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Yeah. I well, it is
hard for books to compete with the much

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greater stimulus of things online. You
know, it's I mean, the computers

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at this point optuned to maximum olymbic
and cortical resonance. So it's very difficult

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for books to compete. I think
you got to probably just have some no

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devices time, and so your only
choice is read a book. Right,

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do you what's your regimen of reading? I mean, are you as voracious

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today as you were in early days? I mean do you sort of etch

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out an hour or two a day, you know, I've got to get

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in my reading or how does it
work for you? No, it's really

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if there's something interesting to read,
I'll usually read it at pretty at high

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speed. And I find it actually
is helpful to have a book read to

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you to go to sleep, so
as a way to sort of, you

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know, take your mind off Familion
problems at the end of the day and

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hope you go to sleep. Is
is have the book as an audiobook and

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have it read to you. And
my apologies for apparently causing you nightmares and

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for my book, I mean it
was The Parasitic Mind. It's very good

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book. Medit to everyone in fact
I did recommend it to everyone. Yes,

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but it is it really does hit
the nail on the head with respect

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to the sort of work mind virus
that is damaging civilization. When did you

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first? I mean, so I'll
first answer my question, then I'll turn

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it to you. So I first
noticed all of these mind viruses in my

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academic work when I was trying to
introduce, you know, evolutionary psychology and

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evolutionary biology in the business school so
that people can, you know, have

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a greater explanation of why people do
the things that they do. And most

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of my social science colleagues were so
dead set against using biology to explain human

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phenomena. So that was my original
sort of aha moment. We have a

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problem. When was it for you
that you noticed that something was wrong?

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Well, I guess if you go
back and say, when did you see

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the first signs? I mean,
I could you could arguably say it was

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even twenty years ago. But when
did it become much more severe? I'd

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say about five years ago, I
mean the climate just before COVID. And

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if that COVID, I think is
part of the you know, the degree

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of panic over COVID was exacerbated by
this unwilling, unwillingness to question science or

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question the accepted view and simply be
spoon fed things from the government, and

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and and also to shut down descent
and shut down any questioning of the narrative.

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So this is because that's really part
of passig for for for any given

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sort of virus, whereas where or
you know, mental or or digital,

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it has to have defenses otherwise that
virus won't survive. So one of the

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defenses of the work my virus is
to shut down any questioning exactly that's I

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mean, it's that you say this
because I was recently asked on a show.

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It was hosted by a British psychiatrist, and he asked me, Elon,

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what, of all your years as
an academic, as a behavioral scientist,

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what has been the singular phenomenon that
has surprised you the most about humans?

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And it's and my answer is going
to speak to what we're talking about

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here, And so I thought about
it for a minute and I thought,

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Okay, well, probably what surprises
me the most is people's inability to change

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their anchored position once it is deeply
anchored, despite the fact that I might

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build you a huge normalogical network of
femultive evidence to show you that my position

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might be vertical. There's no way
to sway you. So the question that

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I had asked you is what someone
asked me. What has surprised me the

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most over my thirty years as an
academic? And my answer was the inability

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of people to change their minds despite
the fact that you might give them,

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you know, an unassailable tsunami of
evidence. They just go la la la,

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I don want to hear it.
What has been in all of your

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career? What has been the singular, you know, human phenomenon that has

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surprised you the most about humans?
Well, that's probably a long list.

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There also surprising the most. I
mean, maybe I would share some of

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you to you, which is that
we humans, once they take a position,

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even when presented with an overwhelming amount
of evidence that you know, on

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the minds the position nonetheless hold on
to that position. I found I find

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to be just a shing because I
aspire to change my opinion if presented with

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new facts. But this is a
turns out to be a very unusual thing.

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So and in a sense, I
mean, it's disheartening, right because

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you'd like to think that, you
know, we're all pursuing truth, and

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certainly academics should be. And yet
what I've regrettably found in my career is

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that, you know, academics are
some of the biggest ideologues around, right,

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I mean, as you know,
having you know read my book,

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you know all of these parasitic ideas
originated from you know, the university ecosystem.

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So do we can we be optimistic
that we could turn this thing around

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elon? Or is it? Are
we just screaming in the wind? Well?

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I think we have to be optimistic. I agree with my general philosophy

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is that it's better better to be
or on the side of being optimistic and

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wrong than pessimistic and right. Right, you know, if you're going to

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pick one or two, I mean, you don't want to be irrational about

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it, but if yes, borderline
better to freaking asum optimistic and wrong.

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So I think, And then I
guess if you were to compare present day

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how many times people change their mind, it's probably much better than the past

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because people are dis exposed to wide
range of information, so there's probably more

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changing of minds and changing of opinions
than ever before history. It's just nonetheless

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astonishing how resilient people are in holding
on to a wrong opinion. So it's

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it's it's sort of a truth versus
tribalism. I think, you know.

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There's a great book that I briefly
cite in the Parasitic Mind. It's by

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two French cognitive psychologists, and what
they argued elon is that the human mind

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did not evolve to seek some objective
truth, but rather it evolved to win

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arguments. So that's the point about
tribalism, right, Because here I am

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in my sort of lofty ivory tower, thinking, hey, if I present

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you with enough information, I hopefully
change your opinion. But the reality is

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you don't want to listen to me
because you just want to be on the

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winning team. Yeah. A lot
of times it's people will hold an opinion

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because that's what they're They see themselves
as being on a particular team, like

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in a particular political party or social
point of view, and they just regarded

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as the team winning the argument,
as opposed to truth winning the argument.

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And that seems seems to be awolmingly
the case got you can, we can,

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we can? We still go on
for a while, it seems like

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the yeah, let's be going.
Yeah. I made the mistake of exploring

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some some rare features which I guess
a lot of people haven't then have stepped

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on some landmind, So i'll I
will refrain from testing obscure features for a

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while. Got you okay? So
what would be I mean? This question

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is is really stemming from my latest
book, where I was talking about,

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you know, happiness and the way
that I wrote this book, Elon,

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if you would have asked me three
years ago after Parasitic Mind, would I

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ever dare write about write a book
on happiness? I would have never said

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yes. But a lot of people
kept writing to me saying, hey,

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what's your secrets? You always seem
to be playful, joking around and you

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know, effrofest and so on,
what's your secret to life? And so

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I decided to write a book And
in the book, I basically, you

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know, I'm talking about what are
some of the grand goals that shape you

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know, when I wake up in
the morning and rub my hands together in

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gleeful anticipation of the day, there
are certain things that shape my day to

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day. What would it be for
you? What? What is it that

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makes Elon Musk wake up, rub
his hands and say, oh boy,

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I'm excited to be alive. Gold
Just kidding. I'm thinking of screwge mc

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duck and going for a swimming the
money ben with the money even of gold.

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But but I don't get the pro
They should do more. They should

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have a movie on screwgemak duck.
But I'm excited by solving problems. So

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you know, if those problems that
I think are important and useful, you

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know, I get excited by the
progression of civilization. So if we learn

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more things, we advanced civilization become
more capable, that's cool. I mean,

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we're you know, for space X, you know, it's about advancing

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rocket technology and spacecraft technology and space
based communications. And then for Tesla,

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it's about advancing sustainable energy electric vehicles, the battery packs that can be paired

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with solar and wind, so sort
of advancing sustainable energy economy. And then

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also advancing autonomy enabling the car drive
to drive itself so people do not have

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to suffer through the tedium of driving
their car all the time. And also

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cars can then have probably five times
amount of utilization but they currently do,

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instead of just sitting in parking lots
all day, you know. And then

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there's this neuralink which is somewhat esoteric, but long term trying to improve the

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data rate between humans and machines so
you can have better achieve antsymbiosis. And

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then the short term help people who
have brain spine injuries, and then boring

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companies dating tunnels to alleviate traffic,
and the XAI is trying to make a

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maximumly truth seeking AI, which I
think is extremely important. And you know,

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I think a lot of people like, why do you need such a

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thing? Surely the other ones are
retreat seeking. I'm like, have you

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seen Gemini? It's like if you
look, it can't produce a picture like

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I mean it should be people should
be quite concerned about stuff what they see

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in Gemini and chat GBT like chatch
GVT is better at hiding it. But

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still it's kind of good that Google
over played their hand there with Gemini,

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where the you know, the diversity, I mean, they must have just

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beaten that AI with a stick so
odd such that like nothing you do can

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can get it to produce a picture
of a pope who's a white guy.

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What did you see? Did you
see? I actually a satirical set of

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memes where I asked it what does
Elon Musk look like? And it gave

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me don Lemon. This was before
you had Are you serious? Well?

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I thought that was a joke.
It wasn't joke. It wasn't joke.

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It was a joke. Okay.
I was like, at this point,

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I can't talk for parody of reality
because if you like, show a picture

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of George Washington and George Washington is
a black woman, I'm like, what

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the hell? This is like actual
historical figure, you know, and you

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know and and and it's and it's
crazy things like where you say, like

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is it which one is worse,
you know, global them, nuclear warfare

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or misgendering Caitlyn Jenner and even Caitlyn
Jenna says definitely misgender me. Kitten wade

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in and said definitely misgender me.
Right, that's crazy. And but the

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you know, Gemini is like saying, oh, you know, you should

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not misgender It's nuclear was better.
I'm like, okay, think about that

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now. If this is an all
powerful AI that somehow is capable of manipulating

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world, and whereas that we don't
understand and and might ultimately be our digital

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God, yeah, be careful what
you program it to this thing, because

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it might take the you know what, what seemed like sort of silly guffs

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right now. But if it's got
that as as a sort of an output

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function, as utility function, it
might say, Okay, you know what,

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there's too many whatever white guys in
the world, let's kill half of

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them. It's like, it's not
just fiction at that point, and basically

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it's it's going to be leading to
some pretty dangerous and bizarre outcomes. And

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and it could it could actually,
like, if it's been taught like that

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misgendering is worse than nuclear war,
it may decide that to avoid misgendering,

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it should start a nuclear war like
the Sour Far Away. To stop any

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future misgendering is to kill all humans, right, exact exactly, problem problem

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solved, no more misgendering. So
you listed all of these incredible initiatives that

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you've done, and when you first
purchased Twitter, I had produced a short

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clip where I said that, in
my view, your purchase of Twitter will

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go down historically as the most important
of all of your great initiatives. Do

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you feel that was that a right
calculation on my part or or was I

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overstating the case. Well, you
might be right, it's possible that it's

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possible that you're right. I mean, I didn't do the purchase because I

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thought it was a great way to
make money, or because you know,

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I thought it would improve my quality
of living, because frankly, I knew

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that I would be you know,
there would be bazillion slings and arrows coming

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in my direction because the mind virus
and various other sort of false tees are

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not going to take it lying down, and I could just end up being

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killed by some crazy person you know, that is an effective arm of the

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my envirus. So it really I
couldn't quite put my finger on it,

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but it really felt like if like
it was, there was a civilizational danger

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that unless unless one of the major
online platforms broke ranks, then yeah,

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because they were all just in behaving
in lockstep along with the legacy media.

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Just everyone's saying the same thing and
soon as like literally it was just no

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place to actually get with the trues. It was almost impossible. So everything

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was just getting censored. Like the
power of the censors of oparatus was incredible.

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Oh don't I know it I mean
I always had to. I mean,

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I'm not someone who really walks on
eggshells, but I knew that there

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were certain things that would get me
banned. So for example, at one

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point, I don't know if you
know Matt. Do you know Matt Ridley?

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You know what that is? I
don't think so plussibly, Bet,

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I don't know. Matt Ridley is
a popular who is also he was in

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the House of Lords in England and
he's a evolutionary biologists by training. And

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at one point he came out with
a book with a co op about two

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years ago where he was arguing for
the lab Leaku theory for COVID, and

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his people had reached out to me
and said, hey, you know,

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Matt would love to come on your
show and chat about this. And so

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I responded, and I almost felt
ashamed that I was saying. I said,

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look, I'm always happy to speak
to anyone. I hardly shy away

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from conversations. But you should know
that the minute that we actually put up

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the chat on YouTube, not only
is it going to be taken down,

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probably my channel is going to be
deleted. And so speaking, there was

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no point in us having that conversation
until today, I feel horrible at the

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fact that I actually had to go
through that calculus. Taking over X no

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longer causes me to have to make
those kinds of machinations. Oh we've lost

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Elon. Okay, are you back
Elon? Yeah? So suddenly helpful as

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it means you hear me, No, I assume, Oh yeah, yeah,

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I hear you. Okay, great, No, sorry, I was

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just walking around the house and I
think it it dropped the connection for some

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reason. But this is definitely a
minded that if if a connection has dropped

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the moment that someone rejoins, it
should rejoin in the prior status unless they

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were exited by the host, unless
the host kick them out, they should

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re enter in the same status as
before. So in addition for us having

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a fun conversation, you're getting some
technological benefits out of this. That's correct.

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I win, Yes, I got
I got it to try to do

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you know, two birds with one
stone or three birds with one stone?

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You know, basically get that,
get the whole flock. Actually do a

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few more questions and then carefully you
iron out the kinks, and then we

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could have around two whenever you think
it's ready. Hopefully in the in the

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near future. Yes, sounds good. Okay, So next question, I

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often get asked this. You know, I'm housing a business school, and

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so I'm asked things like that.
Strange. Yeah, So you know the

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old nature nurture question, you know, is leadership nature or nurture? So

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obviously you're you're definitely the entrepreneur in
the world. Do you think much of

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your entrepreneurial bent is nature or nurture? How would you answer such a question?

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Well, I think if somebody's going
to be, you know, at

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among the world's best in any field, it's going to require both. So

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you know, if you say,
whether it's like basketball or in a cast,

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sports or something like that, or
academics, and you're really going to

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require some combination of nature nurture,
and it's some amount of luck. You

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know, there's sort of a randomness
element to it. I can see the

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randomness because I've got a twins study
in among my kids where I've got identical

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fraternal twins and identical twins, right, and even among the identical twins which

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really had obviously the same genetics and
the same upbringing, they were living in

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the same room literally, and yet
they've they have diverged in interesting ways.

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And now admittedly it didn't like not
radically different, but you know, one

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pursued physics and the other one pursued
computer science. Not ratically different. Right,

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The single biggest difference I was saying
is one of them decided to be

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a vegetarian when he was about seven
or eight and the one one of them

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didn't. And so the difference is
about two inches in height, and like

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the one that was not a vegetarian
is way bigger. So there's like,

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okay, you know, like quite
it was a really big difference. But

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so there's there's a random selement where
just luck or fate or whatever it plays

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has a bigger role than it may
seem. But but you didn't need to

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be born for any particular speak to
excel in any field with a good hand

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of cars. And then and then
it's that talent nurtured, you know,

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through the circumstances of life. And
then you know, some amount of luck

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is it has to be there too. And in fact, you know,

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I read I read a lot of
sort of the superhero comics when I was

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a kid, and ultimately, you
know, concluded that like what is the

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best power. The best power is
luck. You can't be luck, right,

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But what what would be some of
the traits that you were born with

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that? So, for example,
there are some studies that show that people

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who score high on entrepreneurial proclivity tend
to have have greater basal testosterone because testosterone

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correlates with risk taking, and to
the extent that entrepreneurship involves an element of

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risk taking, then you could see
the link. So what what what is

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part of the two that you were
born with that allowed you to be as

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successful as you are? So basically, so you mustn't just have metaphorically huge

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bulls. You must have actually huge
bulls. Good, I think, So

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if you just mentioned how big are
your bulls physically, well decide how v

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your bulls are metaphorically as well.
Indeed, indeed, that's that's called now

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blonde. But by the way,
elon these nuts. By the way,

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here's the study speaking of testicles.
You ready, so you're gonna like this,

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Get ready, fasten your seat belt. So if you do, a

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correlation between a cross primates between the
size of the of the testicles of the

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males of a species as a function
of their size yeh, you know what

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it correlates with. It correlates with
female promise in that species. So,

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for example, so mountain gorilla usually
have a polygenist mating system, meaning one

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dominant male monopolizes sexual access to many
females. Well, mountain gorillas, even

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though they're formidable in size, they
actually have very small testicles on the other

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tides, no need to waste anything, yeah, exactly, whereas chimpanzees elon

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are walking testicles because they're just having
sex all the time, and so there

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is massive opportunity for sperm wars.
And so this is the ultimate feminist theory

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because it basically argues that the size
of the testes of the males of a

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species are an adaptive response to female
sexual behavior in that species. Mic drop

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no, wow, micro need we
need a micdrop icon or something like that.

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We'll added that to the emoticons here. All right, a couple more

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questions you and I I have discussed
privately. I'm going to say the acronym

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and then I want to explain it
to the people who don't get it.

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You've you've stated, I don't know
if it was serious or facetiously that you'd

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like to start a TITS and ass
institution. Well, actually, no,

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I think I can explain that.
So so for a while I was I

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was wondering, well, you know, Massachusetts has MI T and California has

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you know, California Institute of Technology
c I T or cael Tech as they

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call it. But why doesn't Texas
have a Texas Institute of Technology? And

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then it told me, hm,
T I T. Yes, that's probably

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the reason. And then a friend
of mine suggested adding an S for science,

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and that became TITS. And then
of course you put out another tweak

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where you said, but of course
there will be an advanced social studies faculty.

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Yeah, of course, of course
you gotta have that. I mean,

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now, are you being precious about
that project? Well, you know,

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I do believe in making jokes come
true, because the Boring Company was

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initially kid just a joke. That's
where I said, I was going to

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start a company to dig holes.
It's gonna be like the Boring Company,

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like Boeing, but just like the
Bowing company, but the boring company and

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its product will be nothing a whole. Like can you look at our product?

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Our product is the absence of something. Well, that's like the Seinfeld

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episode where he's pitching a pilot and
the whole point of the show is nothing.

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So it's exactly yeah. Okay,
So let me let me ask you

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one last question. This comes from
the latest book on Happiness. I argue

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in the book that the research overwhelmingly
demonstrates that the correlation between money and happiness

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only applies up to an inflection point, so once your basic necessities are met.

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I think the old study was seventy
five thousand. Now we need to

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increase seventy five thousand because of Biden's
inflation. But do you subscribe to that?

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So, I mean, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world

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is not necessarily happier because he can
outbind me by two hundred million dollars.

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No, No, definitely not.
I think that's more or less correct.

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In fact, I'd say there's a
decrease in halfiness that occurs when the fame

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level exceeds that which is useful.
So like there's a certain you know,

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modicum of fame which where you can
now get it's easy to get a reservation

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at a restaurant. That's like that's
the that's like the you want that level

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of fame and not anything beyond it, because because then you get to the

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level of thame where you go to
the restaurant and everyone's coming up to your

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table, which is and people actually
are very nice, very nice men and

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super good. But I do often
get stuck in the can I have a

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selfie infinite loop and it's in the
And that's my VI version of hell is

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the can I have a selfie infinite
loop and people are super nice, and

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I want to do the selfie,
but I don't want to be stuck,

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and I can I have a selfie
infinite loop forever. So there's you know,

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that's I say you you you're passed
in terms of fame. Definitely a

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threshold where things are less fun and
you can't I can't just go to the

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mall or go to a movie theater
easily and walk around without you know,

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creating a ruckus. So now do
you do you when you when you just

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move around in your daily life?
Forgive me you please tell me if you

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can't answer this, do you have
to have security around or is it just

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there? Or you do right?
Well, So here's the thing that happens,

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which is like it's very rare for
me to get actually death threats or

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anything. But it's but I say, like in the last related to actually

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like no one's ever said, what
about this terrible beef against you and I'm

331
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going to kill you because of the
following well thought out ideas. But I

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have had two cases in the last
extra the last six months. We're off

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two people who are just unfortunately just
very mentally ill, not not subtle.

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It's not subtle, it's like and
they have come to Austin to try filling

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and with guns. So, like
I said, in both cases that there's

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no one guy thought I'd put a
chip in his head, you know,

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like a new reladship or something,
and I'm like, which, I think

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you got to consider the logic of
that. Well, the chip's obviously not

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00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:52.359
working. If I'm putting a chip
into Crowl and control him, you know,

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00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:59.400
clean not working, So or what
do you like an upgrade and maybe

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a software of day or something.
So you know, so one guy they

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basically just extreme schizophrenic. And another
guy he's actually recently okay when he's on

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his meds, but he stopped taking
his meds and then it's just total detachment

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from reality, you know. So
so these are par schizophrenics. Yeah,

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yeah, yeah, like hardcore like
nuts, you know, nuts, Like

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are you are you you mention Austin, Are you any regrets of having moved

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out of beautiful California to Austin or
are you every day happy that you've made

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that decision. Austin's a great city
and it's boomtown. It's the probably the

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biggest boomtown in America since La in
the seventies. And a ton of interesting

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people keep moving here. So I
have a lot of friends that have moved

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here from New York and California and
other parts of the world, and so

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it's it's really I think it has
It has all the pros and cons of

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book boomtown, you know. So
it's a lot of a lot of energy,

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and but you know, there's a
shortage of houses and resources because lots

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of people moving here. So overall, I feel very good about Austin,

356
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And like I said, there's more
more interesting people moving here every day,

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and but I think there's there's obviously
a lot to be said for California,

358
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but I do feel like California is
unfortunately going to go through this phase where

359
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the Golden State is gonna cook the
golden geese. So it's sort of not

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enough to simply make the eggs.
They're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna,

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they want, they want, they're
gonna go cooking the geese, and

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and you don't want to be there
while the geese cooking is happening. Yeah,

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so I think that I think at
some point there will be somewhat of

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a pushback, but really the state
kind of has to encounter financial difficulties before

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that happened, and and and this
with this, hopefully at some point a

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reduction in the extreme amount of regulation, the extreme amount of litigation, and

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the extreme amount of taxation, which
are both over the top, and all

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three of those are over the top
of California. So so it's you know,

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it's I mean, I think if
if you think about it as a

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state, do you do want to
maximize the number of golden eggs that that

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get laid and you don't want to
cook the geese. So I think California's

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you know, many countries go through
that phase and and California as a state

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is going to go through that phase. So I just my firms is not

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to be there while while the geese
cocaine is happening, but I'd be visited

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a lot, and it's a beautiful
state with a lot of potential, and

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I think ultimately, you know what
the Geese cocaine has done, and there's

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hopefully some reforms done in California,
then you know, are potentially considered being

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like dual dual state at that point. Beautiful listening, I don't want to

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00:25:17.319 --> 00:25:18.640
want to be mindful of your time. I could keep you here for another

380
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five hours. What a delight to
speak to you. Thank you so much,

381
00:25:22.799 --> 00:25:26.160
and thank you for all of your
public support. Although I must say,

382
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as soon as I started seeing all
of the lovely you know, tweets

383
00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:33.160
that you would put out, I
told my wife, oh, watch now

384
00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:37.759
the number of haters that are going
to come my way because Elon is showing

385
00:25:37.799 --> 00:25:41.039
me love. And boy was I
right, right, because people can't stand

386
00:25:41.079 --> 00:25:45.319
the fact that Elon Musk is,
you know, granting his imprimature. So

387
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.319
on the one hand, it's been
a blessing, but on the other hand,

388
00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:52.400
I've actually received that threats because of
all of the you know, the

389
00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:56.880
high profile new friends that I have, So thank you so much for your

390
00:25:56.039 --> 00:26:00.920
newfound friendship. Well you're welcome.
Thing I was gonna say, is that

391
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the probability of perceiving a death threat
is proportioned to the number of people who

392
00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:07.160
have heard your name, right,
like a first order of approximation, even

393
00:26:07.200 --> 00:26:11.880
if you've done really nothing controversial.
Is that you know, like like a

394
00:26:12.319 --> 00:26:18.480
sort of a homicidal maniac is going
to or aspiring homicidal mediac and the vast

395
00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:22.160
majority are simply threaten nothing more,
but aspiring homicidal maniac is going to target

396
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:26.039
you proportioned to the number of times
they hear your name. So now in

397
00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:27.720
my case, they will heard my
name, so the more that you hear

398
00:26:27.759 --> 00:26:32.119
your name. Unfortunately, that's how
it goes. It's a good, good

399
00:26:32.119 --> 00:26:34.119
first order of approximate. But I
loved I mean a few, a few

400
00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.640
that I don't know. I think
it was a week or two ago where