaning of life I do regard
Niall Ferguson (2:35:41.080)
as being intergenerational transfer of wisdom.
Lex Fridman (2:35:46.360)
Ultimately the species will go extinct at some point.
Niall Ferguson (2:35:50.440)
Even if we do colonize Mars, one senses
Lex Fridman (2:35:53.160)
that physics will catch up with this particular organism,
Lex Fridman (2:35:56.800)
but it's in the pretty far distant future.
Lex Fridman (2:35:59.800)
And so the meaning of life is to make sure
Niall Ferguson (2:36:01.760)
that for as long as there are human beings,
Lex Fridman (2:36:04.960)
they are able to live the kind of fulfilled lives,
Niall Ferguson (2:36:11.120)
ethically fulfilled, intellectually fulfilled,
Lex Fridman (2:36:14.320)
emotionally fulfilled lives
Niall Ferguson (2:36:16.280)
that civilization has made possible.
Lex Fridman (2:36:19.080)
It would be easy for us to revert to the uncivilized world.
Niall Ferguson (2:36:24.520)
There's a fantastic book that I'm going to misremember.
Lex Fridman (2:36:30.000)
Milosz is the captive soul, the captive mind rather,
Niall Ferguson (2:36:34.160)
which has a fantastic passage.
Lex Fridman (2:36:38.680)
He was a Polish intellectual who says,
Niall Ferguson (2:36:43.000)
Americans can never imagine what it's like
Lex Fridman (2:36:46.040)
for civilization to be completely destroyed
Niall Ferguson (2:36:49.320)
as it was in Poland by the end of World War II,
Lex Fridman (2:36:52.560)
to have no rule of law, to have no security of even person,
Niall Ferguson (2:36:56.760)
nevermind property rights.
Lex Fridman (2:36:58.200)
They can't imagine what that's like
Lex Fridman (2:36:59.840)
and what it will lead you to do.
Lex Fridman (2:37:03.000)
So one reason for teaching history
Niall Ferguson (2:37:04.600)
is to remind the lucky Generation Z members
Lex Fridman (2:37:10.200)
of California that civilization is a thin film.
Lex Fridman (2:37:15.200)
And it can be destroyed remarkably easily.
Lex Fridman (2:37:18.040)
And to preserve civilization
Niall Ferguson (2:37:19.640)
is a tremendous responsibility that we have.
Lex Fridman (2:37:23.000)
It's a huge responsibility.
Lex Fridman (2:37:25.280)
And we must not destroy ourselves,
Lex Fridman (2:37:27.720)
whether it's in the name of wokeism
Niall Ferguson (2:37:30.400)
or the pursuit of the metaverse.
Lex Fridman (2:37:33.120)
Preserving civilization and making it available,
Niall Ferguson (2:37:35.520)
not just to our kids, but to people we'll never know,
Lex Fridman (2:37:38.480)
generations ahead, that's the meaning.
Lex Fridman (2:37:40.640)
And do so by studying the lessons of history.
Lex Fridman (2:37:45.040)
Right, not only studying them, but then acting on them.
Niall Ferguson (2:37:48.560)
For me, the biggest problem is,
Lex Fridman (2:37:50.120)
how do we apply history more effectively?
Niall Ferguson (2:37:53.160)
It seems as if our institutions, including government,
Lex Fridman (2:37:56.440)
are very, very bad at applying history.
Niall Ferguson (2:37:59.640)
Lessons of history are learned poorly, if at all.
Lex Fridman (2:38:02.400)
Analogies are drawn crudely.
Niall Ferguson (2:38:04.280)
Often the wrong inferences are drawn.
Lex Fridman (2:38:06.480)
One of the big intellectual challenges for me
Niall Ferguson (2:38:08.360)
is how to make history more useful.
Lex Fridman (2:38:12.280)
And this was the kind of thing that professors used to hate,
Lex Fridman (2:38:15.120)
but really practically useful,
Lex Fridman (2:38:16.920)
so that policymakers and citizens
Niall Ferguson (2:38:19.920)
can think about the decisions that they face
Lex Fridman (2:38:22.120)
with a more historically informed body of knowledge.
Niall Ferguson (2:38:27.120)
Whether it's a pandemic, the challenge of climate change,
Lex Fridman (2:38:29.880)
what to do about Taiwan.
Niall Ferguson (2:38:31.800)
I can't think of a better set of things to know
Lex Fridman (2:38:36.800)
before you make decisions about those things
Niall Ferguson (2:38:39.040)
than the things that history has to offer.
Lex Fridman (2:38:41.400)
Well, I love the discipline of applied history,
Niall Ferguson (2:38:43.560)
basically going to history and saying,
Lex Fridman (2:38:45.520)
what are the key principles here
Lex Fridman (2:38:50.040)
that are applicable to the problems of today?
Lex Fridman (2:38:52.600)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:38:53.440)
And how can we solve that?
Lex Fridman (2:38:54.280)
The great philosopher of history, R.G. Collingwood,
Niall Ferguson (2:38:57.320)
said in his autobiography, which was published in 1939,
Lex Fridman (2:39:01.160)
that the purpose of history was to reconstitute
Niall Ferguson (2:39:05.360)
past thought from whatever surviving remnants there were,
Lex Fridman (2:39:10.320)
and then to juxtapose it with our own predicament.
Lex Fridman (2:39:14.520)
And that's that juxtaposition of past experience
Lex Fridman (2:39:17.400)
with present experience that is so important.
Niall Ferguson (2:39:19.840)
We don't do that well.
Lex Fridman (2:39:22.160)
And indeed, we've flipped it
Lex Fridman (2:39:24.080)
so that academic historians now think their mission
Lex Fridman (2:39:26.520)
is to travel back to the past with the value system of 2021
Lex Fridman (2:39:31.400)
and castigate the dead for their racism and sexism
Lex Fridman (2:39:36.160)
and transphobia and whatnot.
Lex Fridman (2:39:38.400)
And that's exactly wrong.
Lex Fridman (2:39:40.440)
Our mission is to go back and try to understand
Lex Fridman (2:39:42.240)
what it was like to live in the 18th century,
Lex Fridman (2:39:44.960)
not to go back and condescend to the people of the past.
Lex Fridman (2:39:49.040)
And once we've had a better understanding,
Lex Fridman (2:39:51.200)
once we've seen into their lives, read their words,
Niall Ferguson (2:39:53.640)
tried to reconstitute their experience,
Lex Fridman (2:39:55.480)
to come back and understand our own time better,
Niall Ferguson (2:39:58.720)
that's what we should really be doing.
Lex Fridman (2:40:00.320)
That's what we should really be doing.
Lex Fridman (2:40:01.920)
But academic history has gone completely haywire,
Lex Fridman (2:40:04.120)
and it does almost the exact opposite
Niall Ferguson (2:40:05.760)
of what I think it should do.
Lex Fridman (2:40:07.520)
And by studying history, walk beautifully, gracefully
Niall Ferguson (2:40:11.880)
through this simulation, as you described,
Lex Fridman (2:40:14.400)
by mapping the lessons of history into the world of today.
Niall Ferguson (2:40:17.800)
We have virtual reality already in our heads.
Lex Fridman (2:40:20.560)
We do not need Oculus and the metaverse.
Niall Ferguson (2:40:24.440)
This was an incredible, hopeful conversation
Lex Fridman (2:40:27.080)
in many ways that I did not expect.
Niall Ferguson (2:40:29.560)
I thought our conversation would be much more
Lex Fridman (2:40:31.280)
about history than about the future,
Lex Fridman (2:40:33.160)
and it turned out to be the opposite.
Lex Fridman (2:40:35.080)
Thank you so much for talking to me today.
Niall Ferguson (2:40:36.360)
It's a huge honor to finally meet you, to talk to you.
Lex Fridman (2:40:38.720)
Thank you for your valuable time.
Niall Ferguson (2:40:40.640)
Thank you, Lex, and good luck with Putin.
Lex Fridman (2:40:43.480)
Thanks for listening to this conversation
Niall Ferguson (2:40:45.200)
with Neil Ferguson.
Lex Fridman (2:40:46.520)
To support this podcast,
Niall Ferguson (2:40:47.880)
please check out our sponsors in the description.
Lex Fridman (2:40:50.680)
And now, let me leave you with some words
Niall Ferguson (2:40:52.720)
from Neil Ferguson himself.
Lex Fridman (2:40:54.760)
No civilization, no matter how mighty it may appear
Niall Ferguson (2:40:57.920)
to itself, is indestructible.
Lex Fridman (2:41:00.480)
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Niall Ferguson (30:00.000)
will go horribly wrong if illiberal ideas
Lex Fridman (30:04.520)
that inhibit academic freedom spread
Niall Ferguson (30:06.280)
all over the Anglosphere.
Lex Fridman (30:07.800)
And this network gets infected with these,
Niall Ferguson (30:11.480)
I think, deeply damaging notions.
Lex Fridman (30:15.000)
So yeah, I think we're creating a new node.
Niall Ferguson (30:18.520)
I hope it's a node that makes the network overall
Lex Fridman (30:21.760)
more resilient.
Lex Fridman (30:23.320)
And right now there's an urgent need for it.
Lex Fridman (30:25.840)
I mean, there are people whose academic careers
Niall Ferguson (30:28.480)
have been terminated.
Lex Fridman (30:30.560)
I'll name two who are involved.
Niall Ferguson (30:32.640)
Peter Boghossian, who was harassed out of Portland State
Lex Fridman (30:37.680)
for the reason that he was one of those intrepid figures
Niall Ferguson (30:43.000)
who carried out the grievance studies hoaxes,
Lex Fridman (30:47.040)
exposing the utter charlatanry going on
Niall Ferguson (30:50.520)
in many supposedly academic journals
Lex Fridman (30:53.000)
by getting phony gender studies articles published.
Niall Ferguson (30:56.920)
This is genius.
Lex Fridman (30:57.800)
And of course, so put the noses out of joint
Niall Ferguson (31:00.880)
of the academic establishment
Lex Fridman (31:02.280)
that he began to be subject to disciplinary actions.
Lex Fridman (31:05.240)
So Peter is going to be involved.
Lex Fridman (31:07.240)
And in a recent shocking British case,
Niall Ferguson (31:10.240)
the philosopher Kathleen Stock has essentially
Lex Fridman (31:12.200)
been run off the campus of Sussex University in England
Niall Ferguson (31:18.120)
for violating the increasingly complex rules
Lex Fridman (31:21.280)
about discussing transgender issues and women's rights.
Niall Ferguson (31:26.160)
She will be one of our advisors.
Lex Fridman (31:28.240)
And I think also one of our founding fellows
Niall Ferguson (31:30.680)
actually teaching for us in our first iteration.
Lex Fridman (31:35.000)
So I think we're creating a node that's badly needed.
Niall Ferguson (31:38.800)
Those people, I mean, I remember saying this
Lex Fridman (31:40.800)
to the other founders when we first began
Niall Ferguson (31:44.080)
to talk about this idea to Barry Weiss
Lex Fridman (31:48.160)
and to Panna Canellos as well as to Heather Haying.
Niall Ferguson (31:52.640)
We need to do this urgently because there are people
Lex Fridman (31:55.960)
whose livelihoods are in fact being destroyed
Niall Ferguson (31:58.760)
by these extraordinarily illiberal campaigns against them.
Lex Fridman (32:02.560)
And so there's no time to hang around
Lex Fridman (32:05.040)
and come up with the perfect design.
Lex Fridman (32:07.640)
This is an urgently needed lifeboat.
Lex Fridman (32:10.120)
And let's start with that.
Lex Fridman (32:11.560)
And then we can build something spectacular
Niall Ferguson (32:13.560)
taking advantage of the fact that all of these people have,
Lex Fridman (32:16.640)
well, they now have very real skin in the game.
Niall Ferguson (32:19.560)
They need to make this a success.
Lex Fridman (32:21.720)
And I'm sure they will help us make it a success.
Lex Fridman (32:24.520)
So you mentioned some interesting names
Lex Fridman (32:27.640)
like Heather Haying, Barry Weiss, and so on.
Niall Ferguson (32:30.400)
Steven Pinker, somebody I really admire.
Lex Fridman (32:32.200)
He too was under a lot of, quite a lot of fire.
Niall Ferguson (32:35.240)
Many reasons I admire him.
Lex Fridman (32:37.840)
One, because of his optimism about the future.
Lex Fridman (32:40.560)
And two, how little of a damn he seems to give
Lex Fridman (32:44.480)
about like walking through the fire.
Niall Ferguson (32:48.040)
There's nobody more zen about walking through the fire
Lex Fridman (32:50.360)
than Steven Pinker.
Lex Fridman (32:51.320)
But anyway, you mentioned a lot of interesting names,
Lex Fridman (32:54.200)
Jonathan Haidt is also interesting there.
Lex Fridman (32:56.920)
Who is involved with this venture at this early days?
Lex Fridman (33:00.880)
Well, one of the things that I'm excited about
Niall Ferguson (33:04.720)
is that we're getting people from inside and outside
Lex Fridman (33:08.200)
the academic world.
Lex Fridman (33:09.200)
So we've got Arthur Brooks, who for many years
Lex Fridman (33:12.840)
ran the American Enterprise Institute very successfully,
Niall Ferguson (33:17.600)
has a Harvard role now teaching.
Lex Fridman (33:20.720)
And so he's somebody who brings, I think,
Niall Ferguson (33:23.680)
a different perspective.
Lex Fridman (33:27.120)
There's obviously a need to get experienced academic leaders
Niall Ferguson (33:34.480)
involved, which is why I was talking to Larry Summers
Lex Fridman (33:38.600)
about whether he would join our board of advisors.
Niall Ferguson (33:43.520)
The Chicago principals owe a debt
Lex Fridman (33:46.840)
to the former president of Chicago.
Lex Fridman (33:50.200)
And he's graciously agreed to be in the board of advisors.
Lex Fridman (33:54.120)
I could go on.
Niall Ferguson (33:54.720)
It would become a long and tedious list.
Lex Fridman (33:56.320)
But my goal in trying to get this happy band to form
Niall Ferguson (34:01.960)
has been to signal that it's a bipartisan endeavor.
Lex Fridman (34:06.000)
It is not a conservative institution
Niall Ferguson (34:08.160)
that we're trying to build.
Lex Fridman (34:09.320)
It's an institution that's committed to academic freedom
Lex Fridman (34:12.280)
and the pursuit of truth that will mean it when it takes
Lex Fridman (34:18.320)
Robert Zimmer's Chicago principles
Lex Fridman (34:20.400)
and enshrines them in its founding charter.
Lex Fridman (34:22.880)
And we'll make those something other than honored
Niall Ferguson (34:26.520)
in the breach, which they seem to be at some institutions.
Lex Fridman (34:29.680)
So the idea here is to grow this organically.
Niall Ferguson (34:33.320)
We need, rather like the Academic Freedom Alliance
Lex Fridman (34:36.600)
that Robbie George created earlier this year,
Niall Ferguson (34:39.080)
we need breadth.
Lex Fridman (34:40.560)
And we need to show that this is not
Niall Ferguson (34:42.080)
some kind of institutionalization
Lex Fridman (34:45.520)
of the intellectual dark web, though we
Niall Ferguson (34:47.920)
welcome founding members of that nebulous body.
Lex Fridman (34:52.480)
It's really something designed for all of academia
Niall Ferguson (34:55.440)
to provide a kind of reboot that I think we all agree is needed.
Lex Fridman (35:00.320)
Is there a George Washington type figure?
Lex Fridman (35:02.840)
Is there a president elected yet?
Lex Fridman (35:04.600)
Or who's going to lead this institution?
Niall Ferguson (35:07.240)
Panos Kanellos, the former president of St. John's,
Lex Fridman (35:10.240)
is the president of University of Austin.
Lex Fridman (35:12.440)
And so he is our George Washington.
Lex Fridman (35:15.400)
I don't know who Alexander Hamilton is.
Niall Ferguson (35:17.040)
I'll leave you to guess.
Lex Fridman (35:18.640)
It's funny you mentioned IDW, Intellectual Dark Web.
Lex Fridman (35:21.880)
Have you talked to your friend Sam Harris about any of this?
Lex Fridman (35:28.400)
He is another person I really admire
Lex Fridman (35:30.760)
and I've talked to online and offline quite a bit
Lex Fridman (35:34.520)
for not belonging to any tribe.
Niall Ferguson (35:39.240)
He stands boldly on his convictions
Lex Fridman (35:43.080)
when he knows they're not going to be popular.
Niall Ferguson (35:46.880)
Like he basically gets canceled by every group.
Lex Fridman (35:51.640)
He doesn't shy away from controversy.
Lex Fridman (35:54.320)
And not for the sake of controversy itself,
Lex Fridman (35:57.040)
he is one of the best examples to me
Niall Ferguson (36:00.240)
of a person who thinks freely.
Lex Fridman (36:02.680)
I disagree with him on quite a few things,
Lex Fridman (36:06.000)
but I deeply admire that he is what it looks
Lex Fridman (36:10.640)
like to think freely by himself.
Niall Ferguson (36:12.840)
It feels to me like he represents
Lex Fridman (36:14.360)
a lot of the ideals of this kind of effort.
Niall Ferguson (36:16.560)
Yes, he would be a natural fit.
Lex Fridman (36:18.560)
Sam, if you're listening, I hope you're in.
Niall Ferguson (36:21.440)
I think in the course of his recent intellectual quests,
Lex Fridman (36:25.680)
he did collide with one of our founders, Heather Haying.
Lex Fridman (36:28.120)
So we'll have to model civil disagreements
Lex Fridman (36:31.080)
at the University of Austin.
Niall Ferguson (36:32.640)
It's extremely important that we should all
Lex Fridman (36:35.000)
disagree about many things, but do it amicably.
Niall Ferguson (36:38.920)
One of the things that has been lost sight of,
Lex Fridman (36:41.160)
perhaps it's all the fault of Twitter
Niall Ferguson (36:42.880)
or maybe it's something more profound,
Lex Fridman (36:44.360)
is that it is possible to disagree in a civil way
Lex Fridman (36:47.720)
and still be friends.
Lex Fridman (36:49.720)
I certainly had friends at Oxford
Niall Ferguson (36:52.080)
who were far to the left of me politically,
Lex Fridman (36:54.520)
and they are still among my best friends.
Lex Fridman (36:56.560)
So the University of Austin has to be a place
Lex Fridman (36:58.680)
where we can disagree vehemently,
Lex Fridman (37:03.400)
but we can then go and have a beer afterwards.
Lex Fridman (37:06.600)
That's, in my mind, a really important part
Niall Ferguson (37:09.800)
of university life, learning the difference
Lex Fridman (37:12.840)
between the political and the personal.
Lex Fridman (37:15.680)
So Sam is, I think, a good example, as are you,
Lex Fridman (37:19.080)
of a certain kind of intellectual hero
Niall Ferguson (37:24.120)
who has been willing to go into the cyber sphere,
Lex Fridman (37:31.120)
the metaverse, and carve out an intellectual space,
Niall Ferguson (37:37.480)
the podcast, and debate everything fearlessly.
Lex Fridman (37:42.960)
His essay, it was really an essay on Black Lives Matter
Lex Fridman (37:48.280)
and the question of police racism,
Lex Fridman (37:50.840)
was a masterpiece of 2020.
Lex Fridman (37:54.360)
And so he, I think, is a model of what we believe in.
Lex Fridman (38:01.320)
But we can't save the world with podcasts,
Niall Ferguson (38:03.880)
good though yours is,
Lex Fridman (38:06.840)
because there's a kind of solo element
Niall Ferguson (38:11.840)
to this form of public intellectual activity.
Lex Fridman (38:15.080)
It's also there in Substack,
Niall Ferguson (38:16.760)
where all our best writers now seem to be,
Lex Fridman (38:19.880)
including our founder, Barry Weiss.
Niall Ferguson (38:22.600)
The danger with this approach is, ultimately,
Lex Fridman (38:26.880)
your subscribers are the people who already agree with you,
Lex Fridman (38:30.400)
and we are all, therefore,
Lex Fridman (38:32.040)
in danger of preaching to the choir.
Niall Ferguson (38:35.760)
I think what makes an institution like University of Austin
Lex Fridman (38:38.160)
so attractive is that we get everybody together,
Niall Ferguson (38:41.920)
at least part of the year,
Lex Fridman (38:44.440)
and we do that informal interaction at lunch, at dinner,
Niall Ferguson (38:51.800)
that allows, in my experience, the best ideas to form.
Lex Fridman (38:57.320)
Intellectual activity isn't really a solo voyage.
Niall Ferguson (39:00.480)
Historians often make it seem that way,
Lex Fridman (39:02.480)
but I've realized over time that I do my best work
Niall Ferguson (39:06.000)
in a collaborative way,
Lex Fridman (39:08.160)
and scientists have been better at this
Niall Ferguson (39:10.640)
than people in the humanities.
Lex Fridman (39:12.440)
But what really matters,
Niall Ferguson (39:13.760)
what's magical about a good university,
Lex Fridman (39:16.120)
is that interdisciplinary, serendipitous conversation
Niall Ferguson (39:19.520)
that happens on campus.
Lex Fridman (39:21.440)
Tom Sargent, the great Nobel Prize winning economist and I,
Niall Ferguson (39:24.760)
used to have these kind of random conversations
Lex Fridman (39:27.800)
in elevators at NYU or in corridors at Stanford,
Lex Fridman (39:31.520)
and sometimes they'd be quite short conversations,
Lex Fridman (39:34.680)
but in that short, serendipitous exchange,
Niall Ferguson (39:38.040)
I would have more intellectual stimulus
Lex Fridman (39:40.520)
than in many a seminar lasting an hour and a half.
Lex Fridman (39:44.400)
So I think we want to get the Sam Harris's
Lex Fridman (39:47.280)
and Lex Friedman's out of their darkened rooms
Lex Fridman (39:51.440)
and give them a chance to interact
Lex Fridman (39:54.000)
in a much less structured way than we've got used to.
Niall Ferguson (39:59.360)
Again, it's that sense that sometimes
Lex Fridman (40:02.720)
you need some freewheeling, unstructured debate
Niall Ferguson (40:05.600)
to get the really good ideas.
Lex Fridman (40:07.280)
I mean, to talk anecdotally for a moment,
Niall Ferguson (40:08.920)
I look back on my Oxford undergraduate experience
Lex Fridman (40:12.000)
and I wrote a lot of essays and attended a lot of classes,
Lex Fridman (40:14.680)
but intellectually, the most important thing I did
Lex Fridman (40:18.200)
was to write an essay on the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus
Niall Ferguson (40:22.400)
for an undergraduate discussion group called the Canon Club.
Lex Fridman (40:27.440)
And I probably put more work into that paper
Niall Ferguson (40:29.960)
than I put into anything else,
Lex Fridman (40:31.440)
except maybe my final examinations,
Niall Ferguson (40:33.800)
even although there was only really one senior member
Lex Fridman (40:36.600)
present, the historian Jeremy Cato,
Niall Ferguson (40:38.800)
I was really just trying to impress my contemporaries.
Lex Fridman (40:41.880)
And that's the kind of thing we want.
Niall Ferguson (40:45.720)
The great intellectual leaps forward, occurred,
Lex Fridman (40:51.080)
often in somewhat unstructured settings.
Niall Ferguson (40:54.160)
I'm from Scotland, you can tell from my accent,
Lex Fridman (40:57.160)
a little at least.
Niall Ferguson (40:59.560)
The enlightenment happened in late 18th century Scotland
Lex Fridman (41:03.000)
in a very interesting interplay between the universities,
Niall Ferguson (41:07.280)
which were very important, Glasgow, Edinburgh,
Lex Fridman (41:10.120)
St Andrews, and the coffee houses and pubs
Niall Ferguson (41:14.560)
of the Scottish cities where a lot of unstructured discussion
Lex Fridman (41:19.760)
often fueled by copious amounts of wine took place.
Niall Ferguson (41:24.080)
That's what I've missed over the last few years.
Lex Fridman (41:27.280)
Let's just think about how hard academic social life has become.
Niall Ferguson (41:32.480)
That we've reached the point that Amy Chewer
Lex Fridman (41:37.760)
becomes the object of a full blown investigation
Lex Fridman (41:41.600)
and media storm for inviting to Yale Law School students
Lex Fridman (41:47.200)
over to her house to talk.
Niall Ferguson (41:50.840)
I mean, when I was at Oxford, it was regarded
Lex Fridman (41:52.480)
as a tremendous honor to be asked
Niall Ferguson (41:54.800)
to go to one of our tutors homes.
Lex Fridman (41:58.040)
The social life of Oxford and Cambridge
Niall Ferguson (41:59.680)
is one of their great strengths.
Lex Fridman (42:01.120)
There's a sort of requirement to sip
Niall Ferguson (42:03.960)
unpleasant sherry with the dons.
Lex Fridman (42:06.520)
And we've kind of killed all that.
Niall Ferguson (42:08.360)
We've killed all that in the US because nobody
Lex Fridman (42:10.040)
dares have a social interaction with an undergraduate
Niall Ferguson (42:13.040)
or exchange an informal email in case
Lex Fridman (42:15.720)
the whole thing ends up on the front page of the local
Niall Ferguson (42:18.200)
or student newspaper.
Lex Fridman (42:19.520)
So that's what we need to kind of restore,
Niall Ferguson (42:22.960)
the social life of academia.
Lex Fridman (42:25.560)
So there's magic.
Niall Ferguson (42:26.400)
We didn't really address this sort of explicitly.
Lex Fridman (42:29.320)
But there's magic to the interaction between students.
Niall Ferguson (42:33.520)
There's magic in the interaction between faculty,
Lex Fridman (42:37.400)
the people that teach.
Lex Fridman (42:38.360)
And there's the magic in the interaction
Lex Fridman (42:39.880)
between the students and the faculty.
Lex Fridman (42:41.600)
And it's an iterative process that changes everybody involved.
Lex Fridman (42:46.040)
So it's like world experts in a particular discipline
Niall Ferguson (42:48.960)
are changed as much as the students,
Lex Fridman (42:52.880)
as the 20 year olds with the wild ideas,
Niall Ferguson (42:56.960)
each are changed and that's the magic of it.
Lex Fridman (42:59.160)
That applies in liberal education,
Niall Ferguson (43:01.160)
that applies in the sciences too.
Lex Fridman (43:03.520)
That's probably maybe you can speak to this,
Lex Fridman (43:05.560)
why so much scientific innovation
Lex Fridman (43:08.760)
has happened in universities.
Niall Ferguson (43:10.640)
There's something about the youthful energy
Lex Fridman (43:13.600)
of like young minds, graduate students,
Niall Ferguson (43:16.480)
undergraduate students that inspire
Lex Fridman (43:18.480)
some of the world experts
Niall Ferguson (43:19.520)
to do some of the best work of their lives.
Lex Fridman (43:21.960)
Well, the human brain we know is at its most dynamic
Niall Ferguson (43:25.080)
when people are pretty young.
Lex Fridman (43:27.240)
You know this with your background in math,
Niall Ferguson (43:29.600)
people don't get better at math after the age of 30.
Lex Fridman (43:32.960)
And this is important when you think about
Niall Ferguson (43:36.800)
the intergenerational character of university.
Lex Fridman (43:39.760)
The older people, the professors have the experience,
Lex Fridman (43:44.160)
but they're fading intellectually
Lex Fridman (43:46.760)
from much earlier than anybody really wants to admit.
Lex Fridman (43:50.200)
And so you get this intellectual shot in the arm
Lex Fridman (43:55.720)
from hanging out with people who are circa 20,
Niall Ferguson (43:59.320)
don't know shit, but brains are kind of like cooking.
Lex Fridman (44:04.240)
I look back on the career I've had in teaching,
Niall Ferguson (44:07.320)
which is over 25 years at where Cambridge, Oxford,
Lex Fridman (44:10.560)
NYU, Harvard, and I have extremely strong relationships
Niall Ferguson (44:15.440)
with students from those institutions
Lex Fridman (44:19.440)
because they would show up,
Niall Ferguson (44:23.160)
whether it was at office hours or in tutorials
Lex Fridman (44:26.120)
and disagree with me.
Lex Fridman (44:28.120)
And for me, it's always been about encouraging
Lex Fridman (44:31.800)
some act of intellectual rebellion,
Niall Ferguson (44:35.040)
telling people, I don't want your essay to echo my views.
Lex Fridman (44:38.720)
If you can find something wrong with what I wrote, great.
Niall Ferguson (44:41.760)
Or if you can find something I missed that's new, fantastic.
Lex Fridman (44:45.360)
So there is definitely, as you said,
Niall Ferguson (44:47.040)
a magic in that interaction across the generations.
Lex Fridman (44:49.840)
And it's extraordinarily difficult, I think,
Niall Ferguson (44:53.280)
for an intellectual to make the same progress
Lex Fridman (44:57.240)
in a project in isolation
Niall Ferguson (45:00.120)
compared with the progress that can be made
Lex Fridman (45:03.280)
in these very special communities.
Lex Fridman (45:05.840)
What does a university do?
Lex Fridman (45:07.560)
Amongst other things,
Niall Ferguson (45:09.320)
it creates a somewhat artificial environment
Lex Fridman (45:13.120)
of abnormal job security,
Lex Fridman (45:15.280)
and that's the whole idea of giving people tenure,
Lex Fridman (45:18.560)
and then a relatively high turnover, new faces each year,
Lex Fridman (45:22.640)
and an institutionalization of thought experiments
Lex Fridman (45:27.080)
and actual experiments.
Lex Fridman (45:29.040)
And then you get everybody living
Lex Fridman (45:30.360)
in the same kind of vicinity
Lex Fridman (45:31.600)
so that it can spill over into 3 a.m. conversation.
Lex Fridman (45:34.720)
Well, that always seems to me
Niall Ferguson (45:36.520)
to be a pretty potent combination.
Lex Fridman (45:39.200)
Let's ask ourselves a counterfactual question next.
Niall Ferguson (45:41.720)
Let's imagine that the world wars happen,
Lex Fridman (45:47.560)
but there are no universities.
Niall Ferguson (45:51.320)
I mean, how does the Manhattan Project happen
Lex Fridman (45:53.880)
with no academia, to take just one of many examples?
Niall Ferguson (45:58.200)
In truth, how does Britain even stay in the war
Lex Fridman (46:01.200)
without Bletchley Park,
Lex Fridman (46:02.400)
without being able to crack the German cipher?
Lex Fridman (46:07.400)
The academics are unsung, or partly sung heroes
Niall Ferguson (46:11.800)
of these conflicts.
Lex Fridman (46:14.320)
The same is true in the Soviet Union.
Niall Ferguson (46:15.960)
The Soviet Union was a terribly evil and repressive system,
Lex Fridman (46:19.600)
but it was good at science,
Lex Fridman (46:21.320)
and that kept it in the game,
Lex Fridman (46:23.920)
not only in World War II, it kept it in the Cold War.
Lex Fridman (46:27.840)
So it's clear that universities are incredibly powerful,
Lex Fridman (46:32.840)
intellectual force multipliers,
Lex Fridman (46:35.560)
and our history without them would look very different.
Lex Fridman (46:40.200)
Sure, some innovations would have happened without them.
Niall Ferguson (46:42.440)
That's clear.
Lex Fridman (46:43.280)
The Industrial Revolution didn't need universities.
Niall Ferguson (46:45.240)
In fact, they played a very marginal role
Lex Fridman (46:47.520)
in the key technological breakthroughs
Niall Ferguson (46:49.120)
of the Industrial Revolution in its first phase.
Lex Fridman (46:52.200)
But by the second Industrial Revolution
Niall Ferguson (46:54.240)
in the late 19th century,
Lex Fridman (46:55.880)
German industry would not have leapt ahead
Niall Ferguson (46:58.040)
of British industry if the universities
Lex Fridman (46:59.840)
had not been superior.
Lex Fridman (47:01.680)
And it was the fact that the Germans institutionalised
Lex Fridman (47:04.320)
scientific research in the way that they did
Niall Ferguson (47:07.320)
that really produced a powerful, powerful advantage.
Lex Fridman (47:11.640)
The problem was that,
Lex Fridman (47:13.480)
and this is a really interesting point
Lex Fridman (47:15.240)
that Friedrich Meinlka makes in Die Deutsche Katastrophe
Niall Ferguson (47:18.160)
for the German Catastrophe,
Lex Fridman (47:19.960)
the German intellectuals became technocrats, homo faber,
Niall Ferguson (47:24.160)
he says.
Lex Fridman (47:25.000)
They knew a great deal about their speciality,
Lex Fridman (47:28.160)
but they were alienated from, broadly speaking, humanism.
Lex Fridman (47:31.920)
And that is his explanation,
Niall Ferguson (47:33.120)
or one of his explanations for why
Lex Fridman (47:35.200)
this very scientifically advanced Germany
Niall Ferguson (47:37.800)
goes down the path of hell led by Hitler.
Lex Fridman (47:41.600)
So when I come back and ask myself,
Lex Fridman (47:43.400)
what is it that we want to do with a new university,
Lex Fridman (47:47.320)
we wanna make sure that we don't fall into that German pit
Niall Ferguson (47:52.320)
where very high levels of technical and scientific expertise
Lex Fridman (47:56.360)
are decoupled from the fundamental foundations
Niall Ferguson (48:00.440)
of a free society.
Lex Fridman (48:04.280)
So liberal arts are there, I think,
Niall Ferguson (48:05.800)
to stop the scientists making Faustian pacts.
Lex Fridman (48:09.720)
And that's why it's really important
Niall Ferguson (48:11.400)
that people working on AI reach Shakespeare.
Lex Fridman (48:15.480)
I think you said that academics are unsung heroes
Niall Ferguson (48:19.600)
of the 20th century.
Lex Fridman (48:21.680)
I think there's kind of an intellectual,
Niall Ferguson (48:25.160)
a lazy intellectual desire to kind of destroy
Lex Fridman (48:30.160)
the academics, that the academics are the source
Niall Ferguson (48:32.640)
of all problems in the world.
Lex Fridman (48:34.760)
And I personally believe that exactly as you said,
Niall Ferguson (48:37.440)
we need to recognize that the university
Lex Fridman (48:40.320)
is probably where the ideas that will protect us
Niall Ferguson (48:45.000)
from the catastrophes that are looming ahead of us,
Lex Fridman (48:50.480)
that's where those ideas are going to come from.
Niall Ferguson (48:52.720)
People who work on economics can argue back and forth
Lex Fridman (48:56.840)
about John Maynard Keynes.
Lex Fridman (48:58.200)
But I think it's pretty clear
Lex Fridman (49:00.720)
that he was the most important economist
Lex Fridman (49:03.200)
and certainly the most influential economist
Lex Fridman (49:05.520)
of the 20th century.
Lex Fridman (49:06.600)
And I think his ideas are looking better today
Lex Fridman (49:11.320)
in the wake of the financial crisis
Niall Ferguson (49:12.960)
than they have at any time since the 1970s.
Lex Fridman (49:15.840)
But imagine John Maynard Keynes without Cambridge,
Niall Ferguson (49:19.920)
you can't because someone like that doesn't actually exist
Lex Fridman (49:24.920)
without the incredible hothouse
Niall Ferguson (49:27.520)
that a place like Cambridge was in Keynes's life.
Lex Fridman (49:30.200)
He was a product of a kind of hereditary
Niall Ferguson (49:32.720)
intellectual elite, it had its vices.
Lex Fridman (49:36.160)
But you can't help but admire the sheer power of the mind.
Niall Ferguson (49:40.160)
I've spent a lot of my career reading Keynes
Lex Fridman (49:42.400)
and I revere that intellect, it's so, so powerful.
Lex Fridman (49:47.400)
But you can't have people like that
Lex Fridman (49:49.760)
if you're not prepared to have King's College Cambridge.
Lex Fridman (49:53.600)
And it comes with redundancy.
Lex Fridman (49:55.280)
I think that's the point.
Niall Ferguson (49:56.120)
There are lots and lots of things
Lex Fridman (49:57.720)
that are very annoying about academic life
Niall Ferguson (50:00.520)
that you just have to deal with.
Lex Fridman (50:03.320)
They're made fun of in that recent Netflix series,
Niall Ferguson (50:06.200)
The Chair.
Lex Fridman (50:07.360)
And it is easy to make fun of academic life.
Niall Ferguson (50:10.720)
Tom Sharp's Porterhouse Blue did it.
Lex Fridman (50:13.040)
It's an inherently comical subject.
Niall Ferguson (50:17.040)
Professors at least used to be amusingly eccentric.
Lex Fridman (50:20.520)
But we've sort of killed off that side of academia
Niall Ferguson (50:24.200)
by turning it into an increasingly doctrinaire place
Lex Fridman (50:30.440)
where eccentricity is not tolerated.
Niall Ferguson (50:33.040)
I'll give you an illustration of this.
Lex Fridman (50:34.280)
I had a call this morning from a British academic
Niall Ferguson (50:38.640)
who said, can you give me some advice
Lex Fridman (50:40.720)
because they're trying to decolonize the curriculum.
Niall Ferguson (50:45.840)
This is coming from the,
Lex Fridman (50:47.680)
diversity, equity and inclusion officers.
Lex Fridman (50:50.800)
And it seems to me that what they're requiring of us
Lex Fridman (50:54.120)
is a fundamental violation of academic freedom
Niall Ferguson (50:56.680)
because it is determining ex ante
Lex Fridman (50:59.840)
what we should study and teach.
Niall Ferguson (51:02.640)
That's what's going on.
Lex Fridman (51:04.160)
And that's the thing that we really, really have to resist
Niall Ferguson (51:08.680)
because that kills the university.
Lex Fridman (51:10.280)
That's the moment that it stops being
Niall Ferguson (51:13.520)
the magical place of,
Lex Fridman (51:15.440)
being the magical place of intellectual creativity
Lex Fridman (51:20.240)
and simply becomes an adjunct
Lex Fridman (51:22.040)
of the ministry of propaganda.
Niall Ferguson (51:24.000)
I've loved the time we've spent talking about this
Lex Fridman (51:27.240)
because it's such a hopeful message
Niall Ferguson (51:28.920)
for the future of the university
Lex Fridman (51:30.240)
that I still share with you
Niall Ferguson (51:35.160)
the love of the ideal of the university.
Lex Fridman (51:37.840)
So very practical question.
Niall Ferguson (51:39.400)
You mentioned summer.
Lex Fridman (51:43.040)
Which summer are we talking about?
Lex Fridman (51:44.600)
So when, I know we don't wanna put hard dates here
Lex Fridman (51:48.400)
but what year are we thinking about?
Lex Fridman (51:51.160)
When is this thing launching?
Lex Fridman (51:52.600)
What are your thoughts on this?
Niall Ferguson (51:53.800)
We are moving as fast as our resources allow.
Lex Fridman (51:57.600)
The goal is to offer the first of the forbidden courses
Niall Ferguson (52:01.800)
next summer, summer of 2022.
Lex Fridman (52:03.840)
And we hope to be able to launch an initial,
Niall Ferguson (52:08.560)
albeit relatively small scale master's program
Lex Fridman (52:12.280)
in the fall of next year.
Niall Ferguson (52:14.480)
That's as fast as humanly possible.
Lex Fridman (52:18.360)
So yeah, we're really keen to get going.
Lex Fridman (52:21.000)
And I think the approach we're taking
Lex Fridman (52:22.920)
is somewhat imported from Silicon Valley.
Niall Ferguson (52:27.080)
Think of this as a startup.
Lex Fridman (52:29.080)
Don't think of this as something that has to exist
Niall Ferguson (52:31.120)
as a full service university on day one.
Lex Fridman (52:33.840)
We don't have the resources for that.
Niall Ferguson (52:35.200)
You did billions and billions of dollars
Lex Fridman (52:36.760)
to build a university sort of as a facsimile
Niall Ferguson (52:40.040)
of an existing university,
Lex Fridman (52:41.120)
but that's not what we want to do.
Niall Ferguson (52:42.280)
I mean, copying and pasting Harvard or Yale or Stanford
Lex Fridman (52:45.640)
would be a futile thing to do.
Niall Ferguson (52:46.840)
They would probably, you very quickly end up
Lex Fridman (52:49.200)
with the same pathologies.
Lex Fridman (52:50.440)
So we do have to come up with a different design.
Lex Fridman (52:52.240)
And one way of doing that is to grow it organically
Niall Ferguson (52:54.680)
from something quite small.
Lex Fridman (52:56.880)
Elon Musk mentioned in his usual humorous way on Twitter
Niall Ferguson (53:02.120)
that he wants to launch
Lex Fridman (53:03.600)
the Texas Institute of Technology and Science, TITS.
Niall Ferguson (53:09.400)
Some people thought this was sexist
Lex Fridman (53:11.400)
because of the acronym, TITS.
Lex Fridman (53:13.920)
So first of all, I understand their viewpoint,
Lex Fridman (53:16.560)
but I also think there needs to be a place
Niall Ferguson (53:18.640)
for humor on the internet, even from CEOs.
Lex Fridman (53:21.560)
So on this podcast, I've gotten a chance
Niall Ferguson (53:23.800)
to talk to quite a few CEOs.
Lex Fridman (53:26.440)
And what I love to see is authenticity.
Lex Fridman (53:29.560)
And humor is often a sign of authenticity.
Lex Fridman (53:33.080)
The quirkiness that you mentioned
Niall Ferguson (53:36.880)
is such a beautiful characteristic
Lex Fridman (53:39.520)
of professors and faculty in great universities
Niall Ferguson (53:42.520)
is also beautiful to see as CEOs, especially founding CEOs.
Lex Fridman (53:46.280)
So anyway, the deeper point he was making
Niall Ferguson (53:51.480)
is showing an excitement for the university
Lex Fridman (53:54.360)
as a place for big ideas in science, technology, engineering.
Lex Fridman (53:59.600)
So to me, if there's some kind of way,
Lex Fridman (54:02.960)
if there is a serious thought that he had behind this tweet,
Niall Ferguson (54:07.520)
not to analyze Elon Musk's Twitter like it's Shakespeare,
Lex Fridman (54:10.920)
but if there's a serious thought,
Niall Ferguson (54:13.960)
I would love to see him supporting the flourishing of Austin
Lex Fridman (54:18.320)
as a place for science, technology,
Niall Ferguson (54:20.360)
for these kinds of intellectual developments
Lex Fridman (54:22.280)
that we're talking about,
Niall Ferguson (54:25.880)
like make a place for free inquiry, civil disagreements,
Lex Fridman (54:31.640)
coupled with great education and conversations
Niall Ferguson (54:35.840)
about artificial intelligence, about technology,
Lex Fridman (54:37.880)
about engineering.
Lex Fridman (54:39.280)
So I'm actually gonna,
Lex Fridman (54:41.800)
I hope there's a serious idea behind that tweet
Lex Fridman (54:43.840)
and I'm gonna chat with him about it.
Lex Fridman (54:46.320)
I do too.
Niall Ferguson (54:47.160)
I do too.
Lex Fridman (54:48.760)
Most of the biggest storms in teacups of my academic career
Niall Ferguson (54:56.440)
have been caused by bad jokes that I've made.
Lex Fridman (54:59.920)
These days, if you wanna make bad jokes,
Niall Ferguson (55:04.000)
being a billionaire is a great idea.
Lex Fridman (55:08.080)
I'm not here to defend Elon's Twitter style
Niall Ferguson (55:12.400)
or sense of humor.
Lex Fridman (55:14.320)
He's not gonna be remembered for his tweets, I think.
Niall Ferguson (55:18.320)
He's gonna be remembered
Lex Fridman (55:19.320)
for the astonishing companies that he's built
Lex Fridman (55:22.320)
and his contributions in a whole range of fields
Lex Fridman (55:26.720)
from SpaceX to Tesla and solar energy.
Lex Fridman (55:31.720)
And I very much hope that we can interest Elon
Lex Fridman (55:35.400)
in this project.
Niall Ferguson (55:36.240)
We need not only Elon, but a whole range of his peers
Lex Fridman (55:41.640)
because this takes resources.
Niall Ferguson (55:45.160)
Universities are not cheap things to run,
Lex Fridman (55:47.400)
especially if, as I hope,
Niall Ferguson (55:49.480)
we can make as much of the tuition
Lex Fridman (55:55.880)
covered by scholarships and bursaries.
Niall Ferguson (55:57.600)
We want to attract the best intellectual talent
Lex Fridman (56:02.240)
to this institution.
Niall Ferguson (56:04.400)
The best intellectual talent
Lex Fridman (56:05.800)
is somewhat randomly distributed through society.
Lex Fridman (56:08.360)
And some of it is in the bottom quintile
Lex Fridman (56:09.960)
of the income distribution.
Lex Fridman (56:11.680)
And that makes it hard to get to elite education.
Lex Fridman (56:13.800)
So this will take resources.
Niall Ferguson (56:17.120)
The last generation of super wealthy plutocrats,
Lex Fridman (56:22.240)
the generation of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century,
Niall Ferguson (56:25.880)
did a pretty good job of funding universities.
Lex Fridman (56:28.640)
Now Chicago wouldn't exist, but for the money of that era.
Lex Fridman (56:33.040)
And so my message to not only to Elon,
Lex Fridman (56:35.400)
but to all of the peers, all of those people
Niall Ferguson (56:38.480)
who made their billions out of technology
Lex Fridman (56:41.160)
over the last couple of decades is this is your time.
Niall Ferguson (56:44.360)
I mean, and this is your opportunity
Lex Fridman (56:45.760)
to create something new.
Niall Ferguson (56:47.120)
I can't really understand why the wealthy of our time
Lex Fridman (56:51.120)
are content to hand their money.
Niall Ferguson (56:53.680)
I mean, think of the vast sums Mike Bloomberg
Lex Fridman (56:56.600)
recently gave to Johns Hopkins to established institutions.
Niall Ferguson (57:01.640)
When on close inspection, those institutions
Lex Fridman (57:05.720)
don't seem to spend the money terribly well.
Lex Fridman (57:10.200)
And in fact, one of the mysteries of our time
Lex Fridman (57:12.880)
is the lack of due diligence
Niall Ferguson (57:14.440)
that hard nosed billionaires seem to do
Lex Fridman (57:16.960)
when it comes to philanthropy.
Lex Fridman (57:19.280)
So I think there's an opportunity here
Lex Fridman (57:21.720)
for this generation of very talented, wealthy people
Niall Ferguson (57:25.160)
to do what their counterparts did in the late 19th
Lex Fridman (57:29.000)
and early 20th century and create some new institutions.
Lex Fridman (57:32.600)
And they don't need to put their names on the buildings.
Lex Fridman (57:34.840)
They just need to do what the founders of Chicago,
Niall Ferguson (57:39.000)
University of Chicago did,
Lex Fridman (57:40.440)
create something new that will endure.
Niall Ferguson (57:45.360)
Yeah, MIT is launching a college of computing
Lex Fridman (57:49.160)
and Stephen Schwarzman has given quite a large sum of money,
Niall Ferguson (57:54.320)
I think in total, a billion dollars.
Lex Fridman (57:56.840)
And as somebody who loves computing,
Niall Ferguson (57:59.360)
as somebody who loves MIT, I want some accountability
Lex Fridman (58:03.520)
for MIT becoming a better institution.
Lex Fridman (58:07.040)
And this is once again,
Lex Fridman (58:08.800)
why I'm excited about University of Austin
Niall Ferguson (58:10.720)
because it serves as a beacon.
Lex Fridman (58:12.240)
Look, you can create something new
Lex Fridman (58:14.400)
and this is what the great institutions
Lex Fridman (58:16.440)
of the future should look like.
Lex Fridman (58:18.320)
And Steve Schwarzman is also an innovator.
Lex Fridman (58:22.440)
The idea of creating a college on the Tsinghua campus
Lex Fridman (58:26.920)
and creating a kind of Rhodes program
Lex Fridman (58:28.720)
for students from the Western world
Niall Ferguson (58:30.080)
to come study in China was Steve's idea.
Lex Fridman (58:33.400)
And I was somewhat involved,
Niall Ferguson (58:35.480)
did some visiting, professing there.
Lex Fridman (58:38.600)
It taught me that you can create something new
Niall Ferguson (58:42.480)
in that area of graduate education
Lex Fridman (58:45.120)
and quite quickly attract really strong applicants
Niall Ferguson (58:49.800)
because the people who finished their four years
Lex Fridman (58:52.400)
at Harvard or Stanford know that they don't know a lot.
Lex Fridman (58:57.600)
And I, having taught a lot of people in that group,
Lex Fridman (59:02.400)
know how intellectually dissatisfied they often are
Niall Ferguson (59:06.240)
at the end of four years.
Lex Fridman (59:08.040)
I mean, they may have beautifully gamed the system
Niall Ferguson (59:10.280)
to graduate summa magna cum laude,
Lex Fridman (59:12.520)
but they kind of know they'll confess it
Niall Ferguson (59:15.760)
after a drink or two.
Lex Fridman (59:16.800)
They know that they gamed the system
Lex Fridman (59:18.320)
and that intellectually it wasn't
Lex Fridman (59:20.400)
the fulfilling experience they wanted.
Lex Fridman (59:22.320)
And they also know that an MBA from a comparable institution
Lex Fridman (59:26.280)
would not be a massive intellectual step forward.
Lex Fridman (59:29.360)
So I think what we want to say is,
Lex Fridman (59:32.240)
here's something really novel, exciting,
Niall Ferguson (59:35.240)
that will be intellectually very challenging.
Lex Fridman (59:37.880)
I do think the University of Austin has to be difficult.
Niall Ferguson (59:42.360)
I'd like it to feel a little bit like
Lex Fridman (59:44.040)
surviving Navy SEAL training to come through this program
Niall Ferguson (59:47.000)
because it will be intellectually demanding.
Lex Fridman (59:49.400)
That I think should be a magnet.
Lex Fridman (59:51.320)
So yeah, Steve, if you're listening,
Lex Fridman (59:54.280)
please join Elon in supporting this.
Lex Fridman (59:56.840)
And Peter Thiel, if you're listening,
Lex Fridman (59:59.760)
I know how skeptical you are about the idea
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