"Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #1470. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Brain-Machine Interfaces (Neuralink), Aerospace Engineering, and Artificial General Intelligence."
you, and congratulations. Thank you. You will
never forget what is going on in the world when
you think about when your child was born. You
will know for the rest of this child's life,
you were born during a weird time. That's for
sure. That is for sure. Probably the weirdest
that I can remember. Yeah. Yeah, and he was born
on May the 4th. And that's hilarious, too. Yeah.
May the 4th be with him. Yeah, exactly. It has
to be. I sure hope so. Perfect. Yes. I mean,
that was the perfect day for you. And how do
you say the name? Well. Is it a placeholder?
First of all, my partner is the one that actually
mostly came up with the name. Congratulations
to her. Yeah, yeah, she's great at names. So,
I mean, it's just X, the letter X. And then the
AE is pronounced Ash. Yeah. And then A -12 is
my contribution. Oh, why A -12? Archangel 12,
the precursor to the SR -71, coolest plane ever.
It's true. I agree with you. I don't know. I'm
not familiar with it. I know what the SR -71
is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know what that is. So
the SR -71 came from a CIA program called Archangel.
Oh. It's the Archangel Project. Oh. And then
Archangel 12. Oh, wow, what a dope -looking plane.
Yeah. Oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, yeah. Well, as
a person who's very much into aerial travel,
as you are, that's perfect. That's pretty great.
Yeah, pretty great. So does it feel strange to
have a child while this craziness is going? You've
had children before. Is this any weirder? Actually,
I think it's better being older and having a
kid. I appreciate it more. Yeah. Babies are awesome.
They are pretty awesome. They are awesome, yeah.
When I didn't have any of my own, I would see
other people's kids, and I didn't. Not like them.
Sure. But I wasn't drawn to them. Sure. But now
when I see little people's kids, I'm like, oh,
I think of them like these little love packages.
Yeah, little love bugs. Yeah. It's just you think
of them differently when you see them come out
and then grow and then eventually start talking
to you. Like your whole idea what a baby is is
very different. Yeah. So now as you, you know,
get older and get to appreciate it as a mature,
fully formed adult, it must be really pretty
wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful. It's great. Babies
are awesome. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I mean,
also, I've spent a lot of time on AI and neural
nets. And so you can sort of see the kind of
brain develop, which is, you know, an AI neural
net is trying to simulate what a brain does,
basically. And you can sort of see it learning
very quickly. You know, it's just, wow. So you're
talking about the neural net. You're not talking
about an actual baby. I'm talking about an actual
baby. But both of them. Yes, but the word neural
net comes from the brain. It's like a net of
neurons. So, you know, it's like the, yeah, humans
are the, you know, original gangsta neural net.
That's a great way to put it. So when you're...
programming artificial intelligence or you're
working with artificial intelligence, are they
specifically trying to mimic the developmental
process of a human brain? In a lot of ways. There's
some ways that are different. An analogy that's
often used is like we don't make a submarine
swim like a fish, but we take the principles
of hydrodynamics and apply them to a submarine.
I've always wondered as a layperson, do you try
to achieve the same results as a human brain
but through different methods, or do you try
to copy the way a human brain achieves results?
I mean, the essential elements of an AI neural
net are really very similar to a human brain
neural net. It's having the multiple layers of
neurons. You know, back propagation. All these
things are what your brain does. You know, it's
sort of, yeah. You have a layer of neurons that
goes through a series of intermediate steps to
ultimately cognition, and then it'll reverse
those steps and go back and forth and go all
over the place. It's, yeah, it's interesting,
very interesting. Yeah, I would imagine. like
the thought of programming something that is
eventually going to be smarter than us, that
one day it's going to be like, why did you do
it that way? Like when artificial intelligence
becomes sentient, they're like, oh, you tried
to mimic yourself. Like there's so much better
process. Cut out all this nonsense. Like I said,
there are elements that are the same, but just
like an aircraft does not fly like a bird. Right.
It doesn't flap its wings. But the wings... The
way the wings work and generate lift is the same
as bird. Now, you're in the middle of this strange
time where you're selling your houses. You say
you don't want any material possessions. I've
been seeing all that, and I've been really excited
to talk to you about this. Yeah. Because it's
an interesting thing to come from a guy like
yourself. Why are you doing that? I'm slightly
sad about it, actually. If you're sad about it,
why are you doing it? I think possessions kind
of weigh you down. They're kind of an attack
vector. You know, people say, hey, billionaire,
you got all this stuff. Like, well, now I don't
have stuff. Now what are you going to do? Attack
vector meaning like people target it. Yeah. Interesting.
Yeah. But you're obviously going to – so you're
going to rent a place? Yeah. Okay. And get rid
of everything except clothes? No, I said like
almost everything. So it's like... Keep a couple
Teslas. Yeah, sure. Tesla, kind of have to. Yeah.
Test product and stuff. Yeah, those things that
have sentimental value, for sure, are keeping
those, you know. Yeah. So do you feel like...
What's worse that could happen? I mean, we're
fine. Yeah. You could always buy more stuff if
you don't like it. I suppose so. Yeah. I mean,
from the money that you sell all your stuff,
you could buy new stuff. But do you feel like
people, define you by the fact that you're wealthy
and that they define you in a pejorative way?
For sure. I mean, not everyone, but for sure
in recent years, billionaire has become a pejorative.
It's like that's a bad thing, which I think doesn't
make a lot of sense in most cases. If you basically
organized a... So how does this wealth arise?
It's if you organize people in a better way to
produce products and services that are better
than what existed before and you have some ownership
in that company, then that essentially gives
you the right to allocate more capital. So there's
a conflation of consumption and capital allocation.
I mean, say Warren Buffett, for example, and
to be totally frank, I'm not his biggest fan,
but he does a lot of capital allocation. And
he reads a lot of sort of annual reports of companies
and all the accounting, and it's pretty boring,
really. And he's trying to figure out, does Coke
or Pepsi deserve more capital? I mean, that's
kind of a boring job, if you ask me. You know,
it's still a thing that's important to figure
out, like, which is a company deserving of more
or less capital? Should that company grow or
expand? Is it making products and services that
are better than others or worse? And, you know,
if a company is making compelling products and
services, it should get more capital. And if
it's not, it should get less or go out of business.
Well, there's a big difference, too, between
someone who's making an incredible amount of
money. designing and engineering fantastic products
versus someone who's making an incredible amount
of money by investing in companies or moving
money around in the stock market or doing things
along those lines. It's a different thing. And
to put them all in the same category seems, it's
very simple. And as you pointed out, it's an
attack vector. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think
it's really... I do think in the United States
especially, there's an over -allocation of talent
in finance and law. Basically, too many smart
people go into finance and law. So this is both
a compliment and a criticism. We should have,
I think, fewer people doing law and fewer people
doing finance and more people making stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that would certainly be better for
all involved if they made better stuff. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, manufacturing
used to be highly valued in the United States.
And these days it's not. It's often looked down
upon, which I think is wrong. Yeah. Well, I think
that people are kind of learning that particularly
because of this whole pandemic and this relationship
that we have with China, that it. There's a lot
of value into making things, into making things
here. Yes. Somebody's got to do the real work.
Yeah. You know, and, you know, like making a
car, it's an honest day's living, that's for
sure. You know, or making anything, really, or
providing a valuable service, like providing,
you know, good entertainment, good information.
These are all valuable things to do. You know,
so, yeah, there should be more of it. Did you
have a moment where, is this something that this
idea of getting rid of your material possessions,
is this something that built up over time? Or
did you have a moment of realization where you
realized that? Yeah, I've been thinking about
it for a while. You know, part of it is like
I have a bunch of houses, but I don't spend a
lot of time in most of them. And that doesn't
seem like a good. use of assets, like somebody
could probably be enjoying those houses and get
better use of them than me. Don't you have Gene
Wilder's house? I do. That's amazing. It's awesome.
Wow. It's exactly what you'd expect. Did you
request that the buyer not fuck it up? Yeah,
that's a requirement. Oh, a requirement. That's
a good requirement. Yeah. In that case, in that
house. Yeah, it'll probably sell for less, but
still I don't care. He's a legend. He would want
his soul. You'd want his essence in the building.
And it's there. That's a real quirky house, yeah.
What makes you say it's there? What do you get
out of it? I mean, all the cabinets are, like,
handmade, and they're, like, odd shapes. And
there's, like, doors to nowhere and strange,
like, corridors and tunnels and odd paintings
on the wall. Yeah. Did you ever live in it? It's
very quirky. I did live in it briefly, yeah.
But why do you buy houses? Like if you own all
these houses, do you just get bored and go, I
think I'd like to have that? Well, I had one
house, and then the Gene Wilder house right across
the road from me, from my main house, and it
was going to get sold and then torn down and
turned into be a big construction zone for three
years. And I was like, well, I think I'll buy
it and preserve the spirit of June Wilder and
not have a giant construction zone. And then
I started having some privacy issues where people
would – lots of people would just come to my
house and start climbing over the walls and stuff.
I'm like, man. So then I said, like, what a house,
some of the houses around my house. And then
I thought at one point, well, you know, it would
be cool to build a house. So then I acquired
some properties at the top of Samara Road, which
has got a great view. And I was like, okay, well,
these bunch of sort of small, older houses, they're
going to get torn down anyway. I was like, well,
you know, if I collect these, like, little houses,
then I can. Build something, I don't know, artistic,
like a dream house type of thing. What's a dream
house for Elon Musk? Like some Tony Stark type
shit? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you've got to have
the dome that opens up with the stealth helicopter
and that kind of thing. Yeah. For sure. Fuck
yeah. Yeah, fuck yeah. But then I was like, man,
does it really make sense for me to spend time?
designing and building a house, then I'd be real,
you know, get OCD on the little details and the
design. Or should I be allocating that time to
getting us to Mars? I should probably do the
latter. So, you know, like what's more important,
Mars or a house? I like Mars. Okay. Is that really
how you think? Like that it'd be better off planning
on a trip to Mars or getting people to Mars?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you can only
do so many things. Right. I don't know how you
do what you do anyway. I don't understand how
you can run the boring company, Tesla, SpaceX,
all these different things you're doing constantly.
I don't understand. I mean, you explained last
time you were here how you sort of allocate your
time and how hectic it is and insane. I still
don't. The productivity is baffling. It just
doesn't make sense how you can get so much done.
Well, I think I do have high productivity, but
even with that, there's still some opportunity
cost of time. And allocating time to building
a house, even if it was a really great house,
still is not a good use of time relative to developing
the rockets necessary to get us to Mars and helping
solve sustainable energy. SpaceX and Tesla are
by far the most amount of brain cycles. Boring
Coveted does not take less than 1 % of brain
cycles. And then there's Neuralink, which is,
I don't know, maybe it's like 5%. 5%. That's
a good chunk. It's a good chunk, yeah, yeah.
We were talking about that last time, and you
were trying to figure out when it was actually
going to go live, when it's actually going to
be available. Are you testing on people right
now? No, we're not testing people yet, but I
think it won't be too long. I think we may be
able to implant a Neuralink in less than a year
in a person, I think. And when you do this, is
there any test that you have to do before you
do something like this to see what percentage
of people's bodies are going to reject these
things? Is there a potential for rejection? It's
a very low potential for rejection. I mean, you
can think of it like people put in, you know,
heart monitors and, you know, things for epileptic
seizures and deep brain stimulation. Obviously,
like, you know, artificial hips and knees and
that kind of thing. So the probability of, I
mean, like, so it's well known, like, what will
cause rejection and what will not. It's definitely
hotter when you've got something that is sort
of reading and writing neurons. That's generating
a current pulse and reading current pulses. That's
a little hotter than, say, a passive device.
But it's still very doable. There are people
who have primitive devices in their brains right
now. What kind of devices? Well, like deep brain
stimulation is, I think for Parkinson's, has
really changed people's lives in a big way, which
is kind of remarkable because it kind of like
zaps your brain. It's like kicking the TV type
of thing. And you think like, man, kicking the
TV shouldn't work. It does sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
The old TVs. It did. My grandpa used to slap
the top. For sure. Yeah. It would work sometimes.
Yeah. So this deep brain simulation implanted
devices in the brain that have changed people's
lives for the better, like fundamentally. Well,
let's talk about what you can talk about to what
Neuralink is because the last time you were here,
we really couldn't discuss it. And then there
was, I guess, a press release or something that
sort of outlined. Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. That
happened quite a bit after the last time you
were here. So what exactly is it? How do you
do – what happens if someone – ultimately does
get a Neuralink installed, what will take place?
Well, for version one of the device, it would
be basically implanted in your skull. But it
would be flush with your skull. So you basically
take out a chunk of skull, put the Neuralink
device in there. You'd insert the electrode threads
very carefully into the brain, and then you stitch
it up, and you wouldn't even know that somebody
has it. And so then it can interface basically
anywhere in your brain. So it could be something
that helps cure, say, eyesight. Returns your
eyesight, even if you've lost your optic nerve
type of thing. Really? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Hearing, obviously. I mean, pretty much anything
that we're... It could, in principle, fix almost
anything that is wrong with the brain. And it
could restore limb functionality. So if you've
got... interface into the motor cortex and then
an implant that's, say, that's like a microcontroller
near muscle groups, you could then create sort
of a neural shunt that restores somebody who
is a quadriplegic to full functionality. Like
they can walk around, be normal. Whoa. Yeah.
Maybe slightly better. Slightly better? Over
time, yes. You mean with future iterations? Like
the $6 million man, although these days that
doesn't seem like much. $6 billion man. So the
hole would be small. How big would the hole be
that you have to drill and then replace with
this piece? It's only one hole? Well, yeah, the
device we're working on right now is about an
inch in diameter. And your skull's pretty thick,
by the way. Mine is, for sure. It might actually
literally be. I mean, if you're a big guy, your
skull is actually fairly thick. Skull is like
7 to 14 millimeters. Mine's probably a couple
of inches. A half inch. Half inch thick skull
-ish. Yeah, yeah. So that's a fair bit of...
We've got quite a coconut going on there. It's
not like some eggshell. Oh, yeah, I believe you.
So, yeah, you basically implant the device. And
so it would be like a one -inch square or one
-inch in diameter? Yeah, like a— So an inch circle,
like a circular? Yeah, I think like a smartwatch
or something like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay,
so you take this one -inch diameter, like ice
fishing, right? You ever go ice fishing? No,
but I'd like to. It's great. It's really fun.
So you basically take an auger, and you drill
through the surface of the ice, and you create
a small hole, and you can dunk your line in there.
So this is like that. You're ice fishing on the
top of your skull, and then you cork it. Yeah,
and you replace that, say, one -inch diameter
piece of skull with this. Neuralink device. And
that has a battery and a Bluetooth and an inductive
charger. And then you also get to insert the
electrodes. So the electrodes are very carefully
inserted with our robot that we developed. It's
very carefully putting in the electrodes and
avoiding any veins or arteries. So it doesn't
create trauma. So through this one -inch diameter?
Yeah. Electrodes be inserted, and they will find
their way. Like tiny wires, basically. Tiny wires.
Tiny wires. And they'll find their way to specific
areas of the brain to stimulate? No, you literally
put them where they're supposed to go. Oh, okay.
Yeah. How long will these wires be? I mean, they
usually go in, like, you know, depending on where
it is, like, you know, two or three millimeters.
So they just find the spots? Yeah. Wow. And then
you put the device in, and that replaces the
little piece of skull that was taken out. And
then you stitch up the hole, and you just have
like a little scar, and that's it. Well, this
would be replaceable or reversible? Yes. Like
if someone can't take it anymore? I'm too smart.
I can't take it. Yeah, you can totally check
it out. And what is the, besides restoring limb
function and eyesight and hearing, which are
all amazing, is there any cognitive benefits
that you anticipate from something like this?
Yeah, I mean, you could for sure. I mean, basically,
it's a generalized sort of. thing for fixing
any kind of brain injury in principle. Or if
you've got severe epilepsy or something like
that, it could just sort of stop the epilepsy
from occurring. It could detect it in real time
and then fire a counterpulse and stop the epilepsy.
I mean, there's a whole range of brain injuries.
If somebody gets a stroke, they could lose the
ability to speak. that could also be fixed. So
if you've got, like, stroke damage or you lose,
say, muscle control over part of your face or
something like that. And then when you get old,
you tend to, if you get, like, Alzheimer's or
something like that, then you lose memory, and
this could help you with restoring your memory,
that kind of thing. We're storing memory. And
what is happening that's allowing it to do that?
Like the wires, these small wires, they're stimulating
these areas of the brain. And then is it that
the areas of the brain are – they're losing some
sort of electrical force? Like what is happening?
Yeah. Yeah? It's like – think of it as like a
bunch of circuits and there's some like circuits
that are broken and we can like – Fix those circuits.
Substitute for those circuits. And so a specific
frequency will go through this? Yeah. Specific
in that is the process figuring out how much
or how little has to be, how much these areas
of the brain have to be juiced up? Yeah. I mean,
there's still a lot of work to do. So when I
say, you know, we got a shot at probably putting
in a person in. you know, within a year. I think
that's exactly what I mean. I think we have a
chance of putting input into one and having them
be healthy and restoring some functionality that
they've lost. The fear is that eventually you're
going to have to cut the whole top of someone's
head off and put a new top with a whole bunch
of wires if you want to get, you know, the real
turbocharged version, Brain stimulation? I mean,
ultimately, if you want to go with full AI symbiosis,
you'll probably want to do something like that.
Symbiosis is a scary word when it comes to AI.
It's optional. I would hope so. It's just, I
mean, once you enjoy the Dr. Manhattan lifestyle,
once you become a god, it seems very... Very
unlikely. You're going to want to go back to
being stupid again. I mean you literally could
fundamentally change the way human beings interface
with each other. Yes. Yes. You wouldn't need
to talk. I'm so scared of that but so excited
about it at the same time. Is that weird? Yeah.
I mean I think this is one of the paths to –
Like, AI is getting better and better. So now
let's assume it's sort of like a benign AI scenario.
Even in a benign scenario, we're kind of left
behind. You know, we're not along for the ride.
We're just too dumb. So how do you go along for
the ride? So you can't beat them, join them.
And we're already... We're already a cyborg to
some degree, right? Because you've got your phone,
you've got your laptop. Glasses. Yeah, yeah,
your electronic devices. And, I mean, today if
you don't bring your phone along, it's like you
have missing limb syndrome. It feels like something's
really, really missing. So we're already partly
a cyborg. or an AI symbiote, essentially. It's
just that the data rate to the electronics is
slow, especially output. You're just going with
your thumbs. What's your data rate? Optimistically,
100 bits per second. That's being generous. And
now the computer can communicate at 100 terabits.
So certainly, you know, gigabits are trivial
at this point. So this is like, you know, basically
your computer could do things a million times
faster. At a certain point, the AI is like talking
to a tree. Okay, this is boring. You can talk
to a tree. It's not very entertaining. So if
you can solve the data rate issue, especially
output but input too, then you can improve the
symbiosis that is already occurring between man
and machine. So you can improve it in what –
when you said you won't have to talk to each
other anymore. We used to joke around about that.
I've joked around about that a million times
in this podcast, that one day in the future there's
going to come a time where you can read each
other's minds. You'll be able to interface with
each other in some sort of a non -verbal, non
-physical way where you will transfer data back
and forth to each other without having to actually
use your mouth and make noises. Exactly. Like
what happens when you – let's say you've got
some complex idea that you're trying to convey
to somebody else. And how do you do that? Well,
your brain spends a lot of effort compressing
a complex concept into words. And there's a lot
of loss, information loss that occurs when –
compressing a complex concept into words. And
then you say those words, those words are then
interpreted, then they're decompressed by the
person who is listening. And they will at best
get a very incomplete understanding of what you're
trying to convey. It's very difficult to convey
a complex concept with precision. Because you've
got compression, decompression, you may not even
have heard all the words correctly. And so communication
is difficult. What we have here is a failure
to communicate. It's a cool ad -look. Yes, and
it's a great movie. Yeah, great movie. There's
an interpretation factor, too. You can choose
to interpret certain series of words in different
ways, and they're dependent upon tone, dependent
upon social cues, even facial expressions, sarcasm.
There's a lot of variables. Sarcasm is difficult.
Yes. Yeah. and so one of the things that i i've
said is like that there could be potentially
a universal language that's created through computers
that particularly young kids would pick up very
quickly. Like, my kids do TikTok and all this
jazz, and I don't know what they're doing. They
just know how to do it. And they know how to
do it really quickly. Like, they learn really
quickly, and they show me how to edit things.
If you taught a child from first grade on how
to use some new universal language, I mean, essentially
like a Rosetta Stone and something that's done
that interprets. your thoughts and you can convey
your thoughts with no room for interpretation
with clear very clear where you know what a person's
saying and you can tell them what you're saying
and there's no need for noises no need for mouth
noises no need for yes these sort of accepted
ways that we've sort of evolved to make sounds
that we all agree. Through our cultural dictionary,
we agree. We could bypass all that. You could
still do it for sentimental reasons. Like campfires.
Yeah, exactly. You don't need campfires. You
don't need to roast marshmallows. It's kind of
fun. So, yeah. I think you would be able to communicate
very quickly and with far more precision ideas.
And language would... I'm not sure what would
happen to language. But you could probably...
In a situation like this, you would be able to
just... It would be kind of like the Matrix.
You want to speak a different language in a problem.
Right. That's why it was downloaded the program.
Right. So at least for the first iterations,
first few iterations. I know that Google has
some of their Pixel Buds have the ability to
interpret languages in real time. Sure. Yeah,
you can hear it and it will play things back
to you in whatever language you choose. So it
would be something along those lines for the
first few iterations. Well, the first few iterations
are – what I'm talking about is like in the limit
over time. with a lot of development. The first
few iterations, really in the first few versions,
all we're going to be trying to do is solve brain
injuries. Don't worry, that's not going to sneak
up on you. This will take a while. How many years?
Before you don't have to talk. If the development
continues to accelerate, then... Maybe like five
years, five to ten years. That's quick. That's
really quick. That's the best case scenario.
No talking anymore in five years. Best case scenario.
Ten years more like it. I've always speculated
that aliens could potentially be us in the future.
Because if you look at, like, the size of their
heads and the fact that they have very little
muscle and they don't use their mouth anymore.
I mean, the archetypal alien that you see in,
like, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, they're
like, if you went from, like, Australopithecus
or ancient hominid to us, what's the difference?
Less hair, less muscle, bigger head. And then
you just keep going. a million, whatever year,
or five years, whatever happens when Neuralink
goes on online, and then we slowly start to adapt
to this new way of being where we don't use our
muscles anymore. We have this gigantic head.
We can talk without words. You could also save
state. Save state? Save state, like save your
brain state, like a saved game in a video game.
Whoa. Like if you want to swap from Windows 95.
Well, I play a little better than that, but yeah.
I think we are Windows 95 right now. From a future
perspective, probably. But yeah, I mean, you
could save state. and restore that state into
a biological being if you wanted to in the future.
In principle, there's nothing from a physics
standpoint that prevents this. You'd be a little
different, but then you're also a little different
when you wake up in the morning from yesterday,
and you're a little different. In fact, if you
say you five years ago versus you today, it's
quite a big difference. So you'd be substantially
you. I mean, you'd certainly think you're you.
But the idea of saving yourself and then transforming
that into some sort of a biological state, Like
you could hang out with 30 -year -old you? I
mean the possibilities are endless. That's so
weird. I mean just think like how your phone
can – you can record videos on your phone. Like
there's no way you could remember a video as
accurately as your phone or a camera could. So
if you've got like some version 10, Neuralink,
whatever, far in the future. You could recall
everything just like it's a movie. Clistically.
Including the entire sensory experience. Emotions.
Everything. Everything. And play it back. Do
you think you'll be able to share? Edit it. Edit
it. Yeah. So you can change your past? You could
change what you think was your past, yeah. So
if you had a traumatic experience? This whole
thing right now could be a replayed memory. It
could be. Yeah. It may be. What's the odds of
this being a replayed memory? If you had to guess.
It's more than 50%. There's no way to assign
a probability with accuracy here. Right, but
roughly. If you just had a gut instinct. Well,
I don't have a neural link in my brain, so I'd
say right now 0%. But at the point at which you
do have a neural link, then it rises above 0%.
The idea that we're experiencing some sort of
a preserved memory is, even though it's still
the same, it's not comforting. For some reason,
when people talk about simulation theory, they
talk about the potential for this currently being
a simulation. Even though your life might be
wonderful, you might be in love, you might love
your career, you might have great friends. But
it's not comforting to know that this experience
somehow or another doesn't exist in a material
form that you can knock on. Feels real, doesn't
it? Feels real. But the idea that it's not is,
for some strange reason, disconcerting. Well,
yeah, I'm sure it should be disconcerting. Because
if this is not real, what is? Right. But, you
know, there's that old sort of thought experiment
of, like, How do you know you're not a brain
in a vat? Now, here's the thing. You are a brain
in a vat. Then that vat is your skull. Yes. And
everything you see, feel, hear, everything, all
your senses are electrical signals. Everything,
everything is an electrical signal to a brain
in a vat where the vat is your skull. And all
your hormones, all your neurotransmitters, all
these things are drugs. Adrenaline is a drug.
Dopamine's a drug. You're a drug factory. You're
constantly changing your state with love and
oxytocin and beauty. Sure. Changes your state.
Great music changes your state. Absolutely. And
here's another sort of interesting idea, which
is because you say, like, where did consciousness
arise? Well, assuming you believe in physics,
which appears to be true. Then, you know, the
universe started off as basically quarks and
leptons and it quickly became hydrogen and helium,
lithium, like basically elements of the periodic
table. But it was like mostly hydrogen basically.
And then over a long period of time, you know,
13 .8 billion years later, that hydrogen became
sentient. So where... Along the way, what's the
line of consciousness and not consciousness between
hydrogen and here? When do we call it? When do
we call it consciousness? I was watching a video
today that we played on a podcast earlier of
a monkey riding a motorcycle down the street,
jumps off the motorcycle and tries to steal a
baby. Yeah, I saw that one. Is that monkey conscious?
It seems like it is. It seems like it had a plan.
It was riding a fucking motorcycle and then jumped
off the motorcycle to try to steal a baby. Seems
pretty. The one that just dragged the baby down
the street pretty far. Yeah. Yeah. Seems pretty
conscious. Right. There's definitely some degree
of consciousness there. Yeah. It's not like it's
not a worm. It seems to be on another level.
Yeah. And it's going to keep going. And that's
the real concern. When people think about the
potential future versions of human beings, especially
when you consider a symbiotic relationship to
artificial intelligence, it will be unrecognizable.
That one day we'll be so far removed from what
this is, we'll look back on this the way we look
back now on simple organisms that we evolved
from. And that it won't be that far in the future
that we do have this view back. Well, I hope
consciousness propagates into the future and
gets more sophisticated and complex and that
it understands the questions to ask about the
universe. Do you think that's the case? As a
human being, as yourself, you're clearly trying
to make conscious decisions to be a better version
of you. This is the idea of getting rid of your
possessions and realizing that you're trying
to, like, I don't like this. I will try to improve
this. I would try to do a better version of the
way I interface with reality. That this is always
the way things are. If you're moving in some
sort of a direction where you're trying to improve
things, you're always going to move into this
new place where you look back in the old place
and go, oh, I was doing it wrong back then. So
this is an accelerated version of that, a super
accelerated version of that. I mean, you don't
always improve, but you can aspire to improve.
You can aspire to be less wrong. Yeah. I think
the tools of physics are very powerful. Just
assume you're wrong and you're asked your goals
to be less wrong. I don't think you're going
to succeed every day in being less wrong, but
if you're going to succeed in being less wrong
most of the time, you're doing great. That's
a great way of putting it. Aspire to be less
wrong. But then when people look back on nostalgia
about simpler times, there's that too. It's very
romantic and exciting to look back on campfires.
But you can still have a campfire. Yes. But will
you appreciate it when you're a super nerd, when
you're connected to the grid and you have some
skullcap in place of the top of your head and
it's interfacing with the international language
that the rest of the universe now enjoys communication
with people? Yeah, sure, I think so. Yeah, I
like your verse. I'm just worried. I mean, everyone's
always scared of change, but I'm scared of this
monumental change where we won't talk anymore.
We'll communicate. Yes, but there's something
about the beauty of the crudeness of language
where when it's done eloquently. It's satisfying
and it hits us in some sort of a visceral way.
Like, ah, that person nailed it. I love that
they nailed it. Like that it's so hard to capture
a real thought and convey it in a way, in this
articulate way that makes someone excited. Like
you read a quote, a great quote by a wise person.
It makes you excited that their mind figured
something out, put the words together in a right
way that makes your brain pop. Like, oh, yes.
Yeah. Yes. Clever compression of a concept. Yeah.
And a feeling. But the fact that a human did
it, too. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Do you think
that it'll be like electronic music? Like people
won't appreciate it like they appreciate a slide
guitar? I like electronic music. I do, too. Yeah.
Well, you make it. I know you like it. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope the future is more
fun and interesting, and we should try to make
that way. I hope it's more fun and interesting,
too. Yeah. I just hope we don't lose anything
along the way. We might lose a little, but hopefully
we gain more than we lose. Yeah, that's the thing,
right? Gaining more than we lose. Something that
makes us interesting is that we're so flawed.
That's for sure. Right. I mean, you look at civilizations
through the ages. Most of them, they rose and
fell. Yeah. And I do think the... The globalization
that we have at the sort of like the meme sphere
is there's not enough isolation between countries
or regions. It's like if you get a – if there's
a mind virus, that mind virus can infect too
much of the world. You know, like I actually
– Sort of sympathize with the anti -globalization
people because it's like, man, we don't ever
want everywhere to be the same for sure. And
then we need some kind of like mind viral immunity.
So that's a bit concerning. Mind viral immunity,
meaning that once something like Neuralink gets
established, the real concern is something. I
mean, you said it's Bluetooth, right? Or some
future version of that. The idea is that something
could possibly get into it and fuck it up. No,
I'm talking about like somebody, there's some
concept that happens right now. Well, I know
there's viruses in embedded chips, right? Like
people have embedded chips and then acquired
viruses. When I'm talking about a mind virus,
I'm talking about like a virus. concept that
affects people's minds oh okay okay like uh cult
thinking or yeah some sort of fundamentalism
yeah just wrong -headed idea that yes goes viral
in a in an idea sense well that is that that
is a problem too right if someone can manipulate
that technology to make something appear logical
or rational yeah Would that be an issue too?
This is a very have versus have not issue, right?
If this really does, I mean, initially it's going
to help people with injuries, but you said ultimately
it could lead to this spectacular cognitive change.
Yes. But the people that first get it should
have a massive advantage over people that don't
have it yet. Well, I mean, it's the kind of thing
where your productivity would improve, I don't
know, dramatically, maybe by a factor of 10 with
it. So you could definitely just, you know, I
don't know, take out a loan and do it and earn
the money back real fast. Yeah. Super smart.
Well, in a capitalist society. It seems like
you could really get so far ahead that before
everybody else could afford this thing and link
up and get connected as well, you'd be so far
ahead they could never catch you. Is that a concern?
Well, I think it's not a super huge concern.
I mean there are huge differences in cognitive
ability and resources already. You can think
of a corporation as like a cybernetic collective.
That's far smarter than an individual. I couldn't
personally build a whole rocket and the engines
and launch it and everything. That's impossible.
But we have 8 ,000 people at SpaceX, and by piecing
it out to different people and using computers
and machines and stuff, we can make lots of rockets
launch into orbit. stuck with the space station,
that kind of thing, you know. So that already
exists where there's, you know, where there's
corporations are vastly more capable than an
individual. But the, like, we should be, I think,
less concerned about, like, relative capabilities
between people and more, like, having ai be vastly
you know beyond us and decoupled from human will
decoupled from human so this is the if you can't
beat them join them yeah i mean so you feel like
it's inevitable like ai sentient ai is essentially
inevitable super sentient ai yeah like beyond
a level that's difficult to understand and impossible
to understand probably and somehow or another
So it's almost like it's a requirement for survival
to achieve some sort of symbiotic existence with
AI. It's not a requirement. It's just if you
want to be along for the ride, then you need
to do some kind of symbiosis. So the way your
brain works right now, you've got... kind of
like the animal brain, reptile brain, like the
limbic system basically, and you've got the cortex.
The brain purists will argue with this definition,
but essentially you've got the primitive brain
and you've got the sort of smart brain or the
brain that's capable of planning and understanding
concepts and difficult things that a monkey can't
understand. Your cortex is much, much smarter
than your limbic system. Nonetheless, they work
together well. So I haven't met anyone who wants
to delete their limbic system or their cortex.
People are quite happy having both. So you can
think of this as being like the computer, the
AI is like a third layer, a tertiary layer. So
that could be symbiotic with the cortex. It would
be much smarter than the cortex. but you essentially
have three layers. And you actually have that
right now. Your phone is capable of things, and
your computer is capable of things that your
brain is definitely not. You know, storing terabytes
of information perfectly, doing incredible calculations
that we couldn't even come close to doing. You
have that with your computer. It's just, like
I said, the data rate is slow. The connection
is weak. Why is it so disconcerting or why does
it not give me comfort to think about – like
when I think about a symbiotic connection to
AI, I always think of this cold, emotionless
sort of thing that we will become. Is that a
bad way to look at it? I don't think that's not
quite – that's not how it would be. Like I said,
you already are symbiotic with AI or – Computers.
Phones, computers, laptops. Yeah, and there's
quite a bit of AI going on, so artificial neural
nets. Increasingly, neural nets are sort of taking
over from regular programming more and more.
So you are connected. If you use... Google Voice
or Alexa or one of those things, it's using a
neural net to decode your speech and try to understand
what you're saying. If you're trying to do image
recognition or improve the quality of your photograph,
it's using the neural nets, the best way to do
that. So you are already sort of a cybernetic
symbiote. It's just a question of your data rate.
The communication speed between your phone and
your brain is slow. When do you think you're
going to do it? How long will you wait? Like
once it starts becoming available. Yeah, if it
works, I'll do it, sure. Right away. I mean,
let's make sure it works. How do we make sure
it works? We try it on prisoners? Like, what
do you do? No, no. Take rapists? No. Cut holes
in their head? No, like I said, if somebody's
got a serious brain injury. Right. And, you know,
people have, like, very severe brain injuries.
And then you can fix those brain injuries. And,
you know, then you prove out that it works and
you envelope expand. make more and more brain
injuries, solve more and more. And then at a
certain age, we all are going to get Alzheimer's.
We're all going to get senile. And then moms
forget the names of their kids and that kind
of thing. And so it's like you said, okay, well,
this would allow you to remember the names of
your kids and have a much more normal life where
you're able to function much later in life. So
essentially, almost everyone would find a need
at some point, if you get old enough, to use
Neuralink. And then it's like, okay, so we can
improve the functionality and improve the communication
speed, so then you will not have to use your
thumbs to communicate with the computer. Do you
ever sit down and extrapolate? Do you ever, like,
sit down and think about all the different iterations
of this and what this eventually leads to? Yeah,
I mean, I think, sure, I think about it a lot.
There's, like I said, there's not something that's
going to sneak up on you. You know, there's,
like, getting FDA approval for this stuff is
not, like, overnight, you know. And there's...
I mean, we probably have to be on like version
10 or something before, you know, it would realistically
be, you know, a human AI symbiote situation.
So you'll see it coming, you know. You see it
coming, but what do you think it's going to be?
Like when you sit, when you're alone, if you
have free time, I don't know if you have free
time, but if you just sit down and think about
this iteration, the next, onward, keep going,
and you drag it out with improvements along the
way and leaps and bounds and technological innovations,
where do you see it? What are we going to be?
Like when? 25 years from now. What are we going
to be? Well, assuming civilization is still around.
It's looking fragile right now. I think we could
have a... In 25 years, probably something...
I think there could be a whole brain interface.
A whole brain interface? Something pretty close
to that, yeah. How do you define... What do you
mean by whole brain interface? Like almost all
the neurons are connected to the sort of AI extension
of yourself. If you want. AI extension of yourself?
Yeah. What does that mean to you? Like when you
say AI extension of yourself? Well, like I said,
you already have. A computer extension of yourself
and your phone and computers and stuff. And now
online, it's like somebody dies. There's like
an online ghost. Their online stuff is still
alive. That's a good way to put it. It is weird
when you read someone's tweets after they're
dead. Yeah. Yeah. Instagram and their stories
and stuff. Yeah. Whatever, Facebook and stuff.
That's a great way to put it. It's like an online
ghost. That's very accurate. Yeah. So, yeah,
so it would just be that more of you would be
in the cloud, I guess, than in your body. More
of you. Whoa. Now, when you say civilization
is fragile, do you mean because of this COVID
-19 shit that's going on right now? What's that?
I've never heard of it. It's this thing. It's
like some people just get a cough. I have no
idea what you're talking about. Other people.
It gets much worse? Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah. I
mean, this certainly has taken over the mind
space of the world to a degree that is quite
shocking. Yeah. Well, out of nowhere. That's
what's crazy. It's like you go back to November,
nothing. Now here we are, December, January,
February, March, April, May, six months. Totally
different world. So from nothing to everything's
locked down, there's so much conflicting information
and conflicting opinions about how to proceed,
what has happened. You find things where there
was a meatpacking plant, I believe, in Missouri
where 300 -plus people were asymptomatic, tested
positive or asymptomatic. And then in other places,
it just ravages entire communities and kills
people. And it's so weird. It almost appears,
like if you didn't know anybody, you'd be like,
it seems like there's a bunch of different viruses.
It doesn't seem like it's the same thing. Or
has a bunch of different reactions to the biological
variety of people. Yeah. I mean, I kind of saw
this whole thing play out in China. before it
played out in the U .S. So it's kind of like
watching the same movie again, but in English.
So, yeah. I think the mortality rate is much
less than what, say, the World Health Organization
said it was. Much, much less. It's like probably
at least an order of magnitude less. Well, it
seems to be very deadly to very specific kinds
of people and people with specific problems.
Yeah. I mean if you're – you can look at the
mortality statistics by age and whether they
have comorbidities. Like do they have – like
basically existing conditions by age. below 60
and have no serious health issues, the probability
of death is extremely low. It's not zero, but
it's extremely low. They didn't think that this
was the case, though, when they first started
to lock down the country. Do you think that it's
a situation where once they've proceeded in a
certain way, it's very difficult to correct course?
It's almost like people really wanted... A panic.
You know, it's quite crazy. But in some places
a panic is deserved, right? Like if you're in
the ICU in Manhattan and people are dying left
and right and everyone's on intubators and it
seems like when you see all these people on ventilators
and so many of them are dying and you see these
nurses are dying and doctors are getting sick,
in some places that fear is justified. But then
in other places... You're reading these stories
about hospitals that are essentially half empty.
They're having to furlough doctors and nurses
because there's no work for them. Most of the
hospitals in the United States right now are
half empty. In some cases, they're at 30 % capacity.
And is this because they've decided to forego
elective procedures and normal things that people
would have to go to the hospital for? Yes. I
mean, we're not talking about just... Some of
these elective procedures are quite important.
Yes. It's like you have a bad heart. Fall bladder
disease. Yeah, sure. And you need a triple bypass.
It's like sort of elective, but if you don't
get it done in time, you're going to die. Yeah.
Elective is a weird word. Yeah, elective. It's
not like, hey, I want to – it's not like plastic
surgery. Right, right, right. It's more like
my hip is – I'm in extreme pain because my hip
is blown out or my knee. I don't want to go to
the hospital. I can't go to the hospital to people
in extreme pain, people that need a kidney. People
that have quite serious issues that are choosing
not to go out of fear. So I think it's a problem.
It's not good. It seems like the state of public
perception is shifting. It is. Like people are
taking some deep breaths and relaxing. And because
of the statistics of, I mean, and essentially
across the board, it's being recognized that
it's not. as fatal as we thought it was still
dangerous still worse than the flu but not as
bad as we thought or we feared it could be i
mean objectively the mortality is is much lower
like at least a factor of 10 maybe a factor of
50 lower than initially thought do you think
that the current way we're handling this The
social distancing, the masks, the locking down,
does this make sense? Is it adequate or do you
think that we should move back to at least closer
to where we used to be? Well, I think proper
hygiene is a good thing no matter what. Wash
your hands and if you're coughing, stay home
or wear a mask. This is not good. In fact, they
do that in Japan. That's like normal. If you're
ill, you wear a face mask and you don't cough
on people. I think that would be a great thing
to adopt in general throughout the world. Washing
your hands is also good. Well, that's the speculation
why men get it more than women because men are
disgusting. We don't wash our hands as much.
It's true. It's true. I admit it. All men in
this room, we're all gross. Yeah, let's go to
the restroom. You can see us. Yes, we're gross.
My daughter, my nine -year -old daughter yells
at me. She goes, did you wash your hands? She
makes me go back and wash my hands. She's right.
Nine years old. If I had a nine -year -old boy,
do you think he would care? No. You wouldn't
give a fuck if I washed my hands. True. So I
think there's definitely some silver linings
here and improved. you know, hygiene. Yes. And
awareness of potential. Yes. And I think this
has shaken up the system. The system is like
somewhat moribund with a lot of layers of bureaucracy.
And I think that we've cut through some of that
bureaucracy. And if we, you know, at some point
there probably will be a pandemic with a high
mortality rate. debate about, like, what's high,
but I mean, like, something that's killing a
lot of 20 -year -olds, let's say. Like, it's...
If you had, like, Ebola -type mortality... Spanish
flu, something that attacks immune systems of
healthy people. Yeah, yeah. It's, uh... Yeah,
like, killing large numbers of young, healthy
people, that's, you know, define that as, like,
high mortality, then this is at least practice
for something like that. And I think there's
– given it's just a matter of time that there
will be eventually some such pandemic. Do you
think that in a sense the one good thing that
we might get out of this is the realization that
this is a potential reality, that we got lucky
in the sense – I mean people that didn't get
lucky and died, of course I'm not disrespecting
their death and their loss. But I'm saying overall
as a culture, as a human race, as a community.
This is not as bad as it could have been. This
is a good dry run for us to appreciate that we
need far more resources dedicated towards understanding
these diseases, what to do in the case of pandemic,
and much more money that goes to funding treatments
and some preventative measures. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think there's a... Good chance. It's highly
likely, I think, coming out of this, that we
will develop vaccines that we didn't have before
for coronaviruses and other viruses and possibly
cures for these. And our understanding of viruses
of this nature has improved dramatically because
of the attention that it's received. So there's
definitely a lot of silver linings here. Potentially,
if we act correctly. Yeah, yeah. I think there
will be some amount of silver lining here no
matter what. Hopefully more silver lining than
less. So, yeah, this is kind of like a practice
run for something that might in the future have
a serious, like a really high mortality rate.
And we kind of got to go through this without
it being something that kills vast numbers of
young, healthy people. Yeah. When you made a
series of tweets recently, I don't remember the
exact wording, but essentially you were saying
free America now. That is the exact wording.
That is it? Thank you. How much do you pay attention
to the response to that stuff and what was the
response? Did anybody go, hey, Elon, what the
fuck are you doing? Did anybody pull you aside?
Who does that? Who gets to do that to you? Well,
I mean, I certainly get that. There's no shortage
of negative feedback. Twitter. Oh, yeah, Twitter.
Yeah. But I don't read that. Do you read it?
Warzone. You do sometimes, though, right? You
do read it. Yeah, I mean, I scroll through the
comments. Like I said, that's a meme, Warzone.
Yeah. I mean, people knife you good on Twitter.
It's something I enjoy about just the – there's
something about the – The freedom of expression
that comes from all these people that do attack
you, it's like, well, if there was no vulnerability
whatsoever, they wouldn't attack you. And it's
like there's something about these millions and
millions of perspectives that you have to appreciate.
Even if it comes your way, even if the shit storm
hits you in the face, you've got to appreciate,
wow, how amazing is it that all these people
do have the ability to express themselves? You
don't necessarily want to be there when the shit
hits you. You might want to get out of the way
in anticipation of the shit storm, but the fact
that so many people have the ability to reach
out, and I think it's, in a lot of ways, it's,
I don't want to say a misused resource, but it's
like giving monkeys guns. They just start gunning
down things that are in front of them without
any realization of what they're doing. They have
a rock. They see a window. They throw it. Woo!
Look at that. I got Elon mad. Look at that. This
guy got mad at me. I fucking took this person
down on Twitter. I got this lady fired. Oh, the
fucking business is going under because of Twitter
wars. It seems like there's something about it
that's this newfound thing. I don't want to say
abuse, but I want to say that it's almost like
you hit the button and things blow up. You're
like, wow. What else can we blow up? Sure. I
mean, I've been in the Twitter war zone for a
while here. The Twitter war zone? It takes a
lot to phase me at this point. Yeah. That's good
too, right? You develop a thick skin. Yeah, you
can't take it personally. A lot of these people
don't actually know you. It's just like if you're
fighting a war and there's some opposing soldier
that shoots at you, it's not like they hate you.
They don't even know you. Right. Yeah. So just
think of it like that. They have firing bullets
or whatever, but they don't know you, so don't
take it personally. There's something interesting
about it, too. It's like when you write something
in 280 characters and they write something in
280, it's such a crude way. It's like someone
sending opposing smoke signals that refute your
smoke signals. It's so crude, especially when
you're talking about something like Neuralink.
You're talking about some future potential where
you're going to be able to express. Pure thoughts
that get conveyed through some sort of a universal
language with no ambiguity whatsoever versus,
you know, tweets. Well, there will always be
some ambiguity. Yeah. But tweets are – it's hard.
Maybe there should be like a sarcasm flag or
something. Right, right. Or I'm not – you know,
just kidding or whatever. It seems like it would
– Take away some of the fun from people that
know it's sarcasm. Like if everybody knew that
The Onion wasn't real, if you sent people articles,
it's something about someone getting angry at
an Onion article. Wow, that's amazing. You know
what I mean, where they don't realize what it
is? There's something fun about that for everybody
else. Yeah, Onion's pretty great. Might be the
best news source. Do you know who Titania McGrath
is? Hilarious. It's Andrew Boyle. He's a British
fellow, a brilliant guy who's been on the podcast
before, and he has this fictional character,
this pseudonym, Titania McGrath, who's like the
ultimate social justice warrior. Is this like
a female avatar? Yes, yes, yes. A female avatar
that's actually a computer conglomeration of
a bunch of faces. It's not really one person,
so one person can't be a victim and be angry.
He sort of combined these faces to make this
one perfect social justice warrior. But I recognized
it early on before I met him that this was parody.
This was just fun. And then I love reading the
people that don't recognize that. They get angry.
Sure. And there's a lot of people that just get
really furious. Sure. There's some fun to that.
There's some fun to the not picking up on the
true nature of the signal. I find Twitter quite
engaging. How do you have the time? five minutes
every couple hours type thing. It's not like
I'm sitting on an all day. But even five minutes
every couple hours, if those are bad five minutes,
they might be bouncing around in your head for
the next 30. Yeah, you have to, like I said,
take a certain amount of distance from, you read
this and you're like, okay, it's bullets being
fired by an opposing army. It's not like they
know you. Don't take it personally. Did you feel
the same way when CNN had that stupid shit about
ventilators with you? I found that both confusing
and— Yeah, that was annoying. It was annoying.
It was wrong. But it was also annoying as a person
who reads CNN and wants to think of them as a
responsible conveyor of the facts. I would like
to think that. Yeah. I don't think CNN is that.
I think it used to be. It used to be, yeah. What
do you think is the best source of just like
information out there? That's a good question.
Let's say you're just like average citizen trying
to just get the facts, figure out what's going
on, like how to live your life and just looking
for what's going on in the world. It's hard to
find something that isn't – that's good. Yeah.
Not trying to push some partisan angle, not trying
to – not sort of doing sloppy reporting and just
aiming for the most number of clicks and trying
to maximize ad dollars and that kind of thing.
Yeah. You're just trying to figure out what's
going on. It's like I'm hard -pressed to – where
do you go? I don't know. I don't think there's
any pure form. My favorite places are the New
York Times and the LA Times, and I don't trust
them 100%. Because also there's individuals that
are writing these stories. Yeah, exactly. And
that seems to be the problem is these individual
biases and these individual – there's purposely
distorted perceptions and then there's ignorantly
reported facts. And there's so many variables
and you've got to put everything through this
filter. of where is this person coming from?
Do they have political biases? Do they have social
biases? Are they upset because of their own shortcomings?
Are they projecting this into the story? It's
so hard. Yeah, I think maybe just trying to find
individual reporters that you think are good
and kind of following them as opposed to the
publication. I go with whatever Matt Taibbi says.
Okay. I trust him more than anybody. All right.
Matt Taibbi's on to something. As far as investigative
reporters in particular, the way he reported
the savings and loan crisis, the way he reports
everything, I just listen to him above most.
He's my go -to guy. All right, I'll check it
out. His Rolling Stones articles, his stuff on
the savings and loan crisis, you're just like,
what in the fuck? And he's not an economist by
any stretch of the imagination, so he had to
really sort of deeply embed himself in that world
to try to understand it and to be able to report
on it. And also with a humorous flair. Yeah,
that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not that many
of them. It's hard. And not a location where,
like, we are no bullshit. Sure. You know, wearenobullshit
.com. Like, the one place where you can say,
this is what we know, this is what we don't know,
this is what we think. Not... This person's wrong,
and here's why. Like, oh, God damn it. You know,
I can't. You don't know. There's a lot of stuff
that is open to interpretation. This particular
coronavirus issue that we're dealing with right
now seems to be a great illuminator of that very
fact, is that there's so much data. And there's
so much that's open to interpretation. There's
so many things, because it's all happening in
real time, right? And particularly right now
in California, we're in stage two tomorrow or
Friday, two days from now. Stage two, retail
stores opening up. Things are changing. No one
knows the correct process that needs to take
place to save the most amount of lives, but yet
ensure that our culture and that our economy
survives. It's a lot of speculation and guessing.
But if you go to certain places, they'll tell
you we know why and we know this and we know
– it's hard. Yeah. I mean in general I think
that's like we should be concerned about anything
that's a massive infringement on our civil liberties.
Yes. So it's like you got to put a lot of weight
on that. A lot of people died to – you know,
win independence for the country and fight for
the democracy that we have. And, you know, we
should treasure that and not give up our liberties
too easily. I think we probably did that, actually.
Well, I like what you said when you said that
it should be a choice and that To require people
to stay home, require people to not go to work,
and to arrest people for trying to make a living,
this all seems wrong. And I think it's the wrong
approach. It's an infantilization of the society.
That dad is going to tell you what to do. Fundamentally,
a violation of the Constitution. Freedom of assembly.
I don't think these things stand up. court, really.
They're arresting people for protesting. Yeah,
yeah. Because they're protesting and violating
social distancing and these mandates that tell
people that they have to stay home. Yeah, these
would definitely not stand up if the Supreme
Court, I mean, it's obviously a complete violation
of rights. Yeah. And again, this is not in any
way disrespecting the people who have died from
this disease. It's certainly a real thing to
think of. Yeah, I mean, it just should be if
you're at risk, you should not be compelled to
leave your house or leave a place of safety,
but you should also not be if you're not at risk.
Or if you are at risk and you wish to take a
risk with your life, you should have the right
to do that. And it seems like at this point in
time particularly, are resources to be best served?
protecting the people that are at risk versus
penalizing the people that are not at high risk
for living their life the way they did, particularly
having a career and making a living and feeding
your family, paying your bills, keeping your
store open, keeping your restaurant open. Yes.
I mean, there's a strong downside to this. Yeah.
So, yeah, I just believe if this is a free country,
it should be. You know, allowed to do, you know,
what you want as long as it does not endanger
others. But that's the thing, right? People,
this is the argument they will bring up. Like,
you are endangering others. You should stay home
for the people that, even if you're fine, even
if you know you're going to be okay, there are
certain people that will not be okay because
of your actions. They might get exposed to this
thing that we don't have a vaccine for. We don't
have universally accepted treatment for. There's
two arguments, right? One argument is we need
to keep going, protect the weak, protect the
sick, but let's open up the economy. The other
argument is stop placing money over human lives
and let's shelter in place until we come up with
some sort of a decision and let's figure out
some way to develop some sort of universal basic
income plan or something like that to feed people
during this time. What would make this transition?
I think there's a – yeah. As I said, my opinion
is if somebody wants to stay home, they should
stay home. And if somebody doesn't want to stay
home, they should not be compelled to stay home.
That's my opinion. Do you think – And if somebody
doesn't like that, well, that's my opinion. So
the – now, yeah. This notion, though, that you
can just sort of send checks out to everybody
and things will be fine is not true, obviously.
Some people have this absurd view that the economy
is like some magic horn of plenty. It just makes
stuff. Stuff, you know, whatever, just there's
a magic water plantee and the goods and services,
they just come from this magic water plantee.
And then if, like if somebody has more stuff
than somebody else, it's because they took more
from this magic water plantee. Now let me just
break it to the fools out there. If you don't
make stuff, there's no stuff. Yeah. So if you
don't. make the food, if you don't process the
food, you don't transport the food, medical treatment,
getting your teeth fixed, there's no stuff. I've
become detached from reality. You can't just
legislate money and solve these things. If you
don't make stuff, there is no stuff. Obviously.
We'll run out of the stores, run out of the,
you know, the machine just grinds to a halt.
But the initial thought on this virus, the real
fear, was that this was going to kill hundreds
of thousands, if not millions of people instantaneously
in this country. It was going to do it very quickly
if we didn't hunker down, if we didn't shelter
in place. if we didn't quarantine ourselves or
lock down, do you think that the initial thought
was a good idea based on the perception that
this was going to be far more deadly than it
turned out to be? Maybe, I think, briefly. Briefly.
Briefly. But I think any kind of sensible examination
of what happened in China would lead to the conclusion
that that is obviously not going to occur. This
virus originated in Wuhan. There's like 100 ,000
people a day leaving Wuhan. So it went everywhere
very fast throughout China, throughout the rest
of the world. And the fatality rate was low.
Don't you think, though, it's difficult to appreciate?
It's difficult to filter the information that's
coming out of China. To accurately really get
a real true representation of what happened.
The propaganda machine is very strong. Sure.
The World Health Organization appears to have
been complicit with a lot of their propaganda.
The thing is that American companies have massive
supply chains in China, like Tesla, for example.
We have hundreds of suppliers, like tier 1, 2,
3, 4 suppliers throughout China. We know if they
are able to make stuff or not. We know if they
have issues or not. China is back at full steam.
And pretty much every U .S. company has some
significant number of supplies in China. So you
know if they're able to provide things or not.
High mortality rate. Tesla has 7 ,000 people
in China. So zero people died. Zero. Okay, so
that's a real statistic. That's coming from,
yeah. Yeah, you know those people. Yeah. Literally,
we're in peril. Do you think there's a danger
of this? Same folks are there. Do you think there's
a danger of politicizing this where it becomes
like opening up the country's Donald Trump's?
It's his goal. And then anything he does is sort
of there's people that are going to oppose it
and come up with some reasons why he's wrong,
particularly in this climate as we're leading
up to November. 2020 elections. Do you think
that this is a real danger in terms of public's
perception, that Trump wants to open it up so
they knee -jerk oppose it because they oppose
Trump? I think there has been some, this has
been politicized, you know, in both directions,
really. So it's, which is not great. Yeah, but
like I said, separate and apart from that, I
think there's the question of like where do civil
liberties fit in this picture? Yeah. And what
can the government make you do? What can they
make you not do? And what's okay? Right. And
yeah, I think we went too far. Do you think it's
one of those things where once we've gone in
a certain direction, it's very difficult to make
a correction? make an adjustment to realize like,
okay, we thought it was one thing. It's not good,
but it's not what we thought it was going to
be. It's not what we feared. So let's back up
and reconsider and let's do this publicly and
say we were acting based on the information that
we had initially. That information appears to
be faulty. And here's how we move forward while
protecting civil liberties, while protecting
what essentially this country was founded on.
which is a very agreed upon amount of freedom
that we respect and appreciate. Absolutely. Well,
I think we're rapidly moving towards opening
up the country. It's going to happen extremely
fast over the next few weeks. So, yeah. Something
that would be helpful just to add from an informational
level is when reporting sort of... COVID cases
to separate out diagnosed with COVID versus had
COVID -like symptoms. Yes. Because the list of
symptoms that could be COVID at this point is
like a mile long. So it's like hard to, if you're
ill at all, it's like it could be COVID. So just
to give you better information, definitely diagnosed
with COVID or had COVID -like symptoms. We're
conflating those two. So it looks bigger than
it is. Then if somebody dies, was COVID a primary
cause of the death or not? I mean, if somebody
has COVID, gets eaten by a shark, we find their
arm. Their arm has COVID. It's going to get recorded
as a COVID death. Is that real? Not that bad,
but heart attacks, strokes, cancer. If you get
hit by a bus, go to the hospital and die and
they find that you have COVID, you will be recorded
as a COVID death. Why would they do that though?
Well, right now – so the road to hell is paved
with good intentions. I mean it's mostly paved
with bad intentions. But there is some good intentions
paving stones in there too. And the stimulus
bill that was intended to help – with the hospitals
that were being overrun with COVID patients,
created an incentive to record something as COVID
that is difficult to say no to, especially if
your hospital is going bankrupt for lack of other
patients. So the hospitals are in a bind right
now. There's a bunch of hospitals that are furloughing
doctors, as you were mentioning. If your hospital
is half full, it's hard to make ends meet. If
I just check this box, I get $8 ,000. Put it
on a ventilator for five minutes, I get $39 ,000.
Or I've got to fire some doctors. This is a tough
moral quandary. What are you going to do? That's
the situation we have. What's the way out of
this? What do you think is like if you had the
president's ear or if people wanted to just listen
to you openly? What do you think is the way out
of this? Let's clear up the data. Clear up the
data. So, like I said, something should be recorded
as COVID only if it is somebody has been tested,
has received a positive COVID test, not if they
simply have symptoms, like 100 symptoms. And
then if it is a COVID death, it must be separated.
Was COVID a primary reason for death, or did
they also have stage 3 cancer, heart disease,
emphysema? and got hit by a bus and had COVID.
Yeah, I've read all this stuff about that, about
them diagnosing people as a COVID death despite
other variables. This is not a question. This
is what is occurring. And where are you reading
this from? Where are you getting this from? The
public health officials have literally said this.
This is not a question mark. Right. But this
is unprecedented, right? Like if someone had
the flu but also had a heart attack, they would
assume that that person died of a heart attack.
Yes. Yeah. So this is unprecedented. Is this
because this is such a popular – I don't want
to use that word the wrong way, but that's what
I mean, a popular subject. And financial incentives.
Yes. And like I said, this is not some sort of
a moral indictment of sort of hospital administrators.
It's just they're in a tough spot here. They
actually don't have enough patients to pay everyone
without furloughing doctors and firing staff
and potentially going bankrupt. So then they're
like, okay, well, the stimulus bill says if we
get all this money if we say – if it's a COVID
death. I'm like, okay. They coughed before they
died. In fact, they're not even diagnosed as
COVID. They simply – if you had weakness, a cough,
shortness of breath. Frankly, I'm not sure how
you die without those things. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
There's so many different – that you could attribute
to COVID too. There's so many symptoms. There's
diarrhea, headaches, dehydration, cough. Yes,
but to be clear, you don't even need to have
gotten a COVID diagnosis. You simply need to
have had one of many symptoms and then have died
for some reason and it's COVID. So then it makes
the death count look very high. And then we're
then stuck in a bind because it looks like the
death count is super high and not going down
like it should be. And now – so then we should
keep whatever – keep the shelter -in -place stuff
there and keep people in their – confine people
to their homes. So we need to break out of this.
We're stuck in a loop. Yeah. And I think the
way to break out of this loop is to have clarity
of information. Clarity of information will certainly
help, but altering perceptions, public perception
from people that are basically in a panic. There's
a lot of essentially, well, at least a month
ago, we're clearly in a panic. I mean, when you
look around April 5th, April 6th, people were
really freaking out. But here we are May, and
May people are relaxing a little bit. Yes. They're
realizing like, hey, I actually know a couple
of people that got it. It was just a cough. And
I know some people that got it where nothing
happened. I know a lot of people who got it.
I know zero people who died. I mean, I know a
lot of people who got it. Yeah, it's not what
we feared. We feared something much worse. That's
correct. So the adjustment's difficult to make.
So you said, first of all, we need real data.
Just parse out the data. Don't lump it all together.
If you give people just parse out the data better,
clearer information about, like I said, was this
an actual COVID diagnosis or did they get the
test and the test came back positive or do they
just have some symptoms? Just parse those two
out and then parse out just if somebody died,
did they die? Did they even have a COVID test
or did they just have one of many symptoms? Like
how do you die without weakness? I don't know.
It's impossible basically. Yeah, that's a good
point. If you're going to die, you're going to
have shortness of breath weakness and you might
cough a little. So was it quantified? Yeah. Did
they actually have a COVID test and the test
come back positive? And then if they died, did
they die where COVID was? It doesn't have to
be the main cause, but it was a significant contributor
to their death. Or was it not a significant contributor
to their death? Right. It's not as simple as
just because you had COVID, COVID killed you.
It's definitely not. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
people die all the time and they have like flu
and other colds. And we don't say that they died
of those flu and other colds. Well, that's what's
so weird about this. It's so popular. And I use
that word in a weird way, but it's so popular
that we've kind of forgotten. People die of pneumonia
every day. People die of the flu didn't take
a break. Oh, COVID's got this. I'm going to sit
this one out. I'm going to be on the bench. I'm
going to wait until COVID's done before I jump
back into the game of killing people. No, the
flu's still here killing people. I mean, every
year in the world, several hundred thousand people
die directly of the flu. Yeah. Not tangentially.
Right. 61 ,000 in this country last year. Yeah,
and we're only 5 % of the world. And then there's
cigarettes. Oh, man, cigarettes will really kill
you. That's a weird one, right? We're terrified
of this disease that we're projected could potentially
kill 100, if not 200 ,000 Americans this year,
with cigarettes kill 500 ,000. And you don't
hear a peep out of any politician. There's no
one running for Congress that's trying to ban
cigarettes. There's no one running for Senate
that wants to put some education plan in place
that's going to stop cigarettes in their tracks.
Yeah. I mean, several years ago, maybe 10 years
ago, I helped make a movie called Thank You for
Smoking. Oh, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.
Barbecuing your lungs is just bad news. It's
not good. Turning your lungs into smoked beef
is not great. So, yeah. Tylenol, by the way,
also kills a lot of people. Yeah, what is the
number for Tylenol every year? I'm not sure of
the exact number, but I believe until the opioid
crisis, I believe Tylenol was the number one
killer of all drugs. Wow. Because basically it's
– if you get drunk and take a lot of Tylenol,
acetaminophen, essentially it causes liver failure.
Oh. So people would like get wasted and then
like have a headache and then pop a ton of Tylenol.
It's curtains. Whoa. Yeah. Curtains is a funny
word. Yeah. But nobody is like raging against
Tylenol. Yeah. It's weird except acceptable deaths
are weird and that's the real the slippery slope
about this people shaming people For wanting
to go back to work, you know and other people
are gonna die Well, if you drive do you drive?
Oh, we should stop driving because people die
from driving So, you know, you definitely should
fill up all the swimming pools because like 50
people die every day in this country from swimming
So let's not swim anymore. What is really dangerous?
We need to chop down all the coconut trees. Stop
water. Coconuts kill 150 people every year. Cut
down all the coconut trees. We need those people.
Yes. At a certain point in time, it's like, yeah,
we're vulnerable. And we're also – we have a
finite existence no matter what. We do. Nobody
lives forever. Right. I mean, I think you want
to look at, say, death as like the – But for
this disease or whatever, they would have lived
X number of years. Yeah. So if somebody dies
when they're 20 and could have lived until 80,
they lost 60 years. But if somebody dies when
they're 80 and they might have lived until 81,
they lost one year. Yes. So it's like how many
life years were lost is probably the right metric
to use. I don't read my own comments, but I do
read other people's comments. And I was reading
this one little Twitter beef that was going on.
where someone was saying that COVID takes an
average of 10 years off people's lives, and we
should appreciate those 10 years. And then someone
else said... It's not true. I'm sure it's not
true. Yeah, definitely not. It's the Twitter.
But someone else said the average age of people
who die from COVID is older than the average
age people die. It's very... Let's just say it's
about the same. That's a beautiful way of looking
at it. I mean, it's unfortunate. It sucks. But
it sucks if grandpa dies of Alzheimer's or emphysema
or leukemia. It sucks. It sucks when someone
you love dies. Yes. But I mean, actually, if
this I think a lesson to be taken here that I
think is quite important is that if. If you have
grandparents and they're aging grandparents,
really be careful with any kind of flu or cold
or something that is not dangerous to kids or
young adults but is dangerous to the elderly.
Basically, if your kid's got a runny nose, they
should stay away from their... Grandparents,
no matter what it is. The things where a young
immune system has no problem, an older one has
a problem. In fact, a lot of the deaths are literally
tragic, but they're intrafamily. It's the little
kid had a cold or flu. Give it to grandpa. Yeah,
yeah, the family gathering. And they don't know
that this is a big deal, but it's just important
to remember when you get old, your immune system
is just not that strong. And so just be careful
with your loved ones who are elderly. And I think
there is some true objective understanding of
the immune system and the ways to boost that
immune system. And I really think that that...
That information should be distributed in a way,
a nonjudgmental way, but this is a scientifically
proven way that we can boost our immune system,
and it might save your life, and it might save
the life of your loved ones, and maybe we could
teach this to our grandparents and our parents
and people that are vulnerable. Vitamin C, heat
shock proteins, all these different variables
that we know contribute to a stronger immune
system. Yeah, actually just a thing that is tough,
like when you – as you get older, it's hard to
be – you tend to put on weight. Certainly that's
happening with me. As older I get, I'm like,
damn, it's harder to stay lean. That's for sure.
And so actually being overweight is a big deal.
It's a fact. The New York hospital said it was
the number one factor for severe COVID symptoms
was obesity. That was the number one factor.
Yes, exactly. But it's also we live in a world
where people want to be sensitive to other people's
feelings. So we don't want to bring up the fact
that. Being fat's bad for you. It's a judgment
on your... Food's great. Yeah, I do love food.
Yeah, and I mean, to be totally frank, I mean,
speaking for myself, I'd rather eat tasty food
and live a shorter life. Yeah, those moments
of enjoying a great meal and then even talking
about it, they're valuable. They're worth something.
Yeah, we don't want to eat Soylent Green and
live to be 160. Tasty food is great. It's one
of the best things about life. It really is.
Yeah, it's an art form as well. It's like fine
food. It's a delicious sandcastle. It's temporary.
It doesn't last very long, but there's something
about it that's very pleasing. I don't know what
advice to give. Maybe have tasty food with smaller
amounts of it. Yes. Yeah. I think regulated feeding
window is really the way to go, some sort of
an intermittent fasting approach. Sure. When
I started doing that, I found myself to be quite
a bit healthier. When I've deviated from that,
I've gained weight. What's – 16 hours. Okay.
16 hours, yeah. So like at night or – Yeah, yeah,
yeah. So I get to a certain point and then I
count out. I usually hit the stopwatch on my
phone. And then I look at 15 hours in, and I'm
like, okay, got an hour before I can eat. And
so anything in between that is just water or
coffee. Actually, you know, this may be a useful
bit of advice for people, but eating before you
go to bed is a real bad idea. It actually negatively
affects your sleep. Yeah. And it can actually
cause heartburn that you don't even know is happening.
And that subtle heartburn affects your sleep
because you're horizontal and your body is digesting.
So if you want to improve the quality of your
sleep and, you know. you know be healthier uh
it's it's do not eat right before we go to sleep
yeah it's like one of the worst things you could
do i've done some of the biggest mistakes i've
ever made i've done that uh particularly after
comedy shows i'm starving i'll come home and
i'll eat and then i go to bed and i just feel
like and i wake up in the middle of the night
it's gonna crush your sleep and it's gonna it's
gonna damage your pyloric sphincter in your esophagus.
In fact, drinking and then going to sleep, that's
one of the worst things you could do. So just
try to avoid drinking and eating. Booze. Exactly.
Small amounts of alcohol, evidence suggests it
doesn't have a... negative effect. I put it in
the same category as delicious food. It kind
of makes things a little more fun. Yeah, yeah.
I like it. I mean, some of the people who have
lived the longest, you know, there was a woman
in France who I think maybe has the record or
close to it and she had a glass of wine every
day, you know. Yeah. Small amounts is fine. But,
yeah, this is like a, I learned this like quite
late in life. It's like just avoid having alcohol
and avoid eating at least two or three hours
before going to sleep, and your quality of sleep
will improve, and your general health will improve
a lot. For sure. It's a big deal, and I think
not widely known. Do you have time to exercise?
A little bit. Do you have a trainer or anything?
I do, although I haven't seen him for a while.
But, yeah, especially if I'm out, like, you know,
say, working on Starship or something in South
Texas and I'm just living in my little house
there in Boca Chica Village. I don't have much
to do. I'm working and I'll just lift some weights
or something. Some people love running. I don't
love running. What do you like to do exercise
-wise? Too totally frank, I wouldn't exercise
at all. I'd prefer not to exercise, but if I'm
going to exercise, lift some weights and then
kind of run on the treadmill and maybe watch
a show. If there's a compelling show that pulls
you in. Right, right, right. That's a good thing
to do. Watch a good movie or episode of Black
Mirror or something like that. It's great. Man,
don't watch Black Mirror before going to bed
either. Well, don't watch Black Mirror today.
It's too fucking accurate. Yeah, exactly. It's
like, wait, this already happened in real life.
Yeah, it's too close. It's too close. Well, even
didn't Jamie, didn't you say that the guy who
makes Black Mirror? Yeah, he said it's not a
good time to start season six. Yeah, he wants
to hold off because reality is Black Mirror.
Oh, man. It's like he's going to have to reassess
and attack it from a different angle. Yeah. You
should try something that's fun to do. That's
not just like learn a martial art or something
like that. I did martial arts when I was a kid.
Did you? What did you do? I did Taekwondo. I
did karate. Oh, all right. Cool. Judo. Oh, so
you really branched out. Yeah. So I did Brazilian
Jiu -Jitsu briefly. Did you? Yeah. Where? In
Palo Alto. Really? Yeah. Oh, no shit. I was going
to suggest that. That's a great thing for people.
That's the thing about jiu -jitsu. If you look
at it from the outside, you think, oh, a bunch
of meatheads strangling each other. But there's
some of the smartest people I know are jiu -jitsu
fiends because they get – first of all, they
get introduced to it because usually either they
want to exercise or learn some self -defense.
But then they realize that it's essentially like
a language. with your body like you're having
an argument with someone with some sort of a
physical language and it's really complex and
the more access to Vocabulary and the sharper
your words are sure the the more you'll succeed
in these ventures That's really also an accurate
analogy of what you just do is Yeah, I mean,
probably like a lot of people, for the way early
day, the first MMA fights in Hoist Gracie, and
it was incredible. Technique. Yeah, yeah. It
was like winning against people way bigger and
that kind of thing. It was just like, whoa, this
is cool. It was what martial arts were supposed
to be when we were kids. When you saw Bruce Lee
fuck up all these big, giant guys, like, wow,
martial arts allow you to beat someone far bigger
and stronger than you. Most of the time, that's
not real. Especially if they know martial arts,
too. It's like, oh, no. Yes, but in the UFC,
when Hoist Gracie, off of his back, was strangling
Dan Severin with his legs, you're like, holy
shit. This guy's being pinned by this big, giant
wrestler, and he wraps his legs around his neck
and chokes him to the point the guy has to surrender.
Amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, Hoist
got beaten up pretty bad in some of those. Well,
he definitely did. had some rough fights but
he won he won yeah he's a legend and but what
it showed and i mean i'm a huge lover of jujitsu
what it showed is that there is a method for
uh for diffusing these situations with technique
and knowledge yeah and i think it's also a great
way to exercise too because It's almost like
the exercise is secondary to the learning of
the thing. The exercise is like you want to develop
strength and conditioning just so that you can
be better at doing the thing. And the analogy
that I use is like imagine if you had a race
car and you could actually give the race car
better handling and more horsepower just from
your own focus and effort. Sure. That's really
what it's like. Yeah, totally. Yeah. When am
I going to be able to? I should say I sent my
kids to jujitsu since they were like, I don't
know, six. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome.
It's a great thing to learn. It really is. Yeah.
Maybe something like, I mean, even if you just
have someone that holds the pads for you, you
get a workout in and it would be fun. When am
I going to be able to buy one of them Roadsters?
When's that happening? Well, I can't, you know.
say exactly when, but we've got to get it. This
COVID thing has kind of thrown us for a loop.
I'm sure. Not to blame everything on COVID, but
it certainly set us back on progress for some
number of months. The things we've got to get
done. Ahead of Roadster are, you know, ramping
up Model Y production. That'll be a great, great
car. It is a great car. Getting the Berlin Gigafactory
built and also building Y, expanding the Shanghai
factory, which is going great. And, you know,
there's a Cybertruck, SemiTruck, Roadster. Roaster's
kind of like dessert. So, like, we got to get
the, you know, meat and potatoes and greens and
stuff. You know, like. But Roaster comes before
Cybertruck. I mean, I think we should do Cybertruck
first before Roaster. Interesting. I'm not mad
at that. Some of the things for Roaster, they're,
you know, the tri -motor plaid powertrain. We're
going to have that in Model S. So that's like
one of the ingredients that's needed for Roadster
is the Plaid powertrain, the more advanced battery
pack, that kind of thing. I wanted to ask you
about this before I forgot. There's a company
that's called Apex that's taking your Teslas,
and they're giving it a wider base and wider
tires and a little bit more advanced suspension.
Sure. How do you feel about that? That sounds
good to me. Do you work with them? Are you cool
with those people? Yeah. I'm all for it. Go ahead.
They're jazzing stuff up with carbon fiber and
doing a bunch of interior choices. You're cool
with it? You can't fuck with that. You don't
have time. So is it good that someone comes along
and has this sort of specialty operation? Yeah,
I got no problem. That's what it's called, right?
It's like, J -Mac, is it called Apex? Yeah, I
got Unplugged Performance as Apex. That's right,
Unplugged Performance, yeah. Yeah, you could
for sure. Lighten the car up and improve to tire
traction. Have you seen that company's stuff,
what they do? I don't know specifically, but
there's – It's pretty dope. Yeah. They make a
pretty dope looking – they take Model S and they
widen it and give it a bunch of carbon fiber.
That's it right there. Cool. Ooh, la, la. Look
at that. That looks pretty nice. Yeah, it does.
Now, the plaid version of the Model S, are you
going to widen the track and doing a bunch –
Do a bunch of different things. I know you guys
are testing at the Nürburgring. Can you not talk
about that? Well, I think we've got to leave
that for a proper product unveil. I understand.
I understand. Last time you were here, you convinced
me to buy a Tesla. I bought it, and it's fucking
insane. Oh, great. Glad you like it. Pretty fun.
It's not just pretty fun. The way I've described
it is it makes other cars seem stupid. They just
seem dumb. I love dumb things. I love dumb cars.
I love campfires. I love campfires. I have a
1993 Porsche that's air -cooled. It's not that
fast. It's really slow compared to the Tesla.
Yeah, it's really quite slow. But there's something
engaging about the mechanical. just like the
the gears and it's very it's very analog but
it's so stupid in comparison to the tesla like
when i want to go somewhere in the model s i
hit the gas and just goes yeah it just it like
violates time yeah yeah um yeah you've tried
it like ludicrous plus and stuff oh yeah cool
cool yeah oh yeah we did just did a software
update where it'll do a like a cheetah stance
So, yeah, because it's got a dynamic air suspension,
so it lowers the back. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, just
like a sprinter, basically. Right. Like, what
do you do if you're a sprinter? You hunker down,
and then, so I shaved like a tenth of a second
off the 0 -60. I mean, like, you know, it was
pretty fun. It's so fun. I've taken so many people,
and I take them for the holy shit moment. I'm
like, are you ready? Like, hang on there, and
then I stomp on the gas. I've never felt anything
like it. It's confusing. Yeah. It really is.
The instant torque and just the sheer acceleration
is baffling. It's baffling. It's baffling. They've
never felt it. No. It's faster than falling.
It's crazy. It's so fast. It's a roller coaster.
Yeah. And my family yells at me when I stomp
the gas. I tell my kids, I'm like, you want to
feel it? You want to feel it? Like, do it, do
it, do it. My wife's like, don't do it. Boom.
Whoa. Yeah. And even if I just do it on the highway
for a couple of seconds, it's very exciting.
Yeah. It's very fun. It's like having a roller
coaster on tap. It really is like a roller coaster
on tap. Yeah. Without the loop -de -loops. But
the pinning to your seat, it seems like you're
not supposed to be able to experience that from
some sort of a consumer vehicle that a regular
person could buy if you have the money. It seems
too crazy. And then the idea that this Roadster
is a half of a second faster than that. Yeah.
That's madness. Well, with the Roadster, we're
going to do some things that are kind of unfair.
So we're going to take some things from kind
of like Rocket World and put them on a car. Oh,
I've read about that. Explain that. Well, like
I said, we can't do the product unveil right
here, but it's going to do some things that are
unfair. Unfair. When we do the unveil of the
Roadster. Let me just say that anyone who's been
waiting, they won't be sorry. They won't be sorry.
Oh, sure. Well, anything that goes 0 to 60, what
is it, 1 .9? Is that the 0 to 60? That's the
base model. What's the top of the food chain
model? Okay, okay. Faster than that. Let's just
say faster than that. That seems so crazy to
me. Now, what was it like when the dude threw
the steel balls at the window and they were supposed
to not break and it broke? Well, yeah. I mean,
at least you know that our demos are authentic.
So I was not expecting that. And then I think
I muttered under my breath. You didn't get mad,
though. No. You didn't Steve Jobs it. No, I definitely
swore, but I didn't think the mic would pick
it up, but it did. And so, like, we practiced
this, you know, behind the scenes. At Tesla,
we don't do, like, tons of practice for our demos
because we're working on the cars. Like, you
know, we're building. new technologies and improving
the fundamental product. So we're not spending,
like, doing, like, hundreds of, you know, practice
things or anything like that. We don't have time
for that. But just hours before the demo, both
Franz, you know, is the head of design, and I
were in the studio throwing steel balls at the
window and it was bouncing right off. I'm like,
okay, this seems pretty good. Seems like we got
it. Okay. And then we think what happened was
that when Franz hit the door with the sledgehammer,
you know, so like this is like exoskeleton, you
know, high strength hardened steel. You can literally
take wind up with a sledgehammer, you know, full
on double handed sledgehammer and hit the door
and there's not even a dent. It's cool. But we
think that that cracked the corner of the glass
at the bottom. And then once you crack the corner
of the glass, then you're just game over. So
then when you threw the ball, that's what cracked
the glass. But it didn't go through, though.
It didn't go through. That's true. It didn't
go through. That's true. It didn't shatter the
whole thing like a regular window would either,
which would just dissolve, right? So in hindsight,
the ball should have been first, sledgehammer
second. Yeah. You live, you learn. Yeah, exactly.
Listen, man, we've taken up a lot of your time.
You had a child recently. It's amazing that you
had the time to come down here, and I really
appreciate that. I appreciate everything you
do, man. I'm glad you're out there, and I really
appreciate you coming down here and sharing your
perspective. Well, I think you've got a great
show. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. My
pleasure. My pleasure. Elon Musk, ladies and
gentlemen, good night. All right, that should
get a little play. That was great.