WEBVTT - Nate Silver: The Smoothest Brain On The Internet 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:07.160 Cool media. Oh my god, you guys, it could happen here, 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:13.040 meaning our podcast, it could, it is, It's happened. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.320 Robert, shouldn't you rename the podcast? It is happening here? 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.720 Yeah? Uh huh, that's that's a fun joke that I 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:25.279 only hear forty seven times a day. And the whole 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.280 point of the podcast was, well, initially I was a 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.400 crazy person saying a bunch of stuff would happen, and 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.760 now it's a bunch of that stuff happened, and even 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:39.040 more of it looks very likely, and so now I 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:40.479 just feel bad all the time. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.040 It's going to be cooled. I fucking called it. I 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.520 fucking told you, bro, I said this was going to happen. 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.040 Why don't you rename the podcast? I just feel bad 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:49.680 all the time? 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.199 Yeah, why don't you rename the podcast? Robert should have 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.120 bought more stock and ammunition companies than he did and 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.720 DGI jeez, should I have bought stock and DGI? 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.600 Yeah, I'm gonna buy her a little DGI drone here, 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:05.080 you know. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:06.679 Yeah, there we go a lot of people are going 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.280 to be buying little DGI drones here very soon. 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.240 James, I should point out that I'm buying one. It's 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:14.679 not capable of carrying a payload. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.199 It's definitely a safer investment to pull out your furrow 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.679 one k Now, when the market's crashing, use that money, 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.000 buy drones. Those drones will be worth a lot more 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:25.840 in five years. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.119 Or what is that? That is? That is the sound 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.959 of a sound investment, a box of bullets. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.200 It's like how boomers used to like invest in like 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.320 silver or gold as like a stable current. No, we're 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.800 investing in DGI, like physical dghy drones. 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.600 We are investing in drones and boxes of gunpowder. 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.400 Yeah, you gotta get it in a bottle, rubbit in 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.880 a box, it can get light struck or get moist. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.520 You want to get it in a special black black bottle. 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.440 James, I keep all of my gunpowder. And you know 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.240 how like people used to cocaine by wrapping it in 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:02.680 toilet paper and swallowing it. 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:06.440 No, sure, okay, well if you say sobody. 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:13.320 Speaking of toilet paper. Nate Silver has a newsletter and 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.120 it would be useful as toilet paper more so than 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:17.520 it is as a newsletter. 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.480 Sorry, I just got like PTSD flashbacks from twenty twenty four. 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:21.919 Would you said that it's okay. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:27.840 Normally, my rule of thumb is every election, usually starting 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.639 in like December, the year before election year, I begrudgingly 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.280 fight down a series of panic attacks, vomit three or 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.560 four times in a bucket, and then head over to 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.360 Nate Silver's blog to see what he's saying about the polls. 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.080 And I do this. I hate that I keep having 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.760 I have regularly on election the years people were like 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.400 but he was always wrong. He's like, no, he's reasonably 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.120 good on polls. He's usually if you read what he's 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.239 saying about presidential polls, the reality bears out pretty close 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.560 to that. So I read him during elections and I 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.720 hate it because he's never been right about anything else. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:07.360 But he's he's a gambler. He's a degenerate, filthy gambler. 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.320 And so when we're talking about degenerate, filthy gambler stuff, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.560 and by god, election polls are the most degenerate type 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.480 of gambling that exists, he's worth reading. And then after 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.560 the election, no matter how well or badly it goes, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.280 I ignore him again for four years. And I didn't get 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.200 to do that this year because on February twenty fifth, 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.959 twenty twenty five, Nate wrote a column called elon Musk 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.079 and Spiky Intelligence. 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.720 Spiky Intelligence. Am I hearing that right? 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:37.480 Spiky intelligence? 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:37.760 Yes? 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.760 And it very helpfully starts with a drawing that I'm 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.600 sure he used some AI, like he must have used 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.440 some AI like video software to do that, just like 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.080 shows you a kind of spiky star looking thing and 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.640 then like a blob with rounded edges. I can't begin 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.200 to imagine why Nate Silver thought that, like we needed 0:03:58.200 --> 0:03:59.120 this illustrated. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.240 I have to see this. Yeah, yeah, I would like 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:02.520 it to be shad look at this. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.240 Why did you like, oh promise of AI we couldn't have? 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.320 Yes, wow, yeah, it just it looks like. 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.080 Maybe an amoeba if you, if you looks like an amoeba, 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.080 and then like a poorly drawn star. 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.640 Is it? This is? When is an actual thing? This 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:20.400 gifts you? Wait, this is a thing. 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:22.960 This is this is Boba and Kiki with a weird 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.720 like digital fuzz over the. 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:27.000 Fucker Boba and Kiki. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:29.039 Yeah, okay, Garrison, Yeah. 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.520 It's a it's like a social experiment to like ask 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.040 people what like the emotional correspondence of each of these 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:40.159 shapes are like, which it's like a sure, like like 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.880 which one looks, which one looks nicer, which one looks meaner? 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.839 You know that sort of thing. I'm a Kiki type, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.760 like like I I am a Kiky in terms in 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.080 terms of my behavior, I am Garrison. 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:53.280 Now that you bring up Rorshak, all I can think 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.360 of is how cool it would be if Rorshak from 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.160 The Watchman showed up in Nate Silver's house and did 0:04:58.200 --> 0:04:58.560 his thing. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:05.600 Unfortunately, I think Rorshak at night Silver friends. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.200 Actually yeah, no, no, Nate would. But after them getting 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.440 along for like forty five minutes, Nate would take him 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.440 to an illegal card game, and Rorshak would murder everybody 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.240 in the room because they were gambling without a license. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.240 So I'm assuming Nate's going to try to argue that 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.000 that Musk's intelligence is akin to the kiki drug here 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.320 as opposed to like the emphathetic right. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.240 Now there, Actually, yes, there is a little bit of 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.719 that in there. He does not mention this Kiki and 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.160 Boba thing. I don't know if that's because I'm supposed 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.400 to just infer it from the image or if he's Okay, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.240 we'll get your opinion on it. Is is Hee ripping these 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.000 people off because this doesn't count as enough for him 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.159 to be crediting them if this is the underpinning of 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.000 his stupid idea, which he credits to his stupid book 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:53.320 that he came up with later. But I'm just going 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:54.960 to start reading the stupid column. 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.919 Well, hit us with the second paragraph, because that fuck. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:05:59.240 You haven't gotten paragraph one. 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.400 Jack radicalized me immediately. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.160 There's been a debate raging on Twitter. Noah Smith can 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.760 run you through the parameters about the intelligence of the 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.080 platform's owner, Elon Musk. My contribution was to suggest and 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.560 then there's a little eye in parentheses because we need 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.720 that Elon is obviously pretty bright. And then there's two 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.479 eyes in parentheses. This shouldn't be conflated with moral judgment. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.800 Highly intelligent people do lots of bad things. Okay, you'd 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.760 think this wouldn't be especially controversial, but since it involves 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.960 Elon and intelligence, well it was. Elon has run founded 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.200 or co foundeds Tesla, SpaceX, open Ai, neuralink Xai, PayPal, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:39.200 and more recently Twitter. He's also managed to steer himself 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.240 into a position where he's now the de facto chief 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.599 of staff to the President of the United States. I 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.120 do not doubt that Elon has gotten lucky in various respects. 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.360 Some of these were long shot bets, and Walter Isaacson's 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.080 biography of Musk documents he thought he'd be ruined if 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.880 there had been one more failed SpaceX launch. The success 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.839 of some of these enterprises might also be debated. Twitter 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.200 was a canny play for cultural and political and ones. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.680 But probably And he doesn't bring up in this whole 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.719 thing where he's talking about, like all a successful company, 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.400 not a word about the boring company, not a word 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:09.920 about hyper loop right. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.760 Well, yeah, yeah, any of the failure ones. 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.200 His record does seem better if you ignore the two 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.040 massively publicized and invested absolute failures. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.280 Yes, well, and last week, I know there was a 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.760 space X lunch. I'm sure it went well. I'm sure 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.240 it didn't fling debris all over lower. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.360 I'm sure he didn't nearly destroy several commercial aircraft, also 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.280 crediting it like, yeah, I guess technically co founded open ai, 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.200 but not in a way that mattered. He just shot 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.400 down money in there and then kind of edged out. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:39.320 Sure. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.800 Yes, and is actively in a conflict with everybody who 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.840 did make open ai as prominent as it is. Again, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.240 Nitla has to leave a lot out in order to 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:50.720 start making this case. 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.080 But so he's going to argue that, you know, we're 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.920 going to see how how well this co presidency goes. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.240 But he's probably a pretty smart guy to get all 0:07:58.280 --> 0:07:59.040 of this stuff done. 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.240 Yeah, and he's also saying, well, like maybe Twitter won't 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.280 be profitable, but we'll see how you know, he could 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.960 probably profit from being the de facto chief of staff. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.040 Not a word from Nate about like, yeah, but he's 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.800 just like, that's just breaking the law. So why are 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.679 we Why aren't we including in our canny businessman guys 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.160 that get rich selling like shitloads of heroin for the cartels, 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.000 Because yes, if you are breaking the laws sometimes that 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:22.760 goes well for you financially. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.120 Well, Walter White, they've done some bad things, Yeah, but. 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.880 You can't deny he was a brilliant method, you know. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.000 But I don't care what Elon's SAT score is. Fourteen hundred. 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.680 According to Isaacson, he's clearly some sort of outlier in 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.319 many ways people would associate with intelligence, probably even a genius. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.120 And yet when my first off, it becomes clear through 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:49.680 this that Nate does not consider a fourteen hundred to 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.480 be an impressive SAT score, and would normally be judgmental 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.200 of someone who had an SAT score of fourteen hundred 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.280 if it weren't for all of Elon's other genius accomplishments. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:01.760 And yet, when my partner and I were heading to 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:03.480 dinner the other day and we saw some tweet that 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.400 Elon sent I forget which one because he tweets so much, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.760 we were both like, man, he's such a dumb ass. Yes, 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.320 someone can be both a genius and a dumbass. Welcome 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.120 to what I call spikey intelligence. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:14.720 Here we go. 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:17.920 This gets to like the core of what's annoying about 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.640 Nate is his need to He's one of these guys 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.920 you know what, you know what it is. He's an 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:27.600 intellectual enclosurist right where he's not confident to be like 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.360 everyone is very aware of the fact that no one 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.720 is good at everything, and that people have holes in 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.439 their competence, and that there are like brilliant surgeons who 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.679 are bad fathers or whatever, because there are different kinds 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.560 of intelligence. This is like a broadly common understanding. Nate 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.439 has to give it a name so that he can 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.200 sell his books. So he gives it the names. It's 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.000 like an intellectual. Now it's my idea. I'm the one 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.200 who came up with the concept that smart people can 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.680 be dumbasses. Stop it, Nate, it's annoying. 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:59.320 Capital ass capital I rights to trademark spiky intelligence. Yeah. 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:04.320 Yeah, Now he acknowledges that this isn't entirely original, and 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.120 then links to somebody without really like crediting them. Interestingly, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.280 many of the instances online refer to people of the 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.800 on the autism spectrum. Musk has publicly stated that he 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.079 has Asperger syndrome. But the concept is simple. While intelligence 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.480 is a multi dimensional phenomenon, the scientific consensus is that 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.679 there's also something known as a G factor sometimes also 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.400 called general intelligence. As an empirical matter, most traits we'd 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.080 associate with intelligence are positively correlated. For instance, math and 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.360 verbal skills and the gire are correlated. The correlations are 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.160 loose enough that you'll wind up with all sorts of 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.199 different permutations on the spectrum of human behavior. And he's 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.000 just going into like he talks about like the absent 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.480 minded professor, Like it's all just these these very common 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.320 ideas that like, yeah, people are usually bad at more 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.800 things than they're good at, right, Like it's there's no 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:57.160 need to explain how Elon Musk has been successful at 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.760 certain things, but Nate does, and he has to keep 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:01.840 going back to. Like he makes a comment later in 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.920 here about how Musk is clearly a brilliant engineer. He 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.440 doesn't back this up with evidence. He just says that, Like, well, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.000 if you read the book that Ashley Vance wrote, he 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.000 obviously signed off on a lot of great engineering moves, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.439 which ignores the fact that, like he's not making any 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.440 of these decisions, Like he bought a company that already 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.680 had good automotive technology. He hired a bunch of rocket 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:27.160 engineers to design rockets. Elon is arguably good at hiring 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.680 in certain circumstances, and he is inarguably a great hype man, right, 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.080 Like that's the actual brilliance that Elon has is he 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.760 was very very good at hyping people up and getting 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.440 people to believe in him until he was too big 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.320 to fail. Like that's the one thing he actually did. 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.280 But Nate can't accept that because I think it kind of, 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.160 among other things, it kind of reveals what Nate is, 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.319 who is a guy who was really good at one 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.520 narrow thing and now has a career writing about everything 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.040 and he can't. That's like a dangerous thing for Nate 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:02.679 to think too hard about. 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:08.440 Let's learn more about Nate's spiky intelligence after these very 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.120 soft and soothing ads. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:21.920 Yeah we're back. 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.360 I want to talk a little bit about the danger 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.079 of being a guy who gets famous for being really 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.640 good at one thing and then gets a job talking 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.920 about everything, because I've had a version of that experience. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.200 And let me tell you, you're not ever going to be 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.160 competent to discuss all of the things that you can 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.840 make money talking about if you're a popular entertainer. No 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.640 one ever has been, and no one ever will be, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.240 which is why what you ought to do is the 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.640 thing Nate initially tried to do, which is bring on 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.319 a bunch of people to like run a website with 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.080 you right where you cover more things than one. Unfortunately, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.600 it turns out five thirty was a bad business venture. 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.800 It got massively overvalued, a company spent a shitload more 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.040 money on it that it was capable of making, and 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.120 now everyone's gotten laid off and Nate left years ago 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.199 to do his sub stack. You know, it's a tragic 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.360 case in the problem of like Hubris and the fact 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.319 that maybe a guy who's really good at gambling shouldn't 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.520 run an entire media enterprise. But Nate doesn't like thinking 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.320 about that. It isn't like thinking about the fact that 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.240 maybe the only thing Elon Musk was ever good at 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.600 was being the guy from the Music Man, because I 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.680 think Nate bought into Elon Musk for a significant period 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.640 of time, Right, many people clearly does. Yes, Yeah, there's 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.680 been this thing lately where a lot of folks on 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.360 the left have been like the Oh, you couldn't always 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.600 tell that he was a con man, You couldn't always 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.720 tell that he was this bad, like he was always 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.600 the worst. I was like, no, Like back in twenty 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.679 fourteen fifteen, when I was writing about the billionaires and 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.440 rich people that were evil, I was focusing on Jamie 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.679 Diamond because he had helped create the two thousand and 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.120 eight five financial collapse and he's seen it. He just 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.560 seemed obviously much worse than this guy who up to 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.040 that point was pretty much just making cars and rockets. 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.240 You know, you have two companies doing that. Musk was 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.559 not top of most people's radars for very good reason, 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.840 which gets to like, there's this thing that's been created 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.080 because of some of like the sinister beliefs that his 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.800 grandfather had and his like family background which has a 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.880 lot of white supremacy in it. To that this has 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.920 been Elon's sort of like grand plan from the beginning, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.680 and that it's all come together for him, like as 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.840 if he's he's, you know, a Marvel or a James 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.360 bond Villa who's been executing this like thirty year plan 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:39.320 to get where he is. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:39.840 Yeah. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.280 Yeah, I think when you look at his cognition, like 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.120 he's not the same man he was ten years ago. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.200 He's not the same guy he was when he started 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.520 dating Grimes. And I'm saying he was a good man 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.640 before then. I don't think he particularly ever was, but 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.080 he's clearly his brain has degraded, in part due to 0:14:58.160 --> 0:14:59.240 contact through Twitter. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.760 Yeah, and you can like measure this through his posting 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.400 as well, Like, yeah, like that the types of posts 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.840 you would make in twenty seventeen are like completely opposite 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.080 to the way that he would talk about certain social issues. Now, 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.120 Oh yeah, he's not like meming about like anarcho syndicalism. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.320 Yeah, we get to a few of those things. But 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.400 I want to read another quote from NAT's article because 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.760 he's going to talk about his book on the Edge, 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.160 which quote describes a certain community of intelligent people that 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.200 I call the River. These people who occupy a range 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.560 of professions from AI research to poker to venture capital, 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:37.080 are bright, but in spiky ways. In Baron Cohen's dochotomy, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.240 they lean heavily towards the systematic side of the equation. 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.480 They're good at abstract analytic reasoning, but they may lack 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:47.120 other forms of intelligence like empathy, judgment, and self awareness. 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.160 They also have some distinctive characteristics largely unrelated to intelligence. 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.840 For example, they tend to be extraordinarily competitive and somewhat contrariant. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:56.800 And again, what you are talking about all of these 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.600 people number one, when he says AI research, he's not 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.920 talking about people who are doing like the gut level coating. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:08.320 He's talking about Sam Altman, right, poker, venture capital. This 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.440 is all gambling. You're all talking about gamblers. The River 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.880 is just gamblers, Nate. It's people like you who who 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:21.800 put money on bets, and they are contrarian and competitive 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.920 because that's how gamblers are. That's the intelligence, that's the river. 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.080 Like he's thinking about it as like this specific chunk 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.920 of intellectuals who have You know, there's some dangers, but 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.000 they have great potential to make the world brilliant. You're like, no, no, no, no, 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.120 these are just people who like wind up shooting themselves 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.880 outside of a sports betting facility. Like that's the river, mate. 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.360 I have been turning into a monster during our friend 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.000 poker nights recently. It's tough garrison. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:52.440 By the way, I've been meaning to talk to you 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.040 about wearing the full data makeup, because you know your 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.280 skin can't breathe. If you coat your whole body, You're 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:58.720 only supposed to put that on your face. 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.520 I don't do that every time I played Get. 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:02.960 A gold finger yourself care. 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.119 I don't put on the data makeup every time I 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.320 play poker, just that one time. Actually, no, I've done 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:15.240 that twice nowt never minds Okay, okay, he's becoming I 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.920 also have the little hats. I ordered a twelve pack 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.439 of like of like the little like poker visors to 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:21.600 complete the outfaced. 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:22.800 Of course she did. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.159 Yeah, it would be rude, not too for better or worse. 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.639 This typology the river is associated with high achievement and 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.440 certain highly lucrative professions, especially tech and finance. It is 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.560 also associated with high variance bankman Free built FTX into 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.200 a company that investors valued at thirty two billion before 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.040 the House of cards collapsed again because he was a dambler. 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:45.080 He's a con man. 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.240 Yeah, and again Nate can't just accept oh, he was 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.679 never actually very smart. He just got really lucky for 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.439 a while and then gave it and then gambled it 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.119 all away because he wasn't actually as smart as anyone thought. 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.280 Nate says, I interviewed SBF several times for the book, 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.040 and I can tell you that he very much falls 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.200 into the genius but dumbass category. 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.440 How about just dumbassy, lucky dumbass. It's not hard. 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.000 What's the genius? Where did he prove that? 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.760 I mean he proved that by fooling Nate Silver, a 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.720 man who probably values his own intelligence like a great deal. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:20.840 I mean, that's the whole thing, right, Nate Silver Khan. 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.679 It would be ego death to admit that there were 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:25.119 just some lucky, dumb white dudes. 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:26.080 Yeah. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.320 If a guy had won like one of the lotteries, 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:30.600 was like a billion and a half dollars, right, got 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.479 crazy rich and then lost it all in two weeks 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.359 because he just kept putting half a million dollars at 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.280 a time on twenty one black at a roulette table 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.560 in Vegas, and I would be like, well, obviously he's 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.440 a genius, but he's also kind of a dumbass. How 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.520 else could he have made the money in the first place? 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.479 And I was like, no, he got lucky, and then 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.359 he gambled it all away because he's he doesn't have 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.879 good judgment. Yeah, so it's important to avoid two pitfalls 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.359 when encountering people with spiky intelligence, namely, either there are 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.840 worst traits nor their best ones tell the whole story. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.040 And I don't disagree with that. However, it's a meaningless 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.879 statement because that's true of every human being ever born. Yeah, 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.200 but clearly Nate doesn't feel that way because only I think. 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.199 The undercurrent here is that only people like this in 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.640 Nate's mind are worth talking about, because only gamblers bring 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:21.120 the world forward, right. 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.040 Yeah, No one else deserves empathy. 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:28.359 Yeah, yes, like you're just addicted to putting money on 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.760 sports games and elections, Nate Silver. Anyway, So here's the 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.960 two things he wants to warn us up or wants 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.320 people to avoid. Elon is highly intelligent in several ways, 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.800 but that does not mean that everything he does is brilliant. 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.480 Some things he does are exceptionally dumb or dangerous, and 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.960 we shouldn't make excuses for them. But likewise, it's absurd 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.439 to suggest that Elon isn't brilliant in many respects just 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.840 because he isn't in others. And if he has merely 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.000 very good SAT scores, I don't care. Nobody does. It's 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.200 not high school. Nobody cares about his SAT. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.600 Skills, like like like fifty, like fifty five or something 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:02.360 like what are we doing? 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you are a middle aged man. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.399