"We Don't Know How Long We Have Left" Eric Weinstein On Nuclear Threat To Humanity

Dr Eric Weinstein is a Harvard trained

mathematician and a Titan of the

so-called intellectual dark web they're

the big iconic clastic thinkers who span

political divides to challenge

mainstream narratives stoking

controversy and debate along the

way Dr Weinstein tackles everything from

Putin and Ukraine to globalization and

Jeffrey Epstein's become a superstar

guest on the world's biggest podcast and

streaming shows you met Jeffrey Epstein

the hero from the back of my neck stood

on end there are people that you need in

your dark hours and as soon as they

emerge we tar them with and now he

goes

unsensitive I'm always surprised when

people with your kind of intellect um

wrestle with any kind of quandry about

Russian dictator invading Sovereign

Democratic country powerful Nations like

Russia have concerns that don't have to

do only with their exact borders I mean

do you think anyone like like Putin who

has 6,000 nuclear weapons at his

disposal would want to start a war that

would obliterate everything hand

somebody a pair of nunchucks uh they're

most likely to knock themselves out

rather than to become Bruce Le we sit

here with a ticking Time Bomb we don't

know how long we have the four most

overrated things in life were Lobster

champagne anal sex and picnics I don't

really know much about champagne perhaps

the next question are there any limits

to free speech it has morphed more into

a question of what what can I get away

with that might not be true I've got 10

things rapid fire no no no yeah I declin

no I'm I'm quite

serious Eric wiy great to have you good

to be with you so I was just checking

your Wikipedia a minute ago uh and under

education defaced recently you can

challenge this if you like but under

education it said wi te receive his PhD

in mathematical physics from Harvard

University in 1992 in his dissertation

extension of self-dual Yang Mills

equations across the eighth Dimension

Weinstein showed that the self-dual Yang

Mills equations were not peculiar to

Dimension four and admitted

generalizations to higher dimensions and

I realized at that point having read

that Eric that you and I were probably

on slightly different intellectual

Pathways in our lives and this might be

quite a challenging

encounter you have a different theory

about the Yang Mills equation by the way

that's the most that's the most accurate

thing I've heard in my Wikipedia entry

in some time so maybe things are

improving I mean look obviously you've

got a massive brain um do you think

that's been a Force for good or for

angst in your

life I see evil isn't on the table um it

can be I I avoided that yeah yeah yeah I

mean to be honest uh I hope it's

inspiring to people with learning

differences and neurode Divergence

everywhere I was a terrible student in

high school um so to me it's quite funny

I mean I I I don't know what to say it's

a it's a it speaks to the Triumph of

Will and the Power of

Dyslexia the um the intellectual dark

web as it's called I've interviewed many

people uh from this Douglas Murray Ben

of pio Jordan Peterson Professor Steven

Pinker and so on on the common theme

seem to be people who just decid that

they're not going to accept everything

that the mainstream media pumps out to

the public they want to challenge uh you

know what I would call group think they

want to challenge tribalism certainly

fueled by social media they just want to

be I guess annoyingly curious and

combative about stuff that we're told

collectively we have to

believe I think it's a lot more than

that I mean uh I never explained who was

in it uh or what it meant so people try

to wrap ideas around it and one of the

reasons that it it gained currency was

that no one had a description for the

fact that many smart people were not

going along with the sort of

intellectual hegemony of the mainstream

which should represent a huge diversity

of viewpoints but in fact uh that's only

honored in the breech uh I think that

one of the things that is not frequently

thought about in terms of uh that

project was the importance of Civility

it's incredibly difficult to tease out

our differences when we're yelling at

each other calling names and in in point

of fact I believe that we've lost the

ability to have good fights our fights

are terrible I totally agree uh we can't

we can't get good people to sit down

because without uh intellectual

Queensbury rules all you get is eye

gouging and while there's a segment of

the internet that's always looking uh

you know for somebody to rip off an arm

lose a digit um most of us want to live

to see another day and continue to

develop our points and even concede when

the other person has a better one so I

you know the the the Dirty Little Secret

of the intellectual dark web is that

even though we were across the political

Spectrum we were pretty we were pretty

darn good to each other for a long time

and I think that that's the key to

getting great fights what I've noticed

is that um Ben Shapiro still has a

pinned tweet I think facts don't care

about your feelings

and I've definitely noticed in debates

that people go ad hominum very quickly

and very abusively normally to mask the

fact that their actual argument is

devoid of

fact well when you don't have a point uh

it's an excellent

tactic where are we in the world right

now Eric I mean you you know you've

you've written and spoken so much about

the state of the world but you know I

always say to people that if you

actually look at it statistically this

is the best time to ever be alive you

know we we're living longer we're living

healthier there's less child poverty the

a fuel Wars and so on and so on by every

conceivable metric this is arguably the

best time to ever be alive and yet so

many people seem so angst-ridden you

know young people have an epidemic of

anxiety um a lot of people having real

problems just dealing with life when in

fact compared to all their ancestors

they've got it good why

why well see I you've got to stop

drinking uh with Stephen pinkler picker

I think uh hey was that see him that

said that you're right yeah yeah uh well

this is a terrible idea that was spread

by Stephen Pinker um and what it is you

know to to borrow from my physics and Ma

and math background is uh you can't

understand the conservation of energy if

you don't have terms for both potential

and kinetic energy so if you think about

what you're talking about you're talking

about the cessation of all kinds of in

some sense human kinetic energy from the

early part of the 20th century with all

of the you know two two terrible Wars a

horrible pandemic Etc uh we don't see

that much in the world only Ma's grap

Leap Forward I think Rises to that level

of

atrocity um so that has been a huge

Improvement the problem is why that is

the case which is largely because in

1952 53 over six months we acquired ired

the secrets to both the atom and the

cell um so with the first Hydrogen Bomb

named Ivy Mike in the Pacific and Watson

and cric's elucidation of the double

helix structure for nucleic acid uh we

became Godlike in terms of our power and

as a result we acquired the first time

uh for the first time the ability to end

the human project and I think it's the

loss of an indefinite human future uh

future that has to be restored and no

one can figure out how to do it so we

sit here um effectively uh with a

ticking Time Bomb we don't know how long

we have and uh things are very pleasant

I mean you can you can uh sit in a

coffee shop and um have a have a

perfectly good life uh but you never

know when the end is coming whereas in a

previous era you didn't know how often

you were going to be you were going to

be conscripted into a war but on the

other hand uh there was no chance of

humans extinguishing themselves so I

think you really have to to broaden that

concept and I would agree with you in

terms of the

realized um Terror uh that has engulf

the world in fact most of it is

potential Terror did you watch oppenheim

in the movie sure what did you think of

it it's very tough

um I don't think people

remember that we have this power and

that it was Unleashed by science and in

particular it was Unleashed

by effectively my former colleagues um

so that you know when you see a cameo

appearance by Richard Fineman let's say

uh or at least you know someone uh

portraying him uh you have to recognize

that these are the people who

unleashed the uh the Doomsday scenario

and for me because we ceased exploding

atmospheric nuclear weapons in 1962 I

believe uh We've really grown far too I

don't know how to say it we we're too

unconcerned with the danger in which we

live and for me it was an attempt to

reawaken our self- knowledge and to

remind ourselves how important science

is how how you know currently we we say

that scientists are feeble they don't

live in the real world and I promise you

uh you'll be living in their world uh

for the rest of for the rest of time

this is very much the real world and it

was it it was painful in part but it was

a very intriguing film I mean when

Vladimir Putin rattles his his nuclear

saber um which he does regularly as a

form of trying to intimidate the West in

particular do you think he means it I

mean do you think anyone like Putin who

has 6,000 nuclear weapons at his

disposal is ever I don't know whether

the St stupid isn't the right word is is

ever going to be in a position where he

would want to start war that would

obliterate

everything you can ask the same of us

yeah but I'm I'm I'm quite

serious the

um in terms of a cultural difference the

Russians regularly use nuclear uh

explosions for engineering purposes they

have a comfort with nuclear weapons that

we lack I think that many Americans do

not really understand the cultural

difference between Central and Eastern

Europe and the modern

West um which is you know frankly

terrifying I I really I see

cross-cultural

miscommunication as a potential start to

a nuclear uh nuclear scenario and as

we've seen from the Cold War there have

been many situations in which uh if

there's a glitch in a system and you

believe that somebody is uh firing upon

you that uh you're forced to make a very

tough decision quite honestly humans are

just not good enough to play this kind

of game theory and remember that with

the Cold War it was basically a bipolar

conflict you're about to move to

multi-polar Game Theory and I can assure

you that it's a much less stable

scenario where you're trying to figure

out what eight different players are

doing with regional conflicts and

unannounced nuclear Powers uh entering

the frame do you worry more about

nuclear Armageddon or AI becoming

sentient I worry about people trying to

to make AI a more pressing problem than

nuclear weapons a lot of the cool kids

in Silicon Valley have developed a meme

which is that oh AI is far more

dangerous than

nukes and that may be in the long run

but at the moment it's not even it's not

even close however it feels kind of P to

worry about nuclear weapons five years

ago or so I think I started publicly

calling for rare atmospheric tests of

nuclear weapons uh because I think the

greatest danger at the moment is that

fear of nuclear weapons is seen as out

of Vogue and we have to reacquaint our

our viscera with the danger in which we

live I mean I I did the last interview

with Professor Steven Hawking before he

sadly died and I asked him what's the

biggest threat to Mankind and he said

when artificial intelligence learns to

self-design the implication being that

when it does the first thing it would do

is probably conclude that humans are

completely pointless and irrational and

useless in many cases and they just get

rid of

us I don't think that's his best

work really you're you're not as

concerned well in the long run I think

that uh it's a huge concern but if you

look at what large language models are

and how quickly humans have confused

large language models for general

intelligence uh it tells you that maybe

more humans need to spend time C and

understanding the Transformer

architecture which enabled this uh

recent mini Revolution I mean it's

absolutely astounding but mostly what

these machines are doing are feeding us

back to us and once they've read all our

books and read all our papers uh it may

quite it's easily possible that this

model and this architecture May Plateau

but isn't it the same kind of situation

with nuclear weapons where in you know

decent hands supposedly decent hands of

people who have a moral code a code of

ethics who don't want to do the wrong

thing um nuclear weapons uh can be

controlled and can be safe but in

nefarious hands from people with evil

intent they become incredibly dangerous

and I I would say it's the same argument

with AI isn't

it I don't agree with the premise so

maybe ask that to someone else I believe

that if you take uh 10 very moral people

and very intelligent people and you give

them all nuclear weapons and the ability

to annihilate each other you can play

all sorts of game theoretic experiments

and find that we're simply not wise

enough to solve coordination problems

and signaling problems I I I I just

don't agree with this idea that it's our

morality and our intellect which makes

nuclear weapons dangerous it is simply

the power it's like handing a a

lightsaber to somebody in a Star Wars

film and uh you know watching them learn

U by slicing off you know a leg and an

arm within the first five minutes hand

hand hand somebody a pair of nunchucks

uh they're most likely to knock

themselves out rather than to become

Bruce Lee yeah but if you have Mother

Theresa with her finger on the nuclear

button and Adolf Hitler the chances are

more likely that it'll be the bad guy

that presses

it uh you took two people uh one is much

worse than the other but those aren't my

favorites uh

Mother Teresa I don't I we don't need to

relitigate the Christopher Hitchens

point I would say that um I just don't

know of of these good people who can

Steward nuclear weapons uh I it's simply

too much

power one of your or if you think about

it in terms of systems uh a democracy is

capable of having a string of uh you

know 10 moral ethical leaders and then

it gets itself into a period of distress

and suddenly it elect somebody who's

completely unfit for the office we we

don't have the ability to live with this

this amount of Leverage I had a a good

relationship with Christopher Hitchens I

employed him actually as a columnist

when I was editor of Daily Mirror and he

once sent me one of my favorite emails

ever which was he said the four most

overrated things in life were Lobster

champagne anal sex and

picnics

ah I I don't really know much about

champagne and some of the other items on

your list don't appeal to me for this

conversation perhaps the next

question uh one of your big thoughts is

that Western institutions including

politicians scientists the media are

actively lying to us and we've seen this

exacerbated by things like the pandemic

like modern warfare and all the

propaganda that flies around around it

how much of of your belief that they're

lying to us is driven by uh I guess the

social media element of this where

everything is Amplified in real time to

the public in a way it never used to be

in other words information used to Flow

To Us in a in a far slower a more

controlled way whereas now everything is

coming out as 24/7 in real

time well you know I I hold an unpopular

view which is that

uh

public-spirited fictions are essential

to proper governance the problem isn't

that they're lying to us the problem is

that the lies are not public spirited

they are not competent uh they're not

adult level fictions and they're not uh

they're not minimal you want to lie as

little as possible uh a French

philosopher once said that a nation is a

collection of people that have agreed to

forget something in common so in part

you know if you were to resolve the

contradictions let's say in the United

States first

amendment um you might find that you had

no Constitution the problem is the

nature of the laws and they are not

adult level and I don't mean to boast on

your program but I have an IQ above 40

so I find this really distressing that

I'm constantly asked to believe things

that uh no child should be asked to

believe I mean you you tweeted the other

day about Ukraine and Putin I can't tell

you my position on us strategy in

Ukraine if I don't know more all I know

is that in a democracy I'm being lied to

and pressure to support something I

don't sufficiently understand that's it

I mean you could take that argument in

1939 and say you know when Hitler

invaded Poland I don't know enough about

it I haven't been told enough about it

by my government therefore I can't take

a position about Adolf Hitler uh I would

say that what uh Putin is doing in

Ukraine is not dissimilar actually and

but his aspirations may not be quite as

heinous in terms of global domination as

as Hitler but no but I would I would say

his aspirations are heinous and I'm

always surprised when people with your

kind of intellect um wrestle with any

kind of quandy about Russian dictator

invading Sovereign Democratic country

and murdering loads of people and

helping himself loads of land and why

that shouldn't be in everyone's interest

to

repel well I would like to think that's

because you misunderstand my position um

but it could be a it could be a failure

of intellect on my

part we we're in a very long running

postc cold war strategy where in 1999 I

believe we extended Article 5 NATO

status to

Poland uh which was not former Soviet

Union but was Warsaw pack I didn't have

a problem at that point I think it was

in 2004 where we extended Article 5

status to lvia Lithuania and Estonia and

at that point I clearly felt that I

didn't understand what we were doing I

believe that you know Ria is within a

thousand miles or kilometer I don't even

know of Moscow and you know because the

Cuban Missile Crisis was very much top

of Mind during the part of the Cold War

that I saw and its aftermath I very well

remember the concept of America spheres

of influence that Cuba was not

considered a Sovereign Nation that could

choose to do whatever it wanted because

it was simply too close to the United

States I think that in part it's the

desire to only put on one pair of

glasses one set of lenses The Sovereign

Nation lens clearly suggests uh that

Putin is a madman and that his crossing

of the border of Ukraine um it's a slam

dunk so so it's not that I don't

understand your point but then again

there's another set of glasses which is

the spheres of influence glasses and

that says that in fact um powerful

Nations like Russia have concerns that

don't have to do only with their exact

borders and if you look for example at a

time lapse of the borders in Central and

Eastern Europe you'll notice that

they've been fluid for forever if every

time there is a border Readjustment we

go to the brink of nuclear war that's

game over furthermore uh there are very

complicated relations in Central and

Eastern Europe and I don't think that

Americans are particularly Adept uh at

discussing them and forcing us to say

Slava Ukraine is as a as a slogan uh you

know we're not allowed to say glory to

anything but we're supposed to to be

100% on board this is a long running

statecraft level narrative uh clearly

there was an idea in place as far back

as the fall of the bird Berlin Wall I

don't understand what the strategy is it

might be the right strategy I'm

certainly not supporting Putin who's an

absolute brutal Thug uh that's not in

question the problem is is that we are

now the stewards of a thermonuclear

planet and uh the simple application of

an idea that he crossed the border of a

Sovereign Nation after everything we've

been doing in Ukraine and all the games

that we've played uh I don't think that

this really makes sense and the problem

in in as I understand it is that we keep

telling the audience uh the electorate

if you will that these incredibly

simplistic lenses with which we choose

to view everything are sufficient to

actually form grown-up opinions and they

they aren't I mean the irony of course

is that if Ukraine had not been

encouraged to give up its nuclear

defense then Putin is highly unlikely to

have invaded

him there are so many choices that we

have made in terms of how we've handled

the postc Cold War former uh Soviet

Union countries and Warsaw pack

countries I I think you have to

understand that this is part of a long

running Grand strategy and it's not

shared with me this whatever I'm not

even positive that today's uh State

Department

officials are really 100%

in that they have good knowledge of what

this extended plan is very often what

you find is the architects of a

multi-decade plan die and they don't

teach their successors what the actual

strategy was when when Saddam Hussein

invaded Kuwait did you think it was

right that American boots were put on

the ground to kick him out given it

wasn't a NATO

country Kuwait in some sense uh is in

part created as a block so that uh

Saddam H that Iraq would have the

tiniest um

seafront the the creation in some sense

of states by Colonial powers or um

accidents of History I I think the the

the problem here is that Saddam Hussein

was an absolute

brute uh but he was a brute in a region

in which one has to become brutish it is

astounding the extent to which many

Iraqis who were relatively middle class

and new the difficulties of governing in

that region uh viewed him as an absolute

brute but were appreciative of of his

efforts of keeping Iraq relatively

secular that's not to say that I'm a

Saddam Hussein supporter far from it

it's just to say that we keep

communicating very strange things into

these

regions for example when I think it was

George Herbert Walker Bush who told the

marsh Arabs in the south of Iraq to rise

up and then got them slaughtered we we

have to be very careful in our

Communications in incredibly different

regions from our own do you think it's

really in America's national

interest that Vladimir Putin could win

in Ukraine could just seize a vast chunk

of that country and claim it as Russian

um as he did with Crimea and this of

course after invaded Georgia as well I

mean do you think it's in America's

national interest that a Russian

dictator expands the power and

geographical land of

Russia no no no no I I very much don't

want Vladimir Putin to uh taste victory

I don't want him to try to reassemble

the former Soviet Union so how do you

stop him

uh well in part you might want to

cooperate you you might have wanted to

have cooperate Co cooperated with him

more

and it's very difficult look my family

comes from the region almost uh 100% of

my ancestors came from Poland Russia

Ukraine and

lvia

um I'm very hesitant to talk in Western

media about the realities of the region

because I don't think that Americans

have been prepared for quite what the

pressures are in this area and it is

incredibly important that we understand

just how dangerous this region is in

part because of the skill level of the

players Vladimir Putin may be a brute a

butcher but he's also incredibly skilled

and you have to remember that America's